Hooting Yard

Hooting Yard

Main menu

Skip to primary content
Skip to secondary content
  • Home
  • About Mr Key
  • Archives
  • Books
  • Subscribe!

Search Results for: "insouciantly against a mantelpiece"

A List Of Birds

Posted on Monday, 20 November, 2017 by Frank Key
Reply

Eleven years ago, I devoted an episode of Hooting Yard On The Air to reading out a list of 601 birds, plus an astronomer, a newsreader, 2 jazzmen, 5 film directors, and 34 stars of stage and screen. This recording … Continue reading →

Posted in Daily Bird Challenge, Prose, ResonanceFM | Leave a reply

When I Was Borp

Posted on Sunday, 30 July, 2017 by Frank Key
Reply

I am often asked what it was like to be borp. For example, I may be leaning insouciantly against a mantelpiece at a swish sophisticated cocktail party when a fellow-guest will approach me, sometimes in a wheelchair, and say: “I’m … Continue reading →

Posted in Prose | Leave a reply

Exemplary Slobbering Vignettes

Posted on Saturday, 18 March, 2017 by Frank Key
2

I received an invitation to attend a swish sophisticated cocktail party, and decided to wear for the occasion my second-best bib and tucker. On the evening itself, with the party in full swing, I was leaning insouciantly against a mantelpiece … Continue reading →

Posted in Prose | 2 Replies

Eye Eye (Again)

Posted on Sunday, 14 August, 2016 by Frank Key
1

Last week I went for my first appointment at the Tuesday Injection Clinic (which I think of as the Tuesday Injection Club). I learned a number of things. One, that I would be attending every fortnight, rather than every month, … Continue reading →

Posted in Things I Have Learned | 1 Reply

Mantelpiece

Posted on Wednesday, 3 June, 2015 by Frank Key
1

A letter plops onto the mat from Tord Grip. I wondered if this was the same Tord Grip who is something of a luminary in the world of foopball coaching, but apparently it is a different Tord Grip altogether. Anyway, … Continue reading →

Posted in Prose | 1 Reply

Swan Hunter

Posted on Monday, 1 June, 2015 by Frank Key
Reply

I was reading the other day about closed-down shipyards and came upon a reference to Swan Hunter. This served to remind me of a fellow I met recently whose business card – which he handed to me – announced his … Continue reading →

Posted in Prose | Leave a reply

The Man Who Ate His Own Head

Posted on Monday, 20 April, 2015 by Frank Key
3

The other day I met a man who claimed he could eat his own head. I considered this preposterous, and said so. We were at a sophisticated cocktail party and he was leaning insouciantly against a mantelpiece. “I can prove … Continue reading →

Posted in Prose | 3 Replies

Invoking Sumai

Posted on Monday, 6 October, 2014 by Frank Key
2

There is a scene in the second series of Game Of Thrones where Daenarys Targaryen and her raggle-taggle band of Dothraki followers, having struggled across the vast and desolate Red Wastes, their food and water supplies exhausted, seek entrance to … Continue reading →

Posted in Things I Have Learned | 2 Replies

I Am A Willow Warbler

Posted on Sunday, 10 August, 2014 by Frank Key
Reply

The willow warbler is a type of bird which warbles in willows. I am not a bird – obviously! – but I, too, have warbled in willows. It is a simple enough matter. What you do is locate a clump … Continue reading →

Posted in Prose | Leave a reply

Me And My Eggs

Posted on Tuesday, 25 June, 2013 by Frank Key
Reply

I keep all my eggs in one basket. I have several baskets, obtained during what I like to think of as my “basket-acquiring years”, but there is only one in which I put my eggs. This is a small, oval, … Continue reading →

Posted in Eggs, Prose | Leave a reply

Fire-Priestess

Posted on Thursday, 6 June, 2013 by Frank Key
Reply

“You must be that fire-priestess everyone is talking about.” This is a line from Game Of Thrones that I have been hoping to use in everyday conversation. I could, of course, just say it next time I find myself leaning … Continue reading →

Posted in Prose | Leave a reply

Plenipotentiary With Cornflakes Carton And Nightjar

Posted on Monday, 3 June, 2013 by Frank Key
Reply

Our survey of artworks continues with Plenipotentiary With Cornflakes Carton And Nightjar. This is a large painting, though I have not measured it, showing, as its title indicates, a plenipotentiary with the traditional attributes of his office, a cornflakes carton … Continue reading →

Posted in Prose | Leave a reply

On Pontoppidan

Posted on Monday, 7 May, 2012 by Frank Key
2

Like absolutely everybody else throughout the land – with the sole exception of Nige – I have become enamoured of Scandinavian crime fiction. That is why, the other day, I picked up a cheap paperback copy of Headhunters by Jo … Continue reading →

Posted in Essays, Prose | 2 Replies

A Mordant Heron

Posted on Friday, 6 January, 2012 by Frank Key
2

Every so often, if I am leaning insouciantly against a mantelpiece at a swish cocktail party, a fellow-guest will approach me and say something along the lines of “Mr Key, you probably know more about ornithology than anyone else in … Continue reading →

Posted in Mordant Herons | 2 Replies

Buy the books

Lars Talc
Mr Key's Shorter Potted Brief, Brief Lives
The Funny Mountain
By Aerostat To Hooting YardBRUTE BEAUTY AND VALOUR AND ACT, OH, AIR, PRIDE, PLUME, HERE BUCKLE!Buy Dick Van Dyke Rescued By PorpoisesBuy Impugned By A PeasantWe Were Puny, They Were VapidGravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude and Pippy BagsUnspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The StarsBefuddled by Cormorants
All paperbacks are available from Lulu

Archives

Donate

Please give generously so that I can continue this important work while keeping the wolf from the door. I hear it panting, and I see its fangs...

Subscribe

Experience a warm glow of righteousness by making a regular monthly donation to Hooting Yard's fund for out of print pamphleteers.

Mixcloud

Episodes of Hooting Yard On The Air are now available on Mixvloud

YouTube

Past episodes of Hooting Yard On The Air are regularly added to YouTube

Instagram

You can follow Mr Key on Instagram (out_of_print_pamphleteer)

Recent Posts

  • Welcome to Hooting Yard: The Exhibition
  • Mr Key Moves to The Great Beyond
  • The Future Of Women’s Sport
  • Carnival And Cat
  • A Note On The Psychology Of Dog Nomenclature
  • Reading
  • The Return Of Hooting Yard
  • Advent Calendar : Milk – XVI
  • Advent Calendar : Milk – XV
  • Advent Calendar : Milk – XIV

Hooting Yard

  • Hooting Yard Archive 2003-2006

Places to visit

  • Anatomy Of Norbiton
  • Batterfang
  • BibliOdyssey
  • BlackberryJuniper and Sherbet
  • Claire Harmer
  • David Thompson
  • Fed By Birds
  • Futility Closet
  • Germander Speedwell
  • Gruts
  • Hooting Yard Group on Facebook
  • John R Lovett
  • Mainely Banished
  • Mustard Plaster
  • Nigeness
  • Ptak Science Books
  • ResonanceFM
  • Strange Flowers
  • The Dabbler
  • The Friends Of Charles Darwin
  • The Inexplicable World Of Outa_Spaceman
  • The Pavilion Of Innocent Pastimes
  • Twisty Turny Lanes
  • Wartime Housewife
Proudly powered by WordPress