Stephen Fry Reviews The Harrison Tweed P7200 Magnetic Flies

Bless you and your little pumping hearts for trying, but I beg you to trouble me no more with manatee related gifts. I can assure you that the manatee novelty does not last. A man has only so much room in his life for stuffed manatees, manatee towels, tea cosies, or, indeed, t-shirts on manatee related themes. The Post Office have informed me that they’ll impose a manatee tax on deliveries to Fry Towers should the flow of this manatee merchandise not abate. So, please, my dear sweet and sometimes insufferable friends: no more. Send your manatees elsewhere. Anywhere but send them not to me.

Now I have stated my position on my manatee problem, I would like to take this opportunity to also appeal for calm on another issue. My arm has indeed been cracked asunder but take not your worries out on the one man who has promised to set it right. Richard Madeley is a generous man. Much misunderstood by the British public he may be, but in private he is a man blessed with healing fingers and thumbs to match. If my knowledge of obscure authorities in the Catholic church isn’t to fail me, I believe it was Saint Francis de Sales who advised us to make ourselves ‘familiar with the angels, and behold them frequently in spirit; for without being seen, they are present with you.’ Well, make myself familiar with angels I have certainly done. His name is Dick and I would happily swear on the infernal suffrage of all tweed-loving Englishmen that I don’t not understand why you should continue to vilify him.

To underline my devotion to the man whose spare room I now call my home, your favourite Uncle Stephen has gone buttock to seat to prepare something for this blog. He creased a brow to consider the many subjects ripe for the Fry treatment. Should he give you a primer on writing lyrics of light English operetta? No, you have that already. A field manual for fixing battle wounds? Perhaps next week. Needlecraft for the crafty? Edible toe fungi? Effluent disposal in the Kenyan National Park? No, no and no. Instead, I looked down and saw the subject of today’s article staring right at me. I would review my flies! But, fear not for Stephen. There are not any old flies. I should say “Strewth” and compound my surprise with one of these “!” if it were so. These flies are made by the good people at Harrison Tweed. They are the Harrison Tweed P7200 Magnetic Flies no less. They are flies to savour. Pat one’s belly and say “Yum!” after me. Yum!

Restricted to the use of my left hand, I decided this week was the right time to upgrade the Fry flies. I am currently putting the P7200 Magnetic Flies through their trials and flying through the trials the new Fry flies most certain are. They come pre-installed on any Harrison Tweed trousers but can be fitted to any pants that have either zip or button fastening. The compact design, weighing less than two grammes, ensures that there is no unsightly sagging about the crotch, while the prototypes’ notorious faults have also been fixed so there’s no need to worry about your groin spontaneously igniting. Nor, indeed, your eyebrows. Shudder.

One armed men among you will find the magnetic flies’ voice operated mechanism a boon. With a simple to set top secret code word, I can have my flies open with no trouble. The only drawback I can see is the number of occasions when my flies have opened when in conversation with a friend. My advice: choose you secret word carefully. Setting it to ‘I like you hat, Mrs. Wogan’ caused your friend Fry no end of embarrassment at a recent drinks party at the BBC.

Many of you will find the WIFI feature of the Harrison flies a deal breaker. Remotely operated via a suitably equipped laptop, you will always have up to the date minute report on the state of your flies while on the move. The position is tracked to the closest millimetre via GPS so you should have peace of mind about the security of your loins. Indeed, remote sensing is not the end of the Harrison flies tricks. We’re talking about remote operation too. The flies can automatically open in a class leading 0.2 seconds. Lordy, lordy, zip! That’s nearly half a second over its competitors and nearly a second faster than on their manual setting.

The flies are compatible with European protocols, though be warned: there may be a few moments of delay while the flies enter into prolonged handshaking with foreign models. Quel surprise! With integrated alarm, the flies are also protected against intrusion. The manufacturers also assure us that recent reports of East European gangs accidentally hacking into the flies have overstated the problem. All flies now come with a flywall installed, to stop those virtual gropists having access to all your important data, and, indeed, fleshy goods.

When friends next ask me to recommend a set of flies to them, I will not hesitate to point a finger to my Harrison P7200 magnetic flies with WIFI functionality and declare them the best on the market. For the man on the move, or the man with only one arm, they are the best magnetic flies on the market. With the next firmware update promising extending functionality including scrotum detection to prevent those painful bathroom snags, the future of the Harrison flies leaves your Uncle Stephen quivering with excitement. Quiver. Quiver. Quiver.

