The ALL NEW Vervoid Thread

[Anthony Williams]

Since the last one hit well over 1,000 posts, it has been duly closed and this new one opened in its place for all discussion related to PS Admin Lissa's marvellous website, www.thevervoid.com!

Ant x

[Lissa]

Ahoy hoy. To celebrate this new thread, here is a Children in Need style teaser for a new Dennis Brent short story that begins this weekend.

Mount Snowden vs The Rabid Mad Dog of War

I was finishing the last of my Bran Flecks one morning when I heard the tell tale sound of Francois Devine bounding along the passageway with news. Was it a significant discount on goods we would normally purchase at a higher price? Had planning permission finally been granted for the extension to the written records archive so proper segregation could be enforced rather than the current ad hoc system that relied on the whims and prejudices of whoever was on duty that day? Were we finally to be spared Smith and his youthful portrayal of the main character which should obviously be performed by a more mature and sensible meat puppet even though no one in their right mind actually “watches” the episodes anymore?

“Dennis Brent” he panted for he had come twenty or thirty yards.

“Still here” I replied, sucking a demonstrative Bran Fleck by way of proof.

“I have the most exciting news since the planning permission for the written records archive extension was given provisional approval by the council.”

“Then prey tell – you interest me strangely, Francois Devine.”

“I was going through my correspondence this morning – as is my wont – and amongst the unsolicited items from restaurants that I intend to test for quantity and quality whenever there is a window in my busy schedule was a bill from the theatre.”

“What are they charging you for now? Was it the orchestra that you trampled over to get the sweets that Hines was tossing to the children at last year’s pantomime?”

“Ho ho” he chuckled. “You’ve made a bit of a fool of yourself, Dennis Brent, by misunderstanding my perfectly clear remarks. I fail to see any scope for sensible ambiguity and yet you have misconstrued in a way that I – as someone who hasn’t just made the most colossal faux pas – find highly entertaining.”

He chuckled for a while and the crockery in the cupboards and cabinets within earshot joined in. When his mirth had finally settled – for I have learned my lesson about not speaking over Francois Devine’s mirth when amusement takes him – I asked what he meant.

“I said bill – in the sense of an advertising flier or leaflet – and you misheard it as bill – as in a request for payment. It really was most comical. You've made a proper fool of yourself, Dennis Brent, and I shall dine out on this incident for weeks.”

“Well” I said, already grumpy and he’d not even reached whatever fatuous point he intended to make, “what is on this leaflet?”

“There is to be a professional wrestling tournament at the theatre tomorrow evening.”

I gave this the silent treatment it deserved.

“I’m giving you the silent treatment you deserve” I explained after a few minutes, just in case my point hadn’t penetrated his still grinning skull.

“You don’t understand, Dennis Brent, and not for the first time in this conversation. You may recall that I was going through 1987’s trunk last week and amidst the ephemera and trinkets of that terrible, terrible year I found my Mount Snowden costume.”

So that was it.

[Si Hunt]

Hello hello I'm back again!

Si.

[Si Hunt]

But there's also some other good stuff going on on the Vervoid these days, including reviews of the Telos Novellas and Lissa's "What, Where, When" detailing her stories of buying and discovering Doctor Who on audio.

Check it out!

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

Although I haven't posted to this thread in a while, I always enjoy the weekly updated over on t'Verve, and I'm very glad to see you back there Si.

One phrase that made me particularly smile today was Lissa's observation that "In 1991... people probably weren’t even as familiar with the Krotons as we are today." What dark, primitive times we lived in...

[Stuart Wallis]

...times to which I'm sure certain people would dearly like to return...

[Jon Masters]

Another excellent update this week - especially BF and Adventures in Space (is Butch finally growing a pair ?)

Extra rockets are loaded. Mention this to your physics teacher in the next lesson and get double points for accuracy.

Only if you factor in the extra mass and increased rate of fuel consumption

[Awesome Wells]

Click here to see how a Digital Spy reader was fooled by some Vervoid piss-takery.

(The gaffe only recently came to light; alas, the article being discussed in this 2008 thread no longer exists. But I think the gist is pretty clear...)

