Chelmsford 123

Badvoc:
So far we've had a woman with no hair, a woman with no teeth, and a woman with hair on her teeth.

Aulus Paulinus:
What have I done to deserve this? I'm not a bad person! I haven't killed my father or slept with my mother!

Mungo:
Hey, don't knock it till you've tried it.

Mungo:
I'm going into town to throw rocks at old people, d'you fancy coming?

Badvoc:
You need help, Mungo.

Mungo:
Yeah, Blag's gonna carry the rocks.

Badvoc:
If we went around stabbing Romans whenever we felt like it, there'd be no Romans left... to stab whenever we felt like it.

Grasientus:
[All in Latin] O mighty Caesar, the gods themselves do weep and fill the boundless ocean with tears of envy for even they do not possess such a beauty as your beloved Portia.

Emperor:
Well grovelled, Grasientus.

Aulus Paulinus:
Narrowly avoided the brown toga there.

Functio:
I have good news. The new governor has landed in Britain and is on his way.

Badvoc:
I thought you had some good news.

Functio:
It is good news to every right-thinking person in this province.

Badvoc:
Both of them?

Aulus Paulinus:
Greetings. I didn't catch the name.

Mungo:
They call me Mungo the Contradictory.

Aulus Paulinus:
Do they?

Mungo:
No.

Mungo:
They call me Mungo the Contradictory.

Aulus Paulinus:
Do they?

Mungo:
No.

Vulcan:
Are you going to let me use this thunderbolt or what?

Jupiter:
Don't rush, Vulcan. You've got the whole of eternity. In a few thousand years, you will be able to use it for the great benefit of mankind.

Vulcan:
Doing what?

Jupiter:
Killing people who play golf.

Aulus Paulinus:
Anyway, Grasientus, don't you feel spring coursing through your veins? Don't you get the odd bout of tent-pole toga?

Grasientus:
Happily I am not a slave to that part of my anatomy, Aulus.

Aulus Paulinus:
Just as well Grasientus, because you are, with all due respect, an ugly bastard.

Old Woman:
Have I got the job?

Badvoc:
We'll let you know!

Old Woman:
I'm very good in the sack!

Badvoc:
Uh, yeah... Blag, go put her in a sack.

Aulus Paulinus:
[Grasientus is attempting to hang himself] Guards! Could you cut this down, please... it's wasting good rope.

Enya:
[has just walked in to see Grasientus attaching a noose to his neck] What are you doing?

Grasientus:
Making a cheese and onion souffl?. What does it look like? I'm hanging myself!

Aulus Paulinus:
So, you're the new serving girl, are you?

Enya:
[frostily] Yes.

Aulus Paulinus:
Sorry, I, er... I always get a bit sort of tongue-tied when I'm in the presence of a very pretty girl. I, er... I always seem to end up saying the wrong thing. [pause] Fancy a quick poke?

Viatorus:
May I remind you that my superb aqueduct ended the great Syrian drought disaster.

Aulus Paulinus:
Or as we now know it, the great Syrian flood disaster.

Wolfbane:
It's a lovely moon up there. Whenever I sense the delicate glow from her gently smiling face, my heart fills with feelings of love and joy. That pure white light spells mystery and suggests moments of secret pleasure and it's then, then when I see the moon in all its radiant beauty, then I feel like shagging fat Blodwyn.

Grasientus:
A map of ancient Chelmsford has been stolen from the map room.

Aulus Paulinus:
That's very peculiar, Grasientus. We've got a map room?

Grasientus:
Bet it's one of Badvoc's man.

Aulus Paulinus:
Grasientus, something puzzles me.

Grasientus:
Yes. You mean why would he want to steal a map of old Chelmsford?

Aulus Paulinus:
No, what you were doing in the map room at three in the morning.

Grasientus:
Ah, yes, well... apart from the maps I keep certain literature in there which I browse through often before retiring.

Aulus Paulinus:
You mean the ones depicting scenes from pastoral Greece? The ones showing shepherds and shepherdesses doing what shepherds and shepherdesses do when they're not shepherding their sheep?

Grasientus:
The very same.

Aulus Paulinus:
So what's in this map room?

Grasientus:
Well apart from the...

Aulus Paulinus:
...Greek porno.

Grasientus:
A few maps.

Aulus Paulinus:
How many?

Grasientus:
One.

Aulus Paulinus:
And it's been stolen.

Grasientus:
Yes. Appalling, isn't it?

Aulus Paulinus:
Well Grasientus, we are faced with the most serious problem. Namely... what do we now call the map room?

Wolfbane:
W-A-L-L spells well in my book.

Badvoc:
What book is that?

Wolfbane:
Spolling for begooners.

Badvoc:
I've been like a father to you.

Mungo:
That's true. You beat me up and slept with my mother.

Aulus Paulinus:
You were on guard last night?

Roman Guard:
Yes, sir.

Aulus Paulinus:
And you stood on guard at my door all night?

Roman Guard:
Yes, sir. I may have left once briefly just to... you know.

Aulus Paulinus:
Go to the bathroom.

Roman Guard:
Got to the bathroom. Back at my house. I wasn't there long, I just went to the went to the toilet, had a spot of dinner and then put some shelves up. She's been on at me for months. You know what women are like. Then I can straight back here... after I'd given the missus a bit of a seeing to. I was there... I thought, well why not?

Aulus Paulinus:
What's your job again?

Roman Guard:
Head of security.

Aulus Paulinus:
It's been a year now. A year of involuntary celibacy. I'm about as horny as rhinoceros and a unicorn in a Who's Got The Biggest Horn competition.

