The Professor at one point in his past became the mixologist at the famous, hard-to-find “Middle of Next Week Bar” just outside of Moulton Eaugate. Connoisseurs of exotic and lovingly overpriced drinks flocked to to try his “Uncertainty Principle Spritz” and “Categorical Syllogism Daiquiri”. However, following a number of minor explosions and an embarrassingly large number of swans a-swimming appearing at Christmas, he was asked to leave. The Professor has written (on paper previously used to wrap a piece of Lincolnshire Poacher): "'The one thing I regret is that swans cannot speak." Subsequently, the Professor took up the position of Chief Archivist, Inattentive Researcher and Occasional Beadle at the Society for the Preservation of Devil Among The Tailors.
The Professor was in a pensive but loquacious frame of mind recently following a particularly agreeable game of pitch penny in Wickham Skeith. There wasn't a dry eye in the house when, once again, Arthur 'Toad-in-the-Hole' Shellbottom was declared Champion Pitcher and Foremost Penny Ruminator. Taking a long draught from his pint of Dringey Forplaint Special Ale, the Professor began his solemn tale: “Shellbottom's great-grandfather was the principal reason that my own ancestor became an academic and funambulist. The two men were great rivals in the hatting business, vying for the role of principal supplier of doubtful hats to the Federation of Minor Cricket Umpires and Croquet Mallet Makers. My great-grandfather thought he had the edge on his opponent with his use of the finest gutta-percha in his much-admired, multicoloured trilbies. But there was no way he could compete with Shellbottom's development of a range of ventilated hats named after British politicians of...
Recently, as we perused, with much admiration, Ezra Gloppened's recent publication "Goo! : Butter Churns and their Role in the Peasants' Revolt", I ventured to ask if the Professor had ever considered an alternative career. "I haven't always been attracted to the academic life," the Professor admitted. "Many years ago, I did spend some time on the road with my band The Inadequate Zarf. Ah, happy days! Except for the less happy days, which, come to think of it, was most of them." I was unsure about the veracity of this statement until I chanced upon a copy of The Inadequate Zarf’s classic album "Physalis In My Pocket" in a bric-a-brac sale at the Sandford Spence Schultz Home for Fractious Umpires. My favourite track is, without doubt, "Ruckus In The Olfaction Department", featuring the Professor's solo on bass harmonica, an instrument of which he has little or no knowledge.
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