- 7 months ago
Clips from "An Upward Fall" (episode of "Crown Court", 1977), a hilarious, absurd, fictional case (written by absurdist playwright N.F. Simpson), in 3 parts, with Michael Jayston, Anton Rodgers, Raymond Huntley, Richard Wordsworth, Denis Lill, John Leeson, June Brown, Sydney Bromley, J.G. Devlin, Gwen Nelson. Directed by Darrol Blake.
In this bizarre case full of British humour, Cosmic Planning Consultants are suing another company for label. The latter accused the former of irresponsibility in building an old people's home at the top of Himalaya, with the toilets sited three thousand feet below. The plaintiffs insist their unusual choice of location was the right one and they have been unfairly maligned.
In this bizarre case full of British humour, Cosmic Planning Consultants are suing another company for label. The latter accused the former of irresponsibility in building an old people's home at the top of Himalaya, with the toilets sited three thousand feet below. The plaintiffs insist their unusual choice of location was the right one and they have been unfairly maligned.
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00:01Are you cross-examining this time?
00:03Your Lordship, permission?
00:04By all means.
00:06The peace and serenity,
00:08which it is normal to associate with a home for the elderly in their declining years,
00:12is in danger of being put at some risk, is it not,
00:15if one finds oneself trudging some 3,000 feet down a steep escarpment
00:19with many treacherous overhangs
00:21in one's dressing gown at 3 o'clock in the morning
00:23to attend to a call of nature.
00:25There's a danger, certainly.
00:27There might, might there not be prima facie grounds for complaint
00:30by some who think this is no way to spend the autumn of one's life.
00:33It's not easy to please everyone.
00:35The comment might be made as to what might appear at first sight
00:38to be an absence of forethought,
00:40to the extent that the question,
00:42what kind of planning consultants are these,
00:44might find yourself being arsed in certain quarters with an element of rancour.
00:48Well, this is something one has to learn to come to terms with.
00:51I was passing through your mind inciting the lavatories where you did.
00:54I was thinking of Mrs Letchworth.
00:56What was the tenor of your thoughts concerning this, Mrs Letchworth?
01:00It occurred to me that she was highly desirable
01:02and that I had a chance there.
01:04In other words, your thoughts were elsewhere
01:05than on a job you'd undertaken to give your undivided attention to.
01:08I suppose that would be so.
01:10A case, one might say, of chercher la femme.
01:12Yes, one might say that.
01:14You said that, in your opinion, the oversight was a minor one.
01:18That it was an oversight of no very great order,
01:20except to those inconvenienced by it.
01:22What about the danger that, in bedroom slippers,
01:25a 93-year-old lady, not perhaps too steady on her pins, as the expression is,
01:30might miss her footing and fall from top virtually to bottom?
01:34A feasibility study was carried out in 1970.
01:37No dangers of that nature were anticipated.
01:39Is it true that there are mattresses placed against the bottom of the sheer north face,
01:42against this very contingency, unanticipated though you say it was?
01:46These were placed there subsequently.
01:48As an afterthought, and in response to public outcry,
01:51when it was found that old age pensioners, falling from some considerable height,
01:55were going straight through to the underworld on hitting the ground.
01:58To the where?
02:00The underworld, my lud, sometimes known as Hades.
02:03You mean the infernal regions?
02:05Yes, my lud.
02:06Then say so.
02:08Indeed it is true, is it not, that some of the pensioners,
02:11even after the provision of mattresses, were continuing to go straight through,
02:15this time taking the mattresses with them.
02:17And I put it to you that it is no part of the divine purpose
02:22that man or woman should, after leading a possibly blameless life for 70 or 80 years,
02:28make his or her entrance into the infernal regions like a sack of coals coming down a chute,
02:34arrive in Hades unannounced and wrapped in a mattress,
02:38and one might be said to have got off to a dubious start so far as the afterlife is concerned.
02:43It could lead to problems.
02:44It could lead to eternal damnation.
02:46I suppose so, yes.
02:48Scarcely an inviting prospect, mattress or no mattress.
02:50I suppose not.
02:51It is to establish this vital point beyond any shadow of doubt
02:56that at a later stage in the hearing, defence counsel brings a man of God to the witness box.
03:01If one was so unfortunate as to be damned eternally, one would know all about it, I presume.
03:06Oh, yes, indeed. And it is for this reason in the main that one advises one's parishioners against it.
03:13Nothing to look forward to except an endless round of sin and vice,
03:16indulged in unremittingly for the better part perhaps of eternity,
03:19until such glamour as it might once have had as long since departed from it.
