A
MESSAGE from Ivor Tungin-Cheaque, Chairman of Vigor’s Silent Fan Club, says:
O
Wise and Wonderful One:
Once
again, a dilemma of considerable proportions has
raised itself in regard to membership of your Silent Fan Club. As you well
know, members are forbidden to contact you, or praise in any way your unmatched
wisdom and unrivalled literary skills. Because membership is automatic from
birth, you have the biggest fan club the world has ever known.
But a British commercial website has just rated your column one
of the five best sailing blogs in the world.*
This is nonsense in one respect, of course, as everyone knows
your blog is the best, not just one of the five best. Yet, considering the
thousands of sailing blogs cluttering the world-wide web, being one of the best
five is enough to cause a great deal of worry to those of us whose job it is to
keep your club members silent, lest they should have to be expelled for
contacting you and smothering you with unwanted praise.
In my own defense I have to say I have done a more-than-respectable
job in this regard so far this year. President Putin has not contacted you.
Prince Philip has managed to withhold his great admiration. Donald Trump never
once mentioned you in Cleveland. And so on. I believe most of the credit for
this remarkable success devolves upon me as I quietly slave away on your behalf
— but I digress . . .
The publicity generated by your being publicly recognized as one
of the best writers in the world puts the Silent Fan Club in a perilous
position. It is obvious that if more people are exposed to your glorious prose,
the greater the temptation will be to accord you generous praise. And, as you
know, anyone who does that is automatically expelled from the club.
To avoid this highly undesirable circumstance, I must beg you
once again to write dumber. That is, more dumbly. Please start
toning down the cleverness of your columns and the skill with which you wield
the editorial pen. If your fans find less to admire in your writing, the less
likely they will be to give in to their instinct to burst into ill-considered
praise. I realize that this will not come easily to a man of your exceptional
talent but I believe it can be done with a large dose of steady application.
I close with admiration for your sage-like utterances, your
ready wit and charm, the subtle thrust and parry of your sparkling repartee,
and the wisdom, Solomon-like, that graces your princely brow.
Yours Humbly and Obediently,
IVOR TUNGIN-CHEAQUE (Chairman, Vigor’s Silent Fan Club)
PS: Sorry about the writing. My new strait-jacket is very stiff.
Today’s Thought
Genius is one percent inspiration
and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Thomas
A, Edison, (Quoted in Golden Book,
April, 1931)
Tailpiece
Two
blondes walked into a building and . . .
(Hell,
you’d think at least one of them would have noticed it.)
4 comments:
At the risk of angering the others in the club, I'd like to give you a hearty "congratulations!" A well deserved honor, for sure.
I assume that the existence of this missive means that Ivor is now the past chairman and former member of the Vigor fan club?
Thank you, Anonymous. Very kind of you. But, as Mr Trump says, you're fired.
Cheers,
John V.
Mike K, you have to understand that this is a complicated business. Yes, in theory you're right. But in practice I haven't been able to find anyone else to run Vigor's Silent Fan Club, so Ivor Tungin-Cheaque has received special dispensation to carry out his duties ex-lex, that is, outside the law. He is the only one allowed to praise me (if he should feel the need to, of course) without being expelled from the club.
John V.
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