Anatomically Correct

When I went to college in Dublin, there was always stories around about a legendary Circuit Court Judge and the eccentric actions he would take from the bench.  Although I know his name, I won’t use it because there is a fair chance that the stories are apocryphal or at least altered a little to improve the telling.

The best known event was when the judge told a young ‘scally’ that he was going to send him to jail… unless he was gone from his sight by the time the judge signed the document in front of him.

The young man stood staring at him, not understanding what was on offer.

“You’re not getting’ me,” said the Judge looking up from his paper, “you have to run. RUNNNN!!! Get out, RUN!”.

And the lad ran, as fast as his long thin legs could carry him.

I like that, but this my favorite, I’m always telling it.

(Ahem)

A rough-piece-of-work was in the witness stand, accused of assaulting an associate of his.

The barrister for his defence was trying to lead him carefully through his testimony:


Barrister: Tell us, in your own words, what happened.

Accused: Well, he came at me and I hit him a dunt in the bollix.

The Barrister notices a glare from the judge.

Barrister: Perhaps you could just rephrase that for the court?

Accused: Ah, yeh, sorry. He came at me and I, like, hit him a dunt in the… nuts.

Another glare.

Barrister: Again, although I said, ‘in your own words’, perhaps…

Accused: Oh, right, sorry…

The accused struggles for memories of biology lessons from his dim and distant past. He comes up trumps.

Accused: Right! (Clears throat) He came at me and I hit him a dunt in the… Testicles!!

At which point the judge loses patience and leans over to the accused, speaking clearly so the whole court can hear.

Judge: I think we all know where yer bollix are, Murphy, but would ye kindly tell us what a ‘Dunt’ is.

Going To See The River Man, Going to Tell Him All I Can…

Matt at Meltwater. Torrents. Meanderings. Delta has asked my to Guest Blog today. This makes me as happy as a happy person who took a happy pill… but didn’t actually swallow it, just sucked it for a while then spat it back out.

What am I writing about over there?

Damned if I know. If you figure it out, you might fill me in.

If you don’t know Matt’s Blog, for Shame! Be sure to prowl around a bit while you're there. You might get splashed but you’ll dry out fairly quickly.



(This great photo by Denis Collette, click on it to see more of his work)

Oh and, as I do sometimes, I offer 100EC’s to the first commenter who identifies the songwriter/singer of the lyric in the title without Googling it.

I have made a bet with myself who will win this, so try to surprise me.

Then listen to the song.

It’s a nice song.

Thanks Matt!!

Living with the Truth By Jim Murdoch – A Review


‘Living With the Truth’ is Jim Murdoch’s first published novel. There are several more to follow shortly.

I think it is a ‘Good, old-fashioned, read’.

That is quite different to an ‘Old-fashioned good read’, which it also just happens to be.

You’re with me so far, right?

The story is effectively a two-hander. Firstly we meet Jonathan Payne. He’s a second-hand bookshop owner who leads an understated, solitary existence. One ordinary day, he is visited by ‘Truth’, no less.



Truth quickly becomes his companion, his sidekick and his erstwhile mentor. The narrative follows Jonathan’s exploits with his new associate as he gradually discovers what a frustrating, embarrassing yet ultimately revealing companion the truth can be.

Truth accompanies Jonathan to his work, to the seaside… everywhere. And, everywhere they go, Truth challenges the people he meets while sharing with Jonathan some choice portions of his omnipotent knowledge of everything which has ever come to pass in the whole history of time... but nothing about what may yet come to pass.

Ask yourself, how unnerving would that be?

Contrary to some other reviewers, I did not find the book to be an easy read. There is much packed into each of these little pages and I had to proceed with some caution lest Jonathan and his friend Truth might dash ahead and leave me behind.

The action is somewhat episodic and those seeking a riveting story line might come away from this novel a little bemused. Jim. you see, is far more interested in his characters than in putting them through some ridiculous assault-course of a ‘De Vinci-Code’ plot.

In fairness, this book is about as far from ’The De Vinci Code’ as one can get. It is a serious study of life, truth, religion, sex, loneliness, ambition, and God knows how many other things as well.

As I mentioned, it did strike me as an ‘Old Fashioned Book’. Those long paragraphs portraying Jonathan’s somewhat dour existence, gave me a sort of a ‘Sixties’ feeling about the proceedings. I was thinking ‘Keith Waterhouse’ and ‘Kitchen Sink Drama’ long before Jim name-checked ‘Billy Liar’ somewhere along the line.

