Regular
readers of The
Autolycan – should
there be any – will notice something odd about this article from
the very beginning. That's right, there is no standfirst. Yes you
do, it's that bit at the top which introduces the article and
which usually looks like this.
But
this time the subject matter is so inconsequential, so very trifling,
piddling, pettifogging, nit-picking and footling – and hats off to
Roget for his matchless command of synonyms – that there can be no
standfirst, because there is so very little to standsecond and
nothing at all to standthirdorsubsequent.
In part, this is about prepositions,
those minuscule elephant traps that all too easily ensnare the unwary
and transform meaning with no more than a couple of letters. I am
looking – with transparent desperation – for something to pin an
article on. Mrs Miller – with equal desperation – is looking for
something to pin an article up. Don't worry about Mrs Miller; we'll
come to her by and by.
The
Autolycan has
always had a standfirst. It's how you know that you're going to get
a story about Neolithic dentistry, about elderly bank robbers, even
about a yacht club in rural Oxfordshire. Or some travesty of
Chaucer, Wilde or Wodehouse. Now there's a thought – what about
all three? What if a trawl through the alleged garage - piled to the
rafters with old kitchen units, offcuts of lino which no longer match
any
oncuts
of lino, dead spiders, great strapping spiders whose agility and
ferocity would make feral cats tremble, together with, incongruously,
a chemical toilet unused in decades but which 'might come in handy
one day' - what if somewhere under this lot we found the original
manuscript of Shreeves
and the Wife of Bath's Handbag? That
would be a future edition of The
Autolycan to
wow them, wouldn't it?
See what happens without a standfirst?
You get an incoherent ramble about dead spiders and prepositions.
Ah yes, prepositions, that was it. And Mrs Miller. We'll come to
her.
Fifty
years and more ago, Dr Peter Clarke, Head of English at my boys'
grammar school and known universally as Basher probably ever since
Wodehouse's time and quite possibly Chaucer's, dinned into me
everything I know – and much that I have forgotten - about the
arcane rules of writing what he insisted was good English. Relative
clauses, and when to use that
and
when to use which.
He
would have winced in unfeigned distress at a verbless sentence like
that one. It would have offended his fastidious sensibilities. He
was of course mustard when it came to prepositions - whether it
should be different
from or
different
to – the
latter being unacceptable back then and requiring the precision
launch of an immaculately aimed piece of chalk. (We never dared risk
the American different
than,
which would inevitably have resulted in Basher deploying heavier
artillery in the form of the blackboard duster. Whenever he did so,
of course, he was left with nothing to clean the blackboard with, and
mostly resorted to using his gown. We thought that was hilarious;
half a century on I imagine Mrs Basher would have begged to differ.
He was no fan of brackets at the best of times, and a bracket opened
nearly a hundred words ago like this one, and showing no signs of
reaching the far end any time soon would only have depleted
Hillingdon Borough Council's precious reserves of chalk still
further. Heaven knows what he would have lobbed into our trenches
had he he spotted a shameless and brazen attempt – rather like this
one – to digress yet further in the bracket because there really
was nothing to say about the main subject.) Sorry Basher, that's 155
words in the bracket now, none of them relevant. If you're reading
this wherever you are, I fear one of your exquisitely nuanced marks.
C+?+, perhaps? If that.
Clumsy construction like that would
have triggered a beautifully crafted letter of complaint to my
parents, overflowing with elegant uses of the subjunctive, with
accurately used gerunds, and of course with nary a split infinitive
or a preposition to end a sentence with. Which brings us labouring
to within touching distance of Mrs Miller, if you'll excuse such a
conceit in these sensitive times.
Mrs
Miller is a lady with a mission. Not a very noble one, it's true,
but she has plainly been reading about an outfit called OnePoll.
OnePoll has been studying trivial complaints and has published a list
of the most trivial its researchers have fielded from aggrieved
respondents in performance of their somewhat contrived duties. Top
of the list was a rant that two Weetabix don't fit into a round bowl
properly 'resulting in one becoming soggy and the other dry'.
Dynamite, that. Or what about the lament that supermarket assistants
work too quickly, scanning goods faster than you can pack them?
That'll teach the politicians to bang on about hard working families
all the time. And then there was the man who was unfeasibly
distraught that his wallet wouldn't close properly 'because there's
too much money in it.' How do you top that?
Mrs
Miller has. She has felt the blood rising. She has stared these
mere pretenders straight in the eye. She has picked up the gauntlet.
She has felt the blast of war blow in her ears, stepped unto the
breach, stiffened the sinews and summoned up the blood. She has
trumped the lot of them. Mrs Miller's peerless complaint to Belton
Parish Council, recorded in the Scunthorpe
Telegraph, stands
head and shoulders above – unless that should be feet and ankles
below – the puny milksop competition raked up by OnePoll.
That
it appears in the Scunthorpe
Telegraph is
in itself of some significance. Once a mighty daily with the word
Evening
nestling
proudly
between Scunthorpe
and
Telegraph,
it
has, like so much of the provincial press, had to contract and
relaunch itself as a weekly. You would think, wouldn't you, that
with only one edition per week whereas there used to be six, the
Telegraph
would
eschew the whimsy for the weighty,
and
that the worthless would be worsted by the worthy.
And
perhaps it has. Perhaps the Telegraph
has
touched a nerve after all. Ray Matthews, clerk to Belton Parish
Council, certainly seems to think so. In his bluff, no nonsense,
North Lincolnshire way, Mr Matthews has had the temerity to answer
Mrs Miller back. As far as Mr Matthews is concerned, Mrs Miller has
previous, having complained before
that
Parish Council minutes were not published quickly enough. 'This has
been explained to Mrs Miller before,' he rasped in what were
doubtless controlled but exasperated tones, 'we cannot publish them
until they have been approved at the next meeting.' But his most
vituperative remarks were reserved for her most recent complaint.
'Nothing is going to blow away,' he gritted through clenched teeth
'the edges of the paper curl slightly and I believe she thinks it
doesn't look neat enough. I don't know what her problem is.'
And
so, in what I claim as a World Premiรจre
for a standpenultimate, we come almost apologetically to Mrs Miller's
complaint.
A
RESIDENT has issued a complaint to her parish council - that there
are not enough pins in
the village notice board.
The
unusual complaint was brought to Belton Parish Council at the August
monthly meeting.
The
resident said she was "not happy" that not enough pins are
used for notices on the notice
board.
Alongside
issues such as grass cutting, tidiness and hedges, the notice board
problem was
discussed under the "parish affairs
and other items of an urgent nature" section.
Scunthorpe
Telegraph
We must assume that Belton Parish Council has a Complaints Procedure, and that the
unfortunate Mr Matthews is obliged to adhere rigidly to it in order to head off a further
complaint about the Complaints Procedure not being followed. He has, as required,
pinned
back his ears. Now that he has done so, his opinion of his
disputatious parishioner is not
difficult to pin down.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ANAGRAM CORNER
REBEKAH BROOKS - ANDY COULSON
HACKERS? NAY, BONKERS! (Loud boo!)
And finally, an Autumn bonus.......
This story's a bit of a wrecker
Of the image of Andy and Bekka
He looks quite aghast
And is clearly downcast,
He really should keep up his pecker!
