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and other groups that they felt were deeply suspect, such as VW Passat drivers: ‘the car of smug lefties’. Added to that was anyone who was vegetarian, or wore sandals, or men with ‘overly vanitised’ facial hair – or women who wore dungarees, spoke loudly and had the outrageous temerity to suggest that their views might be relevant, or worse, correct.
The Spontaneous Anthropomorphic Event had taken place before I was born, so rabbits talking, wearing summer dresses or driving cars never seemed that unusual to me.
Jasper Fforde
She was now standing quite close, and I could sense her rich, loamy scent once more. It was the scent she’d worn all those years ago, something cooked up by the noted rabbit parfumier Gaston Rabbît. Whenever I’d smelled unwashed spuds it had put me in mind of her. ‘Jersey Royal Pour Femme,’ I said, suddenly recalling what it was called.
‘I think you’ll find,’ said Doc, ‘that fresh veg in neat lines, bean poles tied with natty green twine, cloches sweating with early-morning dew, seed packets on lolly-sticks in crumb-crisp soil, and all weeded to perfection, has a simple elegance that the judges will find hugely attractive. Veg is the thing, Pete. Exquisiteness merged with edibility, form merged with function. Consider,’ he said, eyes half closed, ‘the taut skin of a ripe courgette, the rough hardiness of an unearthed spud, the reassuring yet somehow saddening snick one hears when snapping the tap root on a carrot when
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‘Gregors’, ‘Greggs’ or ‘The Maccy-Gs’ are all rabbit slang for law enforcement agents, named after Mr McGregor, the villain in the Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit books. In the dubbed-into-Rabbity version of Star Wars, Darth Vader is literally translated as ‘Mr McGregor’.
While most humans are wired to be reasonably decent, a few are wired to be utter shits – and they do tend to tip the balance.’
I would say more than a few.
Thumping the hind leg upon the ground was a good method of non-verbal communication with a range of about four hundred yards, sort of like rabbit WiFi. Using Morse code, entire books could be transmitted to a large group of rabbits while occupied on assembly-line work. It is the origin of the phrase ‘a thumping good tale’.
‘This is the first in an experimental Media Tropes prison,’ said the governor, ‘designed in order to make inmates feel that they are not being brutalised by a barbaric and outdated system of incarceration, but involved in something more along the lines of a reality TV show.’
It’s certainly a lot easier on the prisoners unless you get caught up in Gritty Realism Month when it all gets dark and dangerous and we have riots and people end up getting shivved. That’s just been, so you’re fairly safe for another ten months.’ ‘That’s a relief.’ ‘Don’t count your chickens. Understated violence that counterpoints a wider issue in society can break out at any time, and we have the biennial Prison Break Weekend in eight weeks, so if you want to be part of that, you have to prove yourself with the right crowd.’
then lay down on my bunk, expecting to feel anxious. That I didn’t was probably due to my attendance at a terrible public school which I now realised had furnished me with useful transferable skills.
