Category Archives: poetry

Professor Zazzo Investigates- 8. The Law of Infinite Reverse Criticism

THE LAW OF INFINITE REVERSE CRITICISM

I believe it was Professor Zazzo Thiim who first conceived of a branch of criticism which, in its entirety, was devoted to the criticism of criticism. For a while, only those in academic circles were aware of this new science, and the principals to which it could be attached. The theory of Reverse Criticism, it was hinted at the time, might be applied not only to literature and the arts, but also to other facets of human conscience and philosophic living. It was an interesting concept, and, more than a subtle joke, a hypothesis which demanded attention before, inevitably, it was superseded by the next fashion, the next phase. However, it seems only the one proponent has not completely abandoned the concept, and indeed, has made it the basis of his life work. And this man? None other than Professor Zazzo Thim himself.

          I first became aware of his work when I met him at an art gallery. It was one of those evening exhibitions open only to members of the gallery, in which work by a substantial artist, working in water colours,based on the life cycle of the grizzly bear, was being displayed for the first time. I noticed the Professor, a tall, white-haired man with a long scarf, working his way around the room and peering at the notes being taken by various critics. Indeed, it seemed he was more interested in the notes than the actual work hung around us. At last I managed to make my introduction.

          ‘A civilisation’, said he, ‘Is defined through its art critics. Every facet of its aesthetic life is categorised, pondered, and probed by those who profess to know better, or at least, those who offer advice on the protocols and temperaments observed’

          ‘And?’ I asked.

          ‘The point is, most of them have appalling handwriting

          I frowned, and started to walk away, but then the old man reached out and grabbed my arm.

          ‘Think of it!’, he said, excitedly. ‘There are but two layers – those who can, and those who criticise. Remember the old maxim – ‘those who can, do, those who can’t, teach?’

          I nodded.

          ‘What if there was another level? A level of those who can but decide not to? A civilisation in which even criticism is criticised, can only be a better place’.

          That night I went back to his office and he showed me some of his work. There were folders filled with script, reviews of art criticism, literary criticism. One critic was pointed out as having a more than average dependency on adverbs, another used too many paragraphs.

          The most interesting review was that of a literary critic who, according to Thim’s report, had made the mistake of reading James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ while wearing a hat. ‘A trilby, perhaps’, Thiim had written. ‘Even a beret, but certainly not a bowler! How can one ever have confidence in, or an affinity with, the content of the book they are reading, with a bowler hat perched on the top of their head?

          I soon became friends with the formidable Professor Thim and we would meet at least once a week so that I could read more of his Reverse Criticism. Yet towards the middle of this year there was something of a crisis, hinted at only in the fact that his secretary had phoned and warned me not to come for a couple of weeks. When one morning I finally insisted I arrive and carry on with my reading unhindered – using the flimsy excuse of a post-graduate thesis in the role of the critic – she told me that the Professor had been taken ill, and that the department could not be as accommodating as they had previously been.

          I arrived in any case, as if everything were the same. His office seemed fairly normal, though there was no sign of the Professor. As was my practice, I sat myself at his desk and leafed through one of his collections, although I did note that the book itself had been rearranged and some of the pages taken out. Half an hour passed with no sign of the Professor, and I was in the middle of making some notes for myself when the door opened.

          ‘Ah’, said a rather pleasant, middle-aged man. I was led to believe that nobody would be here’.

          I stood from the desk, feeling rather sheepish. ‘I rather bullied the secretary, I’m afraid’.

          ‘Yes’, said the man, leaning back and placing his hands in his pockets. ‘All very sad, isn’t it?’

          I asked what he meant, and watched as his face folded first into shock, then a well-meaning affectation of acceptance. ‘Zazzo’, said he, ‘Is very ill’.

          ‘What do you mean?’

          ‘It all started a few weeks ago.’ The man sat down on the other side of Thim’s desk and lit his pipe, an object which seemed to juxtapose with his relative youth. ‘My dear colleague had just returned from a production of Romeo and Juliet, and he was anxious to catch the first of the play’s reviews, that he might begin to dissemble them as was usual for him. Indeed, he was particularly excited, having clearly seen one of the critics picking his nose during the balcony scene. How could a critic properly criticise one of the key scenes in such a state? Zazzo wanted to begin work immediately. Ah, the poor fool. How tenaciously he clung to that outdated philosophy, and look what harm it has done him’.

          ‘What?’ I asked, impatiently. ‘What happened?’

          ‘While waiting for the reviews he sat down right here and began leafing through that selfsame folder, the one in which he had kept all of his Reverse Criticisms since he had first conceived of it. And what do you think occurred? He began criticising his own criticisms, themselves criticisms of criticisms. And when he had finished that, he looked at what he had written and decided that these, too, needed criticising. But this did not satisfy him, so he criticised the criticisms of criticisms of criticisms of criticisms, until he was literally spinning in circles, frantic that the cycle of event and criticism would never be broken. You see, each new criticism was a separate event, a new work worthy of classification’. My new companion looked down at his lap. ‘The poor man. He hasn’t stopped since.

          ‘And where is he now?’ I asked

          ‘He has been confined to the medical centre. A nurse administers whatever help she can, but Thim will not rest until he thinks his job is complete. Yet it does not take a genius to work out that his work will never be finished. Oh, poor Zazzo. Poor Nurse! How she suffers, merely trying to do her job’.

          ‘Why?’ I asked

          ‘Because he keeps criticising her!’

          For a while we both sat there and pondered the fate of our mutual friend. What a delirious, hateful circle he had invented.

          When Zazzo Thiim was judged to have improved sufficiently to leave the medical centre, myself and a few of his colleagues decided to throw a party on his behalf. The middle-aged academic I had met in his room – Doctor Hubert Worthington – had by now become a close friend too, and we had spent the last couple of weeks planning how we would handle the Professor when he returned.

          We had decided that there would be no criticism, not the slightest word for or against any aspect of our lives. Worthington suggested we shield Thiim from any work of art but, in an institution such as ours, this would almost certainly be impossible. The most important aspect of his return would be that there was no mention of the illness he had just suffered, or the reasons behind that illness. Apart from this, it was assumed that everything would go according to plan.

          The party was held in the main canteen of the building, and it was dutifully and respectfully attended by colleagues and students alike. The illness that had befallen Thiim had been worrying for us all, for he, despite his eccentricities, had always been respected and well-liked.

          The tables were spread with a buffet lunch and there were several bottles of white wine on a side-table. The chatter in the room was low-level and jovial, as if everyone was conscious that they were in the presence of a sensitive man. Thiim himself was happy, oblivious to the concern of his contemporaries, and he held court at the buffet table, explaining in great detail the hidden significance of works as diverse as Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’, Michelangelo’s ‘David’ and the Postman Pat books.

          Of course, I was especially anxious about meeting the Professor again, for our association had been built around the concept of Reverse Criticism, the very theory which had resulted in his illness. Yet the moment Thim saw me he opened his arms wide and greeted me with such friendliness that it was obvious he didn’t blame me at all.

