Letter to Rebecca #24-16

A heatwave, terrible "music", and why I've shelved Jane Austen

Terry touches on tube travels, crosswords, and Hazlitt: a veritable culturefest in one missive. Chortle.

Dear Rebecca

Thank you for your chortlesome and well-researched letter. You started off talking about whether we’re having a heatwave. Well, I think we are, and I don’t like it. It’s unnatural. July in England is supposed to be soggy, wet, depressing: my kind of weather.

I thought I’d try and find a suitable song to play for you, and came across this:

Isn’t that dreadful? And then I happened upon this:

What’s the link between these two “musical” videos? The fact that they’re so awful. No wonder the teens of the 1950s and 1960s rebelled. I’m surprised there wasn’t a wholesale insurrection. I mean, imagine going through the formative years of your life having to listen to this rubbish. Aren’t you glad you were born when you were?

Out of interest, which music era do you like the best? I predict it is the 1980s, with possibly a bit of the late 70s thrown in. Am I right, or am I right?

I liked reading about the tube challenge you mentioned. I used to enjoy going on buses everywhere. There used to be a thing called a Red Rover, which allowed you to go all over the London Bus network on red buses, all day long. There was also a Green Rover (green buses, which went around the countryside) and a Twin Rover (red buses and the tube). Happy days!

I solved your crossword clue straight away. It was:

Vitality in appalling gag done about mate with ewe (3-2-3-2)

And the answer was get up and go. I realised it was, in part, an anagram of ‘gag done’, because of the word ‘appalling’, which indicated an anagram. But I couldn’t quite make it work, until you reminded me that ‘tup’ is the male counterpart of ‘ewe’. Thanks! I do sometimes find that I get the answer very quickly, but then have to work it backwards to find out why! Does that happen to you?

OK, my turn, and this time I will give you two interlocking clues from today’s Times Quick Cryptic. Put your thinking cap on:

1 Across: Vermeer somehow encapsulates love, always (8).

1 Down: Every single train failing to start (4).

These intersect on the first letter, as shown here:

I, too, am a “chronic completionist” when it comes to books, even books I don’t like. However, I have found a way of stopping reading them without feeling guilty. I simply tell myself that I have postponed my reading of them, and promise to come back to them later.

I liked the online review you cited: “I bought this to dry my dog. He’s dry.” Excellent. I tend not to take much notice of online reviews because they all contradict each other. I look for: how many reviews there are in total, how many of them have 5 stars, and how many one star reviews there are, then I read a few of the one star reviews. Then I buy the thing anyway.

As for Jane Austen, I’ve shelved her for a while (sorry about the pun). I find them enjoyable, but after a while I get fed up with all these women falling in love at first sight and all the sighing and angst that goes along with that. Things would go a lot better for them if they took some Rescue Remedy or went to an encounter group.

I picked up a used copy of this book recently on my peregrinations around the metropolis:

I’d read quotes by Hazlitt while studying English Literature at college, but never read any of his essays. (I still haven’t.) I’ve dipped into a few of them. One that intrigues me is about the difference between writing and speaking. I’ll let you know what I think of it at some point.

That’s it from me, Becks. Don’t bother getting in touch until you’ve solved both of those crossword clues. <Snigger.>

Bye for now!

Dr Tel

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!