03:23That would be about the size of it, yes.
03:25It would take all pleasure out of the afterlife and leave one feeling fit for very little afterwards.
03:29Anyone of pensionable age would very likely find it too much for them.
03:33Nor, presumably, would there be any getting out of it at all easily.
03:37If you don't take part with the others, show willing, as the expression is,
03:41you are looked at, one imagines, as something of a leper
03:44and might possibly be sent to Coventry by your fellow damn niece.
03:47It is possible to get out of it by pleading sick,
03:50if you don't for any reason feel up to it for an eon or two.
03:53But they're not exactly enraptured when you do.
03:56Satan, in particular, taking a somewhat poorer view.
03:59Satan would come down like a ton of bricks.
04:01One would come, moreover, would one not, on frequent occasions, face to face with Satan.
04:05That is so, yes.
04:06Who is not the sort of person one would want to meet on a dark night, I would imagine.
04:09Indeed not.
04:10Many a person has been frightened out of his wits by such an encounter unexpectedly.
04:14One would normally say, in that sort of situation,
04:17get thee behind me, Satan.
04:19One would scarcely feel any safer with him there, I imagine.
04:22He has been known to take advantage.
04:26Almost too great a temptation to resist, one would imagine.
04:29I think at this point we might resist the temptation to go any further with this line of questioning.
04:34We will adjourn and return at 2.15.
04:37And as a result of this, you paid a visit to a solicitor, I believe.
04:44That's right.
04:45Are we taking this evidence in the middle?
04:49It would seem better that way, my lad.
04:52Very good.
04:53Can you tell us how this visit came about?
04:55I was talking to my friend and telling him what had happened, which I won't bother with now.
05:00And he said, would you like to see a solicitor?
05:02So I said, I've already seen one.
05:04He said, where?
05:05I said, on the television.
05:07He said, would you recognize him again?
05:09I said, yes, anywhere.
05:11So he said, right, what are we waiting for?
05:13And as a result, you fetched up, I think I'm right in saying,
05:16of the offices of Purdue, Gabbitas, Tatchbrook and Hobart, commissioners for Olds.
05:20Yes, to see Mr. Hobart.
05:22Whom you immediately recognized as the one you've seen on television?
05:25Oh, yes, it was the same one, all right.
05:27And your first words to him were what?
05:30I said, can you hear an oath?
05:32And he went across to the open window with his hand cupped round his ear and he said, no.
05:37I don't think so, can you?
05:39Whereupon?
05:40Whereupon, I said, it's my brother-in-law.
05:46Your brother-in-law comes into this in what way?
05:49Well, he'd hurt himself.
05:52Having hit his thumb with a hammer while nailing up a picture of the infant Jesus.
05:55That's right.
05:56And he wanted, without delay, to come out with an oath of some description in order to relieve his feelings.
06:01He was hopping about from one foot to the other.
06:03Having been bottling it up for some time while you were looking for solicitor.
06:06And with a homemade gag in his mouth to prevent the premature utterance of the oath.
06:10That's right. He was all set to utter it the moment the gag was removed.
06:14When the formalities were completed?
06:16Yes.
06:17What was the oath he was all said to come out with?
06:21Well, may I write it down?
06:25Yes, he can write it down.
06:34Hell's bells and buckets of blood.
06:37There were several possibilities that he had a list. That was his first choice.
06:42What was the reaction of your Mr Hobart, the solicitor you had seen on television and were now confronting in the flesh, to the information that this was what you wanted to see him about?
06:51He was very understanding and produced this chair leg.
06:55Chair leg?
06:57It was about so long, my lord.
06:59With what purpose in mind?
07:01Well, he said the formalities might take some little time.
07:04Yes.
07:05Well, he was doubled up, you see, with the pain as well as jumping about.
07:10How does the chair leg come into this?
07:13Well, he said as the formalities might take some little time and he was in pain, he might like to be put under sedation till they were completed.
07:24He said it was one of the few concessions that the law allowed to human frailty and we might as well have paid advantage of it.
07:31By striking him over the head with the chair leg?
07:34Is this common practice?
07:36I've had no personal experience of it, my lord.
07:38We were hoping to have it under the swear-now-pay-later scheme.
07:41Well, couldn't all this have been done over the telephone?
07:44Husbands ringing in from public call boxes purporting to be swearing on behalf of wives and sweethearts.
07:49Greengrocers impersonating members of parliament in order to let rip under the cloak of privilege.
