Paddy pushes back frontiers of inane drivel

Press, 28 May 1979, Page 15

Paddy pushes back frontiers of inane drivel

By

JOHN COLLINS

Two women sit on top of l children’s slides leading! down into a shallow swimming pool. They are asked' three questions. Each time' they get a question wrong. a| man pours water on their heads. After three wrong! questions, they . must slide I down into the water. ' Ahah, hoho, harhar. heehee. I really can’t stand! it. I’ll have to go outside, I’ll( bpst a gut, I’ll snap my j stays. A singer called Beaver! walks on in an effort to setj the world record for the) slowest singing of two I verses of 'Blowin' in the Wind.” A plywood mock-up of an old-fashioned outside lavatory, a dunny, is carried oh. Much of the audience Is hysterical with mirth. Two contestants are invited to sit, one at a time, in the ply-

synod dunny and sing “Biowin' in the Wind.” The level of paroxsym among the audience is now so great one fears the first televisedlive mass infarction. Teehee, teehee, arff, arff, snort. Get me out of here, I'll die laughing. There is a man. His name is Paddy O'Donnell, that’s why the “show” is called “Paddy’s Market.” He sniggers all the time, but in a strange, rather unhealthy way. What is his macabre secret? Does he, in fact, realise what a mildewed load of childish drivel he has managed to get screened at prime viewing tijne on a Saturday evening? Hoho, hahahaaarrrr. Get me a glass of water. K Two people are blindfolded. They sit at a table. II half-hope "they will begin playing Russian roulette; it’s quite fashionable, you know, and the compere might feel like having a shot. But. nod they sniff pieces of bamboo shoot. < Those of you who have tead my occasional writings ’on television in the past! may have gathered that Ij am nowadays rarely sur-j prised by the strange things

“local programme-makers 1 think is good television, or by the abysmal way in (which they generally carry (out their bizarre schemes, i! But I had never expected to t see at prime time on a Satlurday evening, two blind--folded people sniffing bamJboo shoots. The two blindfolded /people can’t guess what the Ij stuff is. The audience has (gone wild, a joyous shaking jof blue-rines. Dentures are (at risk. Surely a state of ! civil emergency will soon : have to be declared in the •i studio. The blindfolded people are allowed to touch the stuff. ■ They still don’t recognise it. Oh, Great One, do not let me die laughing before this i is resolved. The blindfolded ones pick up the bamboo shoots and chew them. They don’t recognise what the

■stuff is. They take off their) blindfolds, and they still) • don’t know what it is. Neijther of them has had bam-| boo shoots before. The audi-i ence is in ecstasy. Is this really New Zea-! land, sunburnt land of giant, smiling jokers and unrivalled missusses? Is this what people want? . . . I’ve already half-fin-ished my plywood dunny and it should be ready by Saturday. We’re having people round for a few beers and some Frying Saucers. I’m going to sit, blindfolded, on top of a children’s slide inside the dunny singing “Biowin’ in the Wind" while being asked questions from the “Wolf Cubs’ Annual of Teasers.” sliding down into a poolfull of bamboo shoots 1 whenever 1 get a question i wrong, and giggling in- ! sanely. i Har, har. What a dagg. A I real hard case, that joker. I “Paddy’s Market” is the sort of show that makes you wonder why the emigration rate is so low. In the hours since.it ended, it has stayed (with me, flashes of the (worst of it have come back •to me, repeating like bad stew.