Monday, September the 11th, 2006
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The ever-vigilant Dr Ruth Pastry has fired off a letter in response to last Monday's item entitled Far Far Away.
Hail, Key!, she writes, My text for the day is Deuteronomy 25:13. “Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small.” Before reading on, please check the contents of your bag to ensure you are following the Lord's commands. And before you ask, yes, of course I have checked my own bag, or rather bags, and I have nothing to fear from Jehovah, because everything in my bags is sorted according to weight.
Now, I want to take issue with this tale of a cardboard, wax and string Romeo and his (it's?) millions of unhatched love monkeys. I am not concerned that they are magnetic and mute and blind, simply that there are millions of them and only one of him, or it. For it seems to me that you are thereby condoning polygamy. Are you some kind of fundamentalist Mormon? Youwill object that the piece you wrote was fiction, or I suppose science fiction, but even so, you should not underestimate the effect of your twaddle on impressionable young minds… and impressionable older minds, too. I know that there are people out there who base their lives on the texts in Hooting Yard, people who aspire to be Dobsons or Tiny Enids, or even, god help us, Trebizondo Culpepers. What's to say some feckless pimply youth with one too many Asbos thinks he might reform his character by emulating Pilbrow Two? Just as you need to ensure you do not have divers weights in your bag, you ought to give more thought to the moral implications of your work.
Excuse me for a moment while I do my daily chant. Vad vod vud, vad vod vud, hoogoo, hoogoo, vad vod vud. There. I learned that chant from a rather unhygienic suburban shaman. He was very fond of making little plastic model aeroplanes, and he would sprinkle the completed kits with fairy dust, chanting as he did so. He had a different daily chant to mine, of course. I have to say that in all the years I have daily chanted the chant he allotted to me, I have not felt a smidgeon of benefit from doing so. I suspect my chant may be absolutely senseless.
Now where was I? Ah yes, I think you need to write more uplifting tales for your readers, ones with clear guidance as to one's conduct in daily life. You often write about pies, so why not write about piety? “The Pious Pie Shop Person”, there's a title for you. Perhaps some orphans being led astray could come under the pious influence of the pie shop person. An evil demon may have persuaded the orphans to carry different weights, great and small, in their bags, thus disobeying the word of the Lord. Apprised of this foul abomination, the pious pie shop person would teach the tinies the error of their ways. A story like this would do much to repair your reputation, Mr Key. Think on it. Yours forever, Dr Ruth Pastry
Dr Pastry kindly attached a picture of some pious orphans to inspire us all: