Chrononhotonthologos

For many years I believed that the most startling opening line in theatre was Ubu's “Merdre!” in Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi. But no! What could better this:

Aldiborontiphoscophornio! Where left you Chrononhotonthologos?

These are the opening words of Henry Carey's Chrononhotonthologos, spoken by Rigdum-Funnidos. The play is not unlike Ubu Roi, in that the title character is a greedy, bad-tempered and violent king. (It would have been a great role for Robert Coates.) The final scene leaves the stage littered with corpses - this memorable line will give you some idea:

O horrid! horrible, and horridest horror! Our king! our general! our cook! our doctor! All dead! stone dead! irrevocably dead! O——-h!—— [All groan, a tragedy groan.]

The play also includes my favourite musical direction, which would not be out of place at the Festival of Argumentative Music at Ülm (see 24th February):

SCENE—A Bed Chamber. Chrononhotonthologos asleep. [Rough music, Viz. Salt Boxes and Rolling Pins, Grid-Irons and Tongs, Sow-Gelders Horns, Marrow-Bones and Cleavers, c. c.] He wakes.

Henry Carey (c.1687-1743) also wrote, among much else, the words to God Save The King (or Queen). Chrononhotonthologos was so popular in its day that the title entered the language, as a synonym for “furious, violent, demanding, self-centered” (sounds just like Pa Ubu) and appeared in earlier editions of Roget's Thesaurus, although appears not to have made it into the OED.

You can read the play in full by clicking on the picture of Pa Ubu (for want of a picture of Chrononhotonthologos himself).

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

I've come to talk with you again. I've had a nightmare about a hen. I'd been abandoned, in my pyjamas, in a desolate fen. The hen approached me, clucking. Seldom have I heard so eldritch a cluck from a domestic fowl. I was thoroughly unnerved. In the nightmare, believing that I had awoken, I was chewing my pillow and my mouth was full of feathers and I began to choke. But I did not wake. The hen pecked at something on the ground. I was no longer in a fen. I was standing in the middle of a field splattered with buttercups, holding a big iron slab of dubious utility. I looked at it very carefully, and saw that a stanza of Emily Dickinson's had been scratched on it: Its little Ether Hood - Doth sit upon its Head - The millinery supple - Of the sagacious God. Now I was spectacularly terrified! The Belle of Amherst dream, that had plagued me for two decades until Dr Snap prescribed his balm and unguents, had returned to haunt me! Somehow I was conscious that I was thrashing about in my bed and yet I remained transfixed in sleep. The noise made by the hen grew louder. Knowing that “a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid”, I looked desperately around me. Though I could hear it, the hen had vanished. The iron slab weighed heavy. Now I was knee deep in water. I began to shout, echoing Edgar Allan Poe's dying words: “Reynolds! Reynolds! … Reynolds!” At the last cry, mercifully, I awoke. I jumped out of bed immediately and plunged my head into a nearby pail of icy water. Then I went to the window, and looked out at the bright morning. Rustic farmyard persons were trudging up the hill over by Bodger's Spinney. A booby and a godwit sang.

The Encyclopaedia of Unnecessary Knowledge

Jasper Poxhaven has claimed that Dobson had as many unrealised or aborted projects as there were published pamphlets - and we know how numerous they were! Perhaps the most ambitious of these abandoned works is the gargantuan Dobson's Illustrated Encyclopaedia Of Unnecessary Knowledge. From notes scrawled higgledypiggledy in various notebooks, we know that the projected work was to extend to forty thick volumes of tiny, tiny print, with upwards of twenty thousand articles containing millions of words. Some of the pieces were indeed written and appeared as pamphlets, but until recently it was thought none of the proposed illustrations were ever executed. At a Port of Tongs jumble sale, however, Mrs Gubbins' nephew happened upon a cardboard box full of detritus, buried in which were three drawings. Subjected to tremendously exciting forensic analysis by a scientist known only to Jasper Poxhaven as “man with unwashed hair”, the pictures have now been authenticated. They were drawn by Marigold Chew to accompany three of Dobson's encyclopaedia articles; alas and alack, not one of the three was ever written. We are proud to publish the pictures here, together with Mr Poxhaven's brief notes. We have given each its own Hooting Yard paragraph-break, because that's the kind of thing we do, especially on Wednesdays.

BIG PÂPIER MACHÉ DINOSAURS

It is possible that some trace of Dobson's text for this article can be found in his pamphlet How And Why I Built Eight Small Pâpier Maché Brontosauruses.

PHANTASM OF THE PLANT-POT

It is unclear what Dobson meant by the title of this proposed article. Ms Chew's illustation is similarly perplexing. I have applied for a grant which will allow me to devote the next four years to unravelling the mystery.

RUSTIC FARMYARD PERSON

Self-explanatory.

Packaging or Fighting?

In Britain, the day after Christmas is known as Boxing Day. Curiously, the day after Pansy Cradledew Day has not been accorded its own name. A plenary session of the Hooting Yard Miscellaneous Matters Of Towering Importance Committee was convened to address the issue. It was swiftly agreed that a name for the post-Pansy day should be in some way related to “boxing”, but frantic arguments raged for minutes whether the allusion was to packaging or fighting. Some members of the committee wanted to plump immediately for Wrestling Day. They were silenced when member F X Duggleby provided unassailable evidence that the “boxing” referred to boxes, and had not a jot nor tittle to do with contact sports.

This point decided, the committee went into recess, and partook of a superb lunch of shredded watercress and boiled duckpond water, then engaged in post-prandial calisthenics (think trampolines and medicine balls). Brain scans completed, the committee members shuffled back into the Big Overwhelming Hall, with its gleaming linoleum, important-looking wallpaper, and empty birdcages.

The afternoon session reviewed a wide variety of boxes and packaging materials, and eventually voted between two options: Big Unwieldy Crate Day or Jiffy™ Bag Day. The latter was carried by four thousand and eight votes to six.

Trademark Notice

International cosmetics corporations & personal hygiene manufacturers should note that Hooting Yard has registered the following as trade names for men's toiletries: Cravat; Lapel; Wyngarde; Tranche; Corporate Takeover; Dave; Milquetoast; Vapid; Smarm; Prong; Andrew Motion; Tomahawk; Sweatlodge; Global Reach; Commodore; Pontiff; Mogul; Plunge; Hengist; Murdoch; Attaché; Viscount; Hod; Clutch; Tsar; Panther; Oilrig; Grit; Suave; Jawline; & Crevasse.

The Birdhole Prison Riots

Mrs Gubbins' book about the Birdhole Prison Riots will be published in the autumn, whether or not she is released from police custody.

Anagram News

A new Broadway musical is opening soon, based on a story in which domestic poultry gorge themselves on grain, drink vast quantities of rainwater from a trough, and flap about in an irresponsible manner. Appropriately, the music for Pet Hens' Hedonism has been composed by Stephen Sondheim.

The Novels of Lothar Preen

Renowned as a musician, impresario, voluptuary and habitué of tough drinking-dens in the dockyards of Marseilles, Lothar Preen was - perhaps surprisingly - a novelist of no little talent. Few of his books have had a wide readership, published as they were by small presses which were often phantom companies serving as cover for illicit & reprehensible activities, the tomes themselves likely to be pulped within days of coming off the press. The time seems right for a re-evaluation of Preen's literary work, so we are pleased to present the first ever English-language summary of his prose. Click on the picture of Preen below….

Burnt Maps

Mister Bim bought an atlas as a birthday gift for his daughter, who was tremendously fond of geography. Without opening the big fat book, Mister Bim asked the oddly-haired shop assistant to wrap it up in colourful and exciting paper and to tie a ribbon around it. The shop assistant did the wrapping with precision and care, but then got the ribbon entangled in his odd hair, and had to use a pair of scissors to free it. Now the ribbon was not long enough to girdle the atlas.

“I am most dreadfully dreadfully sorry,” said the shop assistant.

“Oh never you mind now,” said Mister Bim, “the wrapping paper is lovely all by itself.” The paper had a pattern of interlocking hollyhocks, delphiniums, and fire extinguishers, all red and green and gold and purple and yellow and blue.

Mister Bim's daughter, Clytemnestra, unwrapped the atlas on her birthday three days later. She beamed and gave her papa a kiss on his hairy cheek.

“Oh gosh what can I say thank you so much papa!” she said.

We learned in the very first sentence that Clytemnestra was terrifically fond of geography. That fondness had led her to become knowledgeable, too. So imagine her disappointment when, upon close inspection, she discovered that every single one of the maps in the atlas was inaccurate. The port of Split is not in Bolivia. The world's largest lake is not just a few miles south of Swanage. Swanage itself is not spelled Swange.

“I will take it back to that shop and complain,” said Mister Bim.

“No no, papa. Let us tear all the maps out of the book and make a fire with them. Let us create a conflagration like unto the very flames of Hell.”

And, children, do you know something? That is exactly what they did!

