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A word of preliminary explanation
The Edinburgh branch of the Campaign for Real Ale publishes a small magazine that’s given away free in the more right-minded pubs, called Pints of View.
It’s an unpretentious, businesslike affair, informing the bewildered toper about outlets where beer can be purchased that doesn’t taste like vinegar diluted with petrol.
This year the branch celebrates its thirtieth anniversary, and half the back page of the latest Pints of View is given over to ‘The History of the Edinburgh Branch 1975-1985 (Part 1)’ by Ted Sharp.
Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear.
Now, I’m not saying anything against Ted Sharp, OK? I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting him, but they tell me he’s a very nice guy who spends his leisure hours distributing fudge to homeless puffins. His article is lucid and I don’t dispute any of its facts.
But it’s only three paragraphs long.
Worse than that, it’s low-key and informal and doesn’t set the pulse racing. Where’s the rhetoric, the grandiloquence? Where’s the passion, the colour, the padding, the humbug?
Speaking as the last surviving man of letters from the years before the Great War when we knew how to turn out this kind of stuff properly, I can only say: Ted Sharp, you may make Mother Theresa look like Robert Maxwell, but you ain’t got a clue about how to write history correctly.
Therefore, as a service to Ted and all other aspiring young authors who want to know how it’s done, I’ve taken his 450-word article and used it as the basis for a six-part, 2,100-word essay entitled Rebels of the Black Swan, which I believe is worthy of its subject and worthy too of the British literary tradition of which I am proud to be a votary.
Normal service at Toasty’s Futon will resume tomorrow. Happy slapping, kids!
PETER said…
Loved it. All. Thanks.
TOASTY replied…
Thanks, Peter. Very glad you like it.
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