Once again it is Pebble Time here at Hooting Yard, so here is a picture of a pebble for you to contemplate, possibly with furrowed brow and drool spilling down your chin.

“Blenkinsop! Blenkinsop! Fain wert thou embrinaged there at the harbourside! No turncoat cutpurse at the ducking stool sought to jar thy chaps. Was it but a toughening that smudged such gobby vexations, or was a man o’ poultry glutted on bream ‘n’ minnows? Fie! But how could that be?, you keen, spitter of pips with puppy-tears in grand cascade! Know ye that there are fires now blasting the barbicans? Well may thee prate ‘neath a stickleback sneer, ipso facto, dear goosey that thou art whose heart fluttereth in spring and, yea!, in winter’s hawthorn cracklings too.”

Discuss.

Astute readers, and fanatical Dobsonists, will have noticed that yesterday was the first post-free day since Hooting Yard was relaunched at the beginning of February. The reasons for this are twofold.

1. I have a stinking cold, and am much dependent on Lemsip, which readers will recall is the favoured tipple of our poet laureate Andrew Motion. In fact, I have taken to calling it Motion Potion. In theory, sufficient draughts of this piping hot medicament ought to inspire me to write poetry, just as happens with Mr M. Alas, I seem to be immune.

2. When not whimpering and snuffling and weakly calling aidez-moi! (see Bulle Ogier in Celine & Julie Go Boating, my role model when ill) I am concentrating on a couple of other projects which will be of interest to readers. The follow-up to Befuddled By Cormorants is now in preparation. Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars will include the novella-length title story and two other pieces, together with some charming drawings of postage stamps. In addition, I have been struck by the success of the auctions of ancient Key works in raising hundreds of pounds for ResonanceFM, and have been digging around in the Archives (ie, a couple of cardboard boxes in a cupboard) to see what other material might be made available to people with both money and sense. Watch this space for the imminent announcement of Hooting Yard Auction Number One, likely to feature original artwork.

NOTE : The current Resonance fundraising auction has been moved to eBay. You can place bids for copies of The Brink Of Cramp and House Of Turps.

UPDATE : At the end of bidding, these two titles between them raised £199 for Resonance. Thank you to the successful bidders.

Here is this week’s binnacle:

In which Flossie has her ears syringed, and Umberto becomes involved in an altercation with a beekeeping enthusiast down by the docks, together with a disquisition upon certain matters related to the crinkling of pastry; also, a chuckling maniac is discovered in the belfry by the intrepid infants, whereupon our story takes a sinister turn, and something terrible happens in a field full of charming cows.

[Remainder of text missing.]

This is Jef Denyn, founder of the world’s first and most renowned institute of higher campanology. Mr Denyn was particularly skilled at using his fists and feet to elicit sounds from a carillon.

Never complain that Hooting Yard doesn’t teach you a thing or two.

Pansy Cradledew reports that a pigeon, or possibly a cumulet, has become a regular visitor to her sixteenth-floor windowsill. The curious thing about this pigeon is that it spends all its time on these visits standing on one leg. Pansy wonders if this is normal pigeon behaviour, or if her visitor is some sort of avian Ian Anderson, legendary fish farmer and flautist of Jethro Tull, who was of course noted for playing his flute while perched on one leg. I suggested that the best way to test this theory was to whittle a twig into a rudimentary bird flute, lodge it in the bird’s beak, and wait to hear what mellifluous sounds may emerge. I shall keep readers apprised of the results of this important experiment.

Every so often I get a metal tapping machine message from an overexcited television person pleading with me to devise a game show based on some aspect of Hooting Yard. These people are invariably young and stupid, and I try hard not to be a git as I refuse their offers of ruinous wealth and a peaktime viewing audience of millions.

But I must admit that I was tempted by the latest whizzkid’s “concept”, which was to turn The Names Of The Ponds into a thirteen-part series. The idea was that each week, a couple of contestants (Brian from Swanage and Carol from Jaywick) would stare at a photograph of a pond for fifteen minutes, then, after the advert break, use their skill, judgment, and cherished religious beliefs to work out which pond they’d been looking at. Stephen Fry would be on hand to help them, because he’s so clever.

It’s a quandary, but in the end I think I will have to get back to the teenage television person and say No, No, No. But that’s no reason why you, my loyal readers, should be deprived of the wholesome family entertainment such a game provides. So here is a photograph of a crow-surrounded pond, courtesy of OSM. Which of the thirteen ponds do you think it is? No prizes, I’m afraid, save for a warm glow of Hooting Yard-type bliss.

Ye gods and little fishes! It seems you can’t breathe a word about religion these days without being deemed “offensive”. Yesterday’s piece A Weekend With An Owl God brought to my postbag a letter from Stephen Atahualpagreen of Aztec Voice:

Dear Mr Key : I am writing to protest in the strongest possible terms about your slanderous treatment of the Aztec faith. Traducing the name of our night owl god Chalchiuhtecolotl in such disgusting terms is not funny. It is deeply offensive to our most cherished beliefs. Like any other religion, the Aztec faith demands respect in 21^st century Britain, which means, among other things, respecting our cultural right to practice a bloody form of human sacrifice on big stone altars. As well as feeling wounded and offended, your attack has also made us angry, and you know what happens when the gods get angry. Please send me your postal address and telephone number so I can publish them on our website and provoke other Aztec believers to exact the retribution which is your due fate.

I did a bit of research into Mr Atahualpagreen. Apparently he sends his children to an Aztec faith school and has successfully applied for government funding to set up something called the Aztec Human Rights Commission.

I know that lots of Hooting Yard readers are keen entomologists, and I do not want to find my postbox clogged with letters asking me about the venomous beetles mentioned in the item below entitled One In A Series Of Hiking Pickles. Let me make it crystal clear, then, that I was referring to blister beetles. If you are not one of the merry band of entomologically-inclined readers, and have no idea what a blister beetle is, here is a picture of one: