An excellent piece by Nina Martyris celebrating Edward Lear, and especially the Owl and the Pussycat, on the bicentennial of his birth and through the lens of Danny Boyle’s recent London Olympics opening ceremony.
Apparently Aldous Huxley fell back on Lear’s humour in moments of depression. Martyris has some excellent examples of her own humour throughout, including while discussing Python Terry Jones’ opera of The Owl and the Pussycat, one which made me laugh out loud
the word “pussy” in the poem — when Lear wrote it, meant cat, not twat
Making Hay 