363's out now? Blimey - I've only just got 362. As of today. And there's a new one out? wow.
First thoughts: simon Young's magnificent article on "Modern Fairies". loved it, although the only things I've personally got to add to the party are incredibly tenuous ones - I've had two or three odd dreams in which the Sidhe figured (touches iron), but I doubt these qualify here - they weren't in waking life or in any other form of ASC apart from the one known as "REM Sleep".
Anyway. Don't know if Simon Young reads this bit looking for feedback from readers - I know some authors do and i've had interesting interactions with them in this forum after past FT pieces.
But I've got to alert him to eyewitness account no 357, the one from a reader in remote Oregon, USA. I'm really surprised this correspondent didn't give his by-line as "Colorado", as... well.
I have a little suspicion this might have an element of the spoof about it. A young boy sees processions of tiny elves and gnome-like creatures parading in his bedroom at night, and is disbelieved by his alarmingly authoritarian parents who accuse him of lying about it... the account doesn't say if they were singing or not, but....
This sounds very like a plot for an episode of the scurrilous and subversive cartoon show
South Park. In which one of the South Park kids, whose parents own the local coffee shop, is so hopelessly tanked up on caffeine that he goes without sleep and begins to hallucinate. in the show he sees the Underpant Elves, a race of gnomes and elves whose sole mission in life is to raid his bedroom, and steal his underwear. and yes - they parade from underneath his bed, when he is the only person there to witness this, with little wagons and hand-trucks, and thieve his underpants whilst singing a maddeningly ear-worm joyous elf song abut the joys of the underpant-stealing life... the hapless boy tells his parents, who of course see nothing (the elves dive for cover) and the parents get irate, accusing him of lying and making it up, as an excuse for being so unbelievably careless as to keep losing his underpants all the time, and do you think we're made of money to keep buying you new underwear all the time?
Simon, could you consider the possibility somebody in South Park, Colorado - sorry,
Oregon - is pulling your leg here? Just a thought....
this is it - can't get a decent video of the show yet...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomes_(South_Park)