Monday, July the 26th, 2004
back to: title, date or indexes
There is a woodworm-riddled frame of a deckchair on show in the Museum at Ack-on-the-Vug. It was donated by the talented Bolivian water polo ace Rodrigo Grabber. The canvas of the chair has long since rotted away, and such is the fragility of the wood that the exhibit is kept in a special air-tight cabinet, into which fumous preserving substances are pumped through a cleverly-designed valve-and-nozzle affair reputedly constructed by Grabber himself.
Grabber is a fascinating figure, best described by Maud Pastry in her seminal Children's Illustrated History Of Bolivian Water Polo, the fourth edition of which has recently been published. Pastry states that Grabber is “diminutive, arch, lewd, hirsute, prone to fits, and often covered in breadcrumbs, but only when he is on dry land; for once he enters the water, he comes into his element, and not even the greatest of poets could find words to describe the grace and exuberance of his water polo playing—not Dante, not Donne, not Chumpot”.
This is all tosh, of course, but has long interested scholars who have attempted to identify Pastry's last-named great poet, of whom nothing is known. Grabber himself—elfin and preening—was so intrigued by the reference that he missed the quarter final of the All Bolivia Water Polo Championship Tournament Play-off in 1954. And why? Because on the afternoon of that important match, Grabber was searching through dusty tomes in the basement of the bibliotheque, seeking information on Chumpot—but to no avail. To this day, the existence of the poet has not been confirmed. Some hold that Pastry (or someone on her team of forty editorial assistants) misspelled the name. Piv has compiled a list of alternative spellings for consideration—among them Shampong, Thumpboot and Cargpan—but this is probably a red herring. Of more worth, perhaps, is the present international attempt to gain access to the Pastry archives, wherein lies the manuscript of her book. The Archives are housed in a lead-lined sealed cabin at the bottom of a gaping pit dug into a blizzard-racked swathe of Antarctic nothingness. Once the expedition party has located the pit, it will only be a matter of time before the manuscript is recovered, and a solution to the Chumpot mystery found at last!
Museum records do not indicate why Grabber donated this rotting deckchair. Legend has it that the chair (when intact) was used by Grabber's mother during her days on the Central Helsinki Pipistrelle Bats For Orphans Committee.