Hordes of The Things
I really enjoyed a recording on BBC7 at the weekend of ‘Hordes of The Things’: a superb Tolkien parody, co-written by John Lloyd, who also co-wrote ‘The Meaning of Liff’ with Douglas Adams, and produced by Geoffrey Perkins (of ‘The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ fame). With that kind of pedigree you’d expect great writingâand you wouldn’t be disappointed. The fruitily-voiced narration is a very affectionate rip-off of the Lord of the Rings, with most of the familiar devices of the ‘wizards and elves’ genre being subverted.
In one hilarious scene, various individuals with assorted obscure and somewhat impractical gifts (such as the Windcharmer, who literally sweet-talks the winds) pompously introduce each other and argue about job demarcation. Our hero isn’t informed about the ferocious serpent which dwells in the carverns because that is the job of the cavern-warner. There’s also a minotaur called Stephen. I’d love to get hold of some scripts, but a cursory Google just brought up a lot of information about a Dungeons and Dragons type of game of the same name.
New section in sidebar
I’ve added a new section to my sidebarâ’Friends and family’. As I’m sure the mentally agile among you have already guessed from the name, it’s a place for links to sites run by people I know. So, Mr. Bsag’s site is up there, as is my friend Joe’s new site, Interesting Thing of the Day. It isâas the name suggestsâa fantastic mine of excellent writing about interesting things. If you’ve ever wanted to know about leaf cutter ants, bubble tea, the Battle of Dunkirk or lightsabres (amongst many other Interesting Things), this is the place for you. Take a lookâit does exactly what it says on the tin.
Oh, and unlike the BT scheme of the same name, there are no concessions on these sites for my friends or family. For that matter, I don’t even get a reduced price. Sorry.
Ansty
While I was on the H2G2 site, I found this definition of Ansty (a place I’ve mentioned here before), according to the Meaning of Liff:
Ansty (adj.) Descriptive of a computer mouse icon pointer that refuses to move no matter how much you gyrate the mouse.
Fantastic! I’ve got the Meaning of Liff, but I’d forgotten that Ansty was included.