But then, Jim names-checked everybody somewhere along the line.

Jim is a serious writer but he also is gifted with a super sense of humour and he comes to his writing armed with the most tightly-packed bag of cultural references I have ever seen.

His ‘Truth’ character is an ‘Enfant Terrible’ of quips, verbal side-swipes and non-sequiturs. His book may be a little light on story but it is big on character and even bigger in heart.

Now then… having just said that the book is a two hander, I now wish to contradict myself.

The book is actually a three-hander.

Let me try to explain...

When Lady Diana gave her famous doe-eyed interview to BBC reporter Martin Bashir on the 20th November 1995, she indicated that ‘… there were three of us in this marriage’. In a somewhat similar fashion, there are also three people in this novel.

That ‘third man’ is everywhere, he’s lurking behind the bookshelves, at the next table in the restaurant, across the aisle on the train.


That ‘Third Man’ is the writer, Jim.


Nowadays it seems that every single novel in the world requires the writer to be like a puppeteer, manipulating the characters quietly from behind or beneath, never showing himself or taking an active part.

Jim shows himself all over the place in his writing. He cannot resist providing knowing commentary on the proceedings as they proceed. If there’s a good cultural reference to be utilised and the characters of the book can’t handle it, never fear, Jim will get it in there himself.

And this is by no means a criticism, in fact, I bloody love it. By deliberately putting himself forward as a succinct personality within his own book, Jim puts himself in the company of some of the writers I treasure the most – those who have fearlessly done the same. Writers like; Flann O’Brien, Tom Robbins and Spike Milligan. These men are present within their own books like puppeteers who have stood up from behind the striped curtain to play out in public with their own little Punch and Judy dolls. It isn’t easy to carry off – you need a distinctive voice for a start – but Jim does it admirably well. In fact, I would go so far as to say, “That's the way to do it!”

One final thought. I know Jim through his world-class blog and through his welcome visits to my own corner of ‘t’internet’. If I knew nothing of him except what is in the book, I wouldn’t dare make this suggestion. But a little learning is a dangerous thing and I’m feeling bold.

I think one of the reasons that Jim succeeds so well with this first novel is that he is actually both of the central characters.

In real-life, Jim is Jonathan Payne - an ordinary man leading an ordinary life.

But, when he writes, Jim becomes ‘Truth’.

On his Blog, ‘The Truth About Lies’, he exhibits many of the same traits as Truth. He is confident, knowledgeable on his subject matter and if he doesn’t know something, he will spend all the time necessary in finding it out. He is investigative, challenging and fairly bloody uncompromising.

Jim is Jonathan and Jim is also Truth and that, I think, is why this book works so very well.

I commend it onto you.

Here are some other reviews of Jim's Book.

Pics and Poems

Sharp Words

Good Reads

BCF Reviews

More About the Song

Writing Neuroses

Orgrease Crankbait


You can, if you wish, purchase the book directly by clicking here.

Movies Over and Over


I can't handle doing a top ten movies list.


There are way too many that are way too good.


However, there are a set of movies distinguished by the fact that, whenever I see them on TV and decide to watch for a minute or two, I cannot then stop watching, regardless of whether I've seen them a hundred times before.


Here's a few of them, I'm not saying they're brilliant and I'm not saying they're the best... I'm just saying that, when they come on, I can't stop watching them:

Body Heat

As Good as it Gets

It's a wonderful life

Finding Neverland

Goodfellas

Misery

Blade Runner

A Shot in the Dark

Dirty Harry

Fargo

Blood Simple

GlenGarry Glen Ross


There's loads, I'll add a few more...

Jean De Florette

The Magnificent Seven

Treasure of the Sierra Madre


Do you have any movies that you will always stop to watch? I hope none of mine are on today.

I've got things to do.



Flat Head Fishing

While traveling the world, I promised myself that we would fish in some memorable and exotic places.

But when we arrived in Queensland, Australia, our year-long adventure was almost over and not a single fish had been landed.

We stumbled off the bus in Rockhampton without enough cash to keep traveling slowly to Sydney, where our flight home awaited.

