'So let me get this right, Pooh. This will make your fortune.'
'Our fortune, my little scratchings-to-be. The whole Wood's. No-one need worry again.'
'And you'll just send the headlines to --?'
'Oh the usual. The Daily Mither. The Soaraway Sun. That slightly posher tabloid.'
'The Daily Oh-Come-On-Adolf's-Not-So-Bad.'
'That's the one. Signed "Send 'em all back, even 'em what aren't 'im or 'er"-- just for credibility.'
'But without any accompanying story.'
'For pity's sake, Piglet--what need? The headlines are the story. Brevity is the solar flare and all that.'
'Let's hear them again, then.'
'Ahem. "You've Etihad Your Chips".'
'Right.'
'"Autumn Blight For Pep Gladioli".'
'I think it's Pep Guard--'
'No, Piglet, that's that tonic for the over-40s.'
'I think that was Phyllosan.'
'No, Piglet, that's the Philadelphia Public Hygiene Department.'
'Next, please.'
'"No Oasis On This Walk Of Shame." See, I've--'
'Yes. Them.'
'No, that was Herbert Morrison's band. Played nonstop during the Festival of Britain.'
'And the next.'
'Ah--best of all--"Not Only The Ball That Was Passed".'
'Sorry--should there be more to that one?'
'That's it.'
'That's it?'
'That's all.'
'That's all? But it doesn't mean anything.'
'Not to an ignopotamus like you, of course, but--'
'What's being passed? Could be a trophy on an open-top bus. A crowd attendance record. A jeroboam of champagne.'
'A gerbil, Piglet, have I taught you nothing? Look, it obviously means money, dosh, lettuce, bunce, filthy lukeskywalker, passed where it shouldn't be and getting smellier by the second.'
'But it doesn't--'
'What you fail to grasp, my footwear-in-waiting, is that all fine literature is a collaboration between writer and reader. The writer proffers the clue, the code--the matrix, if you will--'
'--I'd rather not--'
'--from which the reader teases out the meaning and feels the full glow of enlightenment possess their heart like the sun at eventide.'
'I think you'll find the sun's legged it by--'
'Enough! I'll leave you ensnared in the toils of literalism. I'll try them on Tigger. He'll certainly go a bundle--'
'How about "Manchester City Mired In Financial Scandal"?'
'Oh, Piglet, Piglet, you can't get away with scrunching words! No-one's admiring what they've done! You can't say "Ooh, I do 'mire your new houndstooth weskit" … "Werl, you've got to 'mire his tenacity".'
'No, Pooh, it's--oh, send them the Etihad one.'
'Actually, I've gone off that one now. Come to think of it, I'm not sure tabloids go for puns.'
'Ah, Pooh--You're My Blunderwall.'
