Bristol Grammar School riff on Kleinzeit

For SA4QE 2012 Roland Clare, English teacher and long-time SA4QE contributor, introduced his Year 8 class to Russell Hoban’s classic 1974 novel Kleinzeit and then gave them five minutes, at the end of the lesson, to write a paragraph inspired by it. These were the results. Enjoy ...

***

Kleinzeit had a sudden pain straight down his hypotenuse. He crumpled in pain.

‘Pah!’ said the man at the desk. But was there a man?

‘Get on with it.’ Kleinzeit walked through the underground while explaining things to the audience.

‘Wherever I am, whoever I am, I will get this sudden pain through hypotenuses.

Jude (12)

***

Kleinzeit suddenly jolted out of his seat as a vision of a dark figure popped up in his head. ‘What was it?’ said Kleinzeit. Several people turned their heads at his confused face. He quickly shut his eyes again as he realised what he had done. It was all very embarrassing for him so he started to walk away from the strange people that had looked at him in a very funny way. He had no idea where he was going but he wanted to go somewhere where things respected him. He started to walk towards his house, which was at least a couple of miles away, but that didn’t bother him in the slightest. He passed at a wedding-dress shop and he pictured a dog, wondering helplessly around wearing the bright white dress. It then turned around and said, 'All right mate?' and trotted off.

Owen (12)

***

Kleinzeit walked to the door, and the window said, ‘Why not use me, Kleinzeit?’

Angus (12)

***

Kleinzeit glided along the platform and entered the train. The doors slid shut. The train rumbled along the track. Sparks flickered out. He stumbled along the carriage, holding on to the rail as he went. He eventually found a vacant seat. He glanced at his copy of The Peloponnesian War. ‘Humph,’ he sighed. ‘As if I would read it,’ he thought to himself.

Milo (13)

***

‘Fine, be like that then,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘See if I care.’ He opened his attaché case and then closed it again. He could see what was not in the case.
‘Oh, but you do care,’ said the bed in the hospital.
The audience reassembled themselves, back into their places
‘What are you doing?’ asked Kleinzeit.

Happy Russmas!

Emma (13) 

***

It happened again, from a voice to another voice. It felt like there were lots of people in Kleinzeit talking.

‘Ha ha ha,’ said the clock, which wasn’t moving its arrows.

The tables were yawning and the pencils were bent forward, tired.

Happy Russmas!

Syed 

***

‘Why am I here?’ The audience laughed. ‘Am I here?’ Silence struck. He feels alone, where is everyone? The audience in his mind have vanished. ‘Hello.’ There was a laugh, the audience were back, or were they, clapping was due, but again, nothing happened. ‘I’m not here, I’m dead, what do I do?’ He rests his eyes, a face appeared in front of him, he said nothing, nor did the face, but he felt a strange pain to leave this illusion.

Happy Russmas for tomorrow!

Jonathan 

***

Kleinzeit left the office, noticing the Aquafresh sign on Mrs Howard’s door. He walked down the stairs, one, two, three … and so on until the last where he stopped, stooped and inspected a glob of chewing gum on the floor. ‘Hi, it called, would you mind not standing on me?’ ‘Sorry,’ muttered Kleinzeit. Kleinzeit went down in the lift and walked to the underground.

On the train he looked into the bag of the lady sitting next to him. On the other side of town the hospital bed chuckled, ‘In you come,’ it said, ‘and Sister will sort out that A to B problem.’

Spent five minutes on this, my Kleinzeit piece. Happy Russmas!

Freya (12)

***

I woke with a pain. I didn’t want to look. Then I heard it. Sounded like a hum. Then it happened again but this time my mind registered it. ‘Kleinzeit, you have finally come to your senses, well done.’ Then my mind started to wander away and I started to drift into a warm, loving sleep.

