EDITOR'S NOTE - As Columnist Bimbleburger is yet not recovered sufficiently from the Late Unpleasantness to set his quill pen to parchment, and as Substitute Columnist Poughkeepsie has returned to his desk at the Northern East Granville Monthly Bugle & Hog-Caller's Gazette, your Editor has, for the nonce, engaged Miss Lorelei Popover in their stead. Miss Popover is on temporary suspension from her position as Deputy Chief Gossip Columnist for the semi-monthly Ha'adwick Bilge-Cleaners' Herald & Astrological Times owing to an unfortunate reference to that publication's business manager and the editor's great-aunt. Their loss is our gain, and we look forward to her fresh perspective on events in our glorious little burg. A word to the wise, however: Miss Popover has pitched her tent atop the roof of the Mayonnaise Building, whence she can view comings and goings in the Piazza Municipale with her telescope.

• CORRECTION - We regret that Fire Chief Nylon's name was omitted from the FAREWELL TO A FAVORITE SON section of last week's column. The office dog, who has apparently set himself up as a literary critic, ate Mr. Poughkeepsie's column, and when it finally reappeared, there was some difficulty in piecing it back together.

FURTHER RUMORS & MORE INNUENDO - Your Columnist has learned that the financial backer of the soon-to-appear Pseudonymous Press, Squatley Flummage, has been hiring staff, commencing with the Italian semi-journalist Brutto Cretino as publisher (not editor, as reported last week). Formerly editor of Perugia's La Diffamazione, Signor Cretino is a noted rumor-monger of the Old School. As noted previously, the all-important position of public relations flack will be filled by Miss Dyspepsia Flangeworthy, formerly a partner in Wimmage, Froofraw, Galumpke & Nutcase, the state's oldest public relations firm. Miss Flangeworthy's specialty is right-wing serial nuisances, petulant would-be public figures, and moronic fame-seekers. The less-important title of editor will be taken by a protégé of Signor Cretino, the Italo-Tongan, Bugiardo Grasso, while the position of Cleaning Lady in Chief will be assumed by Missus Gladys Mopflinger. Further details are expected at any moment.

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NORTHERN END OF WESTERN LOWER VINE STREET - Miss Prunella Hydrazine reports that she has heard the first tufted plover of spring. However, her neighbor, Madame Mortadella Bungleschneider, Adjunct Professor of Exotic Mammalian Studies and Newtonian Astrology at the Dog River Academy for Wayward Boys, asserts that it was the mating call of a Doppelganger's Gnu, disputing a much, much earlier report in these pages that the last of its species had been assassinated in the vicinity of the Hermit of Mill Hill. Prof. Madame Bungleschneider further advises that the Gnu would only have issued its clarion call if there was a female in the vicinity, thus holding out some hope that the breed can be brought back from the brink of extinction. Still another voice, that of Mister Humber Whumplehacker, opines that the sound was merely his wife sneezing.