A Cat called Doggerel: the Sauce of all Knowledge and Wisdom!

In this chapter of his adventures, Professor Donald McQueen wrestles with a great moral and intellectual dilemma – should he use The Ear-Trumpet of Death for entertainment, or reserve it only for academic purposes? A telephone call to his sponsor can help to identify the sauce of all knowledge and wisdom, and the answer to his great question results in McQueen losing himself in the final episode of that flabbergasting science fiction drama The Venus Probe.  For the second time, Cherrytop the Sarcastic Horse fails to put in an appearance ...

Transcript

The Adventures of Donald McQueen, Bibliographer

Chapter 9: A cat called Doggerel: the sauce of all knowledge and wisdom!

DM: There is only one Professor Donald McQueen, Bibliographer, and I am he. And these are my adventures. I have been considering how best to use the ear-trumpet of death, which has come by chance, into my hands. There is the great temptation, to which I succumbed when writing my previous chapter, to use it as a mere means of entertainment. I can, after all, eavesdrop upon any age or place, hear the thoughts of any person or animal, and visit any alternative reality I can imagine … in principle, albeit my ability to control this wayward horn is somewhat variable. But should I do any such thing, or keep the horn only for pure and academic purposes? It is a tricky point and, as I lay on my four-poster bed after dinner in my room at the Duodecimo Club, I felt I needed a little help in deciding the matter. I had before me two bottles of tomato ketchup, one manufactured by Gruber and Son of Soho, and the other by Schickle’s Pickles of Nantwich. But which was best? I felt that one must surely revive my senses and give me the power and resolve to answer the great ear-trumpet question, while the other would merely befuddle my brain and incline me mistake parchment for vellum, or vice versa. Let me describe the bottles. 

Gruber’s ketchup is in a tall, narrow vial of pink-tinted glass, with a bulb at the foot. It is an elegant container, which stands well, foursquare upon the table, even when nearly empty. Its mouth is a little narrow perhaps, and sometimes the delicious contents can barely be tempted from the opening on to my tongue. There are two printed paper labels on the bottle, a circular label on the foot, which bears all the necessary gustatorial minutiae, and a narrow band round the top of the neck, which carries only the legend ‘Gruber’s Finest Tomato Ketchup’.

The other bottle, that for Shickle’s condiment, is quite different. It is hexagonal in cross-section and perfectly straight-sided, apart from the neck, which curves in slightly, at the last moment possible, and changes shape to create the necessary circular opening which bears the golden screwtop. The glass is of a dark green hue, so that the content can barely be seen from without. This bottle likewise bears two labels, on two diametrically opposed flanks of the hexagon, both long, narrow and elegant, the one bearing the legally-required rubric, and the other the words ‘Shickle’s Heavenly Tomato Ketchup’. Of the two bottles, I deem Gruber’s the more beautiful in form, but I find the typography of the labels on Schickle’s container the more perfect. But which is the better sauce? If you will excuse me for a moment, I will make a telephone call and determine the answer.

I have the answer! Gruber’s Finest Tomato Ketchup is, by far, the richer sauce.

I opened and inverted the elegant bottle, and allowed a few drops of the nectar to fall upon my tongue. Immediately I understood the answer to my great question about the ear-trumpet. It was in my possession now, for how long, and for what ultimate end, I could not know, but while I held it I could use it as I pleased, and employ it both as tool of intellectual enquiry, and as a means to divert and amuse myself. I was pleased with this answer to my great query, as I had, in truth, been wondering what could possibly happen next in the Venus Probe story-line which I had been following. I immediately inserted the trumpet into my lughole and allowed my mind to wander in the appropriate direction …

Hansom: This is the log of the Starship Venus, Captain Jonathan T. Hansom in command. The year is 2020 and, on a mission to probe the second planet of our solar system, the most well-quipped and advanced Starship of His Majesty’s Royal Astronavy was blown clear across the galaxy by a quantam-explosion on the planet’s red-hot surface. Travelling at a hundred times the speed of light, we managed at last to apply the hand-brake and found ourselves in deep space, with no maps to guide us and no way to return home, or even an inkling of where home now was. We had no choice but to drive on, past psychedelically-coloured planets and strange glowing nebulae, armed only with the finest crew in the Astronavy, and a battery of powerful and terrifying futuristic weapons. This is The Venus Probe.

