Eight Hundred

The river at the bottom of the valley is very close to flooding. Ignoring the possible effects for a moment, it's amazing to see a small-ish river swollen to several times its normal size, full of muddy brown water, and flowing swiftly from its unknown regions upstream to its ultimate destiny in meeting the sea. It's so close to flooding that it might soon splosh all over the tiny footpath commonly used to make a shortcut over to the Pontyates Post Office. This means nothing to the non-locals out there, but it is definitely an uncommon occurrence. Water is the most overwhelming manifestation of nature, the only one which is always obviously dynamic and in motion. The earth beneath us is apparently quiescent for most of our lives, and wind or air pressure only imposes itself upon us at certain times, but rivers and seas are always in motion and working away.

Just as that swollen river has flowed down from upstream regions, and is heading to the sea, the Quirky Muffin is now flowing under its eight hundredth bridge. Eight hundred posts will be in the bag at the close of this text, and we will have reached another landmark. What have these past eight hundredth posts meant? Almost nothing! However, there have been maybe two Very Important Posts, a daft assortment of serial stories, and piles and piles of book, television, film, and even radio reviews. Yes, Old Time Radio has found itself once again, and it's nice to have it back from time to time. It's a shame it was ever shunted aside by the then-new phenomenon of television and growing cynicism in the world, but the thing they call progress never can be denied. It seems that the price of every advance is a loss of cultural innocence... That can't be true, can it? Can it? Is it even true of tin openers or door stops?

Eight hundred posts of extemporisation, attempts to redress infamies dumped unfairly on underrated (but not necessarily great) attempts at entertainment, and made up on the spot serial stories. At the moment, the spine of the Quirky Muffin is a story entitled 'The Ninja Of Health', which has now taken over as the prime serial. Once 'The Ninja Of Health' concludes, the problematic story 'The Glove' will have to vie with 'Wordspace: Phase II' and 'Diary Of A Laundry Robot' for the status of Predominant Story Serial. Good grief, all of those three will need a decent amount of work to go any further, and there is still 'Triangles: Phase II' waiting to be started too! There will be lots of story work before we ever get to anything new! All this, and we still have Groucho season to come. Yes, all four of the prime Paramount Marx Brothers films, at least two of the Goulart private eye novels, and his comeback audience performance in the 1970s. You have to have mini-seasons to keep blogs going for this long. Perhaps after Groucho season, we'll break into some other run of posts, maybe about the 'Peanuts' films?

Eight hundred posts in the bag, and now we only have two hundred to go to reach one thousand. Everyone, please close your eyes and whistle. It will make it all go far more easily...

O.