Thursday Interview: Grand Old Duke of York

Now, you have 10,000 men, Grand Old Duke, and you’ve been marching them about a lot recently. Can you tell me about it?

Certainly. It was the hill behind the barracks that first drew my attention. An excellent place to march the men, I thought, make a change from the square-bashing. Up to the top and down again. Apart from a few minor incidents, it was a great success.

But a bit pointless, surely? Not much different from square-bashing.

Which itself isn’t pointless at all. Keeps ’em fit and disciplined, for a start. But going up the hill is even better – gives ’em a sense of achievement when they get to the top. And there was also a specific purpose behind it. You see, we knew very well that when they were down, they were down, and we had a strong suspicion that when they were up, they were up. But no one knew where they’d be when they were only half way up. Thanks to my expedition, we now know they were neither up nor down.

Well, that’s quite a discovery! Will it have any practical application?

Indeed it will. The nature of warfare is changing. We have good reason to believe that the enemy is neither here nor there, but until now we had no way to counter that. Being neither up nor down will give us a huge advantage.

I see. And what does that mean in concrete terms?

An intermediary position between lying down and standing up. In other words, we waddle. The enemy will be utterly confused.

Sounds… original, shall we say? And your men are with you on this?

There’s been a bit of insubordination. A few of them saying that if they waddle, they’ll be sitting ducks. But one has to expect any innovative idea to meet resistance at first. It’s nothing a decent flogging won’t sort out.

Hmm… Now, I don’t want to appear disrespectful, Old Duke – after all, you’re the second son of King George III – but it’s been whispered that your military tactics are totally up the chute. Your Flanders campaign was pretty disastrous and –

Why, you impudent little scallywag, how dare you? Lucky for you you’re not in the army! Out of my sight forthwith!

The interview thus came to a premature end as the Prince chased me round the room, sword drawn, before tripping over the carpet and skewering his butler as he fell. 

Thursday Interview: Peter Piper

http://www.earthwise-gardens.com/

Now, Peter, you’ve probably been told that this is an interview, but in fact it’s more of an interrogation. You’re in a spot of bother, I’m afraid.

Why? I ain’t done nothing.

Well, that’s for the police to decide. Because the fact is, you picked a peck of pickled peppers and nobody knows where it is. If you can provide a satisfactory explanation, you’ll be fine. Now, where have those peppers gone?

Dunno.

You don’t know? A whole peck of peppers? Let me remind you, Peter, that’s 554 cubic inches we’re talking about. You can fit a lot of peppers into that. Now, would you like to tell me exactly what happened?

I was just… Me and this bloke George, we were going into town, see, and there was this field of peppers and, well, me and pickled peppers – I can’t resist ’em, know what I mean? So I started to pick a few, just what would go in my pocket, enough for a jar, like, no more than that, honest. But then George said if we picked a whole peck, we could sell it.

Right. Well, it so happens that those peppers belonged to Farmer Giles and he’s hopping mad. So I’d like to know a bit more. This George fellow – friend of yours, is he?

No. Only just met him.

Got a surname for us?

Porgie.

Right. Thought as much. We’ve had our eye on him for a while. He’s been making the girls cry.  And now you’re saying he’s a pepper thief too.

Yeah. Nothing to do with me. I told you.

Well, thank you for being so cooperative, Peter, but there are just a couple of problems. Firstly, Georgie Porgie ran away last week when some boys came out to play – before the peppers were picked. Secondly, we have a witness, Tommy Tucker, who was singing in Market Street when he saw you walk past lugging a peck of peppers. Now it won’t take me long to get a search warrant, but I’m thinking you’ll want to spare me the bother and tell me where those pickled peppers are.

Yeah, well, I, uh… I swapped them.

What?

I met this girl, see. She was selling sea shells on the sea shore, so I –

Peter, that’s not going to work, I’m afraid. We’ve spoken to her already…

Thursday Interview: Miss Muffet

– Well, you’re not so little anymore, but I think we can safely say you’re the world’s most famous arachnophobe. Do you still get as scared as ever?

– I’ve made progress.  After my initial trauma, I was unable to go into a room unless it had been thoroughly vacuumed, but exposure therapy helped me. Nowadays the house gets vacuumed every other day, but when I first moved in with my husband, Jack, we had to pay someone to do it non stop. I’m still not entirely cured, though. I don’t think one ever is. The best we can do is confront the trauma and make it something familiar. If we try to deny it, we finish by getting swamped.

– And you’re trying to help others now.

–  Yes, I set up Fight That Fright six years ago to help people get to grips with their fear of spiders. Since then we’ve branched into other phobias too, but spiders are still the one I get asked about most. It can be a real handicap sometimes. One woman told me she avoided groups of four people because they have eight legs. And we’ve had to edit a brochure to send out to people who are too anxious to use the World Wide Web.

– You’re a successful businesswoman too. How did that come about?

– I started Miss Muffet’s Curds’n’Whey a couple of years ago as a hobby, just supplying a couple of local shops, but it’s done so well I’ve already got six staff. We’ve kept it very traditional, though. The milk comes straight from our own herd, only slightly pasteurised to get past the hygiene inspectors. In itself it’s somewhat bland, of course, so we’ve developed a range of natural fruit accompaniments. We’ll soon be adding mango and papaya. Jack’s been in the food business much longer than me, starting out with Jack Horner’s Original Plum Pie twenty years ago, but Miss Muffet’s turnover is closing on his quite fast. People sometimes ask how we can work in the same field without getting all competitive, but it’s actually very stimulating. We meet up for lunch and discuss new ideas. And in fact my curd goes so well with his pie it’s as if we were made for each other.

– One thing everyone wants to know about is the tuffet, which is either a stool or a tuft of grass. You’ve gone on record as saying you’re too traumatised to remember what you were sitting on, but surely you have some idea?

– Ah, you’re not going to draw me on that one! I’m honorary President of the Tuffet Association and it can be awfully stressful at times – the two main branches get so bitchy with each other. They’ve appealed to me to settle the argument, but it would probably start a war!

– Any take home message for our readers?

– We all have fears. But if you draw from all available resources, both within yourself and from others, you’ll find what you need to overcome them.