The Coach That Came in from the Cold

Arthur has bought himself a bus. A police bus, no less, sold off by D.S. Morley because the local accounts won't balance otherwise. Arthur repaints it in his imagination, where all his best deals live, and starts running tours through "The London The Tourist Never Sees," which turns out to mean the parts of the city tourists were never meant to see from behind Arthur's wheel.

But the coach breaks down on the first proper outing. Arthur, who does not believe in refunds, simply redirects the party to the Winchester Club, where the visitors are treated to a genuine old English pub brawl between Ray and Denny Willis, one of Arthur's creditors. The tourists are delighted. They came for local colour and, fair play to the Daley organisation, they got it. Money's worth all round, which is more than Arthur usually delivers. It is, by general agreement, the best afternoon the tour company ever runs.

The police buy the coach back, and Arthur turns his attention to membership of an exclusive golf club. Ray, tagging along, uncovers the current captain's scheme to sell the club's land for executive apartments. Ray's intervention makes him the hero of the fairways, Arthur gets his membership, and the captain's plan dies with the secret. That is as close to justice as this show ever gets.

Kevin Clarke and Leon Griffiths wrote it, Richard Standeven directed. George Cole is Arthur, Gary Webster is Ray and Glynn Edwards is Dave, with Nicholas Day as Morley, Stephen Tompkinson as D.C. Park, Trevor Peacock as Previous, Geoffrey Whitehead as Superintendent Roden, Rory Edwards as Denny Willis, Lisa Jacobs as Lorraine and Simon Cowell-Parker as Simon Perkins.

Two small stories run in parallel: a failed tour that turns into a triumph, and a golf club that turns out to be a property scam. Nothing world-shattering. Just Arthur Daley extracting value from everything he touches, with Ray picking up the pieces and the tourists going home with a story.