The Barrow Downs Newspaper

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Since that newspaper didn't exist when I dropped you off at the station yesterday afternoon, I'm more impressed than usual.

Readers of The Downer might be interested to hear that the location referred to by Kings Norbury Borough Council as 'Amon Rûdh' consists of an enormous sheet of cardboard, decorated with a large watercolour of a mountain, and with This is Amon Rûdh scrawled on it in green crayon. It has been leaned against a pair of trees, in one of which dwell the property's only residents: a group of squirrels, who are full-time students at the University of Arthedain and therefore exempt. I still maintain that my residence in the real Amon Rûdh is titular and figurative, and that my use of council services is therefore entirely imaginary. I have on several occasions offered to pay my taxes in an imaginary form commensurate with my fictional residency, on one occasion even presenting in person an imaginary bag of imaginary coins; but the council have remained obstinate on the issue. However, repeated threats of imaginary prison sentences in allegorical lockholes have done nothing to weaken my mythical resolve.