The other day I was woken from a much-needed nap by a screech. I identified it, instantly, as the screech of a screech owl, for I am ever alert to occurrences of an ornithological kidney. I peered out of the window and spotted the owl, perched on a picket fence. I pranced outside, went straight towards the owl, bunched my fist, and thumped it in what I supposed was its solar plexus. The owl toppled from the fence, looking mightily disconcerted. As soon as it hit the ground, it righted itself, unfurled its wings, and flew away. I watched until it had vanished in the blue empyrean, which in truth was grey and overcast rather than blue, but empyrean nonetheless, and then I returned indoors to resume my nap.

The next day I answered a knock at the door to be confronted by a gangly beanpole wearing some sort of peaked cap with glittering metal insignia pinned to it.

“Interrogative : would you be Mr Key?” he said.

“C’est moi!” I replied, foolishly, for I was in foolish spirits.

“Interrogative,” he said, again, “Yesterday, did you thump an owl, knocking it from its perch?”

“I did,” I said, “It was a screech owl and its screech woke me from a much-needed nap.”

“Interrogative,” he said yet again, and this time I interrupted him.

“Why do you keep saying ‘interrogative’?”

“Don’t get snippy with me, Mr Key, just answer my questions. Interrogative : are you aware that the thumping of owls is in contravention of the municipal bye-laws regarding conduct towards and/or in the presence of owls?”

“What?” I said, so he repeated himself, so I did too, and he was about to rerepeat himself when I flicked at his face a morsel of smokers’ poptart I happened to be holding and told him to go away. This was a mistake. He bunched his fist and thumped me in the solar plexus.

When I was able to breathe again, he helped me inside, and we sat facing each other at the breakfast table.

“A word of advice,” he said, “It is never a good idea to try to stymie the activities of a senior officer of the Civic Owl Squad going about his lawful business. As you have learned. Now let there be no more nonsense from you. I am invested with powers more draconian, more merciless, than you could imagine in your wildest and most sweat-drenched, pillow-gnawing nightmares.”

“Erk-gah” was all I could say, for I was still winded.

“Now. You have admitted to thumping an owl. I have it down on my pocket cassette recorder. Your nap is of no concern to us, by the way. By ‘us’ I mean myself and the screech owl you thumped. Though not present, I can assure you that it can hear every word you say, for screech owls are blessed with a tremendously good sense of hearing. I offer that tip in case you were minded to say something disobliging about the owl when you recover the power of speech. It will be listening carefully to everything you say for several months, until, that is, you have made complete restitution for your thumping.”

“Reugh?” I gasped.

“Precisely,” he said, “Restitution. Every day, for the next several months, you will fill this sack” – at which he whacked a large burlap sack upon the table – “with insects, reptiles, small mammals such as bats and mice and small birds such as wrens and hummingbirds. You will deliver the sack, filled to the brim – to the brim! – every morning at six a.m. on the dot to your neighbourhood Civic Owl Squad drop-in centre. Woe betide you if you fail to comply.”

I wondered for a moment of what that woe might consist, but decided it was better for my nervous equilibrium not to ask.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” said the gangly beanpole, “I will see myself out. And I am sure you don’t mind me helping myself to one of your smokers’ poptarts.”

I did mind – but what could I do?

The next day, after filling the sack to the brim with insects, reptiles, small mammals such as bats and mice and small birds such as wrens and hummingbirds, and delivering it to the drop-in centre, I returned home exhausted and took a much-needed nap. I was woken by a howl. I identified it, instantly, as the howl of a howler monkey, for I am ever alert to occurrences of a simian kidney.

That pot or vase I think.

I heard these words, given as the answer to a question, but I did not hear the question due to the tremendous racket of a German improvising oompah marching band which appeared from around the corner just as the question was posed. At least, I assume a question was put and drowned out by the din. Otherwise “that pot or vase I think” makes little or no sense.

In any case, I looked wildly around to see what pot or vase was being spoken of. Granted, it was none of my business, I had merely eavesdropped upon somebody else’s conversation, but my interest is always piqued by pottery. Well, not always. Sometimes I yawn in the presence of ceramics, a yawn so wide and prolonged that I begin to drool. Fortunately I always carry an embroidered napkin with which to mop any unseemly dribbling from my chin.