07:53Make a mockery of the whole business, my lord.
07:55They said it could be the thin end of a very ugly wedge.
07:58Yes, I see the force of that, I suppose.
08:03To what extent is 3,000 feet an acceptable height when elderly people are called upon to make the journey both up and down several times a day as well as during the night?
08:13Oh, by no means unacceptable, given a certain degree of fitness, of course.
08:18Fitness by no means beyond the reach of, for example, his lordship.
08:22Or of such of the old age pensioners who are in court at the moment.
08:27Oh, yes, indeed, yes.
08:29It has been said that you are as young as you feel.
08:33And that the secret of eternal youth is available to any one of us who chooses to open his mind to it.
08:39Queen Victoria is an example here, I think.
08:41Mm-hm.
08:42It has been plausibly suggested, has it not, that even as quite an old woman, Queen Victoria, who harboured a secret longing to wheel a wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow, crying cockles and mussels alive alive oh, and in fact, to do so moreover at dead of night, did in fact on numerous occasions succumb to this craving?
09:04Yes, it's not too fanciful to imagine the scene where the sleeping populace of Windsor were awakened from their beds to cheer her as she did so.
09:15Cheer her, indeed.
09:17Until they were hoarse before, after a quick gargle, returning to bed and sleep once again.
09:22Oh, indeed.
09:24It might well be, might it not, it might be this kind of activity that was the secret of her eternal youthfulness.
09:31I simply cannot go along with this blatant leading of the witness. It's a waste of public money to bring him here. It's very expensive. All he has to do when he gets to court is to find various ways of answering yes.
09:42I stand corrected, my lord.
09:45Are we cross-examining?
09:47With your Lordship's permission.
09:48By all means.
09:50Would it be true to say that it makes nonsense of the whole notion of high-altitude geriatry if old-age pensioners on their journey back to bed in the small hours miss their footing and finish up in heaps at the bottom?
10:02It may well be taken into account as a possibility when constructing a home of this kind, indeed.
10:08I put it to you, it was not only not so taken in this instance, but that it was blatantly, either by negligence or design, ignored as a possibility.
10:15Oh, by no means. It may well be taken into account as a possibility and then ignored.
10:22A calculated risk?
10:23A risk worth taking, in view of the purpose behind the whole exercise which was, in part, to discover the effects of such niner oversights in developing buildings of a similar nature.
10:37The council for the defence has now opened his case and is questioning his first witness, an experienced mountaineer.
10:44Am I right in saying that you are an experienced mountaineer?
10:48Yes.
10:49Of several years standing?
10:50You do.
10:51Perhaps you would take a look at the model here in the well of the court and show us by means of the model the relative positions 3,000 feet apart of the old people's home and the lavatories serving it.
11:03To what extent can this be described as the same model as heretofore?
11:08It has sustained damage, my lad, and certain corrections may have to be made in respect of the scale.
11:14What is the extent of the damage?
11:17It was sat upon whilst in safekeeping, my lad.
11:19Sat upon?
11:20Yes, my lad.
11:21Yes, my lad.
11:22I see.
11:23There's also some marmalade, my lad, in one or two of the interstices, which has arrived there somewhat mysteriously, in points of there having been a moment, possibly more than one, when the model was the subject for discussion over the breakfast table.
11:34Or perhaps it was being used for some other reason, such as to prop up a copy of a daily newspaper.
11:38Where is this marmalade?
11:40Not in any vital spot, my lad.
11:43Does the marmalade invalidate the model in any way?
11:47Not significantly, no, my lad. There are also some crumbs of toast.
11:50But these are a non-strategic area, so far as the case is concerned.
11:54And it is my submission.
11:56It need not trouble us if the defence agrees.
11:58I'm perfectly happy.
11:59Well, as long as the model was in safekeeping at the time, which I understand it was, none of this furnishes any sound reason.
12:06Once the necessary corrections have been made, why it should not continue to be used?
12:09I'm obliged to your lordship.
12:11If perhaps you could indicate the route which would have to be taken by an old-age pensioner, taken short in the night.
12:16Well, of course, the mountain itself, which they would have to negotiate, has now been sat upon.
12:22But allowing for that, it would be up here.
12:25Along, around this bit.
12:28Then they would have to negotiate round the overhang.
12:31Which is not easy in bedroom slippers.
12:33Virtually impossible.
12:34May he be shown in exhibit two.
12:37Perhaps you would give us your expert opinion on the effectiveness of bedroom slippers when these have been modified in some such way as we see done in this instance and fitted with crampons.