[Andrew Curnow]

Elsewhere, a great conclusion to another really enjoyable Adventures in Space - and a cliffhanging conclusion, presumably leading straight into further adventures, maybe even some kind of story arc... Is Lissa getting a touch of the Moffats?

[Stuart Wallis]

He wouldn't dare!

[Rob McCow]

Three cheese sandwiches? That seems a bit much for lunch!

[Andrew Curnow]

Is it fair to compare Rhyl with a planet devastated by a radioactive catastrophe?

[Jon Masters]

Feeling quite nostalgic from Lissa's descriptions of Edinburgh - important questions that still need to be answered are (a) Did she jump at the one o'clock gun and (b) how many American tourists did she see dive into the hedges when it went off ?

[Stuart Wallis]

I'm quite sure the Yanks were firing it!

[Jon Masters]

BANG~!

The loudest noise since Dennis Brent let Mat Irvine fry him an egg cracked around the castle. I am amazed I didn’t drop my phone in surprise. No countdown, no New Year’s Eve style communal five-to-one sing song – just silence, BANG~! and nervous, giggly post-BANG~! gasps from the peeps. I’m not sure what I expected from the firing of a large gun. How this has become a major tourist attraction I’m not sure but it is what it is – a gun goes off. Very loudly. Without warning.

Glad you enjoyed it !!
One of the fun things to do when I was a 'local' in the late eighties was if you happened to be on Princes Street at the weekend when the gun went off. All the locals took it in their stride, but you could guarentee there would be some unsuspecting tourists (esp Americans) who would dive into cover, perhaps expecting that the 'Ireland War' had somehow spread to Scotland

[Rob McCow]

Hooray for The Phantom Empire. Having actually seen this one, I'll probably enjoy Lissa's comments a lot more than for the others It was on a DVD with The Undersea (go ahead and ram!) Kingdom.

I always thought that the Evil Female Ruler of Murania had a giant cup of coffee with which she watched the surface world. I was also shocked (SHOCKED!) to discover that Gene Autry is in fact a well-known country and western singer, with CDs of his music available in real shops! Perhaps The Phantom Empire marks the end of his career though.

Going to read about Edinburgh later!

[Antony Cox]

I must say I'm very much enjoying Dennis and Francois' in-depth analysis of each Doctor Who episode. However, I must point a grammatical error which has no place within a series of duologs where the participating members normally exhibit an impeccable grasp of the English language.

It is a well-known fact that the word 'TARDIS' is an acronym for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, and it is also a well-known fact that acronyms always appear in capital letters in order to distinguish themselves from normal names. The fact that both Dennis and Francois refer to Doctor Who's time machine as the 'Tardis' is beneath contempt. One could perhaps, in a moment of weak thought due to some external unforeseen factor which may induce such a distraction, accept that a 3rd party had transcribed their conversation and made this unfortunate mistake due the fact that they were a mere prole (or worse, a member of the Green 'Party'), but we are lead to believe that this is in fact a verbatim record of a textual conversation between the aforementioned telehistorians made using electronic devices. Therefore, this is absolute proof that both Dennis and Francois have failed themselves in a fundamental fashion (if I may use such a banal term) which - given their upstanding reputations in British telehistorical circles with particular emphasis on their numerous contributions of written material on the subject - immediately renders them both as pathetically stupid.

To that end, I feel entirely justified in demanding a written apology, free of such grammatical errors, by return of post. And such is the gravity of this heinous inaccuracy that I don't think I'm unjustified in insisting that a first-class stamp is used, not second-class as is the usual method of delivering such documents.

[SiHart]

@ Ant!

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

To that end, I feel entirely justified in demanding a written apology, free of such grammatical errors, by return of post. And such is the gravity of this heinous inaccuracy that I don't think I'm unjustified in insisting that a first-class stamp is used, not second-class as is the usual method of delivering such documents.

Quite right! Standards must be maintained!

In other news I've just discovered The Phantom Empire - Wonderful Stuff even if it the first episode is reminding me a little of the plot of The Music Man which I'm appearing in next year.

[Lissa]

Dennis and Francois have issued a joint statement.

