Hermione Schaden-Freud on Dog-Training (Open Video)
IMPROVING TALKS: HERMIONE SCHADEN-FREUD
TALK No 1: DOG-TRAINING
Notes shadow-written by Bunty Poskitt-Bingham
Mrs Schaden-Freud to you, young man!
I’m missing the Moral Maze to be here.
I’ve come all the way from RUTTING-on-the-Wold – disgusting name.
Twinned with Middlesex, Nuremberg and Bangkok.
My husband was the Henry Scharden, in prophylactics. Last of the Dynasty.
Killed by a Rhinoceros on our honeymoon.
Silly man! Daddy told him to use dead rhino’s horn.
Stop fidgeting, young man.
Who owns a DAWG?
I trust your hound can now bag up its own waste?
I’ve trained Guide Dogs for the Blind in France!
Puppy would live with us being trained in hice and garden.
Went to a blind person with a sense of advencha!
All was Tickety boo – until Everrrard arrived – disgusting name!
Enormous albino Labrador pup – weighed in at 40 kilos.
Arrived in a cloud of dust – from which emerged Veronique in a Deux Chevaux.
Pretty as she was fast, so of course my brother Horace was off the sun-lounger and out there like greased lightning!
Revolting – a man of his age!
Horace struggled to lift a huge sack of dog-biscuits from the car – and fell over the dog.
‘Zat is a veerry naughty word, Monsieur! Speak to the dog ONLY in French!’
says the trollop – lifting the sack of biscuits one-handed.
She sashayed into my kitchen in the shortest shorts I’ve ever seen.
‘Everrrarrd must eat only these biscuits – nothing else!
‘E has been castrated, oui? ‘E must not eat the stitches!
Nevaire to pull on his lead and must sit on the floor of the voiture
Assis!’
I thought she sneezed but Everrard AND Horace promptly sat down.
Everrard adored my brother, only living thing that ever has.
Dog moved into Horace’s bedroom. That night, the dog wrecked his neck cone and twanged his castration stitches with his teeth, breaking off to howl.
Horace was most bitter at breakfast, said it was like being in a kennel with Seasick Steve.
Mr SS not in Debretts, I looked him up. Must be riff-raff!
Two days later, Horace singing a very childish ditty:
On the first day of training, Hermione said to me:
Everrard has eaten:
5 dog toys.
Four loo rolls
Three French hens
Two light bulbs
And his thick leather lead AND chain!
Horace topped laughing when he saw his chewed Ray-Bans.
Diplomatic incident – Everrard trying to eject the French neighbours’ rabbit from its hutch.
Luckily James Bon lived up to his name and clung to the ceiling by his teeth. Shaken, not stirred.
I thought of Agincourt, while Horace poured oil on troubled neighbours – actually the Frenchies were bricks and said it had probably tenderized the meat nicely.
Mummy used to quickly move their money, from whichever country Horace was going to next as peace envoy.
My brother was no match for Everrard.
Carpe Diem! Everrard went straight for what he wanted – spitting image of Boris Johnson, right down to the white fur and clumsy charm.
Liked his totty too! My arm popped out of the socket when Everrard saw a Pekinese trollop while he was dragging me for a walk.
I just shoved it back in – Mummy’s words ringing in my ears ‘Stiff upper lip, Hermione!’ when I was nine, and being dragged round the Grand National course behind Thunda.
Ooarrd gobbled up dung, greedy dog – then licked Horace’s head from the back
seat, while he was driving.
Did wonders for Horace’s hair!
But new criminal record as he shot straight over an ornamental roundabout and dented a police car.
While banged up Everrard caught the pox –
Seduced by a bitch – siren of a police-dog called Fifi.
Ooarrd was only following his pedigree leanings like Charles VIII –
Bonk, catch pox, go bonkers!
Monsieur Coupay, the vet –
Big nose – I like men with big noses, good breeding stock!
Prescribed ointment for Everrard’s infected tackle. Horace fainted when Coupe jabbed the stuff on the dog’s rod.
Ooarrd looked amazed!
If I see you doing that again, young man, you’ll have to stay behind. I’m an expert with the ointment ..!
I foolishly left Evverard’s ointment with Horace to apply, for just one afternoon, while I chaired a meeting of Ex-Pats Against Incomers.
Got home, with Joyce the Treasurer, we found Horace slumped in his chair. There was a trail of ointment up the Harrods drawing-room wallpaper.
Everrard was lying on his back on the rug, grinning in a revolting manner.