12:48Under ice or snow, these would be virtually useless.
12:52Precipitate an avalanche and cover anyone who is on the throne under a few hundred thousand tons of snow.
12:59Not a happy eventuality, perhaps, for the only unfortunate person so visited.
13:03Never sit on the throne again with a quiet mind.
13:05It might be said, in fact, that these bedroom slippers are all right for anyone negotiating a rock garden in full daylight.
13:11Worse than useless for the sort of terrain we are concerned with here.
13:14I wouldn't wear them. Put it that way.
13:17So, that in other words, the root is in your view an impossible one, even when there is no such distortion as on the model here?
13:23Out of the question.
13:25A formidable line of argument, which has clearly impressed the jury, and which it will now be for the plaintiffs to attempt to demolish in cross-examination.
13:35You say you found this root an impossible one?
13:39Virtually impossible.
13:41Would it be true to say that a mountain goat could negotiate it without any difficulty at all?
13:46I'm not familiar with the habits of mountain goats.
13:48It would be a reasonable supposition, though, would it not, from what you know of mountain goats?
13:54I dare say a mountain goat would make a reasonable stab at it, yes.
13:57In other words, a mountain goat could do so, and yet an old-aged pensioner, made in the image of God as he is, is unable to do what a mere goat, not so fortunate to have been made in God's image, can do with one hoof tied behind his back, so to speak.
14:12A mountain goat can do precious little else but leap about on mountains. That's what it's there for.
14:16What you're saying, then, amounts to, correct me if I'm wrong, that though the structure known as Bellamy's Folly may be perfectly acceptable as home for goats who are past their prime, it is to be denied to God's children in their declining years because they're in some way inferior in not being able to reach lavages which have been placed at the bottom with quite the dexterity with which a goat might do so.
14:40It's not a question of being inferior.
14:43You drew our attention to the overhang. How, in fact, would a qualified mountaineer negotiate such an overhang?
14:51Well, one would first find a toehold, then give a sort of a heave,
15:06and Bob's more or less your uncle.
15:11When you say, more or less your uncle, is he your uncle or isn't he?
15:18It depends, my lord, on the nature of the overhang and the strength of the heave.
15:22Would it not be true to say that Bob is, in fact, your uncle?
15:26Depends which Bob you're referring to.
15:28Well, which Bob are you referring to?
15:30I was referring to a hypothetical Bob.
15:32A hypothetical Bob!
15:34Who, I suggest, is as much your uncle as your uncle is, if not more so.
15:38With respect, my lord, I would suggest we are being led here on something of a wild goose chase.
15:41Yes.
15:46Where is this line of questioning leading?
15:50I shall be in a better position to say, my lord, when we've got there.
15:54Well, I think we're chasing a blind goose up a wild alley and might well adjourn at this point.
16:00We will resume at two o'clock.
16:03It seems that Council may have cooked his client's goose at this juncture.
16:06If so, he has now no alternative but to lie on it.
16:09We shall see.
16:10As we come back at a somewhat later stage in the hearing,
16:16Council has just finished his examination of his second witness,
16:19an old age pensioner who has sustained injury by falling several hundred feet
16:23and missing the mattresses placed at the bottom.
16:26Council for the plaintiff is about to cross-examine.
16:29We've heard your story as to how you came by the injuries you sustained,
16:33which is that you missed your footing and fell in consequence some several hundred feet down the mountain side.
16:42That's right.
16:43I would like to suggest to you that your injuries were in fact sustained in a quite different manner.
16:48No.
16:49I fell from this ledge and missed the mattress at the bottom.
16:55Let me take you back a number of years to the time when you were quite a young man,
16:59twenty years old in fact.
17:01At that time, like a number of other young men who were affected by the same craze,
17:06you were bitten by the bug, if I could put it, of ventriloquism.
17:11I dabbled.
17:12Ah, you dabbled.
17:14But with scant success, I fancy.
17:16Well, I never got to the top.
17:18I would put it to you that never even rose from the bottom.
17:20Well, it wasn't for the one to triumph.
17:22It is by no means clear what line of argument is being pursued here
17:25and the judge is himself obviously far from certain.
17:28In recent years, the memory of that failure has come increasingly to irk you, has it not?
17:35To the extent that you've begun in a somewhat clandestine manner to take it up again,
17:41retiring behind closed doors in order to try not altogether successfully,
17:46once more to throw your voice from one end of the room to the other.
17:48The doors were not closed.
17:50Neither were the windows, I venture to suggest.
17:53What have the windows got to do with it?
