Monday, January the 5th, 2004
back to: title, date or indexes
Sir,: Idly scanning your website today I couldn't help noticing the similarity between the parlour game Costner! (see below, 2nd January), and the ancient East Anglian game of Tull!, which helped me pass many a cold Norwich evening back at the start of the 1980s. They appear to be alike in many respects, except for the fact that Tull! contestants would have no use for such phrases as “Field of Dreams” or “Table for Five”, since the object of the game was to torment one's opponent beyond the point of exhaustion with old Jethro Tull album titles. A typical opening gambit might be, “Heavy Horses”, prompting the reply “Songs from the Wood”. “Minstrel in the Gallery” would very likely follow, then maybe “Thick as a Brick” or “Too Old To Rock n Roll, Too Young To Die”, until, as with Costner!, someone would inevitably play the trump card: in this case, “Aqualung”. Whoever managed to dredge up the most examples of codpiece-wearing, standing-on-one-leg-style flute-infested tomfoolery was declared the winner. Indeed, perhaps the two games are more closely connected than previously imagined, since Ian Anderson of the Tull was renowned for his “interesting” stage gear of medieval tights and pointy boots—an outfit later modelled to no good effect by our Kevin in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.
I beg to remain, etc etc,
Max Decharne