farty towels

Curtain up.
Snodgrass Crowley, Chief Executive Officer of Allied Irish Banks, played by John Cleese, is sitting behind his desk. Tony O'Reilly looking very like Lord Melbury from the confidence trickster episode of Fawlty Towers enters stage left.


John Cleese: Ah Lord Melbury. How lovely to see you.


Tony: Ah  Fawlty. I'm heading into town tonight. I wonder could ya give me ten million dollars just to tide me over.


John Cleese: (a little nonplussed) Oh of course Lord Melbury of course. Nothing would be simpler. Will ten million be enough? Eleven perhaps? Twelve, twelve and a half?


Tony: Hmmm. Well it is the weekend. And I'm meeting the Duke of Beucleuch. Oh and then there's the theatre. Fifty. Fifty million alright?


John Cleese: (taken aback but anxious to impress) Oh, oh, of course. Fifty. Ha ha. It's nothing. Fifty million. Oh I'm so happy. Are you sure that's enough My Lord?


Tony: Well you never can be sure what's going to come up when you're out and about in the city. Tell you what. Make it the round 200 million and I'll pay you Monday when the banks open.


John Cleese: (muttering) This is a bank.


Tony: (sharpish) What's that?


John Cleese: Oh nothing Your Lordship. Nothing at all. Two hundred million dollars will be perfectly fine.


Tony: Oh and better add a thousand million to that for my newspaper group. Separate unsecured loan you understand. I've been paying myself dividends out of the newspaper group's borrowings and the damned bum wipe scandal sheets haven't made a profit at all during our forty year attempt to eradicate Christianity from Ireland.


John Cleese: Ulp. Oh. Er. A thousand million. That's a billion. Right. I'll just have Manuel run down to the Irish taxpayer to obtain the money because we're going to go bust lending to you as you know.


Tony: And oh, I might have a punt on the gee gees. Feel like buying Waterford Wedgewood and setting up a few oil exploration companies, and asset stripping them as I go by paying myself dividends even though like my newspapers these companies will never make a red cent. Better make it the round two billion. Two and a half billion to be sure. Plus the two hundred million personal loan to me for the weekend expenses.


John Cleese: Yes My Lord. At once.


Tony: Fine. Get a move on. You know there's a member of the faux high society Crowley family on the board of this bank. And his brother's on the board of my newspaper group. And his other brother is on the board of the other bank I've bankrupted. Get on with it man.


John Cleese: Yes Lord Melbury I know that. I myself am the faux high society Crowley who runs this bank, being portrayed today in inimitable style by John Cleese.


Tony: Well hurry up Crowley. Get me my two and a half billion unsecured dollars and in addition that other two hundred million unsecured dollars we mentioned for my petty cash. Oh and make me a cup of tea.


John Cleese: Of course Lord Melbury. And might I say what a pleasure it is to have someone with real class bankrupting Ireland. Not like the usual riff raff we get around here from the exponentially overpaid trade union movement or the corrupt psychotic police force, or the Mafioso judiciary, or the drug dealing people trafficking Muslim terrorists, or Russian and Triad crime gangs, or whatever.


Tony: Thanks a million.


John Cleese: That should be thanks two and a half billion plus a separate two hundred million in petty cash, Your Worship.


Tony: It's good to be the king.