          ‘My friend’, he said. ‘How are you?’

         Choosing my words carefully, so as not to hint at any criticism, I said: ‘How well aren’t I?

          ‘My word’, he said, throwing the end of his scarf over his shoulder. ‘The weather’s taken a turn for the worse, hasn’t it?’

          ‘It’s colder than it was yesterday’, I agreed, without the slightest criticism.

          ‘I must say, I do like your jumper’, he said, bending over and peering at the stitching.

          ‘Good’, I said.

          We stared at each other for a moment.

          ‘Well’, he said. He looked at his watch. ‘I suppose I’d better mingle. After all, isn’t that what this party’s for?’

          ‘Yes’, I agreed.

          I didn’t see much of the Professor after this, although I could tell from the various conversations he was having with his colleagues that they, too, were as cagey as I had been in their replies to his questions. For some reason, I gravitated towards Doctor Hubert and the Nurse, who were sipping white wine in the corner of the canteen.

          ‘How does he seem?’ I asked.

          The Nurse frowned. ‘It’s hard to say. Some people can be remarkably resilient after a period such as his. I would say, just by looking at him, that he has recovered most of his faculties. However, we must still be careful

          ‘You mean’, said Hubert, ‘That something could set it off again?’

         ‘Absolutely. And he could suffer as a result. His illness – I am sorry to say – would be much worse than it was before’.

          This was not good news, and I was dispatched round the room to warn the other guests that Thiim could suffer a relapse at the slightest mention of any criticism. However, the mood of the party did not suffer as a result, and Thiim remained oblivious to our sensitivities.

          I worked my way around the room and spoke with a good many people about a wide number of subjects. It seemed everyone had an opinion about the world, or about literature and art, and I got into a few heated debates about one aspect or another concerning these. Yet whenever we saw Thiim approach, we would change the subject and begin discussing, in earnest tones, what we could see through the window.

          ‘A bird!”

          ‘A tree!’

          ‘A house!’

          ‘A lawn-mower!’

          It was a tiring event and I wanted, desperately, to go home, to think about something else.

          The more I thought about it, the more I wanted no more to see Professor Zazzo Thiim, for I, more than any of his contemporaries, had been closer to the philosophy behind Reverse Criticism. To continue with my studies now, after everything that had happened to the main proponent of that philosophy, would not only be dangerous for Thim’s health, but also my own.

          What, I began to wonder, if the same thing happened to me? Would I be as lucky as Thiim?

          Would I make such a full recovery? Or would I spin out of control, into a vortex of eternal criticism, unable, ever, to find my way out?

          At last it came time to give a couple of speeches and applaud the return of Professor Zazzo Thim. Hubert Worthington took to the stage at the end of the hall and gave a moving – though empty – appraisal of Thiim’s work and career.

          ‘He became a Professor. He worked hard. He sat at a desk. He marked papers. He delivered lectures. He read books. He went for long walks in the orchard…

          And then, suddenly realising that this could, conceivably, be regarded as criticism, he amended his words.

          ‘A-hem. Sorry. He went for walks in the orchard’.

          When Hubert had finished his speech, there was a polite, muted applause, for anything more thunderous or spontaneous might probably have indicated some form of opinion.

          It was then the Nurse’s turn to make a speech.

          ‘Professor Zazzo Thiim is a man. He is a Professor. His name is Zazzo Thiim. I am a Nurse. He was my patient. We both work here’.

          Another muted round of applause followed, and the Professor himself stood on the stage.

          He thanked everyone for coming, and said how nice it all was, that the food had been good, that he particularly admired the brushwork on the painting over his left shoulder, though not the frame it had been placed in, and that he was looking forward to coming back to work, although his office needed a coat of paint and the radiator smelled. At the end of his speech there was a tentative, subdued clapping, and a buzz fell on the room as various guests began to file towards the door.

Alas, Hubert chose this moment to pick up the wrong cup of tea. ‘Oh god’, he said. ‘That’s disgusting!’

          A silence fell on the room and everyone looked at him.

          ‘No it isn’t’, someone yelled

          ‘I mean. the purpose of my saying that it was disgusting was

          ‘Handled with great sensitivity’, someone said, finishing his sentence for him.

          ‘No it wasn’t’, said the Nurse.

          ‘Not that it’s important, someone else said.

          I could see that the downward spiral had begun. ‘Of course it was important!’ I said.

          ‘Yes’, someone agreed. ‘Important, but not relevant.

          ‘The question is not the quality of the tea’, Hubert said, ‘But the fact it had sugar in it, which is, I think you’ll agree, only a product of my own prejudices regarding hot drinks’.

          ‘No’, a student yelled. ‘The whole criticism itself was not important’.

          ‘It wasn’t even a criticism’.

          ‘Yes it was’.

          ‘He smokes a pipe’, someone shouted. ‘How can someone who smokes a pipe make a valid judgement on taste?’

          By now, everyone in the room was shouting and screaming, adding their opinions and criticisms on the original criticism, which had been that Hubert had felt the cup of tea he had inadvertently supped to be disgusting. And while this was happening, Professor Zazzo Thim stood on the stage next to the microphone, regarding us all with a quizzical eye, puzzled, and yet strangely entertained. Indeed, the whole performance was only ended when the Nurse managed to round us all up and transfer us at once to the Medical Centre.

          Which is where we remain today, unable to finish our eternal criticism of the main point, the beginning factor, that of the cup of tea drank by Hubert being disgusting. We shout, we scream, we pound on the tables, unable to let go, unable to accept that the problem will never be solved, that the criticism will be infinite.

          Professor Zazzo Thim, meanwhile, has returned to work. He visits us every now and then. He always chooses his words carefully.

Professor Zazzo Investigates- 7. Memflak and Troglium in the Jungle

MEMFLAK AND TROGLIUM IN THE JUNGLE

I believe it was Professor Zazzo Thim who first alerted me to a possible ‘bad quarto’ version of the Shakespeare play, ‘Memflak and Troglium’. It was a cold winter’s night and we had met late in the bar of a theatre where an amateur production of the said play had just come to an conclusion. Professor Thim was clearly the worse for drink, but he was insistent that a bad quarto existed, more insistent still that the production we had just been watching was based on a more sanitised version which came to prominence in the years following Shakespeare’s death, when certain religious leaders omitted various scenes involving a nun and a dolphin. To my surprise the Professor then slumped his head on his chest and began to snore rather loudly. We were asked to leave moments later.

          The next morning I received a phone call from the professor. He denied all knowledge about his condition the night before, but was still enthusiastic about the ‘bad quarto’, and he told me that he would like to put on a production of this version, which, written by himself, might possibly speculate as to what the bad quarto might contain. In a rash moment of enthusiasm I agreed to help with this undertaking, although I have never had any training in the theatre, nor have I ever been the sort to embrace exuberance. We met later that afternoon back at the theatre, a gothic building at the top end of a square in the middle of the town, and he told me how much he was looking forward to the project.

