Pinner Pantomime Evening at the Tap End
Chris returned to his 17th year in 24 Years at the Tap End and one of the two major dates in Pinner’s calendar. Pinner Fair filled the town with loud rides and dance music each June, but Pinner Pantomime Evening was a more traditional event held during the final week of November. Local shops funded the evening, stayed open late and helped celebrate the switching-on of the Christmas lights.
Chris and his friends treated it as a compulsory annual reunion, regardless of where they had gone to university. The attractions were smaller than those at the summer fair, usually involving a mirror maze or crazy house, but the event had sometimes attracted memorable guests. Chris recalled meeting Bob Holness, while Rhino from Gladiators once arrived at nearby Eastcote on a fire engine. He believed local residents Lee Latchford-Evans and David Suchet would also make suitable choices for switching on the lights.
On the night in question, Chris met Dugsy and Webbo after school and walked into town. Shops handed out mulled wine and mince pies, so the group pretended to be prospective house buyers to gain entry to estate agents. Lensky looked older than the others and did most of the talking while they enjoyed the free food and drink.
Chris’s favourite attraction was the Morris dancers, whom he admired for drinking ale, dressing traditionally and dancing wildly. Dugsy noticed that one slender dancer was a woman wearing a false handlebar moustache. Chris spoke to her, decided he could see beyond the moustache and promised himself that he would attend a rehearsal to impress her. He never followed through and still regarded it as one of his Tap End regrets.
The group later met two women dressed as Pop Idol contestants outside a clothes shop. Lensky suggested taking a photograph with them, but their camera failed, so one woman offered to use the shop’s camera instead. Dugsy realised that this created a reason to exchange numbers and arrange another meeting to collect the picture. Chris stayed in contact with one of them briefly and later recognised her on The X Factor as Katie Waissel.
Scott and Beccy remembered hearing parts of the story during the first series of 24 Years at the Tap End. Chris argued that he had now told it more comprehensively, but the repetition confirmed that he was running short of unused material. With seven instalments still required before Christmas, the team considered bringing Dugsy, Webbo, Chinese, Lensky, Katie Waissel or one of Chris’s former romantic interests into the studio to supply their versions.
Seduction by the soundtrack to 24
A listener called Holly had visited a man she liked after previously meeting him in Bristol pubs. When she reached his house, he attempted to create the right atmosphere by playing the soundtrack to 24. Scott and Chris found the choice ridiculous, but Beccy listened to the album and concluded that its mixture of suspense, Spanish guitar and action music made it the perfect accompaniment to a date.
They acted out a complete evening to test her claim. Chris welcomed Beccy into his imaginary home, offered eggnog and played music as she entered. A burst of Spanish guitar suggested tapas and tequila, but the mood changed abruptly when frantic action music accompanied Chris chopping vegetables. Another track made his cocktail preparation sound like a scene from Cocktail, convincing Beccy that the album could turn him into Tom Cruise.
Chris then left to change into a Rocky Balboa dressing gown. The darker music made his return feel threatening rather than alluring, but Beccy insisted that they continue to the sofa. A cuddle was followed by the pair imagining a move upstairs, where another dramatic cue gave the fictional encounter its own fanfare. The final selection became the music for afterwards, although Chris described the experience as the longest day of his life.
Beccy remained convinced that the record should be marketed as a seduction album. Chris was less persuaded, especially because he was living with his parents and could not imagine his mother walking into the room while the 24 theme played and he sat wearing his Rocky Balboa outfit.
A new source of Tap End stories
The shortage of unused memories led Scott to suggest hypnotic regression. A friend could take Chris back through earlier periods of his life and perhaps even into previous lives, creating what the team called 2,000 years at the Tap End. Chris worried that Scott might arrange the kind of stage hypnosis which made him behave like a dog whenever somebody clapped, but Scott insisted this would be a serious session.
The others speculated about whether Chris might discover that he had been Henry VIII, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a noblewoman, a Viking or merely a tree in a Nativity play. Scott asked listeners who had undergone regression to explain what happened, while Beccy agreed to find out whether the appointment could be arranged.
Real or No Real
The average couple really did bicker about 2,455 times a year, although Scott, Chris and Beccy debated how minor a disagreement could be and still count. People were not always within four feet of a hair grip, and Switzerland did not require drivers of open-top cars to wear hats.
The average woman really did pack 26 holiday items which went unused. Chris and Beccy argued that men often depended on those supposedly unnecessary supplies after forgetting their own toiletries and clothes. Olly Murs had not been banned from every Scout group in Britain for putting extra sweets into a Woolworths pick-and-mix. Chris and Beccy finished level on 40 points.
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