17:55My contention is that they were open, my lord.
17:59And that witness, whose voice is a very powerful one, might well, in endeavouring to throw his voice,
18:05have found his voice instead throwing him.
18:08Oh, was this an upstairs room?
18:10Well, it was sort of, er, upstairs.
18:13And you went out through the open window whilst your voice,
18:17which was more powerful than you thought it was,
18:19remained where it was in the room across which you were trying to throw it.
18:22I landed in the flower bed.
18:24I see.
18:27These injuries, in short, were sustained in a manner totally at variance with the ones that you've described to us.
18:35Some of them might have been.
18:37And the story, therefore, of your fall having fallen from a ledge several hundred feet up in the Cairngorms
18:43is the purest fabrication from beginning to end.
18:46Well, I suppose it, er, could be.
18:49Ha, ha, thank you.
18:50Consternation!
18:51It is by no means usual for a witness to admit to quite such blatant perjury in the witness box
18:56and while under oath.
18:57And it is something which will clearly have to be dealt with elsewhere and at some other time.
19:01Meanwhile, as the effect of this extraordinary admission dies down, the hearing continues.
19:09...old-age pensioner Mrs. Olga Freetumble has been called by counsel
19:12and is now likewise being cross-examined by plaintiff's counsel,
19:16who is deploying a neat and intriguing line of argument.
19:19Old-age pensioners, we are given to understand, making the journey,
19:24sometimes in the middle of the night and missing their footing,
19:27show a tendency to arrive at the bottom with undue suddenness.
19:31Oh, they do. I did myself.
19:34Which is disconcerting and could indeed be fatal.
19:36Oh, it nearly was.
19:38We've all heard the story, have we not, of the clumsy housemaid
19:42who, dropping a plate or a cup to the floor where it smashes beyond repair,
19:49is heard to exclaim indignantly,
19:51but I only let go of it for a split second,
19:55whereupon she receives the retort,
19:58it's enough, Mavis.
20:00Yes?
20:01No, it well may be, may it not.
20:04But for the force of gravity,
20:06that plate or cup could have remained intact to this day.
20:10No reason why not.
20:12It is now some 300 years or so, is it not,
20:16since gravity was discovered by Sir Isaac Newton.
20:20Well, I suppose that would be so.
20:23Indeed, he had been hunting high and low for it,
20:25had he not over a considerable period of time.
20:28I wouldn't know about that.
20:30And the search was finally crowned with success,
20:32if legend is to be believed.
20:34When he came upon it, so we are told,
20:37in the back of a boot and shoe cupboard,
20:40to which he'd gone in search for something else,
20:43and saw it crouching down behind, so they say,
20:47a roll of linoleum, swathed from head to foot,
20:51in some kind of curtain material.
20:53Doubtless hoping thereby,
20:55to be mistaken for Henry Irving in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
20:58The vain hope, as it turned out.
21:01For Sir Isaac recognised it at once,
21:03and made the famous remark,
21:04you are the force of gravity,
21:06and I claim my five pounds.
21:08Now, had he not had the presence so to do,
21:12it is possible that gravity may have eluded him.
21:16And that, in consequence,
21:18we might still be looking for it.
21:20Well, I suppose that could be true, yes.
21:27Where is this line of questioning leading?
21:30I was endeavouring to demonstrate, my lad,
21:32that the force of gravity is a significant factor here,
21:35and that the lion's share for the blame for the witness's injury,
21:39must be laid fairly and squarely at the door of Sir Isaac Newton.
21:43Since it was his discovery of gravity in the 17th century,
21:47that may be said to have set in motion,
21:49the course of events which have culminated in these injuries.
21:52And that if this be so, my clients are blameless in the matter.
21:56Is it your contention that if the force of gravity were done away with,
22:00no harm would have befallen these unfortunate people?
22:03It is my submission, my lad,
22:05that they would have been able to take their time getting both down and up.
22:09This is a line of argument so potentially damaging to the defence
22:12that council must lose no time in scotching it.
22:15Many is the time, I dare say, when all of us, in a moment of exasperation,
22:20as a precious vase or ornament has fallen to the floor and smashed beyond repair,
22:24have said to ourselves, to hell with gravity and all its works.
22:28You must indeed have uttered some such expostulation yourself, I imagine.
22:32Oh, yes, many a time.
22:34That gravity is holding the universe together, is it not?
22:38Oh, so they say.