          “A play much forgotten now”, said he, “Particularly among scholars”.

          “It is the subject matter”, I told him. “People don’t much care for the views Shakespeare was seen to be expressing in that work”.

          “Ah, yes” , said the Professor, thrusting his hands deep in his pockets and looking up at the lighting. “It has always been one of the ‘problem’ plays, along with Taming of the Shrew and the Merchant of Venice. To say that Memflak and Troglium …”.

          “Hush!”, I implored. “Do you not recall the tradition? When in a theatre it is always safer to refer to it as the ‘Latvian’ play”.

          The Professor cleared his throat, as if he were unsure of such superstitions. “The ‘Latvian’ play”, , he said, “Has always touched a nerve. That a love between a man and an elephant should not be portrayed in these modern times is just preposterous”.

          He then sat on the edge of the stage and gazed out across the auditorium. “Indeed”, he said, in a wistful voice, “Sometimes I think the play has been forgotten entirely”.

          He patted the stage next to him and I sat down.

          “I remember”, he said, “Years ago, decades ago… We were serving in India, at the end of the second world war. We were protecting the tea plantations… Churchill quite rightly deduced that a nation deprived of its cuppa would crumble all too willingly, so our stationing was of utmost importance… But we were young lads, and very bored. What else could we do? The Darjeeling region saw hardly any fighting at all the time I was there, and we would wake each morning just to look out across the plantations, the heat rising on an airborne humidity which seemed to seep the sweat right out of us … How bored we all got, how unutterably bored.

          “What luck that one of my closest companions was Sergeant Oliver Wahay. A temperamental Welshman, he had a love of Shakespeare and was said to be a scholar of his earlier plays. He suggested we put on a production of Mem. of the Latvian’ play to pass the time, and we would even create some goodwill among the local population by inviting our hosts. Poor old Oliver! Ever excited, he suggested we perform the so-called ‘bad quarto’, and then proceeded to pull out an exercise book filled with his very own version of it! We began rehearsals that very night.

“How enthusiastically we toiled, and contorted out tongues around those iambic pentameters. I played Chief Panda, of course, and it was my duty, in the third scene, to arrest Memflak after his first indiscretion with the elephant. When we could find no woman to play the part of Troglium, Oliver Wahay himself, reminding us that Shakespeare would always have used men dressed up as women, volunteered for the role. You see, Troglium is the most complex of Shakespeare’s female characters, for not only does she begin the play betrothed to a dolphin named Frederick, she then lures Memflak from his shenanigans with the elephant by using such powerful, colourful language, and rhetorical devices, that Memflak has no alternative but to fall under her spell. And the action, of course, finds its way her own bed where – and I am sure you are familiar with the play – they rest in each other’s arms in the moving final scene before being trampled to death by a herd of irate elephants. Such poetry, such masterful language, although. although I have never quite understood why Shakespeare should have populated Latvia with so many elephants.

          “Nonetheless, the part of Memflak was played by a handsome young man called Shane, who had joined the army on leaving a well-known theatre company. How overjoyed he was at receiving the part of Memflak! How avidly he practised his soliloquy – ‘Oh that my heart shall race on a flash of grey crinkle-skin, those tusks which should bore me through a chest swell’d’ – while he stood in the tea plantations by the light of the moon… A shy lad, he fell into character by practising his Shakespearean dialect at all hours, which went down a hoot in the mess hall. ‘Thou hast the charms of a warthog’, he once told our commanding officer. We all fell about laughing. I think he got solitary confinement …

          ‘We practised our lines all summer. Even now, the mention of the words ‘Mem.: -! mean – ‘the Latvian play’, take me back. I hear the insects in the jungle, the foreign accents, the road of the mighty tiger, the fat rain drops falling on fleshy leaves.. Oliver and Shane would shoot their lines at each other while keeping watch: Though hast the manners of a pachyderm. Yet thy skin is soft like that of a dolphin.. Before long it became obvious that something more was passing between them than the usual ten syllables, and they began to be less and less obedient in the company, less vigilant in their duties.

          “On the last day of our rehearsal I came down with Grey-Green fever and I was confined to my cabin for twenty-four hours. How sadly I sat next to the window, covered in a mosquito net, listening to the Shakespearean lines being let loose above the jungle. The fever subsided by early afternoon but I was still contagious, frantic with worry and frustrated at being kept inside. I decided to go for a walk in the jungle, where no-one might ever see me.

           “I hadn’t gone far when I heard a noise. Through the trees I saw a figure, obviously unaware that I was there. He held a photograph in his hand, and he kept glancing on it admiringly, sighing deeply and running a hand over his eyes as if he could bare something no longer. I managed to get closer, close enough to see that the photograph was of Shane, his colleague, and obviously the object of his affections. At that moment I realised why the play had been chosen, and how much it meant for Oliver that everything went according to plan.

          “That next day I was fully cured and we assembled in the middle of the town for the staging of our play. Shane and Oliver were resplendent in their costumes, and they made the villagers laugh and cry in equal measure. I delivered my lines with a workmanlike flair, and I heard a feint ripple of applause when I left the stage. At last we came to the moving final scene and, with the elephant on stand-by, Memflak and Troglium began their avid wooing, oblivious that these would be their last moments alive.

          ‘And then all hell broke loose… The elephant reared, knocked over the tent support, and set off on a rampage through the tea plantations. The villagers, fearing that their livelihoods would be ruined, set off after it with guns blazing, backed up by our army colleagues who, in any case, were bored of all this Shakespearean rubbish. And where did this leave Oliver and Shane? Suddenly superfluous, they clambered down from the stage, and Shane made his way back to the camp, whistling as if he had done his job well and no more was expected of him.

          ‘But Oliver was aghast, he beat the ground, swung light fittings around his head, and cried, shouted obscenities into the night.

          “What more can I say? Oliver was never the same again. He wore a dolphin costume while guarding the tea plantations, and would spend nights sobbing in his tent, while Shane, eagerly transferred to the coffee groves of South America, was never seen again.

          “So you see”, the Professor concluded, “Why this play has always meant so much to me. So many memories, so many deep, deep memories”.

          That night I made a few telephone calls and arranged to meet Zazzo Thim at the theatre the next morning. He entered the auditorium, whistling, the jaunty scarf, as ever, wrapped around his neck. He handed me the latest version of the ‘bad quarto’ and I went through his revisions, and marvelled at the extra finesse he had added to the elephant trampling scene. “And now”, I added, “I have something for you”.

          At that moment the door opened and two old men walked in, and, with the aid of sticks, proceeded to shuffle down the aisle towards the stage. Zazzo Thim could hardly believe his eyes. “Oliver!”, he said. “Shane! How the devil are you?” An emotional reunion followed, and they spent some minutes in getting to know each other again.

          They had met a few times after the war, but had resumed relationships with other people.

          Over the years they had kept in touch and had written plays, and sent each other suggestions for their respective acting careers, though this was the first time for over sixty years that they had met in person.

