* THE COMPLETE HOOTING YARD ARCHIVE *
* OVER 900 ITEMS FROM 2003 TO 2006 *
DECEMBER 2006 : Strange Norwegian soup, Little Alphonso, the Holy Sisters of Headaches & Dismay, and a souvenir cardigan from the Ayn Rand Exposition at Jakarta
NOVEMBER 2006 : Pope Benedict loses his mental and moral balance. Meanwhile, we examine the potatoes of Potatovag, provide some handy hints on the use of glue, and once again encounter Mad Old Farmer Frack.
OCTOBER 2006 : Not a jot.
SEPTEMBER 2006 : What Would Dobson Do?, Blodgett's Jihad - featuring a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed - some magnetic mute blind love monkeys from a planet far, far away, and a towering hollyhock or two.
AUGUST 2006 : The Song of the Grunty Man, much pig-related material, Katherine Mansfield, and howler monkeys. Fully illustrated.
JULY 2006 : The Pointy Town Seabird Rescue Service, zonk-eyed boffins, clanging bells, Jethro Tull, Anthony Burgess, and the unspeakably squalid becrumplement of an unlikely fictional character. All this and more awaits the diligent archive-reader.
JUNE 2006 : Much to inspire the attentive reader, including anagrams of Tord Grip, some mad Arabs H P Lovecraft neglected to mention, fiends of the farmyard, the attempted seduction of Dobson by a floozie, and Men With Whisks!
MAY 2006 : Twenty billion years of apocalyptic ballyhoo, a howling dog in a rowing boat, a consumptive shoemaker, and a gratuitous lawnmower illustration.
APRIL 2006 : An embittered sludge person, Arnold Bax, how to check that the Pope is dead, potato clocks, obnosis, Dutch gruel ... what more could you ask for?
MARCH 2006 : A cow called Ultravox (really), weird cooing, Basil and Guido from Dr Blodgett's Terpsichorean Academy For Keen Young Chaps, fear eats the soul, and a cranky pagan pudding recipe. And much more besides. Take a packed lunch.
FEBRUARY 2006 : A thoroughly exciting month, packed with delights including Bucephalus and the cephalopods in the Bosphorus, a decoy duck, plastic baubles and plastic sheeting, the anniversary of the 1958 Munich Air Disaster, custard, buttercups, specks in the sky, and tips on saving your swan in the event of a bird flu pandemic.
JANUARY 2006 : The new year begins with a series of unfortunate cows, stunned starlings, Rex Harrison and his son Noel, a Lembit Opik lookalike, and Sago the Pang Hill orphan. Oh, and a pontificating fruitarian.
DECEMBER 2005 : A Christmas treat in the shape of two episodes from Blodgett And His Pals Hanging Around On A Mysterious Island After Surviving A Plane Crash.
NOVEMBER 2005 : Mr Key has a lie down and adds not a jot to the site.
OCTOBER 2005 : Learn everything you need to know about the shelling of peas, the Magic Mountain, Ayn Rand's funeral song, English composer William Hurlstone, and the giant terrifying mountains of Tantarabim.
SEPTEMBER 2005 : Zeigler and Locke, wisps and clumps, the magnificent Ukrainian bee counting game, and a picture of a stormy petrel are among this month's undoubted highlights.
AUGUST 2005 : Read all about hendiadys in Mudchute, Reginald Bosanquet, The Bog People by P V Glob, the smashed god, a dream about Roy Kinnear, cows, blubber, tallow and tin... and not to forget the darning-needle of destiny!
JULY 2005 : The Bilgewater Elegies, the debut of fictional athlete Bobnit Tivol, homage to Bernard Cribbins, calor gas, larder tips, Jesus, cake news, and a fop in a quandary. Who could ask for more?
JUNE 2005 : So much to read that you may get an attack of the vapours. Lusty jocund swains, the bottomless viper-pit of Gaar, dispatches from O'Houlihan's Wharf, wafers, woods and killer bees, among much else.
MAY 2005 : Back after a break, and what delights! Learn about the ancient mystic art of Goon Fang, toasted blob-cake, a grebe, swans, fluttering sociopathic moth-beings, trumpets and banners, and lightning rods.
