Thursday, August the 25th, 2005
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I was thinking that Dr Ruth Pastry had been eerily quiet of late, but I need not have feared. Following an item on the page yesterday, the kraken wakes!
For crying out loud, Key!, she begins, tetchily, After reading Clamour For Tin I have been thrown, as they say, for a loop. You may not know this, but for over a year now I have been working on a hand-drawn map of Hooting Yard and its environs, or hinterland. By close textual analysis, and using the back of a very big sheet of wallpaper, I have been able to work out the relative locations of, for example, Pang Hill, Bodger's Spinney, the Blister Lane Bypass, O'Houlihan's Wharf, and other sites of Hooting Yard interest. Certain passages you have written have allowed me to make educated guesses regarding the whereabouts of Pointy Town and—albeit with difficulty—Tantarabim. I have a notebook filled with conjectures about Gaar, and though adding it to my map will probably involve buying a second very big sheet of wallpaper, I can already anticipate the glee with which I will use crayons to mark the site of the bottomless viper pit. And now what do I find? You suddenly throw in something called “El Rancho Hooting Yard” which doesn't fit anywhere on my map, and my map is a lovely thing, though I say so myself. Either I am going to have to begin all over again, or you should admit that you made up this anomalous “rancho” on the spur of the moment, without giving a smidgeon of thought to your most devoted readers. Take heed, Key. Yours fuming, Dr Ruth Pastry
So here, for Dr Pastry and others, is a hint. From Loopy Copse, head south until you reach Sawdust Bridge, but instead of making the crossing, strike out to the west, or possibly to the east, and follow the track that goes past the Tundist Owl Library. At some point, all will become crystal clear.