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Mr. Wiggin:
This is a 12-story block combining classical neo-Georgian
features with the efficiency of modern techniques. The tenants
arrive here and are carried along the corridor on a conveyor belt in
extreme comfort, past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards
the rotating knives. The last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily
soundproofed. The blood pours down these chutes and the mangled flesh
slurps into these...
Client 1:
Excuse me.
Mr. Wiggin:
Yes?
Client 1:
Did you say 'knives'?
Mr. Wiggin:
Rotating knives, yes.
Client 2:
Do I take it that you are proposing to
slaughter our tenants?
Mr. Wiggin:
...Does that not fit in with your plans?
Client 1:
Not really. We asked for a simple block of flats.
Mr. Wiggin:
Oh. I hadn't fully divined your attitude
towards the tenants.
You see I mainly design slaughter houses.
Clients:
Ah.
Mr. Wiggin:
Pity.
Clients:
Yes.
Mr. Wiggin:
(indicating points of the model)
Mind you, this is a real beaut. None of your
blood caked on the walls and flesh flying out of the windows
incommoding the passers-by with this one.
(confidentially)
My life has been leading up to this.
Client 2:
Yes, and well done, but we wanted an
apartment block.
Mr. Wiggin:
May I ask you to reconsider.
Clients:
Well...
Mr. Wiggin:
You wouldn't regret this. Think of the
tourist trade.
Client 1:
I'm sorry. We want a block of flats, not an abattoir.
Mr. Wiggin:
...I see. Well, of course, this is just the
sort of blinkered philistine pig-ignorance I've come to expect from
you non-creative garbage. You sit there on your loathsome spotty
behinds squeezing blackheads, not caring a tinker's cuss for the
struggling artist. You excrement, you whining hypocritical toadies
with your colour TV sets and your Tony Jacklin golf clubs and your
bleeding masonic secret handshakes. You wouldn't let me join, would
you, you blackballing bastards. Well I wouldn't become a Freemason
now if you went down on your lousy stinking knees and begged me.
Client 2:
We're sorry you feel that way, but we did
want a block of flats, nice though the abattoir is.
Mr. Wiggin:
Oh sod the abattoir, that's not important.
(He dashes forward and kneels in front of them)
But if any of you could put in a word for me
I'd love to be a mason. Masonry opens doors. I'd be very quiet, I was
a bit on edge just now but if I were a mason I'd sit at the back and
not get in anyone's way.
Client 1:
(politely) Thank you.
Mr. Wiggin:
...I've got a second-hand apron.
Client 2:
Thank you.
(Mr. Wiggin hurries to the door but stops...)
Mr. Wiggin:
I nearly got in at Hendon.
Client 1:
Thank you.
(Mr. Wiggin exits. Mr Tid rises.)
Mr. Tid:
I'm sorry about that. Now the second
architect is Mr. Wymer of Wymer and Dibble.
(Mr. Wymer enters, carrying his model
with great care. He places it on the table)
Mr. Wymer:
Good morning gentlemen. This is a scale
model of the block, 28 stories high, with 280 apartments. It has
three main lifts and two service lifts. Access would be from
Dibbingley Road.
(The model falls over. Mr Wymer quickly
places it upright again)
The structure is built on a central pillar
system with...
(The model falls over again. Mr Wymer
tries to make it stand up, but it won't, so he has to hold it upright)
...with cantilevered floors in pre-stressed
steel and concrete. The dividing walls on each floor section are
fixed by recessed magnalium-flanged grooves.
(The bottom ten floors of the model give
way and it partly collapses)
By avoiding wood and timber derivatives and
all other inflammables we have almost totally removed the risk of....
(The model is smoking. The odd flame can
be seen. Wymer looks at the city gents)
Frankly, I think the central pillar may need strengthening.
Client 2:
Is that going to put the cost up?
Mr. Wymer:
I'm afraid so.
Client 2:
I don't know we need to worry too much about
strengthening that. After all, these are not meant to be luxury flats.
Client 1:
Absolutely. If we make sure the tenants are
of light build and relatively sedentary and if the weather's on our
side, I think we have a winner here.
Mr. Wymer:
Thank you.
(The model explodes)
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