The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 30

IP A All 71 71 'Mtsfc By Morris Liirie SKI IB 7 Y''. I V- A THIS IS A true story but I don't want you to get upset You can handle it These things happen. Maybe -they're tests. People are only people, after all, never mind that some wear jodhpurs or live in Doncaster or any other of the multitude of aberrances that make, up the full cloth of the human flag, and even if the world is a rotten place, it's still basically the only one we have I've popped in that basically, by the way, to sidestep mutterings from science fiction devotees, a classically prickly coterie which I'm prepared to live and let live, that's my motto, so long, that is, as they're not the owner of a certain yellow car. Wait a minute.

Let me get organised here. Let me start calmly from the start Are we ready? So I'm sitting at home cute as a sparrow resting up from helping old ladies across the road and the million and one other good deeds that constitute my blameless life, when the phone rings, and guess what it's my lawyer, get in your car and rush over at once, he says, the final wrinkles in the final clauses in the fine print down the bottom of the contract wherein and whereby this multi-million dollar movie deal he's been sweating over for months are finally ready for my eye perusal and pen, so I heave into my aged car and toot over. Impressive stuff, what? And you think I'm not excited? Just take a look at that grammar back there, for a start Oh, and it's raining too, let me make mention of the rain. Let me also make mention, since it is my firmest understanding that the corners of the canvas gather unto themselves a weight equal at least (in most cases) to the painting's outward central thrust, that not only is my car older than you are, probably, whoever you are, probably, but that the enamel duplicates exactly the kitchen and bathroom color scheme of a legendary departed uncle, he of the racehorses and unruly ladies to the true of fifty thousand pre-decimal pounds hello and goodbye in the merest handful of rushing years, the same green exactly, the identical sentimental magic shade. You have the picture? We're nearly there.

Rain now absolutely crashing, by the way. Relax, I'm not rushing, I'm driving nicely and carefully, never mind the multi-million dollars, I am collected, I am calm. I am allowing pussy cats and doggies to pass safely before me on the sodden road, pensioners, tots, all manner of mankind and pets, and look, here is my reward, I turn into the lawyer's street and where every other single time I've been here I've had to drive round and round the block 97 times becoming increasingly madder by the minute before finally finding somewhere usually in an adjoining suburb followed by a frantic meter-ticking run, this time God has given me a parking spot, a wonderful parking spot on this crashing with rain day, exactly outside the lawyer's very front door. Pamela Stephenson: "It's far more rude. Bitchy reponse to a book for bastards So you can imagine what it's like, the following hour, where I'm supposed to be shrewd and steely in the subclauses of this multi-million dollar contract, alert as a bloodhound, sharp as a tack, quick as a whip and hotter than a pistol boy.

I am hot all right hot with hellish visions of crazed keys destroying my cherished vehicle, the priceless bathtub green Pity! Please God I'll never nick another parking spot as long as I live I'll teach raffia in hospitals I'll endow a University Chair i In the crashing rain my green car stands. Immaculate. Untouched. Can she? Will she? She, certainly looked crazy, believe you me. Entirely demented, top to bottom.

What to do? I race to her car in the crashing rain. Yep, she's right she doesn't care about her car, look at it more bangs aod bumps than World War II, not to mince words, a shitheap. I'm a goner. 4 Hold it let's not be totally defeated here, let's memorise this licence numi ber, utilising the maximum amount o4 lip movement she's obviously spying on: me from some witch's eyrie over there -somewhere, let her note that yours is not to be trifled' with, no sir! Lady, take that! i Following which I charge straight into Nope. Seems not.

For there is a God, only He's about 20 yards down the road, in the form of a second wonderful parking spot into which the yellow car now zaps, releasing at once its driver who springs back up the road to face me before I am even properly out of my car, jabbing the air in front of me with its keys, a gargoylish distortion of womanhood surely under option to Fellini. "Your car's gonna look great with my key scratches on its Duco!" she hurls out by way of how do you do, following up with "I don't-care about my car!" and then the parting shot of "I'm only gonna be inside for 10 minutes!" and whoosh just like that she's gone. I was fraction faster than her in the game of life, she's going to deface the memory of my beloved uncle's kitchen and bath. The yellow car in its place, too. Calmly sitting there.

