Something Rhymes with Purple - Scrumdiddlyumptious

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

In this week's gloriumptious episode, Susie & Gyles delve into the whimsical and wondrous world of Roald Dahl. Join us as we explore the enchanting etymology behind some of Dahl's most iconic words, and discover the linguistic magic that brings his tales to life. We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our NEW email address here: [e-mail] Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club by clicking the banner in Apple podcasts or head to purpleplusclub.com to listen on other platforms' Don’t forget that you can join us in person at our upcoming tour, tap the link to find tickets: www.somethingrhymeswithpurple.com  Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:  Stumblebum: a punch-drunk, clumsy, or inept boxer. Sleepify: to make sleepy. Vidulous: somewhat greedy. Gyles' poem this week was 'The Pig' by Roald Dahl. In England once there lived a big A wonderfully clever pig. To everybody it was plain That Piggy had a massive brain. He worked out sums inside his head, There was no book he hadn't read. He knew what made an airplane fly, He knew how engines worked and why. He knew all this, but in the end One question drove him round the bend: He simply couldn't puzzle out What LIFE was really all about. What was the reason for his birth? Why was he placed upon this earth? His giant brain went round and round. Alas, no answer could be found. Till suddenly one wondrous night. All in a flash he saw the light. He jumped up like a ballet dancer And yelled, "By gum, I've got the answer!" "They want my bacon slice by slice "To sell at a tremendous price! "They want my tender juicy chops "To put in all the butcher's shops! "They want my pork to make a roast "And that's the part'll cost the most! "They want my sausages in strings! "They even want my chitterlings! "The butcher's shop! The carving knife! "That is the reason for my life!" Such thoughts as these are not designed To give a pig great peace of mind. Next morning, in comes Farmer Bland, A pail of pigswill in his hand, And piggy with a mighty roar, Bashes the farmer to the floor… Now comes the rather grizzly bit So let's not make too much of it, Except that you must understand That Piggy did eat Farmer Bland, He ate him up from head to toe, Chewing the pieces nice and slow. It took an hour to reach the feet, Because there was so much to eat, And when he finished, Pig, of course, Felt absolutely no remorse. Slowly he scratched his brainy head And with a little smile he said, "I had a fairly powerful hunch "That he might have me for his lunch. "And so, because I feared the worst, "I thought I'd better eat him first." A Sony Music Entertainment production.   Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts     To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Annex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple. If you're listening to this, you probably already know this is a podcast about words and language. I apologise for noises off, but any listeners with acute hearing, they will hear Beau, my cat, meowing for some food, even though she's got lots out there. Treats, I think she's on the prowl for. But do you know what? In some ways, I think my cat might be a nice segue into the subject for today. I don't know if he actually had any cats, but he did sort of create this sort of strange and rather fantastical world. And it is none other than Roald Dahl. We're going to talk about Roald Dahl today, aren't we? A very interesting figure, Roald Dahl. And I had, I must have told you this before,

I met him on a number of occasions because in the 1970s and 1980s, I wrote quite a number of children's books myself, published by his publisher, Puffin Books, part of Penguin Books. And we shared an editor, a brilliant editor called Elizabeth Attenborough, who I think later became a trustee of the Roald Dahl Foundation, was one of the team who looked after his estate after his death. And I think she knew him well and found him easy. I didn't know him well and didn't find him easy. We once travelled to the West Country on a train journey. It seemed to me an endless train journey. I was young in my 20s. He was old in his, well, seemed to me infinitely old.

He was probably only in his 60s. And there was something a little bit menacing about him. He was tall. He looked a bit odd. I don't think I chatted away stupidly. I was too awed to do so. But we made conversation. And I felt that everything I said,

I got slightly wrong. He was able to disconcert me. I think, well, he's become a very controversial figure, hasn't he? Explain a bit more about that. Why is he so controversial? Is this his private life and some of his views expressed in letters and publications rather than in his famous children's stories? I think so. I think, as you say, it's to do with his private life, because I think his family have become fairly forthcoming about that and possibly a touch of misogyny in there. But he publicly also made a number of anti-Semitic comments throughout his career. Yeah, he had definitely had a dark side. And I think that is beginning to be recognised. And, you know, I don't think that will ever go away now.

