Deflated Ego 6: Paul Sutton


The Turnip’s Prologue



Turnips are not just
for roasting

And so Su Tenderdrake finishes her reading. Trembling sensitively, her poetry-voice rises in expectation of sycophantic applause. The Tabard Inn is rammed full to its fake beams for the prize-winning poet.

“That was a feast of ennui.” grumbles our Host. Turning to Turnip, he hisses: 
“Where did all the poetry bastards go? What about you…we’re owed a bitter yarn.”

Old Possum's Sweeney is the last that Turnip recalls; now it's all saints and madrassas, detached views by bien pensants (sharp as whips in truth).  

He reels. Gags at the smug aroma wafting over Tenderdrake’s "slim volumes": Turnip finds more beauty in barbed wire on allotments; the crucified light over gravel pits.

Dave Turnip gets thinner in the wind: has elbowed old ladies in bus queues; was used as a mop in Bluewater shopping centre, surviving on ciabbata detritus and pizza crusts. His dreams are of death on submarines or when climbing Everest. The cherry red carboxyhaemoglobin – Das Boat clanking – or lungs ripped apart ascending "the chimney" – see also Jesus Coll, Cantab – passing Mallory and Irvine playing conkers.  

Prior to hallucinations, Turnip taught English – "An Inspector Calls" – planting catcall questions: "Who's the Inspector?"; "Who's to blame for Eva's death"; "How would our modern police handle such a sensitive enquiry?":

05:45 raid...use of sweeping anti-terror powers...front door rammed in by face-masked and unnumbered New Labour compliant plods...Birling’s mobile seized and child porn planted...sympathetic liberal papers forewarned and in attendance...local theatre group rewrites play...”The Daisy Renton Monologues”...audience addressed by Chief Constable pleading for inclusion...parading of locals who moaned when travellers hard-cored their babbling green fields...

Which is to say: Turnips are the English national vegetable. They taste of school pepper and pre-Conquest ditch water, fenland light and legends of Hereward the Wake.

And yet in these straightened times, I predict a resurgence...a renaissance...Resurgam! A beacon for benighted villains and heresy peddlers.

Turning to our Host, Turnip splutters and starts.

See The Chronicles of Dave Turnip
by Paul Sutton, original plus press, for details: 

http://www.freewebs.com/thesamsmith/originalpluschapbooks.htm
 

              © Paul Sutton 2009