And do you think I can forget that wlli? lUi accepted now that women cart be By Candida Baker rudest female comic the world had seen. It seemed there was nothing she wouldn't do. and she agrees that she probably paved the way for a complete re-think of women's role in comedy. "I think it's far more accepted now that women can be rude." she says. "Although there is still this feeling that it's okay for a man to have a really gross sense of humor, but a woman should be a bit more grown up than that.

I think that women like myself, Joan Rivers and Bette Midler have made it okay to be coarse." Not even Rivers or Midler, however, do jokes about the Queen Mother's flatulence problem, or (in the book) feature a bottom with a bubble above it which says: "Here's a really smelly wet one or use a dwarf on stage who dresses up as Jayne Torville to Stephenson's Christopher Dean. In between writing the book, doing several major tours, and making numerous guest appearances on television and film, Stephenson also found time to stand for Parliament. Her party was the 'I want to drop a blancmange down Terry Wogan's Y-fronts' party. (Terry Wogan is a radio announcer in England who is loved by some and loathed by many). She wasn't elected, but she enjoyed the experience.

"The local Alliance candidate challenged me to a blancmange duel at dawn. We stood back to back, walked 10 paces and threw blancmanges at each other. I wanted to blancmange Nigel Lawson (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) during a political program we both appeared on, but the station wouldn't let me because, they said, if I blancmanged him I'd have to blancmange all the other candidates equally. Which just goes to show how silly it all is." The blancmange story reminds us of the time when she improvised on a British breakfast television show and threw a basket of eggs around the studio. "I hadn't planned to, but there was a boring chef talking about how to make croissants, and it just overtook me." As it overtook her io try to remove Ray Martin's trousers on the usually sedate 'Midday' show.

Billy Connolly, for all his cheerful vulgarity, is the quiet one of the two. she admits. "He's always trying to bold me back. When he first read the manuscript for the book he said 'No way. You cannot do this He thought the AIDS jokes and the Thorensen ferry- jokes would get me into terrible trouble.

He also thought there were too many four-letter I took his advice on some of the jokes and put in more four-letter words. I rarely take his advice, but he does try to pull me back a bit" The understanding between the two of them Is very important, she says. "We both know what it feels like to stand up and perform, and the single-mindedness it takes. You know not to pick an argument the day. before a show opens for instance, and whichever one of us is not performing looks after the kids." In the book Stephenson appears in a hundred different bitchy guises the Baby Bitch, the Career Bitch, the Gran-ny Bitch, the Pregnant Bitch, the Bitch Authoress, the Party Bitcb and the Bitchy- Beauty Queen to name but a few.

As the interview progresses, she forgets her tiredness. Her dulcet Engiisn tones become a bit more strident, she drops Into several accents and begins performing from the book with immaculate comic timing. By the time she leaves she looks as if she ready for anything. That the best tning about being me," she says The' scoreboard, for instance, will j-show when the teams are playing (7.7) 31. Taking out an ancillary arrange-f ment can be most expressive (7) 32.

Bili enters a vehicle to get to the v- counter (6) 34. After healing, both hands are wrung at being blown up (6,4,4) 35. The paper, when put on. looks the worse for time's passage (3,4) 31. one card in church, we hear (lVf 38.

Before cut one can just move to the. East End and get one's, finances i order (7.1,6) 39. After umpire comes up to engineer. to give support (2.5) 41. To put to rest a salesman, thejf requires one to open one's wme coj- lection (3,4.1.6) 42.

