Category Archives: complete mortification

And then, of course, there’s the question of the evolutionary future of pigeons. A few months ago I reported in these pages that through a series of unfortunate circumstances my editorial consultant had to be confined to the house for reasons of prophylactic hygiene. Consequently, he and I have spent the daylight hours of the last eleven weeks like a pair of isolated lighthouse keepers, which is to say composing sea shanties, threatening to murder each other and periodically going mad. Today, finally, was his day of release. We parted company after breakfast, I with a promise to stay in touch, he with a placatory wee on the door mat. In fact, watching him reacquaint himself with the non-carpet universe, I was reminded of how editorial consultants divide their world into four kinds of thing: things to eat, things to kill, plants, and things with which to perform acts which the vet had confidently assured us he could no longer perform, but which every lonely lighthouse keeper dreams of, late at night when the fog is thick and the seaways clear. It’s possible to forget some things very quickly. Specifically, it occurred to me as I watched him scarper over the back fence that I had forgotten about my consultant’s past habit of turning up to editorial meetings with a pigeon in his mouth. My first reaction in this situation is always reflexively to wonder if I should have brought a packet of Tim Tams or something.