We’re on the Venus Probe, here on the Venus Probe

This is the Venus Probe, into space

We’re on the Venus Probe, you should have seen us probe

Were on the Venus Probe, into space

We’re on the Starship Venus, by Jove you should have seen us

Our figurehead is gold and red and of the mermaid genus

The Captain’s name is Hansom, he’s worth a prince’s ransom

He let his crew use not a few rude words, but had to ban some

The Third Mate, Roger Cooper, is a groper and a snooper

Who tried to cup the nurse’s pup and, like a horn, poop-poop her

Here on the Venus Probe, we’re on the Venus Probe

This is the Venus Probe, into space

We’re on the Venus Probe, you should have seen us probe

We’re on the Venus Probe, into space

Hansom: Captain Hansom’s space-journal, astrodate 20.11 point 3, supplemental. Taking his life in his paws, the courageous ship’s cat Doggerel, containing the life-force of Rear Admiral Devenish, has just returned from a reconnaissance mission aboard the alien ship on which our Chief Engineer Greene has been imprisoned. He was tempted from a plump red cushion by an artificial lady-cat, created by Greene and completed by Science Officer flflff, who lured him back to the Starship Venus, and in whose company he is now ‘relaxing’ before being brought up to the bridge to tell us all.

Flflff: Seven minutes have elapsed, sir. Surely Doggerel has finished now.

Hansom: Switch on the microphone, flflff, 

H: Evidently not. We should give him a few more moments. Flflff, let us beguile those moments with a reminiscence of your home planet. Tell us about Garamond XII.

Flflff: It is the most beautiful planet you could imagine, sir, except of course for all the other planets in the Garamond system, which are equally beautiful. It is a large solar-system by your earth standards, captain, consisting of more than seventy planets, a dozen of them habitable and all silvery of complexion. The Claudians evolved on my world, Garamond XII, and soon developed interplanetary space-travel so that they could colonize the entire system. That was many millennia ago, and on each planet evolution diverged so that now Claudians appear quite different depending on their point of origin in the solar system. Though we all retain the wonderful even-temperament, scientific intelligence and pale beauty of our race. The largest inhabitable planet, and that nearest the sun, is Garamond VI and here the intense gravity, heat and light have altered the population so that they are all blind dwarves, who wear nothing but Bermuda shorts and get around entirely by a combination of echo-location and feeling their surroundings with their long prehensile fingers. They are known as the Bleeping Gropers of Garamond VI, and one can always hear one coming by the bleeping, the cries of other beings which have been digitally explored and the thuds and curses as the Bleeping Gropers bump into furniture and doorposts, since their echo-location and environment-fondling are, to be frank, hopelessly ineffective.

At the other end of the extreme is Garamond LXXII. This is the smallest habitable planet and the furthest from the sun, and here the Claudians have grown immense, some six times taller than myself, and have developed thick layers of blubber and long yellowish fur to protect them from the profound cold. Their eyes have evolved to be large and luminous, to make the most of the feeble daylight, and they survive their long winter, which lasts six of your earth years, by remaining paralytically drunk on locally-brewed aedelweiss-rum for the entire period. Their large brains make them bow and stoop, so that a group of approaching Claudians from Garamond LXXII looks like nothing so much as a bunch of giant, hairy, ambulant bananas, reeking of rum.

H: Ah, Jamaican bananas … So tell me, why is your nose on upside-down?

Flflff: My nose is not on upside-down. Yours is. The difference is caused by the variant water-cycle in the Garamond system. On my planet water forms in the soil and is then drawn in great torrents, upwards into the sky, where it vaporizes and settles back into the ground. Thus, on Garamond XII, the rain falls upward and if we had our nostrils on the bottom of our noses, like you, we would be in danger of drowning every time it rained. This is why I am always loath to visit any planet which, like yours, has descending rain. Happily it never rains in either direction on the Starship Venus. 

