Stephen Fry's Honey Drizzler

Don’t you long for those days when a man could be caught strangling a ferret without having people judging him about it? I know that I do. It came to mind, earlier this morning, when I was caught manhandling a live rodent in the privacy of my own garden shed. Judy had assumed the worst: that I’d gone there with the intention of wringing some rattish neck. She just wouldn’t listen to reason and had even threatened to inform the RSPCA via their local representative.

‘What will Bill Oddie say?’ she asked, her panic only constrained by the shed doorway. ‘You’re getting a reputation as a serial rodent abuser, Richard. First it was house mice and then you killed poor Colin, John Cleese’s sweet lemur...’

‘That sweet lemur was trying to rip out your throat,’ I reminded her. ‘If I hadn’t smacked Colin with a copy of my hugely popular book (which is no misery memoir), you’d be without a larynx.’

‘Oh, a likely story, Richard,’ replied Judy. ‘Just like you told everybody that Stephen Fry had his arm broken by the flipper of an enraged manatee. Why can’t you just be a man and admit that you brought that ferret in here to have your evil ways with it? What is it you like about beating up these poor animals? It has to be something more than comic effect. Do you like to hear their little bones break? Is that what it is, Richard? Is that what excites you? Is that how you get your kicks?’

By now, I had managed to subdue the ferret my kneeling on its tail and I delayed explaining myself until I had carried the animal to the shed door where I cast it out onto the lawn. It bounced once and then made a dash for the fence and the safety of Ronnie Corbett’s vegetable patch.

‘Judy, if you’ll only listen. I’ll tell you how this happened.’

I then proceeded to tell her about the events of my morning which had begun quite innocently with the optimistic hope of drizzling some honey.

I woke up around eight, feeling nipped in the places where my toes had escaped the duvet. Judy was sound asleep, snoring in that baritone that is now so familiar and perfectly tuned to a low B flat. Rather than waking her, I slipped into my slippers (you might say, made for that very purpose), and went down to the kitchen to address breakfast. Because I was cold, I thought I’d make myself my favourite morning tipple: some hot water dosed with honey. The kettle was soon boiled and I poured a good amount into my favourite Monty Python Toby Jug, fashioned into a faithful facsimile of Terry Jones’ best grin. Now it was time for the honey. And that’s when disaster struck. I took Judy's favourite honey drizzler from the drawer and dipped it into a new jar of organic honey (a gift from a friend). I then gave the drizzler a twist and withdrew it sharply. It emerged handle only. The end had come detached and had sank in the depths of finest honey ever transmitted by the bottoms of Felicity Kendal’s bumble bees.

But you know that I’m not the sort of man to wail about a honey drizzler failing. If nothing else, I am a man of action. I immediately went upstairs and dressed myself for my workshop. Then I took the damaged honey drizzler into the shed intending to repair it.

Now, I have one of the best outfitted workshops in North London and it’s in that shed where I’ve made many of the inventions that have made my name in the world of science and technology. It’s there that I built Paul Merton’s pogo stick, added the rockets to Clarkson’s rocket car. It was there that I invented yeast free yeast and gave birth to the iCod, the world’s first genetically altered flat fish. Yet after my initial inspection of the drizzer, I knew that I’d need expert help. This was no ordinary break but wood that had been heavily fatigued by years of constant drizzling. I reached for the phone and the number of the only man I can call on in these emergencies.

Three rings later and there was a noise like an armed riot in a Columbian kindergarten followed by a familiar voice. ‘Ah, ’tis I, Fry, on my iPhone, though I fear my Nokia noise cancelling headset will struggle to overcome the ambient sounds of my location.’

‘Where on earth are you?’ I asked. ‘Sounds like you’re on a war front.’

‘A war front, indeed, Dicky. I am currently doing a bit of Christmas shopping. I’m in Hameley’s toy store where I am in the process of scoping out a BattleTech War Mage with World Destructor Kneecaps and Nipple Mounted Lasers.’

‘Cut the dorktalk, Stephen,’ I snapped. ‘Listen, it’s about this honey drizzler you bought me for Christmas seven years ago. I don’t know what reviews you read before buying it but the ruddy thing has already broken.’

‘I hope you’re not asking me for the receipt,’ mumbled the Great Man. ‘I fear that I keep them for only six years before I destroy them.’

‘Stuff the receipt. I want your help repairing it.’

Stephen chuckled. ‘But I honestly don’t see what I can do...’

‘It’s a spiral fracture,’ I said.

He fell silent, no doubt overcome by the manatee episode and his own spiral injury. ‘I’ll be there in half an hour,’ he said.

I opened my door nearly an hour later and ducked as nipple mounted lasers took aim.