Have A Break, Stephen Fry Style!

Heavens! Crikes! Shudder and Drool! Throw the word ‘calamity’ full force into a room crowded with ‘disaster’, ‘shock’, ‘outrage’, and ‘catastrophe’ and you might experience a fraction of the concern I had felt by the time I came to button up my fly at ten o’clock this morning.

At first, it began with a touch of mild annoyance when I was awoken by Judy hammering away in the spare bedroom. Groggily, I slipped out of bed and fed my feet to the slippers. Bones cracked, ligaments creaked, but His Madeley’s Slippers Brown and Orthopedic held up well as I set off to see what the old girl was up to.

‘I won’t be long,’ said she from the top of a wobbling stepladder. The curtain rail was hanging down across the windows. ‘As soon as I’ve fixed this, you can help me carry the new bed up the stairs.’

Daylight bankrupted my sleepiness but not my sense. ‘New bed?’ I asked. ‘What new bed?’

Judy wobbled again on the ladder and I thought for a moment she might actually fall through the window. She grabbed the wall just in time. ‘The new extra long bed and mattress I had delivered this morning.’

‘Extra long?’ I too felt a bit unsteady. The world wasn’t making much sense to me. ‘What’s going on Judy? Why do we need an extra bed?’

She turned and looked at me as she slipped her claw hammer into her workbelt. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve not heard the news!’

‘I’ve been asleep and in a fairly deep one at that. I was combing the knots out of Katie Denhem’s hair.’

Judy gave me one of her narrowing stares that warn me against mentioning Katie’s name too often. It’s the reason why I’ve held off including her picture in my bestiary.

‘You claim to be the man’s closest friend yet you haven’t heard the news?’ She gave me the full force of a tut which couldn’t have sounded more dismissive if she’d driven it through my forehead with her hammer. ‘Stephen’s broken his arm.’

That news shocked me into wakefulness. ‘Is he okay? Is he conscious? Did he mention my name?’

‘It’s only a broken arm but I’ve told him that we think it only right that he comes and stays with us for a few days while he recovers.’

Words are an unnecessary luxury when men of action are in their slippers before noon on a Saturday. I rushed to the window and lifted the rail into place. ‘Hammer away, Judy. Hammer like you’ve never hammered before…’

As Judy began to hammer and my arms began to rebel against the weight of the heavy curtain pole, I looked down and out the window and saw the postman walking up the drive. I smiled to him as he approached but he didn’t smile back. I suppose that’s the problem with sleeping in the nude. One quickly discovered the limitations of a pair of slippers when you’re holding up a curtain rail before a low silled bedroom window.

Stephen arrived an hour later when I was dressed, shaved, and buoyed by cornflakes.

‘How bad is it, old boy?’ I asked as I helped him into the hall.

‘Alas,’ said Fry, his arm in sling and plaster. ‘’Tis I, Fry, with the cruellest break of all. It’s my writing hand. I fear that the good people of The Guardian will have to do without Dork Talk for the foreseeable future. And my iPhone has been ringing all morning but I’ve been unable to answer it.’

‘Don’t you worry yourself about that,’ said Judy, fluffing a cushion on the sofa. ‘You come and sit down. You poor thing. And if you need somebody to do your typing for you, I’m sure Richard would only be too happy to help. It might even do him some good and show him that a real writer doesn’t just sit there and make things up off the top of his head.’

‘Indeed,’ said Fry, though I noticed, failing to meet her gaze.

‘I’m happy to do that,’ I said, flopping into my arm chair. ‘You need anything in the meantime? Something to eat? Entertainment? I could ring Oddie and ask him to bring his musical spoons?’

‘No, no,’ smiled Stephen as Judy perched herself next to him. ‘I just want to rest a few moments before we get to work.’

I looked at him. ‘Work? On a Saturday?’

‘I have noticed this in your before, Dick. You have a distinct reluctance to grasp life with both hands and shake it free of every drop of its possibility.’

An odd thing to say when your wrist is encased in plaster. He’d be grasping little in both hands for the foreseeable future. However, Stephen was right. I do complain about not having the time to write, yet in a few weeks I might be burdened with additional duties to make these days feel like protracted holidays.

