The Harry Hill Appreciation Society: Chapter 5

5 Inspector Clueless

It was nearly five o’clock by the time I got home from my Thursday detention. I had a tonne of homework and I was starving on account of having been relieved of my lunch money by The Yeti, so I was in no mood for one of Mum’s lectures. All I wanted to do was lie down and hide and eat. Instead of facing the music (a euphemism for angry mum) I just wanted to run upstairs, grab Sir Fluffington my old teddy bear, and hide under the duvet in my room. Yes, yes, I know I am too old for teddy bears, but it’s Mum’s fault really. I wouldn’t still have Sir Fluffington if she’d thrown him out like we agreed. But he is still with us, hiding in the spare room because Mum wasn’t up to the job. I was given Sir Fluffington for my first birthday, so he’s seriously old. I reckon about eighty in teddy years. He looks it too because he has only one eye and no fluff left. He should really be called Sir Threadbear - get it? Thread-bare. Oh never mind.

Now, don’t go getting the idea that I am some kind of thumb sucking, bear hugging baby. I’m not. It’s just that sometimes grownup life can be just too much to bear (ha ha! pun intended) and you just want to go back to simpler times and, well, Sir Flugginton still smells of the old days. Ahh! so why adults are always going on about school days being the best days – they’re just fantasising about the good old days. Well they got it wrong. It should be pre-school days are the best days of your life because you’ve never even heard of homework or bullies or any of the rest of it. Anyway, I’d had such a really rotten day what with The Yeti and detention and Lucy unrequiting me again, that all I wanted to do was to lie down in a warm dark place and smell the old days. But I never got the chance because Mum was waiting in the hall when I got home.

She ushered me into the living room and sat me down in front of a tray of tea and homemade buns. Hang on, I thought, tea plus buns plus detention does not compute. And another thing, Mum had this face on like she was going to tell me something really serious, or worse, something really embarrassing. It looked suspiciously like her facts of life face. A face I will never forget. Had she forgotten that I already knew? Please no. Not the famous birds and bees speech that had nothing whatsoever to do with birds or bees but involved the words sex, and love, and worst of all, body parts. I was blushing already and she hadn’t even started talking yet. Please, oh please, just lecture me about detention and confiscate my pocket money. Anything but the facts of life again.
I stared at the buns. They had exploded over the side of the bun cases and were black around the edges. Some were covered in white icing. I really hoped that icing wasn’t covering up a near cremation. Mum hardly ever bakes. For obvious reasons. I looked at her, trying to figure out what was going on.
She said nothing. She just looked at me in a creepy sort of way, like she was seeing me for the first time.
‘What’s up?’ I said, thinking the sooner this started, the sooner it’d be over.
‘Nothing’s up,’ she said.
Well, that wasn’t true. Something was definitely up. Mum trying to bake was a dead give away.
‘You’re up to something,’ I said.
She laughed and said, ‘Inspector Clouseau. I can get nothing past you.’
She was always going on about Inspector Clue-zo. He is this detective she likes from ancient times. Something to do with panthers, so I reckon he must have done his detecting in the jungle.
‘I zee buns,’ I said in a hammy French accent. Apparently this Clouseau guy was French. ‘Buns meenz a crime ‘az been commeetted,’ I went on in my Oscar winning accent. ‘Turn yourself een.’

Mum held out her wrists to be cuffed, ‘It’s a fair cop, Gov.’ she said in a cockney accent, which you have to admit was a bit daft since we were supposed to be in France. Honestly, my mum has no sense of geography. But she always does that when we mess about like this. Only this time she didn’t sound right. Her voice was a bit wobbly, like she was going to start singing but wasn’t ready. And yes, my Mum does often burst into song for no reason, and yes, it can be very annoying. Luckily, she can actually sing a bit, so it’s not so bad. Not today. Today there was something wrong with her voice. It had gone all squeaky.
‘You need oiled,’ I said. ‘You squeak’.
Now, I know that’s not the funniest line in the world but Mum is my number one fan and you’d expect your number one fan to laugh at your jokes, no matter how lame they are. Instead, she dashed out of the room, ran up the stairs and locked herself in the bathroom.

Wait a minute. We don’t have a lock on our bathroom door. I’m always going on about how I am a growing boy and I need my privacy and she is an ageing woman and she needs her privacy, but she just tells me not to be so repressed. To begin with I thought she’d said depressed and I couldn’t figure why she thought wanting some ‘me time’ when you are on the loo was depressing.
‘What’s depressing about that?’ I asked her.
She burst out laughing and said, ‘Repressed, not depressed. It means to restrain or hold things back.’

