What is a droll?

28 June 2001
Victor is unsure. Can you help him?

What is a droll? I am a droll. What am I? A droll. What is a droll?

1) A new kind of crunchy cereal bar. A cereal bar, but really crunchy. You expect oats which are slightly chewy in a thoroughly wholesome way, with the possible bonus of an exciting piece of apple or apricot. You get all of these, plus a surprise. Gasp as your teeth are dislodged. Marvel as the spring-action bolts shoot into your cheeks, delivering newfound ventilation to your once monohole face.

2 eh?) A troll, but funny. Humour works on the basis of reversal, so let's have The Three Billy Goats Gruff eating a hapless and disfigured creature under a fairytale bridge. Let's have it in live action - none of this animation lark. That'll make me laugh.

2 bee) A lazy bee, but funny. Enough.

3) An alternative swimming stroke, so "I'm going to do the droll in this relay". Butterfly arms and breast stroke legs. At competition speed the disjoin between the top and bottom halves results in hip dislocation. Preliminary trials have successfully relocated ninety-six percent of swimmers at the bottom of the pool.

4) A musical instrument, in between a sackbut and a serpent (see too many Hardy novels). Imagine harsh whining noise emanating from a minstrel's gallery in a church in a woodland village in Dorset. Liable to induce the daughters of local landowners and industrialists to fall passionately into repressed and unrequited love for impoverished but kind-hearted furze-cutters.

OR

An organ from the seventies, to be found in the company of the Moog or Farfisa, used initially by progressive rock acts. Stretched to its phonic sampling limits by Jean-Michel Jarre in his 1976 release, Oxygene. Entirely forgotten by eighties electronica in the wake of the synthesiser revolution, it is due to be rediscovered by The Orb in 2003.

5) A form of transport - a dog crossed with a snail. Much like something from The Dark Crystal or The Neverending Story. The fluid, lolloping gait of the bearded gastropod demands the use of reins by the rider both for balance and for control. When Ricky Martin is appearing at your local record store, people can leave town in them (instead of in droves - geddit?).

6) An early 20th century Teutonic artistic movement - so, Droll (short "o", pronounced Drol, not Drohl). Close relatives of Dadaists in the nuclear family of Berlin culture, Drollers (Was ist dein Leiblingskunst? Ich bin ein Droller) emphasise in their work the emptiness and futility of outward show and the gap between appearance and reality - the key concept of "Schein und Sein". Moustachioed men in bowler hats and plastic women screaming like banshees.

Answer upside-down on page 47.