Sunday 3 November 2013

A Lamentation for the Loss of a Pot of Honey at an Airport

Voice of the Fates: Woe, for Osama has won! Osama has won! 

Voice of the Ages: For Richard Dawkins has lost his little pot of honey.

Leader: Tell it not in Jericho, announce it not in Port Meadow.

All: For the mighty has been brought low. From a watery grave, Bin Laden's hand has grasped a pot of honey from the Clever One.

Voice of the Ages: Vanity, vanity - all is vanity.

Leader: And now how shall Richard eat his toast?

All: Dry! Dry! 

Leader: With what shall he make mead?

All: He can't! And even if he could, would it not be confiscated? For is not mead always an unclean substance that the eyes of the air stewards cannot see, and a stench unto the customs officers' nostrils?

Leader: And did they not know who he is?

All: The scoundrels drag him down to the dirt of dundridge - he who once said a terribly witty thing to a fellow-don at High Table [see his books, passim].

Leader: And so the plot hatched in Bin Laden's heart, that one day, a zoologist would be unable to take a pot of honey on to a plane to gladden his heart with mellifluous sweetness, was achieved. And now only two of Osama's ambitions are left unto him:

All: To get chickens excluded from the railways, and to banish chewing gum from the streets of London.

Leader: But one thing, and just one, now puzzles my heart: If Osama has won....

All: Then where, and how, is he celebrating? 

7 comments :

  1. It's just occurred to me that his i-phone might have supplied 'dundridges' to replace some more commonplace (for Dawkins) insult like 'dunce' or 'dunderhead'. :D

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    1. I gather 'dundrdige' is a Dawkins coinage. I hope the people of Dundridge sue him :D

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    2. It's not. He stole it from Tom Sharpe (see Blott on the Landscape).

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    3. "Stole" is a little unfair. "Popularised" might be nicer.

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  2. So, no land flowing wiv milk and honey for RD?

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  3. It's a conspiracy to protect his teeth, that's what it is. He should be grateful.

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  4. Obviously an ingenious PR "honey trap", for Christian commentators ;)

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