It's All A Bit Of A Blur Really

'Shine my botty away.'

I've stared at this strange line for twenty minutes. It made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. I had to do a little search of my own. And voila! It's a quote from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's alter egos, Derek and Clive from their 'Sir' sketch off their "Ad Nauseam" comedy album.

Rather strangely the sketch featured at the top of the search finds which makes me wonder why there was a need for the searcher to scrutinise the thread any further.

I remember being introduced to D and C after a school chum brought Derek and Clive's "Come Again" to our youth club and the feelings of weirdness in hearing the words "You Stupid Cunt" being said by adults. I had thought until then that sweary words were the preserve of rapscallion little oiks like us.

Anyway, back to the botty shine thing:

Extract from 'Sir' by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore

CLIVE:
..... and he said, "Oh, look," he said, "erm, all the Brasso has come out and got onto your, onto your botty," he said, "and I'm going to have to take some-, take a-, take a cloth and wipe your botty clean because it's got all this white Brasso on it."

DEREK:
Di-, di-, di- .....

CLIVE:
And then Sir took this handkerchief out, 'cause he didn't have a cloth, and wiped my botty all the time, he was wiping and wiping and wiping it.

DEREK:
He was probably trying to shine it.

CLIVE:
Yes, he was .....

DEREK:
Di-, b-, bu- .....

CLIVE:
..... trying to get my botty very shiny, that's what he said afterwards.

DEREK:
Did it look like this?

CLIVE:
No, it didn't look quite as shiny as that, but at the end after about ten minutes .....

DEREK:
No, but the sticky stuff.

CLIVE:
The sticky stuff looked just like that, yes, he said it was Brasso. And he shined my botty away and then he said, "Don't ever do that again."

Full script here