getting rich off double divvy

Clive and I were divvy millionaires. It didn’t last long, but for a few terrible weeks we were famous. Louts. Chancers. That’s what they said.

It came about quite simply, thanks not only to chance. We gave ourselves a leg-up with a little bit of work. Clive came up with the chorus. A lot more besides, but that chorus was where it all began:

“you gotta give me

that double divvy”

He would mutter this during our big shop. Wednesday mornings - prime double divvy shopping. We got into the habit of repeating it back at each other. Chopping onions I’d say to him “if you want to be a real friend, fetch me my 4p dividend” - he’d be unpacking the oranges, saying “hey baby, you wanna come with? gonna go get that double div”. By the time we were sitting down to eat we’d be humming the tune of our made up song.

We recorded it one afternoon. The video was what you’d call basic: just shots of us clowning about dancing – clutching handfuls of stamps, fanning ourselves with the cards you stick them to, that sort of thing. We called it Getting Rich off Double Div and described it as our ‘tribute to the Co-op’s wonderful dividend system’.

Going viral is not what you’d expect. It means lots of admin. Our usual routine was interrupted, but the royalties (a trickle that became a flood) comforted us somewhat.

The Co-op financed a follow-up video. A proper release. Following ample discussion we recorded The Double Div Skiv. Workshopped to within an inch of its life, it involved a complicated dance sequence called The Skiv: they were dying for a second viral video. It went nowhere, but we were contracted to put an album together: the two of us lying on a bed of 4p stamps on the cover.

The storm died before even making landfall. The end was signalled during a trip to the Costa Blanca. All paid for by one of the tabloid newspapers. They published shots of us supposedly living the high-life in strip clubs (showering a dancer with £1 stamps); sunning ourselves at a beach-side cocktail bar.

Clive was distant by this point. Hangers-on convinced him that out of the two of us he was the artist. He took to wearing a veil, supposedly a reaction to all the attention we were getting. A fortnight beforehand no-one knew who we were. 

One second I was wishing it could all go back to how it was before. The next I was back in our flat, no-one bothering me for anything. The old place was as cosy as ever. Clive stayed off-grid for another month or so, but eventually came back with his tail between his legs. He looked very foolish with a set of flouro braids.

We put the whole episode behind us. Apart from the odd invitation to join some doomed reality programme, you wouldn’t know that we’d ever been in the media. We kept our songs to ourselves from that point on, though we do still shop at the Co-op.