Chris (13)

***

…and began to write a television commercial for Bonzo Toothpaste…

He wasn’t meant to be writing about toothpaste, but he didn’t see why he shouldn’t. The dandruff made it all the harder to read his writing. Just the way I like it, he thought. At exactly 12:15 pm, three men walked into his office. Kleinzeit had been expecting them, but in 37 more seconds. Why can’t people turn up on time? He wondered. The interview was interesting, considering it was about share profits and net profits, and a guessed estimate figure for next year’s employment growth. Actually, Kleinzeit found this boring, especially when the men explained why he would be getting a pay cut. ‘You see, Kermit, we are looking for people who have original ideas, for our razor blade advert, not for Bonzo Toothpaste,’ says the first man. ‘You see Kasper, we think that you can’t quite compare with our sparkling team of interesting people.’ says the second. ‘Again, Kolton, your work doesn’t reflect the company in the light we are expecting.’

Happy Russmas!

Ada’ora (13)

***

Everyone spilled out of the train as if water was being poured out of a jug. How can something look so similar to something else but not be the same as the thing they resemble? Everyone slowly burst out into the bright sunlight. Why is there light and dark, why not one thing? But no there has to be two of everything, not one but two just to confuse everyone. Or is it just me? Do I just stick out like a sore thumb in the crowd?

Happy Russmas!

Anisha (12)

***

‘Well, have you thought,’ asked Kleinzeit, ‘about the possibility of another me? Or another you? Do you consider me to be me? Or me to be Kleinzeit? Who should I be? ME. A figment of my own imagination? Do I exist…the mirror does not care…I take it, you do not care either…perhaps, I do not care myself. Is it my decision…whether I care, or is it Kleinzeit’s?’

Some phrases I thought I could include somewhere:
‘Sister? Whose sister? Mine?’
‘I see through my heart, not my eyes. I speak through my heart, not my mind.’.

Shazaan (13)

***

He got up. The train was grinding to a halt. People from all directions were packing up their newspapers, which they had had on the table, but hadn’t even looked at. ‘Ha ha, keep on coming,’ laughed the hospital bed, ‘It’s not long now, only a matter of time.’

‘Until what?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘All in a matter of time, don’t you worry. And when it comes you may not know for you are blinded by your own existence.’

‘Push off,’ said Kleinzeit.

Eddie (13)

***

As he closed his eyes a vision swam into view, a wheel of fortune that said ‘Who are you?’ It showed types of people, from socialist to communist. I wonder who I am, thought Kleinzeit. Dr Pink came on stage and said, ‘And our next contestant is a man called Kleinzeit!’ Kleinzeit shuffled on stage and walked over to the wheel, which would tell him who he was. He spun it! It revolved very quickly but didn’t slow down … what was happening? He woke up, before staring around him, closing his eyes again.

Benny (12)

***

People flowed his way, crashing into him as if he wasn’t there. Was he there? If people saw him they would try and avoid him. They would, wouldn’t they? If he was there they would say, ‘Sorry mate’ or ‘pardon me’. But they didn’t … they just pushed past, knocked him off his feet and dived into the bright city above.

‘Come on. Come to me.’ said the hospital bed. ‘If that mean man rushing to get away hurt you I’m sure Sister and her nurses can help. They can let you rest and they won’t disturb you unless necessary. You can eat what you want and everyone will make sure you’re … okay.’

He took one step forward and then one step back, before carrying on up into the city above.

Happy Russmas!

Laura (12)

***

The bed laughed again. Kleinzeit felt he wanted to go to it, but not to go. ‘You know you want to. The oxygen tanks are ready and the charts are up to be scribbled on. A to B, A to B all the time,’ hummed the hospital bed.

Happy Russmas from Bristol

Jamie (13)

***

I opened my eyes. A sharp pain flashed through my body. What was it? I tried to get up but the pain was too great. I did not know if it was a serious problem to do with my internal organs or just a tweaked muscle in my back.