          “We have come to tell you not to perform the Latvian play”, Oliver said, “Or at least, not the ‘bad quarto version”.

          “I cannot agree”, Thim replied. “The modern generation needs to hear such words. Remember the fun we had in the jungle? Why not recreate that atmosphere here”.

          “It should not be done”, Shane agreed.

          “But the language! The storyline! The characterisations! This was a monumental work!” Thim said.

          “There is no such play”, Oliver announced. Thiim stared at him for a few moments.

          “I wrote it myself, or at least, the so-called ‘bad quarto’. And I only wrote it for the one reason”. At this, Oliver looked at Shane, who smiled back.

          “Ah”, Thim whispered. “Young love ?”

          “No!”, Oliver wailed. “I was a spy, working for the Japanese. At the moment the play was being held, an entire army was waiting to rip the fields of tea to shreds. It was to be one of the biggest operations of the entire war! And I was in the pay of the enemy! How avidly I wrote that accursed play, how diligently I learned the lines! “

          “But I saw you, in the jungle”.

          “Yes, and I saw you! I was passing secret messages to the enemy, yet the moment I heard you stumble through the undergrowth, no doubt insensitive of your clumsiness on account of your fever, I hastily took the photograph I had been showing them and …well, pretended that I was deeply in love with him”.

          “And the raid on the tea plantation?”

          “It never occurred. The rampaging elephant put paid to it. The whole evening was a complete fiasco!”

          “But.. But…”, Thim stuttered. “The play … Memflak and Trog… The Latvian Play!”

          “For goodness sake, man!”, Shane laughed, “She has rumpy-pumpy with a dolphin! Didn’t you think that was at least a bit…..odd?”

          “I just thought it was Shakespeare”, Thim said, “Up to his usual tricks again”.

           I left the three old men alone so that they could catch up on their lives. I left the theatre and walked out into the mid-morning sun. At that moment a large lorry pulled up from the zoo, its heavy load making the whole vehicle lean dangerously to one side.

          “You won’t be needing that”, I told the driver, and I continued walking back to my lodgings.

Professor Zazzo Investigates – 6. Fish! Fish! Fish! Fish! Fish! Fish!

FISH! FISH! FISHI FISH! FISH! FISH FISH

Professor Zazzo Thim’s experimentations with surrealism have been well-documented, though there are still one or two questions which have remained outstanding from this most provocative and exciting time of his life. Indeed, many historians have assessed the time to be one of great bonhomie among the surrealists, with Thim himself occupying the role of grand master. Yet my investigations have uncovered the truth, and it appears that the determination and the willingness to subvert which we now associate with the surrealist fad was, if anything, subdued.

          Jacques Collard was one of the surrealists. An old man now, he remembers the time fondly, though his brow creases into an ugly frown the moment I remind him of Zazzo Thim.

          “No, no, no!”, , he says. “The view we have no of Thim’s part in this is all wrong! It is based on Thim’s own testimony! We hardly ever saw him as one of us! If anything, we saw him as an annoyance …”.

          Collard paints a picture of the cafe culture prevalent at the time, of the surrealists, united by their subversive acts, holding court at one of the many Parisian bars associated with deep thought, philosophical ideals and literary merit. “We would make such grand pronouncements” Collard says, “Such as proclaiming the death of language, or at least, the terminal illness of the full stop. None of us had a clue what it meant, it just felt good to say it. Bilo was the master at the time – an artist, he had embraced surrealism for all its worth and he created bizarre works which he exhibited here and there throughout the city. We became known for our fine talk, our love of food, and our rebellious spirit. There were always disciples, or tourists eager to catch our glimpse. To start with we thought Zazzo Thiim was one of these”.

          Collard leans back and presses his palms together as if in prayer. His apartment looks out over a flower market, a merry-go-round, and the white wedding cake of Sacre Coeur towering above. His voice deepens as he remembers his subject. 

          “We knew very early on”, he whispers, “That Zazzo Thim was an idiot”.

          “Go on”.

          “The first thing he said was, I want to be like you. I want to be with you. I want to be a surrealist”. We asked him if he was a surrealist at heart, and if he ever dreamt of lobsters, or bearded nuns. No, he replies, but he did once spend a night in Basingstoke. At this we turned to each other, as if confirming our suspicions. ‘What form of surrealism are you developing at the moment?’, Bilo asked. ‘Literature’, Thim replies, without hesitation. I remember the groan which passed around the cafe terrace. ‘In a medium such as ours, the fullest impact is gained through visual means’, Bilo told the hapless youth. ‘Surrealism is about the ephemeral, the short-lived, the dream-like, the throw-away. You would have to prove to us your devotion to the cause before we even considered you as an equal’.

          “I can do it”, Thim said, filled with an unusual confidence.

          “Then you have one week.”

          “We all waited for Thiim to leave before we fell about, laughing. Oh, how I remember that week! A cold spell had fallen upon the city and we were frozen to the bone. The cafe terrace was warmed by a gas heater, yet the chill and the drizzle still fell from an overcast grey sky. We talked about many things, the surrealists and I. We talked of our art, and the methods we would employ, as we put it, to go beyond surrealism, to the next phase, whatever that might be. We would talk for hours of this exciting time, and speculate as to what the world might look like if surrealism was developed further.

          “Thim came back the next night. He always wore along scarf, the ends of which would trail along the cobblestones. ‘See here!’, he said, coming over to our table and standing in our midst. ‘For I have created a surrealistic masterpiece!’

Ms. Muller-Reed, an art critic of note, took a drag on her cigarette and motioned that he enlighten us further.

          ‘A poem’, Thim said. ‘Called, ‘Ode to a Washer-woman’.

          Thim straightened, pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and began to read. ‘Hippo hippo hippo! Yawn, oh hippo, oh yawn! And then we both swat at a swarm of bees..”

          We looked at him for a while, and it was Bilo who spoke first. ‘Merely a pastiche”, he said

          “We all laughed. Oh, how cruelly we laughed. Ms. Muller-Reed especially could find no sense in a poem about a hippo and a swarm of bees and she was most vociferous in her condemnation.

          “What do you take us for!”, she hooted, slamming her palm down on the table surface. “I’ve never heard such rot!”

          “Dejected, the hapless youth slouched off, and we continued our speculations as to the advancement of our cause.

          “The next night he came back again. By now it was very cold and there was a light snow falling from the sky. We wore gloves and sat around the heater, shivering, though unwilling to venture inside. ‘A-ha!’, said Bilo, on seeing young Zazzo. ‘Here he comes again with another poem for us!’

          ‘More than a poem’, Thim replied, ‘But a surrealistic masterpiece!’ 

          Knowingly, Ms. Muller-Reed winked, and we sat back in glorious expectation.

          “The Cinema’, Thim said. He cleared his throat and began to recite: In the cinema I cook asparagus. The marching band sneeze in unison. A-tisshoo! A-tisshoo! Here comes my aunt with the Christmas tree.