Joyce foolishly tittered and said: ‘Gosh, Everrard does live up to his name, doesn’t he?’
I had to slide the Labrador away across the parquet to the scullery – like an upturned table!
DIRTY DOG!
I only train bitches now.
Good night!
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HERMIONE SCHADEN-FREUD
TALK No 2: KEEPING FIT
I have noticed ready-printed ‘sweat’ on men’s T-shirts. I presume to hide the fact they don’t actually exercise.
What is all this fad for running around in next to nothing, wearing sweat with pride? Young men in particular make such a fuss! Puffing, blowing – even spitting – as they lumber past me when I’m out on my constitutional. They’ve obviously never heard of La Boheme! Commoners.
It takes men for ever to overtake me, probably because I wear sensible brogues. Even though I slowed down, one was breathing in my ear all the way along the towpath this morning. He then accused me of deliberately obstructing him!
Our elderly gardener never removed his tweed jacket – although as young women my sister and I waited with bated breath. To be fair, the mercury in the thermometer rarely rose in the 1950s.
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I’ve just recalled what Miss Lavvy-Bottom said in the school changing-rooms:
‘I only train bitches now.’
Hysterical woman. Took us for one term for PE at Mottleshanks High. Cried when we wouldn’t call her Miss Lavendar-Botham. So wet.
Miss Higginbotham took over coaching the hockey team. Strict but fair!
I knocked Sheila out cold with my hockey stick – didn’t mean to – Sheila was a good sport when she came round. But I had to chew Higgie’s muddy laces until they were white.
Bit tricky; she was hurdling at the time.
I understand that muscles sag in some people, or those getting on a bit.
All-Bran! That’s the ticket.
I may look like a heffalump to you young things – but once I looked like you.
No, not you Dear. You!
[Mrs Schaden-F ignores a glamorous young woman, points to plain female.]
I’m a testament to clean living and tweed under-garments; look how I’ve used material left over. (She indicates her bulky handbag) If you follow my example, a lucky few of you will look like me in 2055.
That goes for you men too.
Of course I’ve had advantages – rationing – it would save people a fortune at Weightwatchers. Young men were never so fit as when living off powdered egg and tripe.
You look like a son a parent would be acknowledge in public. Were you raised on tripe, dear? Mmm. Perhaps cod liver oil.
Modern Gells all seem to want big bosoms, can’t think why.
If you do hand-stands, you could suffocate.
Sigh. Would you like me to help you get zeppelins? Yes, I can see YOU might, dear. Oh, you’re a boy.
Stand up those Gells who want big bosoms – don’t be shy.
Come along – I haven’t got all night!
Now, after me, sing:
I must, I must, imprrrove my bust
HANDS ON BREASTS THEN ELBOWS IN
HANDS ON BREASTS, WAVE ABOVE HEADS
I must, I must, improve my bust.
HANDS ON BREASTS, WAVE ABOVE HEADS-
Put your back into it, Deidre! Are your under-garments too tight, dear?
Once more, before I get the boys to rise.
I must, I must, improve my bust
I must, I must, improve my bust!
Sit down now, let the men have a go.
That includes you, Quentin.
Oh dear, we’ve run out of time –
Boys, see me afterwards!
Good night!
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MRS HERMIONE SCHADEN FREUD
Talk No 3: GRAMMAR
The world is going to hell in a handcart! Due to the inability of the public to use correct grammar and spelling. At present, I’m tense. Even the Daily Telegraph contains mistakes now, and illiteracy must be to blame for presenters mispronouncing things on Radio 3.
My audience in the village hall last night didn’t realise how vital this issue is. They fidgeted constantly. Even after I’d said that when children used to fidget in my classes, I assumed they wished to visit the lavatory. (I didn’t let them of course, they should have gone in the break.)
When I asked the villagers to repeat vowel sounds after me, such strange sounds emanated, even allowing for the local dialect, that we smartly moved on to consonants.
What’s a mistaken consonant between friends, I asked? Enid Ryder in the second row said, my mate getting off with Barry Simms while he was with me. I said it was more serious than that and she looked sulky. The girl began playing with her wretched phone. Heaven knows how she smuggled it past me at the door.
Horace is always fiddling with his Blackberry under the table. His last message to me read, ‘Hi Herpes, Beware of London snog’. This made the audience laugh, so I used it to show how Twittery Trump’s old fingers keep landing on the wrong buttons. Other leaders take this very seriously, it strains diplomatic relations. Even more than Horace’s sinecure at the Foreign Office, but I didn’t mention that. The milkman said loudly his texts had strained his relations with his non-paying customers. Silence.