Tom (13)

***

‘Push off,’ said Kleinzeit, as he walked away from the empty mirror and went to his job. He was walking through the underground, hiding his face, and then walked on to one of the trains. He had an attaché case in one hand and in the other under his arm the Thucydides, the Penguin edition of The Peloponnesian War. It was a book he carried around although he had never read it or even started it.

Happy Russmas tomorrow.

Patrick (12)

***

The webmaster would like to offer huge thanks to the children and Roland for sending these pieces.

Andy Barding 2012

- from The Serpent Tower

- from Kleinzeit

Posted to Facebook

Patrick Gannon 2012

"I exist, said the mirror."
What about me? said Kleinzeit.
"Not my problem, said the mirror."

- from Kleinzeit

Posted to Twitter

This was among the most popular quotes as voted for in the SA4QE 2012 Russell Hoban Reader Survey

Andrew Middleton 2012

This year I managed two yellow paper drops, featuring quotes from Russell's first two novels. It felt appropriate to mark the end of Russ' life by starting at the beginning. I placed a quotation from The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz at the Vittles Cafe in Broomhill, Sheffield.

It goes like this:

A map is a dead body of where you've been. A map is the unborn child of where you're going. There are no maps. Maps are pictures of what isn't.

And secondly a quotation from Kleinzeit which I can easily recall without having to look it up. This was left on the seat after watching a play at the Sheffield University Drama Studio:

"I exist," said the mirror.

"What about me?" said Kleinzeit.

"Not my problem," said the mirror.

Whilst there I also recommended Russell Hoban to a (I think) German student, along with another of my favourite authors, Angela Carter.

Heather Uhl 2012

I tend to over-think things. Not on purpose - it's no more by choice than having freckles or craving cheesecake. But thinking too much, too hard, or too long can make life more work than it needs to be.

For this, the 10th anniversary (and first posthumous) SA4QE, I spent hours poring over quotes. I considered, and discarded, as many romantic, symbolic, or just plain quirky places I could think of that might be worthy of leaving them. No combination felt quite right, and I was getting frustrated.

My husband has never read one of Russ's books but, being a good man regardless, he tries to support my idiosyncrasies, so he asked, "What do you want to accomplish?"

As much as I want to honour Russ and have the fun of a global act with fellow 4qaters, the bottom line is that I want to encourage someone else to discover the delight and power of Mr. Hoban's words, just as one of my very best friends did for me years ago.

Russ's books were the first that made me feel like I wasn't the only one. Not the only one who had weird thoughts randomly flit through my head, uninvited and unattached. Not the only one who pondered a bigger picture and whether it was worth the work of pondering. And possibly most of all, not the only one who struggled to write whatever it was that was clawing both to come out and to stay in.

Aha. I knew what I wanted for this year's 4qation. I printed it out on the yellow paper, and we drove to the biggest, most soulless, mass commercial bookstore I could find. A small, tucked away Mom & Pop shop may be more appropriate to Russ's stories, but that's not where writers who are desperate for relief go. They would first try the easiest and most obvious place, not knowing what they're looking for but hoping to hell that, in the sheer size of it, surely something will jump out helpfully.

It is my sincere hope that this yellow paper will jump out and trip someone who is considering writing, or even just feels confused by the writing they have stuck inside them tauntingly, and that, like me, they will discover Mr. Hoban and no longer feel quite so odd or alone.

The quote I chose:

Right, said Kleinzeit. Enough. He opened the door of the yellow paper's cage, and it sprang upon him. Over and over they rolled together, bloody and roaring. Doesn't matter what the title is to start with, he said, anything will do, HERO, I'll call it. Chapter 1. He wrote the first line while the yellow paper clawed his guts, the pain was blinding. It'll kill me, said Kleinzeit, there's no surviving this. He wrote the second line, the third, completed the first paragraph. The roaring and the blood stopped, the yellow paper rubbed purring against his leg, the first paragraph danced and sang, leaped and played on the green grass in the dawn.

