Oliver's Travels

Diane Priest:
Just go away... forever.

Oliver:
If I do, you'll never find out.

Diane Priest:
What?

Oliver:
The very funny thing I know about sex.

Oliver:
I tried to call you "Mrs Priest", and you said to me, "Diane, not Priest".

Diane Priest:
"Diane, not Priest".

Oliver:
Those words are a perfect anagram of "predestination".

Diane Priest:
What's predestination got to do with it?

Oliver:
As I understand it in simple terms, and without wishing to embarrass you, it means... we were sent on this Earth to be together.

Diane Priest:
Holy Mother of God.

Oliver:
Is it all right if I talk to strange men?

Diane Priest:
Only if they're VERY strange.

Oliver:
Big Brother is watching us, but he is also as thick as pig sh*t!

[satisfied murmuring and groaning from the television]

Oliver:
My word! That's impressive.

WPC Diane Priest:
You should be ashamed of yourself. What *are* you watching?

Oliver:
Simulated sexual intercourse.

WPC Diane Priest:
What's the programme?

Oliver:
I don't know? Wildlife on One. World in Action. Two-Way Family Favourites. Do we look like that?

WPC Diane Priest:
I expect so. We've got four buttocks between us. I dare say they heave in the regulation way. I've never watched.

Oliver:
I like sex better the way it used to be.

WPC Diane Priest:
Has there been some change I don't know about?

Oliver:
I liked it better when the boy kissed the girl and the next thing you saw were waves lapping on the seashore or smoke belching forth from a chimney or a train rushing into a tunnel.

WPC Diane Priest:
Ah you sweet old-fashioned thing.

Baxter:
I need you to restore my work - my security work.

Oliver:
Is there something wrong with your security work?

Baxter:
It has sprung a leak. I believe you two *are* the leak. I believe you two have acquired information that, from my point of view and the point of view of the people I work for and most of all from your point of view, is lethal.

Oliver:
Lethal?

Baxter:
In its precise dictionary definition: "causing death". Give me your lethal information.

WPC Diane Priest:
[scornfully] And what do *we* get.

Baxter:
I hate to sound like a second-rate gangster, but you get to live.

Oliver:
[to Diane] All I can promise you is comfort and a few very old jokes.

Oliver:
So, you've approved my credentials. Are we going to be together for all eternity?

WPC Diane Priest:
Till lunchtime.

[Diane is questioning Oliver about himself, in the style of the TV programme "Mastermind"]

WPC Diane Priest:
You have two minutes, starting from... now! Marital status?

Oliver:
Initially confused, later divorced.

WPC Diane Priest:
When?

Oliver:
Ten years ago on a Thursday.

WPC Diane Priest:
Children?

Oliver:
[long pause] No.

WPC Diane Priest:
Reasons for divorce?

Oliver:
I didn't listen when she talked.

WPC Diane Priest:
Was she right?

Oliver:
Sorry, I wasn't listening.

WPC Diane Priest:
[exasperated] Stop the clock!

Oliver:
This is The Information Age. "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in... information?"

Kevin:
Murdering people is wrong, isn't it?

Oliver:
Most of the world's religions say thou shalt not do it. Some of them will kill you to prove their point.

Sgt. Ellis:
Right. Missing person?

Oliver:
Yes.

Sgt. Ellis:
Name and address?

Oliver:
Mine or the missing persons?

Sgt. Ellis:
Well, let's start with the missing person's.

Oliver:
That's the hard one.

Sgt. Ellis:
In what way?

Oliver:
I don't know him by his real name.

Sgt. Ellis:
What name do you know him by then?

Oliver:
Aristotle, but that's a pseudonym.

Sgt. Ellis:
We prefer to call it an alias.

Oliver:
Accessing information? It's the same as remembering things, isn't it?

Oliver:
I'm an old trivia, quiz, and crossword buff. There's no cure.

Oliver:
In the great galaxy of education, it was the best of terms, it was the worst of terms. My travels began once upon a time in the Rhondda Valley. I got up, washed, showered and shaved, ate my bran, checked the crossword, and went to work. As it turned out, I might have been better advised to stay at home. It depends on how you feel about murder, corruption, and organized crime. I have always been against them. On the other hand, I have always been in favour of love. A tricky little conundrum, and very like life.

[Mrs Moody offers her condolences that Oliver has been made redundant from the university]

Oliver:
I expected it from the first moment.

Mrs. Moody:
You did?

Oliver:
A letter arrived from your husband inviting me to meet him at a sherry party. It was signed "T. H. MOODY".

Mrs. Moody:
Theodore Horatio. Family names, God help us.

Oliver:
But don't you see? It's an anagram of "THY DOOM". "Oliver," I said to myself, "Prepare to meet thy doom"... and I did.

Oliver:
I'm feeling the chill of middle age. I need the warmth of a good woman.

Mrs. Moody:
Bullshit.

[she walks away]

Oliver:
Also, I know something very funny about sex, and you'll never know what it is.