But for those who don't know him, maybe I should just give you a quick summary of who he was, Roald Dahl. Born 1916, 13th of September. I think he was born in South Wales, in Randolph. But he was of Norwegian parents, hence his surname and his first name. Educated in English public school, Repton. He worked for a petrol company, I think, in the, in fact, I'm looking at it here, the Asiatic Petroleum Company. Then he joined the RAF in 1939, fighter pilot during the Second World War. Then he was attached as an air attaché to the British Embassy in Washington. And then he began writing. And I think his writing is divided between two sorts of things. One is

popular children's books, which, you know, have made him hugely famous. And it was how I met him. And stories for adults, some of which are a little bit sinister. Tales of the Unexpected. Good grief. I absolutely loved the dramatisation of those when I was little. He was a great short story writer. And I think some of those became short stories. And you know, he worked on the film script for You Only Live Twice. Yes. And another film of Ian Fleming's, because he was a friend of Ian Fleming's, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. So he was a very versatile writer, but a curious individual. Curious individual. And it was worth saying that actually, there was another controversy very recently, I think it was Puffin,

actually tried to edit some of the text, which then in turn brought quite an outcry from people who understandably thought that publishers were trying to curb freedom of expression. I think someone rushedly came out and said that. And I read quite an interesting review, actually, where someone just said, well, you will look at any of his books and you will find something to offend almost everyone. But if he was a bigot, he was an equal opportunities bigot because he did take a pop at many, many people. So definitely worth mentioning his dark side,

but also worth mentioning that to celebrate the centenary of his birth, the OED, the Oxford English Dictionary, is actually looking at his entries and publishing new ones as well as revising existing ones. Oh, good, because does he have a place in the evolution of our language? Well, he does really because, I mean, for many children, his work, as Michael Proffitt said, who's the editor of the OED, chief editor, Roald Dahl's the first experience that they have of reading.

And, you know, the adjective Dahl-esque has come about because his writing has got not just eccentric plots and loathsome characters, but also linguistically, they're incredibly exuberant. And yes, he has had an impact on our language. And we can go through some of the words that he introduced. I mean, do you feel as I do, is you don't have to admire the personality or indeed the life of every great artist to recognise that they may have created great art. You know, there are people, I'm not into music, but there are people who live for Wagner. And yet, as I understand it, Wagner had some pretty revolting views about some things.

So what my feeling about the books is, as long as available is the original book, then by all means alongside rather like with Shakespeare, years ago, there was Charles and Mary Lamb, I think we're going back to the 18th century, did Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, and they retold the stories in what they felt were family friendly terms for the general audience. But alongside that, the original Shakespeare was made available. So I think as long as everything is out there, people can take their pick. Anyway, that's my view.

You know, I think it's the same. This is such a big debate. We really don't have time for it. It was the one about statues, isn't it? I think I have loved the poetry of uh reiner maria rilke the german poet i just you know if i if anybody ever says but german is such an ugly language to me i just say well listen to some rilke because you will change your mind instantly and then i discovered to my chagrin that actually he also had this sort of darker

side or at least in terms of his views and it And it's taken the shine off him for me, I have to be honest, but not off his poetry. But it does make me think twice now. It did make me quite sad. But let's go back to the happier aspects of Dull and the way that he played with language and the sheer joy of some of his creations.

But what about scrumdiddlyumptious, which is amazing? Oh, I love that word. what about scrumdiddlyumptious, which is amazing. Oh, I love that word. Yes, scrumdiddlyumptious. And that's an original word of his, is it? Scrumdiddlyumptious. It is. Oh, well. From the BFG, the Big Friendly Giant.

And that became a household word following its release. So it is absolutely brilliant. He gave us in the BFG the witching hour. So Shakespeare first used witching time in Hamlet, but Dahl used witching hour. And it's described as a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep, deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world to themselves. I know. That's amazing. And in Hamlet, of course, it is now the very witching time of night when churchyards are worn and hell itself breaks out contagion to this world.

Dahl's sentences actually have echoes of that, I think. But he, like Lewis Carroll, was genius with portmanteau words. We've talked about portmanteau before. A portmanteau is an old word for a travelling suitcase, which has two sides to it which fold into one. And portmanteau words, or blends as we know them today are words that are mashups essentially they are created by combining the sounds and meanings of two or more words together and he had amazing ones like snozzcumber which was a fictional cucumber like vegetable frobscottkottle, which was froth and bottle.

