Author Archives: OSM

Hooting Yard: On Sawdust Bridge, Harangued.

I tore up the few puny pages of prose I had written about hay in nosebags, and instead submitted to the magazine a piece about swill for pigs. Alas, later that day, listening to the news on the wireless in the clinic’s rumpus room, I learned that the skyscraper housing the offices of Beasts Of Barnyard And Field had collapsed after attack by woodworm and weevils and tiny, tiny beings that bore through cement, and the magazine had ceased publication. Ha!, I thought, I am not going to let that stop me. And it has not.

This episode was recorded on the 5th August 2010. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the five publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars, Befuddled By Cormorants and Inpugned By A Peasant And Other Stories are available for purchase

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Hooting Yard: The Soutane-Attired Nemesis of Sea Monsters

I might be forced to take refuge in the dingly dell hotel. In the normal run of things, of course, I avoid it. Sometimes, while gathering my nuts and fruits, I come close to the hotel car park, and hide behind a shrub. I have seen the major domo of the hotel striding purposefully across the car park, even making his way into the dingly dell itself, where he stops and sits on a log and smokes a cigarette.

This episode was recorded on the 29th July 2010. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the five publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars, Befuddled By Cormorants and Inpugned By A Peasant And Other Stories are available for purchase

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Hooting Yard: Vapours and Slime.

Now, I was reluctant to march off to my nearest egg shop to buy the extra eggs I would need. For one thing, I had no idea how many eggs that might be. Also, what was I going to do with them all when my experiment was done? One can only eat so many eggs before becoming disgusted at the prospect of yet another egg-based meal, and it would be a terrible sin, and a waste of money, to let them rot uneaten.

This episode was recorded on the 8th June 2010. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the five publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars, Befuddled By Cormorants and Inpugned By A Peasant And Other Stories are available for purchase

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Hooting Yard: Thieving Beerpint (Poetry Special).

I shall sit down / And eat sausages

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Hooting Yard: O! To Be In Pepinstow!

Later, back in Pepinstow, I saw the Tundist fires burning. The Adepts were silent now, and ominous. I crept in shadows past my chalet, all the way past it until I reached the kiosk of the night soil man. It was empty, save for a coathanger on which hung a bright new uniform. I tried it on. It was a perfect fit. Night would fall, soon, soon, and I would be ready.

This episode was recorded on the 3rd June 2010. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the five publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars, Befuddled By Cormorants and Inpugned By A Peasant And Other Stories are available for purchase

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Hooting Yard: The Bats Of Remorse

To attract monkeys to create divertisements among the cakes and tea-strainers at your tea party, you will have to create the right conditions for them, and this is where a qualified monkey feng shui consultant proves a boon. They tend to charge quite high fees, and rarely accept payment in nuts, so be warned that your tea party overheads will be steep. By “overheads” I do not mean the string affixed to the ceiling, because you have already deposited that in a bin or drawer, along with the massive sugarlump dangling from it.

This episode was recorded on the 20th May 2010. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the five publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars, Befuddled By Cormorants and Inpugned By A Peasant And Other Stories are available for purchase.

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Hooting Yard: Bobnit Tivol: The Lost Interview.

The peasant tramped about looking for his shears. He found them leaning against the side of the barn, rusty, rusty. “These will never do for clipping,” he muttered, and spat, but his goblin goaded him on. It whispered rustic lore into his ear.
“The sun is boiling in the sky, clip your hedge while it is dry. If your shears are caked in rust, fool you are but clip you must!”

This episode was recorded on the 20th May 2010. 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.

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Hooting Yard: Tiny, Lethal.

But what was he doing in that remote estancia on the edge of the jungle for two weeks? He had neither pencil nor notepad with him, so he was certainly not working on a pamphlet. He shunned the few families who scrabbled a living in the village of Santa Eulalia, and when any of them approached the estancia he hid in one of its many cubbies. And yet he did not hide when the Government Canoe came by. Indeed, he was uncharacteristically welcoming, inviting the canoeist and his pilot ashore and regaling them with anecdotage. It is a pity no record was made of the tales he told them, for then we might have a better idea of his state of mind.

This episode was recorded on the 13th May 2010. 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.

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Hooting Yard: Werewolf Tax.

I found my star. On the third or fourth night aboard the tugboat, far from land, I noticed a flock of wereguillemots, disposed across the sky such that they formed an arrow, or directional pointing device, clearly leading me to a bright tiny speck. I howled and I set the engine a-chug on its last gallon of fuel, and took the steering wheel in my clumsy paws. With the rising of the sun, I saw land on the horizon, shrouded in sea mist. My heart pounded in my hairy lupine chest. It was the island o’ werewolves. And it was no myth! The island is as real as the rock or pebble kicked by Dr Johnson on that memorable day when he kicked a rock or pebble to prove a point. And I kicked and bucked as I leapt, intrepid and superb, from boat to shore, home at last.

This episode was recorded on the 6th May 2010. 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.

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Hooting Yard: What Is Wrong With Grooving?

I had my pippy bag and my hiking apparel, and I had a handful of feed for any goats that might cross my path as I wended my way. The sky was blue, and I thought of Ruskin. Well, in truth I thought of both Ruskin and Letta Mbulu. I wondered, as I often have, if Ruskin would have got down with the Hooting Yard groove, had he been born in a different era. We tend not to associate Ruskin with grooviness of any kidney, but that is a mistake, I think. It has not escaped my notice that his very name suggests a Mbuluesque apocopation. What is wrong with Ruskin’?, indeed.

Belshazzar’s Feast.

What Is Wrong With Grooving?

Hooting Yard Chant

Quite Extraordinary

Ghosts

After Belshazzar’s Feast

Solace On The Rack

This episode was recorded on the 29th April 2010. 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.