The only solution was to lie low at the hostel on Great Keppel Island, spend absolutely no money, and then make a final dash on the midnight bus all the way down to the airport in Botany Bay. But what can you do on a tropical island with hardly any money? Trish settled for lying on the beach beneath a sunscreen-ridden paperback but I knew the time had arrived at last - I was going to fish!

A shack beside the beach offered rods and bait for three dollars a day. After begging the money from the kitty, arguing that we could eat whatever I caught, I proudly set off down to the impossibly blue Pacific Ocean.

I hooked up my bait and cast out into the waves. Straight away, I felt the tell-tale twitch on the line which meant that something was nibbling at my bait. I drew the rod upwards in a 'strike', to lodge the hook in the fishes mouth, then started to reel him in.

But the line was slack and came in far too easily. My hook came back to me bare, its tasty piece of squid all gone. I baited up again, cast again and the same thing happened again - good bite, good strike, good bye.

All morning I baited, cast, struck and lost with infuriating regularity. A passing Australian couple giggled, amused by this weedy translucent fool who patently couldn't fish for nuts.

When all my bait was gone, I hauled myself back to the tackle shack, frustrated, dejected and with no dinner to offer my girlfriend. The owner was amused to see me back so soon.

"The Fish," he said, " They're called ‘Flat Head’ and you're going about them all wrong. Let me give you a tip…"

As well as his advice he also gave me a free refill of squid.

Back I went to do battle one last time.

I had just cast the first of my new bait into the waves when the Australian couple came smirking back from their walk.

"'Devil for punishment, mate?" the Aussie said.

At that moment I got a bite, the thirty-second of the day. I turned, put the rod over my shoulder and ran full speed off up the beach to where Trish was reading her book.

She jumped up.

"What is it, what's wrong?" she cried.

I stopped beside her and turned.

The Australians, frozen at the shore, were gaping up at me as if I was mad.

Perhaps I was but there, half-way up the beach, also gaping, thrashed a large silver bug-eyed fish. My Flat Head had landed.

I spent the next hour belting up the beach pulling legions of bewildered fish out of the pacific. A small crowd gathered to applaud my technique and I was the toast of the 'barbie' that very evening.

And if you think this is just a tall fishing tale, go on down to Great Keppel Island and try it out for yourself.

It really works.


Be Kind Rewind – A Film Review


Writer/Director Michel Gondry wrote/directed one of my newer favourite films. ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’.

If you haven’t seen it, you really should.

Whether your penchant is for science fiction, romantic comedy or quirky independent movies, ‘Sunshine…’ should meet all your needs – it did for me. Oh, and don’t be put off by the fact that Jim Carey is in it, if you’re not a Jim Carey fan. He does quite well here.

So… when me and my young men saw a trailer for Gondry’s latest film ‘Be Kind Rewind’, I was quite excited. Interestingly enough, so were they (the kids, that it).

The trailer was run before a kid’s movie and it had loads of things in it to appeal to that audience. So much so that my guys ran off to see it when it hit the cinema. They returned a little bemused. I didn’t get to see it myself.

I next came across it on the flight back from Florida a few weeks ago. It came on the little screens at about 2.00am/9.00pm depending on what zone we were over at the time. I watched a little then fell asleep. It looked just okay – I don’t engage much with movies on planes.

Then, the other evening, my eldest son was going on a birthday party sleepover which left me and the seven year old to our own devices (usually blogging and Lego respectively). This time however the little seven year old (four seasons in one day) announced he wanted to watch a DVD with his old dad. When I got home I found he had chosen ‘Be Kind Rewind’ (he slept through it on the plane and didn’t know it had been on.)

So we watched it, me and him.

‘Be Kind Rewind’ has a fun premise. While left alone to look after the video store where he works, Mos Def’s friend Jack Black erases all the tapes with his electrically-magnetised head. To keep one important-but-eccentric customer happy, they make their own version of ‘Ghostbusters’ using an old video camera and some imaginative props. Finding their work to be in demand, they move on to remake other well known movies in their own peculiar way.

The trailer was appealing to kids because it made great play of the various films that the renegade auteurs produce. That’s why my little man liked it and that’s why he seemed to really enjoy it in our DVD viewing.

But it isn’t really a kid’s movie. It’s not unsuitable or anything, it’s just not really made for them.

