When Between The Lines Means Between The Sheets
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
I realize it is a bit shabby on my part to slip in old, old column, but sometimes I find one I really like and I say ‘what the hell’, lets go for it.
Well I guess all heard the shocking news by now, Anne of Green Gables was gay. Apparently our little Anne had relationships with at least three women. Interestingly enough, none of these affairs are in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s books about Canada’s carrot-topped heroine. A professor at the Royal Military College in Kingston discovered them by reading between the lines of Lucy’s books. Which makes me wonder what our future armed forces are studying these days and is there a plan in the works to bomb Prince Edward Island?
Now if the Prime Minister told me this stuff I might have a few questions, but the woman who found this surprising bit of information about Anne’s sexual preferences is a professor of a well-known institution of learning.
I ‘m afraid I’m not too bright. I can understand historians discovering Caesar was a bed-wetter in some old scroll, or Richard the Lionheart wore pantyhose under his armour woven into a tapestry found on a wall in an abandoned castle. But how can someone discover seedy affairs in works of fiction after the books have been on a library shelf for 50 years and these little escapades aren’t in there? Now this is important! What’s to stop some unscrupulous writer from simply making up some trashy peccadillo and ruining a literary treasure?
What if some low-life scoundrel was to suggest Zena Pepperleigh and Peter Pupkin were never married in Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town and lived in sin in one of those enchanted little houses on the hillside in the newer section of town? Orillia would never survive the scandal. We’d have to close the Leacock Home and all move to the Godless community of Barrie where that sort of thing goes on every day.
On the other hand, this could blossom into a whole new career for a money-grubbing little weasel like me, writing hitherto unknown scandals about fictitious characters – especially when the author has gone on to that great publishing house in the sky and can’t sue me. Can’t you see it all now in the National Enquirer?
JESSICA FLETCHER FOUND IN LOVE NEST WITH INSPECTOR POIROT!
Literary busybody, James Foster, announced today that Cabot Cove mystery writer, J. D. Fletcher has been involved in a long term relationship with Belgian crime-fighter, Hercule Poirot. Foster discovered the affair on page 62 of The Case of the Missing Garter. Collette Croissant, a chambermaid working the honeymoon suite at the Brussels Holiday Inn, reported finding a pair of spats and what appears to be waxed nose hairs in Ms. Fletcher’s bed. The disclosure came as quite a shock to Poirot fans. They thought the dapper sleuth was as queer as a three-dollar bill.
SUPERMAN – SUPER DUPE!
‘Snoop” Foster made another outrageous statement today that has the publishing world in a dither. According to the mealy-mouth scandalmonger, Daily Planet reporter and long-time girlfriend of Krypton man of steel, Superman, Lois Lane was found in a romantic tete-a-tete with Saxon do-gooder, Robin Hood, in a tree house in Sherwood Forest.
Evidently, the Hood novel had been filed in the comic book section by a disgruntled library employee scheduled for layoff as a result of Tory budget cuts. Lois just slipped out of one book and slid between the covers of the other. This is not the first time Miss Lane has been found in questionable circumstances. Her Night in the Bat Cave series almost ruined the reputation of millionaire, Bruce Wayne. Lane apparently has quite a thing for men in tights. At one time, the feisty journalist petitioned the American Library of Congress to have DC Comics stored next to the Ballet Dance section. Fellow Daily Planet staffer, Clark Kent, was unavailable for comment.
WHAT TIME WILL YOU BE HOLME, SHERLOCK, WHINES DR. WATSON?
All’s not well that ends well in the Baker Street love nest of Britain’s most famous detective and his long-time companion, Dr. John Watson. According to Holmes’s nemesis, Professor Moriarity, the couple has been publicly squabbling for weeks and was even ejected from Westminster Abbey when one of their frequent cat-fights threatened to ruin the wedding of Sir Nigel FitzGibbon-FitzHugh and socialite, Lady Jane Backwater. The Archbishop himself tossed the two old pouffes out into the street. Apparently Holmes had been seen in the company of Alfred J. Prinsmettle, a boy soprano, on a number of occasions.
You can see how this sort of thing could ruin the public’s perception of the heroes and heroines of our favourite books. As readers we must demand the government put a stop to it.
Myself, I have a real problem with the article the professor wrote about Anne’s gay tendencies. In a column a few years ago, I accused her of having an affair with a P.E.I lobster. Now no one will know which one of us to believe.
(Image Supplied)
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