Mrs. Moody:
And what would this old trivial quiz and crossword buff like as a leaving present?

Oliver:
Well, in the best of all possible worlds, you.

Mrs. Moody:
Me?

Oliver:
When your husband introduced us at the sherry party, he said "This is my wife, Norma".

Mrs. Moody:
Not another anagram?

Oliver:
"Fire woman". You give off heat, Mrs Moody. Which is more, alas, than I can say for your husband.

Mrs. Moody:
I'm not on offer.

Oliver:
What *is* on offer?

Mrs. Moody:
A set of matching suitcases.

Oliver:
Imagine, once upon a time, typewriters were made in Great Britain.

Mrs. Moody:
Imagine typewriters.

Oliver:
I'll walk with you.

Diane Priest:
I don't need masculine protection.

Oliver:
Certainly not mine. I have the body of a weak and feeble man.

Oliver:
I tried to call you "Mrs Priest" and you said to me, "Diane, not Priest".

Diane Priest:
"Diane, not Priest".

Oliver:
Those words are a perfect anagram of "predestination".

Diane Priest:
What's predestination got to do with it?

Oliver:
As I understand it in simple terms, and without wishing to embarrass you, it means... we were sent on this Earth to be together.

Diane Priest:
Holy Mother of God.

Oliver:
You taught yourself computer technology?

T. H. Moody:
[nods] Social and Economic History, that was my field. But when I saw what was happening in the real world...

Oliver:
Ah, yes, the real world.

T. H. Moody:
Survival of the fittest. Adapt or die. I realised that history was, er...

Oliver:
...a thing of the past.

T. H. Moody:
Oh, you teach, er, Comparative Religion?

Oliver:
My chosen specialist subject. I originally planned to bowl off-spinners for England and play a cool jazz tenor saxophone, but somehow I drifted.

Oliver:
[Entering a club] Hey, would you believe Dizzy blew in here?

WPC Diane Priest:
I had never expected the world to make sense, but suddenly it was making such little sense, it almost made sense.

Oliver:
You can feel just as alienated floating face down in a loch as you can in a Welsh River.

Oliver:
It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.

Oliver:
But it's all about homage... listening to the ghosts.

Baxter:
[Outside a church] I'm also a Catholic, and this is holy ground.

Oliver:
Wasn't Al Capone a Catholic?

WPC Diane Priest:
It's total madness! Madness is all anyone believes in these days!

WPC Diane Priest:
All right. Now tell me the very funny thing you know about sex.

Oliver:
Strange. I've been that line for years. When I first started, it was what we called a chat-up line, but you're not allowed to say that any more. But you're the first woman who ever wanted to know.

WPC Diane Priest:
I may live to pay a terrible price.

Oliver:
Do I look like a serpent bearing forbidden fruit?

WPC Diane Priest:
No you look like a little boy who's discovered there's a better game than conkers.

Oliver:
It may just be the case.

WPC Diane Priest:
So, tell me...

Oliver:
All right. The very funny thing you know about sex is this... A woman, naked except for her stockings, is an extremely erotic sight. A man, naked except for his socks, is a totally ludicrous sight.

[they laugh]

[Oliver and Diane are staying at a bed-and-breakfast next to Hadrian's Wall]

Mrs. Robson:
We used to have some fun with the Germans that came here. I used to show them the Wall and say "Look at that, love. We were first." But they never laughed.

WPC Diane Priest:
I want to ask big questions. Questions I have to ask myself. Like: will I take this man as my un-lawful, un-wedded husband, even as far as Hadrian's Wall.

Oliver:
Oh, we have to go *much* further than that. We have to travel far beyond the wall.

WPC Diane Priest:
That's why it's a big question.

Oliver:
All you have to do is say "yes". Wilt thou take this man?

WPC Diane Priest:
And wilt thou take this woman?

Oliver:
It's predestination. What else should we consider?

WPC Diane Priest:
Forsaking all others.

Oliver:
All the others have forsaken me. So it isn't really a live issue.

WPC Diane Priest:
And there's nobody for me to forsake.

Oliver:
How about worldly goods. There are some people feel very strongly about worldly goods.

WPC Diane Priest:
Haven't got any. Have you?

Oliver:
Purely for the record, a little house in south Wales, full of books, records and compact discs.

WPC Diane Priest:
And a head full of trivia.

Oliver:
All yours. And thereto I plight thee my troth.

WPC Diane Priest:
They had that one at *my* wedding, too. I never knew what it meant. Didn't like to ask.

Oliver:
To "plight" is to pledge or promise. Your "troth" is your loyalty and fidelity. So it's a pledge of loyalty and fidelity.

WPC Diane Priest:
All right. I plight thee my troth.

Oliver:
[sounding amazed] You do?

WPC Diane Priest:
From this day forward.

Oliver:
As long as we both shall live.

WPC Diane Priest:
As long as it takes to get to the Orkneys.

Oliver:
I will.

WPC Diane Priest:
I will.

[Oliver kisses Diane's hands]