Dead famous by Ben Elton Page A

just do our own chores. I’m detoxing at the moment and am only eating boiled rice, which I imagine will be rather easier to clean off plates than whatever bowel-rotting garbage Garry, Jazz and Kelly choose to gorge themselves on.’
    ‘Suits me,’ said Gazzer.
    ‘I always clean my plate with a bit of bread anyway.’
    ‘Yes, Garry,’ said Layla, ‘and I’m not being heavy or anything, but perhaps you should remember that the bread is for everyone. I mean, I hope you think that’s a chilled thing to say? I’m not trying to diss you or anything.’ Gazzer simply smirked and returned to his pushups.
    ‘Wouldn’t doing our washing-up individually be a bit silly, David?’ Said Kelly.
    ‘And why would that be, Kelly?’ David opened his eyes and fixed Kelly with a soft, gentle, tolerant smile that was about as soft, gentle and tolerant as a rattlesnake.
    ‘Well, because…Because…’
    ‘Please don’t get me wrong. I feel it’s really important that you feel able to say to me that I’m stupid, but why?’
    ‘I didn’t mean…I mean, I didn’t think…’ Kelly said no more. David closed his eyes once more and returned to the beauty of his inner thoughts. Hamish, the junior doctor, the man who did not wish to be noticed, made one of his rare contributions to the conversation.
    ‘I don’t like house rotas,’ he said.
    ‘I had five years of communal living when I was a student. I know your sort, Layla. Next you’ll be fining me an egg for not replacing the bogroll when I finish it.’
    ‘Oh, so it’s you that does that, is it?’ Said Dervla.
    ‘I was giving an example,’ said Hamish hastily.
    ‘I’ll tell you what’s worse than a bogroll finisher,’Jazz shouted, leaping into the conversation with eager enthusiasm: ‘a draper! The sort of bastard who finishes the roll, all except for a single sheet, which he then proceeds to drape over the empty tube!’ Jazz may have been a trainee chef, but that was just a job, not a vocation. It was not what he wanted to do with his life at all. Jazz wanted to be a comedian. That was why he had come into the house. He saw it as a platform for a career in comedy. He knew that he could make his friends laugh and dreamt of one day making a rich and glamorous living out of this ability. Not a standup, though; what he wanted to be was a wit. A raconteur, a clever bastard. He wanted to be on the panel of a hip game show and trade inspired insults with the other guys. He wanted to be a talking head on super-cool TV theme nights, cracking top putdowns about ex-celebrities. He wanted to host an award ceremony. That was Jazz’s ambition, to be one of that elite band of good old boys who made their living out of just saying brilliant things right off the cuff. He wanted to be hip and funny and wear smart suits and be part of the Zeitgeist and just take the piss out of everything. First, however, Jazz needed to get noticed. He needed people to see what a cracking good bloke and dead funny geezer he was. Since entering the house he had been looking for opportunities to work his ideas for material into the conversation. The mention of empty toilet rolls had been a gift.
    ‘The draper is a toilet Nazi!’ Jazz cried.
    ‘He doesn’t have to replace the roll, no, ‘cos it ain’t finished yet, is it? He’s left just enough for the next bloke’s fingers to go straight through and right up his arse!’ Jazz’s outburst was met with a surprised silence, not least perhaps because he had chosen to deliver most of it directly into one of the remote cameras that hung from the ceiling.
    ‘You don’t even know if they’ll broadcast it. Jazz,’ said Dervla.
    ‘Gotta keep trying, babes,’ Jazz replied.
    ‘Billy Connolly used to gig to seagulls when he was a Glasgow docker.’
    ‘Look! Please!’ Layla protested.
    ‘Can we please just chill! We are trying to organize a rota.’
    ‘Why don’t we just take it easy and see what happens?’ Said Hamish.
    ‘Things will get