Wednesday, November the 19th, 2014

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Mr Key's Epistle To The Ephesians

Greetings, Ephesians! How are things in Ephesus? Better, I hope, than they are here at Haemoglobin Towers, where we are having terrible troubles, including an infestation of pipistrelle bats, a plague of locusts, a dog in a manger, mange on our turnips, an outbreak of scrofula, gluten intolerance, incursions by barbarians, hot flushes, cold sores, ungainly hat angles, foopball hooliganism, unearthly manifestations of the ghost of Googie Withers, and more general withers of our googie and our boogie and our jazz-funk groove. We have all that to contend with, Ephesians, while you lot are no doubt sprawled on your Ephesian divans in Ephesus, gobbling grapes and swigging tumblers of intoxicant fluids and having a debauched time of it.

Anyway, the reason I am writing is that I hope to escape from the several horrors swirling about Haemoglobin Towers and have booked a charabanc to Ephesus, leaving from the bus station at Sawdust Bridge next Tuesday at noon, or nearish to noon. But I do not have anywhere to stay when eventually I arrive in Ephesus, assuming I do arrive and do not perish from poisoning by the fumes of the charabanc, which is old and clackety and has not, so far as I know, passed any of the rigorous vehicle safety tests one might hope it had.

Still, I must keep my pecker up and stride boldly into the future without worrying my little head too much about expiring from noxious vapours. So if we assume I will turn up at the bus station in Ephesus at some point, is there anybody among you Ephesians who could put me up in a chalet, or a room, or a tent, or even on a picnic blanket open to the elements? I am afraid I am penniless, and cannot pay a sou by way of rent, but I will happily entertain my hosts by singing lustily to the accompaniment of a piccolo. I have a repertoire of several pieces, cover versions mostly, including my own “interpretations” (for want of a better word) of Vienna by Ultravox, Dr Bogenbroom by Jethro Tull, and The Poem of Ecstasy by Alexander Scriabin, whose hands, incidentally, were as tiny as my head is tiny, proportionately speaking, if that means anything concrete, which upon examination it probably does not, but then I am having difficulty concentrating as in addition to all the other troubles listed above there is now a swarm of wasps outside my window, desperately trying to find its way in to my ill-appointed boudoir.

Oh, and one more thing, Ephesians. The charabanc driver has just informed me that he has absolutely no idea how to get to Ephesus, so if one among you could provide simple directions, so simple that even a dimwit could understand them, that would be dandy! Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.