"It has come to our collective attention that the letters page of an unnamed internet 'site' has commented upon our usage of the word 'Tardis' in Sycho Swede Publications' highly entertaining and informative series of articles written by Dennis Brent and Francois Devine (alphabetically). These muck rakers are clearly so far behind the times if they believe acronyms must be spelt in ALL CAPITALS (<g>). The style guides of most modern, reputable publications - including the Telehistorical Trajectory and Acetate Quarterly as well as national newspapers (as if anyone listens to them) - permits acronyms that are pronounced as words to be written with a single capital letter. The examples they give are Unicef and Nato but neither of us know what those are. Only acronyms where each letter is pronounced - such as BBC (which we do recognise) and VAT (ditto, unfortunately) - should be in full capitals.

Dennis Brent and Francois Devine also wish it to be known that Tardis stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space and that any pluralisation is beneath contempt.

We will not enter into further correspondence on this subject unless you send a supply of second class stamps to our PO Box."

[Antony Cox]

Having further researched the modern use of acronyms in ‘popular’ internet-based circles, it would appear that the world truly has run mad. The offered example of UNICEF (I can’t bring myself to type in lower case lest I be ridiculed by my esteemed colleagues within the British Acronymmatical Society for Tirelessly Ardent Researchers and Dissertators, BASTARD, of course) appears in text in all-capitals in the majority of cases, yet the UNICEF logo is brazenly lower-case in its form, even though the ‘web-site’ of the aforementioned organisation refers to itself within text fields in the correct capitalised form.

It’s no exaggeration to say that I haven’t been this angry since my BASTARD colleague Jules Badbreath (he of Dictionary Corner fame on TV’s popular word game ‘Countdown’, though I mention that particular programme with some hesitation as it’s broadcast on the ‘fourth’ channel which at most other times seems to show filth and depravity of the highest order – and I include ‘Treasure Hunt’ in that bracket) deliberately spelled my surname as C-O-C-K-S on an internal memo just to make himself appear humorous to the more ‘popular’ members of the society. Naturally I snubbed him at the BASTARD Christmas Party that year and instead spent the entire evening discussing the relative merits of sans-serif fonts (in both standard and bold forms) with Florentino Tubog.

May I also take this opportunity to point out to Dennis Brent and Francois Devine that whilst VAT may loosely be described as an acronym in that some people ‘say’ the word rather than reciting its individual letters, their poorly researched example of BBC is in fact an initialism, i.e. a series of letters which, whilst denoting the various words which comprise the phrase of which it is a shortened substitution for, is not a ‘word’ in the truest sense; it cannot be ‘said’ in the same way as UNICEF, TARDIS and indeed, BASTARD can. Naturally it pains me to have to point this out but in this age of short skirts, body piercings and Jedward, I’m sure I will be commended for upholding the high standards of the English Language. There is simply no place for linguistic legerdemaine in my inner circle, I can tell you.

As the rest of the world (including Dennis Brent and Francois Devine) appears to have descended into what I can only describe as the lowest common denomination in terms of its understanding of simple grammar, I can offer no further defence on my part, other than the fact that I am right and everyone else is wrong. There is literally no other explanation.

With regards to the actual words which make up the five letters of the aforementioned acronym which started this nasty business, my good friend Professor Brian Cox (no relation as far as I’m aware, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if we were related in some way due to our unrivalled expertise in our chosen fields) assures me that there are numerous dimensions which are relative to time (whether in space or otherwise) such as the length, width and height of any chronometer I may care to mention. In fact the handsome carriage clock which adorns the mantle piece above the drawing-room fire at Cox Towers exhibits those very attributes and I’ve never had cause to reprimand it for having more than one dimension.

Furthermore, I will not be sending any second-class stamps to your collective box as I’ve already been to the Post Office today to renew my subscription to Pedantry Periodical and used up my remaining small change. Besides, a second visit would result in unnecessary wear and tear on my pumps.

[Dirk Gently]

@Ant.

...but in this age of short skirts, body piercings and Jedward...

I SAY!!! There's absolutely no call for language like that!!
This is a family forum & words like J.E.D.W.A.R.D have no place in polite society, nor do the two "persons" who masquerade under that particular acronym.

[Antony Cox]

Would you believe that Florentino Tubog is actually the name of someone at work?

[Dirk Gently]

I do now.
Italian/Danish is he?

[SiHart]

What a fantastic name!