Category Archives: Hooting Yard

Hooting Yard

Hooting Yard: On Speed

You will recall the film Speed (Jan de Bont, 1994) in which Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves are aboard a bus which will explode if it goes below fifty miles per hour, having been primed with a bomb by cackling evildoer Dennis “Don’t try to grow a brain, Jack!” Hopper. I have been wondering if a similar adrenalin-thumping conceit could be applied to the writing of prose.

I am not suggesting I do anything so foolhardy as to ask a disgruntled and slightly maimed ex-police officer to hitch me up to a bomb which will detonate if I stop writing… well, I suppose that is what I am suggesting. Cowardice, or sheer common sense, persuades me, however, to hit upon a less perilous incentive.

This episode was recorded on the 1st March 2012. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Frank’s new eBook By Aerostat to Hooting Yard is now available for purchase.

On Speed [ 29:03 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hooting Yard: On Barking Up The Wrong Tree

There may be circumstances in which you wish to ascertain whether your dog is barking up the wrong tree. I wouldn’t know; I don’t keep a dog myself. But I can imagine a situation where such knowledge could prove critical. If I speak of the matter in the abstract, that is because of a total lack of hands-on dog-based experience on my part. Some might argue I am precluded from pronouncements about the issue – if we can call it an issue – by dint of this lack, but I beg to differ, much as a dog might beg for a bone from his master’s table. Note that in spite of a deep ignorance of dogs and their ways I am yet able to pluck from the storehouse a vivid illustrative example of common dog (or doglike) behaviour to get my point across. Let those who scoff be hushed, so we can get on with it.

This episode was recorded on the 12th February 2012. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Frank’s new eBook By Aerostat to Hooting Yard is now available for purchase.

Standard Podcast [ 29:26 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hooting Yard: On Tin Foil

The best thing you can do with your tin foil is to fashion for yourself a conical tin foil hat. It is important that you make a cone shape, rather than trying to mould the tin foil into the approximate shape of, say, a Homburg or a trilby or a stovepipe hat. Though the wonder of tin foil is that all these hat types could quite easily be made, you must stick to the cone. In part, this is in homage to Jimmy Goddard and the copper cone he used for daily communication with space people. But do not jump to the conclusion that your tin foil cone hat will help you to talk to space people. It won’t. Nor will it protect you from weird unearthly menacing electromagnetic rays and beams and invisible hoo-hah. If such phenomena exist, and can dislodge and jumble and even control the innards of your brain, they are hardly likely to be dissuaded by a sheet of tin foil, are they?

This episode was recorded on the 2nd February 2012. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the six publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars, Befuddled By Cormorants , Inpugned By A Peasant And Other Stories Porpoises Rescue Dick Van Dyke and Brute Beauty And Valour And Act Oh Air Pride Plume Here Buckle! are available for purchase

Hooting Yard 2013/02/02 [ 29:30 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hooting Yard: On Gulls’ Eggs

“Oh woe is me! for I have not two gulls’ eggs to rub together!” This is the plaintive cry of the otherwise happy fellow whose fogou lies empty. It is a cry that, however often heard, never fails to tug at the heartstrings, for those whose hearts have tuggable strings, which is most of us, or so I like to think, for I believe in the inherent goodness of humanity, despite all the evidence to the contrary. And goodness knows there is contrary evidence aplenty! I think it was Molesworth 2 who observed “Reality is so unspeakably sordid it make me shudder”, and even I can see the truth of that. So perhaps it is fair to say there is a measure of unreality about my belief in goodness. Real or unreal, however, I know that when I hear a poor benighted soul bewailing his utter lack of gulls’ eggs, I weep. I would like to think you would weep too.

This episode was recorded on the 26th of January 2012. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the six publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars, Befuddled By Cormorants , Inpugned By A Peasant And Other Stories Porpoises Rescue Dick Van Dyke and Brute Beauty And Valour And Act Oh Air Pride Plume Here Buckle! are available for purchase

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Hooting Yard: On Naming Your Child After Your Favourite Reservoir.

I had not seen this film, so I cannot comment on the faithfulness of the adaptation, but I had been struck by the fact that, at certain points, some of the dancers had portrayed their characters quite negatively. One of them scowled a lot. Another seemed a bit weedy. A third had contrived to move his body in the manner of a malevolent beetle. I was sure such behaviour had not been at all common on World War Two submarines. There and then I had an epiphany, and I realised that the falsely negative portrayal of U-boat sailors would be the perfect subject for my doctoral thesis.

