Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

Snot
Phoenixine Ninety-Six, August 1997
There are two things that a man with a beard and moustache should never do. One of them is eat cream
cakes and the other is catch a cold. I gave up cream cakes long ago; coagulated cream in the beard
looks silly and after several days it wafts foul odours up the nostrils. But colds are unpredictable and
appear whenever they feel so inclined. The nose drips uncontrollably and no matter how many tissues
you use, the moustache hairs clog together in a matted and slightly damp tangle. If you are in the habit
of sucking the ends of your moustache in moments of stress, having a cold can add a whole new taste
sensation to your day. You'd be better advised to read a book.
Those of you too young to remember Captain Beefheart and his Magic band will be puzzled by the title of
the new Robert Rankin novel. It is called Sprout Mask Replica and it isn't his autobiography, though
you might be forgiven for thinking otherwise, concerning as it does several members of the family
Rankin such as the great to the power two grandfather who died at the Battle of Little Big Horn. He was
holding a sprout-bake and tent meeting in the field next door to the battle and went over to complain
about the noise. But most of the book, such as it is, takes place in Rankin's beloved Brentford and
concerns our hero himself and the lady who is always to be seen at rock concerts perched on the
shoulders of the man in the middle of the crowd.
Rumour has it that Rankin's next novel (due out around Christmas) will be called The Brentford Chain
Store Massacre. He's getting good at titles, isn't he?
The amazingly prolific Tom Holt has written yet another novel in which he plays fast and loose with
classical characters. In Open Sesame he takes on the tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. It all starts
when the leader of the forty, one Akram the Terrible is about to die as boiling water is poured into the jar
in which he is hiding. At the moment of death, it is said, one's life flashes before one's eyes, which is sort
of what happens to Akram as a man carrying a red book proclaims Akram the Terrible; This is Your
Life. Certain truths are revealed and Akram resolves to escape from the story, which he duly does.
Meanwhile, in Southampton, Michelle puts on Aunt Fatima's ring and is a little surprised when her
answerphone, washing machine, spin drier and other household gadgets begin to talk to her. Escaping
from this and suffering from a toothache, she visits her dentist, one Alistair Barbour. You can work the
rest out yourself.
Sometimes these things get very laboured. Tom Holt is so incredibly prolific that often he seems merely
to be ringing the changes on the same old boring themes. And to a certain extent he is -- but Open
Sesame is sufficiently lightly handled to maintain the interest and the jokes are fresh (and often you
can't see them coming). Despite the tiredness of the approach, this one is lots of fun.
The background blurb on every Tom Holt book proclaims that he published his first book at age thirteen,
a slim volume of verse called Poems by Tom Holt. I have now come across just that volume and in the
introduction Edward Lucie-Smith analyses the poems drawing comparisons with the infant Mozart,
William Blake, Arthur Rimbaud and T. S. Eliot. That would be enough to blight most literary careers, but
Holt seems to have survived pretty much unscathed. What are the poems like? Rather good actually -considerably
better than most thirteen year old adolescents would be able to manage.
I developed my cold on a Sunday and turned up to work on Monday hoarse-voiced and dripping, ready
to teach a Visual Basic programming class. Fortunately I only had one student, and by Wednesday I was
feeling much better. My student, however, was beginning to sniffle and by the end of the week his nasal
passages were in full flow and I felt great. I was pleased to note that he did not have a beard. I
wondered whether to suggest that he grew one.
I remember that when I was a child I was constantly being told off by my parents for wiping my nose on
my sleeve. "Use a hanky," they would exhort, and sometimes I did. There were children at my primary
school who must have received the same advice but who ignored it (or who did not possess a hanky).
Some of these poor kids also seemed much snottier than the norm and we used to call them "Silver