lost in a medieval wood

 

Wandering with Professor Serena Sanchez in the medieval Hill Wood, near the dulcet South Kildare hamlet of Monasterevin.

She keeps talking about a proposed collaboration with Professor Heinrich Bloort an academic from the university of Heidleberg.

Everytime she says his name I mime throwing up motions indicative of projectile vomiting and c.

I have doubts about the exact nature of the collaboration.

Our conversation goes something like this.

Serena: "Heinrich Bloort is going to help me with a paper on Yeats."

James: Oh my heavens. You young people and your euphemisms for sex. Doing a paper. Is that what he calls it?"

Serena: "It's his field of expertise. Yeats I mean. He offered to help."

James: And no doubt his ulterior motive will soon become apparent to you, poor innocent girl that you are." (Bit of an homage there to Fawlty.)

Serena: "He is sick you know. Seriously ill. He may not be alive at the end of the year."

James: "Oh come on. We've all used that line. I'm dying. I may not last the night. But one last night of love with you my darling... Uh, uh, ugh, urrrrgghh. I'm dead. No I'm still here. How about it?"

Serena: "He really is sick."

James: "I think you'll find he feels better in the morning."

Serena: "I had a friend who got cancer. She was dead in six months."

James: "That's because your friend had what we call real cancer. Heinrich Bloort has pretend cancer, also known as fake cancer, or please sleep with me cancer."

Serena: "Oh James, you're too cynical."

James: "Why don't you let me, what do you call it, <<collaborate>> with you on that paper?"

Serena: "What do you know about Yeats."

James: "I know that the real genius of Yeats was to convince so many people that he was a genius. I know that he was involved in devil worship. Stick with me baby. I guarantee you the paper you'll write will be a lot more interesting for your students than what you're going to write with that other fellow."

Serena: "That's what I'm afraid of."

*******

The above walk in the woods took place on Wednesday August 3rd in the year of our Lord 2005. As of today, April 25th 2021, nearly a full sixteen years later, Professor Heinrich Bloort is thankfully still with us and currently floruiting somewhere as an Emeritus Professor of Classics. No disrespect intended, but I'll believe he's dead when I see him in a coffin with a stake rammed through his black heart.