22:40So that were your wish and those of countless others in like circumstances
22:44to be granted and gravity be indeed done away with,
22:47the universe would forthwith fall apart at the seams,
22:51and you and I would wake up one fine morning
22:53only to find ourselves stepping out of bed into empty space.
22:57Oh, I suppose that could be so, yes.
23:01There are those who might in such a situation be disposed to say,
23:03what's happened to the flaming universe all of a sudden?
23:06It seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth,
23:09adding, perhaps as an afterthought,
23:10it must have gone round to its auntie Flo's for some reason,
23:14doubtless having heard of a death in the family
23:16and wishing to offer its condolences.
23:18And its being early closing death of butchers
23:21would lend some plausibility to such an assumption,
23:24since there could be little other reason for its absence.
23:27Well, I wouldn't know about that.
23:29At all events, no matter with what fervour
23:31one might on occasion wish gravity to the devil,
23:34the disappearance of the universe would be something
23:37that, as an old-age pensioner,
23:39you would not greatly appreciate being saddled with,
23:41having enough to contend with already in these inflationary times.
23:44Oh, no.
23:45I wouldn't like to do without the universe.
23:47You'd kick up a bit of a stink, in fact,
23:49to use a homely expression.
23:51I think it would be a liberty.
23:53You think it would be a liberty?
23:55Yes, I do.
23:57Why is he dressed in this peculiar manner?
24:02He is a Sherpa, my lad,
24:04Himalayan mountain guide,
24:05whose occupation it is to lead climbers
24:07to the summits of such mountains as Everest.
24:09Everest?
24:10Yes, my lad.
24:12What is there about the summit of Everest
24:14that makes it so vital to arrive there?
24:16It is done in order to keep such people as Sherpa Solo Kombu
24:19here in business, my lad,
24:21and so prevent their becoming a burden on the state
24:23by reason of unemployment.
24:24I see.
24:25And you have come here straight from the Himalayas?
24:29Yes, sir.
24:30Having had no time to change?
24:32I was in the middle, sir,
24:33of taking a party up the foot of Everest
24:36when I was summoned to be here to give evidence to the court.
24:39Where is this party now?
24:41They're on the mountainside playing Ludo, my lad,
24:43awaiting his return.
24:45Are they safe?
24:46Oh, yes, sir.
24:48They're all roped together.
24:50I said I wouldn't be long.
24:51He came here hot-foot, my lad.
24:53Hot foot?
24:54Yes, my lad.
24:55How hot?
24:56Not very now, sir.
24:57He arrived some moments ago, my lad,
24:59and has been cooling his heels.
25:00Do you want time to cool the rest of your feet?
25:03No, thank you, sir.
25:04I'm fine.
25:05In view of the people waiting on the mountain for his return, my lad,
25:08it might be better to expedite matters in respect of this witness.
25:11Well, as long as his feet are hot, though they may be still in certain parts,
25:18they're not doing any damage to the floor of the witness box.
25:24There are scorch marks from the previous witness in another case, my lord, but no further damage.
25:30Very well.
25:31Counsel can now begin questioning the witness as to his dealings with cosmic planning consultants.
25:37Ineptitude is a word which has been bandied about with some frequency in respect of operations
25:42advised upon by cosmic planning consultants, and in far-flung places.
25:46Oh, certainly so in the Himalayas.
25:48Now, when you were called upon to act as guide to such of these old folk as needed to make the dissent in the small hours,
25:54were you surprised in any way to learn that it was necessary for them to negotiate so difficult a route
25:59in order to be able to attend to a simple call of nature?
26:02Not when I knew who the planning consultants had been.
26:05Would it be true to say that they were a byword for incompetence wherever you went?
26:08Absolutely.
26:09They were indeed, not to put too fine a point on it,
26:12a standing joke in places as far apart as Worthing and Walla Walla,
26:16than which no two places could be farther apart.
26:19Oh, difficult.
26:20Unless one perhaps were to take a very circuitous route.
26:23Exactly.
26:24Now, during the course of your duties, in and around Bellamy's Folly,
26:28here at the summit of this escarpment in the Cairngorms,
26:31you must frequently have heard remarks passed by the pensioners
26:34in which the sighting of the lavatories was the subject.
26:37It was the sole topic of conversation.
26:39Nor was the tenor of these remarks notably flattering to cosmic planning consultants,
26:43under whose aegis they had been placed there so awkwardly.
26:45They thought it was a disgrace.
26:47In a sense, therefore, it would be true to say that this particular boob,
26:51if that is not too strong a word,
26:53was, in a manner of speaking,
26:55a vindication of an already widespread and long-standing reputation
26:58for errors of a startling magnitude.
