If space scientists are so clever, why DO they count backwards?

THE SKETCH: TRAMPS

In another much-loved regular skit, the ronnies play a pair of country bumpkin vagabonds. here’s our pick of some of their most priceless moments (best enjoyed in their broad yokel accents).

FOOD

RB: Have you seen the evening paper? RC: No, what’s in it? RB: My lunch. RC: Can I have some of it? RB: No. Get your own. RC: Where did you get it? RB: That woman up the hill. RC: Oh, her. Terrible cook, she is. I broke a tooth on her gravy once. She gave me some cold spinach. Eat that, she said. It’ll put colour in your cheeks.

RB: Yeah, it will. But who wants green cheeks?

RC: I’m never going to her again. I nearly went blind drinking her cocoa. RB: You can’t go blind drinking cocoa. RC: I nearly did. RB: How? RC: I left the spoon in the cup.

MONEY

RB: It says here ‘there is no recession’. All I can say is, if this isn’t a recession, it must be the worst boom in history.

RC: No. Everybody’s got more money than they used to have. RB: I haven’t. I’m skint. RC: Didn’t you just have an uncle die? RB: No, I’ve got an Auntie Di. Married to Fred. RC: Oh, it was your Auntie, was it? RB: No, Auntie didn’t die, she’s alive. It was Fred. He’s dead. RC: Fred. RB: Dead. RC: How much money did he leave? RB: All of it; you have to. But none of it to me. I am truly borassic.

RC: Like me. I haven’t got two half-pennies to scratch the soles of me feet with. But I don’t need money.

RB: I do. I’ve asked for money, I’ve begged for money, I’ve cried for money. RC: Why don’t you work for it? RB: Well, I’m going through the alphabet and I haven’t got to ‘W’ yet.

TELESCOPE

they are eating chips or scraps from a screwed-up newspaper. RB: It says here they’ve invented a telescope what can see 93 million miles. RC: Impossible. RB: Nothing is impossible. RC: Must be something. RB: No. RC: I’ll tell you something that’s impossible. RB: What? RC: It’s impossible for a worm to fall over. RB: Ah, that’s different — I mean in space, and that. RC: I don’t trust these space scientists. If they’re so clever, why do they count backwards? RB: Ah well, yeah. RC: ’Zackly. One of them telescopes wouldn’t be no good to me. I got spots before me eyes. RB: You got new glasses — didn’t they help? RC: Sort of. They didn’t get rid of the spots, but I can see ’em much clearer now.