The embroidery on my napkins – that’s right, napkins plural, for I have quite a collection – was stitched by a crone in a godawful hamlet hidden somewhere in the Blue Forgotten Hills. I cannot recall the circumstances in which I stumbled upon her noisome hut, other than that I was on an organised walking tour at the time. The tour was arranged by an agency specialising in walking tours of hilly areas, places with lots of humps and bumps to be negotiated.

This agency had its head office situated, inappropriately, on a very flat and level high street in a market town. Immediately in front of its doorway, no more than two or three paces as accomplished by average human adult leg-length, was a cement horse trough. When I visited the agency, a horse was gobbling water from the trough. It was a startlingly elegant horse. I patted its fetlocks, or what I supposed were its fetlocks, though I ought to confess that my knowledge of equine anatomy is skimpy. I paid little attention when we were taught this topic by Dr Gabbitas in the village schoolroom all those years ago.

Dr Gabbitas claimed to be an expert on the subject of horses, as well as astronomy, Latin, pig Latin, pudding recipes, the higher mathematics, polar geography, the flight patterns of uncommon birds, shove-ha’penny, dust, and many another topic. He was a curiously bloated figure, who looked as if he had been dragged from the sea after drowning several months ago. But the village where I grew up was nowhere near the sea. I did not see it until I was the age of Christ at his crucifixon.

I was stunned. There I stood, on my thirty-third birthday, upon the beach at Imber, gazing at that vast wet sloshing expanse. It would be no exaggeration to say that the sight of it befuddled my brain, so much so that I quickly retreated to the dilapidated seaside boarding-house where I had taken a room, and I shut myself in that room, and remained there for weeks.

There was, on the windowsill of that room, a pot or vase I think, holding a splurge of lupins, freshly cut when I arrived, and slowly shrivelling and dying, as the days passed, as all of us do, as the years pass.

“Drink to me only with thine eyes” sang Ben Jonson to Celia. I am not Celia – she is long dead, as is O rare Ben Jonson – but I thought I’d give it a go. Usually, of course, we drink with our mouths, but I am particularly well placed to drink with my eyes. Regular readers will know that I have been undergoing a series of injections of a needle directly into my eyeballs. My reasoning is that, consequent upon this treatment, I have several holes in each eye through which I might imbibe liquid.

For my first attempt at “being Celia”, as it were, I propped up on the mantelpiece a picture of Ben Jonson. This was a mezzotint tinted by the noted mezzotintist Rex Tint. I would try to keep my eyes fixed upon this as I drank. I then opened a can of Squelcho! and poured the contents into a tumbler. Transferring this to my eyes was not as simple as I had imagined. I found I had to tilt my head back, until I was gazing at the ceiling, rather than at Ben Jonson. I solved this problem by putting down the tumbler, taking the mezzotint from the mantelpiece, and affixing it to the ceiling with a couple of blobs of a proprietary brand of rubber cement I then picked up the tumbler again, tilted my head back, gazed adoringly at the mezzotint countenance of Ben Jonson, and poured a modicum of Squelcho! first into one eye, then the other.

To my dismay, not a drop of liquid entered either eye. It just ran down my face, so that I resembled the startlingly angular woman in that Picasso picture, though not quite so angular, nor so girly, of course.

Drying my face with a nearby tea-towel, I determined upon a different approach. I jettisoned the tumbler, removed Ben Jonson from the ceiling, and replaced him on the mantelpiece. I then opened a second can of Squelcho! and decocted part of the contents into a perfume bottle atomiser air bulb invention. I reasoned that spraying the Squelcho! at my eyes would provide greater force than namby-pamby pouring, and the liquid would be impelled through the holes. Gazing once more at O rare Ben Jonson, I duly scrunched the air bulb in my manly fist. Alas, this proved no more effective than pouring. The Squelcho! just ran down my face, the same as before. I tossed the perfume bottle atomiser air bulb invention under the sink, mopped my face with the tea-towel, and hit upon a third approach.