It was encouraging to see the cans of spray paint and felt-tips I’d provided, being taken with enthusiasm by audience members as they left. These will be used to correct punctuation and grammar on public signs. Also on mis-spelt menus in restaurants. I selflessly corrected a menu in Antibes last summer, but the manager was most rude. The French are an ungrateful race: they should recall WW1.
Saturday 17th June
I’ll just have to go to London and pull out all the stops. When I told Horace at breakfast he looked up in alarm, his mouth hanging open like a blackbird waiting for a forkful of kedgeree.
Perhaps he recalled the church organ incident.
The venue Bunty has brilliantly arranged for me is in Westminster, encouragingly near the House of Lords.
Sunday 18th
Well! When I arrived at the rather shabby hall, a hooligan waving a gun had the gall to stop me entering. He tried to snatch my tweed colostomy bag and then shouted ‘Shit!’ I will not tolerate bad language so grabbed the madman’s pistol and hit him on the nose.
To paraphrase Lady Macbeth:
‘Who would have thought the policeman to have had so much blood in him?’ You never saw such a fuss. An ambulance just for a broken nose! In my day, you put mustard and paper on it and got on with the Harvest Festival. As I told the BBC camera crew. I just wished I’d had my father’s bayonet from the First World War. The police sergeant was most understanding after I mentioned Horace’s position in the Crown Prosecution Service.
Sentimentally, Horace has never washed the blood off. The weapon hangs above his bed like the Sword of Damocles.
Belatedly, my Grammar Talk commenced. I suggested to my small audience that the middle and upper-classes should learn received pronunciation from birth. Even Cockneys and refugees. The audience gasped, but it does save time. You know whom to acknowledge. I recently shook a plumber’s hand at Battle Hospital, mistaking him for Horace’s consultant.
His authoritative tone was misleading. Horace has puny tone, and thereby lost his dog Fenton, in Richmond Park. He said Fenton rushed off to roll in manure, but apparently the dog went viral. Hope it’s not rabies. My friend Barbara Woodhouse wouldn’t have tolerated such disobedience. When she said ‘Here, boy!’ dogs and men stopped rolling in dung immediately.
Monday 19th
I kindly gave a follow-up ‘workshop’ at the bequest of the people running the hall. Following my appearance on TV, more people seem to want to attend. Several strangers wanted their photo taken with me, but I refused. Another man shook my hand fervently on arrival, and said ‘Good on you Missis, sorting out the pigs’. I suppose he’s a farmer, mistaking me for someone else.
I started by exhorting my large audience to write to the papers and your MP about the necessity for good grammar. People clapped, a far more enthusiastic crowd than yesterday.
I didn’t add that The Times illustrated my letter to them on bowdlerisation with a diagram of a blocked bowel – most peculiar.
When I said modern papers indulge in lazy journalism and unsavoury photos, the audience agreed. They cheered when I said I have no desire to know about celebrity gussets. In my day, well-bred women wouldn’t have a gusset in the house, and knew not to do the splits over an infinitive.
Lax communication is undercutting modern civilisation, like Crossrail. The audience perked up. Mistaken use of prepositions is analagous to a Shattered Shard, I said. I would have explained further, but people were spiritedly discussing commuting problems due to Crossrail works.
I expressed my dismay about the decline of the adverb and uncountable nouns, in a manner unknown since our careless casting-off of Empire. You don’t realize how useful colonies are, until they’ve gone. A black woman got up and left, while someone wearing a T-shirt with UKIP written on it, waved his arms in the air.
I mentioned if we still had India, it wouldn’t be so frighteningly successful, and the UKIP person left. But Rutting-in-the-Wold wouldn’t have two delicious little curry restaurants; it is a conundrum.
Tuesday 20th
I am something of a cause celebre on my return to Rutting-on-the-Wold, people keep congratulating me on my television appearance. Even Barry Simms asked if he could attend my next Talk ‘up London’. My job is not yet done.
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WISE THOUGHTS
Nothing annoys me more than someone young Turk denigrating something as an Old Wives’ Tale. I’ll have you know that mature women held the Empire together and now they do the same for Britain under inept governments.
There is nothing more callous than an older woman, they’ve seen it all.
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Horace has suggested a little competition to finish off today, to foster competitive spirit. For once I agree with him. Who would like to canter through their Latin verbs?
No-one?!
Horace’s own silly idea was for people to sing TV theme tunes and the others to guess what they are.
