156. ✒️ A letter to Terry: reply #24-13

Vanishing voices, a map designed for going around in circles, and the omission of a l*tt*r from parts of this l*tt*r.

Photo by Waldemar on Unsplash

In which Rebecca enjoys listening to a creature feature, wonders how much more lost on the Tube its new map might get her, and shares a lipogrammatical story from a subscriber.

✒️

This is the latest letter in my regular, informal correspondence with Substacker and fellow Brit Terry Freedman, in which we take turns every other Wednesday to delve into the things that British people talk about the most. So that you can explore these unashamed clichés for yourself we’re inviting you to read our letters over our shoulders.

My next ‘Dear Reader, I’m lost’ post will be published on Saturday.

Dear Terry,

Many thanks for your recent letter, in which you claimed the recent meeting between us and our spouses was ‘spoilt’ by you and Elaine having been ‘the victims of photobombing’ while you were waiting for your train home. Photobombing? Terry, you have been featured in street art! Okay, platform art – but honestly, talk about ungrateful… 🙄

Here’s the picture, in case anyone reading this over our shoulders missed it in your letter last week:

This picture by Jim Holden was posed by models.

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The weather has improved in these parts since your letter arrived. Summer is here, and I’m hoping it sticks around for more than a couple of days. Mind you, by the time this letter arrives with you we’ll be well into the second half of the astronomical year, and we’ll soon be complaining that it’s cold and that the nights are drawing in.

When the world outside was still grey, wet and cold¹ a couple of Saturdays ago, the Telegraph published this letter to the editor, which made me feel a little more grateful for the shocking excuse for an English summer than I had been previously:

Terry, I’m glad to report that today is at last warm and sunny, and this morning on the ‘Today’ programme on BBC Radio 4 I heard a fascinating story about the reduction in insect activity due to changing climate conditions, and a corresponding shrinking of sounds heard in nature.

Composer and clarinettist Karen Wimhurst explained that during lockdown she had taken her clarinet to a meadow on the banks of the River Stour to make music.

It was at this spot… when I came down and every blade of grass was covered with grasshoppers. I’d never seen anything like it here – or again, actually. Lockdown was on the one hand a very bleak time but on the other hand it gave nature space. And these crickets have been singing for 300 million years and they’ve got this kind of rhythm and repetition and structure which we all associate with music.

Transcript of an excerpt from Today on BBC Radio 4, June 24, 2024

Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash

Concerned by the impact of environmental change on the sounds of nature Karen has composed Jump, in which she has combined recordings of insects and other creatures with the music of her clarinet. I’ve linked the trailer below, and I hope you’ll find it as fascinating and delightful as I do.

BBC arts radio correspondent David Sillitoe had introduced the story with these words:

When you’re offered a chance to wander down to a Dorset riverbank and listen to a duet between a clarinet and a cricket, you say ‘yes’.

Terry, as a musician yourself, I that expect you too might have been tempted by this invitation!

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I saw a blog post last week about the circular version of the London Tube map now being available to purchase as a poster from the London Transport Museum.

Now, I hadn’t heard of this all-new and completely bonkers variation on Harry Beck’s iconic map of the Underground which had graced platform billboards earlier this year, but here’s what it’s all about:

The temporary redesign champions the new Circle to Search with Google feature – a new feature on the Samsung Galaxy S24 smartphone, where users can search for anything shown on their phone screen without switching apps. Yes, it’s an advert, but also one that’s a bit playful with an iconic element of the London Underground and at least the service being promoted has a suitable tie-in with the way it’s been promoted on the Tube.

Taken from IanVisits.co.uk

Members of the public can now get hold of their own copy of the map to put up on the wall, but blogger Ian Mansfield cautions:

Depending on their reaction, this could either be a cool present, or maybe the moment you trigger someone into crying when they see how the classic Tube map has been twisted out of shape.