Clearly the spray was too weedy. What I needed to do was to force a jet of Squelcho! through a hosepipe at high velocity. This would surely force the liquid through the several pin-prick holes in my eyes.

Reader, it did not. I spent hours designing and constructing a contraption comprising a length of rubber hosepipe, a large plastic canister, an electric motor, some valves and nozzles, and umpteen cans of Squelcho! All I got for my troubles was a terrific headache, awful pain in my eyes, and vision temporarily impaired even more than usual.

Having had a long lie down in a darkened room, I made one last desperate attempt to drink Sqelcho! to Ben Jonson only with mine eyes. This time, I simply filled a large bucket with the contents of yet more cans of the remarkably fizzy fizzy drink and plunged my head into it. I shoved corks into my ears, held my nose between thumb and forefinger, and kept my mouth shut. Eventually I had to remove my head from the bucket and slump on the floor panting for breath, or I would have died. It was with disblief that I realised I had not managed to ingest a single drop of Squelcho! through mine eyes.

I mentioned all this to the consultant at my next appointment at the eye hospital. She gave me a funny look, the import of which I could not quite decipher, and said:

“Mr Key, let me try to explain something to you. It is really a very simple matter, such that a small child should have no difficulty grasping it. When we plunge a needle directly into one of your eyeballs during your regular appointments here, the needle is astonishingly thin, and the resultant hole in your eyeball is microscopically tiny, so tiny it is even tinier than Tinie Tempah. It is such a tiny hole that it closes up and seals completely within a very short time after the injection, almost certainly before you have even left the hospital grounds. I am afraid there is no chance whatsoever of you drinking to Ben Jonson only with thine eyes.”

This gave me pause for thought, and I became dejected.

But my dejection did not last long. As I pranced, half-blind, out of the hospital, it came to me in a flash that being Celia did not mean I had to be Ben Jonson’s Celia. I could be another Celia entirely. I could be Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter! I bent down, plucked a piece of grit from the ground, and shoved it into my eye. Then I sashayed off to the railway station, went into the tea room, and waited for someone to come up to me saying “Can I help you? Please let me look, I happen to be a doctor.”

Once upon a time there was a groovy janitor. That is about all there is to say about him. He was groovy, and he was a janitor. Or, he was a janitor, and he was groovy. These two statements are not identical. We must be alert to nuance. Do we give more or less weight to his janitordom or to his grooviness? Much as we might wish to grant them equal importance, we know in our heart of hearts that to do so is blind idiocy. Oh come on, admit it. You are leaning, even if only slightly, in terms of your level of interest in this majestic piece of prose, towards the janitoriness or the groove.

As a janitor, the groovy janitor was often to be found in a corridor, with a mop and a pail, rattling a bunch of keys, or perhaps bearing down upon a fixture or fitting armed with a hammer or a screwdriver or a wrench. As a person of groove, the groovy janitor, while so engaged, would often be snapping his fingers to the latest sounds from some of our top beat groups, a long but not exhaustive list of which has been compiled by Bernard Levin. Shall we refamiliarise ourselves with the roll call?

Some [beat groups] were almost as famous, and successful, as the Beatles; some were known only to the most devoted aficionados. But all added to the atmosphere of the decade, and the isle was full of noises as never before, coming from, among others, the Rolling Stones, the Bee Gees, the Monkees, the Doors, the Cream, the Mothers of Invention, the Seekers, the Who, the Small Faces, the Pretty Things, the Animals, the Pink Floyd, the Scaffold, the Grateful Dead, the Tremoloes, the Family, the Supremes, the Holding Company, the Four Tops, the Led Zeppelin, the Shadows, the Exploding Galaxy, the Editors, the Fugs, the Gods, the Kinks, the Hermits, the Paper Dolls, the Breakaways, the Greaseband, the Casuals, the Amen Corner, the Big Sound, the Flirtations, the Herd, the Marbles, the Status Quo, the New York Public Library, the Hollies, the Foundations, the Electric Havens, the Four Seasons, the Bachelors, the Seychelles, the Love Affair, the Fifth Dimension, the Three Dog Night, the Equals, the Vagabonds, the Marmalade, the Mindbenders, the Moody Blues, the Mirettes, the Tuesday’s Children, the Plastic Penny, the Procol Harum, the Troggs, the Fruit Machine, the Union Gap, the 1910 Fruitgum Co., the Beach Boys, the Fairport Convention, the Vanity Fair, the Harmony Grass, the Aces, the Young Tradition, the Nice, the Dubliners, the Tinkers, the Fleetwood Mac, the Incredible String Band, the Web, the Little Free Rock, the Blodwyn Pig, the Liverpool Scene, the Spooky Tooth, the Third Ear, the High Tide, the Mamas and Papas, the Carnations, the Pacemakers, the From Genesis to Revelation, the O’Hara Express, the Pentangle, the Chickenshack, the Blind Faith, the Fourmost, the Searchers, the Four Pennies, the Bar-Kays, the Unit Four Plus Two, the Hedgehoppers Anonymous, the Applejacks, the Box Tops, the Edison Lighthouse, the Blood, Sweat and Tears, the Vibrations, and the Rada Krishna Temple.