‘Okay, I’ll help you,’ I said. ‘What do you need?’

He smiled as he used his good hand to retrieve his pipe from a pocket. Judy was soon shoving shag in his bowel and helping him to light it.

‘Bring my laptop in from the car and we’ll begin,’ said Stephen after a couple of mild puffs. ‘I was hoping to finish my libretto for my new opera based around the legend of Grunhilda, the one armed Bavarian bandit and truffle hunter. Wagner left his score unfinished when he began to find it too much for him. Luckily, I have the genius of Andrew Lloyd Webber to finish the music and give an extra the polish and layer it with my lyrics.’ He cleared his voice and began to sing in that occasionally fragile voice of his…

‘’Tis I, Grunhilda, speaking to you on my Alpine horn.
Where are you my band of flaxen haired lovelies,
We need to ascent again up yon Matterhorn,
Where grow the finest of Baverian trufflies…’

He gave an almost embarrassed smile as his voice finished echoing through the rooms.

‘Okay…’ I said.

‘Then I’d like us to write a couple of chapters of my new novel, “Bullocks in Tow”, my tale of farming life set against the backdrop of genetic mutations and cattle haulage.’

‘Right…’

‘And we’ll finish by writing a couple of essays on Tamil nationalism and security exploits in Mozilla based browsers. I thought after some dinner, we might spend the rest of the night writing poems and end with a game of Scrabble.’

‘I can see that you’re going to be busy,’ said Judy rising and adjusted her cuffs in a way that evoked just a touch of envy.

‘Indeed I am,’ I smiled, though I didn’t quite know how I should feel. ‘Give me five minutes, Stephen, while I just go and update my blog and I’ll be with you and Grunhilda.’

And now that job is done it’s time for me to learn how to write like the Master and learn the history of Grunhilda and her trufflies.

In Flames With Ronnie Corbett

I’m hardly a pendant when it comes to choosing my words. Nor am I the most dexterous wielder of the English language you’re find in the Land of Blog. But I do take an exception to those lexical mistakes and grammatical ambiguities that can be easily avoided. I direct your attention to an email I received from a certain Mrs. Dolore Mullis on Thursday morning. In it she asks me if I’ve ‘always wanted a penis the size of an elephant’. It annoyed me the moment it popped up in my iPhone’s inbox.

‘Look at this,’ I said to Ronnie Corbett as he drove our golf cart up the ninth fairway. ‘Surely she doesn’t actually mean to ask me if I want a penis the size of an elephant! Can you imagine that? Twelve feet long and eleven tonnes including trunk and tail?’

A glazed look descended over Ronnie’s face. I can only assume it had to do with the medication he’s still taking after his recent accident when a pressurised walnut exploding in his lap. All I know is that no sooner had I mentioned the elephant sized penis than he lost control of the buggy which veered into the light rough and ran smack into a tree. I’m blessed by excellent reflexes so I managed to leap out of my seat before Ronnie’s flask of whisky exploded in his bag of clubs. Soon there were flames everywhere. I was bloody lucky when a 3 wood narrowly missed my head.

As smoke began to billow above the course and golf balls began to explode in the intense heat, I ran back to the wreckage and pulled Ronnie from the driver’s chair. With the sound of concussions echoing across the greens, I dragged him into a nearby bunker were we could lie low until help arrived.

When he came around, Ronnie gazed up at me and pushed his glasses back up his nose.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘have you heard the joke about the ambulance driver who arrived at the scene of an accident involving a hot dog stand and a bus full of male strippers?’

‘Not now, Ronnie,’ I said as I fingered my iPhone. ‘We’re in a tight spot. You might be wondering how you came to be impaled by your sand wedge. Well, fear not. It’s missed your vital organs and we can deal with that when the time’s right. In the meantime, I need to contact a man whose knowledge of English is greater than that of any other living soul.’

This time, the phone only rang once before I heard the voice that is a comforting warmth in a world of cold fury.

‘’Tis I, Fry, on my iPhone, currently stacking shelves in Waitrose for my new television series, joyfully titled, “Stephen Fry Stacks Shelves in Waitrose”. What do you want Richard?’

‘I certainly don’t want a twelve foot penis,’ I told him.

