171. ✒️ A letter to Terry: reply #24-18

Your resemblance to ‘Just William’, how to solve the Rubik’s cube, and some short and snappy reviews.

Photo by Julien Photo on Unsplash

In which Rebecca admires Terry’s new profile pic, reveals her ignorance around 3D puzzles and summarises 199 pages of a favourite childhood read in just six words.

✒️

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,

Thank you for your recent letter, in which you had omitted the expressions ‘Typical’ and ‘I know my rights’, and asked me to work out where I think you should have put them. An impossible task, I’m afraid. These days I am so familiar with your writing that even when reading fast I see those two expressions at least twice in every one of your sentences, whether they are present or not.

👦🏻 Your new image

I like your ‘new’ profile picture, Terry (deliberate inverted commas, as it is clearly taken from the archives). Do you remember the ‘Just William’ books by Richmal Crompton? Well, you resemble Thomas Henry’s terrific cover illustration, although I’m glad to see that 8-year-old Terry looks rather less unkempt than the 11-year-old ‘outlaw’ of Crompton’s stories.

I would encourage you – and anyone else reading this letter over our shoulders – to have a look at this Wikipedia entry for Just William. Your resemblance to the illustration is uncanny!

💡 Clever names for clue setters

I appreciate your review of the crossword clue I’d sent you last time, and grudgingly accept acknowledge the reasons you have given for it not being the zenith of clue setting I had felt it had represented.

I was very interested to read about the names which crossword setters give themselves: you’d shared the examples Ximenes and Azed. The delightful chap responsible for compiling the crossword in our parish magazine was called Tribulare, and your letter has prompted me to look up what this Latin word means.

It turns out that tribulare is the inflected form of the verb tribulo, meaning ‘to exact dues or payment’, ‘to press or squeeze’, or ‘to trouble’, making it a fitting name for the writer of such challenging clues. I thoroughly enjoyed his crossword every month – but never managed to finish it!

🤯 Cube conundrum

I’ve been having a think as to why I enjoy tackling crosswords so much, even though I’m not terribly accomplished at solving them. I think I enjoy 2D ‘thinking’ puzzles rather than the inconvenience of an object to scratch my head with (metaphorically, I mean – I don’t actually scratch my head with the object, because that would just be silly).

When I was a child my brother and I were each given a Rubik’s Cube, and in no time at all I had turned the perfect sides of mine into an untidy mess of colours in all the wrong places. As you know, I enjoy order, not chaos, and, well, I’d wrecked the thing immediately.

Rubik cube, by theilr. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence.

I took it to show Mum and Dad. ‘It’s broken. I can’t do it. Can you?’ Some thoughtful head-scratching ensued. ‘Well, we could have a go, I suppose,’ said Dad, ‘but I expect it’ll take both of us a very, very long time.

Early next morning¹ I found my Rubik’s Cube in perfect condition on the shelf at the top of the stairs.

‘Thank you!’ I gasped, as I went into my parents’ bedroom.

A few comments were made about the very late night they’d both had, trying every combination of move to get all of those coloured squares back into the correct formation. I was on my best behaviour for at least half a day, conscious of how very tired they must be after that long task.

💤

A friend at university was an absolute wizard at the Cube, and would always have his with him, impressing everyone with how quickly he could return it to six sides of solid colour.

‘My parents were brilliant at this!’ I told him that they would always fix mine, and that they’d stay up all night to do it.

He stared at me, then nudged a corner piece upwards with his thumb, separating it from the body of the cube.

‘What are you doing?’ I was horrified.

Within seconds he had a pile of parts in front of him, and no sooner had he finished dismantling the cube than it was back together again with six perfect sides.

‘Hate to tell you this, Rebecca…’ he said slowly.

🙄

✏️ Six-word reviews

Terry, you and I have – to my considerable relief – agreed to leave to one side our habit of flinging ever-more complicated cryptic crossword clues at each other, and to share six-word reviews of books and films instead.

This came about as a result of the fabulous challenge which you’d set for readers of

Eclecticism: Reflections on literature, writing and life

, and this follow-up post, in which you shared the results.

Well, Jim’s come up with this terrific review of a 1975 Spielberg creature feature:

🎬 Scary fish movie needs bigger boat.

My contribution is a review of a book which I enjoyed immensely as a teenager. Two films have been based on the novel: one animated, one live-action.

📚 Kidnap plot spotted: rescue mission. Barking!

Can you identify the titles to which these miniature reviews relate?

🦇 Batgate

In my letter I’d told you that Jim and I had once encountered a bat swooping from the rafters of the hotel room we were staying in, and in your reply you asked me how we’d caught it. Caught it? Why? For a start, we were already in bed, and the bat wasn’t bothering us, nor was it in any distress. For all we knew it was a long-term resident of the guesthouse.

Here’s the video of our roommate again:

Our room was high-ceilinged with lots of nooks and crannies, and dark oak beams spanning the walls. To be honest I’m surprised we only saw the one bat, because there were bound to be others lurking in the dark. We opened the curtains a little in case it wanted to fly out of the open window, but didn’t try to evict it ourselves.

I rescued a tiny pipistrelle bat from our bedroom at home a few summers ago. It had flown in through a window and got tangled up in one of the curtains. It had fallen to the floor and was flopping about helplessly until I very gently picked it up and let it fly back outside. Its furry body was so, so soft, and I was struck by how fast its heart was beating – I could feel a constant throb rather than separate ticks. Its wings were extraordinary: thin as clingfilm, and very soft and warm. I still treasure the memory of that encounter.

🚿 Psycho

Terry, I’m still psyching myself up to watch your Hitchcock film recommendation. I know the iconic music from the shower scene, and I remember once reading that the ‘blood’ shown draining down the plughole was actually chocolate sauce. I guess one could get away with a lot when shooting in black-and-white. 👀

Warning: Do not eat chocolate sauce in the shower. You’ll end up with a scene from a horror film.

📮 Delayed delivery

I was tickled to find this news story about a postcard which Royal Mail delivered over 120 years after it had been posted! I mean, we had some delays during the last postal strike (a time we still refer to as ‘that Christmas when our cards arrived in late January’), but this is ridiculous!

Screenshot taken from the BBC News website

I hope this letter of mine gets to you in decent time, Terry!

All the very best, as ever,

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

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1. …and on very many mornings after that!