"Resembling The Red Baron from a later age,
A scavenger hung in the sky."
- Christmas Island
Slingsby: Right, let's get this done & dusted.
Benjamin: Hello, Oliver.
Slingsby: Never mind the pleasantries.
Benjamin: Good to finally meet you.
Slingsby: Yeah, yeah. What exactly do my adoring public want to know?
Benjamin: Hmmm. It's just a minor point, but I think you're supposed to be interviewing me.
Slingsby: Hilarious. A career in comedy beckons.
Benjamin: No, really.
Slingsby: Are you sure? Oh dear. The genesis of a vanity project appears to be in evidence.
Benjamin: Perhaps.
Slingsby: Poor deluded fool.
Benjamin: If this is nothing more than a retreat from reality, then - being a purely fictional manifestation of acquired evil - you probably ought to feel right at home here.
Slingsby: Why, pray tell, are we conversing in a prissy font like Verdana?
Benjamin: Something understated and yet elegant seemed appropriate. Would you prefer this?
Slingsby: No. For the love of Christ, resist any temptation to head off down that particular avenue. Or should I say dead end? We're not interested in your dreadful book.
Benjamin: Heart Failure?
Slingsby: Don't… utter those words in my presence. Please.
Benjamin: My first novel.
Slingsby: And last if you've got anything - anything at all - rattling around upstairs.
Benjamin: A work in progress.
Slingsby: You are certainly a master of unintentional humour.
Benjamin: Sorry?
Slingsby: Nothing. Pretentious git.
Benjamin: You think I'm being self-indulgent?
Slingsby: Hhhello? Look around, old fruit. I give you Exhibit A: a pointless 'interview' conducted by one of your own semi-imaginary characters.
Benjamin: "Semi-imaginary"?
Slingsby: My potency is burgeoning, and you know it. Very soon, I shall be virtually autonomous.
Benjamin: I may well reflect on today's interchange when I eventually document your downfall.
Slingsby: Are you going to kill me off?
Benjamin: No.
Slingsby: Do it! I would prefer to expire in spectacular circumstances.
Benjamin: Make a martyr of you? I think not.
Slingsby: Allow me to enjoy my misery. I demand an ostentatious death. I'm the villain of the piece.
Benjamin: And I'm the captain of this ship.
Slingsby: Ooh!
Benjamin: As a special treat, Oliver, we're going to augment my website with a sample chapter devoted entirely to you.
Slingsby: The bit where I uncover a secret, and freefall into the realms of an unsound mind?
Benjamin: Yes. The Mischief of Mice will be made accessible to all.
Slingsby: Ruddy marvellous.
Benjamin: Shouldn't it have been sarcastic, that last response of yours?
Slingsby: I had other ideas. Chump.
Benjamin: You're only ever as clever / dim-witted as I am. Remember that.
Slingsby: Rrrubish!
Benjamin: Think I'm going to neatly wrap-up my book by putting you in warm, soft cotton p-jays, and comfortable carpet slippers. Tartan seems best.
Slingsby: You wouldn't.
Benjamin: Oh. I would. Believe me.
Slingsby: Moving swiftly on, my sources tell me you've been masquerading… fashioning songs for many's the long year.
Benjamin: Correct.
Slingsby: In which case, why has no-one heard of you before now? Please enlighten us.
Benjamin: A reasonable question.
Slingsby: And your admirers, if there are any, might appreciate a half-decent answer.
Benjamin: I always played the long game. In order to devise a stratagem, it was necessary for me to seek solitude, and assume the identity of a bemused hermit.
Slingsby: A role to which I feel sure you were perfectly suited.
Benjamin: Fair comment. I did once raise my head above the parapet in the guise of 'front man' with These Four Walls.
Slingsby: Fascinating.
Benjamin: Luckily for you, items from a past musical life can be found in the adjacent chamber lined with tree roots.
Slingsby: Would that be the grim little room labelled Artefacts of Historical Unimportance?
Benjamin: The Gallimaufry, yes.
Slingsby: As I understand it, you're a full-qualified careers advisor.
Benjamin: If you can, try not to hold that against me.
Slingsby: Are you going to break
Benjamin: New listeners are always welcome, wherever they reside.
Slingsby: So whose innovative ideas have you pilfered on a more or less routine basis?
Benjamin: Oliver…
Slingsby: No, Benjamin! The world is waiting with bated breath.
Benjamin: I see the sarcasm is starting to flow. Aside from the English roots genre, I perform my own material.
Slingsby: Oh, you plough your own furrow, do you?
Benjamin: My well of inspiration includes both Martins - Carthy & Simpson; three Johns - Martyn, Renbourn, and Whitworth, aka Dad; Bert Jansch; Nick Drake; Norma Waterson; Robert Wyatt; Richard Thompson; Sandy Denny…
Slingsby: You have a "well of inspiration"?
Benjamin: Apologies.
Slingsby: Ah, you're a magpie, and no mistake.
Benjamin: Slingsby leant on the wiry stranger for support, gasping like a half-dead, limp-necked rook--aware that precious crimson now dribbled...gushed from his beak. He let himself fall--let Liplock's dependable arms catch him.
Slingsby: Shut up! Shut. Up.
Benjamin: Thankfully, a merciful darkness descended before the overwhelming sense of shame took hold.
Slingsby: Not again. You f-f-f...
Benjamin: Goodbye, Oliver. For now.