The Back Knight's First Practical

Continuing the very bogus story co-authored by Crispian Jago . . .

Scene 3

The Back Knight has finished his apprenticeship and is now setting out to seek patients for his clinic, which Sir Simon (as I am told is now his nickname!) is destined to mess up a little later. He enters a hospital laboratory . . .

BACK KNIGHT: Old woman!

DENNIS: Man.

BACK KNIGHT: Old man, sorry. What doctor works in that office over there?

DENNIS: I'm 37.

BACK KNIGHT: What?

DENNIS: I'm 37, that's not old.

BACK KNIGHT: Well, I can't just call you "Man" -

DENNIS: You could say "Dennis".

BACK KNIGHT: I didn't know you were called Dennis!

DENNIS: Well, you didn't bother to find out, did you?

BACK KNIGHT: I did say sorry about the old woman, but from behind, you looked -

DENNIS (pushing aside his trolley of petri dishes): What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior.

BACK KNIGHT: Well I am Supreme Healer . . .

DENNIS: Oh, Supreme Healer, eh, very nice. And how'd you get that, eh? By exploiting the patients! By 'anging onto unproven unscientific dogma which perpetuates the health-related and educational differences in our society! If there's ever going to be any progress -

WOMAN: Oooh, at any rate there's some lovely samples 'ere. (Sees BACK KNIGHT.) Oooh. 'Ow d'you do?

BACK KNIGHT: How do you do, good lady. I am Palmer, Knight of the Spinal Patients. Whose office is that?

WOMAN: Knight of the 'oos?

BACK KNIGHT: The Spinal Patients.

WOMAN: 'Oo 're the Spinal Patients?

BACK KNIGHT: Well - we all are. We're all Spinal Patients. And I am your Supreme Healer.

WOMAN: Didn't know we 'ad a Supreme Healer. I thought we were a medicine-based hospital.

DENNIS: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a chill of libel-fear. A suing-happy market force in which the uneducated patients -

WOMAN: Oh there you go, bringing education into it again.

DENNIS: Well, that's what it's all about! If only people would listen -

BACK KNIGHT: Please! Please, good people, I am in haste. Who works in that office?

WOMAN: No one works there.

BACK KNIGHT: Then who is your chiropractor?

WOMAN: We don't have a chiropractor.

BACK KNIGHT: What?

DENNIS: I told you. We're a scientific teaching hospital. We take it in turns to act as a sort of lecturing professor for the week.

BACK KNIGHT: Yes.

DENNIS: But all assignments by that professor have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting.

BACK KNIGHT: Yes I see.

DENNIS: By a simple majority in the case of purely routine medical practices -

BACK KNIGHT: Be quiet!

DENNIS: But by a two-thirds majority in the case of more complex -

BACK KNIGHT: Be quiet. I order you to be quiet!

WOMAN (laughing): Order, eh, 'oo's 'e think 'e is?

BACK KNIGHT: I am your Supreme Healer!

WOMAN: Well, I didn't accredit you.

BACK KNIGHT: You don't accredit Supreme Healers!

WOMAN: Well, 'ow did you become Supreme Healer then?

BACK KNIGHT: The Magic of the Spine. (Singing voices) The nerves clad in the purest shimmering Innate Intelligence, held aloft the revelation from the bosom of the body signifying by Divine Providence that I, Palmer, was to realign your vertebrae. (Singing stops.) That is why I am your Supreme Healer!

DENNIS: Listen. Strange vertebrae lying in spines distributing innate intelligence has no scientific basis in medicine. Supreme bodily health derives from a killing of the invasive microorganisms, not from some farcical subluxatic ceremony.

BACK KNIGHT: BE QUIET!!!

DENNIS: Well you can't expect to wield supreme medical reputation just because some wonky spine blew a pop at you!

BACK KNIGHT: Shut up!

DENNIS: I mean, if I went round saying I was a magician, just because some vaccine-denying twit had lobbed a farce at me, they'd put me away!

BACK KNIGHT: Shut up, will you? SHUT UP!

DENNIS: Oooh, now we see the suing inherent in the system.

BACK KNIGHT: SHUT UP!

DENNIS: Come and see the suing inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being supressed!

BACK KNIGHT: Bloody skeptic!

DENNIS: Oooh, what a giveaway. Did you hear that, did you hear that, eh? That's what I'm on about - you saw him supressing me! You saw it, didn't you?


For Crispian's Monty BCA works, see here and here. These were my inspiration . . .