It was not night-time, sultry or otherwise, when Bucephalus arrived at his destination. It was day, bleak, grey, and wretched, and the majestic horse stood still at the river’s edge, snorting. Alexander the Great did not expect him back in Macedonia for a week. Remember this is the Ancient World, so such landmarks as line the Bosphorus as the Galata tower, the palaces of Dolmabahce, Ciragan, Yildiz, and Beylerbeyi, the Rumeli and Anatolian Fortresses, and the Kuleli Military High School had not yet been built. Bucephalus began to trot, following the river’s course, hoping to find a field where he could have a restful time munching nutritious foliage.

It was late afternoon on that Thursday when the horse decided to rest, and planted his hooves in the mud at the edge of the Bosphorus where today one finds the Bogazici suspension toll bridge. He noticed a churning in the waters of the mighty river, and turned his horse-head to look more intently. He was astonished to see a tangle of cephalopods thrashing around in the river, cephalopods large and small, octopuses, squids, cuttlefish and chambered nautiluses, emitting clouds of ink, tentacles flailing. What were they doing upriver, rather than in the dark, cold abysses of the sea? Were they lost, and did this explain their frantic activity? Cephalopods are probably the most intelligent of invertebrates, with huge pulsating brains, and it is easy to imagine that the realisation of being lost in the Bosphorus could induce panic among them.

• Bucephalus and the Cephalopods in the Bosphorus
• Rainer Werner Ringbinder
• Some notes on Podcasting
• Colossus (Dobson)
• Dispense! Dispense! (Vatican ATMs)
• Certain aspects of plastic baubles and plastic sheeting (ends abruptly due to recording error).

This episode of Hooting Yard was first recorded on the 1st March 2006. A complete transcript of all Hooting Yard episodes can be found on Frank Key’s website.

Standard Podcast Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Were you lucky enough, when you were a tiny tot, to receive an Ogsby’s Steering Panel as a birthday gift? I was. I still remember with absolute clarity waking on the icy cold morning of my tenth birthday, and finding at the foot of my bed a rectangular object wrapped in old newspaper, on which either my father or my mother had scribbled in crayon “Happy Birthday To Our Ten-Year-Old”. I was a dutiful and pious child, so before tearing the package open I repaired to the bathroom to brush my teeth and plunge my head into a sink full of icy water, and then I went downstairs to find my parents.

My mother was in the garden slaughtering insects. I thanked her for my gift and asked where my father was so I could thank him too. She gave me a woebegone look and patted me on the head, mussing my hair in which icicles were beginning to form.

“I am afraid your father had to take the dawn train to a secret military establishment at an undisclosed coastal location – towering cliffs, monstrous waves, shingle – where he will be cooped up for the next six months helping to devise counter-intelligence techniques for use against an enemy so powerful, so ruthless, so fiendish, that it beggars belief,” said my mother, and she tapped the side of her nose, indicating that this startling news was to be kept under my hat, had I but a hat to keep it under.

• The Ogsby Steering Panel
• Saving your Swan From Bird Flu
• Gluten-Free Jabbering Man
• A Buttercup in a Field, and an interview about buttercups.
• Custard

This episode of Hooting Yard was first broadcast on the 22nd of Febuary 2006. Please visit Frank Key’s Hooting Yard Website for a complete transcript.

Standard Podcast Play Now | Play in Popup | Download