Oh look, a puffin has collapsed on that floe.
Wipe the steam from your goggles and you will see it too.
We should airlift it to the puffin hospital yonder in our chopper.
Take those corks out of your ears so you can hear me speak.
Love is a mighty power, and I love puffins, as I love guillemots and auks and bonxies.
Snap those icicles dangling from your nose and you will breathe easier.
Here comes a blizzard. Oh, puffin, don’t die.
Stamp your feet in your furry boots, my companion.
Two men and a collapsed puffin in a white wasteland.
Allegory of something or other.
The chopper blades are frozen, and we are stranded, or marooned.
Come, Squiffy, plod with me towards the puffin, that we may give it succour.
Love conquers all, if you will wipe those damned goggles!

I ought to explain why things have been so quiet at Hooting Yard of late. I am beset by a case of diabetic retinopathy – plus a Roth spot – and my eyesight is, quite frankly, pitiable. Typing and peering at a computer screen are rendered somewhat laborious, and the effort required often results in general exhaustion and debility. Hence the lack of sweeping paragraphs of majestic etc etc.

But all is not lost! I shall shortly be commencing a series of monthly appointments at the exciting-sounding Tuesday Injection Clinic in the ophthalmic department of my local hospital. The Key eyes will be jabbed with needles each month until such time as my sight returns to normal – normal, for me of course, meaning myopic, akin to a mole, but much better than it is now.

In the meantime I will try to post here when able, and I look forward to resuming normal service before too long.

In terms of personal grooming, I have always set great store by the pudding basin haircut. It is an effortlessly stylish look, achieved by having a pudding basin upended over one’s bonce, while one’s barber snips away any hair protruding below the rim. Obviously, before putting the pudding basin in place, the hair is combed, in a uniformly downward direction, from a central point at the apex of the head.

If you wish to avail yourself of a pudding basin haircut – and I would strongly advise you to do so – there are a few things to bear in mind. Before donning your boots and windcheater and heading out to the barber’s, you should ascertain whether he supplies his own pudding basin. This is particularly the case if the size of your head strays from the human norm. If you have an unusually large head, or an abnormally tiny one, a standard size pudding basin will result in a very stupid haircut. In these circumstances, or if your barber does not supply his own pudding basin, be sure to take one with you.

But before leaving the house, check that your pudding basin has been thoroughly cleaned since last you used it for making a pudding. Failing to do so might find you leaving the barber’s, later, with your new haircut splattered with bits of, say, sago pudding. You will be extremely fortunate to make it home without being beset by birds, swooping down upon your head and pecking at your hair with their sharp fearsome beaks, intent on gobbling up every last scrap of sago pudding, which most birds find irresistible. This savage pecking is also likely to cause catastrophic damage to your brand new haircut, and you will probably have to turn around and go straight back to the barber’s so he can snip snip snip it into some semblance of tidiness and style. He may not, however, be able to achieve that enviable pudding basin look you left with a few minutes earlier. Also, unless he is a particularly generous barber, you will have to pay him twice – and all because you neglected to scrub every last smidgen of sago pudding from your pudding basin.

By the same token, make sure you wash the pudding basin when you get home, or at least before you next use it for pudding preparation. A stray hair or two may adhere to the inside of the basin, and thus find its way into your pudding. This could result in dinner party calamity, and you will become an object of disgust to your guests. Not even that effortlessly stylish pudding basin baircut will save you from consequent social disgrace and possible criminal prosecution.

Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree. Now, take a step back and consider your handiwork. Did you tie the knot with due care, so that it will not come loose and the yellow ribbon be borne away in the howling gale which, if we are to believe Tim the radio meteorologist, is imminent? You had best check that knot again. And did you ensure that the ribbon you used was as yellow as yellow could be? The painter Pierre Bonnard once remarked “Yellow! One can’t get enough of it!” and there spoke a man who knew what he was talking about. So while you stand there, feeling the first faint stirrings of the coming gale, ask yourself if Bonnard would give your ribbon the thumbs up. If you can honestly say “Yes!”, and you are convinced your knot is secure, then you may give yourself a pat on the back and repair to Old Ma Purgative’s Tea Shop for a well-earned snack.

But soft! Who cometh? Who is this, mincing along the lane towards the old oak tree, armed with a gleaming pair of scissors? Why, it is Mr Snippy! He has designs on your yellow ribbon. If he is not stopped, he will snip snip snip with his scissors and stuff the ribbon into his pocket and scurry away, cackling, looking for other ribbons to snip, from other trees.

Pick up that spade and bash Mr Snippy with it. While he is lying on the ground groaning and gurgling, snatch up the scissors and toss them into the mire beyond the old oak tree, having first embluntened them with an embluntening tool. Then give Mr Snippy a few kicks for good measure and sashay off towards the Tea Shop. The wind is coming in, and you will want to be indoors, safe and snug, so you can write up your report to the Old Oak Tree Yellow Ribbon Board of Supervisors. They do not suffer fools gladly.

The tarpaulins of Goosbeck, oh! how we cherished them. They covered things that would otherwise have got wet during spells of rainfall. “Ah,” you say, “but it hardly ever rains in Goosbeck, due to certain geographical oddities I am unqualified to expound upon.” I would have you expound upon them nonetheless. Rainfall is a topic of quite staggering interest to me, and I am always keen to hear more about it, even from the unqualified. And there is nothing to stop you embarking on a course of study in rainfall in any case, ending with a certificate or diploma, and then you would be qualified to expound. But you remain silent. You do not take up my challenge. You gaze over my shoulder, and in the distance you can see the flattened ruins of Goosbeck, or you could if you were wearing your specs. But you left them on the sideboard in your hotel room, because you are forgetful. You are forgetful because you have reached a great, improbable, age. You are so old you remember the last time rain fell in Goosbeck and the tarpaulins were hauled out and spread, with love, over things that might otherwise have got wet. And so, on the outskirts of what once was Goosbeck, in vegetation and in awe, we make a handshake last for hours. As dusk descends, you trudge back to your hotel, and I turn and return to the ruins. I should coco.

Our Lady of the Bumpkins is the object of dribbling veneration by the peasantry hereabouts. That is pretty much all you need to know about her. More pertinent, perhaps, is why the peasants’ veneration is accompanied, always, by dribbling. To find out, let us enter a peasant hovel. I would recommend a powerfully fragrant nosegay.

Once our eyes become accustomed to the gloom, we can see a midden of unutterable filth. Such is the home life of our own dear peasantry. Well, mayhap not so dear. You will be thankful for the nosegay. You may also wish to have armed yourself with a sharp pointy stick, to keep the peasant at bay should he approach you. But there is little danger of that, because he is wholly occupied with veneration. He is sprawled on the ground, mouth open, dribbling freely, his idiot gaze fixated upon a statue of Our Lady of the Bumpkins. It is raised above the piles of gruesome clutter, resting on a sort of shrine or altar. It emits an unearthly glow, and is the one clean thing for miles around. When he is not venerating it, the dribbling peasant spends untold hours spraying it with polish from an aerosol canister and buffing it with rags.

We poke him with the pointy stick to gain his attention. Still dribbling, he turns his head to look at us.

“Can you not venerate Our Lady of the Bumpkins with your mouth closed?” we ask.

In reply, the peasant grunts, and returns to his dribbling veneration.

Before leaving, we note that he collects his dribbles in a rough-hewn wooden cup, artfully placed beneath his chin.

And later, when we call in to the village’s one-stop-shop to return our rented nosegay and pointy stick, we note that there are shelves stacked with similar cups of dribble. These are for sale, at a hefty price, to pilgrims who come from far and wide. Thus does the One True Faith maintain the rural economy in times of blight.

Last night I was invited to Buckingham Palace to visit the pangolin. It was kept in a grand state room along with two rather sleepy full-grown tigers and a governess. The governess spoke to the pangolin – which was wearing a little red pill-box hat – in French. After observing these arrangements, I was escorted from the Palace down a tree-lined pathway by the royal zookeeper, a grey-haired man who expressed an interest in travelling to New York.

Last night, Abi Ofarim was presented with a sheep.

There was a broader context to this exciting scene, but alas it was obliterated the instant I awoke. All that remains is a smiling Abi, circa 1967, taking in his arms a non-smiling sheep.

I would be pleased to hear from any brain-quacks who feel competent to interpret this phantasm.

And the Lord said “Gather ye wool, and using needles thou shalt knit the wool into the form of a chicken. And thou shalt stuff the chicken with kapok and place it upon thy mantel. But the chicken shall lay no eggs, nor shall it cluck, for it is a false chicken, of kapok and wool, and an abomination unto the eyes of the Lord. And it shall be cast down from thy mantel, and unravelled, and the kapok stuffing scattered, yea, upon the four winds, and the wool strewn across many fields on thy father’s land. Thus sayeth the Lord, regarding false chickens, and other counterfeit poultry.”

