In her comment on the previous post, Patroclus was kind enough to compliment me on my modest facility with amusing headlines. It's thanks, I suppose, to many years' experience as a sub-editor, although even then the muse would desert me.I once spent a couple of weeks working on Vox magazine, around the time that Echo and the Bunnymen reformed and released a new album. Three of us must have spent at least half an hour filleting dictionaries and thesauruses and hazy memories of minor characters in Watership Down before coming to the unanimous decision that, no, there is not a single feasible rabbit-related pun in the English language that has not been thrashed to death five times over. And that includes "Warren Piece".
In the end, I think we went for something along the lines of "OOH LOOK, THAT MR ECHO AND HIS BUNNY BLOKES HAVE PUT OUT A NEW ALBUM, THAT'S NICE, ISN'T IT?"
6 comments:
Somebody get the phial of myxo
My favourite headline was for an article about the Salon des Refusés.
It read: Salon Selective.
Given that 20 years had elapsed since their formation to the release of Evergreen you could have gone with "More Bunnymen - less Hare".
I used to have a subscription to Vox. Sigh.
You may have to exploit other languages for rabbit puns. French, for instance - you'd be bound to find inspiration in the Paris quartier lapin.
Past your bedtime is it, Ward?
I've spent hours trying to think up a shampoo/impressionist pun to match that, Steerforth, but... nah. You win.
No, Murph - even the hare jokes had been done.
So you were the one, Bureauista.
You clearly weren't well acquainted with the literary standard that prevailed in the pages of Vox, Christopher. Anything more semantically complex than, say, a Prodigy lyric had to be ruthlessly excised.
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