Never, ever, bloody anything, ever.
It was early in the summer of '92. The three piece combo of musical impresarios going by the name of ‘Right Said Fred’ were topping the charts with the anthemic Deeply Dippy. Mobile phones were still a brick sized rarity carried by twats in red braces. Prime Minister John Major was the most exciting thing to hit British politics for literally months. But all of this was eclipsed by one man who was at the pinnacle of his immense powers of entertainment, bathing the country in the light of his comic genius, and we few, we lucky few had the opportunity to see him in the flesh. It was just five short years since he had split our sides and ruptured our spleens with the gag fest that was ‘The Comic Strip Presents... Mr Jolly Lives Next Door’ - the half hour show that provided the script for our Uni years. Not Adrian Edmondson, not Rik Mayall, not even the incomparable Peter Cook. No, we had the chance to see, live and in the flesh, the one and only Nicholas Parsons!

It's true. His Aunt's next door neighbour had once walked past the old chemical factory in Grimsby, and this meant he was close enough to being a bona fide engineer for the committee to choose him as the post prandial speaker at the annual dinner of the Institute of Chemical Engineers (Scottish Branch). And as lowly student members of the Institution we were eligible to get tickets at the reduced price of ten pounds!

Now in those days ten pounds was worth much more than today. In today’s money it's probably equivalent to ten thousand pounds, or, for our continental readers, about ten Euros. For us impoverished students it was a lot, but surely worth it for the cultural development of immersing ourselves in the unrestrained verbiage of surely the best after dinner speaker in the world, ever. The fact it included a five course dinner and free bar was irrelevant. Somehow (I have blanked out the depths of degradation we had to sink to) we raised the money, and then at last we had the tickets in our hands.

At last, after what seemed like three lifetimes of waiting the great night arrived.
Dressed to kill, we turned up at the hotel, stomachs fluttering with eager anticipation. Our young knees, exposed to the world beneath our kilts, trembled with excitement. As students, the seating planners had put us in a table at the back, near the toilets. The bastards. On the top table sat the great man himself, tanned and glowing, chatting easily with the fawning committee members. The bastards. The food arrived. Despite being poor starving students, the butterflies in our midriffs prevented us exploiting to the full the sumptuous banquet presented. I myself only managed two second helpings of the main course and three of the desert. The vast quantities of free wine we consumed were purely to constrain the great shudders of excitement which wracked our bodies every time we thought of the great event we were soon to witness.

Then the moment arrived. The coffee was drunk (or, in our case, more free wine), waffer thin mints were distributed, and Nicholas the Great stood. An expectant hush fell over the room. Not a single glass chinked, not a single petite four was crunched. You could have heard a pin drop on a mountain of feathers. Nicholas began to speak. Humorous anecdote after humorous anecdote poured forth in a torrent, washing over us in a tide of bon mots, badinage and persiflage. He lifted us up and brought us down, led us one way, then quick as a flash disarmed us and left us helpless with chuckles. To watch a master a work is a pleasure. But the experience of that night was like no other. Nicholas Parsons is the master of mirth, the baron of banter, the prince of pleasantries, the lord of laughter, the wizard of wit, the sultan of satire, the ace of the anecdote, the raja of ribaldry and the ruddy rudest rip-roaringest rogerer of repartee.

All too soon it came to an end. As the audience sat dazed by the onslaught of mirth they had just experienced, we took our chance to actually meet the great man himself. Pausing only briefly to grab a couple of bottles each of fortification, we steamrollered through he hall and up to our idol. Four of us formed a protective ring around the guru, preventing the peons, who could never fully appreciate his talents like we could, from gaining access. He was ours! Then we actually talked to him. Face to face. Man to man. It was awesome. We displayed our adoring fanishness, such as how we had watched Mr Jolly Lives Next Door like maybe two or three times, and once when I visited a friends house as a boy, Sale of the Century was on the telly. How my parents used to listen to Radio four in the morning, which was the same station as his famous show Just a Minute was on, although I hadn't actually heard it. We unveiled to him our hopes and our dreams. Once he tried to stifle a yawn, no doubt as he thought about the other tedious people he would have to talk to later.

Then, after twenty minutes, disaster struck. The president of the Institute, who had been hovering outside our circle for some minutes, unable to penetrate politely, suddenly burst in, grabbed Mr Parsons elbow and said "Ah Nicholas, there's someone I would like you to meet...". In a flash, he was gone, and we were left with nothing but memories.

After our brush with the bright light of celebrity, the rest of the evening is a blur. I can recall daring escapades. At one point we employed the tablecloths to improvise Ghost costumes and scare the other guests. Such an impromptu display of amateur dramatics must have greatly impressed the professional entertainer in Nicholas. How the wine got spilled down his trousers, no one can remember. And the tragedy of the toupee is best forgotten.

My last memory is later in the evening. We were outside, ejecting copious amounts of Chateau Huey '87 from our insides over a wall in the hotel's rose garden - yes, unfortunately the excitement of the evening had proved just too much for our young constitutions. Nicholas appeared, walking to his car. We saw him pause briefly, and use his handkerchief to wipe a fleck of vomit splatter from the handle, before entering the back seat. The door closed. The engine roared. He was gone. Darkness descended.

Nicholas Parsons. Nicholas Bloody Parsons. Awesome.
(Mystery_Machine, Tue 21 Apr 2009, 11:29, 5 replies)

If this doesn't win...
...there is no justice.
*Click*
(all my scars face forward possesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Tue 21 Apr 2009, 11:58, closed)

That is splendidly well written
but please, for the love of twat use some whitespace! My eyes are bleeding now.

It was worth it though.

Edit: Fanks me old chunt
( chart cat has an itch, Tue 21 Apr 2009, 12:20, closed)

For the love of twat!
...now that is a cause I can believe in.
Whitespace added just for you.
(Mystery_Machine, Tue 21 Apr 2009, 14:13, closed)

Fan-fucking-brilliant-tastic...!

Three little words...

For

The

Win.

*Ker-lick*
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Tue 21 Apr 2009, 12:53, closed)

Click!
And because my ex is named after him!
(Beer Elf Thought this was like a campfire, anyhow, on, Tue 21 Apr 2009, 14:15, closed)