The Thick of It (TV Series)

The Rise of the Nutters (2007)

Roger Allam: Peter Mannion

Quotes 

• Peter Mannion : Have I shaved properly? It's just that we're having the bathroom done and I was in the kitchen this morning, using the kettle as a mirror.

  Phil Smith : No, very smooth. Was it a chrome kettle, then?

  Peter Mannion : You've been watching CSI again, haven't you?

• Peter Mannion : I'm modern! I say 'black' instead of 'colored', I think women are a good thing, I have no problem with gays, most of them are very well turned out, especially the men. Why is it this last year I'm being made to feel as if I'm always two steps behind, like I can't program a video or convert everything back to old money? Because that's not me!

  Phil Smith : You still got a video?

• Stewart Pearson : [Stewart's making a reluctant Peter try on a new suit, without a tie]  Just wondering whether you're fully conversive with the new line, whether you're really up to speed.

  Peter Mannion : I don't know, am I? Because I get people stopping me on the streets and saying 'are you still for locking up yobbos?' and I say 'yeah, offcourse we are!', and then I think 'are we?', because maybe I missed a memo from you, maybe I should understand yobbos now, not even call them 'yobbos', call them 'young men with issues around stabbing'!

  [pause] 

  Peter Mannion : No tie, you say.

  Stewart Pearson : No tie.

  Peter Mannion : Nice suit, actually.

  Stewart Pearson : So, what we're thinking... shirt outside the trowsers

  Peter Mannion : Outside? Not tuck my shirt in?

  Stewart Pearson : Yeah.

  Peter Mannion : I always tuck my shirt in, it's part of getting dressed. What, should I not do my flies up either? Let the old chap flop out, is that modern enough for you?

  Stewart Pearson : Just try it, Peter. Not the cock out, just the shirt thing.

• Stewart Pearson : So, what we're thinking... shirt outside the trousers.

  Peter Mannion : Outside? Not tuck my shirt in?

  Stewart Pearson : Yeah.

  Peter Mannion : I always tuck my shirt in, it's part of getting dressed. What, should I not do my flies up either? Let the old chap flop out, is that modern enough for you?

  Stewart Pearson : Just try it, Peter. Not the cock out, just the shirt thing.

• Peter Mannion : How is my blog? My own personal blog, personally written by me?

  [all reading the blog] 

  Phil Smith : There we go. Yesterday you liked the leader's speach, it was bold, corageous and sent up the right signals. And you had fruit for lunch.

  Peter Mannion : Oh, I write very well. What's the feedback like? Let's see that.

  Phil Smith : Open this page here. Here we go.

  Peter Mannion : [reading]  "I don't trust you, you Cypriot crook". Cypriot? This is the shit room! You've opened the shit room door. "How're the maintenance payment going on, you bastard?" Christ, that was 12 years ago!

  Phil Smith : I haven't seen that one...

  Peter Mannion : [reading]  "Adulterous Nazi!"

  Phil Smith : Or that one.

  Emma Messinger : That's actually, I think, the same one.

  Peter Mannion : This is the trouble with the public, they're fucking horrible!

  Emma Messinger : Peter, you can't say the public are fucking horrible.

  Peter Mannion : Yes I can, I've met them.

  [reading] 

  Peter Mannion : "You've always got such a pained expression. Do you take it up the chutney?" Really? I mean, for God's sake...

  Emma Messinger : The chutney?

  Peter Mannion : It's up the arse.

• Peter Mannion : [on the phone]  Phil. Have you seen my blog?

  Phil Smith : Yeah.

  Peter Mannion : I thought you said nobody reads this things, except political obsessives and mad Christians in wheelchairs but loads of people read mine, because there's a shitload of new obuse on that feedback thing.

  Phil Smith : Yeah, I mean, you read the thing about you being a Holocaust denyer.

  Peter Mannion : Yeah, and the thing about cats!

• Peter Mannion : Do I know you? Don't you work for somebody famous? Malcolm Hamish McDeath?

  Jamie : It's Peter Onion, isn't it?

  Peter Mannion : [laughs]  That's right.

  Jamie : I alway forget, are you the forced abortion or the lovechild? Or the guy who asphyxiated himself with a kiwi?

  Peter Mannion : Just the lovechild. I was the quite one.

• Peter Mannion : [to Phil, after the PM's resignation announcement]  All blown out of the fucking water! Two days in that hellhole, two days in that fucking pit! I COULD rape a cat now and I wouldn't get a paragraph!