27:00That would be so.
27:03This is a strong witness whose evidence is potentially very damaging to the plaintiffs,
27:08whose counsel must now seek to undermine his credibility in the eyes of the jury.
27:12As an experienced mountain guide, who has been on many an expedition to Everest, among other mountains,
27:20you were called in on this scheme at an early stage to reconnoiter in the Alps for a suitable site,
27:26prior to Bellamy's Folly being, as it were, found to be tailor-made for the purpose.
27:31That is so.
27:33And you were combing the Alps on this, Alan,
27:35and were at the top of the Matterhorn
27:37when news reached you that the site had been found nearer home in the Cairngorms.
27:40Yes.
27:41What was your reaction to the news, as best you recall?
27:44I was a bit put out.
27:47You were, I suggest, hardly chuffed.
27:49No.
27:50You used the word typical, in fact.
27:53I may have said something of the kind.
27:55I suggest your disenchantment with this eventuality coloured your attitude and your thinking not a little.
28:00Not really.
28:02There was a further cause for dudgeon as well, was there not,
28:05when you returned for a time to your four more familiar haunts in the Himalayas,
28:10where you were wont to stray when not on duty,
28:13in the search, perhaps, for the perfect Himalaya,
28:16the Himalaya of your dreams,
28:19the Himalaya which nevertheless perpetually eluded you.
28:23I can't remember any dudgeon.
28:25Well, let me remind you.
28:27It is a fact, is it not,
28:29that while you were traipsing round the Alps on behalf of the defendants,
28:33you picked up the habit of yodelling
28:36from such Swiss Alpine guides
28:38as you were thrown amongst from time to time,
28:42insofar that it began to grow on you
28:44and you found yourself doing it almost by force of habit,
28:47unaware that you were doing so.
28:50I indulge in the odd yodel.
28:53Rather more, I would suggest, than the odd yodel,
28:58so much so that there were complaints,
29:00and you had more than one brush with the Nepalese government about it.
29:04We communicated.
29:06What was the substance of those communications?
29:08I can't remember.
29:09Let me refresh your memory once again.
29:12The burden of the complaints made to you was that your yodelling,
29:17by your yodelling,
29:19you were keeping the entire sub-Indian continent awake at night,
29:23since you by now had taken to nocturnal yodelling,
29:27and that it was a case not to put too fine a point on it, a belt up or else.
29:31It was trumped up.
29:33I yodelled in an undertone at night.
29:36Can you give his lordship and the jury
29:39an example of what you mean by yodelling in an undertone?
29:43Perhaps not a welcome sound to the ears of the sleeping populace around.
30:07It echoed?
30:08Precisely.
30:09From Himalaya to Himalaya,
30:11and then south to Kornpor,
30:14and even more remote regions.
30:16If the wind were in the right direction,
30:18you could have been heard as far away as Tibet.
30:20Only once.
30:21I would suggest to you that reactions to your yodelling
30:25were characterised by a singular lack of restraint,
30:28and that arising out of this,
30:30hackles rose on both sides.
30:32Not all that much.
30:34And it is this feeling of suppressed rancour
30:37that colours your interpretation of the remarks you say you overheard
30:41from the old age pensioners
30:43when descending to the lavatories at night and at other times.
30:46I'm only saying what I heard.
30:48Some cheerfully disrespectful remarks.
30:51Remarks indicative of a certain degree perhaps of blunt humour,
30:55from which there was a total absence of any kind of rancour,
30:59and partaking of the nature of light-hearted pleasantries.
31:04Ha! Not to be taken too seriously.
31:06The air was blue.
31:08At such an altitude,
31:10and in so rarefied an atmosphere,
31:12conversation might well have begun to flag,
31:16but for some such fodder to keep it going, might it not?
31:19And the pensioners might well have been grateful
31:22for some topic of this nature,
31:24to keep boredom at bay.
31:26That was not my impression.
31:29Nevertheless, it's possible.
31:30It's possible, yes.
31:36It has been said, members of the jury,
31:38that to err is human.
31:40I would suggest to you
31:42that to err no fewer than 231 times,
31:45and on a quite disproportionate scale,
31:47as cosmic planning consultants have done over the years,
31:50is not human, but superhuman.
31:53The plaintiffs are bringing this case
31:56because they say they have been injured in their reputation
31:59by the words complained of.
32:00One might well ask what reputation?
32:02A reputation for making monumental boobs?
32:05Cock-ups on a scale altogether unprecedented in the field of engineering?
