So the blind truth is; the Tickler candles are never set, the crystal never polished; Steve says they are, but that's just the hanging chads of his hoary past, a threadbare nostalgia for wealth. There's no crystal. There's a raw 60 watt bulb over a kitchen table with a plastic tablecloth, a couple of World's Greatest Dad mugs filled to the meniscus with flat lambrusco and an overflowing ashtray. It's a lean-to in the valley of lost souls, a tea house for the damned. So how astonishingly lovely to have a true gentleman pop by and not mention the smell of old camembert. David Covell; writer, illustrator, man of letters, transplant and polymath, inadvertently hiking the Trail of Doom in his lederhosen, pauses at our stile with tales of Rat & Roach, denial and a life in the theatre.

So the blind truth is; the Tickler candles are never set, the crystal never polished; Steve says they are, but that's just the hanging chads of his hoary past, a threadbare nostalgia for wealth. There's no crystal. There's a raw 60 watt bulb over a kitchen table with a plastic tablecloth, a couple of World's Greatest Dad mugs filled to the meniscus with flat lambrusco and an overflowing ashtray. It's a lean-to in the valley of lost souls, a tea house for the damned. So how astonishingly lovely to have a true gentleman pop by and not mention the smell of old camembert. David Covell; writer, illustrator, man of letters, transplant and polymath, inadvertently hiking the Trail of Doom in his lederhosen, pauses at our stile with tales of Rat & Roach, denial and a life in the theatre.

When you board the Medusa to set sail on the voyage of life, you have no idea which of the passengers and crew you will end up clinging to the life-raft with. Let alone who will subsequently be shot by officers, eaten by sharks, tossed overboard or shaved into jerky. Who are the final fifteen? Meet Marc Hundley, everybody's favourite shipwreck-mate: what better antidote to having your foot cannibalized by some Catweazle vagrant, than gazing across the disintegrating pontoon at Marc's beatific face, whistling Buffy Sainte-Marie and whittling birch twigs into ersatz pencils. On a diet of Virginia Woolf and ceaseless onanism. Marc Hundley. One-in-a-million. On the Tickler.

When you board the Medusa to set sail on the voyage of life, you have no idea which of the passengers and crew you will end up clinging to the life-raft with. Let alone who will subsequently be shot by officers, eaten by sharks, tossed overboard or shaved into jerky. Who are the final fifteen? Meet Marc Hundley, everybody's favourite shipwreck-mate: what better antidote to having your foot cannibalized by some Catweazle vagrant, than gazing across the disintegrating pontoon at Marc's beatific face, whistling Buffy Sainte-Marie and whittling birch twigs into ersatz pencils. On a diet of Virginia Woolf and ceaseless onanism. Marc Hundley. One-in-a-million. On the Tickler.

WARNING: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS PERTINENT INFORMATION AND ELEMENTS OF SINCERITY THAT REGULAR LISTENERS MAY FIND OFFENSIVE. Nose-curling subjects of actual interest include financing local grass-fed beef for Andes schoolchildren, establishing and maintaining small-businesses in the Catskills, community integration, the emerging identity of American cider, suppositories as a genre of home-entertainment. Steve asks real questions, Wayside's Alex Wilson provides insightful answers, Julian ruminates thoughtfully; all in an atmosphere almost completely devoid of schoolboy tittering and puerile scatology. The message appears to be: go to Wayside's Tap Room in Andes if you are looking for a convivial experience, to eat and drink well in good company and delightful surroundings. It's sickening.

WARNING: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS PERTINENT INFORMATION AND ELEMENTS OF SINCERITY THAT REGULAR LISTENERS MAY FIND OFFENSIVE. Nose-curling subjects of actual interest include financing local grass-fed beef for Andes schoolchildren, establishing and maintaining small-businesses in the Catskills, community integration, the emerging identity of American cider, suppositories as a genre of home-entertainment. Steve asks real questions, Wayside's Alex Wilson provides insightful answers, Julian ruminates thoughtfully; all in an atmosphere almost completely devoid of schoolboy tittering and puerile scatology. The message appears to be: go to Wayside's Tap Room in Andes if you are looking for a convivial experience, to eat and drink well in good company and delightful surroundings. It's sickening.

Julian went to Kingston, but the rains came, the river rose and the ferryman shook his head. Steve and Miriam stared into the fog from the western bank of the Little Delaware; then slowly moved away together toward Roxbury, with stick and dog. Alone in his Crofter's Cottage high above the Rondout, Julian tuned his wireless in to 91.3 and witnessed Steve and Miriam cooing like turtle-doves on love, life, the world, its wife. And Julian was sad. Not for Steve's hoary baritone so much as the fresh velveteen loveliness of Miriam's musings. Like perfume from another room or a Chopin Nocturne played in Juliet's tomb by long Edwardian fingers. Part Manhattan, part England, part walk in the Yorkshire Dales, part light refracted through crystal in the salon with Gertrude Stein. Listen. Time passes ...

Julian went to Kingston, but the rains came, the river rose and the ferryman shook his head. Steve and Miriam stared into the fog from the western bank of the Little Delaware; then slowly moved away together toward Roxbury, with stick and dog. Alone in his Crofter's Cottage high above the Rondout, Julian tuned his wireless in to 91.3 and witnessed Steve and Miriam cooing like turtle-doves on love, life, the world, its wife. And Julian was sad. Not for Steve's hoary baritone so much as the fresh velveteen loveliness of Miriam's musings. Like perfume from another room or a Chopin Nocturne played in Juliet's tomb by long Edwardian fingers. Part Manhattan, part England, part walk in the Yorkshire Dales, part light refracted through crystal in the salon with Gertrude Stein. Listen. Time passes ...

Following the unexpected absence of their scheduled guest, Steve and Julian are joined at the table by The Grim Reaper, who brings along his friends the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, fresh from a sold-out gig on the seventh ring of Satan's rectum. Together they sip Lambrusco and mull over the issues of the moment; the inevitability of death, suffering, pain, cancer, automobile accidents, the journey to Auschwitz, genocide in Rwanda, festering boils, the smell in the crease where the thigh meets the torso, the absence of God, famine, an indifferent universe, the Candiru fish of the Amazon that lodges itself in bodily orifices with expandable spines, aseptic necrosis, the music of Celine Dion, the loa loa nematode which burrows through children's skin and connective tissue en route to the eyeball, weather forecasts and breakfasts that set in. If you're looking for a reason to throw yourself off a bridge, this Bud's for you.

Following the unexpected absence of their scheduled guest, Steve and Julian are joined at the table by The Grim Reaper, who brings along his friends the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, fresh from a sold-out gig on the seventh ring of Satan's rectum. Together they sip Lambrusco and mull over the issues of the moment; the inevitability of death, suffering, pain, cancer, automobile accidents, the journey to Auschwitz, genocide in Rwanda, festering boils, the smell in the crease where the thigh meets the torso, the absence of God, famine, an indifferent universe, the Candiru fish of the Amazon that lodges itself in bodily orifices with expandable spines, aseptic necrosis, the music of Celine Dion, the loa loa nematode which burrows through children's skin and connective tissue en route to the eyeball, weather forecasts and breakfasts that set in. If you're looking for a reason to throw yourself off a bridge, this Bud's for you.