Day of the Gippids

A chill air blows through the cloistered environs of Ask a Drunk towers. A sense of foreboding enters the perception of all contained within. Even the soundly sleeping MacKenzie mutters to himself and turns over, his mind suddenly troubled by insubstantial wraiths of dreams, flitting menacingly round the edges of the satisfactorily filthy dream he'd constructed. Deep in the bowels of his "tower" Jarlr'mai strokes his chin distractedly, today even the malicious destruction of painstaking theses with the casual press of an evil button fails to lift his mood. They've received the same item of post as me. Lynskey opened it and stared hard for a good few minutes, his first cigarette of the day burning unheeded between his shocked fingers. Rex saved it until after he broke his fast, and immediately regretted the decision as he sprayed marmalade laced with Bowmore all over his hyper-chrome kitchen, disturbing the young lovely he'd lured home the previous night with the promise of unbridled Yahtzee. Even Zen Clown was distracted for a moment from his erotic dreams of Sue, wrapped up in a rustling parchment map of the Aegean. Simon was instantly on the phone to Philip Greenspun, loudly demanding to know the truth.

We've all read it now, and sweat breaks out on each and every one of our brows. The Day of the Gippids, threatened in that badly mimeographed circular, a nightmare of weak anagrams and even worse fake email addresses, a pogrom of hitherto unimaginable scale, has arrived. Run and hide, my brothers, or stand and fight. For sure as Aimless is a dangerous secret agent these gippids must be fought. Lest we lose all sense of ourselves.

-- Matt (Matt@coastaltown.freeserve.co.uk), October 23, 2002

Answers

If you think I am somehow mixed up with these... gippids, is it?... then most assuredly you have taken leave what little senses you have exhibited in the past.

[He lights a cigarette, casually flicks a fleck of loose tobbacco from his lower lip using the tip of his right pinky, takes a slow drag and unconconcernedly blows a geyser of smoke in the general direction of the ceiling. He examines his fingernails.]

You've got the wrong chap, old boy. Never heard of these temmed 'gippid' fellows. And when I went up at Oxford, I never entered a secret cabal, although you can believe me when I say I had my chances. What ho! I had my chances aplenty! But it wasn't my style. NOt then. Not now. And certanly not with a temmed lot of... gippids is it?

[Furtively checks wristwatch.]

Now I will kindly thank you to leave my house. Or would, if I had a house. I'm currently looking into a nice cottage in the dell. But in the meantime, I will have to ask you to leave my rubbish tip. I am expecting her ladyship and I don't wish to have her arrive while you are here. No offense intended, I am sure.

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), October 23, 2002.

After her ladyship had repaired her makeup and beat a hasty retreat, I did some looking into gippids, Inspector Matt. After a bit of research it all became clear to me. But, I must say, if you intennd to speak of omnitruncated pentatopes, you should say "omnitruncated pentatopes" and not this deuced lowbrow "gippids" gibberish.

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), October 23, 2002.