The Cherry Picker (1974)

Terry-Thomas: Appleby

Quotes 

• Appleby : Beer is as wholesome a beverage as milk. Drunk in moderation, of course, it's an excellent, non-intoxicating liquid food; recommended equally for strong men as well as convalescents and nursing mothers.

  [receives another pint] 

  Appleby : Take me for instance, 55 years old, never had a day's illness in my life because I drink nothing else but beer. Last night, for instance, I was out with the boys until 2 am, had 9 or 10 pints of beer and look at me now - fresh as a daisy, clear-eyed as a babe.

• James Burn III : How about me buying you a drink? Come on.

  Appleby : Fine

  James Burn III : [sitting at the bar]  What'll you have, beer?

  Appleby : What? Beer?

  [scoffs] 

  Appleby : Not beer. No, no no. What, not when I'm off duty. Anything but not beer. Whisky, gin, rum, anything, even something else non alcoholic. Is that whisky? Well, that'll do fine. Cheers!

  Appleby : Oh, that's better. Oh that really is more like it. Here, how would you like to drink thousands of gallons of sludge and pretend you like it? It's horrible. It was alright when I started off but then I hate the stuff. Hate it. Now I'm too old to get another job. I'm really stuck. Do you know what they've done to me? They've turned me into an alcoholic. That's what they've done. Into an alcoholic.

  Appleby : It's terrible. It's early in the morning, it's when it gets ya. Your head it's rather like a throbbing cyst. And your stomach, ooh, I don't want to go into details but your mouth full of fur, you know, and felt. It's really, really nasty. And the noise - any sort of noise goes straight through the head. In the morning, always get noise in my part of the world. In my home I've got a couple of lodgers. A golliwog and his wife...

  James Burn III : Golliwogs? You mean blacks

  Appleby : Yes. Well, no, no. Grey. Sort of slate grey really, more than black. Well, it is, you see, they're Mohammedans, which is their religion and this requires a lot of very peculiar things. I mean, for instance, every single morning, she takes a chicken which they have up in their bedroom, tied by string, upside down... extraordinary... I don't know what they do with it, anyway it's nothing to do with me. Any rate, she goes downstairs every morning and cuts its bleeding head off. It's a different chicken, of course. Yeah. And well, I mean, I can't get it over to them that they are living in a civilised country. Well, it was until they come. Shall we have another?