Source : The Idyllic Childhood of Clytemnestra Bim by Rufus Bim, as told to Dobson

Wretchedness Transformed : A Case Study

“Vermin with wings” was the memorable phrase used by newt-fancying Mayor of London Ken Livingstone to describe pigeons. He has a point. Sometimes it seems as if nowhere in our capital city is free from pigeon shit. They're grubby birds. Even the supposedly healthy ones look disease-ridden. And that eerie, unholy noise they make - the soundtrack to nightmares. I know otherwise saintly people - Francis of Assisis in the making - who would gladly bludgeon, stamp on, or maim pigeons to make the world a better place. Well.

My theory is that our attitude to Ken's “vermin” has a lot to do with the associations - such as those above - which crowd our heads when we hear the word “pigeon”. Our ability to take an objective view of the birds is lost. Just as we would find it difficult to maintain an air of suave politeness if introduced to a woman, only to learn that her first name was Condoleezza, we cannot escape the involuntary, Lovecraftian shudderings elicited by certain words and names.

There is a way forward, if we are prepared - in this instance - to approach ornithological taxonomy with a devil-may-care looseness. Some breeds of pigeon have lovely names. Ever since I began to think of these shit-riddled birds as cumulets, my heart swells with pangs of joy at the sight of them, which is as it should be on this miraculous and lovely planet. And who - apart from the likes of Condoleezza Rice - could fail to have tender feelings towards a Czech ice pouter?

Japanese Conceptual Artist in Bed Anniversary

Not only is today Pansy Cradledew Eve, it is also the thirty-fifth anniversary of the day that a Japanese conceptual artist named Yoko Ono got into a bed with a Liverpudlian pop singer at a hotel in Amsterdam, and stayed there for a week. Please note this in your diary.

Dobson Dust-jacket Discovery

On Friday 12th March we referred to Dobson's short-lived contract with Ladybird Books, which saw the publication of just one work. It has long been argued, by the indefatigable Dobson scholar Jasper Poxhaven, that a second book was planned, and - more controversially - that dust-jackets were printed for the new title so that it could be included in Ladybird's 1960 catalogue. When Dobson failed to deliver his manuscript, says Poxhaven, the proposal was quietly dropped, an erratum slip was inserted into the catalogues, and the dust-jackets were torn up and donated to the Pang Hill Orphanage for use in pâpier maché projects. All traces of the book were then lost, and it became one of the so-called “Phantom Dobsons”, those much-discussed works of which there appear to be hints and vestiges in the documentary record, yet which elude even the Poxhavens of this world.*

Last week, however, while taking a cigarette break, the same Poxhaven was caught in a downpour and took shelter in a derelict kiosk abutting the Port of Tongs flag-and-pennant warehouse. The scholar was astonished to see, pasted to the crumbling wall of the kiosk with proprietary paste, a copy of the lost Dobson dust-jacket. Gingerly, he unpeeled it from the wall, put it in his satchel, and cycled furiously to the Dobson Building, where it is now on temporary display next to a pile of towels in the laundry room.

* NOTE : Aloysius Nestingbird has compared the “Phantom Dobsons” to the Sherlock Holmes cases which Dr Watson mentions in passing, but which were never written up as part of the canon. Three of these in particular hold me spellbound: “the case of the bogus laundry”, alluded to in The Adventure Of The Cardboard Box, “the singular affair of the aluminium crutch” noted in The Adventure Of The Musgrave Ritual, and, best of all, the magnificent case of “the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant” in The Adventure Of The Veiled Lodger.

Important Lark Information

Imagine, just for a moment, that you live in ancient Latvia. Now look at today's date. Gosh! It's Kazimiras Diena, the festival which commemorates the return of the larks! Being an ancient Latvian, you know full well that larks are passerine birds of the predominantly Old World family Alaudidae, small terrestrial birds with often extravagant songs and display flights. Often, you have pointed out to your ancient Latvian pals that larks nest on the ground, laying between two to six speckled eggs. Sometimes you get into arguments with your ancient Latvian next hut neighbour, who insists that most larks are fairly dull in appearance. Both of you agree, however, that their food is insects and seeds. Now, amity restored, you set off arm in arm with your neighbour for the festival.

“Look, Arvids,” you say, pointing to a nearby bird, “a lark!”

“Indeed it is, Egils,” says your neighbour, “But what species of lark do you suppose it is?”

“Well now, Arvids, I must confess I'm not entirely sure! There are so many different species of larks! Monotonous, Singing Bush, Australasian Bush, Latakoo, White-tailed, Madagascar, Kordofan, Williams', Friedmann's, Red-winged, Somali Long-billed, Ash's, Angola, Rufous-naped, Flappet, Clapper, Collared, Indian Bush, Gillett's, Fawn-colored, Rufous-winged Bush, Rusty, Pink-breasted, Degodi, and Sabota, to name but twenty five!”

“Egils, Egils!” replies Arvids, “Are you not forgetting the Rufous-rumped, Dusky, Archer's, Sidamo, Rudd's, Cape, the Algulhas-, Eastern-, and Karoo Long-billed, Benguela, Short-clawed, Dune, Karoo, Barlow's, Ferruginous, and Spike-heeled larks, to say nothing of the sparrow larks?”

“Sparrow larks, Arvids?” you ask, plaintively.

“Yes, Egils. Not just the Black-eared and the Chestnut-backed, but the Black-crowned and Gray-backed and Chestnut-headed and Fischer's and Ashy-crowned!”

“Oh, of course, Arvids,” you say, “Now you come to mention it, I used to have a tame Chestnut-headed Sparrow lark.”

“Are you sure that's what it was, Egils?” challenges Arvids, a fierce look in his blazing eyes, “Quite sure it wasn't a Bar-tailed, Rufous-tailed, Desert, Gray's, Greater or Lesser Hoopoe, Thick-billed, Calandra, Bimaculated, Tibetan, Mongolian, or White-winged lark?”

You are now beginning to feel defeated by your neighbour's superior knowledge.

“I suppose it might have been a Black or a Greater Short-toed lark, Arvids,” you whimper.

“Well, that's as may be,” says Arvids, “But what about the lark over there which has now taken up a perch on the branch of that lightning-struck pugton tree? Is it a Blanford's, Hume's, Lesser Short-toed, Red-capped, Asian Short-toed, Sand, Somali Short-toed, Pink-billed, Botha's, Sclater's, Obbia, Masked, Dunn's, or Stark's lark, do you think?”

“It's definitely not a Stark's,” you say, confidence boosted a little, “Although perhaps it might be a Dupont's, Thekla, Malabar, Sun, Tawny, Long-billed, Short-tailed, Wood, or Skylark, Arvids.”

“Pshaw, Egils! You will be telling me next it is a Japanese, Oriental or Razo skylark! Or even a Horned or Shore or Temminck's lark!”

“Well at least I know it's not a Magpie lark, Arvids,” you shout, “Which is actually neither a lark nor a magpie, but a giant Monarch flycatcher.”

“I am well aware of that, Egils,” your neighbour ripostes.

By this time the bird, which is in fact a Crested lark, has flown away, and raindrops are beginning to fall in ancient Latvia.

Hooting Yard recommends Wikipedia.

Six Cows and a Bee : Correction

Due to a production error, the text and pictures which appeared under the heading “Six Cows And A Bee” on Friday 19th March were completely erroneous. Wool from Mrs Gubbins' knitted tea-cosy began to unravel and somehow became entangled in the mainframe, leading to all sorts of hoo-ha. The headline was meant to a refer to a piece about the debut performance of a new pop group of that name. We hope to run the article as soon as we can spring Mrs Gubbins from chokey (see yesterday), although I have to admit that things are running quite smoothly in her absence.

A Word Game

The logophiliac barber Nuttawood Sirinuntananon used the above five sentences from Knox's pulp non-classic as the basis for a word game which he unsuccessfully marketed under the name Johnfowlesopoly. Despite its commercial failure, the game is a great favourite at Hooting Yard, and the rules (such as they are) are simple.

Taking the adjectives from Knox's passage - in alphabetical order, bestial, big, debauched, fashionable, foreign-made, jaded, neurotic, sickening, and whirling - players are given five minutes to compose a very short tale suitable as a bedtime story for infants. All nine adjectives must be used, but free rein is given for the rest of the text. Extra points are awarded if the word plodded is also included.

Readers are encouraged to play this at home on one of those dismal evenings when life seems unbearable, and to send in their entries for inclusion in a forthcoming anthology.

Brain Surgeon News

There was an enticing news item on the radio this morning. Here are the bare bones of the story - no doubt further details are available in the newspapers, but I don't really want to know. This has a beauty of its own:

A brain surgeon at a British hospital has been suspended from duty. His crime? He took a second helping of soup from the staff canteen and did not pay for it. His defence? He was just getting some extra croutons. The matter has been raised in the House of Lords.

That Mrs Gubbins Self-portrait

On 17th March we promised that a signed self-portrait of Mrs Gubbins would be made available to readers.

