How supportive was that?

The Archers
21

Not enough Irish and a bit too much descent, evidently :wink:

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22

It was my brother-in-law’s late business partner I was talking about and brother-in-law has got a collection of them written down. He read us selections from it one evening. We were in tears of laughter. The man was apparently completely unaware he was doing it and the whole firm conspired to keep notes because for some reason they were very easily forgotten. I can only think of those three but there were tons and tons of them!

I like yours, Fanta. Think I’ll keep it!

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23

Ah, not mine. It was uttered by a colleague called Fox when too much Stuff was happening at him and he had a deadline to meet.

(He always had a deadline to meet. Sometimes he even met them, usually when there was a print-slot booked and it would cost us if it was unused. I took to giving him deadlines at least a week before the actual print-slots, it was better for my nerves.)

And this has led me to the commonplace book (or rather the commonplace section of a filofax) where I used to note such things, and in which I have just stumbled over a comment of my own from 1996, relating to an unfriend at the time: “If you accept the premise ‘Publish and be damned’, you should not complain if, when you do, you are.” I think it was of the same person that Diana Wynne Jones remarked “A lot of writing is like codsperm anyway.”

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24

Highly prized by the Japanese?

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25

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. - Douglas Adams

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26

I think she was suggesting that it just flowed on by and never hit the target, Gus.

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27

Look, I was bloody well traumatised by an account by Anthony Bourdain of eating the substance in question. If I find just a little solace and an element of closure in wilful misunderstanding of yer fishly pearls on the subject, can you begrudge me that?

Fanta Fish: ‘yep’.

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28

Yep…

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29

If it never hits the target, how come there used to be so many bleedin’ codfish thronging the seas?

“Unlike the male codfish, which, suddenly finding itself the parent of [three million five hundred thousand]* little codfish, cheerfully resolves to love them all, the British aristocracy is apt to look with a somewhat jaundiced eye on its younger sons.”

*I have grave doubts about the authenticity of that figure, not in terms of codly reproduction but of accurate reproduction of PG W’s original. Result of a quick search as I couldn’t remember anything much except ‘cheerfully resolves… all’

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30

This bloke may occasionally have hit the target, but I am fairly sure that it will have been by accident if he did.

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31

I meant that PGW probably cited almost any figure - I vaguely remember ten million - other than the one given in the version I cut and pasted. The rest of the sentence feels fine, though.

This is getting terribly off-topic and you know that means that Something Unspeakable will emanate from the internet into our front parlours and do Untold Damage, don’t you? :skull:

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32

[quote=“Gus, post:31, topic:314”]
This is getting terribly off-topic and you know that means that Something Unspeakable will emanate from the internet into our front parlours and do Untold Damage, don’t you?
[/quote]Channelling your inner Reggie, Gus?

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33

Reggie Jackson, Reggie Tennyson of the Drones Cub, or Reggie Pepper, Joe?

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34

Reggie Kray was the one which came to my mind.

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35

Piss off, Armers. In the nicest possible way, of course :wink:

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36

There’s a fishing rod here you could borrow, Gus.

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37

Why would I need that class of a yoke?

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38

Probably Reggie the Unmentionable, Fishy taps side of nose

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39

Sure, there might be Wellington boots in the Am for you to fish out. You could go down there to the fish market and make Cod Wellington. 'Tis all a cod.

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40

Unlike the male codfish, which, suddenly finding itself the parent of three million five hundred thousand little codfish, cheerfully resolves to love them all, the British aristocracy is apt to look with a somewhat jaundiced eye on its younger sons. And Freddie Threepwood was one of those younger sons who rather invite the jaundiced eye. It seemed to the head of the family that there was no way of coping with the boy. If he was allowed to live in London, he piled up debts and got into mischief; and when you jerked him back into the purer surroundings of Blandings Castle, he just mooned about the place, moping broodingly. Hamlet’s society at Elsinore must have had much the same effect on his stepfather as did that of Freddie Threepwood at Blandings on Lord Emsworth. And it is probable that what induced the latter to keep a telescopic eye on him at this moment was the fact that his demeanour was so mysteriously jaunty, his bearing so intriguingly free from its customary crushed misery. Some inner voice whispered to Lord Emsworth that this smiling, prancing youth was up to no good and would bear watching.

— “The Custody of the Pumpkin”, collected in Blandings Castle and Elsewhere.

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