And that's a fizzy drink, again, in the BFG. Delumptious, which I think is probably a blend of delicious and umptious. And umptious is a really old word meaning tasty. Plexicated, which I love. That's perplexing and complicated. And Swallop, because he says giants don't swallow and then gulp. They do it all at once in a single swallow, which is excellent. And did he define these words in the books,

or do we have to guess what actually the meaning is? I think you infer them from the narrative, yeah. But they are really clever. And another thing he did was he, very like Shakespeare actually, added suffixes. So he loved to take an existing word and then play around with it. So he has sickable, something so horrid that you feel sick, or rotsome, which means nasty, or gloriamptious. I suppose that's another blend actually, glorious and wonderful. Disgustable and maggot-wise, something that looks or tastes

maggot-wise is kind of really rotten and disgusting. Very good. I love it. Clever man, actually. Yeah. And do these words, these portmanteau words, would you find them in the dictionary? Because if you are a child reading, coming across snozzcumber for the first time, your instinct would be to go to a dictionary. And will you find snozzcumber, frobscottie, in the dictionary? Let's see if it's in yet i am just checking now no not yet for snozzcumber i think frobscottle i'm hoping who knows because this is part no nothing yet so

this is part of the oed's venture this year which is to you know to look at the language and see whether or not well first of all whether they took off and, you know, whether they've endured. Because as we know, J.R.R. Tolkien's words, such as Hobbit, etc., those are in the dictionary, not least because he was an editor of the OED himself, well, worked on it. Did he organise it so that he should be now? No. I'm joking. But he was asked to sort of help with the definitions of some of his words, which I think is brilliant. But no, quite often he took wonderful words from Old English and then used them for different purposes in his book. So he was a professor of Anglo-Saxon, I absolutely knew his stuff. But yeah, with Rathdal, so a lot of them not in yet, it has to be said. And I think this is exactly what's been

going to go, you know, what's going to be going on this year, which is exciting. Yeah. How do you make, how do you build these? I mean, when you do a portmanteau word, it's just putting two words together. But he also used suffixes. And did he use prefixes to sort of turn a word into something else? Yes. So I've just given you the suffixes.

Prefixes is a good one. I'm not sure. I can't think of anything off the top of my head but i wouldn't put it past him he also again like shakespeare i'm not i mean i'm not comparing dull to shakespeare because they're two very different brackets but like shakespeare i think he he had a fondness to play around with parts of speech so to make nouns into verbs and that kind of thing and also his names you know how how Shakespeare was amazing with his names? So was Dahl.

He delights in or delighted in creating names that really hint at the character or the nature of his characters. So there's... Actually, a lot of authors from Shakespeare through to Dickens did this. I mean... Exactly, Dickens too. The Restoration playwrights did it.

I mean, Sheridan has got people with wonderful names, but Dickens, I think, was a Roald Dahl favourite. And certainly his characters often have a grotesque Dickensian feel to them. Oh, Bradley Headstone, Silas Wegg with a wooden leg. I'm thinking of all the ones in Our Mutual Friends. The veneerings, Mr. Boffin, the pod snaps. I mean, pod snapper is in the dictionary for hypocrisy. And yeah, I mean, he was absolute genius. You're right. Does poor old Roald Dahl get anywhere close

with greedy Augustus Gloop, who comes to a sticky end in Charlie and the Chocrow Factory? And of course, Aunt Spiker. Spiker's a good name, isn't it? In Giant and the Giant Peach. She's far from... And Miss Trunchbull. I mean, Matilda, I think, is so often held up

as people's absolute favourite book. But she was, I mean, she's just the biggest, is so often held up as people's absolute favourite book. But she was, I mean, she's just the biggest, most gruesome bully, isn't she? And so that name fits her perfectly. I tell you who I think is almost the co-author for me of the Roald Dahl books is the wonderful illustrator. Yes, Quentin Blake. Amazing. Quentin Blake, delightful person. Yeah. And I think because often, I mean, actually, that's true of some of the Dickens characters, certainly some of the Lewis Carroll, we were talking earlier about Palmetto words and how he created them.

Those drawings by John Tenniel of the Alice in Wonderland characters. Was it the cartoonist who was known as Fizz who created some of the Dickens drawings and Quentin Blake writing, drawing for Roald Dahl? They form our picture of them. So we almost ought to give them almost equal billing, I think. Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. I've just, as you were talking now, I was just also remembering, you know, in Matilda, do you remember the name of the school that Miss Trunchbull runs? No.