I am afraid that the picture, which indeed bears a striking resemblance to Mrs Gubbins, is in fact a forgery. Our art consultant, Vidiadhar Engineer, has subjected the portrait to a battery of often alarming tests, some of which involve volatile chemicals, and has concluded that “the penmanship could not have come from Mrs Gubbins' palsy-withered hand. It is clearly a fake.” Reader Sam Byrne has confessed to the imposture, and Mrs Gubbins has been arrested.

Countdown to Pansy Cradledew Day

Excitement grows as Pansy Cradledew Day (Friday 26th March) approaches. Noting the deluge of gruesome compilation CDs in the shops to mark Mothering Sunday, the whizzkids in the Hooting Yard Marketing Division suggested we try something similar. The result is Now That's What I Call Pansy Cradledew, a ten-track CD chosen by Pansy herself:

1. 1. Aether The Necks
2. 2. What is Wrong With Groovin'? Letta Mbulu
3. 3. Temptation Of Egg Giant Sand
4. 4. Sarabande Georg Friedrich Handel
5. 5. The Rhythm Thief Sparks
6. 6. Blister In The Sun Violent Femmes
7. 7. Autumn In New York Rosemary Clooney
8. 8. Land Of Ladies The Brothers Johnson
9. 9. Your Fucking Sunny Day Lambchop
10. 10. Dark Star The Grateful Dead

Readers with what remains of their natural lives to spare are particularly encouraged to follow the Dark Star link.

Lean-starved Hackney Apophthegms : A Cartoon Strip

The Annual “Atlas Shrugged” Poetry Competition

It is time once again for this popular contest, open to all readers, their families and friends. With just a week to go until Pansy Cradledew Day, the panel of judges decided to set her as the topic - or, to be more precise “a poem in praise of Pansy Cradledew written in the style of Andrew Motion”. Now there's a challenge for poetasters and versifiers! Sharpen your pencils, set to work, and send in entries by Thursday 25th March, for publication on the great day itself. See 18th December and 17th March for examples of the Poet Laureate's doggerel, and refer to What Is Hooting Yard? for some pointers to Pansy's estimable character. The winner will be sent an original Gervase Beerpint manuscript, in pink ink on blotting paper - really!

The “Atlas Shrugged” Poetry Competition is sponsored by the Gubbins-Dobson Foundation For Global Shenanigans, innit

Six Cows and a Bee

There is good news from the Pang Hill Orphanage. The philanthropist Guesbaldo Sopwith - he whose fortune derives from the Unnerving Cakes & Pastries franchise - has donated six cows and a bee to the crumbling and storm-tossed institution, to bring a spark of light, albeit minuscule, into the lives of the woebegone tots. In announcing his largesse, Mr Sopwith said: “The orphans may be shabby little guttersnipes, but I had a spare half dozen cows, so after long deliberation and much chewing of freshly-picked gloxinia and harebells, I decided to let them loose in the orphanage garden, or what passes for a garden. The bee was my wife's suggestion, and a very good one, I think.”

What's on in Mustard Parva

My diving helmet is made of gleaming brass. I polish it once a week, on Friday afternoons. Each Saturday morning, I don the diving helmet and cycle fourteen voots to a bucolic hamlet called Mustard Parva. (Curiously, there is no neighbouring village named Mustard Magna, although a rustic barnyard person I met while drinking a pot of gaar in the local gaar-pot drinking hut told me that there had once been such a place. In the year of his birth, this toothless derelict said, the sizeable cluster of wooden buildings known as Mustard Magna had been invaded by a sloth of bears, many hundreds of them, driven insane by ergot poisoning, each bear capable of destroying a humble peasant dwelling with a single thwack from its mighty paw. Two hours after the first bear lumbered across Sawdust Bridge, the village was completely obliterated. It is still shown on some maps.) Jamming my bicycle into a kiosk on Mustard Parva's Yoko Ono Boulevard, I join six or seven other diving helmet enthusiasts for our weekly meeting. Huddled together in the upstairs room of a building fast succumbing to dry rot, we discuss our diving helmets and take lamentably inaccurate minutes which are published regularly through the good offices of the Mustard Parva Thing, whose editor is none other than the blind cousin of Marigold Chew.

Source : The Belle of Amherst & Other Essays Written During An Unprecedented Pea-souper by Dobson (limited edition of three copies, unsigned, bound in tat, and coated with a foul-smelling medicament concocted by Dr Fang)

Stray Dog

Mrs Gubbins Throws a Fit

Dark clouds lour'd, and hailstones began to ping upon the pavement. Inside Haemoglobin Towers, Mrs Gubbins and her eighty-three-year-old colleague Daisy De'Ath were putting the finishing touches to their new software development, Pump-Action Graffix Hub 1.0, already being touted as “a harbinger” by Technobilge magazine.

“Would you care for a cup of tea, dear?” asked Daisy, noting that Mrs Gubbins was panting asthmatically and mopping her brow with a dainty handkerchief embroidered with a pattern of crocuses, hollyhocks, mealy bugs, and spurge. Daisy had always been famed for her solicitude.

“Ack…” gasped Mrs Gubbins.

“Tsk! You're getting yourself all flustered, Mrs Gubbins,” said Daisy, a little sharply, “Just because you forgot to insert a backslash into the command line for the ActiveX Pod System Tray Default.”

Reminded of this peccadillo, Mrs Gubbins became even more agitated, toppled off her ergonomic extruded-plastic workstation seating module, and landed on the floor, threshing about in an alarming fashion.

“Dearie me,” muttered Daisy to herself, and resolved at once to call an ambulance, despite the storm which was now raging outside like something from the imagination of the painter John Martin. She flipped through her Rolodex looking for the telephone number of the Bodger's Spinney Ambulance Station, which was close by, but without her spectacles - which she had unaccountably left in the office kitchenette while making some Bovril earlier - she was as good as blind. “One of these days I'll forget my own head!” she chuckled, in her fluting croak.*

Meanwhile a stream of drool was flowing from Mrs Gubbins' thin-lipped mouth, and her head was turning green …

* NOTE : Pedantic readers may argue that a croak cannot be fluting, but they have not heard Daisy De'Ath speak. Oh, and by the way, you will be pleased to know that Mrs Gubbins made a full recovery, before an ambulance arrived, by dint of the first aid skills of Matilda Choctaw (so spritely for a ninety-one-year-old!) who skipped into the office at the ellipsis above.

Hound of the Cargpans

Blasphemous Ted Cargpan's dog (above) has been awarded top prize in the “Ayn Rand Household Pet Of The Week” contest run by The Weekly Shackle. The hound, variously known as Hopscotch, Spinach, Chevenix De Groot, and L'Oreal (because he's worth it) was the clear winner in a field which included a bee, a horse, three corncrakes, a flea-ridden bison, Tim the pipistrelle bat, a weasel, a curlew, a pair of otters, and - the bookies' favourite - a squirrel called Miriam. Unfortunately, Miriam succumbed to an attack of the bindings and had to be withdrawn from competition. Better luck next week!

All Hail Gervase Beerpint

Gervase Beerpint's latest collection, Chutney On My Spats & Other Verses will be published next week on Pansy Cradledew Day (26th March). Says Gervase of his new work: “This is a new direction for me. I used to write sat at my desk facing south, but these grandly poetic soul-emanations were composed in my temporary billet at an Antarctic weather station, so I couldn't help but look to the north, and that has been a wonderful inspiration. Mrs Gubbins has hailed it as my best work. What do you think of these tough reindeer-hide snow-boots I'm wearing? I think I cut quite a dash, don't you?”

Balls

Yesterday we celebrated Punter Hoonjaw's centenary. There are those who would argue that the author of Invasion Of The Vapid Ones and The Tharg From Planet Icke does not deserve to be remembered. No one, however, can cavil at our decision to draw attention to an event that occurred in London two hundred and sixty four years ago today. Indeed, its contemporary relevance is uncanny. On 17th March 1740, Henry Fielding - author and magistrate - using the splendid pseudonym Captain Hercules Vinegar, issued a court summons against the Poet Laureate, Colley Cibber, accusing him of the wilful murder of the English language.

Is there in 21st century London an officer of the law with the wit to follow Captain Vinegar's example? I have had stern words to say about the present Poet Laureate before (see 18th December). But Lemsip-slurping Andrew Motion has now surpassed even his own previous doggerel with A Song For Jonny. Read it and weep.

Now dry your eyes, for Pansy Cradledew has a theory. “Could it be,” she asks, “that Motion is brilliantly undermining the anachronistic, monarchist post of laureate by writing deliberately atrocious twaddle? Consider the evidence. You referred in December to his poem about a ”dapper hall“ and a ”ball“. In this latest poem we find more balls. Read the last line of the new one carefully. I think the poet - if that's the word - is trying to tell us something.”