‘You’re late,’ I said.

‘I know,’ said Fry. ‘It was a long line to the tills and I lacked the triple A batteries to power my nipples.’

‘So you bought it then?’ I said, nodding towards the robot.

‘Oh, tush. Indeed: gripes. How could I not buy such a sweet little droid? There will be much fun to be had over Christmas programming this to annihilate many a C list celebrity. But enough about my plans to destroy the talentless portion of our world. Show me the drizzer!’

I led Stephen to the shed and we began the long process of repairing the handle. The spiral fracture meant that we had to be careful as we applied wood glue and set the whole thing up in clamps. When it was time for Stephen to leave, he was exhausted and he had taxied off before he’d remembered the Battlemech Droid he’d left in the hall. Naturally, when I tried to ring him, his iPhone battery must have gone dead. Unable to reach him, I realised that I couldn’t leave his droid in the hall. Judy has few rules but I knew that she’d take poorly to the World Destrouctor Kneecaps.

I carried the droid to the shed where I made room for it behind my prototype for a Kranky firing Cannon. And that’s when I discovered the hole. It wasn’t a big hole but it was a significant breech in a shed that contains so many state secrets. The corner of the shed was now missing a good six inch circle of wood. I kneeled down and peered into the hole and found that I could see right through to the Corbetts’ side of the fence. If I’d known the layout of their garden, I might not have reached my hand into the hole, nor grabbed so tightly onto the first thing I felt.

At first, I thought it might have been one of Mrs. Corbett’s old stoles. Then I thought I’d put my hand into a crate of costumes from Ronnie’s cross-dressing days on the Two Ronnies. I thought perhaps that it might even have been the famous fur coat that he wore when he sang that song about the farmer judging the Women’s Institute’s sponge pudding competition. The whole thing was really a vulgar euphemism for something else and the thought of holding onto that coat encouraged me to try to pull it through the hole.

‘I hardly expect it to bite me,,’ I explained to Judy. ‘How was I to know that I’d put my hand into the cage where Ronnie keeps his prize ferret?’

Judy looked at me with a renewed look of love in her eyes. ‘If only you’d told me about Stephen’s robot earlier,’ she said. ‘All this would have made complete sense.’

‘So I’m forgiven?’ I asked.

‘Of course you’re forgiven,’ said Judy, wiping the trickle of blood from my cheek where the ferret had nearly taken out my eye. ‘Unlike the time you battered John Cleese’s lemur, this time you had good reason to attack that rodent. If only I had known, Richard, I might even have helped you beat it unconscious.’

The smile came easily to my lips. ‘Jude,’ I replied, ‘it’s thoughtfulness like that which has made you such a much loved public figure, a veritable mother to our nation.’

John Cleese and Colin the Lemur

As much as I feel humbled (and not a little belittled) by the two days I’m about to spend up in Manchester, there are other times when I realise how unique it is to be me. Last night’s show, for instance, was an absolute screamer. One for the archives. It was the sort of show that Judy tapes to VHS, wraps in ribbons, and then stuffs at the back of her sock drawer. By the time we’d finished recording, I felt about ten years younger and a fluid ounce lighter. An hour spent in the company of John Cleese is like a year with any other man. He’s a riot and an absolute hero of mine. He also had me laughing so hard that I don’t mind admitting that I wet myself. And I don’t mean just a little bit wet. I mean wet enough for two grown men.

‘Is that it?’ asked John as the camera’s red light dimmed and we went off air.

‘That’s it,’ I said, wiping away the few remaining tears from my ankles. ‘Listen, that was one of the best interviews we’ve ever done. It’s not often that we do these shows live but you were an absolute pro.’

‘So what do I do now?’

‘Now you go home, John,’ I said.

‘Must I? Can’t I come home with you and Judy? I can make a fantastic omelette.’

‘You want to come home with us?’

‘Couldn’t I? I’d be no trouble. And what’s more, I’ll be just as funny as I was on air. But if you let me out of here now, I’ll be totally irresponsible. I guarantee I’ll be married again before midnight unless you save me from myself.’

I looked at Judy and Judy looked at me. Invisible signs were passed between us that only bats would have picked up.

‘Oh, okay,’ I said, ‘come home with us, John. But before we go, we just have to check the tape.’

For every show that we do live, we always go to the side of the stage where all the monitors are located and have a quick look to see how the show appeared to our viewers. Last night, with John in tow, everything was looking fine until the first ad break. That's when Judy noticed the mistake.

On the show’s credits some goon had written ‘Wednessday 16th July’. It was just the sort of mistake that Judy finds unforgivable. She just went berserk. She began cursing and screaming and lashing out. She tore a monitor from the stand and sent it crashing into a cameraman. John was rigid with shock while I could only strip off my jacket and try to calm down my wife, who I knew wouldn’t rest until the guilty person was found and punished.

