Sirius's 3D crossword calendar

If you can imagine a cross between Spike Milligan on E(cstasy), James Joyce on G(uinness)  and Stanley Unwin on, well, A(nything), there you have Sirius, the inventor of the 3D crossword and the worst clue writer I have ever known, yes, even including Trevor.

As I have probably mentioned several times to my loyal reader Gladys Adlestrop, who lives in that posh rest home on the promenade and who's actually worked out how to get broadband on her Sinclair Spectrum (she's in the WI, you see), I have been working, and I use the word with my fingers crossed, for the past six weeks with Sirius on his grandiose project to raise a million quid towards a new school for blind and partially sighted children in Coventry.  The ups and downs of Sirius's project have already been documented ad nauseam on this lustrous blog, but I would like just to say that two copies of the finished product thudded onto my doormat at lunchtime (the post is early on a Saturday.) And what a delight to the eye they are, if you like purple.

The volume of e-mails between Sirius and Locum over the past six weeks is such as to have sent Tiscali* and Botswana-IT delirious with joy. There have been well over 200, most of them completely incomprehensible, both to recipient and sender.

Last night's exchange, for example, degenerated into a very boozy argument about pterospondees (like pterodactyls, but even better at handling stress).

Sirius and Locum are plotting the next project - the Dicitonary of Misprunts.

Meanwhile Mrs Sirius and Mrs Locum are planning to meet, having an awful lot in common.

Sirius's 3D crossword website is, if you remember, here.

Do have a look.

* A lie.  I invented it, to protect the virtuous.

WOSS'S BOSSES KNACKER NEEDY NIPPERS

It really was a matter of unfortunate timing. Sirius, whose 3D
crossword project to raise funds for children with impaired
vision I mentioned last week, has had his pips crashed.

One consequence of the abysmal behaviour of Woss and the
other bloke, whose name I have forgotten but I won't lose any
sleep over it, is that everyone at Auntie is very nervous and
keeps looking over his, her, or their* shoulder and boning up on
the producer guidelines.

It now appears that Radio 4's Today programme (which is as far
removed from the tritery and tripery dished out by the
scandalously overpaid Woss as my outside lavvy is from the
planet Pluto) has felt obliged to pull out of a scheduled
interview with John Graham (Araucaria of The Guardian - a
contributor to Sirius's project, and one with the requested Clout)
in case mentioning a specific charity in a news & current affairs
programme breached those guidelines.

Shame nobody thought to mention to Araucaria that his taxi to
the studio had been cancelled.

But what really causes the nostrils to wrinkle, as at rotting
material in the public drains, is that only last week Children In
Need (an Auntie fund-raiser, you will recall) persuaded Sirius to
cut them in on the deal, to the tune of 50% of the revenues
from sales of his crossword calendar. Innocently, Sirius thought
that the massive publicity that involvement with CIN would
bring would more than compensate, in added sales. So he
agreed.

Pause for hollow laughter.

What it has actually done is to cut in half the money that the
planned school in Coventry for blind children will receive from
sales of the calendar. Where CIN's share of the loot will go is anybody's guess.

But I do hope it won't go to the Retirement Home for Disgraced
Celebs With a Speech Impediment.


*sorry, Mr Humphrys. I loathe it too.