Do I look like a Professor?

I'm thinking of taking the surgery out on the road, to perform under a red and white striped awning with a proper little replica prescenium theatre and some wooden puppets. And a swozzle. (I think that's what they're called, you know the things that make your voice go all "swozzley"...)

Then I could re-enact last night's little closing scene for you.

In they came . Lets call them, for the sake of argument (and yes I really do mean argument here), Mr Punch and his lovely wife Judy.

I should have guessed there was trouble brewing,. After all Mr P was late for his appointment. A mind boggling twenty four hours late for it! Now even my regulars don't expect me to be running that far behind, and Mr P isn't one of them anyway so his tardiness was quite spectacular. Still the receptionists were quite insistent that he really needed to be seen (a bad sign in itself) and so I invited him in.

Now in hindsight, Judy frog-marching him in, he with pained expression, she holding his right arm pinioned half way up his back, might also have been a bit of a "non-verbal cue" as we are trained to call them.

As they sat down I opened with a non-comm ital and cheery "What can we do for you?"

What follows requires the above puppets and swozzle to recount...

Judy-- He's been a very bad Mr Punch. He's not very well at all and he won't come to see you so I've had to bring him....

Mr P (swozzle)-- Oh no I'm not!

Judy-- Don't listen to him, I know all about it. He's been off at the naughty pub drinking lots of naughty beer.

Mr P (swozzle)-- Oh no I haven't!

Judy-- Oooh! He has too, and I need you to tell him to stop it.

Mr P (swozzle)-- Oh no you don't!

And so we went on. Round and round in ever decreasing circles. In the end it became apparent that their relationship (if such it can be called) was a relentless cycle of recrimination and reprisal and had been so for years. She thinks he drinks too much. He thinks she doesn't drink enough. Both may have a point. What they really seemed to need was a referee. I even had the temerity to suggest they see a counsellor about their relationship. As they were leaving, he turned to offer a parting remark.

"We tried that three years ago. they suggested we divorce!"

Now, at the risk of coining a phrase here...


Dr J (swozzle)-- That's the way to do it!