Mrs Gubbins Recommends

Mrs Gubbins, the Inspector of Pails, Railings, Fences & Wheat at our Haemoglobin Towers annexe (see yesterday) is a keen David Icke fan, and may indeed be an extraterrestrial lizard person herself. Be that as it may, she has just been given an exciting new button,and a new job to go with it. From today, Mrs Gubbins will be steering us towards other sites on the web she thinks deserve Hooting Yard readers' attention. She introduces the first of her recommendations as follows:

“Go and look at these diagrams!”

Signed self-portraits of Mrs Gubbins will be available soon. Meanwhile, content yourself with this photograph of her new button:

Pastry Post

Dr Ruth Pastry has written in yet again: “Yesterday you showed a picture of Dr Henry Kissinger in close proximity to a picture of a leech. Is this meant to be amusing?” Dr Pastry should be aware that, unlike her, Kissinger has never been entitled to that “Dr”: he simply made it up, trusting - for the most part correctly - that no one would dare challenge it, given his assumed gravitas and that sepulchral voice which outdoes even the graveyard tones of our own dear brain guru Tony Buzan. Anyway, Kissinger and the leech appeared in separate items. Get a grip, Dr Pastry!

Victorian Prime Minister News Update

When he wasn't rescuing fallen women or devising theories about Ancient Grecian colour blindness (see 2nd March), William Ewart Gladstone enthused about Atlantis. He was so infatuated with Ignatius Donnelly's book Atlantis, The Antediluvian World (1882) that he begged the Treasury for funds to mount an expedition of discovery, having decided that the Azores were the mountain peaks of the lost continent. The cabinet refused to let him have any money for this harebrained scheme, displaying a level of judiciousness which would not go amiss today.

Punter Hoonjaw

On 31st January, we had cause to mention the science fiction author Punter Hoonjaw, in a copy of whose potboiler Attack of the Zargons from Planet Git was found the anonymous “Captain Cake” manuscript to which Dobson devoted so much impenetrable verbiage. There are those who say that Hoonjaw (1904-1993) is a justly neglected figure, but today is the centenary of his birth, and here at Hooting Yard we wish to mark it.

Given that he died an octogenarian, it is surprising to learn that Hoonjaw's active career as a writer lasted just six years: his first published story, Dick Dazzle And The Intergalactic Toothpaste Horror, appeared in Inexplicable Yarns Magazine in 1937. Following the publication of his novel The Fiendish Plasma Goo From Outer Space in 1943, Hoonjaw lapsed into silence, and wrote not another word in the half-century until his death. Yet between those two landmarks, he was one of the most prolific writers in history. The sci-fi expert Dr Gavin Foddal, when attempting to produce a catalogue raisonée, estimated that Hoonjaw wrote over seven hundred full-length novels, eighty-odd novellas, and an astonishing four thousand, two hundred and ninety seven short stories. Today, not a single one of the millions of words he wrote is in print. Perplexingly, one will search in vain in secondhand bookshops for any of his work, and the original manuscripts - written in longhand with a fat fountain pen in exquisite copperplate - were all destroyed. In 1957, the by now ex-author set fire to the warehouse in which they were stored as part of an insurance scam involving a gang of ruthlessly violent Bolivian thugs and a mysterious figure known only as “Henry”. That this may have been the self-styled “Doctor” Henry Kissinger, later to become President Nixon's National Security Adviser, is clearly a load of flapdoodle.

The paperback which harboured the “Captain Cake” text has itself vanished from a filing cabinet in the Dobson Building on the Blister Lane Bypass. It is a most curious state of affairs.

Dobson's Leech Mishap

Dobson was one of the few pamphleteeers of the 20th century who still took seriously the mediaeval theory of the Four Bodily Humours. To remind readers who have forgotten, and inform those who don't know, here is a commendably concise paragraph from “Humorous” Dobson, an unpublished essay by Marigold Chew:

Taking the Aristotelian elements in turn, the theory was as follows: earth is reflected in the body as black bile, air as yellow bile, fire as blood, and water as phlegm. From these derive the terms melancholic, choleric, sanguine and phlegmatic. Dobson never deviated from his belief that the theory was fundamentally correct. He tended towards melancholy.

And, it should be said, he was so convinced that he also subscribed to the related practice of bloodletting with leeches. Dobson was rarely ill, but when he was, he had a devil of a time trying to find a doctor who would treat him as he wished. On his 61st birthday, suffering from an excess of black bile, he was in luck - or so he thought. An “alternative therapist” had opened their doors just down the road. Dobson presented himself and demanded leeching. He was shown into a back room and lo!, leeches were applied to his spindly legs. Unfortunately, the quack used leeches of the genus Helobdella (Glossiphoniidae), rather than Hirudo medicinalis. The latter is, as its name implies, the medicinal leech. It is a quaint, dark cylinder which has thirty three body rings, five pairs of eyes, several pairs of testes and two suckers, one at each end of its body. The head sucker searches and penetrates while the tail sucker holds fast to the host.

The result of the wrong type of leech being used was so vile that I shall not repeat it here. Dobson was lucky to survive, but he did, thank the Lord. If you decide to have your blood sucked by leeches, take this helpful anatomical diagram of Hirudo medicinalis with you. You will be able to check that your practicioner is using the correct type of leech, and can rest easy.

Jar Hints

I must make a confession. Here in the Haemoglobin Towers branch office, where the website is put together by a team of volunteers from the Bodger's Spinney Home For The Bewildered, The Withered & The Fraught, there has lain neglected in a damp corner a bulging sack full of letters, all of which are pleas from readers who seek urgent advice on their jars. I can offer no satisfactory excuse for having ignored them for so long. Much as I would like to throw blame upon our temporary janitor, the defrocked papal nuncio ex-Monsignor Shudderyhead, I cannot do so. With his hacking cough, boils, and seeming unwillingness ever to wash his hair, he makes an easy target, but despite his numberless crimes we make every effort to bolster his self-esteem. Only last week Mrs Gubbins gave him her soiled copy of one of David Icke's books about extraterrestrial lizard people, and the crones in the ActiveX Plug-In Division have been saving him their boiled sweet wrappers for a month. But enough office gossip! Here, with apologies for its lateness, is the jar advice so many readers have been waiting for:

It is vitally important to keep all your substances in separate, labelled jars. Nothing good can come of mistaking your turps for your suet, or vice versa. It can also help to arrange your jars in alphabetical order, to wit: blubber, crusts, curd, dew, grease, orts, pips, spume, ullage, vapour, whey. (This of course is only an example, as you may own an entirely different set of substances.)

I trust that will suffice.

Scenes From the Lives of the Poets : 1. Maud Abdab

My name is Maud Abdab. I am the woman who ate blood oranges with Enver Hoxha. We sat together in uncomfortable beach chairs, without speaking. My Albanian was rusty, and I was in awe, and he saw I was in awe, and he relished my awe. Juice from the blood oranges dribbled down our jaws. From the discomfort of his beach chair, Enver Hoxha directed my attention to the left. I looked, and saw a rowing boat, and the rowing boat's oars. The oars were too small for the rowing boat - or - the rowing boat was too big for the oars. I turned to look at Enver Hoxha. After a pause, he rose, and pulled from his pocket a length of gauze. When he went, he shook my hand, but he did not let fall the gauze. He spoke then. He said he had to go and draft some new Albanian laws. I recall nothing more.

Blasphemous Ted Cargpan & His Weird Sponge Hood

Beasts of the Field

“What in the name of heaven is Kurt Chodd prattling on about?” asks reader P. N. Cowper, “Contrary to the absurd waiting room scene in The Administration Of Lighthouses (9th March), vets do not as a rule tend to the kinds of animals listed there. This lack of verisimilitude ruined the lecture for me, and I am sure for many other readers.” Well: Mr or Ms Cowper is clearly not familiar with James Forbes' Oriental Memoirs (1813-15), where we find this:

“The Banian hospital at Surat is a most remarkable institution; it consists of a large plot of ground, enclosed with high walls, divided into several courts or wards, for the accommodation of animals; in sickness they are attended with the tenderest care, and find a peaceful asylum for the infirmities of age. At my visit, the hospital contained horses, mules, oxen, sheep, goats, monkeys, poultry, pigeons, and a variety of birds, with an aged tortoise, who was known to have been there for seventy-five years. The most extraordinary ward was that appropriated to rats, mice, bugs, and other noxious vermin. The overseers of the hospital frequently hire beggars from the streets, for a stipulated sum, to pass a night among the fleas, lice, and bugs, on the express condition of suffering them to enjoy their feast without molestation.”

Foolish Opinions

Edward Gibbon, author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was possibly the greatest writer of footnotes who ever lived. Here is a fine example of his art: “According to Julius Africanus, the world was created on the first of September - an opinion almost too foolish to be recorded.”

By inserting that “almost”, of course, Gibbon gets away with recording a wonderfully foolish opinion, and by doing so preserves it for us. We include it here in the hope that readers will contribute further foolish opinions, past and present, to create the Hooting Yard Pantheon o' Preposterousness. And yes, I know that there are many, many sites on the web devoted to such zaniness, but only at Hooting Yard will you find Edward Gibbon and Julius Africanus sharing a space with a photograph of black-caped, sepulchral-voiced brain guru Tony Buzan.