Crunchham Hall. Oh, great. I know. They were absolutely incredible. And he's very keen on alliteration too, isn't he? Yes. Which I know. They were absolutely incredible. And he's very keen on alliteration too, isn't he? Yes. Which I love. If anyone gives me a book to sign and their name is Joe or Joyce or Jill,

I always have to put, you know, for Jill is a joy. Joyce is jolly. Alliteration, I just live for alliteration. And, you know, Willy Wonka, Bruce Bogtrotter, all these characters that he had with alliterative names. Yeah. He had Gobblefunk, didn't he? and Biff Squiggles he had Troglehumpers

I mean, Gobblefunk really was the language that Dahl created and it was, you know it was to welcome children into his stories and actually it's a really lovely thing if you go into a primary school and they will already be familiar with Royal Dahl to ask them to create their own inventions and to use those as a model.

And you do get some absolutely wonderful ones. He had churgle, didn't he? And a disastrous, disastrous catastrophe. He had some absolute brilliant ones. But there was real method behind it. Sometimes there was spoonerisms, deliberate spoonerisms. So he talks about jipping and scumping instead of skipping and jumping. And sometimes he would just make up words that were fun to say, and he would find these brilliant

letter combinations like eagle and ogle and things. I think the Reverend Spooner, who was a real person, the warden of New College Oxford, did rather well giving the name to the Spoonerism since it had been done before. It's done by Shakespeare. They should really be called Dogburyisms because Dogbury is doing that a lot in Shakespeare. I think it's much ado about nothing he appears in. And Mrs. Manaprop, of course, does it. Is that the Rivals by Sheridan? Well, that's true.

And she is guilty. Well, she commits Manapropisms. So why they've ended up as Spoonerisms when they could dogbritisms or malapropisms i don't know maybe in years to come they'll be called darlisms well who knows i've just remembered what a trogglehumper is it's a really bad nightmare isn't it a trogglehumper yeah where you just can't get back to sleep because you're so scared of going back into it and that's absolutely brilliant and i i think it's really lovely, actually, that, you know, as we said, we're taking personality and sort of personal characteristics aside that these words that have meant so much to so many generations are actually going to be reviewed for the OED high

time, I would think. We're going to have more rolled out at the end of this podcast, because I'm thinking this week's poem ought to be one of his pieces. Meanwhile, should we take a quick break? Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey, no, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself.

Xtree Xtree, your favorite anime is getting a new season. Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. And I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President. Every week, you can listen in while we break down the latest pop culture news and dish on what new releases we can't get enough of. We're covering the latest in film, video games, music, manga, and obviously, anime. Get the latest on The Anime Effect. So join us every Friday wherever you get your podcasts.

And watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. This is Something Rhymes with Purple. We've been talking about Roald Dahl, and if you have a view on him or his language or his work, or if you have a favorite children's author who you feel influenced you and whose contribution to words and language we ought to be talking about, do get in touch with us. It's simply purplepeople, now it's our new address, purplepeople, all one word, at somethingrhymes.com, purplepeople at somethingrhymes.com. Have we had communications this week from around the world, Susie? We do. And I'm going to ask you to read this one out because I'm not sure we have a voice note from Karsten, who is in Copenhagen. Oh, yes. Hi, Susie and Giles. I love your podcast, which I listen to when walking home

from work through the streets of central Copenhagen. Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen. Anyway, a colleague mentioned that the French use the expression filet à l'anglaise, meaning to leave without saying goodbye. The French expression would seem

to be the exact equivalent of the English taking French leave. What is the origin of these two expressions, filial anglaise and taking French leave? Kind regards, Kirsten. Well, we've talked quite a lot on this podcast, as you will know, but over our many, many episodes about nations taking a pop at each other through language. And this is just another classic example. So we've spoken quite a lot about all the expressions involving Dutch as an insult, whether it's Dutch courage, whether it's a Dutch uncle, whether it's going Dutch, which was originally seen as a sign of meanness and that kind of thing.

