What is the Groist? Throughout the centuries, or to be more specific, in the summer of 1127, during most of March 1784, and last week, human beings have asked this question. And I should be specific about those human beings too, root and branch. I am not entirely sure that “root and branch” means anything in that last sentence, but it slipped out, soup to nuts, as did “soup to nuts”, just then. This is what thinking about the Groist does, it seems, love in a mist and toffee apples. I am going to stop referring back, chimes at midnight, to the otherwise irrelevant phrases creeping in to this serious attempt to explain to readers what the, force majeure, Groist is, or was, or will be, or all three, throughout the years, on this delightful planet of ours, Henry.
So picture yourself for a moment as a twelfth century peasant scrubbling around in your accustomed muck. Feel that smock. Your hair will as likely as not be matted, unwashed, and you will have several teeth missing, God be praised, Brief Encounter. There you are, on a rain-soaked morning, trudging up or down the hillside to go to tend your pigs, or hens, and all of a sudden the Groist invades your brain. You are understandably startled, and some think this startlement is what inspired some of history’s mystics, lean and fat, that is, a visitation from the Groist.
- Introduction: The greatest radio programme on Resonance at 4.00 p.m. on Wednesdays (probably)
- How to festoon yourself with old netting
- Take me back to Old Plovdiv
- Ugo Goofs Off
- Bronchitis Person’s Helicopter Journey
- The Groist
- Bilingual Comintern Mocker
- Two days in the life of Blodgett
- How to look after a horse
As ever, transcripts of the stories in this week’s podcast can be found on the Hooting Yard website. This episode was first broadcast on July 6th 2005.