What it is, in fact, is a surprisingly elegiac film about the demise of small local communities. It is a nostalgic love song to the neighbourhoods of old where everybody knew everybody and it was okay to be a bit mad and even a bit aggressive so long as you played your part.

I feel the film is striving to celebrate something which never actually existed in the first place but which rather has been created through glancing back through rose coloured spectacles.

It’s not an entirely successful movie. It seems to try too hard to be quirky and the parade of oddball characters gets a little wearing at times.

Also Jack Black seems oddly out of place. It’s almost as if a real –life-celebrity showed up on your own street and tried to blend in. He doesn't help by phoning in another ‘School of Rock’ performance which crowds the more subtle work of the supporting cast. This is a shame because I find Jack to be both talented and very funny – he just seemed to be too big a face for this particular frame.

The movies which the guys make are great. My favourite moment is on their version of ‘Boyz in the Hood’ where a large pizza is put to wonderfully effective use.

When this film was over I found that I had enjoyed it very much. I thought the supporting cast were charming, particularly Melonie Diaz. Danny Glover proves that a famous face can keep his head tucked in with the ensemble when the need arises and Mia Farrow was sweet – even the local hoodlums were sweet.

After a while, I found I could pick some holes in it (see above) but, while it was there, it worked well enough for me.

Isn’t that all we should expect from a film sometimes?

The City is Now Behind You, the Mountains in Front


(A diary entry from years ago...)

Gatwick Airport, Saturday morning, way too early.

A little too much 'Meze' the night before, not really in top form but off on holidays. There will be ample time to recover, if only we can get there.

The flight - a charter - is predictably delayed, reportedly because of the late arrival of the flight. What kind of excuse is that? The plane is late because it is late. We retire to a dim satellite television sampling area where the audience is snoring its way through a CBS exposé on crooked cops.

I reckon it's all a conspiracy. Flights are deliberately delayed so that you are forced to spend time in the Gatwick Village shopping tenement where the magazine shops have no real magazines and the chemist can prescribe nothing stronger than a six- pack of flavoured condoms.

Trish hovers over a magazine with a tastefully nude Sylvester Stallone on the cover. I warn her if she buys it I'm going back home. She plumps for one with Meg Ryan on - which I can live with.

I hide out in the toilet. A discarded tabloid bears the headline 'Virgin girl comes third in Miss Sussex Beauty Contest'. I'm trying to remember if I've ever been to Sussex. Then I realise the paper is an airport rag and that, in this instance, ‘Virgin’ is an airline and not a state of mind.

On the plane finally. I claim the window seat leaving Trish to deal with a round yellow old-girl with a blatant beige wig perched at forty-five degrees on her head.

She sprays her sandwich all over my wife as she pronounces her dislike of all 'Pakkies'. I ask her what she's got against camels anyway but she suffers from selective deafness.

Her partner in geriatric aviation harassment dawns over the back of my seat. She looks like Shirley McLaine devoid of her beliefs. The ladies order large Johnny Walkers to wash down their take-off boiled sweet then tumble into turbulent nasal sleep.

But now, suddenly, it's Majorca.

We fly in low over what is such a pallid landscape compared to the lush colours with which we are familiar. The hand that painted this watercolour appears to have added too much water to the paints to thin the hues. Of course, actually the opposite is true, it is lack of water which has made this portrait pale.

We glimpse windmills. A surprise.

Palma Airport is a jamboree of disorientated grannies wandering off by themselves through sliding doors and out into the afternoon sun.

The lager louts by the baggage carousel seem strangely subdued. Perhaps they sense that the great palm-rubbing period of anticipation of their holiday is now coming to an end. Now there is nothing left to do for the next fortnight except drink, read yesterdays Daily Mirror, and scrape sand from their tattooed arses. Never mind boys, it'll all still sound great when you tell the lads back home.

We make contact with our car hire lady outside the airport caff. Blonde, briefcased and businesslike with a line in patter straight from Len Deighton.

"Here is your car...here are your keys, map and papers...We will not speak again unless something goes wrong...."

We follow her outside. I nod and smile, hopelessly hyperactive, and instantly forget everything she tells me. Eventually she slinks off to her next dead letter box and we slink back into the shelter of the terminal to take a deep breath and prepare ourselves for the drive.