Turns out that other countries are involved too. So when it came to syphilis, do you remember, each nation blamed it on the other? I do. So for the French, it was mal de Naples or mal de Naples, and it was Neapolitan boneache for us as well. And then others blamed it on the French, Morbus Gallus, the French disease. So no one wanted to take credit for that. And equally, the Spanish flu is a bit of a misnomer we talked about it didn't we because it didn't originate in Spain at all it was just happened to be very severe at the beginning of the flu pandemic in the 1910s 1918 I think it was now this is another example normally

if you remember we associate Frenchness with a bit of naughtiness so we have the French knickers and we have the French letter and we have the French kiss, et cetera. And pardon my French. But also sometimes we just like to take a pop at them, whether we like to call them les rosebifs. No, they call us les rosebifs and we call them frogs. This is just a continuation of that. And if you leave without saying goodbye and without much of an explanation,

you take French leave if you're in Britain and the French retaliated, or maybe it was we who retaliated, who knows, with filet longlaise, to leave without saying goodbye, to leave the English way. I prefer to avoid both of those and to stick to a word from the US, which I think is utterly joyful. To absquatulate is to leave somewhere in a hurry, usually without saying goodbye. Absquatulate. Oh, I love that. Say it again. Ab and then squat, S-Q-U-A-T, and then ulate, absquatulate. Wonderful. I wonder who invented that. Do we know?

It was coined at a time of, well, talking about dull, really, of real linguistic creativity. So I think it was after the depression in the US where people decided to just, you know, have a go and be a bit more energetic with language. It's interesting that language becomes much more, or we become much more generative of new words when we are more upbeat. So following war, for example. So all those expressions like the bee's knees, the cat's whiskers, etc. All of those came after war as well. So yeah, it's just very noticeable when you're looking at the history of English. Now, our second voice note, I think, is from Leo. Well, Leo is German as his mother tongue, but he has written us an absolutely wonderful and

very detailed note in English. I recently got introduced to your podcast, and I absolutely love it. Every minute is densely packed with facts. It made me also think about a question that I've already for a long time. Pondered, I think. Oh, pondered. Is that what he's done with it? Yeah. It's always seemed bizarre to me that there are so many different words that all describe groups of animals. For example, a pack of wolves, a herd of cows, a school of fish. All of these have equivalents in German, his mother tongue. Yet there are more exotic sounding ones for which there's no real counterpart, at least not that I'm aware of. For example, a parliament of owls, a murder of crows, a tower of giraffes. So I have two questions. Why are there so many different and species specific

words for describing a group of animals, which do not necessarily differ in size? And where do these group names come from? E.g., murder of crows. That's what Leo wants to know. Do you have the answer, Susie? Yes, detailed question. A slightly detailed answer, but I would recommend that Leo seeks out our episode on collective nouns because we had a lot of fun with that one. But just in summary, the majority of terms, collective nouns that we know and love today, so it's know exaltation of larks parliament of owls that kind of thing those sprang from the medieval imagination and you will find them in books on hunting hawking and fishing and they were aimed very much at the aristocracy to help them

identify what it was that they were hunting and talking or fishing and to avoid any embarrassment so for knowing the correct term for hares, it was a flick of hares, for hounds it was a mute of hares, that was a badge of honour for them. But our primary source for these, and it's worth remembering, Leo, that there is no authority saying this is the correct collective noun for X, Y and Z.

It is very much a democracy. And most of the ones that we stick to rigidly today is actually from the 15th century, from something called the Book of St. Albans, which was a kind of three-part compendium, really. And its authorship is a little bit disputed, but most people attribute it to someone called Dame Juliana Berners, who was a prioress of a nunnery. of a nunnery and she gave us over 160 group names for both animals but also characters on the medieval stage and mostly they reflected one characteristic of the animal or people in question I could go on but when it comes to Parliament of Owls Parliament goes back to parlare in Latin to talk so it was where talking took place it was all about their sort of noise. I don't often see owls together, but so that's quite an interesting one. A murder of crows because they were associated with death. They were thought to be harbingers of death. Tower of giraffes, I suppose, is a little bit more obvious, but you also had murmuration of starlings because of the sort of

sound they make as they wheel through the air in these incredible groups. And they used to be called mutation of starlings because it was thought that their legs dropped off or one of their legs dropped off and they'd then grow a new one. So it's a fascinating subject. And as I say, if you would like to, go and have a listen to our Collective Nouns episode because I remember it being one of our absolute favourites. Susie, do you know about the pedantic owl? No. It was the one that didn't go, to-it-to-oo, it went, to-it-to-oom. Oh, I should have guessed that one. I like that one. Have you got a trio of intriguing words that we should be tickling our fancies with?

