So: as I covered in my most recent post, the last couple of weeks have been pretty grim. Grim but not utterly humorless, thanks in no small part to my excellent friends in Bardland who have done everything in their power to keep my spirits up. Sometimes even without realising. Here (in no particular order) are a few things you may have missed (or, you know, not):
Ugly Dog. No, I haven’t started using grief as an excuse to pass comment on other people’s pets. Although God knows, some people could do with being disillusioned…But no: in another stunning demonstration of his sense of self-worth, Louis, in response to the news that Dave had asked to be known as Sexy Wolf to my readership of two, has requested to be referred to as Ugly Dog. Far be it from me to deny him his wish.
Sebastian. For reasons now vaguely lost, I decided at some point that Emer’s boyfriend James (who has not given any permission whatsoever to be written about here) is my long-lost twin, and have started referring to him as Sebastian accordingly. Bless him, he went away and looked up Twelfth Night on Wikipedia, so was able to point out that this would make Emer Olivia…which means she thinks I’m a man….which is kinda awkward. It certainly puts that sleepover we had a while back in a whole new light. Anyway, James still seems to get slightly unnerved when I ask questions like, ‘Have you ever noticed an older guy following you around everywhere and taking a more than healthy interest in the contents of your trousers?’ I guess this is fairly reasonable, but also see it as mission accomplished.*
Dragons are cows. What? Oh, fine, I’ll explain. I was having a conversation with Claude last week, and somehow we got onto the topic of dragons, and how people should really take more heed of the threat they pose. We played around with the idea of a new arms race in which different factions are locked in competition to produce the biggest dragons. Then one of us had an unusually lucid moment and pointed out that you don’t see many dragons about. The other (I like to think this was me) pointed out that they’re probably disguising themselves as cows. Straightforward enough. We also somehow decided that Shakespeare was probably a dragon, and therefore a cow, and he was also almost certainly the Prophet, who would also then be a dragon, and a cow…at this point we realized we were possibly running into dangerous territory, and decided to steer the conversation into waters that were less likely to accidentally end up causing some sort of international outcry. Ponder this, though: it seems very likely that the line ‘Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish’ (Antony and Cleopatra, IV.xiv.2) has suffered a terrible error in transcription, and should surely read ‘Sometime we see a COW…’ Someone tell the Oxford editors, quick!**
Hedgehogs. I wish I could say more, I really do. If it’s any consolation, Emer and I find the thing(s) I’m not telling you about HILARIOUS. As does everyone else we’ve shared it(/them) with in the real(ish) world where we live (most of the time). Guess you guys will just have to wait until one or more of the people it involves are safely decomposing. (Death joke already, Mickum? In fairness, I never really stopped – the night I learnt Aunt C was passing, all I could think of was the episode of Coupling with Jane’s dead aunt (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFtkMaaGHwA) and how nobody was going to be willing to ‘play Reservoir Dogs’ with me at the funeral. I comfort myself with the thought that she would probably have found that amusing.)
*This is not the first time I’ve freaked someone out with a Twelfth Night/twin thing. I’ll come back to that.
**FYI: no, I don’t do any drugs. Well, apart from alcohol. But that doesn’t usually do anything more than make me go red and giggly for a bit before it sends me to sleep…
The Ridiculous Miss Mickum 