This is an archive story from December 2007. For the most recent stories go here

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Cornelius: Feeling impish

When men were men

Higgins in happier days, before Tupperware finished him off

Cornelius puts his foot down

Slatterly, my houseboy, recently treated himself to a flash new sports car, which immediately told me two things. Firstly, I really must renew my bus pass. Secondly, I really must start paying him less.

Excuse me

Still, it put me in mind of the cars I got to skid about the place in 'Perkins!', the 70s police drama in which I played the door-shouldering, girl-grabbing, colleague-cuffing titular role. Budgets were tighter than a minnow's Excuse Me: one week the audience would be asked to believe us roister-doistering cops drove a Hillman Imp, the next week that top gangsters seeking to make a getaway would naturally do so in a Morris Traveller.

To the limit

There we'd be, pushing an Austin Allegro to the limit, in and out of Wandsworth with the numbers on their names - or perhaps we'd be in a nice orange Maxi – really floored it, we did, sometimes almost reaching twenty miles an hour. Marvellous days. Still, at least we got to smoke in the car and nobody blinked an eyelid if we didn't put our seat belts on.

Deep perversity

Of course, the people who really did well at the time were Higgins Corp. Higgins Corp aren't so well-known now, but they were hugely successful in the 1970s. They were cardboard box manufacturers, and had the exclusive contracts with many TV companies for supplying the boxes cars in cop dramas knowingly swerved into for effect. Reginald Higgins himself died a rich man, although in controversial circumstances – he'd choked to death being fed Tupperware by two skimpily-clad blondes, which for a cardboard box magnate amounts to deep perversity. After his death, cop dramas featured less car chases and the bottom fell out of the cardboard box trade.

Pop in front of it

As I write, Slatterly is outside, showily revving his new car's engine. I wonder if I can't muster a couple of cardboard boxes to pop in front of it. Just for old time's sake, you understand.

Vroom vroom.

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