Welcome back to Something Rhymes with Purple for our first show in our Autumn tour! Recorded live at the Fortune Theatre in London, Susie and Gyles arrived with bells and whistles on for an etymological exploration into the world of bells, specifically the Capital’s Big Ben.

There was much tintinnabulation (as much as Gyles tried to derail this) and our lovely audience of Purple People got to discover the links between cups and chimes, why bells were responsible for re-naming the belfry tower, and why Swiss Cow Bells are nostalgic. 

We were saved by the bell once discussions of ringing one’s bell went a little too far and Gyles got his (metaphorical) catsuit on to give us a stunning rendition of T.S. Eliot’s ‘Gus: The Theatre Cat’ from Eliot’s Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.

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Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:

Matter-fangled: to have got into a muddle while talking

Rackups: your just desserts

Quanker: someone who settles a dispute

Gyles' poem this week was 'Gus: The Theatre Cat' by 'T.S. Eliot'

Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door.

His name, as I ought to have told you before,

Is really Asparagus. That's such a fuss

To pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus.

His coat's very shabby, he's thin as a rake,

And he suffers from palsy that makes his paw shake.

Yet he was, in his youth, quite the smartest of Cats--

But no longer a terror to mice and to rats.

For he isn't the Cat that he was in his prime;

Though his name was quite famous, he says, in its time.

And whenever he joins his friends at their club

(Which takes place at the back of the neighbouring pub)

He loves to regale them, if someone else pays,

With anecdotes drawn from his palmiest days.

For he once was a Star of the highest degree--

He has acted with Irving, he's acted with Tree.

And he likes to relate his success on the Halls,

Where the Gallery once gave him seven cat-calls.

But his grandest creation, as he loves to tell,

Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.

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