Joe Cooper 2006

Dear all,

My dad would like to apologise for not dropping his yellow paper in time this year. The truth is I've been taking up quite a lot of his time lately. He doesn't seem to mind looking after me, in fact I think he really enjoys it, but it doesn't give him a lot of time to do the things he used to do, such as walking around London for hours leaving Hoban quotes all over the place and helping to organise Some-Poasyums (Some-Poasya? Somes-Poasyum? Whatever). He did have a quote he wanted to drop this year and even got as far as writing it down but before he could do anything with it he'd fallen asleep. We'd not long arrived at grandma's and he nodded off in grandad's chair... it makes me laugh. I mean how exhausting can an 11-month-old baby be? But there you go. I don't take it personally. I tried waking him up by 4qating him with his own sheet of yellow paper but it didn't really work and grandma told me to leave him alone for a while so he could get some sleep. Then the next thing I knew he was off out for a well-earned dinner with mum and then I nodded off myself and then it was morning and SA4QE day was over. He came to grandma's to collect me and I waved the sheet of yellow paper at him but he didn't seem to want to talk about it much. I think in fact he felt a bit ashamed that he'd missed out on SA4QE for the first time since it started.

Anyway dad says he did manage to make a late 4qation this afternoon - he hopes it still counts - and will post full details of why he chose it together with a photo on the SA4QE website along with all the other fabulous quotes that have been dropped elsewhere in the world (I've been reading them since secretly subscribing to the Kraken while dad was snoring another time last week - great stuff!) I've got the quote itself here - it's from Linger Awhile, which I haven't read yet, but if the rest of the book is anything like the passage dad chose from it I'm really looking forward to it. Here it comes:

When I was a child we had a large mirror that took up most of the width of the rear wall in the front room. It had no frame and was fastened flush against the wall. It showed what was in front of it but I used to put my face against the very edge and try to see around it to what it wasn't showing. I never could but I knew that the mirror wasn't giving me the whole picture. I'm still trying to see around the edge.

from Linger Awhile

Nice eh? Well, I'd better be off now because dad'll be awake again any minute.

Lots of love,

Joe Squid

6th February 2006.

Fig 1. Baby Squid retrieves yellow paper quotation.

Fig 2. Baby Squid approaches sleeping dad.

Fig 3. Baby Squid atempts to 4qate sleeping dad.

Fig 4. Mission accomplished! Dad wakes up to the sound of russling yellow paper.