H: Well, only in exceptional circumstances. There was that occasion in episode fifteen when we were invaded by a party of plump-breasted Weather Girls and it started raining men!

Flflff: Don’t remind me! Shall we see if Doggerel has completed his … task?

H: Affirmative.

H: That is the sound of job satisfaction.

Cooper: Shall I report to the space-lift and collect Doggerel, sir?

H: Gracious Cooper, I had quite forgotten you were here!

C: Just because I have been off-camera, and off-mike, since the middle of the last but one episode does not mean that I have ceased to exist.  I have been here all the time, just waiting for my next cue …

H: Well, yes, thank you … do, please go down to the space-lift and collect Doggerel in his basket, and report with him to briefing-room seven, the smallest briefing room in the starship, and flflff and I will meet you there.

H: Well, here we are in briefing-room three.

Flflff: Thank you for telling me that, captain.

H: My pleasure. Now Cooper, would you pop Doggerel up here on this chair, please, and open his box? Thank you. Now take out the brave pussy-cat and place him on the table … That’s it. Give him a stroke … And hold him firmly.

Doggerel: Mew.

H: Now, flflff, the Claudian probe, if you please.

Flflff: Very well, captain … I must meditate for a moment, and apply some lubricant to my finger.  Ommmm …  Ommmm … Now Rear Admiral, brace yourself.

D (shocked): Mew! 

Flflff: Doggerel, Devenish, we are becoming one … My mind has entered your behind and I am probing, delving, ferreting, our souls are opening and our minds are melding, one consciousness, one being, one intellect … I am hungry, please fetch me some dodo chunks.

H: Am I now addressing Rear Admiral Devenish?

D (through flflff): You always were, when you spoke to Doggerel, you irritating little tosser. Some would call what you have done in wresting this ship from my command mutiny!

H: Come now, pussy, a cat could hardly captain a Starship. We are doing all we can to re-unite you with your own body, and to return Doggerel’s consciousness to his, but at present the transfer is beyond our capabilities. Until we can find a way, you will have to remain a cat, and serve His Majesty as best you can in that form. 

D: Dodo chunks! Dodo chunks!

H: Cooper, would you pop down to the galley and fetch the Rear Admiral a bowl of the finest dodo chunks you can find? 

Cooper: Aye aye, captain.

H: And meanwhile, Rear Admiral, do please tell us of your adventures in the alien ship. Have you seen Greene? Is he in some dreadful dungeon? Has he been horribly tortured? We can wait no longer to know.

D: Well, as you can imagine, I entered the alien ship with some trepidation. Inside there were a great many strange odours, but many of them were pleasant – I could smell cheese, and cream, and blood, and raw meat, and something that closely resembled sparrow. There were more worrying smells too – other cats, lots of them, and unfamiliar bodies, like human bodies, but not human bodies, and gunpowder and stewed tomatoes. I could also smell Greene. Each of you humans has a particular scent which we cats can detect and recognize. Greene smells of kilts, and tartan, and shortbread, and haggis, but mostly of whisky. I began to slink along a corridor, following Greene’s odour. I ran into a bunch of short, ugly brutes who smelt of coat-hangers, but they ignored me and hurried by on their great flat feet. I later learned that these were Contradictons. I peeped round a corner and saw half a dozen cats, asleep on cushions of various colours that were piled along the walls of a corridor. I had to pass them to keep following Greene’s scent, so crept with my most dainty, silent tread. I sniffed them as I passed, and they smelt very much like earth cats, but just slightly different. They represented, I should say, an example of parallel evolution. They were a little smaller than earth cats, and all were either tabby or of a golden colour, and their tails were unusually long and lithe, but they were otherwise very much like myself. They continued to sleep soundly, several snoring, as I tiptoed past. The scent of kilts and whisky was growing stronger and then I came to a wide doorway that opened onto a vast laboratory, fully of gleaming apparatus, flashing lights and electronical sounds. There, standing at a workbench and tinkering with a machine of some description was Greene. He was hardly in a cell, but working merrily at a bench in the most well-equipped laboratory I have ever seen. Greene was humming a happy, Celtic song to himself as he worked. There was a puff of smoke and the smell of burning lavender as he soldered a little blue wire to a little green thing. I called out to him.  Mew!

