There hasn’t been much key-tapping here at Haemoglobin Towers today, what with such distractions as the monkey feng shui consultant and the sandpaper palaver. But a few things twitched the Hooting Yard antennae, among them:

The imminence of a global pig flu epidemic

The fact that it was once common, in fashionable society, to call a humble or paid companion a “toad-eater”

The splendid news that Resonance magnifico Ed Baxter appeared in the Independent On Sunday list of 100 people who make Britain happy

Bela Tarr’s film The Man From London, characteristically slow and grim and bleak and black and white, contains a scene with a pair of tailors reminiscent of The Fast Show

There is a Hooting Yard Appreciation Society on Facebook, with 28 members and little or no activity

If I can rouse myself from indolence, I will insert links so readers can scoot off elsewhere on the web to investigate these matters. If not, you shall have to do your own research, which will no doubt be good for your moral fibre, if not mine.