Mrs Conclusion: Hello, Mrs Premise.
Mrs Premise: Hello, Mrs Conclusion.
Mrs Conclusion: Busy day?
Mrs Premise: Busy! I’ve just spent four hours burying the cat.
Mrs Conclusion: Four hours to bury a cat?
Mrs Premise: Yes! It wouldn’t keep still, wriggling about howling its head off.
Mrs Conclusion: Oh – it wasn’t dead then?
Mrs Premise: Well, no, no, but it’s not at all a well cat so as we were going away for a fortnight’s holiday, I thought I’d better bury it just to be on the safe side.
Mrs Conclusion: Quite right. You don’t want to come hack from Sorento to a dead cat. It’d be so anticlimactic. Yes, kill it now, that’s what I say.
Mrs Premise: Yes.
Mrs Conclusion: We’re going to have our budgie put down.
Mrs Premise: Really? Is it very old?
Mrs Conclusion: No. We just don’t like it. We’re going to take it to the vet tomorrow.
Mrs Premise: Tell me, how do they put budgies down then?
Mrs Conclusion: Well it’s funny you should ask that, but I’ve just been reading a great big book about how to put your budgie down, and apparently you can either hit them with the book, or, you can shoot them just there, just above the beak.
Mrs Premise: Just there!
Mrs Conclusion: Yes.
Mrs Premise: Well well well. ‘Course, Mrs Essence flushed hers down the loo.
Mrs Conclusion: Ooh! No! You shouldn’t do that – no that’s dangerous. Yes, they breed in the sewers, and eventually you get evil-smelling flocks of huge soiled budgies flying out of people’s lavatories infringing their personal freedom. (life-size cut-out of woman at end of last animation goes by) Good morning Mrs Cut-out.
Mrs Premise: It’s a funny thing freedom. I mean how can any of us be really free when we still have personal possessions.
Mrs Conclusion: You can’t. You can’t. I mean, how can I go off and join Frelimo when I’ve got nine more installments to pay on the fridge.
Mrs Premise: No, you can’t. You can’t. Well this is the whole crux of Jean-Paul Sartre’s ‘Roads to Freedom’.
Mrs Conclusion: No, it bloody isn’t. The nub of that is, his characters stand for all of us in their desire to avoid action. Mind you, the man at the off-licence says it’s an everyday story of French country folk.
Mrs Premise: What does he know?
Mrs Conclusion: Nothing.
Mrs Premise: Sixty new pence for a bottle of Maltese Claret. Well I personally think Jean-Paul’s masterwork is an allegory of man’s search for commitment.
Mrs Conclusion: No it isn’t.
Mrs Premise: Yes it is.
Mrs Conclusion: Isn’t.
Mrs Premise: ‘Tis.
Mrs Conclusion: No it isn’t.
Mrs Premise: All right. We can soon settle this. We’ll ask him.
Mrs Conclusion: Do you know him?
Mrs Premise: Yes, we met on holiday last year.
Mrs Conclusion: In Ibiza?
Mrs Premise: Yes. He was staying there with his wife and Mr and Mr Genet. Oh, I did get on well with Madam S. We were like that.
Mrs Conclusion: What was Jean-Paul like?
Mrs Premise: Well, you know, a bit moody. Yes, he didn’t join in the fun much. Just sat there thinking. Still, Mr Rotter caught him a few times with the whoopee cushion. (she demonstrates) Le Capitalisme et La Bourgeoisie ils sont la m~me chose… Oooh we did laugh.
Me- No idea why I posted that, it just struck me as…something.
