From: The Racketeer 62, August 2006
Parsing Wind
A story for the Silly Season
[by Andy Lusis; letter by Chris Weir]
ELSEWHERE in this issue of The Racketeer you will find the first in a series of profiles of the people who work tirelessly to ensure that members can enjoy carefree tennis all year round. One such tireless servant of the club is of course our Hon. Secretary, whose life story, when it appears, will provide edifying and inspirational reading for aspiring tennis club secretaries.
For an insight into the trials and tribulations faced by this stalwart, we take you back a few weeks when Mr Weir is busy in his scriptorium, tastefully appointed by MFI (the Mediaeval Furniture Institute). He is just finishing the final copy of the minutes of the last committee meeting, several worn quills scattered on his desk, when his good wife, Mrs Weir, enters bearing a communication. Having gained his attention by the tried and trusted method of whacking him on the head with a wooden spoon, she hands him the following note, purporting to be a possible extract from the next issue of this very journal.
Club secretary suppresses own minutes
When publishing magnate Andy 'Racketeer' Lusis received his notification of the next MPTC committee meeting, he was surprised to find two copies of the agenda and no sign of the minutes of the previous meeting. However, he soon realised that the club secretary, Chris 'Bring-back-the-wooden-racquet' Weir, was so fed up with the Racketeer editor's nitpicking of insignificant errors in the transcripts of the minutes that he had refused to send any more copies to his tormentor...
On reading this a look of fury overcomes the normally placid features of the mild-mannered scholar. 'I am sorely vexed. No, I am irked. This I will not put up with. Up with this I will not put. Put this up will I not with!' He grabs a new quill and stabs it into the inkpot. 'Leave me, Mrs Weir, I must reply at once. I am so angry I may not even bother to illuminate the manuscript. And fetch me a flagon of mead.' The nib races across the parchment and a mere two hours later the missive is ready:
Sir,
Thank-you for your recent letter regarding your receipt of two agendas for the next committee meeting and singular lack of a set of minutes of the previous meeting. May I ask if you have nothing better to do than whinge incessantly about the running of this club? Is it not already difficult enough for the secretary to not only record the administrative transactions of the committee meetings, copy them ten-fold, distribute them, and ensure spare copies are available for members should they forget to bring them to meetings? Then I have to endure a Sherlock Holmesian analysis of their text, punctuation and parsing. I say Enough! Even if you are a cousin or, as it is rumoured, a near relation of some ilk, I say kindly cease this nit-picking, this picking over my well-intentioned efforts. Failing this letter, let us step outside and settle this, man to man. Sir, are you game enough. Stand up Mr L., and be counted!
Yours,
Hon. Sec.
P.S. Omitted minutes are on their way to you. Please let me have information on any missing commas, semi-colons or paragraph omissions in advance.
At the next committee meeting the Hon. Sec. handed his letter to the editor, who promptly put on his deerstalker, took out his magnifying glass and subjected it to a forensic analysis so thorough he found a tiny mead stain from which he was able to calculate the precise state of intoxication of the writer when he inexplicably chose to use the word 'parsing'. The tension in the air was palpable. Suddenly the hon. sec. pulled out a broadsword and waved it menacingly. Fortunately the club president calmed him down and suggested the two antagonists settle their differences in the time-honoured manner. So, at dawn the following day the ed. and the sec. stepped out, selected their tennis rackets and took to the court. The result was inevitable: they realised they had both turned up far too early for the match and went back home.