Then I got a reply from the Fan Dancers: "Dear Mr Lindsay" (very cautious and formal you'll notice) "Welcome to the ranks of the Romiley Fan Dancers but only if you are sufficiently inimical and hostile to join the revolting practices of the Dancers. The purpose of the Dancers is to destroy at the root that insipid organisation known as the RFV&SDS, of which I am one of the Founders. The other Elder is harry turner who has no idea that I am the spy in our midst. So it is that I can reveal to you the innermost secrets ofthe RFV&SDS, being sworn to its destruction. Know then the rights of the matter of the rights about which you inquired.    The Romiley Fan Dancers are lost to all human feeling and sensibility, dregs ofthe sewers, outcasts of society, to whom law is anathema. We recognise no man's rights where our scurvy interests are concerned, and thereby forfeit our own. No man can ask for rights or Justice and join in the dreaded Dance. Let it be so.    This is the ruling of the RFDS. Most secret is the ruling, and should be concealed within the pages of the next issue of SCHNERDLITES.    'We of the RFDS offer no rights or privileges to our members. Newcomers to the ranks already have the human, legal and civil rights of all free citizens, and any further rights and privileges would give to our members that privileged status without additional responsibility which is utterly at variance with the principles of enlightened democracy.'    Should harry turner learn of your knowledge of this ruling, say only that it was told to you by a one-legged seafaring mariner with a parrot on one shoulder, lately arrived from Pernambuco and bound for Tierra del Fuego, last seen wearing a top hat and a white carnation in his button hole... the sort of man you see everywhere. There must be no hint of my triplicity.    The conclaves ofthe Dancers are held in secret, and orders given only in an impregnable steel vault, welded shut from the inside. Think twice, Devonian, before you commit yourself to learn of the nature of the Dance.    Can you lend me any money?" Naturally I can't let on who this guy is, since he wants to remain incognito. I could slip in a few clues but I don't think you need 'em. (Clue !). I wrote back and said I'd steeled myself to learn the nature  [ People only write this bunkum 'cos they've nothing better to do. ]  of the Dance and enclosed a fiver to help the Cause. He replied much more friendly:    "Dear Nigel, I regret that I cannot give a description of the Dance. Being so far the sole performer, I can honestly say I have never witnessed it. Nor do I want to, except on Tuesday afternoons."    So where does that leave me? You don't think they are trying to pull my leg, huh? My ghod what a waste of paper!

SCHNERUDITION
SCHNERDLITANY . . .	A song in praise of schnerdlites.
SCHNERDLITES . . .	Neuter genetive plural. An emission of photons from the solar photosphere, a sunray, a sunbeam.
SCHNERDLITER . . .	A mode of ignition, a magnifying glass, a burning lens.
SCHNERDLITIGINOUS . . .	A disputer of the merits of therapeutic value of things schnerdlitic.
SCHNERDLITERATURE . . .	What you are now reading, pure bunkum.
SCHNERDLITURGY . . .	The annual ritual sacrifice of human victims to schnerdlites, sunbathing.
SCHNERDLITHOGRAPHY...	Pictures or ideograms etched on rockbuns by actinic schnerdlites.

Extracted from the Rorniley Fan Fictionary, courtesy of Eric Needham
Sole © RFV&SDS, 2009.