Three Miscellaneous Items

These used to be at the top of the main page, but I decided to tidy it up a bit. Here are the links for A Recipe For Gruel, A Catalogue Of 53 Birds, and what may well be stationery heaven.

The Beerpint Scandal

Seldom referred to these days, the so-called Beerpint Scandal* of 1977 is worth revisiting. Dennis Beerpint (brother of the poet Gervase) tells the story himself, in this previously unpublished memorandum, hurriedly scribbled on a piece of blotting paper and deposited in a credenza located in the boiler cupboard of the Museum of Moral Turpitude in Lewdbag.

Hundreds of outraged citizens threw pebbles at me in the streets after I announced, in the pages of the Tungsten Railings Digest, that I had never been to the theatre, that wild horses, nor indeed any other savage beasts of the field, would fain drag me to the theatre, and that I had no intention of going to the theatre, ever, full stop, end of, BAM! When, every evening, I kneel down to lavish praise upon my Maker, my most earnest prayer is that icy claws shall hug me to the bosom of Death rather than that I be propelled through the gaudy doors of the playhouse. Is this so grave a crime that I should be pelted with missiles? I can only surmise that the hot-headed reaction of the townsfolk was occasioned by my tenure, for many long years, as drama critic of the Weekly Shackle. Of course I had never seen any of the thousands of productions I reviewed in its august, if tatty, pages. Given an assignment by my editor, I would note down the play-title on a scrap of paper, place it under my pillow, and dream it. I ask you, humbly - is that so wrong?

* NOTE : Given the decade in which it occurred, it is a wonder that this scandal was never called “Beerpintgate” (see “Nixon”, 26th February).

Assiduous Costner Research

Reader Tim Thurn has complained that recent mentions of the film person Melvin Gibson, and more particularly his absurd The Passion Of The Christ (see 3rd & 10th March, & passim), indicate that I have lost sight of the supreme importance of Kevin Costner to world cinema. Fear not, Tim! I may not have prostrated myself before my Costner-shrine of late, but I have not been idle. Indeed, today I am able to announce that scholars have at last identified the source-novel of Costner's masterpiece:

If you peer very closely at that upstairs window, behind the word EASY, you can just see a small mushroom cloud. Costner was, of course, faithful to the apocalyptic post-nuclear holocaust atmosphere of this fine book.

A Guide to Pointy Town : Part Two

Yesterday we listed some of the things Pointy Town is famous for. Yet it is no Utopia. For instance, you will find in the town no trace whatsoever of quaintness, wry euphonium rehearsals, toffee, yoghurt, ululating idiots, ornithological paraphernalia, athletics, sawdust, dockyard flamboyance, gutters, hedgerows, jugglers, kissing lovers, zealous x-ray-eyed cadets, & “Visigoth”-brand nougat munchies. But who needs any of those things when there are great architectural marvels to be seen? One of the most striking and gigantic buildings in Pointy Town is the Old Wretched Flophouse. The principal front on the land side is considerably more than one-third of a Javan mile in length, and its wings, in depth, extend six hundred and seventy two feet, down to the edge of the Big Frightening River, this noble watercourse forming the fourth side of the quadrangle. Within the three sides (the Big Frightening River and two wings) are ranges of parallel buildings, which form the magazines, artificers' shops, mast and boat houses, offices, &c.; and in the area within these are four slips for building the largest, and two for the smaller class of Tugboats of Pointlessness. The whole of the outer range of buildings consists of lamentable suites of rooms, and long and filthily ornamented galleries, filled with the natural history and curiosities collected in every part of the globe, and brought by the different navigators which Pointy Town, of late years, has sent forth on discovery. In one room are assembled all the different nautical and mathematical instruments; in another all the models of toy brazil nuts of different nations and different eras; in another a complete library connected with every branch of both human and inhuman knowledge. The library's most treasured item is the manuscript of the first draft of Sepulveda's inane Lines Written Upon First Listening To ‘Dr Bogenbroom’ by Jethro Tull.

Newton News

We last drew attention to Sir Isaac Newton on 16th December last year. Here is a further anecdote. Passing swiftly over the fact that his name is an anagram of “ironic swans eat”, we ought also celebrate his powers of concentration. When his mind was fixed upon some knotty mathematical problem, as it so often was, he had great difficuly bestirring himself in the mornings. He was known to begin dressing, get one leg inside his breeches, then sit back down on the bed, lost in thought for hours upon hours. A proper caution, in other words.

Rebranding

As we reported on Tuesday, today sees Snow White's tiny friends the seven dwarves adopting new names as part of a long-overdue rebranding exercise (see 9th March). Inspired by their example, we have decided to rebrand Hooting Yard itself. Readers are invited to send in suggestions, bearing in mind that in the corporate world exciting, vibrant and dynamic new identities are invariably limited to one word, usually ending in -A, and probably in fake Latin - think Aviva, Consignia, Engenda and so on. We will also be chucking out that so, so fussy “Implausible” emblem at the top of the page and replacing it with a simple swirly design, similar to the superb examples shown here:

Downy, Witched, Dutch Cloud-heaps of Some Quaintest Tramontane Nephelococcugia of Thought

This familiar phrase, which appears in the quotation from M. P. Shiel above, was also the title of one of Dobson's more readable works, and the only one to find a publisher in his lifetime. (All those pamphlets of his were, of course, cranked out on Marigold Chew's dilapidated printing press.) During the early 1950s, after spending some time as a pin-the-paper-to-the-cardboard instructor at the Pang Hill Orphanage, Dobson became interested for the first time in writing pedagogic works for urchins. The early attempts were not a success. In a burst of ludicrous enthusiasm, he produced a series of ten “Tracts For Tinies” (including the now justly-admired Hideous Execution Practices Of The Blood-Drenched Corsairs, Ten Easy Steps To Grooming Your Cormorant, and My Nightmares About Emily Dickinson), but sales were few, and most of the copies ended up being used as hot air balloon ballast. Late in 1958, however, a janitor who worked for Ladybird Books picked up a copy of A Brief & Bewildering History Of Helsinki in a charity shop, read it with glee, and showed it to one of the firm's editors, who immediately tracked down the elusive pamphleteer. Commissioned to write a book for the Junior Science series, and given carte blanche regarding his subject-matter, Dobson scribbled down this tremendous text in just three hours. Sadly, it is now out of print.

A Guide to Pointy Town : Part One

Pointy Town lies just south of the Port of Tongs, and is famous for its amusing biscuits & cakes, dustbin exhibitions, ferocious geese, horrible icing-sugar jewellery, kaleidoscopic lettuce museum (never open), public quacking recitals, squalor, tortoises, utopian vinegar works, & xanthous (yellow) zanies. The few squares that existed in Pointy Town before the revolution were used as ostrich colonies and horse laundries rather than, as they are today, places of lasciviousness and grotesquerie. The Triumph of Marmalade Square, in particular, fenced round with a rude wooden railing, interrupted by lumpish brick piers at intervals of every half-dozen yards, partakes more of the character of a pond than a parterre; and as for Kevin Costner Square, it has very much the air of a sorry cow-yard, where blackguards are to be seen assembled daily, playing at husselcap up to their ankles in mire.

Blatant Forgeries Received

Someone has been forging correspondence from a dead German aeronautical engineer. Unless the culprit owns up by the end of the day, the whole readership will stay behind and polish the Buttons of Beb - every last one of them!

Dear Sir : Idly perusing your website today, whilst clinging unsteadily to a flagpole, gripping my laptop in my teeth and attempting to push several envelopes into the telephone box attached to the top, I couldn’t help noticing your Mission Statement (10th March). Surely, I thought to myself, there are lessons here for us all, innit. As a result, I have revised my life’s goals, abandoned my attempts to understand traditional Japanese theatre – surely the ultimate Noh-brainer – and returned to my first love: designing V2 missiles and working for NASA. It is, after all, rocket science.

Yrs etc,

Werner von Braun

Please note that while one foolish reader has been frittering their time away on this counterfeit, here in the serried belvederes of Haemoglobin Towers we have embarked upon the important task of devising a “Mission Statement Lite”, which will be launched soon.

Gluttony News

The rest of today's content is food-related, for some reason, so this seems an appropriate item to include. When George Nevil, brother to the Earl of Warwick, was installed as the Archbishop of York in 1470, he arranged a banquet for the nobility, gentry and clergy, as was the custom. Here is a list of what they ate (spellings sic throughout) :

300 quartrs of wheat, 300 ton of ale, 104 ton of wine, 1 pipe of spic'd wine, 80 fat oxen, 6 wild bulls, 300 pigs, 1004 wethers, 300 hogs, 300 calves, 3000 geese, 3000 capons, 100 peacocks, 200 cranes, 200 kids, 2000 chickens, 4000 pidgeons, 4000 rabitts, 204 bitterns, 4000 ducks, 400 hernsies, 200 pheasants, 500 partridges, 4000 woodcocks, 400 plovers, 100 carlews, 100 quails, 1000 eggets, 200 rees, 4000 bucks and does and roebucks, 155 hot venison pasties, 100 dishes of jellies, 4000 cold venison pasties, 2000 hot custards, 4000 ditto cold, 400 tarts, 300 pikes, 300 breams, 8 seals, 4 porpusses.