I think, in fact, I do know the first one you're going to give, and I think it could have been conjured up by Roald Dahl. But is it actually older than Roald Dahl, this word? Oh, it's not. No. Stumblebum. Stumblebum, yeah. It's an inept boxer or a clumsy person. And it was actually, we think, coined by Ernest Hemingway in 1932. So what year was Dahl born? 1916, I think I said, or maybe it was 1913. I'll look it up again. But yes, certainly. Well, it probably did predate him, actually, unless he was coining words like that at the age of 16. Well, he was very precocious.

He could well have been. 1916. 1916, Roald Dahl was born. Okay. So Stumblebum was a kind of punch-drunk boxer, but by extension, anybody who's quite clumsy. So I don't like to, but I unfortunately do fit into that category. My next one, you know how I like my own suffixes,

talking about Roald Dahl putting them on his own words. I like if I at the end, I-F-Y, and I've told you about happy-fy, which I love, to make happy, to cheerify. There's sleepy-fy as well, to make sleepy. So I'm just going to have a cup of cocoa to sleepy-fy me. I just think it sounds beautiful. Oh, I love that. And if you are somewhat greedy, but not a complete gourmand, but you do like your food, you might describe yourself as avidulous, A-V-I-D-U-L-O-U-S, somewhat greedy. And if you remember, Giles, this is the fourth one just to throw in. If you then end up with a bit of a paunch, you can always say that you are ventripetent, meaning you are power-bellied.

Ventripetent. Now, you've got some Dahl for us to finish with. Yes, I've got a famous poem by Roald Dahl. It's simply called The Pig. In England once there lived a pig, a wonderfully clever pig. To everybody it was plain that Piggy has a massive brain.

He worked out sums inside his head. There was no book he hadn't read. He knew what made an airplane fly. He knew how engines worked and why. He knew all this, but in the end one question drove him round the bend. He simply couldn't puzzle out what life was really all about. What was the reason for his birth? Why was he placed upon this earth? His giant brain went round and round. Alas, no answer could be found, till suddenly one wondrous night, all in a flash, he saw the light. He jumped up like a ballet dancer and yelled, By gum, I've got the answer. They want my bacon, slice by slice, to sell at a tremendous price. They want my tender, juicy chops to put in all

their butcher's shops. They want my pork to make a put in all their butcher shops. They want my pork to make a roast, and that's the part I'll cost the most. They want my sausages and strings. They even want my chitterlings, the butcher shop, the carving knife. That is the reason for my life. Such thoughts as these are not designed to give a pig great peace of mind. Next morning in comes Farmer Bland, a pail of pig swill in his hand, and Piggy, with a mighty roar, bashes the farmer to the floor. Now comes the rather grisly bit, so let's not make too much of it, except that you must understand that Piggy did eat Farmer Bland. He ate him up from head to toe, chewing the pieces nice and slow.

It took an hour to reach the feet because there was so much to eat. And when he finished, Pig, of course, felt absolutely no remorse. Slowly, he scratched his brainy head and with a little smile he said, I had a fairly powerful hunch that he might have me for his lunch. And so, because I feared the worst, I thought I'd better

eat him first. And I think that sums up Roald Dahl, doesn't it? It does. Because it's a bit of a horror story. Yes. It's funny. It's got animals. It's got wonderful language. Yeah. It's amusing. And yet at the same time, well, it's got that twist in the tail. It's always got the twist in the tail. Literally. Exactly. And it just reminded me, one of those tales of the unexpected, I think,

doesn't it involve a scorpion that a man thinks he's got under his bed sheet? And it's whether or not he can move. That's just reminded me. And didn't he come up with the perfect murder when somebody kills somebody with a frozen leg of lamb? And it was a leg of lamb in the freezer. He has cooks and eats the evidence. Oh, my goodness. I do remember that. Well, that is Roald Dahl for you. There's so much more to say. I think we're going to have a little

further delve in our bonus episode, but we're really grateful to you for joining us for this one. Please keep following us. Please give us a review if you like us or tell us what we could be doing better and just keep in touch. That's the main thing. And Jaz, can you remind us of the email address, if you want to write to us, it's very, very simple. It's purplepeople at somethingrhymes.com. Purple people at somethingrhymes.com. Do get in touch. And if you want to write to us in verse, well, we're not averse to that. We're not. Something Rhymes with Purple is a Sony Music Entertainment production.

It was produced by Naeodea with additional production from Naomi Oyiku, Hannah Newton, Chris Skinner, Jen Mistry. We have to thank Sophie for being our producer today and Richie. And I can just say that they are both absolutely, in the world of podcasting, jump-squiffling. They certainly are.