You just know it's a foreign country. The signs are there. I find a 'caballeros' and duck in to 'check my makeup'. While lined up against the wall with all the other guys, the door opens and a cleaning lady rattles in. She nonchalantly dips her mop and splashes it in and around our slightly parted legs. The others don't seem rattled by this. I study the ceiling and try not to add to her work.

We get on the road. Trish has carte blanche to remind me as many times as she feels is necessary that we should be driving on the right. She reels off the directions and they present themselves and are passed in the order they are written, which is always nice.

The phrase which I took to my heart from the directions in the week before we left was, " the city is now behind you, the mountains in front." Now here we are, thrown centrifugally from the Via Cingtura and off up the Valdemossa road, the city very much behind.

"Sit back and relax," I advise Trish, "It's going to be quite a run to Valdemossa."

Two minutes later we are there.

A Key To My Mindset


I find that the small bunch of keys I carry around in my pocket can sometimes give me an insight into where my sub-conscious thoughts are.

It isn’t rocket science either.

Sometimes, when I get home from work, I will try to unlock the front door with the office key. As soon as I do it, I realise that I haven’t really come home at all and my brain is still mulling over work-related matters.

In the same way, I can often try to open the office door with my home key. At those times, I know I really don’t want to be there at all – I’d rather be at home.

Like I said, not rocket science.

When I come back from lunch, I have a little game I play where I try to plunge the key straight into the lock from two foot away using a single fearless thrust. If I can do it (and I usually can) it gives me confidence that I am on top of my game and that nothing the afternoon can produce will phase me. Those times that I don’t succeed means that there are some serious dents in the lock plate and in the end of the key too.

Finally, in my youth, my keys occasionally used to bring on some serious feelings of homesickness.

When I started living in Dublin, at seventeen, to go to college, I used to travel home for most weekends. Whenever I got back to my accommodation, late on Sunday evening, and put the key from my home up to the door… I knew where I wanted to be.

Do your keys ever tell you anything?

Looking For The Heart of Friday Night - Tom Waits in The Phoenix Park, Dublin, August 1st 2008

(The photos by John O'Reilly, my super bro-in-law, are from the concert)

So Johnny Depp and me went to see Tom Waits up in 'The Park' last Friday night.

Okay, maybe I wasn't actually sitting beside Johnny. Maybe I didn't even know he was there until I read it in the gossip column the day after.

That doesn't matter.

I wouldn't have cared even if he was right next to me.

For me, the biggest star in the world was right up there on the stage, stomping around in his monstrous work boots, grunting and growling, conducting us, the audience, as if we were a three thousand strong, slightly errant, symphony orchestra.

Tom Waits has been a feature of my life ever since my brother brought home the 'Blue Valentine' album back in '78. The deal was sealed when I went, alone, to see him in Dublin's Olympia Theatre in 1981. My expectations did not go much beyond him growling out a few of my favorite tunes. Instead I was treated to a show of such theatricality, raconteur ism, and wit that it has never since been topped.

I went on to see him two times more, met him once (see this earlier post). His lyrical creativity and uncompromising artistic vision has brought me right along with him through his every musical metamorphosis, from dead-beat-poet through manic preacher to Godot-like-troubadour-in-limbo.

All very well, Kenneth, but what was the bloody concert like?

Sorry...  Man, it rocked!

Tom's had some strict anti-touting ticket rules - I needed my passport to get in. This meant that each and every one of the three thousand anxious folk inside that huge circus tent in the park had long planned-on and anticipated being there.

Nobody within had casually picked up a twice-the-price ticket on an impulse to see that weird man inside the big top. As a result, the air of genuine pre-show excitement was utterly palpable.

On a huge stage decorated with outlandishly dated sound equipment, Tom's super-band punctually emerged 30 minutes late. Tom arranged himself on a raised circular ornately decorated dais in the centre of the stage and let rip.

You can get the set list on numerous other sites. Tom plays a different one every night. Some set pieces remain from night to night but, beyond that, you are in the hands of the Gods as to where the old master will choose to take you.

I knew almost every song but, oddly enough, it was the few that I didn't know that delighted me the most. "I'll Shoot The Moon" from "The Black Rider" being one example.

The set-list favoured much of his newer material which will doubtless have pissed-off some of those Irish fans who think he hasn't written anything since 'Closing Time' back in 1973.