Greene: Why it’s wee Doggerel. What are you doing here, laddie? I suppose you have come to rescue me?

D: I nodded.

Greene: Well, there’s no need for all that. These Epistolarians should have told you all that was afoot. I am here willingly, you know, and happy as a haggis in the mating season.

Doggerel: He nodded towards a large beaker at his elbow which contained a yellow liquid smelling remarkably like a single malt. He picked me up and sat me on the bench beside him, then told me the whole story. The alien race which had abducted him come from the planet Signus II and call them themselves the Epistolarians …

H: I don’t like the sound of that. Any alien race with the word ‘pistol’ in its name is obviously belligerent.

Doggerel: Not at all, captain. The Epistolarians do not glory in pistols, but in epistles. Theirs is one of the most technologically and culturally advanced civilizations in the galaxy. They have developed the natural, physical and medical sciences to such a level of perfection that they live in peace and comfort, and fear no other race. And they see their culture manifested in its highest form in their love of letter-writing. Although they can send messages to one another by electricity, and even by telepathy, they hold in almost theological regard the manuscript letter, written with a golden pen, using ink squeezed from a pygmy mole, upon a sheet of the finest white paper, which they fold carefully and place into beautifully crafted envelopes, sealing them with wax and elegant signets, and applying postage stamps the design of which is seen as the pinnacle of fine art on their planet. The most sought-after and well-respected profession on Signus II is that of postman and their honoured leader is known as the Postmaster General. Can you guess, Captain Hansom, Commander flflff, why the Epistolians should have taken such an interest in Chief Engineer Greene?

H: He invented a franking-machine! The best franking-machine the world has ever seen.

Doggerel: Quite so. It seems that, for all their engineering brilliance, the Epistolians could not design a franking-machine more elegant and efficient than Greene’s – which, as you know, he sacrificed a great deal to perfect! And so they came to our Chief Engineer, here on the Starship Venus, and offered him the run of their extraordinary laboratory and as much of their home-brewed malt whisky as he could drink if he would come and work for them for a few weeks to recreate his famous invention. He was naturally nervous, but they sweetened the deal with tatties and neeps, and a titanium jock-strap, specially designed, as its name suggests, to protect and support all the most valuable and vulnerable regions of an injured Scotsman. They also offered him an escape from his responsibilities aboard the Venus by promising that his place would be taken, pro tempore, by a robot so sophisticated that no one would notice his absence. How could he resist? It was like a holiday for him, with whisky on tap and what remained of his gentleman’s excuse-me safe behind a titanium shield.

H: But what about the Contradictons? They materialised on our bridge, full of threats, and had to be blazered, after flflff had tricked them into declaring that they were holding Greene prisoner in a cupboard.

Doggerel: The Epistolarians conquered the Contradictons centuries ago, and employ some of them now as caterers, cat-grooms and general factota, but they are extremely unreliable and will do more or less the opposite of whatever is asked of them. The Epistolarians are endlessly indulgent of them, and keep trying to like the Contradictons, believing that showing them kindness and trust will make them better aliens. But progress has been very slow. The three you encountered had been asked by the Epistolarians, very politely, to use their powers of teleportation to deliver a beautifully crafted letter to Captain Hansom, telling him that Greene was safe and would soon be returned to the bosom of the ship. They had detected, you see, that the robot Greene had been recognized as a replacement – they were hoping not to trouble us at all with his temporary removal, but had failed to understand his flaws – flaws which arguably make up the greater part of his engineering genius, but which they did not programme into his robot self. However, the Contradictons, who materialized on the bridge of the Venus evidently delivered a message rather different from that intended, and it sounds as if flflff contradicted them into boasting that they were holding Greene prisoner in a cupboard, which was not quite the truth. They found themselves blazered into oblivion for their pains, which serves them jolly well right for their disingenuous bravado and deficiencies in the departments of both the wit and wisdom.