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'JL 3T' jo "HT 7 5 IF bl COMEDIAN Pamela Stephenson's latest offering. 'How to be a Complete Bitch', is sexist, violent and crude the trademark of her work to date and she is delighted with that description. "Whoever said that women have to be nice?" she says, in response to the suggestion that the book is not the best possible advertisement for the sisterhood. Stephenson feels that bitchiness is actually a feminist concept. "I think women who don't allow themselves to be victims, and know how to say no, are often called bitches.

A bitch is the kind of woman who doesn't go all mimsy if a guy approaches her and she's not interested. She doesn't say she has to stay in and do her hair. She uses a funny one-liner so that he laughs, but is left in no possible doubt as to how she feels about him. She has defused the situation, but hasn't made him feel bad because it's obviously a joke. I think a bitch is a strong woman, a Bette Davis kind of woman." You'd certainly need strength of character to give Stephenson's recommended responses to an unwanted invitation, three of which are: "Call everyone over and say: 'Hey.

guess what? This total nonentity thought I'd go out with him! "Pull down his trousers and say: 'Not until THAT gets better "I have a confession to make, I was once a professional tennis player called Alan." The book is pretty well an exact copy of 'How to be a Complete Bastard' by Adrian Edmonson (Vivien, of 'The Young Ones', portrayed in Stephenson's book as-'The Immature Ones'). That, says Stephenson, was intentional. "In a way it was an answer to Adrian's book which says things like (here Stephenson drops into a perfect impersonation of Viv)I'm totally and utterly in f.w?e-ment with female liberwation. women should do whatever they like I mean women make very nice Page 3 girls and cocktail bunnies'." Stephenson collaborated on the book with Mike Lepine and Mark Leigh, who were also the team behind 'How to be a Complete Bastard'. "I take full responsibility," she says.

"I wrote most of the material, and edited it myself. I did a major tour for the book in the UK and when I left England a month ago it was No. 3 on the bestseller list and somebody has just told me it's got to No. 1 although I can't confirm Stephenson, her partner Billy Connolly and their two children. Daisy and Amy.

have been in Sydney for a month or so. but adopting a low profile. The zany, outrageous performer of 'Not a Papal Tour', has given way to a rather subdued woman despite the oversized hat she wore for the interview, she was remarkably quiet and contained who will definitely not be touring next year. 'The fact of the matter is I'm dead tired," she says. "I'm only doing one day' promotion for the book here and that's it." While they are staying here, Daisy is attending a local school.

I wondered if either of the children was showing signs of following in the parents' footsteps. "I think they know how to be funny," says Stephenson. "They both want to be the centre of attention. One of Daisy's teachers said she thought. Daisy haB an advanced sense of humor.

Apparently she into bottoms in a big way. Stephenson is very keen taretain her ties with Australia. The family is Spend ing Christmas here, and would like to spend at least a few months of every year in Sydney. She was born in New Zealand but came to Australia with her parents, both' medical researchers; when she was four. She attended Sydney University and NIDA, and worked as an actor; here before, took off; for You ripper! Thank you, God! Except Oh-oh Except there's this yellow car suddenly materialised out of nowhere And it's about to zap in there Except it's not in the properly optimum zapping in position Which I am And zap with that satisfying exactitude of the flawlessly executed dance step I'm in.

"You bastard!" howls the yellow car. I make the mistake of a smile. Worse than a smile. Words. "No," I leer from my window, "just fast." Well, come on, how exampiary can a fellow be? I mean, surely, just this once, huge movie deal, crashing rain and all that 74.

There are more of them to be screened (6) 78. Craft comes back to-one in front though he was behind 7) W. Mischievous traveller is getting better (8) 12. For China, such directions are a safeguard (6,4,4) U. Criminal grou takes one to tea (6) tS.

One who cares about good air (5,5) Man in cooking coat (6) 17. A doctor who catches fish on a strolf 7 18. Greet with flying stones U) tl Short time to take her to see girl (6) 2- "I 3-4 4 1 rr Ti if T5" -7 wmJmmJ zi 128 1 llmmimJtm wmm 1 i3, 37 mmt 13 1 iT" iT" 4a" 1 i mm 45. Disagree about right to surprise (6) 47. Happily, the foreigner consumed a puddle which washes not ony my socks but my brain of every digit of that teions licence numDer, on ooa, imnn I'm going to cry.

