FIRST Bushy:
Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.
SECOND Bushy:
Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?
THIRD Bushy:
You're right there, Obadiah.
FOURTH Bushy:
Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?
FIRST Bushy:
In them days we was glad to live next to a Somalian.
SECOND Bushy:
I lived next door to a Bangladeshi with a family of 12.
FOURTH Bushy:
I lived next door to an Algerian with a dodgy moustache who claimed benefits despite being able to walk to newsagent to buy the Racing Post each day.
THIRD Bushy:
I'm sure my foreign neighbour raped the Queen Mum
FIRST Bushy:
Never mine that, mine had a box set of The Sweeney.
FOURTH Bushy:
Box set of The Sweeney, my foreign neighbour had Downton Abbey performing live in his outdoor lav twice a week.
SECOND Bushy:
The best we could manage was to watch repeats of Love Thy Neighbour on Dave.
THIRD Bushy:
But you know, we were happy in those days before the foreigners arrived, though we were poor.
FIRST Bushy:
Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".
FOURTH Bushy:
Aye, 'e was right.
FIRST Bushy:
Aye, 'e was.
FOURTH Bushy:
I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof with used nappies raining down on us 24/7.
SECOND Bushy:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of smelling curried goat.
THIRD Bushy:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in blacked out corridor to avoid seeing any dark skinned people!
FIRST Bushy:
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a Mosque full of muslims praying near to us! House? Huh.
FOURTH Bushy:
Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
SECOND Bushy:
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground to make way for a Nigerian refugee's language centre; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.
THIRD Bushy:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us working class Londoners living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
FIRST Bushy:
Cardboard box?
THIRD Bushy:
Aye.
FIRST Bushy:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down docks, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home the Nigerian next door would steal our wages and thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
SECOND Bushy:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at docks for tuppence a month, come home, and Algerian next door would pimp us out at Victoria station, then thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD Bushy:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at docks for sixpence every four years, and when we got home a Rwandan asylum claimant would slice off a toe with a cutlass.
FOURTH Bushy:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down docks, and pay dock owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, a Muslim suicide bomber would blow us to smithereens with an IED singing Hallelujah.
FIRST Bushy:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
ALL:
They won't!
Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.
SECOND Bushy:
Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?
THIRD Bushy:
You're right there, Obadiah.
FOURTH Bushy:
Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?
FIRST Bushy:
In them days we was glad to live next to a Somalian.
SECOND Bushy:
I lived next door to a Bangladeshi with a family of 12.
FOURTH Bushy:
I lived next door to an Algerian with a dodgy moustache who claimed benefits despite being able to walk to newsagent to buy the Racing Post each day.
THIRD Bushy:
I'm sure my foreign neighbour raped the Queen Mum
FIRST Bushy:
Never mine that, mine had a box set of The Sweeney.
FOURTH Bushy:
Box set of The Sweeney, my foreign neighbour had Downton Abbey performing live in his outdoor lav twice a week.
SECOND Bushy:
The best we could manage was to watch repeats of Love Thy Neighbour on Dave.
THIRD Bushy:
But you know, we were happy in those days before the foreigners arrived, though we were poor.
FIRST Bushy:
Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".
FOURTH Bushy:
Aye, 'e was right.
FIRST Bushy:
Aye, 'e was.
FOURTH Bushy:
I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof with used nappies raining down on us 24/7.
SECOND Bushy:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of smelling curried goat.
THIRD Bushy:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in blacked out corridor to avoid seeing any dark skinned people!
FIRST Bushy:
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a Mosque full of muslims praying near to us! House? Huh.
FOURTH Bushy:
Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
SECOND Bushy:
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground to make way for a Nigerian refugee's language centre; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.
THIRD Bushy:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us working class Londoners living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
FIRST Bushy:
Cardboard box?
THIRD Bushy:
Aye.
FIRST Bushy:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down docks, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home the Nigerian next door would steal our wages and thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
SECOND Bushy:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at docks for tuppence a month, come home, and Algerian next door would pimp us out at Victoria station, then thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD Bushy:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at docks for sixpence every four years, and when we got home a Rwandan asylum claimant would slice off a toe with a cutlass.
FOURTH Bushy:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down docks, and pay dock owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, a Muslim suicide bomber would blow us to smithereens with an IED singing Hallelujah.
FIRST Bushy:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
ALL:
They won't!
