You read it here wurst!
THE long-awaited and eagerly anticipated makeover of this column is nearly complete and the new version will appear next week. I am confident that this will be the most talked-about newspaper publishing event of the decade.
After a great of deal of experimenting and research, I have gone for the “Frankfurter” format, so that, instead of appearing as the conventional rectangle, the column will be sausageshaped, with a rounded top and bottom and a slight but dignified bend in the middle. I firmly believe that the great advantage of the Frankfurter is that it is halfway between a sausage and piece of soft orange rubber.
The new look is the work of the team of the acclaimed designer Oscar Boscastle, who was responsible for the radical redesign of the upmarket Portuguese whimsical column Estupendo! and of the prestigious German weekly humorous essay Sehr drollig. He also had major input in the layout of the crossword in Le Monde.
The typeface in my new Frankfurter column will be Prendergast Hush-Hush Golightly — although it is just possible I have muddled that up with the name of Oscar’s pedigree Yorkshire terrier which did rather well in its class at Cruft’s last year. Boscastle is noted for his daring use of white space, so, from next week, the column will have unexpected and exhilarating blank areas in it. Another innovative touch will be added by printing random lines upside down.
As the reader is made to turn the page the other way up, he has a sense of participating more closely in the column.
Massive investment in new presses means that, for the first time, I can take full advantage of colour. In the event of a joke appearing in the column it will be printed in magenta to enhance reader-joke- recognition. The new technology means that the design team will be able to deploy clusters of multi-coloured exclamation marks to set an upbeat agenda.
From next week, the column will appear in three sections. There will be the first, newsy section which may include the occasional satirical element; then there will be a smaller ( or cocktail sausage-sized) section with more emphasis on lifestyle and health issues; then a third “throwaway” section which we are calling Throwaway.
The throwaway section was a concept dreamed up by Boscastle’s Yorkshire terrier. We believe this is the way columns will be going in the next 20 years. With its use of higher-quality newsprint and its aerodynamic design, it is able to travel some distance when tossed at the wastepaper basket, instead of fl opping on to the fl oor in a heap at your feet. Commuters will find it more convenient to leave on trains and buses.
Boscastle has decreed that only two-syllable words may appear in the Frankfurter, to give its overall appearance a classical elegance. All punctuation marks ( apart from exclamation marks) will be placed together in a side bar, so the reader can sample them at leisure. Without commas etc scattered in the text, the column will have a cleaner and less “busy” look.
He has also banned the letters g and y. As it is supposedly a light- hearted area of the paper, he feels that g and y, with their tails, can be a bit of a downer. Abandoning them will have a major psychological effect on the reader, raising morale and enhancing positive attitudes. We tested this theory out on a sample panel of readers and a sizeable majority of them said, after reading a passage without g’s and y’s, they noticed a distinct improvement in their sense of wellbein. Some even said they felt more happ.
To avoid disappointment, order your copy of the new Frankfurter column today and take advantage of my free introductory offer of two sachets of mustard and ketchup.