[Groop] Off-Topic Request From A Lurker

[Mr Ferg]

Hi folks,

Ferg here again. In response to my treatise yesterday, Chris Schechner asked:

"Now why would anyone in the tax office call you "Darling"?"

There are a couple of theories around:
* Working in the Tax Office is so tedious that the employees have to compensate by watching far too much Blackadder.
* It's shorthand for, "you there". According to Bill Bryson's "Down Under" (highly recommended reading, incidentally), almost everything in Australia is called either Darling or Macquarie.

However, the truth is actually Groo-related: I was just trying to follow ME's writing advice. I always loved Groo Grams, even going so far as to joke in my one-and-only published letter that I thought it was much more entertaining than the comic itself. Mark once wrote something in GG to the effect that sometimes the thing he most looks for in fan-letters is "a good straight line". At the time, I did toy with the idea of sending him a copy of the Australian Standard AS#99155 on Line Construction & Design but (wisely, I think) refrained. 

Anyway, I was pretty confident that a discerning bunch of funnybook fans like the Groop was not going to let an opportunity like the "Darling" line go unexploited and am delighted to have been proved correct. So a big THANK YOU to Chris for taking the hook (and to all the rest of you who asked the question subconsciously).

I really do feel like I belong now.
Ferg


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