Church follower to east? I am able to follow that (8) 9. Acceptable way torefuse bid 'ty with 450- f8 11. ix.K tZirt. pie first muI nnnt butv-iin' 14. Bright one truck (61.

25. The moon sends Information. aU. if. iman measure ner majesty takes i idowa to playwright (6) '7.

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House member will take umbrage at no one coming back from delegation (14) 17. In the contract of yesterday's visitor, we are told (6) 18. Result of many returning from battle (4) It. General skater is finished, right? (7) 29. The medico and his problems were seen at the dentist's (6) 21.

A loud pet let out after summer's activities (8,2) 22. Doctor got up in a bad mood (6) 24. Hooray for the holiday! (Though it's left me with a headache) (9,5) 28. Found out what was heard by clandestine editor (8) 27. Love the way the wealthy get the bird (7) 29.

Attack the fool who is unwell (6) 31. Old heavyweight liar was upset in court (2,5) 33. A storm surrounds Queen's repre sentative concerning the flight (1,6) 37. In a hurry to get a ticket (8). 39.

Score at the MCG during try out (4,3) 49. On the quiet, the line became small er (6) 41. Carpet men in the chook house (6) 43. Recipe sweet-maker used at barbe cue (4.6) 44. Can use words like, 'money'.

wealth', 'profits' (4,10) 45. Jumper knitted from part of tree (4) 46. Ability to make old money (6) 48. That's no word for such negativism (7) 49. King Edward The Smalt achieves natural tranquillity (4) 59.

Distress call get it? Unfortunate ly, they are too preoccupied with their own interests (8) 53. Give money to first ten cutters and the government (3,5) 55. Callous edict was put into operation (4) 57. Wet 1001 in front of gun (7) 58. Standing in onstage (6) II.

Good time for many is paid from it (4) 1. Foreign articles assure consumer protection (5.9) 12. You can hear just so much (5,5) 14. One tiny insect directs us to man's lineage (6) M. This 17 will get you out after signing (6) 7.

A show is recreation for princess (7) 9. Unusually leafy now but in Autumn not many trees wui keep their greenery (4.U) 79. Masculine roughness is more obvious in the mornings (7) 72. It helps when fool followed by one of the wasteland (7) Rug that is seen ship belongs tv anisi w- In addition tojge letter, there was some grain and: other charges (61- St Foreign one hurried after Scotsman-lli This tsVwarnljntf'youll soon kat to stop (5J5) i mm for auditory stimulati6i '--'1Sets 71. Verv fond of ABC radio, the aftft Tint hivit tMllnoe rttmiM irf') W6uld yott He was foor metrts-hk' (4.4 Tfc Aocount Executive taltes taxi 1 77.

See ifriminalTnveito.tion concerning me deputy aoQi 'Zpy'-4 or hM IncM 7 sion (wearing disguises can get ib oesserttoj -n sA i i It Taktngoa the band after saylngtel. M. -Row the Alice Springs sun keeps the house warm (7,7) 91. Where Angus surely feels at home i (8) Cown 1. Evidence of too many large glasses (4.4) 2.

It was once considered 3. prior to cooking beef alternative (6) 4.. Start to read front of dial (7) 5. Gets sportsman to do doctors job (8) 7. Infrequently content to counsel do.

mesuc neip 10 (6H- -v and 'is caught t6 '-i 'v. one, "y- -i fcurope iu years ago. Her discovery or cneenuiiy. never quite wuoi -underground political theatre and caba- I'm going to do next" ret led to1 her involvement with 'Not The -JOW TO BE A COMPLETE BITOT by Nine O'clock Mews' for the BBC where- Pamela Stephenson (Hodder St Stoutftn she immediately shot to lame as Jhe ton: $l2J5y. rvcrs n8XT -Vf.