I shan’t be putting it on my Christmas list, Terry – I get lost enough on the Tube with the actual Tube map in front of me. 🙄

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You know that not long ago I took a class which you taught? I still find writing with constraints a total blast, and look: my brilliant sub Jill thinks so too! In this story

Jill

² honours a tasty common foodstuff, two portions of which I scoff from a spoon at around 7.30am daily. (Oh, and bonus points if you spot the lipogram that’s common both to Jill’s story and this paragraph!)

OVOID

It is round but not circular. It has a carcass that traps its soft mass but, amorphous, this will not last. Smash its crust and it has no form. It spills, flat and sticky, without constraint or boundary.

I cook with oil, a fry-up of a sunny morning. On toast, it has no rival. It wants for nothing. Luxury is dipping crunchy nubs of sourdough in thick yolk.

Truly, this is how you should start your day: today, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, with a similarly satisfying, rich and nutritious nothing.

🙌 🙌 🙌

I was interested to read in your letter that you’re reading Winter Journeys by Georges Perec, as it’s one of the books which you’d recommended to students on your course. I’ve added The Penguin Book of Oulipo to my own wishlist, but for now my daily reading is transporting me to the early nineteenth century. I’m enjoying Jane Austen’s Persuasion, but now that I’m a third of the way through it I’m wishing that I’d been making a list of its many characters right from the start, because I’m finding it more and more difficult to keep track of them all! I think I’ll be picking a rather less challenging read for my next book.

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Terry, I loved your crossword clue:

What an incredulous person might say to a campanologist?
(4, 3, 5, 3, 3, 3, 5, 2)

I have to say that for once I managed to solve this one very quickly – it’s one of those British English idioms which ‘if you know, you know’!

I know that the solution is a figure of speech because the clue contains the words ‘what a person might say’. A campanologist is a bell ringer, and an idiom relevant to campanology which can be used to convey incredulity is this:

Pull the other one – it’s got bells on!³

Terry, it’s your turn! With a general election looming I have chosen a political theme, and I have taken this clue from The Telegraph’s book of 50-50 Crosswords, Volume 1:

Disapprove of PM interrupting cheer from the back (8)

Have fun!

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Right, now that’s the politics side of things dealt with, how are you with the football, Terry? I saw a terrific cartoon in the paper last week which sums up beautifully the concurrence of the UEFA European Football Championship (the Euros) and the televised political campaigning in the run-up to the election. The results of both competitions are to be determined early next month. I haven’t reproduced the cartoon here for copyright reasons, so please accept my description of it in lieu:

Husband and wife sit on sofa watching telly. Wife, holding remote control, asks husband, ‘Do you want to shout at politicians or footballers?’

🤣

All the very best,

Rebecca

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If you’ve enjoyed reading this letter to Terry, please let me know by clicking the heart. Thank you! My next ‘Dear Reader, I’m lost’ post will be published on Saturday.

You’ll find the rest of my letters in this series by clicking the ‘Letters to Terry’ tab on the top bar of my home page. Terry and I take it in turns to write to each other on alternate Wednesdays, and I really enjoy our light-hearted correspondence! You can access both Terry’s letters and mine using the index below:

An epistolary index: Letters to Terry

Check out Terry's fabulous newsletter, and to make sure you don’t miss his reply to this letter next week, why not subscribe?

Last but not least, do please share and subscribe for free! Thank you!

1. The brilliant

Jen Zug

of

Pretend You're Good At It

recently described this time of year – and state of the weather – as ‘June-uary’.

A Pandemic Era Wicked Twig Spell

2.

Jill

of

Life Litter

had shared ‘Ovoid’ with me in her comment on my recent post about writing with constraints, and I have reproduced it here with her kind permission. Thanks, Jill!

3. If you haven’t come across this phrase before, it’s a reference to the idiom ‘you’re pulling my leg’. To pull someone’s leg means to tell them something that is false, usually as a joke. ‘Pull the other one – it’s got bells on!’ is generally given as a jokey response by someone who believes that what they’re hearing is false. It means ‘I know that’s not true – you’re pulling my leg’.