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Authors: Lynne Truss
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Garden
(if he weren’t just about to close down their magazine): she said that Gordon had had the luck of being ‘planted in a soil thatnourished him’; a luck, she went on to say, that was as rare as a snowdrop in August.
And the luck was still with him, because her comment prompted him to think of a new virtual reality program, which he now hugged to himself, for he knew it would revolutionize the whole leisure-perception-Gameboy business and place the name of Gordon Clarke on the rollcall of history, along with Newton and Buddha, and Rodgers and Hammerstein. Because in this new virtual reality program, the player would not vanquish opponents or dig for treasure, but would
feel himself grow.
Just by strapping a computer-generated visual world on to his bonce, he would experience an unfurling, an expanding, a reaching towards the light – like a snowdrop, a yucca plant or a mighty oak, depending on preference.
Gordon’s provisional title for it was
Phototropism
(though he suspected this might have to change), and his ambitions for it were boundless. Imagine returning to the real, warped, stunted world after an experience such as
Phototropism!
It would be like reporting back from heaven; it could change people for ever.
Meanwhile
Come Into the Garden
does well to shelter indoors from the harsh pelting weather sweeping towards it from the west. No point getting the corduroys damp in a misplaced effort to stay the inevitable. Its demise will be significant only to a small number of people – and, being mostly gardening types, the readers are well acquainted with the ruthless survivalist principles of pruning, dead-heading and plucking out anything that’s got a bit rusty round the edges. In short, they will be cross, but ultimately they will understand. But still, one can’t help feeling sorry for the poor old mag as it waits unawares for its sudden end. It has no idea it has done anything wrong. It thinks it has permanent roots; it thinks it’s a perennial. Andit even expects Osborne and Makepeace to hit the road next Monday and bring back a ‘Me and My Shed’ so brilliant, witty and generally wildly glorious that it will make the whole world of gardening journalism sit up and say, ‘Wow.’ Which just goes to show how out of touch it really is.
5
‘I love this van,’ said Makepeace, as he accelerated the old Fiesta away from the kerb with a screech of tyres and punched a few buttons on the crackly radio cassette so that a loud Dire Straits number drilled the air. Osborne, tightly duffled in his coat and fastened securely in his seat belt, clutched his overnight bag hard against his chest and, with his head thrown sharply back by the G-force of the take-off, prayed silently with his eyes closed to the patron saint of hopeless causes. But an immediate squeal, thunk and shout forced him to look up. Makepeace had belatedly noticed a large coach bearing down on them and braked, just in time, to a violent dead stop.
It was an ominous beginning. The van rocked furiously on its chassis, and Makepeace’s push-bike shot forward from its position in the rear so that a hurtling handlebar struck Osborne quite forcibly on the back of the head. The sound of
tring!
is not usually associated with despair, but there is a first time for everything. Makepeace, incensed, grabbed his door handle, evidently with the intention of leaping out to defend his affronted honour, but fortunately the offending coach roared off in a haze of exhaust, because otherwise a rendezvous for pistols at dawn would surely have been appointed.
‘Pillock,’ averred Makepeace, turning the music a little louder. ‘Arsehole.’ At which the van lurched off again, this time (by an undeserved stroke of good fortune) locating a perfectly Fiesta-sized gap in the stream of westward rush hour traffic.
Devon had never seemed further off than it did now to Osborne, as he contemplated London’s South Circular Road and imagined the grim prospect of his
(if he weren’t just about to close down their magazine): she said that Gordon had had the luck of being ‘planted in a soil thatnourished him’; a luck, she went on to say, that was as rare as a snowdrop in August.
And the luck was still with him, because her comment prompted him to think of a new virtual reality program, which he now hugged to himself, for he knew it would revolutionize the whole leisure-perception-Gameboy business and place the name of Gordon Clarke on the rollcall of history, along with Newton and Buddha, and Rodgers and Hammerstein. Because in this new virtual reality program, the player would not vanquish opponents or dig for treasure, but would
feel himself grow.
Just by strapping a computer-generated visual world on to his bonce, he would experience an unfurling, an expanding, a reaching towards the light – like a snowdrop, a yucca plant or a mighty oak, depending on preference.
Gordon’s provisional title for it was
Phototropism
(though he suspected this might have to change), and his ambitions for it were boundless. Imagine returning to the real, warped, stunted world after an experience such as
Phototropism!
It would be like reporting back from heaven; it could change people for ever.
Meanwhile
Come Into the Garden
does well to shelter indoors from the harsh pelting weather sweeping towards it from the west. No point getting the corduroys damp in a misplaced effort to stay the inevitable. Its demise will be significant only to a small number of people – and, being mostly gardening types, the readers are well acquainted with the ruthless survivalist principles of pruning, dead-heading and plucking out anything that’s got a bit rusty round the edges. In short, they will be cross, but ultimately they will understand. But still, one can’t help feeling sorry for the poor old mag as it waits unawares for its sudden end. It has no idea it has done anything wrong. It thinks it has permanent roots; it thinks it’s a perennial. Andit even expects Osborne and Makepeace to hit the road next Monday and bring back a ‘Me and My Shed’ so brilliant, witty and generally wildly glorious that it will make the whole world of gardening journalism sit up and say, ‘Wow.’ Which just goes to show how out of touch it really is.
5
‘I love this van,’ said Makepeace, as he accelerated the old Fiesta away from the kerb with a screech of tyres and punched a few buttons on the crackly radio cassette so that a loud Dire Straits number drilled the air. Osborne, tightly duffled in his coat and fastened securely in his seat belt, clutched his overnight bag hard against his chest and, with his head thrown sharply back by the G-force of the take-off, prayed silently with his eyes closed to the patron saint of hopeless causes. But an immediate squeal, thunk and shout forced him to look up. Makepeace had belatedly noticed a large coach bearing down on them and braked, just in time, to a violent dead stop.
It was an ominous beginning. The van rocked furiously on its chassis, and Makepeace’s push-bike shot forward from its position in the rear so that a hurtling handlebar struck Osborne quite forcibly on the back of the head. The sound of
tring!
is not usually associated with despair, but there is a first time for everything. Makepeace, incensed, grabbed his door handle, evidently with the intention of leaping out to defend his affronted honour, but fortunately the offending coach roared off in a haze of exhaust, because otherwise a rendezvous for pistols at dawn would surely have been appointed.
‘Pillock,’ averred Makepeace, turning the music a little louder. ‘Arsehole.’ At which the van lurched off again, this time (by an undeserved stroke of good fortune) locating a perfectly Fiesta-sized gap in the stream of westward rush hour traffic.
Devon had never seemed further off than it did now to Osborne, as he contemplated London’s South Circular Road and imagined the grim prospect of his
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