- from Kleinzeit

Kevin Holohan 2012

You're a god then? said the yellow paper.
I employ gods, said Word, and left. 

 - from Kleinzeit

Posted to Twitter

Kevin has also written an excellent "Remembrance of Russell Hoban" on writing.ie

Twitterers, Facebookers and Bloggers 2011

After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language?

- from Turtle Diary, tweeted by Joe Snow

Place of dismemberment? said Kleinzeit.
Everywhere, all the time, said Hall of Records.

- from Kleinzeit, tweeted by David Dixon

Sometimes now I dream of music. Not opera music, what it is I don't know. Over me, under me, all around me. I can hear it, I can feel it. when I wake up it is gone. Lost, nothing remembered.

- from Come Dance With Me, tweeted by John D here and here

‘A sense of loss pervades the paintings of Peter Diggs,’ wrote the critic Cecil Berkeley about my last show at the Fanshawe Gallery.

- from Amaryllis Night and Day, tweeted by remotevoices

There's nothing beyond the last visible dog but us.

- from The Mouse and His Child, tweeted by Chris Bell

(Bat bowl from the Victoria & Albert Museum that inspired The Bat Tattoo)

Facebooked by Olle Lawson

A Dog shall rise and a Rat shall fall.

- from The Mouse and His Child, Facebooked by Alison Baker

I do not like the way you slide,
I do not like your soft inside,
I do not like you lots of ways,
And I could do for many days
Without eggs.

- from Egg Thoughts and Other Frances Songs, Facebook-commented by Becky Morgan

I am actually a believer. I have faith that there's nothing that cares about us one way or the other.

- from The Bat Tattoo, tweeted by Danielle Carr

I searched in my A to Z for anything Balsamic but there was nothing.

- from Amaryllis Night and Day, tweeted by Squirmelia

And finally, here's a lovely post on the happy birdaycake blog from 7 February 2011 in which a mother and daughter make a real "Marzipan Pig" - not exactly a 4qation but just as tasty...

Rich Bailey 2011

I just finished A4Q-ating for the first time. I've known about the the tradition for years, but somehow living in a mid-size southern city where there is no subway and I know most of the people who run around downtown, it just didn't seem right. I moved to New York City last summer, and now it feels right. I left two copies each of the following quotes in swath of lower Manhattan running from Chelsea Market at 9th Avenue westward along 14th and 15th Streets, dipping south into Greenwich Village around Bleecker and 7th Ave, then continuing along 16th Street to Union Square. I did not see the Gom Yawncher man, but I watched some buskers and made a cash deposit in a homeless person's cup.

Being is not a steady state but an occulting one: we are all of us a succession of stillness blurring into motion on the wheel of action, and it is in those spaces of black between the pictures that we find the heart of mystery in which we are never allowed to rest.

- from Fremder

There is a point where pattern becomes motion; the pattern has found me and I must move, must be aware of moving, must be a motion, an action of the Word. Poor bare tuned fork.

- from Pilgermann

To me it seems that everything that happens is language, everything that goes on is saying something.

- from The Moment Under the Moment

We are the children of the mystery that inhabits us and I believe that it wants us to meet it with innocence of becoming; not to meet it is to be a failed child.

- from The Moment Under the Moment

The black howled in the tunnels, the tracks fled before the train. Whatever lived walking upside-down in the concrete put its paws against the feet of the people standing on the platform, its cold soft paws. One two, three, four, walking softly in the chill silence upside-down with great soft cold paws. Underground said words to itself, names. No one listened. Footsteps covered the words, the names.

- from Kleinzeit

Right, said Kleinzeit. Enough. He opened the door of the yellow paper's cage, and it sprang upon him. Over and over they rolled together, bloody and roaring. Doesn't matter what the title is to start with, he said, anything will do, HERO, I'll call it. Chapter 1. He wrote the first line while the yellow paper clawed his guts, the pain was blinding. It'll kill me, said Kleinzeit, there's no surviving this. He wrote the second line, the third, completed the first paragraph. The roaring and the blood stopped, the yellow paper rubbed purring against his leg, the first paragraph danced and sang, leaped and played on the green grass in the dawn.