          ‘Stop!, Bilo said. ‘Please, stop!’ Dramatically, he placed his hands over his ears.           But it was too late, for Ms. Muller-Reed was already roaring with laughter.

          ‘Oh dear, oh dear! What a marvellous send-up! Never have I heard such a fateful attempt at surrealism! Go, go this instant! Oh dear, I think I shall be quite senseless if this were to continue any longer..!

          “The next night he came again, more determined than ever, and he grandly announced that he had a poem which would re-write the rules, and leave them gasping at his abilities. He then proceeded to show them a blank piece of paper. “Here it is’, he said, ‘My poem. At the bottom of the page was the smallest full-stop.

          ‘Now you’re just being silly’, Bilo said. And they all roared with laughter once again.

          “I must admit, I began to feel sorry for Zazzo Thim. A pattern emerged – he would come every night with his latest attempt at surrealism, and we would laugh, and then he would go home, dejected, crestfallen. It became our tradition, and we would speculate freely on what delights he would have for us. It was as if he was trying a little too hard, you know what I mean? Anyway, about a week afterwards I decided I would find where he lived and offer him some friendly advice.

          “He was staying in a decrepit hotel in the Quatier Latin. The concierge allowed me in and I took a winding, rickerty staircase up to his room. The walls were damp and the landing was ill-lit, I almost fell to my death when one of the steps gave way underneath my shoe. I knocked on his door and he let me in, surprised to see one of his beloved surrealists come to visit him. I remember the smell of his room even now, a mixture of dust and over-worked electrics, the dampness of his bed-clothes, the mould growing on the window-sill. He motioned that I sit in the one armchair, then asked why I had graced him with my presence.

          ‘I am concerned’, I told him, ‘That your work may be in vain’.

          He sat on the edge of the bed in front of me. That fact that you do not find my work notable in any way’, he said, ‘Does not detract from the fact that it is just as worthy, if not, worthier than you realise.’

          ‘An artist is always protective of his output’, I told him. He looked up at me, his forehead wrinkled, the scarf still wrapped around his neck. ‘Maybe you should write how you feel, rather than how you want to be perceived’.

          ‘In this modern world’, said he, ‘Are we not now defined by how we are perceived?”

          ‘ Exactly’, I told him. ‘And I see in you a serious man, a man of strong, sensible conviction, a man so far removed from the basics of surrealism as to irrefutable sober.”

          “At this, Zazzo looked down at the floor and let out big sigh.

           ‘Don’t you see?’, he whispered. I don’t care about surrealism. I don’t care about the basics of the movement, nor do I care about visual or literary representations. I just want to belong to a group, I want to be surrounded by friends’.

          “I got up from my seat. ‘Noble words, indeed’, I whispered. ‘But surrealism is more than just a social club. It is a way of living. And you, my dear friend, are in complete opposition to its aims and philosophies. I must leave you now, for the world here – if you don’t mind me saying – stifles me with its boredom’.

          At that moment the door opened and a llama came in. ‘Oh, for goodness sake’, Zazzo said. He ushered it back out into the hall again, and fought briefly, ducking to avoid a globule of spit from the irate beast. He was just about to close the door when a circus clown appeared on the landing from the floor above, inquiring as to the whereabouts of his monkey. I told you before’, Thim said, ‘The last place I saw him was in Papua New Guinea. “But I need it’, the clown whined, ‘Because we are meant to be trampolining for the Duke of Norfolk this afternoon!’ Thim turned to come back into the room when there came the sound of scampering from the stairs and a herd of badgers swamped the landing, jumping over the furniture, flowing en masse as if directed by some primal determination. At last he managed to push the door to, before turning to me again. ‘Sorry about that’, he said. ‘You know, sometimes this place can really get on your nerves’

          “The next night he was back at the cafe terrace with another one of his poems. It was about a nun, I remember that. And the nun was having trouble blowing up a balloon, it wasn’t very good. Ms. Muller-Reed made some biting comment about the translation of sense into the senseless, and Bilo snorted back his derision before waving Thim away with a flick of his hand, like a king, dismissing his servant.

          ‘The trouble with that lad is’, Bilo said, as we watched Thiim walk off to the end of the street, ‘He is far too serious’.

I thanked Collard for his observations, and I went for a walk around the local area. The streets were crowded with tourists, and commercial artists who, running up to me, asked that they paint my portrait for money. I wondered how Thim had acquired this reputation as a surrealist even though he was shunned by the surrealistic establishment, but then I recalled Thiim’s own account of this period, and the opening paragraph of his own autobiography, which begins with the words:

          Every day it seemed that strangeness was attracted to me. I became immune to the normal pleasures of living. I would open my brain, and things would be poured in. I didn’t really know what was happening.

          I realised that Thim himself had never proclaimed himself to be a master of surrealism, nor had he ever been noted for his surrealistic style, yet the image which has been brought to our consciousness now is of a man so steeped in strangeness as to be wholly consumed by it. And perhaps this was the very form that the cafe patrons were searching for, this one level beyond surrealism, unknowing, unbidden and unconscious. I sat for a while in the park on the steps of Sacre Coeur, and closed my eyes in the afternoon sun. I wondered if it were possible that strangeness can stick to people, that unusual events gravitated only to a certain type of person. How glad I was to be a sober, investigative fellow, inquiring, yet safe from the whims and unconventions of a truly strange world. How satisfying this last thought: that Zazzo Thim was so surrealistic, that the surrealists didn’t even know it. How I revelled in my ordinaryness!

          At that moment I was attacked by a flamingo.

Professor Zazzo Investigates- 5. The Rubaiyat of Viktor Khayyam

THE RUBAIYAT OF VIKTOR KHAYYAM

Great excitement greeted the first publication of the volume which, under the direction of that esteemed professor of literary extremism, Zazzo Thim, has uncovered more than the wild-eyed fanatic in all of us. I believe it is time we all express this instant our eternal gratitude towards this most learned individual and the service he has done mankind, in his uncovering of this volume, The Rubaiyat of Viktor Khayyam.

          On a wet winter morning I travelled to the distant city of education where I was due to meet him. The moment I got off the train I could feel the cold wind, which seemed to whip around the old, classical architecture and across the wide squares. I made my way down the main thoroughfare to a discreet cafe where we had arranged to meet.

          A couple of students watched me enter. I ordered a hot chocolate at the bar and sat down at a table in the corner where the Professor might easily see me. One of the students came over and asked who it was I would be meeting. 

          “Professor Zazzo Thim”,  I replied, with a hint of pride.

          “Oh, him”, , they replied, and they slouched off through the door into the rain.

          I watched them leave. They walked past the plate glass window and they were both smiling, laughing. How terrible, I thought, that such an intelligent man should not command the respect of his inferiors.

