The Runcible Spoon

You know, Tom… seriously. It’s not as simple as all that. Just because you’re a seller doesn’t mean to say you’ll automatically find a buyer. I’ve already got one. Good Lord! Yeah, that restaurant on the corner by the war memorial. The one with the stupid name.

What’s unfortunate about the name ‘The Runcible Spoon’ for a restaurant is that…well, it’s clichéd as fuck. Apologies if you are an owner of an establishment called this. But really, these people are everywhere. Gloucestershire, North Yorkshire, Bristol, East Sussex… even the Americans are in on it. I dunno, lads. Maybe you should’ve checked if someone else had come up with this amazingly original idea before you went all in on it?

The reason for any of this is Edward Lear’s deranged poem ‘The Owl and the Pussycat‘. A runcible spoon isn’t really a thing. Well, it wasn’t but now it is. Kind of. It’s either a round fork with five very thin tines or a spork. Or an actual fork with a round bit on one side. Look, I don’t make the rules up. I just report back with findings.

Whatever you think about any of those establishments, you would be hard pressed to find one that went into business before 1975. Which is when it appeared in The Good Life (not to be confused with the Danson / Bell vehicle The Good Place). This incarnation of The Runcible Spoon you would assume to be an Italian restaurant, given that the proprietor’s name is Michaelangelo Lombardi. Which is so ridiculous, even Richard Briers laughs at in the show.

Now, I did initially think of going with the green, white and red of Italy, but the iconic intro graphics of the programme were too good an idea to pass up on. So the colour and shapes mirror that. Without the animated duck.

An owl and a cat sail off together, though. Of course they do. The cat wouldn’t immediately eat fuck out of the owl at all. This is before they buy a ring off a pig and get married by a turkey. Honestly, this whole escapade would be a total bloodbath, whatever the colour of their stupid boat.