Greene told me that his franking-machine was only about half made, so that he would need another two days at least in the Epistolarians workshop. He took a long swig of whisky-substitute immediately after he said it, and I caught his meaning. I felt the need for sleep then – ever since I have been a cat I have been tremendously sleepy – and settled down on the workbench while Greene returned to his spicy soldering. After an hour or so I was woken by being gently tickled between the shoulder-blades, and found myself looking up into the face of my first Epistolarian. It was a pale face, large, but not unpleasing, and somehow half human, as if an actor were wearing some sort of rubbery additions about his cheeks and brow. He had very human eyes, and greeted me in English, telling me what a handsome fellow I was – which I know, already, of course – and remarking my impressive size and colour. Black cats are unknown on Signus II, all the native pussies being some variation of marmalade, brindle or tawny, and I was, the alien told me, a most remarkable and beautiful specimen. He told me too that his name was Englebert. I later learned that the Epistolarian language is partly telepathic, so that the noises they make can be understood by any sentient being. Which is … handy. Englebert took me in his arms and carried me very gently to a large room where there were many other cats, lounging around, cleaning themselves primly, or sound asleep on plump cushions. The scents of the other cats disturbed me somewhat, but they seemed like an indifferent bunch and I concluded that they posed me no threat. The Epistolarian set me down on the floor then passed to a shining machine which he tapped a few buttons upon the face of before opening a small hatch and drawing out a golden bowl. I knew from the odour immediately what was in it. Liver. He placed the delicious mess before me and I quickly swallowed it down and mewed for more. Englebert returned to the machine and called forth a second bowl, this time containing something even more tasty. The most delectable part of a little bird is its ballocks. But they are tiny, and only the cock bird has them and you do not know until long after you have killed the bird whether it will, in fact, have any ballocks. But what I found before me in the golden bowl was two enormous bird testicles. The smell was divine. I hesitated to imagine the sparrow from which they had come, and was glad indeed I did not have to kill it myself. While I set too, entering a kind of ecstasy as I swallowed the delicious meat, my new friend sat down at one of the long tables in the room and took out a golden pen and some very white paper. “I must write to my auntie,” he said. “And tell her all about the beautiful black cat I have met. Now I wonder, what shall I call him.” At this I mewed, as best I could with my mouth full of testicle, “My name is Devenish”.  It turns out that Epistolarians’ hearing is also partly telepathic – which is handy – so he understood me perfectly. “Devenish,” he said. “What a charming name.” and set to work with his pen.

When I had finished the meat I cleaned my paws and whiskers and then began to lick my back. After some time I felt I had completed the task, and looked up again at Englebert. He had finished his letter now, and was peering down at me with the envelope in his hand. “Why don’t you have a little kip, Devenish?” he asked, gesturing towards a plump and unoccupied scarlet pillow. “And when you wake, I will tickle your ears and give you some more sweetbreads”. I occupied the cushion and settled down to sleep. As I began to doze I turned over in my mind the question of my future. I had intended to find Greene and report back to the Starship Venus, where I would resume my life as the ship’s cat, albeit with the mind of a Rear Admiral. I had my duty, even as a cat. But now I was tempted by the Epistolarian ship, where cats were treated with great civility and gentleness, fed with delicious meaty bird-parts, and mouse-parts too for all I knew, and were allowed to sleep on cushions at absolute liberty … What awaited me aboard the Venus? Another bowl of dodo-chunks, and flflff’s finger ... I had half made up my mind to defect to the Epistolarians when sleep overtook me and I was drawn into the world of dreams.