- from Kleinzeit

Stephanie Payton 2011

I am a senior at California Lutheran University and I decided to participate in SA4QE day and have left A4 paper around campus. The first is at a professor’s door:

What ben makes tracks for what wil be. Words in the air pirnt foot steps on the groun for us to put our feet in to.

- from Riddley Walker

The other is in a bathroom stall:

I exist, said the mirror.
What about me? said Kleinzeit.
Not my problem, said the mirror.

- from Kleinzeit

This was also posted to Facebook.

I am so excited to participate!

- Stephanie Payton

The long-awaited report! Ruth Bosch and Richard Cooper 2010

For the uninitiated: every year The Kraken, the Russell Hoban fan forum (est. 1998) clubs together to buy a birthday gift - usually a bottle of spirits - for "Russ" as he is affectionately known, and a volunteer hand-delivers it to his London home. In 2010 longtime Krakenites Ruth Bosch and Richard Cooper were the volunteers, and composed a report on the day for sharing with Hoban fans that, by all accounts, was simply spellbinding. However, in a bizarre incident involving a Giant Squid, Putney Bridge and a Klein bottle, the report disappeared and was never heard from again. Richard and Ruth found it understandably difficult to get over this tragedy, and struggled to re-compose themselves, as well as the report. However, we here at Slickman Towers are delighted to say that they have now managed to produce the following account. We hope you enjoy it.


Russell Hoban's birthday 2010, the SA4QE, and the Kraken Birthday Bottle Delivery Event were so rich in so many ways that both of the Birthday Bottle delivery persons have bogged down and rebogged several times in their hopes of recording and sharing the full enjoyment of it with everyone involved. As SA4QE 2011 is close upon us we throw caution and detailed Russellogues to the wind and hope that at least our sense of the beauty of the day finds other beholders.

We approached February 4th with a full set of vibrant Hobanian themes in the abstract and witnessed them being fleshed out, lioned out, yellowed out, and mouse-and-owled out by a graphically obliging universe, with emphatic double-deckerings, undergroundings, and apocalypticisms thrown in for ambience.

As if the world weren’t enough as it is.

Here are some photos and recollections of the day, in chronological order, with comments by Richard (RC) and Ruth (RB). Richard started the day at home near London and Ruth, at home in Paris, meeting mid-morning by Fulham Broadway tube station and proceeding Russwards.

Getting there



RC: Early in the morning I opened The Medusa Frequency, the first Hoban book I read and still my favourite, and found my 4-year-old son Joe had been practising his letters on a yellow post-it in an appropriate place. Copying "The Slickman A4 Quotation Event" he only got as far as "The Slick Joe" but that didn't seem an unreasonable statement.

It was between six and seven in the morning. The moon was low in the sky. It was a waxing moon, a gibbous one; it was a particular moon. I raised the window-blind. The pinky-orange hibiscus street lamp outside the window was the same as always. I opened the front door and went out into the foredawn, into the hissing of the silence and the humming of the underground trains standing empty with lighted windows on the far side of the common. Unseen birds twittered but there was no crow to shout and flaunt its blackness.

I heard my footsteps; I saw under the lamps my shadows first before me, then behind. 'Nothing to declare,' I said.

- from The Medusa Frequency

RC: The tawniness of the lion was in him.



RC: I 4Qated myself with this custom t-shirt, featuring the SA4QE logo on the front and a favourite quote about yellow paper on the back.

One of the earliest symptoms is a growing dread of blank paper, and at this stage preventative action may still have some effect ... I always use 80-gram yellow A4; it’s the kind of yellow the paper manufacturers call gold, and gold is what one is trying to refine the base metal of one’s thoughts into ... I never use white paper - to intensify the blankness of a blank sheet by using white paper is to run to meet trouble considerably more than halfway.

