Them's the jockies for me!
Concerning notice boards that speak with forked tongue; very naughty Hittites; apple dumplings, and Gilgamesh's cuddly lion.
There are two types of people, and there exists a dichotomy of individuals.
I saw this noticeboard outside a church:
Choose your side.
I was sorry there were neither notes nor notifications on offer at the moment, because I was keen to find out what the difference was. What I’m hoping, of course, is that it’s something like this:
On the right: ‘We regret to announce the suspension of choir practice until further notice, following the recent tragic loss of our beloved choirmaster.’
On the left: ‘Singing’s off: Franks’s dead.’
News and Ads
Or rather: no news, so no ads. The little run of live shows in Brighton and Oxford was wonderful, thank you to everyone who came. I particularly enjoyed the warning the theatre gave the audience in Oxford:
You can’t be too careful. I’m also delighted to hear from Julian Burnell in the comments from last edition:
Just to say that, following the show in Oxford on Friday 17, I have changed my Facebook Biography to ‘“Basically a dog in a suit” - John Finnemore’ and will wear that as a badge of pride.
Good boy, Julian!
We’ll certainly be doing more of these around the place, but there are no firm dates to announce just yet.
Oh, no, wait - there is news. The 2024 Souvenir Programme (the Allwyn one) has been shortlisted for the radio sketch comedy category in the British Comedy Guide Awards. Hooray. Now then, the winner is… *sigh…* decided by public vote. A few years ago, I decided, in my prideful way, to stop acting as an unpaid click-harvester for websites by telling people about public vote awards I was nominated for. However… it so happens that it would be quite helpful for my plans to do something else with Allwyn if if it had a little rosette pinned on it, so… here is the link if you feel minded to vote for it. Or, of course, for any of my rivals. Voting ends on Sunday.
Sketch Book
Commentary Box, on:
Re the “Where do you get your ideas from?’ question, Nicki reports Harlan Ellison’s standard answer:
I always smile prettily and answer, “Schenectady.”
and Molly Blue Dawn reports Catherynne M. Valente’s:
They come from electrical impulses in my brain-meats.
To which I’d like to add Douglas Adams’ famous:
By staring at a blank piece of paper until my forehead bleeds.
Re ‘Not Even a Mouse’, the Christmas story from last time, and my essay about the writing of it, firstly thank you very much to all the people who said they enjoyed it!
Toblerones says:
I had also failed entirely to grasp the protagonist's wrongdoing: I'd sort of assumed that he's not much fun to be around at Christmas, knows full well that he's not much fun to be around at Christmas and would likely make the family gathering less enjoyable with his presence than by his absence, and at the same time knows that both he and his wife benefit from a bit of time apart occasionally.
Yes, this is all absolutely right - it was meant to be justifiable, and by no means a wrong-doing. As he says, everyone’s fine with this arrangement, and he’s not Scrooge, just as he loudly protests he isn’t. But all the same, I hope we’re glad to see him tooling off to Bristol in the end.
Huw Davies says
Of course, we never learned the identity nor motive of the evildoer who changed Michael’s alarm code, because it isn’t possible that he just forgot it…
Well! Since you ask me who changed Michael’s alarm code…
…as it happens, there was a final paragraph which I cut from the story which suggests an explanation. I’ll put it up on the other side of the wall.
No, Hittites! Bad Hittites!
That’s it - I’m never taking the Hittites to the zoo again. And I’m certainly not buying them any more ice-cream cones.
Beyond the wall, Gilgamesh hugs a lion, a poet meets an apple dumpling fan, and of course the cut ending to Michael’s story. But if you’re not in a wall-climbing mood, fair enough, and, as ever,
Love,
The Airport.