Reply to Rebecca #17

Dressing up, sport and a literature lesson

Yo, Becks! Thanks for your magnum opus #17. It was chortleworthy, thought-provoking and interesting. I know you have been checking your virtual letter box day after day for my reply, well here it is! Let there be joy and jubilation and dancing in the street.

But now to your epistle.

Mrs Mallard

I don’t think you mentioned ducks in your letter, so I’m going to introduce Mrs Duck here:

A duck. Photo by Terry Freedman

I took that picture during a recent visit to a garden about a half hour’s drive from our house. I think she looks very beautiful.

A few years ago I was walking along in Bristol minding my own business when, passing a doorway, I was assailed by a very loud QUACK!!! Once I’d got back into my skin I looked down, and there was a male duck standing in front of a female one, glaring at me as if to say “Enjoying the view, mate? What do you think my wife is? An art gallery? Move along or I’ll sort you out.” I said to him “Alright, keep yer wig on”, and kept on walking.

Hand rotting

Your handwriting is nice whichever implement you use, but fountain pens always produce better results. I thought that might be because of the weight and the shape of the nib. Here’s what a couple of websites have to say on the matter: Why use a fountain pen?

The Pen Shop blog post

When you say your writing samples are examples of contextual art, presumably you’re thinking of Picasso.

Dressing up

I dress up for everything. Like I said, when cooking I would wear a chef’s hat (toque? I always thought that was something to do with cars, or am I thinking of torque?) and apron. A friend of mine called unexpectedly once, not having heeded Shakespeare’s observation that unbidden guests are welcomest when they are gone (just joshin’!), and I was painting a landscape at the time, dressed in a smock and beret, which is how I answered the door. I once got hold of an editor’s visor, a child’s toy, and would wear that while editing. These days when writing I adopt a cloak of penury.

Grey hairs

Your photo, in which you allude to present day grey hairs, made me think: you’re married to a photographer. Doesn’t he know how to use PhotoShop? Besides, age is just a state of mind. Remember the wise words of Lady Bracknell:

“Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.”

I have hardly any grey hairs. The portrait I commissioned, now safe in our loft, was excellent value for money.

Visiting me

So you couldn’t visit me because of a wedding? Bah. What a feeble excuse. You could have simply got your phone out, listened to it for a few seconds, and then said in a loud voice,

“Sorry, they need me back at the Department. The Minister has called a press conference.”

Yes, you might need to make an appointment, but you know I will always make time for you, Becks. That’s just the way I am: chivalrous. In fact, a lady on my creative rotting course said to me on Monday that she thought I was a very polite and respectful gentleman. See: you can fool some of the people some of the time.

Flies or, as they say in certain parts of London, hairss flies

We’ve got loads of flies as well. I don’t like killing them though, so we have two solutions. One is that the cats are, amazingly, brilliant fly catchers. They chase after them around the room, knocking over anything in their path, using Elaine and me as a motorway. Then they eat them. Euccccchhh!!! The other approach is one suggested by Tommy Cooper: we spray them with starch so they stiffen up and glide out of the window.

Sports

The only sport I watch is the Tour de France, and that mainly for the glorious views. I was useless at sports at school, the lessons for which were a form of Applied Sadism. I wrote about it in fact: My Sporting Life. 

Bond, James Bond, and a literature lesson

Regarding James Bond and his misogyny. I think what we have in Bond is the archetypal flawed hero, so reminiscent of Greek tragedy, in which a single unfortunate characteristic leads to the hero’s downfall. We see it, of course, in Omelette, Shakespeare’s play about someone who can’t make his mind up (summarised by the Oulipian Harry Matthews as “Hamlet, quit stalling.”) It is also arguable that Julius Cheeser features a fatally flawed hero in Brutus, so called because of the enterprise he founded called Brutes R Us, in which thugs could buy useful implements and apparel (such as the bovver boots I designed myself). As for McInroe, you cannot be serious!

All this talk of sport has exhausted me. Or cycling in terrible heat this afternoon has knackered me. Or both. My footrest has moved again, and so has my seat cushion. I think I might have a shower as it’s Tuesday. Have a lovely week, and write again soon!

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