“After Liff” by John Lloyd and Jon Canter

It’s always a thrill to get something published. My latest appearance in print is especially important to me, despite the fact it comprises just eleven words. It’s my humble contribution to After Liff, a book written by John Lloyd and Jon Canter and just published by Faber and Faber.

Why do these eleven words mean so much to me? In order to explain, I first need to whisk you back through time to the year 1983, when TV producer John Lloyd joined forces with author Douglas Adams to write an unassuming little book called The Meaning of Liff.

The idea behind the book was deceptively simple. The authors compiled a list of real placenames, mostly from the UK, and assigned to them definitions that described by the authors as:

“Common experiences, feelings, situations and even objects which we all know and recognise, but for which no words exist.”

The genius of this concept can only fully be appreciated by reading the book. However, if I tell you that the definition of a Duddo (a village in Northumberland) is The most deformed potato in any given collection of potatoes, and that the verb Harbledown (a village near Canterbury) means to manoeuvre a double mattress down a winding staircase, you’ll get the general idea.

The Meaning of Liff appealed to me mostly because it’s very, very funny. Like most funny things, it’s also very, very true. As for the pedigree of its authors, John Lloyd is probably best known as the man behind such classic TV programmes as Not the Nine O’Clock News, Spitting Image, Blackadder and QI, while Douglas Adams wrote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and its many sequels.

It was the authors’ names that prompted me to pick up the book in the first place. Lloyd’s programmes had always been at the top of my viewing list. Adams was, and still is, one of my favourite authors, and I share the view of many that his sudden death in 2001 robbed us of one of our great comic talents. It’s all too easy to dismiss The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as the farcical spacegoing adventures of the hapless Arthur Dent. On one level, that’s exactly what they are. However, Adams’s comedy was drawn from ferocious intelligence, acute observation and thinly veiled sadness, the unique combination of which is just part of what gives his work both depth and lasting appeal.

1990 saw the publication of The Deeper Meaning of Liff, a revised and expanded version of the original book. Since then, the Liff phenomenon has steadily gained traction on the internet, with fans devising new Liffs (yes, the word has become a proper noun), and sharing them on websites and through social media.

Bringing things right up to date, and indeed back to where I started, John Lloyd and his co-author Jon Canter have just published After Liff, a wholly new publication containing a fresh lexicon of amusing definitions. One fifth of these were compiled from contributions gathered from the internet.

I’m delighted to say that one of the new Liffs is mine.

Last year, a friend of mine tweeted that he was driving through Northamptonshire and had passed a sign for a place called Yardley Gobion. I couldn’t imagine a more suitable candidate for Liffification (hmm, I’m not sure that’s a word). So, I tweeted my definition, tagging the After Liff team. Then, as is the way with Twitter, I forgot all about it. Months later, I was astonished to receive a message asking if I’d like my Liff to appear in the new book.

So, there you have it. I’ve managed to write eleven short words that, in a very small way, connect me to two of the men who shaped my early life, and who have continued to bring me pleasure ever since. Today, the postman delivered my complimentary copy of the new book, signed by the authors and glowing faintly with the aura of the late, great Douglas Adams. It will take pride of place on my bookshelf.

What’s that? You want to know what those eleven words of mine are? You want to know what the official definition of Yardley Gobion actually is?

Sorry, if you want to know that, you’ll have to get your own copy of After Liff!