From this we can adduce that our groovy janitor was being groovy, and a janitor, in the 1960s. But that was half a century ago! He is fifty years older now, creaking, wrinkle-rutted, near bald and toothless, gasping weakly from a bed in a Mercy Home. It is no longer accurate to describe him as a janitor, for he has carried out no janitorial duties for twenty years at least. We can call him an ex-janitor, or a retired janitor. And what of his grooviness? Is he still groovy? Let us ask the superintendent of the Mercy Home, Mrs Pantoofle.

“The retired janitor lying sprawled in his iron cot in Hopeless Ward? You are asking me if he is groovy? Define your terms, please.”

We set out for her the chief characteristics of grooviness, in alphabetical order, supported by illustrative diagrams we have tucked in our pocket for just such an eventuality.

“I see,” says Mrs Pantoofle, though as she is wearing a pair of very stylish mirror sunglasses we cannot be sure of the truth of this remark.

“I would say,” she continues, “Taking everything into account, that the ex-janitor has indeed retained his grooviness. Only the other morning, as one of the skivvies attended to his bedpan, she noted that he was babbling incoherently in his weak and reedy voice. With great presence of mind, she made a tape of his gibbering on the Mercy Home cassette recorder. We played it back during the staff meeting at lunchtime, while eating fruit. At first the tape yielded nothing intelligible, but when we pricked up our ears and concentrated very hard, we realised the retired janitor was reciting “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg. What could be groovier than that? It fried my wig, daddy-o!”

The moral of this story is that, while janitordom may fade away and vanish, grooviness prevails. Let that be a lesson to you.

Yesterday I mentioned, in passing, Will Self. This is never a good idea. I am reminded, however, that I really need to stamp my big black boot down and make something very clear. First, back in 2009, we had the question posed “Is Frank Key Will Self?” And now, just the other day, this:

While I am flattered by Mr Bugs’ complimentary remarks, I am equally appalled to find myself compared in any way with the preposterous figure of Self. Perhaps the most laughable thing is the idea that he is some kind of edgy intellectual maverick. From his many appearances in the Grauniad and on the BBC, I think it is clear that he is in possession of the Middle-Class Student Wanker’s starter pack marked ‘This is what you think’. All his opinions are predictable and orthodox. If there is such a thing as the “metropolitan liberal elite”, he is a card-carrying member. For example, he believes that everyone who voted for Brexit is probably a racist. Such simplistic twaddle will always get you applause and whooping from a Question Time audience, a fairly reliable indicator of vacuous dimwittery.

I fear, however, that I will forever be linked with the wretched Self, given that his one useful contribution to the world was giving Mr Key a light for his cigarette in the midst of a downpour in south London.

Several years ago we took a long hard look at the well-known story in which the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. So compelling was our analysis that there was general agreement, in both vulpine and canine circles, and more broadly, that no further light could possibly be shed on the matter, at least not in our lifetimes.