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Out on a walk yesterday, I intervened in a nasty fight between men wearing bedsheets in the meadow behind the house this morning. The brute I hit with my walking-stick turned white and collapsed, but instead of being thankful, his opponent began shouting at me, something about killing Paris. Turns out they were filming Greek legends. How was I supposed to know? The cameraman was lying half-hidden under the farmer’s beech hedge, pointing his camera upwards. Paddy nipped Achilles in the heel and I had to drag him away. Everyone made a silly fuss – media types!
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Horace came home with some bricks in his car – he said if Poundland could auction a bit of graffiti-ed wall by Banksy to Americans for half a million dollars, so could he. He’s out in the garage with a sack of plaster and can of spray paint now.
I’m a pre-Baby-Boomer … We were taught to be seen and not heard until we turned 21.
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I still recall my first doughnut in the late 1950s – such a treat. The cake was particularly delicious because it came with a free black beetle, embalmed in the jam in the middle. I feel for all you young people with this modern health and safety nonsense. The only way you’ll masticate beetles is to audition for strange television programmes. Ones where people lie in vats of insects in the jungle. I suppose they’re trying to recreate Japanese prisoner of war camps for educational purposes.
[Produces hip flask from pocket and take a swig.]
TO HECKLERS:
I see you’re feeling reckless.
So nice to see a brave young person!
How dare you! I’m old enough to be your mother.
Such a pity they did away with National Service !
Are you wearing a vest? Flannel next to the skin is the best thing, preferably tucked into sensible knickers.
See me afterwards!
Horace bristles when he hears an American accent. It’s since Mavis transferred her affections to a GI at the 1944 Rutting Dance. I heard she settled in Idaho. As I said to Horace at the time, Idaho too!
We were weeding the vegetable patch, but my little joke fell on stony soil. Poor chap was so glum.
[To member of audience]
Why are you fidgeting? / What are you doing over there?
Are you American?
…………………………….
I have philanthropically prepared a grammar lesson, so that you can avoid fatal mistakes should you become Prime Minister.
Philanthropy is probably new to younger members of the audience. What with Sky Sports charging people to watch Curling. In my day, we had VIPs – very important philanthropists, such as Octavia Hill and Mr Wilberforce. It is greater to give than to receive and later you will thank me for selflessly sharing my grammatical wisdom.
You will sally forth from this place – when the police cut the tape outside – empowered to communicate without blaspheming or cursing.
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I’ve had a touch of distemper since Crufts – brought on by a difference of opinion with the other judges. I accidentally ate one of the dogs. A miniature breed foolishly sat on my plate of Game Pie! I spat it out of course. Tasted awful and had a bark like a mouse with flatulence. Sadly it survived.
I mentioned my distemper to Horace: he said it’s called emulsion now. He’s spending far too much time with decorators. They are renovating the village pub and working round him at the bar.
I don’t know why the new publicans wish to change the name. The Hangman and Corpse has been perfectly acceptable since the Boer War. There was a genuine birch behind the bar. The muscular barmaid, Ethel, used it to discipline miscreants. Often stray politicians, as we border the slums of Chipping Norton. Our hostelry is now too popular with coachloads of effete men from London. Ethel retired last week with Tennis Elbow, so we presented her with the birch – the first time I’ve seen Ethel become emotional. The new establishment is to be called Weasel Willies. It will apparently serve cocktails such as ‘Wild Willies poached in Vodka’. Ridiculous! Ethel says they have offered her a sum she can’t refuse for the birch.
I’m organising the village fete to distract myself. I’ve heard of something called Tumbler, it sounds promising for modernising the Tombola. Mabel, the treasurer signed up to Tumbler and somehow met Rupert. When I saw him at the WI, Mabel had him on a short leash and Rupert seemed confused. Kept asking Mabel if she was a cougar. If only National Service still operated!
Horace has now told me what Tumbler is. Disgusting! He suggested I join Titter. These mobile phones are marvellous: apparently Horace is in Monte Carlo. He’s been arrested while leaving the casino – something about a bad bet. The gendarmes are exerting a sobering influence on him. First time anyone has managed to, even mother. I have fond memories of her castrating bulls single-handed, when she wasn’t opening village fetes. Horace rang me from a French prison last night, kept whispering he was on a cell phone. Obviously his idea of a joke. Too tiresome, I cut him off. It’s for his own good.
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Ridiculous Christmas present from one of Horace’s floozies. I washed my hair with her conditioner. Mildred in the village shop asked if I’d been under the LandRover again, repairing the oil tank.
One never has these problems with Carbolic soap or the sheep-dip.
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