32:09I would suggest to you that their reputation,
32:12so far from being in any way injured,
32:14has been abundantly vindicated.
32:16We have heard how venture after venture,
32:18on which the plaintiffs have been advisers,
32:20has come to a disastrous end.
32:22We have heard indeed of no single project which has succeeded.
32:26The record is one of disaster following upon disaster.
32:29They have, it might be said,
32:30a reputation for ineptitude,
32:33unmatched anywhere in their field.
32:35As we return to the court,
32:39counsel for the defence is making his final submission to the jury,
32:42and we pick him up as he enters upon his peroration.
32:45It has been said, members of the jury,
32:48that to err is human.
32:51I would suggest to you that to err no fewer than 231 times,
32:56and on a quite disproportionate scale,
32:58as cosmic planning consultants have done over the years,
33:01is not human, but superhuman.
33:05The plaintiffs are bringing this case because they say
33:07they have been injured in their reputation,
33:09by the words complained of.
33:11One might well ask what reputation?
33:13A reputation for making monumental boobs?
33:15Cock-ups on a scale altogether unprecedented in the field of engineering?
33:20I would suggest to you that their reputation,
33:22so far from being in any way injured,
33:24has been abundantly vindicated.
33:27We have heard how venture after venture,
33:29on which the plaintiffs have been advisers,
33:31has come to a disastrous end.
33:33We have heard indeed of no single project,
33:35which has succeeded.
33:37The record is one of disaster following upon disaster.
33:39They have, it might be said,
33:41a reputation for ineptitude,
33:43unmatched anywhere in their field.
33:45All my clients have done,
33:47in publishing the words complained of,
33:49is to advance that reputation,
33:51not diminish it.
33:53In my submission, therefore,
33:55the plaintiff has failed to establish his case,
33:57and I will ask for judgment for the defendants, with costs.
34:01Once more to the court,
34:03the judge has come to the very crux of the matter,
34:05the jury will shortly have to consider.
34:07What you have to decide, members of the jury,
34:11is whether the words used are capable of having a damaging interpretation
34:17in the minds of reasonable people,
34:19reading them or listening to them.
34:21Now, let me repeat these words to you.
34:25They have made a right old bollocks up from start to finish,
34:29and we are going to take them to the cleaners over this,
34:31and call their bluff once and for all.
34:35Now, you or I, reading these words in a weekly publication,
34:39or a daily newspaper,
34:41or coming across them in a letter over the breakfast table,
34:43might well be disposed to think first sight
34:45that criticism of some kind
34:47is being levelled at the person
34:49or persons towards whom they are being directed.
34:53A right old bollocks up from start to finish.
34:57But let us look at this
34:59in the context of the other remarks of which it forms part.
35:05We are going to take them to the cleaners.
35:07We are going to call their bluff once and for all.
35:11Well, these are the kind of phrases that one would use, are they not?
35:16Were one in a certain particular kind of mood?
35:19If perhaps one's wife had been more than usually cantankerous at breakfast,
35:23or the car battery was flat when one was attempting to start the car
35:28in pursuit of some perhaps rather attractive young woman
35:31disappearing rapidly into the distance,
35:34one would be looking, would one not,
35:36for some way of relieving one's feelings.
35:40Nevertheless, what you have to decide,
35:45having respect both to the facts and to what you know of human nature,
35:50is whether any reasonable person reading those words
35:54they have made a right old bollocks up from start to finish,
35:57and reading them in the context of the other remarks,
36:00would modify them in his own mind in the light of what, reading between the lines,
36:05he can infer about the writer's state of mind at the time of writing them.
36:10If it says to himself, this person, this geezer, has clearly got out of bed the wrong side on the morning he wrote this,
36:19and is just getting it out of his system at the expense of the plaintiffs,
36:22so it hasn't got to be taken too seriously,
36:25then you may feel that the charge of malice falls down,
36:29since no reasonable person would attribute malice to it.
36:33If you accept this, it would seem to follow that any damaging imputation contained in the words
36:40they have made a right old bollocks up from start to finish is non-existent,
36:46since no reasonable person, knowing the state of mind in which the words were set down,
36:51would believe them to be literally true.
36:55The fact, therefore, that they are literally true,
37:00if, as the defendants have tried to show it is a fact,
37:03is, you may think, neither here nor there,
37:07and may be ignored except by those who have suffered as a result.
37:12The facts, therefore, that you have to consider are simple ones.
37:18It is now for the jury to retire, elect a foreman, and reach their predetermined verdict.