The Book Of Ipsy Dipsy Doo, chapter 5,891

If you are in the vicinity of a riverbank, and you see two otters, this is known as Double Otters. Mark your little dun cardboard slip accordingly, in pencil, and take it to the kiosk. The man at the kiosk – argumentative, boisterous, catarrh-riddled, dismal, eggy (as in the Beatles’ song), flip, gaunt, horrible, ill, jaded, knock-knee’d, lascivious, mordant – will exchange your slip for a prize, usually a biro or a balloon.

He is a fallen man. When you are not looking, he will blub into a napkin.

Bim cut his chops with chocks. But Bam bamboozled Bim. Bim fought back with flex. Bam unleashed his flocks.

What are we to make of this? That Bim was holy, and Bam was not? Or quite the reverse? But wherein does holiness reside? We know it does not reside in holes, the holes, for example, in Bim’s socks. There were no holes in Bam’s socks, for he was a darner. Or it might be that Bam went sockless. Either way, we know that Bim had never set eyes on a darning-needle, not even the Darning-Needle of Doom.

The Darning-Needle of Doom is the one that pierced Bam’s soul. At its prick, he heard a bell toll. It tolled for Bam, but it did not toll for Bim. Bim was on his uppers. He drooled into a cup. It was a tin cup he won in a wrestling match. His opponent? Bam.

Oh, Bim and Bam. They are inseparable. When Bim looks in a mirror, he sees Bam. When Bam looks in the same mirror, having snatched it from Bim, he sees Bam too. Of course he does! You nitwits! What else would Bam see in a mirror but himself, reflected?

Why then does Bim see Bam in the mirror? Perhaps it is the angle he holds it at. Bim is ignorant of the great mysteries of geometry. But so is Bam. Bam had no schooling to speak of, nor can he speak, for he is mute. Bim babbles.

Bim and Bam the flowerpot men, raucous as crows, yellow as custard. They preen in the sunlight dappling the hideous hills of Hoon. They are gits and they know it. It is time you knew it too, and now you do.

Most buffers are not squelchy, but some are, some are. I am thinking, in particular, of the buffers in the submerged portion at the end of the line at Pointy Town. They are not just squelchy buffers, they are very squelchy buffers, at times exceedingly so, Adding to their squelchiness is the fact that the approach to the buffers, for several hundred plodes, is equipped, at regular intervals, with baffles, of both metal and sponge. The baffles first appear in the unsubmerged portion of the line but continue in the submerged portion until we are within spitting distance of the squelchy buffers themselves. Not that we would actually spit, for that would contravene the by-laws, unsurprisingly.

The poet-in-residence at Pointy Town Terminus, Dennis Beerpint, has recently published an anthology entitled Shall I compare thee to a squelchy buffer?, the answer to which would appear to be “no, I would rather you didn’t” (see Canto XXVII in the collection). Beerpint spent many long hours perched on a camping-stool, half-submerged, close by the squelchy buffers, smoking his pipe and jotting down his matchless poetic aperçus with a propelling pencil in a notepad. Curiously, he had nothing whatsoever to say about the metal and sponge baffles, although it is possible he is saving them for a second anthology which, like the first, will be available at the Pointy Town Terminus Kiosk.

Hoplites often disport themselves near the squelchy buffers, in historical reenactment tableaux vivants, but they do not hop.

Occasionally, it has been remarked that prose will simply peter out.

Things have been quiet here for a while. That is because I have been concentrating on completing my masterwork, the Summa Theologica. As its title indicates, this is a theological summary which attempts to explain the ways of God to Man – or at least to my readership. It has involved untold research, over many years, the collection of thousands, if not millions, of notes, all written painstakingly in pencil on Nabokovian index cards. Now at last I have set about the task of marshalling all this into a coherent narrative that is at once jaw-droppingly erudite and also as readable as any airport bookstall blockbuster.

The opening sentence is, in a sense, the summa theologica of the Summa Theologica. Having consulted my notes, I wrote:

It is blindingly obvious, to even the most dim-witted and wet-behind-the-ears six-year-old, that there is only one god, all-powerful and all-knowing, and that is the hideous bat-god Fatso.

Unfortunately, after writing this, I reached an impasse. It is, indeed, blindingly obvious, so what else is there to say? The simple truth is that we must all bow down or, better, prostrate ourselves upon our bellies, like the creatures that creep upon the earth, before the terrible countenance of the hideous bat-god Fatso, for ever and ever Amen. If you do not grasp that fact, then you are doomed, yea unto the umpteenth generation, and you will eat nought but nettles and drink nothing but evaporated milk flavoured with the bitter tears of grumpy German film directors, and you will be dressed in rags, and the rags will be besmirched with the blood of slaughtered innocents, and your limbs will flail helplessly, and your brain will boil.

If you require further evidence of the unflinchingly brutal reality of the hideous bat-god Fatso, see here.