Saturday, January 14, 2017

A sardine tin in the news

You might think that the headline says it all: “‘It all seems a bit fishy’: Audacious theft of sardine tin costume from Lamb pub sparks appeal for its return before Surbiton’s Seething Festival” (Your Local Guardian). But that’s not all: there are photographs. And this description of the Seething Festival: “The surreal procession last year saw children dressed as cheese and guinea pigs led through the streets by the legendary ‘goat boy.’”

I hope there wasn’t a wicker man.

And now that I’m free-associating: I knew some college students, years ago, who had a band called Goatboy. The name came from not from Surbiton’s procession (and not from the Spiritus Mundi) but from the toddler son of a band member. Another member was in a class with me and wrote what I still remember as one my favorite student evaluations: “Beats the shit out of any speech-comm class I could have taken.” He was a speech-comm major, and an honest sort. Too bad I couldn’t include that evaluation in my tenure portfolio.

Related reading
All OCA sardines posts (Pinboard)

[I’ve corrected the headline’s typo of Surbtion, which did seem like a strange name for a town. The headline needs a hyphen: sardine tin costume should read sardine-tin costume. A Facebook page explains the purpose of the Seething Festival: “to remember Lefi the Goatboy of Mount Seething who drove the giant away through the power of making cheese.”]

comments: 6

Chris said...

I gather "Seething" is a proper name? Otherwise, I quite like the idea that there's a festival devoted to seething, though perhaps these days we hardly need to devote a special day to the practice.

Michael Leddy said...

There is a town named Seething, but it’s quite a distance from Surbiton, whose name the newspaper misspelled (and which I’m fixing). Facebook explains the festival: “This free community event which celebrates its 6th year brings people together to remember Lefi the Goatboy of Mount Seething who drove the giant away through the power of making cheese.” Okay.

Chris said...

Blessed be the cheesemakers.

Slywy said...

Surbiton showed up on Monty Python, IIRC.

Michael Leddy said...

Huh — I wonder if they liked the idea of the Seething Festival.

Michael Leddy said...

The skit’s online: Emigration from Surbiton to Hounslow.