The original written record of this menu used to be kept in the Tower of London; perhaps it still is.

World O' Cake

Yesterday was the birthday of long-time Hooting Yard reader Chris Atton. To celebrate the event, Dr Ruth Pastry has supplied two more pictures by Neville Main, onlie begetter of Mat and Nat, the ur-Istvan and ur-Zoltan whose cheery countenances were featured yesterday. Today we have a monkey cutting a birthday cake which is gobbled up by ducks - that's something you don't see every day. (The captions suggest that the ducks only got the leftover crumbs, but I doubt it. Have you seen ducks eat?) The pictures are from Jimmy Goes To A Birthday Party (1950).

If you would like your birthday to be celebrated on this site, please write to the address at the top of the page to request an application form. Returned forms will be scrutinised by a panel consisting of a mountebank, a zany, and a distinguished potato scientist (or similar).

Soup : A Chewist Text

(For a definition of Chewism, see 2nd March)

The subject of today's harangue is the preparation of soup, so pin back your nasty fat little purple ears and listen carefully. The following directions will be found generally applicable, so that there will be no need to repeat the several details each time. In any case, I will distribute written notes later, and this time I am feeling magnanimous, so they will be legible. Seasonings are not specified, as these are a matter of individual taste and circumstance. Some people think I am overfond of very, very hot mustard, and thus blame me for everything from trivial lip-burns to years spent in a lazaretto - pah! Some from considerations of health or otherwise are forbidden the use of salt. Sissies. In such cases a little sugar will help to bring out the flavour of the vegetables, but unless all the members of the household are alike, it had best not be added before bringing to table. Anyway, at first glance salt and sugar look almost identical, so one ruse is to dim the lanterns or to light a batch of blubber-candles, the fumes from which will be acrid enough to divert your diners' attention. Where soup is to be strained, whole pepper, mace, &c., is much preferable to ground, both as being free from adulteration, and giving all the flavour without the grit. Some soup recipes, of course, call for the inclusion of handfuls of grit, dust, and pavement grease, so bear that in mind. The water in which cauliflower, green peas, &c., have been boiled, should be added to the stock-pot, but as we are now recognising that all vegetables should be cooked as conservatively as possible - that is, by steaming, or in just as much water as they will absorb, so as not to waste the valuable salts and juices, there will not be much of such liquid in a ‘Reform’ menage. Any water you do use is best brought to kitchen in an iron pail direct from the closest duckpond, for springs and even wells harbour all sorts of tiny little beasties with far too many legs, and even wings, whereas all such creepy-crawlies will have been removed from a duckpond by the eating habits of hungry and none-too-fastidious ducks. A stock must therefore be made from fresh materials, but as those are comparatively inexpensive, we need not grudge having them of the freshest and best. Try never to eat anything that is more than five years old. Readers of Thackeray will remember the little dinner at Timmins, when the hired chef shed such consternation in the bosom of little Mrs Timmins by his outrageous demands for ‘a leg of beef, a leg of veal, and a ham’, on behalf of the stock-pot. Those who do not know their Thackeray will wonder what in heaven's name I am talking about, but the point is plain: every kitchen must have a bound set of Victorian novels - wrapped in greaseproof paper - to avert the unexpected.

Text by Marigold Chew & Mrs J. O. Mill from the fourth edition of The Reform Cookery Book (1909)

Mission Statement

This site is nearly three months old, and it has been suggested that it cannot long continue without a definitive Mission Statement. Below is a first draft, the fruit of long minutes spent cogitating while wolfing down a bowl of Special K. I suggest that readers copy and paste it into a word-processor document, print it out, get it laminated, and - whenever visiting Hooting Yard - place it next to the screen for ready reference.

HOOTING YARD MISSION STATEMENT

We will find a window in our schedule to take a proactive approach to thinking outside the box, pushing the envelope and running things up the flagpole 24/7, like totally. Pick the bones out of that one, innit. It's not rocket science - it's a no-brainer.

Istvan & Zoltan

On Monday 8th March we published one of Dobson's so-called “ghost photographs”, thought to be the only extant picture of those tiresome yet strangely attractive twins, Istvan & Zoltan, whose madcap escapades have thrilled a handful of readers. But Dr Ruth Pastry has news for us. “I was clearing out one of the leisure-and-relaxation module-compartments in my space-age home,” she writes, “to make room for my new collection of The Passion Of The Christ-related merchandise, when I came upon a little book called Jimmy At The Seaside by Neville Main, published by the Brockhampton Press in 1949. Imagine my surprise when, leafing through it, my eyes fell upon some pictures of twins who bear a striking resemblance to your dashing duo. They may be given different names in Mr Main's ur-text, but surely these are Istvan and Zoltan avant le lettre? I claim my five pounds.”

Velma Nebraska Reports

Dear Frank : Mention of Joost Van Dongelbracke, the Suburban Shaman (24th & 26th February) reminded me of Mama Donna, a wonderful urban shaman I stayed with in New York. Hooting Yard readers may find the information below of some use if they ever happen to be wandering around Brooklyn looking for an interesting tea room, or are looking for their inner Goddesses, or both.

Velma Nebraska, globe-trotting Hooting Yard reporter

``Donna Henes, Urban Shaman, is a contemporary ceremonialist specializing in multi-cultural ritual celebration of the cycles of the seasons and the seasons of our lives. She is the author of The Queen of My Self, The Moon Watcher's Companion, Celestially Auspicious Occasions, and Dressing Our Wounds In Warm Clothes, as well as the CD, Reverence To Her: Mythology, The Matriarchy & Me. She is also the editor and publisher of the highly acclaimed quarterly journal Always In Season: Living In Sync with the Cycles. In 1982, she composed the first (and to this date, the only) satellite peace message in space: “chants for peace * chance for peace”. Mama Donna, as she is affectionately known, has offered lectures, workshops, circles, and celebrations worldwide for 30 years. She is the director of Mama Donna's Tea Garden & Healing Haven, a ceremonial center, ritual consultancy and spirit shop in Exotic Brooklyn, New York. For further information, a list of services and publications, a calendar of upcoming events and a complimentary issue of Always in Season: Living in Sync with the Cycles contact:

Mama Donna's Tea Garden & Healing Haven, PO Box 380403 Exotic Brooklyn, NY 11238-0403 U.S.A.

or visit http://www.DonnaHenes.net and http://www.TheQueenofMySelf.com

Many thanks for that, Velma. I have obtained a dozen copies of Dressing Our Wounds In Warm Clothes(which sounds more like the work of a solicitous and fussy parent preparing their tot for school on a wintry morning) to be given away, with a special Hooting Yard combination balaclava-and-bandage, to the first twelve readers who write in with their own, original tips for living in sync.

Apropos of Ambrose Bierce

It is, I think, reasonably well-known* that Ambrose Bierce vanished at the age of 71 (in 1913) on his way to the civil war in Mexico, never to be seen again. What I did not learn until the other day was that he was one of thirteen children, all of whom, at the whim of his father, were given names beginning with A. If any reader knows the names of his dozen siblings, please let me know.

* NOTE :I am careful to write “I think, reasonably well-known” as opposed to the magisterial “everybody knows”. A particularly splendid example of the latter appeared in the Guardian recently. A. S. Byatt wrote: “most people know [Sir Charles Sherrington's] description of the waking brain as ‘an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern…’” (my emphasis). If readers have favourite examples of such absurd pomposity, please send them in.

Vereecke!

Yesterday's quotation of the day, Wilma Salisbury's terrific description of a dance by Father Bob VerEecke, included a link to a page about the terpsichorean Jesuit. What was lacking, however, was a photograph of our hero in action. Here he is:

Not only that. Pansy Cradledew has unearthed a tremendous picture of Father Bob's workshop. She says: “Isn't it marvellous? Apart from his preposterous gestures, the startled way his students seem to be staring (or trying not to stare!) at him is priceless.” You'll find this treasure, next to a big caption saying “Dancing In The Spirit Of The Season”, at the Boston College Chronicle.

The Dobson Memorial Lecture 2004

This year's Dobson Memorial Lecture was delivered by Kurt Chodd, a bungling amateur from the Land of Swans. Attendance at the converted pig hut in the grounds of the toothpaste factory at the Port of Tongs was sparse, but those desiccated few who did turn up - sorry, I meant “dedicated” — were treated to a fascinating talk on The Administration of Lighthouses.