          After a while the Professor himself entered the room. I recognised him immediately from the promotional material which went with the book. The long scarf, the heavy coat, the pained expression on his face, the cane which he leant on as if it were the only thing in his life which made any sense. He saw me in the corner and waved, jovially, then ordered himself a cup of coffee at the bar. He then attempted to navigate the room with the cane in one hand and the cup of coffee in the other, a feat which resulted in most of the drink being spilled on the bare wooden floorboards. The bar staff, I noticed, nudged each other in the ribs and pointed to the elderly gentleman, before suppressing giggled comments. How rude, I thought to myself, how unaccountably rude.

          I introduced myself and pulled out a chair for the Professor to sit. He lowered himself down as if into a hot bath, then sighed. “Well well well, my dear child”, he said. He took off his wet cap, unwound his long scarf, then placed his palms flat on the table surface. “No doubt”, he said, “You have requested this meeting to add to the ill-feeling, the derision and the scandal. In that case, let the butchery commence

          I shrugged, then took out a notebook. I told him how much I had enjoyed the poems, and that their discovery was nothing short of a godsend in this modern age, where word and the power of language have so recently lost all of their power to enchant. The old man leaned back in his chair and made a pyramid out of his fingers, though his face creased into a frown as if he were unsure of my true sentiments. When I told him that he had done the whole world a favour, that he was an explorer akin to those ancient adventurers who had discovered the new continents, strange tribes, buried treasure and the geographical features which now make up our general knowledge of the planet, he let out a big, long sigh and said: “Go on – what’s the punch line?”

          “There is no punch line”, I replied, “My sentiments are sincere”.

          He hummed, doubtfully.

          “How strange”, he said.

          He leaned forward and, quite sadly, looked down at his hands. “There has been”, he said, “Some controversy over the last few weeks”

          I asked that he explain, and for the first time he looked up at me, looked me straight in the eyes. He told me that he had always assumed there to be a set of poems to be discovered in the ancient city of Tangiers, that the merchants and the council of that distant town had been hiding from the modern world a work of such literary merit as would change the world forever.

          “Such beauty was hinted at” Zazzo said, “Such magnificent constructions, I just had to investigate. You see, it all dates back to a Victorian guide book I had come across in an antique shop, some thirty years ago. In detailing the attributes of Tangiers, it mentioned – and I quote – ‘ a wondrous system of oudagogoo veritably produced by his eminence Viktor Bayyam and now kept for the benefit of his excellency the sultan’. How enraptured I was by these words, for l knew that to find an oudagogoo – (the western Berber-derived word for a four-line verse set into a unified system) – would be the defining achievement of my career”.

     N.   “I left earlier this year for Tangiers. I sailed from Southampton on a steamer filled with chickens and llamas, for the desert tribes have been encouraged to experiment with different kinds of meat. The seas were unforgiving and I spent most of the time confined to my cabin, vomiting profusely and calming my volatile stomach with the image of these verses, these celebrated, yet secretive oudagogoo”

          “When I finally arrived at the city I became inextricably lost in the labyrinth of back streets. Strange people crowded me in on all sides and I was hustled in the markets, shouted at, sneered at by unforgiving locals. At once I began to realise that they had already guessed the purpose of my visit, that I had come to steal their precious oudagogoo, that their secret would soon be in the domain of the world at large. The heat was oppressive, and as the sun went down I found lodgings for the night in a small hotel set around an inner courtyard with mosaic tile walls. The hotelier, a genial man who, despite the barrier of language, attested to my every need, allowed me to sleep in the open, under the stars where at night I would gaze up at the constellations, cursing my ill luck to be so near and yet so far.

          “The morning brought fresh sunshine and a renewed determination on my part to make this momentous discovery. My host showed me to the library in the middle of the town, where, among Arabic tracts and volumes of luxurious splendour, I found no mention of the oudagogoo. I realised quite soon that the verses, being so timeless and secretive, would never be mentioned so openly in any of these books, so l asked if there were any secret libraries or private collections where information might be gathered. When he took me to the local taxidermist and presented me with the head of a camel, I knew there had been a mis-translation.

          “By the end of my third day I realised that I would not find these mythic verses. The heat was getting to me and I longed for the cold winds, the fogs of my homeland. In desperation I kept notebooks and filled them with what I hoped to find in the poems, though the images I created were obscured by the drops of sweat which fell down the side of my head on to the page. I constructed poems about the desert, about the beauty of camels, dromedaries, about the dreams and mystic visions of a traveller who longed only to see the fabled city of Basing Stoke, though at the end of each day I would screw up these vile sheets and throw them in the waster paper basket.

          “And then came the twentieth day of my expedition. A knock at the gate of my lodgings, and a mysterious fellow entered, his hair wrapped in a thick turban despite the heat, his body covered by white robes which fell down to his sandalled feet. “I hear”, he said, “That you are looking for the oudagogoo”.

          “My heart jumped, yet I dare not demonstrate an over-eagerness.

          “And what of it?”, I asked.

          “I can take you to them”.

          “My word! I could barely speak with the excitement within me. Feigning indifference, I looked at my watch. “I can spare about half an hour”, I said

“Half an hour”, he said, “But a whole lifetime of wonder”.

          “He led me through the streets, past markets and decrepit quarters where small children ran barefoot and old men smoked in the doorways of bars. We seemed to walk forever, but at last we came to a nondescript house and a large wooden door, which he opened with a key hung round his neck. When we entered I could smell the dust and the sand, a burning smell as if the centuries were falling away, crumbling before me. At last, rather grandly, he said: “Behold! The most beauteous, divine oudagogoo”

          “He turned on a row of lights to reveal a row of laundry baskets.

          “Is that it?” I asked

          “He frowned and looked at me. “What were you expecting? When word reached us that an Englishman was looking for the oudagogoo, we decided we would not help you in the slightest.

          “We have cherished these four baskets for years and have built up a system of mystic belief in their divine protection. But when you went to the local library and kept asking people for poetry, we thought, ‘Well, this isn’t any fun, let’s just show them to him’. So here we are – the oudagogoo of Tangiers”

          “‘Oudagogoo?” I asked

          “Yes. Laundry baskets. The most splendid laundry baskets for many years. My grandfather quaked in their presence, such was their beauty and power. It is said that an artist, deeply in love with a simple washer-woman, but kept from the woman he loved by his allergies to detergents, could only proclaim his love to her by these splendid laundry baskets, which she would see every day, a new oudagogoo every time she washed the clothes”.

          “But there are only four of them”.

          “They split after a week. Love can be so fickle. But the story is still, I think you would agree, deeply touching”

          “But I thought oudagogoo were … •

          “Poetry?” he asked.’

          “If this were a western-influenced Berber word, it would indeed mean

‘four line verse’. But ‘oudagogoo’ in eastern Berber means laundry basket’. And you know, we Tangiers folk have a wicked sense of humour. We called these baskets ‘The Rubaiyat of Viktor Khayyam ”

          He then commenced a deep bellied laugh which caused him to rock back and forth on his feet.

          What could I do? I thanked my host, and returned back to the guest house. But now I was faced with a conundrum. I couldn’t go back to the university empty-handed having promised them such magnificent poems. Tired, I thanked my host and left that very afternoon, taking with me a wicker basket I could show my colleagues in demonstration of my folly.

