Tuesday, August the 31th, 2004

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Grots

Keats had his elfin grot, and we learned last week that Owen Barfield had a foldured grot (see 27th August). There are a number of other grots deserving of attention, poetic and otherwise. Gervase Beerpint's “fuming, hapless grot” springs to mind—at least, to my mind—as an example of a so-called poetic grot that we really could have done without. It is the setting for one of his earliest poems, included in Crouton As Exemplar, the collection of Beerpint's teenage drivel which is mercifully out of print. A more appealing poetic grot is Scrimgeour's “ten-inch-tall toy plastic grot”, the abiding image from his astonishing narrative tour de force How I Lost My Bus Pass And Found It Again Last Tuesday, Not Without Certain Hazards. For me this is one of the greatest poems of the late 20th century, and its annual recitation at the Hooting Yard Festival Of Texts Related To Bus Travel never fails to warm the cockles of my heart.

As for non-poetic grots, who can fail to be excited by Dobson's grot? Aloysius Nestingbird tells us:

Dobson went on one of his “walks”, taking with him a copy of Cliff Castles And Cave Dwellings Of Europe by Sabine Baring-Gould, which was at the time his favourite reading. Upon his return, his brain was awash with it. “I must leave this building and find a grot in which to live out the rest of my days,” he shouted, and began poring over geological maps of the coast. All attempts to divert him from this mania were fruitless. He thought he had identified a suitable grot, one which was flooded by the violent incoming tide for only a few hours each day, and began moving his belongings thither, employing a local peasant who had a pony and trap. Only after four trips did this man demand payment from the impoverished pamphleteer, who thrust a spare bottle of vinaigrette dressing into his paws and begged him to continue. The peasant was understandably enraged, and threw the bottle back at Dobson.

Dobson's next ploy was to try to convince the railway authorities to build a new terminus within yards of his grot. They laughed in his face. He made one attempt to make the journey by bicycle, with a few kitchen utensils stuffed into his panniers, but his knees gave out before he was halfway there, and he abandoned the idea as hopeless.

What to do? Everything beginning with the letters A to J that Dobson owned was stacked in cardboard cartons in the faraway grot, subject to the relentless destructive power of the crashing waves which, twice a day, engulfed what he still thought of as his future home, for the peasant had ignored the instructions to suspend the cartons by chains from several handy stalactites. Dobson calculated how much cash he would need to take cab rides from his building to his grot, and was appalled. Indefatigable as ever, he decided to publish a new series of tracts on popular subjects, deluding himself that he would make enough sales to cover the cost of regular taxi fares. Marigold Chew's printing press churned out copies of Some Hurried Notes On Tab Hunter and Eight Things You Never Knew About Tuesday Weld, those anomalies in the Dobson oeuvre, but to no avail. Not a single copy was ever sold.

The dream came to an end on a particularly wet Tuesday in March. Tucking another bottle of vinaigrette dressing into his pocket, Dobson went to parley with the peasant. He bashed on the door of a tumbledown hut next to a ditch by the canal, forcing his mouth into a queasy smile. There was no answer, nor would there ever be an answer, for unbeknown to Dobson, the peasant had fallen victim to ergot poisoning, gone crackers, and run amok in the purple hills. The pamphleteer trudged home, sat with his head in his hands, drank fourteen mugs of tea, abandoned all thought of living in his grot, and set to work on his matchless essay Why I Do Not Live In A Grot, Elfin Or Otherwise. It was to prove a turning point in his career.

Source : Forgotten Corners Of Dobsoniana by Aloysius Nestingbird