- from Blighter's Rock (The Moment under The Moment)

RC: Another customisation, a sticker on the boot of my car which I drove to the station to hopefully arouse the interest of fellow motorists. Can't think of a suitable motoring Hoban quote though except for the one about Harold Klein getting run over by a London bus.

Meanwhile...

RB: Papier jaune sur le Paris metro.

RC: checking contributions to the website on the train, armed with coffee and Kleinzeit.

Sister stood holding the helmet, listening to the clink of money falling into it. I don't know if this is right, she said to God.
What's wrong with it? said God.
Is it, I don't know, heathenish? said Sister.
You've got to move with the times, said God.
Are we talking about the same thing? said Sister.
One usually does, said God. I mean how much is there to talk about really. It's pretty much all one thing, isn't it.

- from Kleinzeit

Meeting there

RB: In Fulham Road on the way to Russ's. Richard models HAT inherited from Eli Bishop during the 2007 Riddley Walker adventure in Ireland. Excellent to have a red London bus and a flying lion in there too.

Being there

RC: Arriving at Russell Hoban's house, we were pleasantly surprised to find some yellow paper on the front door. This turned out not to be a 4qation but rather a note from Russ to his postman saying "Please keep knocking and ringing - I am hard of hearing."



RC: Russell Hoban with the 2010 birthday gifts from The Kraken - a bottle of Glenfarclas single malt whisky, a DVD set of the films of Jan Svankmajer, and, courtesy of Ruth, some exclusive chocolates from Paris. The chocolates themselves were in a small bowl itself made of chocolate, complete with a pair of chocolate chopsticks, or "chocsticks" as Russ dubbed them. Ruth apologised that the chocolates were of normal sugar content and thus probably not on doctor's orders, given Russ's condition. "Oh, don't worry," said Russ. "I'm not a career diabetic."



RB: Russ was splendid. One of the best things was having the chance to tell him that if he had only given us his books it would be quite enough, more than, but he has also given us Kraken friends and that is something. 



RB: Russ with Richard. Behind them is the TV on which Russ watches a different movie (or sometimes two) every day.

RC: Not pictured here are all the things we chatted about - far too many to remember, but certainly we talked about Ruth's job as an antique fan-restorer, and the two Americans shared their recollections of home. At one point Ruth said "More importantly..." which inspired Russ to comment that the correct construction was "more important". This point turned up as a niggle of one of the characters in Russ's 2010 novel Angelica Lost and Found. Speaking of which...



RC: Russociate Jake Wilson popped over while we were there. A documentary film-maker in his own right, Jake was later to be found listed among the acknowledgees in Angelica Lost and Found, for reading the manuscript at varying stages of composition. Russ had a proof copy with him during our meeting and Jake commented approvingly on the cover, which featured the Girolamo da Carpi reproduction as found on the version you can now buy. Apparently there was an earlier cover which wasn't as good. The two chatted for a few moments about 3:10 to Yuma, a classic western they'd both recently been investigating.

RC: Russ flicking through Jake's birthday gift, a copy of Tippoo's Tiger from The Victoria and Albert Museum.

RB: The business end of two distinct synchronicities were also delivered by Jake, unbeknownst to him. The subject matter of both had been cleverly and variously introduced by Life in the guise of my friend Jean-Yves during the week or two preceding the trip to London. Synchronicity #1: Jean-Yves asked if I had seen the large musical automaton, Tippoo's Tiger, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, describing it in detail it when I said I hadn’t. It was a bit odd, as I had been to the museum so many times and it’s the kind of thing I love and would tend to remember, but I drew a blank. Jean-Yves’ description stayed vivid in my mind and I hoped to go and see it when in London.