Since being a cat I have found my dreams evolving, from those of a man – you know the sort of thing I mean – being pursued by a naked Oscar Wilde across a rickety wooden bridge, which was also on fire – looking down and realizing that I too was naked, or trouserless and underpantless at least, and then looking up to realize I was on stage in one of Mr Wilde’s comedies without any idea of which part I was playing or what my lines might be – entering a passage which narrowed and dwindled before me so that I became stuck in its jaws as I pressed forward, trying desperately to escape the giant crab which I knew to be at my back – bursting at last into the ladies’ clothing department of Marks and Spencer, where a hundred beautiful lady shop-assistants in scanty outfits were laughing and pointing at me as I realised I was standing at the foot of the guillotine, or upon the step of an enormous electric-chair, sparking and thrumming in the half light – you know the sort thing. Well those dreams have gradually given way to others, to the dreams of a cat. I see a bird. I chase the bird. The bird gets away. I see a mouse. I chase the mouse. The mouse gets away. I see another bird. I chase the bird … That’s about the sum of a cat’s dreams and, frankly, I have been glad to leave behind all those visions of late nineteenth century dramatists of the aesthetic persuasion, giant crabs, shop-girls, electric chairs and the like. I was dreaming of a bird. I was chasing the bird. I had almost caught it in my nimble paws when I awoke to see before me the most beautiful, perfect, alluring creature I had ever seen. She looked like a cat, but she was not a cat – I knew that because her scent was wrong – she smelt not of claws and hunger, but of warm diodes and stale haggis – but me oh my, how she looked! I could not have imagined a more delightful, a more desirable beauty. I had to have her! 

The rest you know, gentlemen. I pursued that vision of feline beauty as she fled before me, dodging and weaving like the bird I had just dreamed I was chasing. But my hunger was so much greater now, and several times I nearly caught the fleeing creature. I knew, of course, that I was being manipulated. But I could not resist. The false enchantress sped away from me, and I sped after her. Out, out through the catflap and onto the surface of the moon, and thence into the lift, where the door closed at once, and I had that perfect queen to myself. I will not tell you gentlemen, what she and I did in that lift in those few minutes. I will never forget it, and I will never forget her, and, though I know she is but a simulacrum of a cat, I cannot but believe that she too will always remember the sweetness of our lovemaking. (Long sigh).

Now here I am, returned to the Starship Venus, somewhat against my will, and crouching with flflff’s finger where no finger should ever be. Perhaps now that you have your story, you might instruct him to remove it, Captain.

H: Before I do so, Doggerel, I wish to ask a question or two. You have explained the link between the Epistolarians and the Contradictons, but our scanners also picked up traces of a sentient vegetable on that ship. We feared it was a Garlick!

Doggerel: Mew!

H: Well might you mew, and glance around like that. But have no fear, pussy-cat, there are no Garlicks here. But is one of those most unpalatable of aliens aboard the Epistolarian ship?

Doggerel: No, Captain. I saw a sentient vegetable among the Epistolarians. It was not a Garlick, but one of the hairy carnivorous turnips which inhabit the planet Beta Tauri. The Epistolarians were attempting to domesticate it, and were feeding it on the same delicious bird-parts with which they tempted me – but the turnip remained wild, and ran around the ship farting, belching, swearing and singing out of tune, something the Epistolarians find particularly objectionable, so that they ended up confining it to quarters and enforcing a strict regime of vocal coaching and piano lessons.

H: Do hairy carnivorous turnips have fingers then?  

Doggerel: Of course. How else could they pluck from the Beta Tauri skies the yellow stormbirds on which they usually dine? They are very dextrous … for vegetables.

H: Ah Cooper. I had quite forgotten you existed. What do you have there?

Cooper: A bowl of dodo-chunks for Doggerel, sir, as you requested.

H: Oh yes.  Thank you.  One final question, Doggerel, before Cooper serves up your chunks.  How long did you say Greene would remain a … guest of the Epistolarians? 

Doggerel: He is, I think, rather dawdling in his work to recreate his franking-machine, as he is enjoying the run of the aliens’ very well-equipped laboratory, and the bottomless glass of synthetic Scotch with which they have supplied him.  But I don’t imagine he could hang the work out for more than a day or two more.

C: Do we really want him back, sir? The robot Greene is so much more congenial a fellow. He never sweats, or swears, or steps on my toes when we are dancing.

H: Shame on you, Cooper. Greene is, for all his faults, a human being, like you and I, and we must welcome him back into the company of his fellow men, for all his failings in personal hygiene and dancefloor etiquette.

Doggerel: Captain, would you mind asking Flflff to remove his finger?

H: Of course. Flflff, please …

Fl (initially with Devenish’s voice): Ohhh, that’s better … Hmmm. Captain, the Claudian probe is a very … personal thing for we Claudians.  It is fundamental to our being, and when we engage in it we are, as it were, opened up – our souls are laid bare, and we must spend some time in meditation in order to recover our equilibrium. With your permission, sir, I will retire to my quarters to meditate … and to wash my finger.

