OVERHEARD IN HARRIS & HOOLE...
(An occasional feature)
Monday 6th April 2026
Myself and Mary Winterbourne and Tony of the Big Saloon got together this morning in Harris & Hoole:
MARY WINTERBOURNE: Gene I see that Detterling has not died. It was predicted that he would die sometime during last summer.
GENE: Yes Mary. Thank God. Despite everything I would be so sad at his demise. What I think we should do in these days is recall all the laughs he gave us over the last twenty-one years.
MARY WINTERBOURNE: I know that the biggest laugh I had was back when he had that legendary exchange with you Gene on the TES website. It went:
Detterling: I know you probably despise me Gene
Gene: Well if I ever gave it any thought I probably would.
GENE: HA! HA! HA! Yes, that was funny. My own particular favourite was when in the midst of some spat on the TES Opinion Forum he coqeuttishly suggested he might show his bare ass in Fenwick's Christmas window in Newcastle.
MARY WINTERBOURNE: Dear God! What a dreadful spectacle to contemplate!
TONY OF THE BIG SALOON: I loved that time he arranged to meet you Gene at the Bloomsbury Crest hotel up in London. He wrote that he would be wearing a blue denim jacket, lovat chinos and green woolen socks in open-toed sandals! How we laughed! Sir Henry had field day.
ALL: Well, let's raise our cappuccinos to Detters, Delia, Sebastian, Cuthbert, Julian, Lucretia and fFiona. Cheers!
"Detterling: I know you probably despise me Gene
ReplyDeleteGene: Well if I ever gave it any thought I probably would."
Ugarte [Peter Lorre]: You despise me, don't you?
Rick [Humphrey Bogart]: If I ever gave you any thought I probably would.
[source: Casablanca, Michael Curtiz, 1942, scriptwriters Julius Epstein, Philip Epstein and Howard Koch].
If ever Gene's prose contains a trace of wit, style or originality, then - since he is bereft of all of those qualities - this is because he has stolen it and is passing it off as his own.
Ooh! Matron!
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