The Seven Dwarves

Is nothing sacred? In this age of pointless but seemingly obsessive rebranding, news reaches us that Snow White's diminutive pals, the seven dwarves, are to be given new names. From next Friday, apparently, they are to be known as Wretched, Spiteful, Incontinent, Wistful, Lippy, Rancorous & Preening.

On a related note, Pansy Cradledew has brought to my attention the growing debate over the identity of the “Eighth Dwarf”, akin to the long-running argument as to who exactly deserves the title of the “Fifth Beatle”. Pansy hopes to bring us the latest news on this important subject very, very soon.

Correspondence Received : One

Sir : Idly browsing your website the other day (attracted, like so many others, by the mention of Xavier Cugat in your Search Engine Lure), I was touched to see a reference to my current book in connection with your list of films such as Apocalypse Cow and The Hound of Music. May I also draw your attention to the following lesser-known highlights of the film-maker’s art:

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Park – the ill-fated follow up to The Wild Bench, in which a park attendant is pushed beyond the limits of endurance.

I Spit on Your Gravy – Fear and retribution behind the scenes at a top-class restaurant.

Blackhead Jungle – Acne-crazed youths on the rampage.

On Her Majesty’s Crown Derby Service (aka China Girl) – Tense spy thriller in which James Bond foils a plot to steal a collection of priceless dinner plates from Buckingham Palace.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Sub-aqua football at its most thrilling.

Dr Terror’s House of Horace – Unwary travellers are kidnapped and force-fed the works of the Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus.

When Dinah Shore Ruled The Earth – Absolutely terrifying prehistoric jazz adventure.

I beg to remain etc.,

Max Décharné

Istvan 'n' Zoltan

A number of readers, enamoured of the thrilling adventures of Istvan and Zoltan chronicled here over the past week or so, have asked if any pictures exist of the duo. Long hours rooting and rummaging in the Hooting Yard Photographic Library, (to be found on the mezzanine floor of the Big Damp Building pitched so perplexingly on the lethal slopes of Pang Hill), eventually brought to light one of the notorious “ghost photographs” taken by Dobson. According to a scribbled note on the back, this may be the only pictorial record of the twins.

Correspondence Received : Two

An unsigned email arrives from (I surmise) New York City, regarding the Father Hopkins SJ adaptation The Tall Nun Goes West (see “Films On Television”, 5th March):

Dear Sir : Please provide air date and time for the referenced feature. While I agree with you that it is the most faithful of the many Hopkins adaptations, I have a deep personal affection for The Cheery Beggar, despite the unfortunate miscasting of Aldo Ray as the Polynesian sponge-diver. Thank you for your consideration.

I am afraid that the schedule has not yet been finalised, so cannot say when this majestic piece of cimema will be shown. One point about The Cheery Beggar which my anonymous correspondent does not mention is that the film marked the screen debut of the great child Method actor Tad Wensleydale. At the age of seven, he had already taken Broadway by storm with his performances as Shylock, Lear, Mrs Miniver, Torquemada, Mike Hammer, Louis Pasteur and Clytemnestra, among others. Six years later, on the cusp of teenage hobbledehoyhood, his meteoric career was effectively over, but not before he had appeared in a second Hopkins adaptation, Felix Randal The Farrier. Wensleydale was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of the “big-boned and hardy-handsome” title character, stone dead at the beginning of the film, but the award that year went to Ricardo Montalban.

Noteworthy Pistachio Nut Magnates : No. 1 in a New Series

Cormorant Patrol

The four hundred men and women of the Blister Lane Cormorant Patrol brandished their pencil sharpeners, toffee apples, and inaccurate atlases as they reached the peak of the tor after marching all day. Below them, beyond the pig huts, the curiously-stained bridge, and the abandoned swimming baths, they were just able to see, shrouded in mist, the famous (or infamous) Wotan and Tantalum ponds, so dried up after successive droughts that they were now little more than puddles.

“Onwards!” cried Captain Federico ‘Gwyneth’ Paltrow, undisputed leader of the Cormorant Patrol and the man whose stupendous energy had helped it thrive even through such lean times. Seldom has a puny and diminutive physiognomy been so misleading.

And so began their descent. Three quarters of the way down, the newest recruit, fey young Daisy ‘Ricardo’ Montalban, stopped in her tracks, pointed, and yelled out: “Look! Look! Something with a beak and feathers!” And indeed, as they peered through the enshrouding mist, the others saw it too, perched on the branch of a withered pugton tree sprouting hopelessly on the banks of one of the ponds, or puddles. Excitedly, they began running, capering and gambolling down the muddy slope of the tor. But as they closed upon their prey, they realised it was not a cormorant at all. It was a little bittern.

Source : Forty-Six Bird-Related Adventure Stories by Vercingetorix Sepulveda (out of print)

Films on Television

In addition to the detective drama Gruesome & Turgid (see yesterday), the Hooting Yard television empire is pleased to announce that it has acquired the rights to an astounding collection of films. All of these listed below will be shown on the Crunlop Channel over the coming months. Our cinema critic, P. B. Totnes, will be reviewing as many of them as he can. As he views each film, his doubtless astute and piercing comments will be added, indicated by a hyperlink.

Rusty Flasks; The Apothecary's Safety Pin; The Subfusc Gargoyle; Hand Me That Chaffinch; Topiary & Miscegenation; The Gutta-Percha Pail; The Vivid Swamp (for me, Barbra Streisand's finest hour); The Pitiful Teacup; To Smooch & Smooch Again; The Baleful Rhinoceros; Four Hundred Wooden Hens; Plankton Nightmare (I particularly liked the grainy, black & white opening shot of a flock of bitterns); The Crumpled Ships; The Queasy Hotel (spooky!!!); The Pathetic Ornithologist; The Flapping Windsock; Ointments of Incomprehensibility; I Wore My Hats Ineptly; Custard Gas Attack; Flailing Shibboleths; Journey to the Planet of Indigestion (superb!); The Wretched Spoon; A Placebo for Istvan; The Hideous Orchard; The Marooned Squirrel (surely the film of the decade); Pencil Cases in the Antarctic; Thousands upon Thousands of Wrens; The Pointless Torch; Corncrake! (“Melvin Gibson's Braveheart pales in comparison”, said Vanity Fair); The Tatterdemalion Hobbledehoy (which ought to have won a prize for its matchless animal-handling, what with all those stoats, weasels, bison, panthers & geese); The Big Magnetic Robot; The Antiseptic Xylophone; Snip Those Auburn Locks; I Was Puny Vercingetorix; The Chuckling Maniac (appalling - not a bit scary); The Cantankerous Optician; Jimmy Connors in Hell (nothing to do with the tennis player, apparently); Forty Years In A Bauxite Mine (my favourite foreign-language film of the year, despite the lack of subtitles); The Ridiculous Sponge; Rubber Beelzebub; Tea-strainers in Jeopardy; The Tall Nun Goes West (the finest Gerard Manley Hopkins adaptation I've ever seen); Stalin Wore A Cardigan; Ornate & Lavish Buoys (tiresome four-hour documentary); The Tiny Cakes; The Incredible Case of the Disparaged Chutney Recipe; Splendid Muck; and Weird Birds (a remake of the Van Heflin masterpiece).

Istvan, Zoltan or Zoltan, Istvan

“Crikey!” exclaimed Istvan, as he pulled the lever on the incomprehensible big magnetic robot.

“That's a turn up for the book,” observed his twin brother Zoltan.

“And what book would that be?” asked Istvan, as the incomprehensible big magnetic robot clanked & whirred into action. Thumping & minatory, it began to cross the buttercup-splattered meadow in which this exciting scene takes place. It made Istvan think of a Golem, such was its implacable menace.

“What do you know of literature?” sneered Zoltan, but Istvan was already rummaging in his brother's satchel. Moments later, he held triumphantly aloft a dog-eared paperback. Zoltan eyed him closely. “Your arm shot up in phallic conspiracy,” he quoted. Istvan examined the curiously stained cover of the book. He was severely myopic. Eventually he managed to discern the title: Pestilence & Farm Implements - Number 8 in a Series of Dog-Eared Paperbacks by Vercingetorix Sepulveda.

“May I borrow this?” he asked.

“Certainly not!” shouted Zoltan.

“I knew you would always forbid,” said Istvan, making a clever riposte with a quotation of his own. Splendid clouds passed across the battering sun.

“Look out!” screamed Zoltan. But it was too late. The incomprehensible big magnetic robot had turned & was bearing down on Istvan. It had somehow acquired a gleaming & very, very sharp cutlass….

