- Victor Meldrew: One thing you can be sure about in life: just when you think that things are never ever going to get better, they suddenly get worse.
- [first lines]
- Radio Announcer: So, on line two we have Patrick. Good evening to you, Patrick, and what's your question for Mimsy Berkovitz?
- Patrick: Well, it's a bit of a tricky one, but, uh, put simply my wife and I live next door to a man that... if I tell you a few weeks ago he put a specially trained crab up my shorts while I was a asleep in the garden, and that I had to be rushed to hospital with it hanging between my legs like a passenger on a tube train, uh, you'll get some idea of the problem; and what's tricky is that they've invited us round the house tomorrow for a meal to try and patch things up. I just wonder if we should risk it.
- Fire Officer: Now then, you've now idea who these pranksters are, then, that keep ringing us up.
- Victor Meldrew: No! Presumably somebody I've annoyed in the past who's trying to get their own back.
- Margaret Meldrew: We've drawn up a short list of five thousand names.