Episode 96 - Tin Tin and the B Team

<Max prologue> “Thank you Eustace! <caw caw> Welcome back, dearest, dearest listener!

So, we all have disguises, that we put on every day. What’s your disguise, I wonder? Your camouflage? What’s your dirty little secret? What are you hiding? What’s behind your apple? Being a darts player hiding from the US authorities in the Gallowtree underground? Can you talk to the animals? Are you a special operations smurf? Do you wear a herring-bone suit?

Or perhaps you are permanently suicidal and wish the world to see your happy smile rather than your inner torment – a bit like Saran Jessica Parker? Or Yentl? So, dear listener why the long face? What’s your excuse?”

<break>

<Adam TV presenter> “We all know the TV show but, the reality was somewhat different. It was 1972 and American forces were rolling back their involvement, handing over major “boots on the ground” operations to the South Vietnamese army. The remaining US personnel were mainly airbourne, helicopter units flying insertion and extraction missions into North Vietnam and beyond.

The strategy was to destroy the North’s supply lines, known as the Ho Chi Minh trail. In early 1972 a major offensive was feared on the Tet holiday in February. This never materialised but the history books don’t tell it all. Henry Kissinger had been brokering a cease-fire, In Paris. And In secret.

It was here that he was introduced to a crack commando unit during his time in Europe.

Kissinger was impressed with the Belgian heart of darkness missions in the Congo and sought out the finest Belgian jungle fighters. This was covered up subsequently, when it emerged that The heart of darkness is just a novel but was later referenced by Coppola in his 1978 film “Apocalypse Now”. Anyway, this is the story of the only Belgian combat team in the Vietnam war.

This is the story of the Belgians. This is the story of the “B” team.

<break>

<US General> “Welcome to the Jungle gentlemen! Let’s see what you Belgians have got. Are you the commanding officer?”

<Tin tin> “May Oui, General. My name is Major Tintin and this is Sergeant Snowy”

<US General> “Please to meet you Sergeant. You seem a little short for a soldier, but I guess you Belgians know your stuff”

<Tin Tin> “Let me introduce you to the rest of the guys. This is Jean Claude Van Damme – Know as Muscles”

<US General> “AH! this is more like it! Welcome to Vietnam, Soldier! You certainly look the part”

<Van Damme> “’ello ello”

<US General> “Good grief”

<Tin Tin> “And this is our jungle warfare specialist, General. – Corporal Rene Magritte”

<US General> “Hello Corporal – don’t you have a uniform, man? You surely can’t go into combat wearing a herring-bone suit and a bowler hat?”

<Tin Tin> “It’s Camouflage, General. The VC will be expecting people dressed as soldiers not surrealists. Show him the secret weapon, Rene”

<US General> “What ? A large apple? In front of his face? You lot are crazy! Who’s the guy with the waxed moustache, Major?”

<Tin Tin> “Ah! this is our crack pilot. General meet Hercule Mad Dog Poirot – the best dressed pilot in the Belgian army”

<US general> “He looks a little fat for a soldier. Well, welcome to Vietnam, gentlemen. Let’s get you briefed on your first mission shall we?”

<Tin Tin> “Oui oui General. En Y va mes amis! Let’s get settled in!”

<Marching> “Un deux. Un deux. We got Chocolate! We got balloons! We are Flemish and Walloons!”

<break – again split the scenes>

<voice> “Incoming!” <whizz and explosion – warfare all the way through>

<Magritte> “Major! Major! Are you not going to duck?”

<Tin tin> “Hannibal Tin Tin, doesn’t duck”

<snowy>

<Tin tin> “And neither does sergeant Snowy. <pause> Listen Corporal Magritte. Do you smell that? I love the smell of chocolate in the morning. It makes you feel like we’re….?

<Magritte> “Erm, Willy Wonka, sir?”

<Tin tin> “No, corporal, it makes me feel like we’re winning”

<Magritte> “erm, that’s just it, Major. We are penned down here. Charlie is very well dug in”

<Tin tin> “Ok corporal, give me a chocolate status update”

<Magritte> “We are out of Terry’s chocolate agent orange. We are down to a few lindt bears and some Ferrero rochet – once their gone it will be a handful of kit kats and that’s it”

<Tin tin> “Corporal – so how is the surrealist squad? Causalities? ”

<Magritte> “High, sir. They got their head around the large Apples in front of the faces and started to shoot our bowler hats off. They have also started to attack the picture of a pipe with the words this is not a pipe, underneath it. <pause> I don’t think Charlie likes visual paradoxes, sir”

<Tin tin> “What about Poirot and the air boys, corporal?”

<Magritte> “M.I.A, sir. It’s a bit of a mystery”

<Tin tin> “Oh well, I guess there’s nothing else for it. We had better send in Belgium’s finest. Get the Smurf squad on the field radio, Corporal. Pappa Smurf, soldier smurf, combat smurf, GI smurf and Smurfette, up here. We gonna send em in”

<Magritte> “yessir! Why do think they will be effective, Major when we have not?”