H: Of course. And thank you, flflff, for your professional conduct in this intimate matter.

That’s the way, Doggerel, tuck into your dodo-chunks!

D (with his mouth full): Sod you.

Greene: Captain, I’m back!

H: Greene, is that you, not your robot double?

G: Ay sir, it’s me, I have completed my franking machine, and the Epistolarians have transported me back to you.  And look at these!

H: Greene … What are you doing?  I do not wish to see … those.

G: Those clever aliens have replaced what I lost all those years ago in that terrible accident in my franking laboratory! Look how they wobble!

H: Please … put them away.

G: Oh, aye sir, I will put them away. Just as soon as I have shown them to every living soul on the ship. Look, they’re better, and bigger, than ever. And they are fully robotic! And plated in gold, so I will never have to wash them again!

H: So I see!  Well, they are … lovely.

G: Look at them wobble! Look at them!

H: And so now we finish this serial 

Our writers and actors, grown weary’ll 

Now rest for a bit And pray for the wit 

To make the next plot seem to be real

It’s not for a want of material 

Or due to infections, bacterial 

That we must end here 

The story, I fear

Just ran out – here’s some music, ethereal

Ha: What extraordinary creatures and cultures will the crew of the Starship Venus encounter in its next adventure? Will Doctor Hopper and Nurse Lovely be able to treat a case of Lobelian mump, the largest mump known to medical science, when it breaks out among the altos in the choir? Will Chief Engineer Greene’s electro-testicles prove to be more trouble than they are worth? Join me, Captain Hansom, to find out, in next week’s new and flabbergasting episode of The Venus Probe.

DM: I withdrew the trumpet from my ear. Certain feelings had been stirred by hearing this episode of The Venus probe, which I remembered well from my student days, fifty years previously. While I still entertained a lingering doubt about the propriety of using the trumpet for mere entertainment, two other sentiments had crept into my skull and were kneading at my cerebral hemispheres. One was guilt, not so much for having used the trumpet for pleasure-seeking, but for having allowed it to distract me from my great work, the unravelling the mystery of the Codex assinorum. The other was a sudden sense of concern and affection for my own dear Doggerel, having heard so much of his namesake. In short, I was missing my cat. I determined that I would, come the morning, leave the Duodecimo Club and return to Noxford and to Timor Mortis College to resume my studies in the Fellows’ Library, and to renew my acquaintance with a certain sharp-toothed gentleman in black.

Announcer: That was The adventures of Donald McQueen, bibliographer. Today’s chapter was sponsored by the Bibliographical Society of London, and by Gruber’s finest tomato ketchup, guaranteed to be the sauce of all knowledge and wisdom. It was written and performed by Paul W. Nash.

Next time in The adventures of Donald McQueen, bibliographer.

Earnest voice: This is Seckersen, the musical dog.

Seckersen is the only dog in the world who can both compose music, and play the piano.

But Seckersen has fallen upon hard times. Once he composed all those pathetic piano tunes which, coupled with an appeal made in the most earnest and condescending tones, attempted to pluck unbearably at your heartstrings.

Remember all those advertisements? Look at that starving donkey, dog, cat or child! Look at that shivering child, cat, dog or donkey! Look at Seckersen, see how thin he has grown, how he shivers, how his beard is matted and seething with vermin. He is so weak he can barely play the piano.

Seckersen has not had a commission for months. The charities say ‘we have all the plinky-plonky piano music we need’ or else they say ‘we are moving on, and using string arrangements instead’!

Seckersen urgently needs your help. Do you run a charity which wishes to affect the tender-hearted with a combination of a patronizing voice-over and some dreadful, heart-wrenching music? If so, please send Seckersen a commission, how ever small. Even a single arpeggio would help. Without your help, Seckersen, the musical dog, will have to take up the banjo!

This episode of The adventures of Donald McQueen, bibliographer is dedicated to the memory of Piranesi, the black cat who was, in many ways, the model for both of the  Doggerels in these adventures.