unearths some literary gems.
[This is a book about a comedy writers' collective that Spike Milligan, Eric Sykes, and others formed in the 1950s, which originally occupied the upper stories above a greengrocer's--so that we have a reference to the "crates of fruit, veg and surplus apostrophes that were blocking the entrance."
[We're told that Frankie Howerd "was forever on the lookout for more comic material 'fresh from the quipperies.'"
[Speaking of Howerd, though we may think of him as saying "ooh-er" when performing, apparently behind the scenes he was a very different man: a man who put the "er" before the "ooh"! One of his colleagues describes him requesting a script polish: "Ah, er, ooh, if you could add, y'know, just a touch here and there."]