This episode was recorded on the 19th of January 2012. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the six publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars, Befuddled By Cormorants , Inpugned By A Peasant And Other Stories Porpoises Rescue Dick Van Dyke and Brute Beauty And Valour And Act Oh Air Pride Plume Here Buckle! are available for purchase

Standard Podcast [ 28:50 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hooting Yard: The Wooden Lake.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR MEMBERS OF THE AUDIENCE

I. Please remain seated during the more exciting moments.

II. If for any reason you need to mop your brow, use a dainty napkin.

III. Spillages must be paid for in coinage of the realm.

IV. When the Darning-Needle of Destiny is unveiled, cower.

V. Unseemly pangs may be tempered by moral balance.

VI. Applause should be rendered with unbridled fanaticism.

VII. Drink ye every one the waters of his own cistern, until I come and take you away (Isaiah, 36 : 16,17)

This episode was recorded on the 24th of November 2011. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the six publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars, Befuddled By Cormorants , Inpugned By A Peasant And Other Stories Porpoises Rescue Dick Van Dyke and Brute Beauty And Valour And Act Oh Air Pride Plume Here Buckle! are available for purchase

Standard Podcast [ 30:00 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hooting Yard: Art Squad!

Obviously I am going to have to ascertain the precise nature of the Poultry Guidance Bureau’s business before I can make a proper fist of the Art Squad. It might be, for example, that our art will consist simply of beautifully-painted directional pointing devices, designed to appeal to the optic nerves of poultry, in which case I will just need to gather about me a bunch of sign-painters. On the other hand, we may need a team of actors to facilitate role-playing exercises for traumatised hens as part of the counselling service. Or, if the Bureau is indeed mainly for human benefit, then an oompah band playing stirring anthems might be more appropriate, although having just written that I can’t think why.

This episode was recorded on the 20th of October 2011. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the six publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars, Befuddled By Cormorants , Inpugned By A Peasant And Other Stories Porpoises Rescue Dick Van Dyke and Brute Beauty And Valour And Act Oh Air Pride Plume Here Buckle! are available for purchase

Standard Podcast [ 24:36 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hooting Yard: Advice Regarding Eggs.

When the rest of the family returns from the pantry, each in turn must use skill, judgement, and knowledge of ship construction to declare whether the parlour is now a poop deck or an orlop deck. Those who decide correctly are treated to a “feast at the captain’s table”, that is, they are each allowed to go back to the pantry and choose a snack from among the snack items on the pantry shelves. Those who decide incorrectly are “tossed into the sea”, that is, they must clamber out of the open window and wait shivering in the garden until the next round.

 

This episode was recorded on the 17th of November 2011. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the six publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars, Befuddled By Cormorants , Inpugned By A Peasant And Other Stories Porpoises Rescue Dick Van Dyke and Brute Beauty And Valour And Act Oh Air Pride Plume Here Buckle! are available for purchase

Standard Podcast [ 30:00 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hooting Yard: Charging Ostrich of Fire.

Against this, one could argue two things. If the cage was constructed from flimsy materials, it might be that the burgeoning ostrich would simply cause the birdcage to fall to bits around it as it expanded in size from budgerigar or canary to full ostrichdom. Or, bear in mind that Blakeston specifically describes an ostrich of fire. Would not the enflamed and blazing bird burn the cage to cinders as it underwent its transformation?

This episode was recorded on the 10th of November 2011. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the six publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars, Befuddled By Cormorants , Inpugned By A Peasant And Other Stories Porpoises Rescue Dick Van Dyke and Brute Beauty And Valour And Act Oh Air Pride Plume Here Buckle! are available for purchase.

 

Standard Podcast [ 20:03 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hooting Yard: The Breadcrumbs Man

On a stormy March day precisely one year after the historic picnic, the Viper Pit of Gaar was officially renamed the Bottomless Viper Pit of Gaar at a special pitside ceremony. The mayor, the beadle, the Grand Vizier, the honest burghers and a gaggle of peasant folk gathered for speeches, the cutting of ribbons, the flying of banners, the relentless pounding of drums, the parping of tootlers, and chanting, chanting, chanting, and other celebratory what have you, including the tossing into the Bottomless Viper Pit of several vipers, and a picnic, with sausages and beakers of invigorating tonic.

This episode was recorded on the 3rd November 2011. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the six publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars, Befuddled By Cormorants , Inpugned By A Peasant And Other Stories Porpoises Rescue Dick Van Dyke and Brute Beauty And Valour And Act Oh Air Pride Plume Here Buckle! are available for purchase.

Standard Podcast [ 23:53 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download