Bullfinch Advice

As a service to all those readers who have a bullfinch to feed, I have consulted that invaluable reference work Enquire Within Upon Everything (1856 edition), which tells us: “Old birds should be fed with German Paste No. 2, and occasionally rape-seed. The Germans occasionally give them a little poppy-seed, and a grain or two of rice, steeped in Canary wine, when teaching them to pipe, as a reward for the progress they make. Bird organs, or flageolots, are used to teach them.” Didn't the Victorians use a lot of commas? Note that no information is given about the feeding of young bullfinches, which I would have thought would be a more urgent matter. If you are one of the few readers who does not have a bullfinch to feed, but wish to obtain one, this is what they look like:

Now, having installed your bullfinch in suitable accommodation, you will be wondering where to get your German Paste No. 2. I recommend Joseph Sterry & Sons, “manufacturers of poor man's plaisters and German Paste”, 2 Mint Street (opposite St George's church) Borough High Street, London SE. Last time I checked, in 1873, the business was thriving. While you are there, pick up some of their poor man's plaisters in case your bullfinch pecks you with its fierce, lacerating beak or attacks you with its talons, which it may well do if you mistakenly feed it German Paste No. 1, or indeed No. 46.

Gruesome and Turgid

The television arm of the Hooting Yard Foundation is currently developing a drama series based on the detective stories of F X Duggleby. Fans of his fiction will know that DCI Gruesome is irascible, vain, hirsute, and mordant, that he keeps a colony of fruitbats in his attic, and that he invariably solves his crimes using a ratiocinative method similar to - if not wholly plagiarised from - M. P. Shiel's Prince Zaleski. (Duggleby goes so far as to have the DCI spend long hours loitering in a gazebo.) His assistant, Sgt Turgid - highly-strung, imprudent, bedizened, yet valiant, a keen Reader's Digest reader - bears a striking resemblance to Frankenstein's monster. In the first book of Duggleby's series, The Murder of the Murderous Murderer, he is described thus: “His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion, and his straight black lips. His voice, when at last he spoke, was booming and monotonous, empty of human expression and lacking any variation in tone or cadence.” I mention this because the casting director is completely stumped, having failed to persuade veteran Eric Sykes and Melvin “Mad Max” Gibson to take the lead roles. If readers have any suggestions, please send them in at once. Shooting begins next week.

Film Focus

The imminent UK release (on Pansy Cradledew's birthday!) of überCatholic Melvin Gibson's blood-drenched and preposterous The Passion of the Christ prompts us to recommend some films you might prefer to see.

The Stepford Hives Ecological horror about a swarm of brainwashed bees.

Where B-Girls Dare A crack squad of floozies storms a Nazi fortress.

Apocalypse Cow Drug-crazed American soldiers go crazy in a barnyard.

The Wild Bench Action picture set in a municipal park.

Quatermass And The GitSci-fi classic in which a sordid old man is found buried in a London Underground station.

The Hound of Music Austrian singing dog drama.

Close Encounters of the Bird Kind Richard Dreyfuss as a scruffy, obsessed ornithologist.

Bring Me The Shed of Alfredo GarciaViolent revenge thriller set in a garden centre.

And not forgetting:

WaterpostmanDirector's cut of two Kevin Costner triumphs. A man swims through a post-nuclear nightmare delivering soaking wet letters.

This paragraph is an hommage à Max Décharné. Max's book Hardboiled Hollywood : The Origins of the Great Crime Films (No Exit Press) is available in all good bookshops, and from that online one named after a big river.

Fierce Gigantic Elephant-like Beings

In response to the mention of fierce gigantic elephant-like beings in “Zoltan & Istvan” (see 1st March), that diligent correspondent Glyn Webster sent the above picture. It is by one H. W. Wesso*, drawn for Amazing Stories Quarterly, and Glyn says he likes to show it to people on the flimsiest of pretexts.

* NOTE :An anagram of “Who sews?”

The Might of Patience

By popular demand, here is another of Marigold Chew's pieces of “interstitial prose” (see yesterday's item on Chewism). This one is a little moral fable taken from Stories From Life by Marden Vice Harden:

Brethren, we find ourselves, today, in a village in China. Perhaps some would feel inclined to ridicule rather than applaud the patience of a poor Chinese woman who tried to make a needle from a rod of iron by rubbing it against a stone. We may scoff and laugh and snicker like rude and common folk do. It is doubtful whether she succeeded or not, but, so the story runs, the sight of the worker plying her seemingly hopeless task, put new courage and determination into the heart of a young Chinese student, who, in deep despondency, stood watching her. He was a spindly little chap whose greatest joy was to be found in the study of industrious leaf-cutter ants, of which he kept teeming thousands in a glass case in the parlour of his pneumonia-racked mother. Because of repeated failures in his studies, ambition and hope had left him. He could think only of ants. Bitterly disappointed with himself, and despairing of ever accomplishing anything, the young man had thrown his books aside in disgust. He had even cast aside a five-volume encyclopaedia devoted entirely to the world of insects; ants alone filled the pages of books one and two. Put to shame, however, by the lesson taught by the old woman, he gathered his scattered forces together, went to work with renewed ardour, and, wedding Patience and Energy, became, in time, one of the greatest scholars in China. Actually, that's not strictly true: he ended up sewing cummerbunds-for-export in a Batavian sweatshop. When you know you are on the right track, do not let any failures dim your vision or discourage you, for you cannot tell how close you may be to victory. And even if every damned thing goes wrong, there is no shame in being a deluded pauper. Have patience and stick, stick, stick. Then stick a bit more. It is eternally true that he “Who steers right on / Will gain, at length, however far, the port. / Though he be seasick all the way / And quite bereft of thought.”

Chewism

Chewism is the popular name for the fictional method pioneered by Marigold Chew (1955-1998). In her only book, Six Hundred And Six Stories, Chew demonstrated what she called “interstitial prose”: she would take an existing composition (from a bewildering variety of sources) and insert her own text in between each and every sentence of the original material. Sometimes the results were startling: the poet Gervase Beerpint, in one of his all too rare critical essays, said that Chew's story based upon a chapter from George Bernard Shaw's “nonage novel” The Irrational Knot was “as good as anything by Ayn Rand, and makes John Fowles read like a grumpy cod-mystic of limited talent”. (Inevitably, Beerpint received a grumpy letter from Fowles within days of the essay being published. Wisely, he cast it into a furnace.) As a special treat for Hooting Yard readers, we have gained permission to reprint one of Marigold Chew's uncollected stories, The Albatross, where her “interstices” appear within a short sketch of the same title by Augustus Earle which was included in The Book of Enterprise & Adventure; Being an Excitement to Reading for Young People (London, 1851).

Recommended Reading

This week, three novels you don't want to miss:

Victorian Prime Minister News

William Ewart Gladstone believed that the Ancient Greeks - or most of them - were colour-blind, because there are very, very few colour words in Homer.

Emblem

Alert readers will have noted the appearance (thrice) of a crest or emblem at the top of the page. This is taken from the pamphlet Dobson's Heraldic Dossier, a bewildering little booklet which the great pamphleteer had specially printed on an antique press which Marigold Chew discovered rotting away in a blizzard-swept tent on the outskirts of Helsinki during her tour of Finland. Dobson writes in hallucinatory prose about what he calls “the new heraldry” which he planned to usher in, and provides a number of examples of his own devising, though it is thought that the artwork itself was completed by Chew. For a large-scale copy of Implausible,click on the further example below:

Zoltan & Istvan

“Crikey!” exclaimed Istvan. He had just noticed that a fierce gigantic elephant-like being was thundering towards him, & that he was almost certain to be crushed to death within the next few seconds.

“Have you ever read The Anatomy of Melancholy?” asked his twin brother Zoltan, who was reclining in a hammock safely out of the path of the fierce gigantic elephant-like being. Zoltan was speaking through a shiny red loudhailer.

“Cease taunting me with seventeenth century prose!” cried Istvan, “Is it beyond your puny wits to see that I am about to be flattened by a fierce gigantic elephant-like being?”

“Oh, I wouldn't worry about that,” drawled Zoltan, “It will be stopped in its tracks by the mahout who is at this very moment careering across the verdant greensward bent on intercepting it.”

“Pah!” expostulated Istvan, his terror momentarily submerged beneath contempt for his brother, “Next you will be telling me that you are ignorant of the two salient features of all mahouts: one, they are unhinged, and two, their skills are defunct in this our brave new century.”

The fierce gigantic elephant-like being had meanwhile halved the distance between itself & Istvan, whose now renewed terror rooted him to the spot. That spot, incidentally, lay a yard or two from a chance splash of campions in bloom, their vivid colours a pleasing contrast to the bracken, furze & bindweed run riot o'er the greensward as far as the human eye could see. Zoltan removed his pince-nez, & holding them with strange delicacy in his mighty, hairy fist, he said: “That's as may be, o twin, but I can assure you that this particular mahout is both hinged & funct.”

And he was proved correct, for just then the said mahout leapt astride the fierce gigantic elephant-like being & coaxed it to a halt.

Fictional Detective Bulletin

It's well known that Sherlock Holmes described his arch enemy Moriarty as “the Napoleon of crime”. Less celebrated, but far, far more evocative, is his description of Dr Watson as “the stormy petrel of crime” (see The Adventure of the Naval Treaty, and also see below):