Tuesday, June the 22nd, 2004
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We don't speak ill of the dead here at Hooting Yard—well, none of us except that Mrs Gubbins, who tends to spit venom about the living and the dead, bless her cotton socks. By the way, we haven't heard any news of that saintly old crone since she fell in with a band of Tundists (see 7th May) but we have sent an emissary to the Port of Tongs to check that she's at least getting her daily dose of Dr Gillespie's Invigorating Powders, now in chewable form. But I digress.
The point of this item is to record my favourite fact about the recently-departed Ronald Wilson Reagan, fortieth President Of The United States. Incidentally, I read somewhere that within the government bureaucracy, the office is known by the acronym POTUS. This seems a much better word than “President”. In Britain we have a “Queen” (in itself a strange word—repeat it a few times and it begins to sound like something out of Edward Lear ) so perhaps the US ought to have a “Potus”.
Where was I? Oh yes. When Ron and Nancy retired to California, they moved to a place in Bel Air bought for them by friends. The address was 666 St Cloud Road, but they were so appalled at sharing a house number with the Number of the Beast that they persuaded the civic authorities to change their number to 668—effectively, the Neighbour of the Beast. I've always wondered about the knock-on effect of that for the people living at the existing 668 and upwards, in a dull-witted and trivial kind of way.
Some of those affable types who like to study the Book of Revelations have noted that each of the ex-Potus's three names has six letters, suggesting that changing his house number was just a wily deceit to throw investigators off the scent. And before ending this item, you will be pleased to hear that Dobsonista Ned Cargpan is reportedly working on a magick numerological analysis of Hooting Yard. We shall have the results soon.