‘Come on, love,’ I said. ‘Nobody will have noticed. It’s been proved that 92% of the British public can’t even spell “Wednesday”.’

It was slightly deceitful of me, I know, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that I’ve been employing my old PA Dennis to work on the show’s graphics. The man has suffered enough and I feared for his remaining arm should Judy have discovered that he was to blame for the typo.

‘That’s not the point if most people are too dim to spot it,’ screamed Judy. ‘It made us look like rank bloody amateurs. It is most unprofe...’

At which point she tripped over John’s abnormally large feet.

For the first two steps, she looked like she would recover but on the third she completely lost balance and went stumbling into Rob the Zookeeper who, as you probably know, had been on the show to help John demonstrate how a lemur eats grapes and generally do his little bit to Help Save the Lemur.

I needn’t tell you that it’s generally not a good idea to go stumbling into a zoo keeper, especially when the zoo keeper is trying to coax a male lemur into its cage. Judy hit him around the ribs and Rob fell forward. What followed was a matter of angles. The way he’d been holding the animal and the direction he was falling... It’s probably easier and more polite to say that he goosed the lemur. Unfortunately, the lemur happened to be called Colin and like 82% of males called Colin, he didn’t like where the zoo keeper put his thumb. This made the lemur quite mad but he didn’t turn on Rob but turned on Judy.

Judy tried to bat Colin away but the lemur had his tail around her throat before she could deploy her highly trained fists to fend it away. John, in the meantime, being much closer, leapt straight into the fight and tried to pull the lemur off Judy’s face. Having claimed live on air that they are a very docile creature, he was clearly not prepared for the snarling teeth of a prosimian who have been violated by a zoo keeper's thumb.

‘Bloody things are supposed to be docile,’ shouted John as he examined his finger.

I had no thought for John’s finger or the zoo keeper’s thumb. Judy was turning a deeper shade of purple as the lemur tightened its grip on her throat.

‘Docile?’ I cried. ‘I’ll show you docile!’ And with that I cracked Colin across the snout with a copy of my forthcoming book, ‘Fathers and Sons’, which I just happened to have on my person and will be available at all good bookshops in the Autumn.

‘Gosh,’ said John. ‘I haven’t seen a man kill a lemur with a three hundred page hardback in years. You see. That’s why I miss the UK. You don’t get this in Santa Barbara. What else can you kill? Can we get a squirrel in here? I’ve always wanted to stun a squirrel. I could use my shoe if you’re all out of books.’

I let John witter way. With Judy now able to breathe, the four of us stood over the body of Colin.

‘I think you’ve killed him,’ said Rob the zoo keeper.

‘No,’ said John. ‘I think it’s still breathing.’ He moved to slip off his loafer. ‘Do you want me to finish him, Dick? Want me to give him the coup de grace?’

I was in no mood for John's sarcasm. I could see that the animal was indeed taking small gasps.

‘Perhaps mouth to mouth,’ suggested Judy whose had recovered enough composure to be back to her caring self.

Rob didn’t hesitate. He knelt down and began to administer artificial respiration, which, I can assure you, isn’t easy with an animal with a narrow snout.

‘I can’t do it,’ he said after a couple of attempts. ‘My mouth is still dry from the studio lights. I’m not getting an airtight seal.’

‘Look here,’ I said, ‘why don’t you let me have a go? I’ve probably got the healthiest lungs here and I’ve got more than enough saliva.’

‘Yes,’ said John. ‘Let Dick have a go. After all, he’s the one that nearly killed Colin.’

John may be a comic genius but he can be so distracting in situations involving lemurs battling for their lives. To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to giving the kiss of life to a lemur. Rather filthy looking animals, if I’m to be honest. I closed my eyes and steeled myself as I took a couple of deep breaths before I grabbed Colin and quickly gave him as much air as I could manage in one go.

This, I suppose, was the moment when it all became too much for Judy. She gave a scream and then fainted.

‘Looks like you’re blowing into the wrong end, old boy,’ said John in that rather know-it-all way he has. ‘I’d say that if Colin does ever recover from the mortal touch of your forthcoming bestseller, then he’s going to be an extremely flatulent lemur for the next few days. What on earth possessed you to blow there?’

Naturally, I had no answer except to say that I didn’t know one end of a lemur from the other. I don’t suppose many men do. There certainly aren’t many TV talk show hosts who can claim to have give artificial respiration to the wrong end of a half-dead primate in the company of one of the nation’s most well respected funny men.

But then again: that was just the thing about yesterday. It was just so unique being me.