Hurrah! Alik has been in London for a whole week, and he hasn’t been injured, deported or imprisoned following an out of control ‘pants are trousers’ style misunderstanding. But he’s having trouble with the rugby. ‘But you wear helmets in your sport,’ intones a confused Biscuits, not understanding that protective headwear does not indicate that the sport is dangerous, but that the dangerous element has been removed from the sport. No sport is more dangerous than being Biscuit’s intern, and when the gang get thirsty, they summon Sam, who is wearing something special from Burton’s Unpaid Intern signature range, as designed by Alan Sugar. ‘I need oranges! Enough to quench my thirst, but still be enjoyable!’ howls Biscuits, who is presumably about to be visited by three spirits from the past, present and future, to tell him all about the true meaning of work experience.
Elsewhere Andy is working on a new song, supported by Lucy, who sings like she’s trying to dislodge a Fisherman’s Friend that has been trapped in her throat, while simultaneously removing the mysterious one lodged behind her cornea. Andy needs to shut her up, and fast. ‘So, Louise, eh? I reckon she could have been the one…I might marry.’ Lucy purses her lips. Did somebody say ‘wildfire’?
Binky is blissfully unaware that her best friend’s happiness is about to be compromised, and having a lovely sexy sweaty time boxing Will, her personal trainer. Lohan shows up, in a vest that has been specially made to show off his odd tattoo. It’s thick, it’s linear, it looks like he’s been on a car journey with a bossy child who was determined to make him wear a seatbelt but isn’t sure what its function is. Mischievous Binky asks Will and Lohan whether they think they’re the ‘hot one’ in the duo. Which they clearly do. ‘Do you not find yourself walking along and you catch yourself and go “woof”?’ asks Will. Well, he’s not really asking, is he. It’s a statement. He means ‘I am the hottest man alive, and I rate my own nipples more than I rate chocolate buttons!’
Louise turns up and explains that Spencer and Andy are doing their best to make the Alik sitch turn weird. Rosie reckons Spenny is ‘fabricating’ - ah, and I thought that was a posh word for swathing yourself in pashminas you were obliged to buy from your Mum’s divorcee mate who’s ‘going through a hard time’! Savvy Rosie reckoned Andy ‘wanted it to get out’. This is true. Spencer is not a safe deposit box of secrets, he’s the Reuters newswire of Chelsea gossip.
At last, Sam is allowed to do something for Biscuits that was not expressly banned at the Geneva Convention as a human rights violation. He’s pitching some new sweets for Biscuits, through the medium of leaping. He has brought an Alba hifi midi system, last made in 1998, and he’s playing ‘I Want Candy’, volume set to ‘craven’. Keen to avoid Powerpoint cliches, he’s reading out his speech which has been written on A1 paper, in appalling handwriting. Has Sam ever been seen in the same place at the same time as David Shrigley? ‘Throw out your standard flavours and throw in some misbehaviours!’ he urges, before suggesting a bacon sweet, because ‘I don’t want to cook bacon every single morning.’ Yes, this is a man you want in charge of making food, for people to eat. His final pitch is the sushi sweet - ‘imagine feverishly licking your delicious fishy fingers.’ SAM, SUSHI IS ALL DIFFERENT FISH, AND NOT ALWAYS FISH…OH, FORGET IT.
There’s a very weird, long man date in which best mates Will and Lonan are passively aggressively cruel to each other. ‘Calling me a junior trainer isn’t cool,’ snipes Will, as Lonan snaps back ‘Well, if you keep going on about Rosie, someone who knows her might here.’ In other odd coupling news, Tiff and Lucy are having a frosty exchange in which they claim to only borrow each other’s clothes in order to cause each other anger and distress. Lucy has to buy a new outfit for tonight - ‘I LOVE THIS!’ she screams, pulling at some shapeless black garment that is not wildly dissimilar from the shapeless black garment she has on. Sorry, there’s a square of brown-y taupe on the latter. And now that she’s let her plans slip to Tiff, and Binky, who has been called in to moderate, she has to tell them who she’s secretly seeing. They approve. We think. ‘Proudlock’s a nice guy,’ surmises Tiff, although she uses the same tone she might employ to say ‘I think you should get the death penalty for wearing pleather’
They manage to keep it a secret from Biscuits, who tells everyone Sam’s new plans, understandably causing Binky to say ‘Oi, I had that idea in New York and you ignored me.’ Alik arrives and he still has TONS OF ENERGY, but he’s QUITE ANGRY about Andy, who is in for a ‘RUDE AWAKENING’. Lucy ends up wearing something with a high neck and fringing on her date - let’s hope Proudlock digs the orthapedic flapper look. Proudlock asks her many questions about her ‘guard’. Is this the new grill?
Proudlock eventually releases Lucy from the grid probing, and meets Stevie and Rosie to teach them cod dutch. Rosie manages to say ‘I am from Holland, isn’t that nice?!’ on the second attempt, and then bolts to the corner to give Lucy and Binky a debrief. They’re all in the same bar. Suspicious. Then Sexy Will turns up and Binky introduces him to everyone as Matt! Genius. Maybe we all need to be dumped by Mytton, and spend forever charming everyone with our indifference.
Alik makes everyone have their picture taken in front of a phone box, and brings his forced transat-LOL-tic game by confusing Pimms with ‘pimps’. Mark Francis plans a trip to the polo while having a feverishly frank discussion with Victoria about lighting. ‘Can you imagine the sort of people who have chandeliers and uplighters. I DIE.’ Victoria torments him by listing his worst things, including people who say ‘loungue’ (‘The sort of thing you have at an airport!’) and coloured loo paper. ‘I was in hospital in the South of France, and it was pink,’ shudders Mark Francis. Surely not? Perhaps he was running such a high temperature that he was hallucinating the most horrible thing conceivable.
Being Mark Francis, he has only to mention the polo, and everyone is at the polo. Sophie and Victoria are smitten by George, a tousle haired player who MF has taken for a rake. ‘Polo playing is the only time an Englishman can wear white jeans,’ he says, pointedly, as if expecting George to gatecrash a meeting with his bank manager or join him in the bath while wearing the snowy denim. ‘You wear white jeans all the time,’ rejoins Victoria. ‘But I’m not an Englishman!’ replies MF. Touche, Ms Baker Harber.
Rosie, using impressive combinations of fury and tact, tells Andy he has no business in wrecking Louise’s love life. Hurrah! But then Biscuits tells Sam he thinks Alik has hooked up with a girl in London. I’M SORRY, WHAT!? Lucy and Proudlock then have a fairly dull conversation about whether one of them said ‘date’ or ‘day, but we’re still reeling. WHEN? At what point would Alik have time to nip out for a shag and come back? Where did he even find the shaggee? Did someone in a bar offer him a Pimms, and….bloody hell. Bloody, bloody hell.
Hero of the week
For strong advice, emotional honesty, practical clarity and newly curly hair, let’s give it up for the reformed Rosie Fortescue! She used to be more blunt than Shane McGowan’s dental arrangements, and now she has all the tact and sensitivity of Barbara Walters interviewing an orphan. Brava!
Villain of the week
This goes to whoever thought it was reasonable and appropriate to make poor, convalescing Mark Francis suffer the indignities of pink shitrag. Incarceration is too good for them.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.