Never again

La Belle ÉpoQue

    ¿Que?

Under Erasure
Under Attack
Attack at dawn
Dawn to dusk
And back again

Never again

Never say never again (again).

    (Sorry.)

Joyeux party

And when you see the Abomination of Desolation set up where it ought not to be then you will know –
        it's
                Noel's House Party

Lovely.

    Joyeux Party
    Joyeux Noël
    Pumpkin Poo
    Aled Jones
    Cavorting Cowpats
    Beadle's Aberk
    Oom Pa Pa
    Grunge Mincely
    Paris in the Boing

Aardvarkiana fulminata

Next week – raked greens and how to append them.

But first, the garden. How does it grow? Here's our wobbling correspondent, Bill Gardenrollerwithrottingmossonit. Bill...

(syrup of horse)

"Good evening and welcome to another packed edition of Aardvark monthly, in which we investigate aardvarkiana. But first – Wilfred the wombat. Or not." The Legio XIV Fulminata advanced on the city.

Snar snarrr biddle de koow

Later this evening, we will be talking to Johnny Ball, who has been a non-Indo-European language for eight months now but was able to recall this interview.

Q. How does it feel, as I'm sure everyone's dying to ask, to be a non-Indo-European language?

[Everyone dies, offstage]

JB. Gno'bbsk aaah tiktik. Greee dddzaby zaby. Great.

Q. So – are there any problems?

JB. Well, it gets pretty boring at weekends, but Tuesdays are good.

Q. Why is that?

JB. I've always liked them. I imagine them small and blue, with lots of feet and hands. And even at weekends, I tell myself "This is more fun than paintball or being Bernard Matthews." I used to play monopoly.

Q. So – goodbye and thank you.

JB. Snar snarrr biddle de koow.

Random people

Tonight on "Wasting Time" we asked a randomly selected group of people "What first drew you to become a randomly selected group of people?" Brian (not his real name) told us: "Well, of course, being a randomly selected group of people, we had never met! But one day I picked up the telephone directory, opened the phone and called Shirley (not his real name). I asked him whether he would like to become part of a randomly selected group of people, and he said 'Piss off.' I reminded him that he would be a genuine representative of a minority group if he wore women's clothes. He said 'When do we start?'"

Not sleeves

Perhaps the most authentic recording is that of Scubi with the Plovdiv piano players, accompanied by the Tomsk Tractor Drivers (on the pianoes – now sadly crushed). Their moving rendition (of the pianists) is well recorded, and the only complaint is the ungenerous lay-out of the recordings: for a piece 72' (more on weekdays) long, 3 CD's are used. This in itself would be bad value, but combined with the 2 "free" tractors and 5 hectares of rainforest, and retailing at $20001, this really is just a collector's item.

Lastly there is the radical version of Vladimir Vladikovsky with the Radical Symphony Auditor and the Ankara amateur accountants. This is certainly the most competitive recording, though is spoiled somewhat by the inexplicable garotting of the entire cast and crew only five minutes after the beginning. This has minimal impact on the interpretation, which is distributed on two CD's and a grapefruit (or a lemon in France).

The first choice thus remains the pioneering recording of the Orlando amateur party-goers, with its inspired coupling of the piece with Bluov's Concerto for vacuum cleaner da gamba and goat.

Sleeve notes

Show-wadi(wadi). Collected works for oboe and string vest.

Several versions of this ambitious and lengthy work have been brought out recently. The work was originally commissioned by the BBC for the signature tune for Come Dancing, but was drastically expanded to form a War Requiem, doubling as a fridge-freezer on weekends. Its first performance came on a Sunday night, unfortunately, and the disappointed audience reacted badly to gannets on sticks rather than a Requiem. Further revision of the work was undertaken until it emerged in its final form – a good four stone lighter and "fighting fit".

The most satisfactory version of this piece is that recorded by the LSO under Dorati, though it was recorded in 1956, four years before the final revision, and regrettably on a Sunday (q.v.). Hence this version can only be recommended to freaky ice-cream lovers. But it's still better than the music.