(I Don't Like Your) Country Music

In these modern times, it's easy to assume that our new action heroes - Jack Bauer, Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal and the like - are relatively modern phenomena of a kind that they just didn't have back in the fifties. After all, if a hoodlum was tearing up the street on otherwise engaging in some kind of ill behaviour, who would have dispensed some instant justice? Bill Haley and his Comets? I don't think so.

But in fact, if you had placed any credence in such a careless opinion, you would undoubtedly be wrong. There are plenty of black and white action heroes as well, and none could be more actionous than the one and only Mr. Bernard Cribbins.

Perhaps best known for appearing in various Carry On Movies, starring as the incompetent sculptor who log-jammed not only the word "erection" but the even more worse word "pubic" into the otherwise perfectly sedentary comedy "A Home Of Your Own", and of course a long stint looking after Humpty and the dollies on "Play School", the great BC's talents were many. But it was through music where Saint Bernard revealed his no-nonsense attitude towards anyone who failed to respect his authority.

To assume that The Cribmeister's works began and ended at the song "Right Said Fred", a searing expose of cowboy builders, would be a gross over-simplification. He had, in fact, many albums, and on those albums many songs, where anyone intending to step to Mr C with intent to diss, would find themselves served with attitude. (I hope you're still following this, my cool friends tell me it's very authentic.)

Perhaps nowhere is it made clearer than in the song "Hole In The Ground", a made-up tale - or so we are led to believe - involving an industrious workman who is, indeed, digging that aforementioned "Hole In The Ground" despite the best attempts of red-tape and bureaucrats to stifle his creativity.

"There I was
a-diggin' this hole
Hole in the ground,
so-big and sorta round it was,
and there was I,
digging it deep,
it was flat at the bottom and the sides were steep"

As is so often the case, the toil of the working man is soon halted by interference from a bowler-hatted chap, who looks down the hole and has words of wisdom to offer.

"Do you mind if I make a suggestion?...
Don't dig there - dig it elsewhere,
you're digging it round and it ought to be square.
The shape of it's wrong, it's much too long
and you can't put a hole where a hole don't belong."

"Nearly bashed him right in the bowler", comments Cribbins-as-workman. If it had been Chuck Norris digging the hole, that's probably how the story would have ended right there. Perhaps he might have stroked his beard a bit. But our workman is made of sterner stuff, and will not allow bowler-hatted nuisancery to interfere with the industrial progress of our great nation.

"Well there was I,
stood in me 'ole,
shovellin' earth for all that I was worth I was,
and there was him, standing up there
so grand and official with his nose in the air"

Few men could tolerate those kind of conditions. If Steven Seagal had been digging the hole, that's probably how the story would have ended right there. Perhaps he might have handed out the odd karate chop or two. But our heroic workman has a riposte for the suited man.

"I just couldn't bear
to dig it elsewhere
I'm digging it round 'cause I don't want it square,
and if you disagree it doesn't bother me
... that's the place where the hole's gonna be."

A grateful nation rises to its feet and applauds. Common sense prevails. If Jack Bauer had been digging the hole, that's probably how the story would have ended right there. Perhaps he might have got shot again for no reason, just to keep the story going. But there's a footnote.

"Well there we were, discussing this 'ole,
Hole in the ground,
so-big and sorta round it was,
it's not there now, the ground's all flat
and beneath it is the bloke in the bowler hat.

.. and that's that."

HE BURIED THE OFFICIAL UNDER THE PAVEMENT!! In the SIXTIES! My west coast friends would describe such a course of action as "harsh" to be sure. Even Chuck Norris and Jack Bauer wouldn't have gone that far. Even Steven Seagal thinks this is unduly violent treatment and would have no part of it, returning to his luxury trailer and three-bean salad in protest. Not everyone can reach the kind of no-nonsense attitude practiced by the Cribbinator - truly, a new hero for our times.