APRIL 2005 : Radio silence.
MARCH 2005 : No bulletins from Hooting Yard.
FEBRUARY 2005 : Such an exciting month at Hooting Yard that Mr Key had to go and lie down for two months, hence the absence of any entries for March and April. Here you can read about bags in the Bible, Rasputin, moths, the Electric Prunes, Muggletonians, haruspices, and both Tiny Enid and Serpentine Claude.
JANUARY 2005 : We enter the new year with Anubis and Ra, pageantry and ice, Saint Mungo and Agent Hosty, pit vipers on postage stamps, the glove of Ib, The Anatomy Of Melancholy, and the Hooting Yard Gallery Of Goo!
DECEMBER 2004 : Hooting Yard reaches its first birthday and celebrates with tales of wild pigs, vampire bats and days of imbecilic glee, as well as looking at the crucial importance of topiary, the legend of the Grunty Man, the Swiss Family Robinson, and, of course, what happened when Björn and Benny and Anni-Frid and Agnetha were invited to Belshazzar's feast... Gosh!
NOVEMBER 2004 : includes a note about a rare edition of the Bible, unanswered questions about JFK, my little blind dolly and my little blind crow, a picture of a big black beetle, two pictures of locusts, and all sorts of other magnificently entertaining material for all the family.
OCTOBER 2004 : a cornucopia of delights, including Dobson in the Biblical Land of Nod, railings and pewter, Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis, bees, chewed things, Richard Nixon, Emily Dickinson and Ah-Fang Van Der Houygendorp, paper crumpling, and Tex-Mex Jiffy Bag Sprites!
SEPTEMBER 2004 : the return of Mrs Gubbins, Dobson's fear of squirrels, Christopher Plummer as Atahualpa, bean diseases, a horrible cave, and a selection of 18th century newspaper headlines, together with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Alexander Graham Bell & Ringo Starr...
AUGUST 2004 : all about celery, gutta percha, neurasthenic shuddering, egg flip, the old town of Plovdiv, bags of suet, and papal infallibility. Plus starlings and terrifying moles, among much else.
JULY 2004 : is there any subject we didn't address in July? Tundism, owls, Ricardo Montalban, glue and gruel and God and hydraulics and tsars and bogs, Emily Dickinson, botched trepanning operations, curd, birds, mucilage, balm in Gilead, and of course an enormously useful Pontiff mnemonic.
JUNE 2004 : the definitive return from Technonightmareland! June brought mentions of gnats, Nixon, nuns purporting to be from Finland, little Severin the mystic badger, Ronald Reagan, Belt, Bong & Yaw and at least 44 curlews.
MAY 2004 : still bedevilled by technical trauma, we nevertheless managed to address such issues as "Was Dobson Stalin?", examine the legacy of Tuesday Weld, ponder Frank's future as the Face of L'Oreal, and sigh at the strange fate of the Besmirched & Bonkers Topiary Man, His Hoodoo & Collapse. All this plus croissants, horses, Stendahl on peas, ogres, vapours and, of course, even more cormorants.
APRIL 2004 : a month which saw hideous and traumatic computer nightmares at Hooting Yard. Despite this, you'll be able to read about Mrs Gubbins and her infatuation with buttons, a noodlehead in peril, Sopwith's so-called "marsh gas years", and the disgusting bilge of Cadet Vig, among other things.
MARCH 2004 : a bumper month - not only the seven dwarves, the administration of lighthouses, and six cows and a bee, not only Chutney On My Spats by Beerpint & How I Invented A Revolutionary New Birdseed by Dobson, but soup, cake, gluttony, Chewism, jars, cormorants and a leech mishap.
FEBRUARY 2004 : including Richard Milhous Nixon, bismuth & titanium, Istvan & Zoltan, Dobson, badgers, potatoes, pails, James Joyce, and a burlap sack of old crocuses.
JANUARY 2004 : including World o' Cake, decoy ducks, the Crogsnickplagg Cow Centenary, penguin brain scans, and other amusing diversions.
DECEMBER 2003 : including the Ship of Fools, Monomaniac Time, a crumpled map, the Buttons of Beb, and much, much more!