The Devil's Pleasure Garden

Will You Please Fuck Off?—the movie

The one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.—Salvador Dalí

Toby travels with an American woman who pays. He's got it made, except that her nine-year-old daughter is smarter than he is. (This episode in the series takes place in London.) Based on the novella:

Lazy, good-for-nothing, pleasure-loving Toby, in flight from his creditors, has tried it as an English-teacher in Paris ("know-your-words sort of thing") and as a tour guide in Italy and Greece—

Proposed cast: Jean Dujardin (Toby)

—and has now relaxed into the good life, traveling with rich bubblehead Marcie,

to Bali, Hydra, Puerto Vallerta, wherever he can avoid cold weather and alarm clocks. Marcie is the widow of a scientific genius, now dead in some wacko experiment, and her nine-year-old daughter by him, Andrea, thinks in megabytes.

And there's the rub: "Marcie is no smarter than anybody else; the child is smarter than anybody else"—including Toby, who she treats as her yo-yo. She'd have got rid of him long ago but her mommy loves him, so she keeps him around to, what, play with.

Proposed cast: John Goodman (Haze)

Marcie’s father-in-law, billionaire Hazelton Turnbull “Hard Turd” Harding IV, loathes Toby, and loathes giving Marcie her allowance to feed him. But he loves his little granddaughter, and there lies the control.

Now Haze has summoned Marcie and Andrea to London, so they can pose as a family while he pretends to buy and old house, but in fact wants to marry Marcie to Lord Michael, and pass the title on to Andrea.

Proposed cast: Scott Hinds (Lord Michael)

They distract Toby with Dr Lu, a hooker posing as a psychiatrist,

who lures him into compromising situations; one of which involves dropping his dry goods in front of the Queen.

Proposed cast: Mary Reynolds (HRH)

And as if he didn't have enough trouble, the house is haunted by a gay ghost who's in love with Toby.

Proposed cast: Mat Baynton (Oliphant)

Will You Please Fuck Off? is part of the Toby series:

Pretentious Pictures presents a London comedy.

Nifty quotes from Greek Island Murder

He took a big gulp and sprayed it out and yelled, I know man piss from woman piss! and went around trying to start fights with all the men.

People kissed each other without touching, talked without touching. Not like Greeks.
I leaned back on my elbows and watched them, listened to what they said about the paintings.
“It’s the heat. People go blank and minimal in the heat.”
“Art is always minimal.”
“It’s economy. That’s what art is.”
“This isn’t.”
“They’re go-geous,” said Pauline. “I want to buy all of them.” I had an impulse to correct her pronunciation. Why do the English speak English so badly?
“Show off stuff.”
“I don’t dress to attract attention. I dress to reward it.”
“Pintos, polyester, picking up the kids at day care.”
“You and me and the TV.”
“Bon soir,” said a man to the bar girl as she squeezed past.
“Simple human action.”
“You must swim out beyond your depth. No other place to be free.”
“Just in off the hurry circuit.”
“Holds the brush in his fist.”
“Has to come from the heart.”
“I fuckin’ own him.”
“Best Greek food I ever had was in Chicago.”
“No peanut butter here.”
“We have another island to go to.”
“Male writers no longer have anything to say.”
“Lesbos, Goa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bali.”
“Doesn’t know the difference.”
“Europeans trapped by the past.”
“You have to destroy to create.”
“Flying cockroaches on this island.”
“I always thought, when I finish this painting I’ll have said it, I’ll be free. But no.”
“Something missing in American women.”
“Went through every movement, but he never changed his message. Always direct.”
“Gandhi was wrong. He went to London and they wouldn’t let him into Mayfair’s so he turned against the Empire. So what?”
“India’s the red herring of the twentieth century.”
“Gratuitous, like music.”
“Simple honesty very difficult. Otherwise why write poems?”
“A natural celibate.”
“How intensely civilized of you to agree with me.”
“Jackson Pollock and all that shit.”
“Infallibly comfortable.”

Originally published in softcover as Home from the Party by Ronsdale Press in Vancouver:

“Considering the price and scarcity of potable water on an island suspiciously like Hydra, the discovery of a beautiful teenage corpse floating in a cistern is no laughing matter. But almost everything else is lively and fun in this mystery of political intrigue and sexual abundance in the Argosaronic.”—The Athenian

“Home from the Party is a slow-fused but explosive thriller set on an imaginary Greek island, presented in all its artsy glamour and glittering corruption….if you like epigrams, knowing insights into failed relationships, evocations of la dolce vita, Hydra-style, this is for you. MacLean…has published a previous novel, Foreign Matter, with Atheneum Press, New York. Although Foreign Matter was very well received, Home from the Party suggests that MacLean would be well-advised to undertake a series of mystery novels, using ‘Captain Costa’ and the Greek setting he evokes here with such skill and obvious joy.”—Edward Winston

“Featuring his usual comic touches, the book manages to skillfully intertwine a murder, a Greek investigator, showbiz celebrities, drug dealers, artists, gigolos, the CIA and the junta, in a fast-paced, entertaining web of entangled connections.”—Athens Week

“In Home from the Party MacLean has created a fast-paced, witty novel that pushes the murder mystery in exciting new directions.”—Keith Maillard

“This is a most entertaining and satirical tale in which black humour and farce are brought together with real acuity.”—Reference West

“MacLean is able to develop an interesting combination of characters in his novel. Each character is displayed with his/her own unique style and Konstantinou’s adventures are different and very funny.”—Greek News Weekly

“Home from the Party is a fast-paced murder mystery laced with humor.”—The Athens News

“The roller-coaster ride begins!”—Greek News Weekly

On YouTube:

Boccaccio’s "The Husband"

Boccaccio's "The Horse Trade"

Boccaccio's "The Stupid Friar"

Chaucer’s "The Miller's Tale"

"Red Devil Rag"

"Attack of the Giant Feminists"

"But Is It Love? Or, The Destruction of West Los Angeles"

You Need Money to Be Rich

Nobody ever met cuter:

She's tough; he's refined.

She's practical; he's cultured.

She's brilliant; he's elegant.

She's serious; he's frivolous.

She's a lawyer; he's a crook.

She never loses; neither does he.

Romeo Balue, a handsome light-hearted retired art thief, has his eye on paintings stolen by the Nazis from his friend Ada’s family, now in the hands of the Kremlin. Ada forbids him to steal them. Then again, she can’t afford £10 million to buy them back...

Daring British barrister Francesca Smithson, the darling of the press for her courtroom tactics, is appointed to defend American CFO Hugo Danch at hearings to extradite him for absconding with a fortune from his crashing company F.U.X.

Proposed: Jean Dujardin

But at the hotel there's a mix-up, and when she arrives to meet her new client she's sent to Romeo's suite, and the call-girl he'd asked for is sent to Hugo's.

Proposed: Anna Friel

And, what is it, her spirit of fun? She lets Romeo think she's from room service and plays along. All right, she is a little bored with her fiancé.

Proposed: Steve Pemberton

Soon she's leading a double life—by night Romeo's bird of paradise, by day the defender of a man with a briefcase full of bearer bonds.

Proposed: Tim Robbins

Watching Hugo on TV, Romeo spots a pin number written on his palm, and investigates his hotel-room safe. To avoid arrest Hugo allows Francesca to take charge of the bonds.

Proposed: Anamaria Marinca