<tin tin> “Simple, Corporal. Charlie don’t Smurf”

<break>

<max> “Come in!”

<Adam> “is this the Gallowtree school for Orators?”

<max> “yes, come on in and sit down. So, what’s your name?”

<Adam dramatically> “Aardvark. Call me the Aardvark”

<max> “You’ve had some oratory training, haven’t you, Mister Aardvark? I can tell”

<adam> “Indeed I have, sir.”

<max> “So, why are you here?”

<adam dramatically> “I wanted a refresher. I have some big speeches to do in a radio show and I want to get the majesty of these classic words properly conveyed to the deserving listening audience”

<Max> “Very laudable. You have come to the right place. Here try this for starters -lets see how you are with some Shakespear – let’s hear your Mark Anthony”

<adam> “Friends! Romans! Countrymen. Lend me your ears! I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him! The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones”

<pause>

<Adam> “So what do you think?”

<Max> “Bloody terrible! Rubbish! Where the hell did you learn that style? teaching schoolboy drama to a load of Gypsies? It sounds like it. Too obvious. Too stilted. Too mainstream”

<Adam indignantly> “Well come on then smart-arse! You have a go!”

<max> “listen and learn, son listen and learn” - “Friends! Romans! Black-countrymen. Lend me yowall ears! I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him! The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones, yowall””

<Adam> “What the hell was that?”

<Max> “it’s the new style. Haven’t you seen peaky blinders? It’s called West Midlands chic. I am giving loads of classes at the moment. Everyone is jumping on the Black Country band wagon. I had Martin Luther king in last week!”

<Max to fade out> “Give it another go. Remember think Jasper carrot, think Chris Tarrant. Try it again”

<break>

<Adam> trying another speech in brummie – you choose!.

<Max> “By jove! I think he’s got it! I think he’s got it!”

<break>

<Max> “In nineteen seventy two a crack commando unit was sentenced by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. They promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Gallowtree underground where, still wanted by the government, they survive today as surrealist darts players. If you’ve got a problem, no one else can help and you can find them perhaps you can join the oche with the B team” <music to fade>

<commentator> “Welcome back to the Gallowtree masters darts championship, here in the majesty of the old bus depot. Tonight’s semi-final is an old grudge match between the only two Belgians left in the competition.

Hannibal “the major” Tin Tin and Rene “Apple face” Magritte. These two are the darts giants of the Belgian game and are very competitive. No one knows, where they came from of what is their history but, one thing’s for sure – we are in for some pretty explosive darts here in Gallowtree tonight. Keep an eye out for Rene Magritte – he has a very unconventional style – even in the modern peaky blinder era – that is sweeping the sport here in Gallowtree”

So, first up. It’s Tin Tin on the oche”

<commentator> “one hundred. A good solid start from the Major there. <pause> Now its Magritte up – lets see what he’s got in reply”

<Max> “A horse walks into a bar and the barman says why the long face? The horse replies, I’ve got AIDS”

<Commentator> “I think the Belgian is showing some nerves there, only 59 scored with that delivery”

<three darts in> <commentator> “One hundred and eighty! Good arrows there from the Major! Here is Magritte, again”

<max> “A horse walks into a bar and the barman says why the long face? The horse replies, it turns out not be AIDS – I’ve been diagnosed as being Sarah-Jessica Parker”

<commentator> “Now that’s more like it from the surrealist – a solid one hundred”

< 2 darts in and one pings off> <Commentator> “Now that’s a bad miss from Tin Tin. Thirteen scored. Let’s see if Magritte can capitalise on that”

<Max> “Sarah Jessica Parker walks into a bar and the barman says why the long face? and Sarah-Jessica Parker replies I just came dead last in the two thirty at Kempton Park”

<Commentator> “Wow! Now that’s better from Magritte – one hundred and eighty! He’s back on form – let’s see if he will attempt his signature play tonight – checking out with the Bull”

<break>

<Max Martin Luther King> “I am happy to join with yowall today, in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand today signed the emancipation proclamation.

This momentous decree, was a great beacon-light of hope to millions of negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice”

“I have a dream that one day, on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

Let freedom ring from stone mountain in Georgia. Let Freedom ring from Lookout mountain in Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill in Mississippi from every mountainside. Let Freedom ring out from West Bromwich to Cannock. Let the Black country be free!”

<break>

<Max epilogue> “Welcome back! Thank you Eustace! <caw caw> So, what have you learnt today? Being Sarah-Jessica Parker isn’t that bad? Charlie didn’t win the two thirty at Kempton Park, either? After all, Charlie don’t turf”

“Now sleep well, and remember I like watching you sleep, your chest moving up and down – admittedly I have to use my telescope, but the truth is still there, I like watching you sleep, you dearest, dearest listener. Now, this is my little secret. Did you remember to leave the curtains open?”

<end>