69 for 1 by Alan Coren Read Free Book Online Page A

staring
at the kid, the kid is shrieking at the stewardess, and economy passengers fore and aft are straining in their seat belts to try to clock what’s happening: could be an ullulating
fundamentalist about to claim his six dozen virgins, could be a turbine blade shearing through an engine, could be a shark attack – maybe they’re getting bolder, like foxes, hurtling
out of the Baie des Anges, who knows? – could be anything, this is 2007 and this is a plane. I glance past the stewardess at the club class curtain; it is trembling. Rich people up front,
free caviare, free foie gras, have no inkling what might be happening back here: are the poor people, no free caviare, no free foie gras, eating a kid?
    The kid’s daddy is distraught. He picks up the kid, but it is like picking up a dervish octopus, the kid is flailing, a left hook, a right jab, teeth, flying snot, the yellow-jacketed
stewardess steps towards them, the tonsils go up to warp-factor decibels, the fuselage might crack . . . and it is at this point that the ace intervenes. This is his moment: it is for this that not
only all his fitness has prepared him, but also his incomparable savvy. He tells the stewardess that it is the yellow jacket which has detonated the kid. She takes it off, but the kid does not stop
screaming, he is not fooled, there is a monster aboard, this is a fee-fi-fo-fum moment, but the ace is not fazed, he has a trump left to play before push comes to shove and he has to open the door
and fire the kid down the shute. He tells the stewardess to blow her whistle. The stewardess frowns. You know how to whistle, don’t you, says the ace, you put your lips together and you blow
into that thing dangling from the life jacket. The stewardess replies that this is only for emergencies, but the ace – fit, cool, authorative – says: what do you think this is?
    So she picks up the whistle, and blows. It is a hell of whistle: the kid stops. He has met his match. It is all over. The plane takes off. The ace settles back into the special seat he was born
to fill. Eat his shorts, Biggles.

Chocs Away
    T OMORROW is a major day. It is the last day of an era. The midnight chimes which gong on May 1 will herald a watershed
between romance and lust. I know this, because Nestlé tells me so. They have clearly chosen their day with much forethought: May 1 has been a watershed between romance and lust since time
immoral, for it is the day when maidens wake up to deck themselves with flowers and dance around a tall signifier designed to ensure that as soon as they have finished dancing they will be chased
giggling into the long grass and comprehensively undecked.
    Now, Nestlé make a signifier, too, albeit not so tall. Just six inches. It is built by stacking 11 circular chocolate-covered caramels on top of one another. Here is a press release about
it: ‘Rolo’s famous chocolate slogan of ‘Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Rolo?’ is being axed after 23 years because makers Nestlé think it too
romantic to reflect modern relationships. It will be replaced on May 1 by advertisements in which an office girl flashes her underwear to get one of the sweets, because Nestlé research shows
that romance is not the most important thing in a modern relationship. It’s time to move on.’
    Time to move on whom is not of course specified, but we can be sure it will not stop at office girls. If Nestlé has its marketing strategy in line, you may be confident that, after May 1,
the sassy female spectrum from Ulrika Johnsson to Margaret Beckett will be leaning fetchingly against the water-cooler, murmuring: ‘Is that a tube of Rolo in your pocket or are you just
pleased to see me?’ You may be sure, too, that there will be equally naff observations from the lads along the lines of: ‘The trouble with a tube of Rolo is that after you give her one,
it gets smaller.’ You know how people are, these days.
    But you also know me, and