(Scene a chairman of discussion group.)
Chairman: Well to discuss the implications of
that sketch and to consider the moral problems raised by the
law-enforcement methods involved we have a duck, a cat and a lizard.
Now first of all I'd like to put this question to you please,
lizard. How effective do you consider the legal weapons employed by
legal customs officers, nowadays? (shot of lizard; silence)
Well while you're thinking about that, I'd like to bring the duck in
here, and ask her, if possible, to clarify the whole question of
currency restrictions, and customs regulations in the world today.
(shot of duck; silence) Perhaps the cat would rather answer
that? (shot of cat; silence) No? Lizard? (shot of lizard
again and then back) No. Well, er, let's ask the man in the
street what he thinks.
(Cut to film:)
French Au Pair: I am not a man you silly billy.
Man on Roof: I'm not in the street you fairy.
Man in Street: Well, er, speaking as a man in
the street... (a car runs him over) Wagh!
Man: What was the question again?
Voice Over: Just how relevant are contemporary
customs regulations and currency restrictions in a modern expanding
industrial economy? (no answer) Oh never mind.
Pepperpot: Well I think customs men should be
armed, so they can kill people carrying more than two hundred
cigarettes.
Man: (getting up from a deckchair and
screaming with indignation and rage: he has a knotted handkerchief
on his head and his trousers are rolled up to the knees) Well I,
I think that, er, nobody who has gone abroad should be allowed back
in the country. I mean, er, blimey, blimey if they're not keen
enough to stay here when they're 'ere, why should we allow them
back, er, at the tax-payers' expense? I mean, be fair, I mean, I
don't eat squirrels do I? I mean well perhaps I do one or two but
there's no law against that, is there? It's a free country.
(enter a knight in amour) I mean if I want to eat a squirrel now
and again, that's me own business, innit? I mean, I'm no racialist.
I, oh, oh...
( The knight is carrying a raw chicken. The man apprehensively
covers his head and the knight slams him in the stomach with the
chicken.)
Woman: I think it's silly to ask a lizard what
it thinks, anyway.
Chairman: Why?
Woman: I mean they should have asked Margaret
Drabble.
Young Man: (very reasonably) Well I
think, er, customs people are quite necessary, and I think they're
doing quite a good job really.