SCENE: Cutty Sark Gardens, Greenwich. A middle-aged man and woman, recent passengers on a City Cruises excursion from the London Eye, are walking slowly past Nando’s, watched by two pigeons.
MAN: Gee, hon, what is that thing?
WOMAN: What?
MAN: Over there – that round thing.
Pause while both stare at the circular red brick building with the glazed dome.
MAN: Is that the observatory?
WOMAN: I guess so…
BOY PIGEON: There you go, just listen to them!
GIRL PIGEON: What?
BOY PIGEON: What I was saying. About how your average tourist couldn’t tell the difference between an astronomical laboratory constructed according to best scientific practice in order to let the ineffable beauty and infinite mystery of space be explored through a precision-engineered 28-inch refracting telescope, and a hole in the ground.
GIRL PIGEON: Oh, right. That again.
Pause while both stare at a discarded chip, possibly a home made skin-on chip from Byron, a new branch of which has just opened at the pierhead.
BOY PIGEON: Do you…?
GIRL PIGEON: No, you go ahead. I had one earlier.
BOY PIGEON: Thanks.
GIRL PIGEON: With Roger.
BOY PIGEON: What? Who’s Roger?
GIRL PIGEON: Oh, no one…
She turns her head and watches as the man and woman warily approach the entrance to the foot tunnel.
Screenplay: Matt Haynes (with additional material by the cast)