In the middle, though, he sat at the piano and waltzed us through Mathilda (Tom Traubert's Blues) and even strapped on the guitar to sublimely perform 'Blue Valentine'. How anyone could feel cheated of classics at that point, I do not know.

Tom Waits hides his true self behind a highly effective smoke screen of quirky image, low-life-nostalgia and wry-off-beat-humour. In interviews, he appears to lie copiously and unapologetically and, although these are enjoyable events, very little of substance is ever revealed.

In an interview with Mick Brown, back in 2005, Tom dropped his shield momentarily to say,

"The fact is that everybody who starts doing this to a certain extent develops some kind of persona or image in order to survive... the whole thing's an act, nobody would ever really show you who they are, nobody would dare do that..."

My point with this is simple, although Tom hides himself successfully in his persona(s), I feel that he cannot help but reveal himself in his songs. The trick is to identify which of his songs are actually the revealing ones. For me, something like "Take it With Me When I Go" from "Mule Variations" is a highly personal reflection on life and love.

But I could so easily be wrong.

As Tom was up there stomping around, kicking up copious clouds of dust on the stage on Friday evening, I imagined I intuited lots of things from him. I sensed his relief to be at the last night of a grueling tour. I sensed pride in having his sons support him on the stage and bearing witness to their father unleashed in his natural element.

But wasn't I really just projecting some of my own stuff up there onto Tom? If I pick the song(s) in which he reveals himself, isn't it true that I really only succeed in revealing myself?

Therein lies the magic of the master Vaudevillian, to hold the proverbial mirror up for ourselves to look in. If that's what happened on Friday last, I kind of liked what looked back.

And finally, what makes last Friday one of my greatest ever concert-expeditions is simply this:

From up there on the stage right down to my cramped seat in Row Q, Tom succeeded in connecting with me.

My usual habit of being over-interested/annoyed at every little distraction going on around me was completely shelved as Tom told me his stories and sang me his songs.

 At times it was just me and him in that packed tent.

I see this as being yet another part of his genius. I also compliment myself modestly for my good disposition on the evening.

We made a great team on the night, Tom and me.

And Johnny made three.

Have We Met?

I've noticed that I spend quite a lot of my time saying 'Hello' to people who I don't even know.

As I walk down the street, I say 'hello' to at least 67% of the good folk who pass me.

This habit - as with most things in my life - is born out of fear. Fear that I will pass someone who I know and will fail to say 'hello' to them.



After fourteen years of living in London, I kinda got in the habit of not expecting to see people I know.

So, for a long while there, I was breezing through the streets of my little town not really acknowledging anyone at all.

Now it's the other extreme - look at me sideways and you're sure to get a great big 'Hello!"

I also tend to wave a lot at passing cars.

I know, I know but it's all that tinted glass, I can't tell who's inside the damn things. I think I recognise the make and colour of the car so I reckon, I'd better wave just to be on the safe side.

The latest manifestation of this manic acknowledgment of complete strangers relates to my treasured ipod (steal it and I will steal your life).

Whenever I see people walking towards me, I tend to pull out my little-ear-bud-things. Just in case they might want to speak to me and I might miss their nugget of information (maybe not an entire nugget, maybe just a dipper or even a goujon).

Usually they don't (want to talk to me) so I slip my buds back in.

So...

If the overall effect of this musing is to cause you to think, "what a sad bastard," then you are probably on the right course to finally understanding this blogger.

HIYA!!! (Vroooooooooom)...

...oh.

Ted Finds a Home on Inspire Emotion

I’m very pleased to be guest-blogging today on ‘Inspire Emotion’.


The post is actually a short story of mine called ‘Ted’ which hasn’t been seen anywhere else before. Perhaps you might have a look and let me know what you think. I’d appreciate that.


While visiting with Nicole, be sure and have a good look around. She is a consummate blogger with lots of really great content including the excellent Modern Glam.


I’ve got to know ‘Inspire’ through some forums we occasionally share but became particularly interested in her ongoing story-telling work, most recently in what is often derisively called the ‘Chick-Lit’ genre.


Check out her story ‘Joe’. Parts 1, 2 and 3 are now there-for-the-reading with the final part due anytime now.

I always try to guest-post with something appropriate to my host, so this time it just had to be my own attempt at ‘Chick-Lit’.

Well… it’s got a ‘Chick’ in it.

I’ll leave the ‘Lit’ question to you.