The Monday List

It's A Mad, Mad, Cannonball Rat Race In Their Flying Machines


As it's Bank Holiday Monday, somewhere in the TV schedules will be a film featuring a ludicrously extended chase sequence, during the course of which some of the protagonists in the chase must go down a hill, through a pane of glass and plough into a pile of empty boxes which have been conveniently left by some waterfront warehouses. On Planet Sad, the cast of this chase would include:


A crap metal band, probably called Tokyo something, in an elderly Transit van
A double glazing van with one of those triangular things on top
An Irishman in a green suit with a pig under his arm
Henry Rollins, in a dress, crying
A sarcastic Northern detective, played by George Costigan
Some bikers
A confused pensioner, driving the wrong way down the motorway in a Morris Traveller
Two blokes from the CIA who’ve wandered into the wrong film by mistake
A TV licence detector van
Benny Hill, pursued by a little bald bloke, three girls in bikinis and a traffic warden with her skirt ripped off revealing her suspenders
A London Borough of Tower Hamlets mobility bus
Herbie the Love Bug
An overweight Mexican on a very small mule
The ice cream van that drives round the Rhondda playing We’ll Keep A Welcome In The Hillsides
The Kon-Tiki
The nun on the ambulent piano from Chessington World of Adventures
The Arkansas Chug-a-bug
A Sinclair C5
The brown station wagon that drives down Northcote Road in Clapham with pictures of Haile Selassi and the Royal Family stuck to it
The Scooby Doo Mystery Machine
A bloke with road rage, smashing up his own Ford Sierra with a baseball bat
Three builders in a white van, all with faces like a bag of smashed crabs, leching after any passing female
The Tardis
The Rotherham Round Table Carol Bus, blasting out O Come All Ye Faithful
Barry Manilow in a stretch limo, pursued by a camper van full of Maniloonies
Emerson, Lake and Palmer in their articulated lorries with ‘Emerson’, ‘Lake’ and ‘Palmer’ written in six-foot high letters on the top
Monkey on his little pink cloud
A couple of nuns on bikes with their habits flying up exposing their bare bums
Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman, riding the length of South America on Harley Davidsons, just because they feel like it
One of the Eagles out of Space:1999, dangling on a very visible piece of string
Robbie Williams on his motorised toilet
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Dean Martin and Bing Crosby in a golf cart
Chris Boardman and his missus on a tandem, dressed as bees
Al Murray the Pub Landlord on his mobile bar
The 't Ij brewery van
Half-a-dozen St Trinian's schoolgirls on a railway handcart
Anna Ryder Richardson, dangling out of a helicopter on a bungee rope
The Liberator out of Blake’s 7
Jeremy Clarkson, attempting to drive a Reliant Robin up Kilimanjaro, just because he can