OVERHEARD IN HARRIS & HOOLE...
(An occasional feature)
Thursday 9th April 2026
Myself and Mary Winterbourne and Tony of the Big Saloon got together this morning in Harris & Hoole. And it being the Easter holidays Duckie Duckworth was able to join us.
MARY WINTERBOURNE: Gene have you made any preparations for when Detterling does pass away?
GENE: Yes Mary. Indeed I have. His friendship with me over the last twenty-one years will not go uncelebrated at the time of his death. I shall be relying on Delia and Sebastian to keep me informed about his death and funeral as of course I will have Masses said and candles lit in church. Also Sebastian and Delia will alert me about the publication date of Detterling's memoir Journeyman.
MARY WINTERBOURNE: Memoir? It won't be a memoir. It will be pure fiction. No way will he mention all those humiliating defeats he suffered at your hands Gene.
GENE: HA! HA! HA! Of course he won't mention anything of the sort. I always enjoyed the occasions when I put the frighteners on him. Remember when I fooled him into thinking that Oxford University was about to legally pursue him for libeling me by claiming that the degree awarded to me was bogus? My God! How he ran for the hills!
MARY WINTERBOURNE: Yes, I remember. He was quaking in his boots.
TONY OF THE BIG SALOON: Gene you always taunted him with 'When the going gets tough Detterling gets going'.
DUCKY DUCKWORTH: Any news about what became of his acolyte that pathetic mummy's boy Bigkid?
ALL: Well, let's raise our cappuccinos to Detters, Delia, Sebastian, Cuthbert, Julian, Lucretia and fFiona. Cheers!
"His friendship with me over the last twenty-one years will not go uncelebrated at the time of his death."
ReplyDeleteNo such friendship exists: Detterling has, clearly and often, expressed his loathing and contempt for Gene "Groper" Vincent.
Detterling's memoir "Memoirs of a Journeyman" is dedicated to Gene "Groper" Vincent in the following terms:
"For Gene "Groper" Vincent of Uxbridge, the worst advertisement for the Roman Catholic Church since Pope John XII, who died while fucking someone else's wife. Gene "Groper" Vincent, who once boasted of having buggered Mrs Detterling, disgraces the church to which Mrs Detterling, and their son, belongs.
"Remember when I fooled him into thinking that Oxford University was about to legally pursue him for libeling me by claiming that the degree awarded to me was bogus? My God! How he ran for the hills!"
This is a lie. Gene "Groper" Vincent boasted that he had taken a PPE degree at St John's Oxford by plagiarising all his essays from the work of genuine scholars. Detterling stood by his statement that altough the degree awarded was genuine, it was obtained by Gene "Groper" Vincent's fraudulent scholarship. Plagiarism is the worst of all academic offences though not, fortunately for Gene "Groper" Vincent, not a crime in law.
'When the going gets tough Detterling gets going'.
"When the going gets tough, the tough get going" is a popular American idiom meaning that when circumstances become difficult, resilient people work harder and take action. Gene "Groper" Vincent's misuse of this saying is typical of his half-arsed grasp of popular idioms: like Maria in "Clay", he goes through life missing the point of everything, the poor sod.
To save Gene "Groper" Vincent the trouble:
ReplyDelete"Ooh! Matron!"