The title is a reference to the traditional calling, in a pub, of ‘time’ at closing time, that is of course when pubs in Britain actually had closing times.
T.S.Eliot also alludes to it in the pub scene of The Waste Land (The Waste Land: II A Game of Chess l.141 et inf.) 1 ANSAX-L---Anglo-Saxon and Northern European history and literature: ANSAX-L is a special interest group for scholars of the culture and history of England before 1100 C.E. Scholars interested in the later English Middle Ages and those interested in the early Medieval period throughout Europe are also encouraged to join the list. You can join this group by sending the message "sub ANSAX-L your name" to listserv@wvnvm.wvnet.edu 2 Good Lord, several years actually 3 Gk:τόποϛ place ‘A traditional motif or theme (in a literary composition); a rhetorical commonplace, a literary convention or formula.’ OED 4 ad. L. tropus a figure of speech, ad. Gk:τρόποϛ a turn ‘1. Rhet. ... a figure of speech; figurative language....’
in this case I'm thinking in particular of:
‘5. In the Western Church, A phrase, sentence, or verse introduced as an embellishment into some part of the text of the mass or of the breviary office that is sung by the choir.(Tropes were discontinued at the revision of the missal under PopPius V in the 16th cent.)’ OED 5 G., f. gedanke thought + experiment experiment. OED 6 Hobbes-goblin: conflation of the philosopher and the puca (for puca, see additionally this .)
7 Emerson Fittipaldi, who never (as far as I know) maligned the Mediæval period, unlike Ralph ‘Where’s-Waldo ’ Emerson who did. (and think yourselves lucky that I stopped there and didn’t bring in Emerson, Lake & Palmer , etc) 8 Or whatever name he hid behind: he of the laboured joke and the nasty disposition 9 Mother Carie's Chickens: conflation of a mis-spelled name for the Storm Petrel, Mother Carey's Chicken (Hydrobates pelagicus ) for no very good reason, with the dental disease for a pretty-good reason.
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