Every so often I receive letters from readers asking for background information on particular features of Hooting Yard. My usual practice is to ignore such enquiries and stuff them into a cardboard box, and to shove the cardboard box into a dark cranny. But sometimes I feel impelled to shine a torch into the cranny, to rummage in the cardboard box, to take out one among the mouldering scraps of paper, and to give it due attention. There is no particular method in my choosing, though a letter written neatly and grammatically on scented notepaper headed with a heraldic device, however spurious, is likely to win out over a scribble on a torn bit of breakfast cereal carton stained with grease. You may wish to make a note of that in your pocketbook for future reference. Elsewhere I will provide some tips on drawing spurious yet strangely compelling heraldic devices for your letterhead, but there is no time for that now.
This episode was recorded on the 28th May 2009. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the four publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars and Befuddled By Cormorants are available for purchase.