          When I arrived home, seasick and delirious with the llama and chickens the Moroccans had sent back in disgust, I was confined to my bed, though the wicker basket was an object of fascination among my colleagues. Imagine my surprise, when I emerged from my delirium, to find that a whole series of poems had been published, resultant from my travels, The Rubaiyat of Viktor Khayyam. I was intrigued, and tentatively, opened a copy to see that my name was mentioned as translator. Yet the poems were oddly familiar, and dealt with many subjects, including camels, the beauty of sand dunes shifting in the evening wind, and the bountiful, mythical city of Basing Stoke.

          “We found them”, an assistant told me, “In the luggage you brought back. How feverishly you must have translated them to have left such stains of sweat on each page! And your madness, evident in the way you screwed them up, and hid them at the bottom of the basket in which you stored your linen, as if you never wanted to see them again”.

          I looked at the aged Professor.

          “They found out, didn’t they?” I asked.

          He nodded, sadly.

          “I have disgraced the university and made it a complete laughing stock”.

          Gently, he wiped a tear from his eye. “On the plus side, my designs for laundry baskets have been taken up by a well-known DIY company”.

          I left him short afterwards and walked back out into the windy, rainy streets. Students passed me on bicycles, others walked past with heavy volumes tucked under their arms. The whole world seemed darker, colder.

Professor Zazzo Investigates – 4. The Peacocks are Restless

With a sonnet so perplexing as this, there only seemed the one course of action: to call in the literary investigator, Professor Zazzo Thim.

          He asked for accommodation on the second floor, where he might afford a view of the lawns and the sculptured hedgerows. He said he wanted to see a peacock. He said he had never seen a peacock, not a real one. I reminded him of the bad sonnet, that he had a duty to perform. I want to see the peacocks first, he replied, dropping his bags in the hall and rubbing his hands together with glee.

          I reminded our guest that he had a job to do, that he had been promised a quite substantial sum to analyse the sonnet we had uncovered in our renovating of the library.

         “Yes”,  he said. “Yes, of course, how silly of me to forget. I am here for a specific reason and your hospitality should not be taken for granted”

          The old man was taken to his room and I repaired to the library, expectant of his appearance therein. It was a crisp autumn morning and a mist rolled in from the vales across the lawn in front of the french windows. As a devotee of literature in all its forms, I had been intrigued to discover the sonnet in a notebook hidden in a crevice between two shelves and I was anxious that the work be scrutinised. that any literary merit might be deduced from its faded pages. Upon inquiry as to who might best carry out this investigation, I was told that Professor Zazzo Thim was at the very top of the profession, and I spared no expense at securing his services. I looked out on the mist-shrouded gardens with my hands behind my back, expectant and looking forward to the knowledge that he would impart, only to see his decrepit form ambling across the eastern lawn in hot pursuit of a peacock, waving his arms in the air, and hooting with delight.

          Over dinner he showed no sign of his exertions. He leaned his padded elbows on the edge of the table and grinned at me. “You know”, he said, “This whole place exudes a certain atmosphere. I can tell that there might be more to it than just the one sonnet. I fear, my friend, that this whole building might conceal a wealth of literary surprises”.

          “How so?”, I asked

          “It has a certain feel to it, the same sensation I get when I walk into a library for the first time, or museum, or even a bookshop, and sense that words have been played with here, that language has been exerting itself, contorting into new and uncomfortable positions for the benefit of general entertainment”. He then grinned, and leaned closer. “And another thing”, he said. “You’ve got peacocks here”

          “And what of it?”

          “Peacocks congregate around places where sonnets have been written. It is a well known fact in the literary community. Wherever you see peacocks, there have been works of great power created. The peacock, you see, operates on the premise of sonic reverberations, and, in particular, the beat created by iambic pentameter. Mark my words, young sir, there are sonnets in this house!”

That next morning we met in the library and I showed him the notebook I had found during the renovations. He sat down next to the fire and, with a quizzical expression on his face, began to examine it in detail with a magnifying glass. The wood crackled and spat, and I stood there, awkwardly, with my hands behind my back. The old man was a sight in himself, every facet of his aged countenance concentrated upon the page, his thin, bony legs crossed at the knee, the long, slender fingers holding the magnifying glass daintily, as if he might lose all thread of his conscience if he were to hold the handle too tightly. At long last he turned to me and he said:

          “It’s a sonnet”.

          “I know! I know!” I could not help the tone of exasperation in my voice, for I had long imagined this moment.

          “Ah”, he said. “You mean, you want me to analyse it in some greater depth?”

          “Yes!”

          He gave a great sigh and leaned his head back in the chair. “That could take some time”, he said.

          “Is this not what I am paying you for? You may have all the hospitality you need, but I want a thorough dissection of this poem so that we might know exactly what it is about, where it came from, and what it means for the history of this house”.

          “Fine”, he said. “Give me ten minutes”

          I went for a walk around the gardens. The winter chill bit into me and I pulled the coat around my shoulders. The old man was plainly mad and I wondered if he really knew what he was doing. The university department, it is true, had seemed glad to be getting rid of him for a while, or at least, that was the impression I had received from their eagerness to unload him on me. Yet he had not come without his plaudits. I had entered his name on a search engine to find a list of credible achievements in the field of literary extremism, as well as several spoof web sites in which his methods were derided and mocked by affectionate ex-students. The more I thought about him, the more I told myself that he was a gentle man, an eccentric devotee of literature who would, I was now certain, get to the bottom of the mystery of the sonnet.

          At this moment I heard a strange hooting sound. I turned a corner to see Professor Zazzo Thim, his arms outstretched, inches behind a peacock, which appeared to be running for its life.

          We met again that night over sherry in the grand hall. “I must say”, he told me, “I was surprised and enthused by the sonnet. It is a peculiar work, but it fits all the criteria of a Petrarchan sonnet, with a rather perplexing turn and a couple of cheekily-placed caesura, and a rhyme scheme which lends it a certain credibility. Yes, my friend, you have a sonnet and I think you should be proud of it”

          “I am glad”, I replied. “I feared it may have been nothing but a cheap imitation”.

          “It is a fine work, which, within its lines, compares the love of a simple country boy for a young milk maiden, for the simple joy a cow feels upon milking. Some of its imagery could be seen as quite daring for its time.”

          “Such as?”

          And now the Professor quoted, “How joyously, betwixt thumb and forefinger, the teet is squeezed”.

          “I see”

          “But my friend, there are greater mysteries here, are there not?”

          “What do you mean?”

          “The peacocks, I note, are particularly agitated in my presence”

          “Perhaps that’s because you keep chasing them all over the place”.

          “I’m sorry?”

          “Nothing”.

          As I was saying, the peacocks , perhaps knowledgeable of my literary credentials, are loath to let me into certain pars of the garden as if they are protecting something. Have, you ever noticed this before?”

          “I can’t say that I have”.

