Letter to Rebecca #24-13

Jim 1st, photobombing and general persiflage

In which Terry unearths some hidden history about James the First, expresses relief at not being drenched with coffee, and solves a crossword clue.

Dear Rebecca

Thank you for your letter, in which you wrote:

I was just as surprised as you were when I didn’t shower you with coffee or milk during our double date at Caffe Nero! Readers will remember reports of both deluges from your account – and mine – of our first meeting last October.

Indeed. I was delighted that my donning a souwester, galoshes and a large umbrella proved, in the event, to be unnecessary. It was lovely catching up with you and Jim again, an occasion spoilt only by Elaine and myself being the victims of photobombing as we waited for our train on our return home:

Photo by Jim Holden

I am glad you enjoyed the writing using constraints course, which you helped to make a success by answering questions and initiating discussions. And thank you for such a generous write-up of the day.

On the subject of courses, I’m currently a student on one myself: Macbeth and Othello. We’ve just finished Macbeth, and I’ve been doing some research. James I was king at the time, and he wrote a book called Demonology, which was all about witches. Macbeth features witches, so Billy Wagglestaff said to his manager, “Why don’t we try and get the king along on opening night to do a book signing?”. James thought that would be a great opportunity to flog some books, so that’s what happened. He signed the books Jim 1st because he thought that would be less formal than James Rex. He did think of styling himself Jimmy Stuart but his courtiers told him that that could lead to confusion.

I’ve drawn a picture showing what the book signing set-up might have looked like:

Book signing, by Terry Freedman

Next week we’re looking at Othello, a play I’ve neither seen nor read, so I’m looking forward to that.

I enjoyed solving your crossword clue:

Spacesuit, no uniform, ordered for dreamer (8)

Here’s how I worked out the solution. We’re looking for a word meaning “dreamer”. The clue indicates (by the word “ordered”) that we need to find an anagram of the word “spacesuit”, omitting the letter “u” (because it says “no uniform”, uniform being the NATO alphabet word for “u”). Thus we get the answer: escapist.

OK, so here’s mine (snigger). It was in the Daily Telegraph some years ago:

What an incredulous person might say to a campanologist? (4,3,5,3,3,3,5,2)

The weather here is mad as usual. The day before yesterday it was quite warm and sunny. Yesterday was like a re-enactment of Noah’s Flood. Today was so warm that I was able to revert to my usual winter garb of a tee shirt, shorts and sandals.

We’re going to visit another art gallery soon, so with any luck I’ll be inspired to improve on the work of more so-called great artists. I’ve already tackled Samson and Delilah and am putting the finishing touches to another artwork.

What are you reading at the moment? I’m reading Winter Journeys, by George Perec and others. Perhaps I’ll write about that one of these days.

And now, a cat is demanding a cuddle, so I have to go. Also, it’s at least five minutes since I last had a cup of tea, so I must away.

All the best, and if anyone winds you up, call them a cream-faced loon, which is how Macbeth addresses a servant. As I said in the class today, now there’s a guy you’d want to work for.

Terry

To anyone reading this missive, you can see the whole archive here. Rebecca should reply next Wednesday, so make sure you don’t miss that by subscribing to hers.

Thanks for reading!