Endangered Species

From the album ‘Ad Nauseam‘ (1978).

Clive:
Did I tell you about Damien?
Derek:
No.
Clive:
Damien down 112?
Derek:
No, you…
Clive:
Well,…
Derek:
…no, you didn’t, no.
Clive:
Well, yeah, he had a terrible blow, er, last Tuesday.
Derek:
I had a lovely blow last Tuesday.
Clive:
Well, I know, you told me all-
Derek:
Valerie, s-, oh.
Clive:
Y-, y-, you told me all about that. But, er, Damien was in terrible trouble…
Derek:
Mmmm.
Clive:
…’cause, er, the, er, people from the Ecology, you know, the environmental people come round…
Derek:
Mmmm.
Clive:
…and, er, he was just off to the, er, Launderette to take his, erm, y-fronts down there, you know.
Derek:
Oh yeah, I know, he does that of a Wednesday, doesn’t he?
Clive:
No, not every Wednesday, every two years.
Derek:
Oh.
Clive:
He’s been wearing these y-fronts for about two years, you know,…
Derek:
Mmm.
Clive:
…and every two years he thinks, ‘Well, you know, might as well get ’em cleaned up’, you know…
Derek:
Why not?
Clive:
Get a prop-, proper job done on them.
Derek:
Get ’em scraped.
Clive:
And, er-, precisely. Anyway, these, er, people from, er, the Ministry of Environment come round and they said, er, "’scuse me, er, before you, er, take these, er, y-fronts down to the, er, Laundromat we’d like to inspect them."
Derek:
Why not?
Clive:
And, er, he thought it was-
Derek:
They’ve every right.
Clive:
He thought it was something to do with, er, you know, Britain going decimal, but it wasn’t. And, er, they, er, looked in his y-fronts and, er, fuck me, they discovered this endangered species.
Derek:
W-
Clive:
They found, er, the only two living examples of, er, the barking toad.
Derek:
The Barking toad?
Clive:
Yeah, everybody thought the barking toad was extinct, but no! There was two of them in Damien’s y-fronts.
Derek:
Was it the Barking and Romford toad? Or the…
Clive:
No, tha-, the-, the-, the-…
Derek:
Bar-
Clive:
No, it’s not called the barking toad because it lives in Barking, it’s called the barking toad ’cause it goes ‘woof’. And, er,…
Derek:
Oh.
Clive:
…they said, "This is an endangered species", and they’d been flourishing there…
Derek:
Fucking right.
Clive:
…they’d been flourishing there because it was exactly the right environment, you know.
Derek:
Yeah-h.
Clive:
‘Cause they like it humid. They like, you know, er-r, plenty of, erm, plenty of humidity and, er, sort of ‘body temperature’, which Damien has, you know. His body-
Derek:
Well, he’s got-
Clive:
His body is usually body temperature.
Derek:
Well, if he’s got anything, mate, it’s body temperature.
Clive:
He’s got body temperature, I’ll grant him that.
Derek:
Yeah.
Clive:
And…
Derek:
That’s true.
Clive:
…he said, er, "Well, I’ve got these barking toads in my y-fronts, what do I do?" And they said, "Well, we-, we want them to breed and, er, you’ll have to keep these y-fronts on for at least four years…
Derek:
Yeah.
Clive:
…’cause we’re hoping these two toads will, you know, get the horn and, er, get in the mood and, you know, spawn some more."
Derek:
But, you see, I’d heard that they-
Clive:
And, you know, he’s hoping that they’d, er, spawn in his socks and he has to keep his socks on for the next two years.
Derek:
Mmm.
Clive:
The man from the Environment Ministry, he thought the reason why these barking toads had taken refuge in Damien’s y-fronts was because of the similarity of the bollocks that were hanging there in the first place.
Derek:
Oh, they’ve-, ‘e th-,…
Clive:
But-
Derek:
…maybe they’ve gone there thinking they could mate with the bollocks.
Clive:
With the bollocks!
Derek:
Fucking stupid…
Clive:
And, indeed, they had been trying to mate with the bollocks which, you know, Damien used to wake up in the night thinking, ‘Hallo! What’s going on?’
Derek:
And…
Clive:
It was barking toads at his bollocks.
Derek:
Yeah.
Clive:
But he’s got to keep them in there for another two years in the hope that they’ll spawn and, you know, the spawn’ll trickle down into his socks and, you know,…
Derek:
Do you think, er-, do you think it’s possible that barking toads could, er, (clears throat) you know, could, er, mate with his bollocks? Because, er, I thi-, that would be interesting, wouldn’t it?
Clive:
Well, then you’d get a species called…
Derek:
The ‘bollock-‘
Clive:
…the ‘web-footed barking bollocks’. Which, er,…
Derek:
(laughs)
Clive:
…would be a new thing, wouldn’t it? Web-footed barking bollocks. But, er, still, if it’s an endangered species, I say fuck ’em.
Derek:
Right.
Clive:
I’d like to see every endangered species wiped off the fucking face of the Earth.
Derek:
Yeah.
Clive:
People go, they’re all moaning on, they say whales are more intelligent than human beings.
Derek:
Yeah.
Clive:
Are they? Do you think whales and dolphins are more intelligent than human beings?
Derek:
Oh yeah.
Clive:
Why?
Derek:
Says so.
Clive:
Yeah, but they’re not. Whales are fucking stupid. Can you mention one whale in the history of mankind that has had a record in the top ten? Can you? Can you mention one whale who’s written the equivalent of, er, ‘Othello’, Shakespeare, ‘Health & Efficiency’? They’ve produced nothing in the way of literature. All they’ve fucking produced is a load of other whales and all they eat is fucking plankton, and they call them intelligent. Can you imagine drifting along in the sea with your mouth open and a lot of fucking plankton going in?
Derek:
Yeah, I can imagine that.
Clive:
You’d like it, would you, just drifting around in the sea? And you can’t-, they’re such cunts they can’t even breathe underwater. They have to keep coming up the whole fucking time and spouting. Then some cunt comes on telly and he says, "Oh, the whale is being wiped out by mankind, save the fucking whales." Well! During the war, did we notice a lot of whales w-, rallying round and saying, "Save England!" I didn’t notice many down my part of the world.
Derek:
Oh, fucking-
Clive:
I didn’t see whales coming up with Union Jacks saying, "We’ll fight the Boche". No, they were doing fucking all…
Derek:
No, ’cause they…
Clive:
…swimming around the fucking sea sucking fucking plankton down!
Derek:
The whales were all Nazis!
Clive:
They call that fucking-… wha-
Derek:
They were at the Nuremberg rallies, mate. They were all whales.
Clive:
What, they were tried…
Derek:
They were whales!
Clive:
…at the Nuremberg trial?
Derek:
No, they were whales at the rallies. Hitler-, Hitler was talking to whales.
Clive:
Well, that doesn’t make them more intelligent ’cause, er, Hitler lost, didn’t he?
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