          “It is a quite odd manifestation, and I think it should be investigated at this moment. You see, it is my prognosis that the peacocks are protecting another sonnet, perhaps one of such magnificence that its iambic pentameter powers them and keeps them agile in these autumnal frosts. Surely, by now they should be deep in their hibernation”.

          “Peacocks do not hibernate!”, I told the old man.

          “Then you see, they are being energised by something beyond our control.”

          At this, Professor Zazzo Thim pulled on his jacket and slugged back the last of his sherry. “Come, he said, “We shall investigate this moment!”

          Indeed, his enthusiasm was infectious. We left the grand hall and, by way of the main front door, entered the grounds of the house. Zazzo led the way, despite the cold, and a frost which had already begun to form on the lawns, a sparkling white which lent an ethereal splendour to the night. How strange that the peacocks should still be so restless, and not confined to their winter hut. For the first time I started to believe that the Professor might even be correct in his assessment, that the peacocks were hiding something, that they didn’t want us to proceed any further.

          The gravel paths crunched under our footsteps and the lawns were hard with frost. The Professor was fearless as he pushed his way through the peacocks, their tails fanned as if in some attempt to halt our progress. And it was so cold, down in the hollow where the ornamental gardens were laid, a strong coldness which gripped my body and chilled me right to the bone. Our breath turned to vapour in the light from the torch, while the peacocks followed us down the hill, constant footsteps in our wake. At last we turned a corner to find a barrier of them blocking our path, their tails fanned, an impenetrable wall. 

          “What should we do?”, I asked, now fully reliant on the old man.

          “We must do as they want”

          “But we might risk the whole project!”

          The beady eyes of the peacocks bore down on us, and, as one, they started to call, their shrill exclamations bouncing back at us from the shrubbery, from the trees and the bushes of the ornamental garden. A cacophonous moment, both frightening and sublime, and, with a force I had never seen before, they guided us, gently but persistently, into the entrance of the maze.

          We were running now, running with them right behind us. We couldn’t stop, there would have been no option but to be pecked to death by their beaks. We turned corner after corner in the maze, the scampering feet of the peacocks just inches behind us, until, as if they had guided us, we were in the very centre, the small statue of my great, great uncle which marked the epicentre of the maze.

          And there we saw them, hundreds of them. Peacocks lined around the hedges, as if in parliament, and were in the middle of them, just us and the statue. 

          “This is it”, I whispered, “This is the end”.

          “On the contrary”, the Professor replied.

          He bent down and began to wipe his hand along the wording on the plinth of the statue.

          With a beating heart, I saw as the moss and the dirt began to be flaked off, and a poem be revealed to us, centuries old perhaps, yet persistent in its survival. The peacocks began to crowd around. The stone letters, so regular and formal in the light from our torches, archaic in their construction, their sentence structure.

          “A sonnet!”, I breathed.

          But the Professor was frowning. He crouched down and worked his way around the plinth, reading as he went. “It has a rhyme scheme”, he said. “And a ceasura, and a definite turn between the sixth and seventh lines. Yes, a sonnet, but….

          By now, the peacocks were crowded in on us, as if they, too, were trying to read.

          “But what?”

          “There’s a syllable missing in the ninth line”.

          “Read it to me!” I urged The Professor bent closer.

          ‘And yet my old heart it be not saved””.

          “Nine syllables”, I whispered, counting them on my fingers.

          The peacocks were pushing against us now, evil in their intent, crowding around, and they could surely have crushed us if they had the inclination.

          At this, the Professor reached into a pocket and pulled out a chisel. And then, using a rock to hit the top of it, carved a small accent over the ‘e’ of ‘saved’ to transform it into ‘savèd’.

          The result was instantaneous. The peacocks drew back, satisfied, then began to file out of the exit, allowing us to follow them into the cold night, from where they went back to their winter hut for hibernation.

          The Professor and I returned to the Grand Hall and helped ourselves to another sherry.

He left the next morning and I was more than happy to cough up the extra money he demanded from his extra investigations. How happy we both were, to have solved a little mystery and put right the travesty of a bad sonnet. I thanked him once again as he clambered into the taxi, and as it pulled away he rolled down the window and he waved, smiling. His last words to me were:

          “The peacocks shall bother you no more”,

          I went back to the library and looked once again at the poem l’d found, the old notebook, now so faded as to be hardly recognisable.

          I counted down the lines. “Hang on”, I said, to myself. ‘This isn’t a sonnet! It’s for fifteen lines!”

Who is Professor Zazzo Thiim?

Between the late nineties and the mid 2000s, I wrote hundreds of short stories. This was a very hectic time in my life, and probably needlessly so. In 2000, I moved into a gothic flat near the seafront in Paignton, almost directly over the road from the shop where I worked. I was studying Open University every morning, getting up at 5, studying 6-9, going over the road and working 9-5, then home, and spending every single evening writing short stories.

On my day off I’d attend a Writers’ Circle and it soon became apparent that the other attendees seemed drawn to my funnier stories. In one story, I invented a character, a professor of literature by the name of Zazzo, and soon the other members of the writers’ circle started saying things like, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to see what Zazzo gets up to next week!’

My Open University degree was in Literature, so I’d have to watch a lot of videos (it was still videos back then), and listen to lots of cassettes presented by these eccentric academic types who were a million miles away from the milieu in which I moved. I saw Zazzo as belonging to this community, perhaps barely tolerated by his contemporaries, and often shooting off at a tangent, seeing patterns where there were no patterns, narratives where there were no narratives.

Zazzo was a literary investigator. Whenever there was a mystery with a literary element, Zazzo would be there. Skateboarders quoting Shakespeare for no reason? Send in Zazzo! A crab routinely predicting the winner of the Booker Prize every year? Another case for Zazzo! The discovery of yet another Brontë sister? Who do we call? Professor Zazzo!

The Zazzo stories were saved on various floppy discs, and then promptly forgotten about for twenty years. I had no way of accessing them for quite some time, but now, thanks to various technological developments (and some paper versions I recently found), Professor Zazzo has been saved from obscurity!

My life has moved on since those days. I’ve been working as a comedy performance poet since around 2008, and worked on various other projects, so it was a delight to rediscover this strange world. And I really hope you might enjoy reading some of the stories which I shall be publishing on this blog.

Live at the Exeter Phoenix (Taking the Mic)

I had a lovely time last week performing a headline set at the Taking the Mic event at the Exeter Phoenix arts centre. Thank you Tim for having me!

I videoed my efforts and they can be viewed right here:

Let me know what you reckon!

Reception

In 2010, on the way back from Australia, I stopped in Tokyo for a few days, arriving at midnight. I’d booked a hotel but they lost my booking and so began a strange few days of existentialist angst when I started asking, who am I? What is my history? Do I exist? I started writing this novel.

A few weeks later, of course, once the novel was finished, the tsunami hit, so reading this novel again always gives me a strange sense of foreboding.

Anyway, you can now read Reception as an ebook!