But lo! What is this? Writing from the fair land of Denmark, Jacob Thoegersen has added a comment to the original potsage [sic] which, frankly, blows the whole thing up a fresh spout. (I don’t think that is a common phrase, or even means anything, but it damned well ought to become part and parcel of our parlance, daddy-o.) To ensure Mr Thoegersen’s contribution does not lie neglected in the archives, here is his comment in full:

I thank you for your review, my dearest Mr. Key, which I think – in broad strokes – sums up the most pertinent questions to students of the story, the ‘pillars’ of our discipline.

I think you will agree with me also that many of the factual questions you raise will in time be answered upon careful scrutiny of video documentation now published (or is that ‘leaked’ one might speculate) about the incident:

https://video.twimg.com/tweet_video/C16czVIWEAADzgj.mp4.

I advise all people to see the video and form their own opinions, but in my eyes, the dog appears to be standing, it is of a light brown (cappuccino?) colour, and the fox does indeed appear to be in a somewhat playful mood – if ‘playful’ and ‘mood’ can be properly applied to canines.

Of more interest, perhaps, to students of the story is the new insights the video give about the performance of the actual jump. How many of us, for instance, had in our mental reproduction of the scene envisioned the fox *landing* on the dog. If I am not much mistaken, the photographic evidence of this occurring will spawn much renewed interest, will force us to rethink many interpretation we had come to accept as self-evident, and, we may hope, open up entirely new avenues of research into the psychological implications of the story.

My personal analysis on the history of studies in the dog-and-fox story is that the community can be roughly divided between parabelists, historist and omenists – of course proposing this meta-theory will infuriate many if not all scholars in the field, but alas, so is my burden…:

Parableists see the story as a parable, to be read for its symbolic and moral implications (far too many and multiform to mention here – not least because the emergence of the video, I think we all must now agree, renders the entire avenue of thought untenable). To parableists (or the agniostics if you prefer) it is irrelevant whether the event actually occurred or not; the story has very real social and human significance today irrespectably. Historists see the incident as an actual occurrence of the past; omenists, on the other hand, see it as prophetic vision of a future, possibly, messianic event (not unlike the less well researched story of the lamb lying down with the lion published in a much inferior literary piece of drivel whose name momentarily slips my mind but which may be familiar to your readers).

The new video evidence should feed much renewed interest in the two latter schools of thought: Is this the final proof that the quick brown fox did indeed jump over the lazy dog – and when and where did this then happen..? Or is this the sign that Armageddon is upon us? I think we all agree that we are living in intensely interesting – what could be traumatizing – times. I for one shall sleep little while this new evidence is being scrutinized in labs and offices around the world.

As to the implications for our field as such, I believe this could be the time that lay people, average Janes and average Joes around the world, realize that we are not, emphatically not, crackpots and monomaniacs. Our studies have very serious and very real implications for the future of mankind. I foresee a future of even more specialized journals and conferences, and perhaps even an international newspaper dedicated to fox-and-dog’ology. I foresee a future where any serious national newspaper worthy of its name will have a daily section or a weekly supplement on current trends and new findings on a par with their treatment of business, culture, weather, TV and politics. I foresee in other words, brothers and sisters, a future where we will receive the same media coverage as our colleagues and rivals in dogs-on-skateboard’ology. I have always held that an important component in their media flair was the constant outpouring of new photographic evidence which is only too eagerly lapped up (if you will excuse the pun) by newsrooms.

These are exciting times, Mr. Key, and I trust you will follow the development closely in your show. You have always been a leading light in independent coverage of the news the people really want to know about.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE : Mr Thoegersen has now added a further, perhaps even more compelling, comment.

Potsages [sic] are likely to remain criminally sparse for the time being. This is due to the state of my eyes, which make it something of a strain to peer at a screen and attempt to tippy-tap keys with reasonable accuracy.

Following a series of fortnightly injections of a needle directly into my eyeballs, the other day I had an assessment by the consultant, who recommended … further injections of a needle directly into my eyeballs! So that will keep me occupied in the coming weeks.

I do have some ideas skittering around in my bonce, which I shall do my best to post here if and when I am able. One such scheme is A New Life Of Christ. I intend to remain faithful to Biblical sources, while mucking about with nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and, why not?, plot, characters, and setting. When Galilee moved to Shoeburyness … and lo!, the Lord did topple into the bottomless viper-pit of that seaside place.