I'll read now, I think a poem from my first book,
poem called A True Story, which is in a syllabic form,
I used to have a lot of syllabic so I didn't
do terribly much any longer.
It really is a true story actually
though you may not think so, it's written in syllabics.
But it will sound exactly as it was
written in puurs, A True Story.
When the British Association for the Advancement of Science
held its annual meeting one year in East Anglia,
no one could think what to feed them on.
It appeared from previous experience in County Durham,
that members consumed an enormous quantity
of sandwiches.
How were the hundreds of visiting scientists to be fed?
The problem was finally solved by the inspiration of a Norfolk
poacher, who suggested at a public meeting in the town Hall
at Norwich, the employment of their local pest,
the coypu rat.
He claimed that between two layers of freshly cut bread
a thick slice of coypu tasted quite delicious,
and it proved so.
At any rate the sandwiches were bought and eaten
in extraordinarily large numbers.
The plain bread seemed to set off the unusual taste
of the dead rodent.
Indeed, a group of younger men from the biology section
dissected the furry beasts with a view to assessing just why.
Altogether it was a great success
for the quality of willingness to experiment
as the countryman aptly said.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]
Yeah, you don't think it is too.
I can see even the darkness, I can see from your faces
that you think I made it all up, you don't believe it so.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]
I don't have that imagination, I really
couldn't, it has to be true.