Grasientus:
You're not exactly spoiled for choice around here, are you? The British girls are either ugly, ugly or ugly.

Aulus Paulinus:
She doesn't have to be British. I'm mad with lust. She could be Greek, Syrian, Spanish.

Grasientus:
Belgian.

Aulus Paulinus:
I'm not that mad! Anyway Grasientus, don't you feel Spring coursing through your veins? Don't you get the odd bout of Tent Pole Toga?

Grasientus:
Happy I am not a slave to that part of my anatomy, Aulus.

Aulus Paulinus:
Just as well because you are, with all due respect, an ugly bastard.

Badvoc:
Has anyone explained why you're here?

Enya:
Someone said it was to do with pulling a fast one on the Roman governor.

Badvoc:
Indeed it is.

Enya:
Good, because I hate him. I hate all Romans. You wouldn't get me within 100 miles of a Roman, unless it was to castrate him with a very blunt and rusty knife.

Badvoc:
Good, because in many ways this job does entail castrating the Roman governor with blunt and rusty knife.

Enya:
Great!

Badvoc:
But we thought we'd lure him into a false sense of security.

Enya:
How do you mean?

Badvoc:
Supposing you were to marry him, live with him, be the loyal little wife, have his kids, perhaps even go back to Rome with him. And then when the time is right, say in about 30 or 40 years, you whip out the carving knife and Bob's your auntie.

Enya:
No.

Badvoc:
1000 pieces of silver?

Enya:
I'll do it.

Badvoc:
Always nice to work with somebody who's politically committed.

Mungo:
Word is that the governor's up at the villa, sitting for a statue.

Badvoc:
What does he want a statue for?

Mungo:
He wants people to 'pay him homage'.

Badvoc:
[confused] Pay him homage? What's homage?

Mungo:
I dunno... I think it's a tax on homosexuals.

Legate:
What's your name?

Mungo:
They call me Mungo the Evasive.

Legate:
Why is that?

Mungo:
Who wants to know?

Grasientus:
Badvoc has set up a brothel somewhere to exploit our soldiers and undermine out discipline. 50 sesterci for an hour of depraved sex.

Aulus Paulinus:
That is bad. It's only 25 in Rome.

Viatorus:
As you are all well aware, I have been designing roads now all over the Empire with considerable success, if you'll excuse my modesty. Now this particular road has posed many difficult and challenging but the design I have come up with copes adequately therewith, and takes into consideration economic and topographical feasibilities, and is, and I say this without any own glory, like all great architecture the perfect marriage of the aesthetic and the functional, the sensuous and the pragmatic...

Aulus Paulinus:
You've done us a straight line again, haven't you?

Mungo:
They call me Mungo the Procrastinator.

Marcus:
Why is that?

Mungo:
I'll tell you tomorrow.

[Aulus has become fed up with the fact that Viatorus can't include noses in his artwork]

Aulus Paulinus:
I want a new bust, by next week, *with* a nose!

Viatorus:
Oh, very well.

[pauses]

Viatorus:
You wouldn't settle for an extra ear, would you?

Functio:
Wasn't it the festival of Saturnalia, a good few years ago now, when we ran naked through the streets, garlands on our hair, completely out of our brains?

Aulus Paulinus:
No, that was Trajan's funeral.

Badvoc:
Do we have to play these stupid games? I'm bored out of my head.

Blag:
Why don't we just take off all our clothes and run around the heath naked screaming obscenities at the top of our voice?

Badvoc:
We do that every day.

Emperor:
[In Latin] Man, woman or animal, it's all the same. Stick it in, jiggle it about, feel guilty.

Aulus Paulinus:
Gods, what have I done to offend you? I'm not a bad man. I've never done anything wrong. I've never killed my father or slept with my mother.

Mungo:
Hey! Don't knock it until you've tried it.

Badvoc:
Calm down, Aulus. So the Emperor is coming over. Big deal! I can't see your problem.

Aulus Paulinus:
I've been sending him monthly reports saying that Britain is a clean, well-run province with a hard working, loyal population.

Badvoc:
I see your problem.

Grasientus:
Not really the same, you know, Christians and sheep. They're not exactly savage. They're sort of simple, woolly minded aimless creatures.

Aulus Paulinus:
I know, but the sheep are good fun.

Mungo:
Word is the governor is up at the villa sitting for a statue.

Badvoc:
What does he want a statue for?

Mungo:
He wants people to pay him homage.

Badvoc:
Pay him homage? What's homage?

Mungo:
I dunno. I think it's a tax on homosexuals.

Mungo:
They call me Mungo the Forgetful.

Wolfbane:
Why is that?

Mungo:
Why is what?

Grasientus:
You're just paranoid, Aulus. You see assassins behind every pillar.

Aulus Paulinus:
[alarmed] What pillar? I thought I told you to get rid of all the pillars! That's where assassins hide, you fool!

Mungo:
They call me Mungo the Forgetful.

Wolfbane:
Why's that?

Mungo:
Why's what?

Badvoc:
Dumping me in a barrel of sh*t doesn't bother me, you know. I've been to Ipswich on market day.

Mungo:
I think we burst into the villa on horseback, tie the whole lot of them up by the ankles and drag them through the streets of Chelmsford. Then slit them down the front, tie them up by their own intestines in stocks in the middle of the marketplace, throw bags of stinking fish heads at them, chop their toes off and stuff them down their throats.

Badvoc:
Nah, that's what they'll be expecting us to do.

Aulus Paulinus:
Grasientus, go to your room and write a farewell note to your testicles.