‘Well that’s a most reassuring thing to know,’ he replied. ‘Rarely have I greeted news with such an expansive of relief. Now that’s settled, might I inquire how big a penis you would like?’

‘Well that’s really not the issue,’ I said. ‘I’m ringing you to discuss the nature of poor writing in emails. When a stranger sends you message asking if you want a penis the size of an elephant, they surely don’t mean the whole animal, do they? Wouldn’t it make more sense to ask if you wanted a hung like an elephant?’

‘Ah,’ he chuckled, gently. ‘Herein you strike upon the very subject of a future Dork Talk column that deals with elephant genitalia in some detail.’

‘Does it? Well I’d love to have a look at that piece before it goes to print.’

‘I’ll email it to you immediately,’ he said. ‘I haven’t finished it yet but I think it makes a few worthwhile points.’

‘And if you don’t mind, Stephen, can I post it on my blog? I’m sure my readers would like to see an early draft of Fry marginalia.’

‘Publish it as if it were your own,’ replied The Great Man. ‘Now I must dash. I’ve been called to do a clean up in aisle two… Yes, Mr. Forbes. I’m bringing my bucket and disinfectant this very moment!’

Fifteen minutes later, as Ronnie was being airlifted to safety, my iPhone beeped and Stephen’s article came through. It’s not quite as good as advertised but it is a first draft and is probably the most comprehensive article ever written on the relationship between an elephant’s penis and junk emails.

Enjoy.

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Dork Talk with Stephen Fry
The Spammers of Bad Grammars

Bless you all for stopping by again. Dork Talk is becoming a genuine bundle of like-minded bed fellows, all Firefox users, cheek to cheek under my large duvet made from a Sea Monkey. Fret you not a jot. I have nothing for you to ‘install’ today. I just wish to bend your ear on a matter of the utmost importance.

In the recent weeks, I have done my best to improve you lives by introducing you all to the joys of the iPhone and the electric toothbrush. What next, I hear you wonder, if indeed, I could hear you wonder. And what a world that would be were it true. Stephen psychic and holding you all to ransom. Mighty!

Well today’s article gives me a chance to warn you about some of the less eddifying technologies out there. Oh, I don’t mean non-Java complient handsets, though they are bad enough. Gor! No, I’m talking about elephants penises, goat glands, and the other terrifying promises being made in the world of web communications. None of us are free of those infernal emails and the false gratifications they promise. The problem with the people who write SPAM is that they lack the education to get the small details right. Take this little gem from the Fry inbox:

‘I gorgeous Russian girl with much love for you.’

Dear me, kind readers. What on earth can she mean? The she loves me as a man might love a vintage motor car or his mother? Or does this little Russian minx send me a veiled promise to give me pleasure that’s long, hot, and not a little moist? How is a man to respond, were he given to responding to the Russian mafia. I think silence is warranted on this occasion.

If you’re not shocked by the friendliness of Russian ladies, then you might be a little disturbed by the promises of some emails. Many are the times I’ve been asked if I wanted to have ‘a penis the size of an elephant’. Gulp. What a thing to behold, though, I relieved to say, not from close range.

I chuckled myself to sleep one night after receiving this communication from a dear lady called Alana:

‘oh my godness.. yourPenis is BELOW average size’

From a theological standpoint, this is troublesome to say the least. It assumes a phallocentric universe and that God in his greatness would overlook his single defining quality as a man. Then we have the use of the word ‘below’. An odd choice of word, to be sure. Many a well equipped man with short legs will be ‘below’ the average sized penis on a matter of altitude, though neither length nor girth, if you see what I mean and I’m sure that you do.

My advice to you is to set up some general mailbox rules. You should have a least one rule that deals with every message before you see it. It should contain the rule:

IF [message_from] != “Fry” THEN MOVETO [trash]
ELSE MOVETO [inbox] AND MARK [important] AND BOIL [twinings_earl_grey] WITH [two lumps] AND [milk=a drop] AND THEN GOTO [put_feet_up] WITH [stephen’s_latest_masterpiece]

You will find your life is much easier if you follow my advice. Consider: what indeed would you do with a penis the size of an elephant? Deary me. There is a question I think we will keep for a future Dork Talk. I really haven’t given it much thought. Shudder and, indeed, tremble.