'Training? Draining?'

Pooh?'
'Hmm?'
'Rabbit was telling Owl that somebody has just won a big national prize for a poem.'
'Really? Good for him or her.'
'Him. Apparently, he's an Ear Trainer for Poets, the chap who won it.'
'Have particularly unruly ears, do they, poets?'
'Well, Rabbit's trying to write poems at the moment and he can do 'Permission to Lie Alongside' in naval semaphore with his.'
'Can he, now? I've only seen his shadow-puppet stuff. Remarkably lifelike, those humans he does.'
'Always a Christmas hit.'
'So what does this chap train poets' ears to do?'
'Oh, the usual, I'd say.'
'The usual?'
'Fetch the evening paper, you know. Round up sheep. Answer the phone and say "Thank you but we have no interest in a bespoke distressed gazebo at this time." Handy helpful things.'
'Hmm…bit of a snag, though.'
'Snag, Pooh?'
'Well if a poet has his or her ear trained to fetch the evening paper, doesn't that mean that said poet gets dragged along with it?'
'Ah…I see what you mean.'
'So it isn't strictly fetching the evening paper for the poet. The poet's getting the paper as they would anyway.'
'Well, not quite as they would, Pooh. I mean, if the ear's leading the way, the poet's probably shuffling sideways all stooped at an angle.'
'A severe angle, I'd wager.'
'Undoubtedly severe.'
'D'you think Rabbit got it wrong? Or Owl misheard?'
'About?'
'What this poet chap does. Strikes me that he might actually finesse Cockneyisms for aspiring bards.'
'Sorry, Pooh? I don't--'
'And that's his advert strapline: 'Ere!--Trainer fer Poets!'
'Ah, so they can familiarise themselves with all that rhyming gubbins.'
'Goin' up the apples and pears…'
'Ter see me god forbids…'
'A lot of yer poeticals is just glove and mitt. That sort of thing.'
'Well, I suppose, Pooh, but Owl was quite adamant that--'
'Ah! Ahahaha! Yes!'
'Pooh, could you not bounce up and down like that. It's--'
'Drain!'
'What?'
'Ear Drainer for Poets. I'll bet that's what it is.'
'Ear--?'
'Now, Owl is mentoring Rabbit with his poeticals.'
'Goodness. Does that leave a rash?'
'I didn't enquire, Piglet. But Owl says that a poet is a thing of woe and dolour.'
'Really?'
'God wot.'
'What?'
'That's what you have to say at the end. You know, like when you say, a garden is a love-some thing.'
'Ah.'
'So Rabbit will have to become a thing of woe and dolour.'
'But he's a thing of teeth and carrots. Take a bit of a push, I'd say.'
'And then, Piglet, with a poet, the woe and dolour build up…in the seat of muse-borne fancy.'
'Seat of--?'
'Bonce.'
'Ah…ah…so the bonce needs a good old drain.'
'Precisely.'
'I wonder how this poetry-winner chap goes about it?'
'Oh, the usual.'
'The usual?'
'He'd arrange a time for a seasonal drainage. You know, specified day between 8 and 1 or 1 and 6. Then couple of telephone calls or those Tiggery texty-things, reminding the poet that it's in the offing.'
'Of course. Then a phone call the day before saying that, due to a high volume of emergency dolour round the poet's postcode, could we possibly say--?'
'Six months' time. And he'll throw in a villanelle-by-numbers as a sweetener.'
'Because your muse-borne fancy is important to us.'
'And we apologise for the inconvenience this will cause to your onward woe.'
'At the end of the day.'
'Or the top of the flagpole.'
'But history will forgive us.'
'God wot.'