Let us imagine you are sitting at home, in an armchair, with your feet up, listening to Scriabin on the radio perhaps, or reading Martin Amis’s very sensible new novel Lionel Asbo : State Of England, or simply gazing vacantly into space, like a dimwit or a simpleton, though you need not actually be a dimwit or a simpleton, merely dozing, half-asleep, at the border of the Land of Nod. Then imagine that your poppet rushes into the room, from the front garden, crying “Dennis! Dennis! Come and see!” Whatever you have been doing, or not doing, you sit bolt upright and ask “What is it?” “Come and see the shoveller!” cries your poppet. Knowing your Shovellers On Headbag On the Daily Strangling of Serpents This episode of Hooting Yard was first broadcast on the 21st June 2012.