Culture Crumble.
I am going to make a fortune out of culture!
Think about it, the moment we get out first library pass, culture absorbs us. Note the word ‘absorb’, it has been chosen for a reason.
Remember the first literary piece that set our minds reeling, the first orchestral concert that made everything around us vanish, the first painting that started us thinking, that first piece of sculpture that elicited a deep breath?
These were exciting moments, the start of a lifetime’s journey of appreciation, doubt, and there is no escape, of horror.
The point is, culture will hold your hand for many years, unless of course you are brain dead – like a politician, or a neighbour, or someone who writes pieces about culture.
Reach your sixties and you have cultivated culture until you have pee’d in every urinal in the Royal Albert Hall, know every working girl who works the National gallery, and have watched the rich ooze oilier every summer at Glyndebourne.
From the last paragraph it is obvious culture fatigue is insinuating your tissues.
In fact, culture, has absorbed all your culture!
I boasted earlier of making a fortune out of culture, now it is reveal time.
I am going to create a culture pill! I am going to create a culture pill!!
I wrote it twice in case your loss of culture had spread to your eyes.
Pop one of my pills and you will catapult back to your library pass days.
Everything will again be wonderful, everything will astound anew. The Mona Lisa will appear to smile, your step will have spring, even to the Proms, such will be the strength of my culture pill.
The three thousandth version of Verdi’s requiem will sound as fresh as the two thousandth nine hundred and ninety ninth, and the discovery that the local rubbish tip has been bought by Saatchi because it truly is a work of art, will overflow dribbles to your thin lips from your hollow cheeks, unless you are a foodie and you do not have hollow cheeks.
How will my pill work?
Of course it is packed with chemicals; there is nothing biological about culture. They have chopped down trees to make those violins, every member of the orchestra has had a bath before the performance, about eight hundred gallons of water pollution, and the conductor has three fucking cars.
My pill has a level of Marijuana, reviving that floating feeling. A caffeine booster to rejuvenate the jaded and lost feeling of superiority, and of course, where would culture be without a touch of Viagra? Partners just aren’t necessary when Beethoven has got his hands down the front of your necessaries.
My first trial mix has been abandoned. A conductor friend volunteered, the Viagra count was too high and his first violinist had a night she will never forget, and neither will the audience.
But worry not, when balance between cultural need and overkill is achieved, you will be informed.
About the author:
A comedy scriptwriter for radio and TV in the sixties, Bernard King wrote material for the greats of the day, from Bob Monkhouse and Max Bygraves to Dave Allen and Bob Hope. After a successful business career, he switched to writing novels. https://www.bernardking.co.uk
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