I was sitting across from Russ as he unwrapped Jake's gift, the new book about “Tippoo’s Tiger”. Jake had played the organ inside the tiger for a documentary made by the V&A,



Synchronicity #2: During those same Londonimminent days I was walking alone on the street near my house in an unfocussed sort of way,  hallucinating sideways and without conscious intent into walking in the same place with Jean-Yves. Both of us looked at the sidewalk and saw a trail of coins. The sense of this was so strong that my non-hallucinating self pulled itself together to look down at the sidewalk and lo, a line of coins, 1 Euro and 15 cents, as it turned out.

Jake told us a story about dreaming and childhood and the way he and his brothers discovered they were sharing the same dream, this primarily having to do with the way they told each other about it, knowing it must be so because every one of them had the evidence of his own recent memory. Their shared dream was of looking at the ground and finding a trail of coins. I know this is not an unusual theme, but the story continued for me in a way that made it more remarkable. I later told it to another friend, and she related it to her husband when they were walking in the woods. They stopped walking as she finished telling the story, both of them looked at the ground and saw 14 pennies scattered across their path.

When I first started reading Russ's books I was neverendingly amazed at the way they "happened" to me. They were three-dimensional events, series of events, that coincided precisely with whatever else was happening in my life. They coincided in ways that were exactly like the things that happened in his books and the intersection showed a plane of existence that I knew.



RB: Tulips for Gundula (Mrs Hoban), on the floor of Russ's kitchen along with some pussy-willows (hidden by the red wrapping paper) and a quantity of Gundula's market-stall stock.

RC/RB: We left after a very happy hour, as Russ had to have his lunch, and so did we. 

Lunching there



RC: The window display of the delightful Fulham cafe where Ruth and I had lunch.



RC: Checking Facebook for yellow paper updates.
RB: 4qating our dining table with the words:

One assumes that the world simply is and is and is, but it isn't. It is like music that we hear a moment at a time and put together in our heads. But this music, unlike other music, cannot be performed again.

- from Pilgermann

4qating there: wandering westwards



RB: Yellow pages, meet yellow paper!

RC: We walked from Embankment tube to Trafalgar Square. Seen here 4qating one of the lions with Ruth's aforementioned Pilgermann quote.
RB: Richard expressed some concern about "4qating by the lion's bum".
RC: I don't remember saying that.
RB: You did. It was delightful.
RC: I'll take your word for it!

RB: Richard at the bottom of Nelson's Column. It was a deceptively long way up onto the plinth. I almost didn't get down again.



RB/RC: We passed through Chinatown...

RB: 4qating in Old Compton Street, Soho:

Loneliness is the essential human condition. Everything else is gravy.

- originally quoted by Emmae Gibson

Tea-and-cakeing there



RB/RC: We stopped into this suitably-coloured cafe, The Profile.



RB: Yellow paper at the Profile.



RC: The decor matched the SA4QE website :-)





RC: Yellow paper and the absence of Ruth. Quoted tabularly:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

- by HP Lovecraft from The Call of Cthulhu

(quoted by RH in The Medusa Frequency)

RB: 4qating the greetings card display in a nearby gift shop with the previously-mentioned Lovecraft/Medusa quote.

Roading there

RC: By now the sun had well and truly set, but our 4qday still had some life in it. We had another place to be, appropriately enough near Russell Square.

RB: We actually got here via Holborn tube. The Pilgermann quote was re4qated, being here the mummy of all Hoban quotes.



RC: Heading for dinner at Hoban favourite Il Fornello we passed 90 High Holborn, offices of the law firm Olswang, which looks like a giant yellow paper drop. (HT to Hugh Bowden.)



RC: The Hotel Russell, Bloomsbury, near Russell Square.



Drinking there



RC: with fellow 4qater Deena Omar.



RC: Saying goodbye to Ruth B.

Homeing there



RC: SA4QE day ends for another year. But stay tuned!


(c) Bosch-Cooper Productions 2010. All wrongs reserved.