Friday 7 March 2008

Book meme page123

Fortune preserve you gentle reader may your days be filled with joy and may my blog please you for it has no other purpose.

If it please you, I bring you a tale of a wandering meme, of no fixed abode but late seen in the far far away lands of James and Liz. Lands of mystery where the strangest of sights may be found in abundance. Alas, no flying carpets or Magic Pheonix Birds have recently been in evidence.

For this was a special meme, its simple request was to take the nearest book to hand, thumb through the dusty pages to 123 and write down the 5th, 6th,7th and 8th sentences.

Alas, gentle reader, our hero, such as he was, could not find a book of such a length close to hand. For in truth he kept his flickering magic lantern with buzzing box and many keys in the bedroom of the Son and Heir(s). Where tomes of such magnitude were rarely found. All was nearly lost when his hand alighted on the current favourite story in the imperial nursery. Now gentle reader it must be realised that this book did not contain 123 pages, even including appendices, maps and many delicious recipes for Birds Nest Soup.

But such a favourite of our hero in his younger days that hopefully it won't cause a Djinn to start on page 12 instead.

I speak of course of 'The Land of Green Ginger' by Noel Langley.

...... The Emperor Aladdin turned to the Widow Twankey.

'Abdul's gone Mamma!' he said cheerfully. 'You can open your eyes now!'

But the widow Twankey continued to keep her eyes tight shut and her figures in her ears.

'Mamma!' called the Emperor Aladdin in a louder voice, tapping her with his fan, 'He's gone'.

They waited . But the Widow Twankey never so much a twitched.

'Give her a push, Papa' suggested Abu Ali helpfully. 'Just a small one to begin with'......

And that gentle reader (to whom it has been a pleasure to address myself) is the end of this part of the tale. I wouldn't presume to instruct but if any of you feel so moved to continue with your own story of magic and adventure please feel free to do so.

2 comments:

James Higham said...

It's the twitching which worries me a bit.

Liz Hinds said...

You've made me want to read it!