Well, toilets and holding back don’t go together, do they? You could get a nasty case of constipation that way. So I agreed not to be so repressed. But now we had a lock on the door. I climbed the stairs and stood outside the bathroom. I could hear her blowing her nose like she was trying to take gold in the nose blowing Olympics. I tried the handle. The door didn’t budge. Definitely locked. Great. At long last I could have the privacy all other twelve year olds took for granted.
‘I’ll be out in a minute,’ Mum said through a hail of snot.
‘I hope you are not in there repressing,’ I said. That was our new favourite joke since the whole repression-depression thing.
‘You’ll get piles,’ I added when Mum didn’t laugh. Piles always make Mum laugh. Old Mrs Chihuahua (not her real name) who lives next door is always going on about piles. They are public enemy number one. According to her they creep up on you when you sit on cold stone or wear damp clothes or get constipated.
‘Mrs Chihuahua will never forgive you.’
Mum still didn’t laugh, which is a serious problem for a wannabe comedian. I was definitely losing my touch.
‘Have a bun,’ Mum said or sort of snorted through the bathroom door. ‘I won’t be a minute.’
So I went back down stairs and picked the icing off one of her buns and tried to think up some new material for my stand up routine.

When Mum came down I noticed her eyes; they were all red and piggy looking. That’s when I knew she’d been crying. I remember the piggy-eyed look after Dad left. She used to cry all the time, then she’d sit around with cold teabags or cucumber slices on her eyes. I tried the cucumbers myself once. Very soothing. You should try it.
‘What’s up?’ I said in my best fake cheerful voice. I thought maybe Dad had come back to upset her and I was already planning how I could trip him up and knock him out and have him disposed off.
‘Hay fever,’ Mum said and tried to feed me another bun.
Hay fever. Hmmm, that was new.
I looked her up and down in a theatrical, exaggerated way which I am very good at. Really, I should be on the stage.
‘I zee no hay,’ I said, in my cheesy French accent. I felt her forehead. ‘And no fever. I can only conclude madame, zat you are lying,’ And I pointed my finger at her in that theatrical exaggerated way I’m so good at.
Mum didn’t laugh. I really was losing my touch. She looked away and stared at the curtains as if they were the most interesting thing she had ever seen. I thought she was going to cry.
‘You can watch that recording of Harry Hill’s TV Burp if you like,’ she said.
Holy Moly! Buns and TV! Mum never lets me watch TV until all my homework is done. Something was definitely up. I’d check it out later; first, I had Harry Hill to worry about.

I usually laugh myself sick watching Harry Hill but I couldn’t concentrate. My mind was racing: Mum had put a lock on the bathroom door, baked buns, and worst of all, cried at my jokes. What did it all mean? And what was going to become of me now? If I couldn’t make people laugh anymore my whole life plan was ruined: The stand up circuit, the TV appearances, the big house in the country with the granny flat for Mum. I’d have to rethink it all, every last bit of it. And there was no question about it, I was definitely losing my touch because Mum is the easiest person in the world to make laugh. I watched another ten minutes of Harry Hill hoping for inspiration. When it didn’t come I went off to do my homework. I had to research The Reformation for History but I was too distracted to concentrate so I just sat at the computer and researched Harry Hill instead. I went through his website hoping some of his genius would rub off on me. Mum always says greatness inspires greatness so I know she would have approved. I felt sure that if I could only get closer to Harry Hill, I’d get my comic touch back. And that’s when I had this brilliant idea.

It took me a while before I found an address I could contact him at. There was one address for his agent and one for fan mail. Well, I am a serious fan but the letter I planned to write wasn’t exactly fan mail so I decided to send it via his agent. It was bound to reach him more quickly that way. He probably gets thousands of fan letters every week that take ages to get through, but who would want to write to his agent? I took a sheet of paper from the printer and started writing. Half an hour and ten scrunched up pages later I had a letter. You’ve no idea how hard it is to write to your idol without sounding like a total wierdo. My first attempt started out Dear Harry Hill, You don’t know me but I know you… it sounded more like a threat from a psycho loony stalker than a charming cry for help from an hilarious twelve year old boy. In the end, though, I think I did all right.

Dear Harry Hill

I know you must be really busy with all the TV you have to watch but please, please take a minute to help me. I am a twelve year old boy and I plan to be a comedian when I grow up, but recently I’ve sort of lost my touch. Has anyone ever cried when you told them a joke? If so, how did you overcome the problem? Please write back because I really need help.

Yours sincerely
Philip Wright