Sunday 27 March 2011

Change a letter, change the story

These, reformatted and with typos (hopefully) corrected, are from a Twitter hashtag we started in the wee hours, #changealetterchangethestory, which in turn was ripped off from a couple of old posts on this blog (1, 2 and you'll see that my first few were from my own contributions there), which in turn were inspired by an email thread. Please add more! And check out the thread, scrolling back to the beginning, before it became a sort of minor viral. We particularly recommend contributions by @tinytoots, @ravages, @leftarmspinster and @rajasen (who are cordially invited to repost their selections here or on Facebook, where this will eventually cross-post). The basic rules: (a) add a letter, subtract a letter, or change a letter, (b) provide a blurb and (c) if (b) is funny enough, you may be permitted to bend (a) slightly. Jurassic Pork Stars Miss Piggy. Kermit guests as amphibian with a taste for the Other White Meat. Bone With The Wind Rhett decides he doesn’t give a damn and follows his libido. The Princess Ride Another set of Princess Di revelations. The butler did it, apparently. A Suitable Toy The search for the perfect self-gratification aid Vernon Dog Little Dyslexic boy framed for incident in the city pound. A Stud in Scarlet Holmes helps a metrosexual accused of a crime of fashion. The Complete Woks of Shakespeare The man who introduced Chinese cooking to Elizabethan England. The Dairy of Samuel Pepys How one man milked success for all it was worth Of Human Bandage Florence Nightingale's rip-roaring autobiography Finnegan's Cake Buttery, over-cooked Beautiful Thong @soniafaleiro's lyrical real-life story of Fashion Week Sin Fish @chakraview's coming of age story, set in an aquarium Heaver Lake Vikram Seth's beautiful collection of poetry on throwing up Nine Hives William Dalrymple's ode to bee-keeping Known Smurf @anniezaidi 's debut novel about her childhood's favourite toy (yeah, okay, that was 2 letters) Homage to Catatonia The pro-LSD manifesto Popcore Essayists @jaiarjun edits set of learned essays on incestuous pornography The Grill @soniafaleiro on the art of barbecuing My Fiend Sancho @amitvarma's experiments with devil worship My Experiments With The Troth MKG's story of his marriage The Decline and Fall of the Roman Umpire @prempanicker's argument for neutral match officials Mound of the Baskervilles A pictorial study of the gravestones of Yorkshire Of Rice and Men How to ensnare a Tamizh groom To Fill a Mockingbird A guide to the bird-feeders of Alabama The World According to Carp Scientific study of the migration habits of this popular fish Fear and Loafing in Las Vegas The flaneur's guide to sin city Match 22 Elizabeth Taylor's marriages Midflight's Children The progeny of the Mile-High Club (one more cheat - 2 letters changed) The Unbearable Lightness of Peeing Blessed relief Sods and Lovers The Hemingway you never knew The Girl With The Dragon Tatti Creative defecation The Girl Who Flayed With Fire S&M, pyromania; it's all there The Grate Indian Novel Slightly irritating IWE work The Sly Company Of People Who Caress Love for sale, surreptitiously India Balling An NYT reporter takes a gap year in India Trainspitting Why the railway tracks turned red Shtupping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Frost's raunchier side Love and Ponging in Bombay How a deodarant salesman found romance in the city's trains Malgudi Pays RKN's guide to budding IWE writers Sacred Dames The BJP's sadhvis - an insiders account Groom on the Roof Finding love in the hills In An Antique Band Life on the road with The Rolling Stones Maxiumum Pity When Mother Teresa opened a branch office in Bombay 2 Statues Best-selling Indian novel with wooden characters Lunatic in my mead The mad bootlegger of Bangalore The Hungry Diet Amitav Ghosh's patented, guaranteed weight loss manual The Mother Side of Midnight Oedipus revisited Supperman The sad story of an overweight superhero The Kite Punner Who strangled him with the manja? A Hose for Mr Biswas Naipaul's epic work on suburban gardening What Ho, Jeeves Bertie can;t remember who he was with last night (well, okay, no letters changed) The 3 Mistakes of My Wife How his spouse said 'I do, I do, I do' The Singh And I @bhogleharsha on how to keep smiling in the commentary box Spittle Women The first compartment of the 8.20 Churchgate fast Withering Heights Collected criticism Sex and the Pity How the losers get laid The Twin Showers The Ashleigh and Mary-Kate voyeur tapes Park Night Bruce Wayne cruises the Oval, looking for a little Robin Lady Chatterly's Lever Give me a place to stand and I'll make the earth move for you, baby It Takes A Pillage The USA's war on Countries Which Won't Give Them Oil Who Filled Roger Rabbit? A taxidermist's tale of woe The Audacity of Grope Another president's memoir The Audacity of Dope How an idiot became President The Wind in the Pillows Why she had to change the bedclothes The Call of the Mild Indian engineers move to the USA Caturday Night Fever The LOLCATS collection Pilates of the Caribbean Weight Loss in the West Indies Dork Knight @sidin's secret fantasies

6 comments:

girish said...

The life of Pie - Filling, rising and crumble; its all there.

Anoopa Anand said...

This was the most fun thing ever! Here are some of mine. Thanks!

Lady Chatterjy's Lover. Amour, Bangla.

Rankenstein. Class toppers get a makeover.

A Thousand Splendid Sons. Gandhari's other 900.

The Goon and Sixpence. Moe tells us how it doesn't pay to be a bully.

Trainslotting. Mamata knows best.

Rainspotting. The making of Lagaan.

Piddler on the Roof. What he wouldn't have had to do if he were a rich man.

The Inheritance of Floss. One man's pearly gates, another man's pearly whites.

Bunny Days. What Sunil Gavaskar will never tell you about.

Herdog. The pets Saul Bellow could never call his own.

My Experiments With Ruth. Love in the chemistry lab.

The World According to Parp. Traffic rules and etiquette.

The Old Man and the Pea. It was never just about the princess.

Men Are From Bars Women Are From Venus. Misconceptions about women and alcohol consumption.

To Gill A Mocking Bird. A bird and a fish can fall in love, but where will they build their nest?

Flight Club. A short and painful saga about South African cricket.

Ravages/CC said...

It was perhaps the most fun sleepless night I've had in recent time.

My stories.

The ModFather - Keeping up with Date.

Black Hawk Gown - New thinking in Bridal Couture.

Animal Harm - The Peta 2011 Annual Report

To Gir With Love - Travels in Lion Country

The Hay of the Jackal - Desperate measures for desperate times in the Animal kingdom

Doll Flanders - One Barbie fights stereotypes

The Prodigal Don - Mario Puzo comes back. In style.

Midsummer's Night Cream - How Americans are fighting obesity.

Beyond the Slack Stump - The tale of a gentleman's tailor gone bad.

CSI Maami - Madras' crime fighters.

godavar said...

Amazing, and can't help contribute too!

Base: English title of the Al-Jazeera Documentary on Al Qaeda

Life of Pai: Biopic on ACK creator Anant Pai

Catchmen: The behind-the-scenes story of the worst/best fielders Cricket has ever seen

A Time to Pill: The Case for Preventing Pregnancies

Behind Enemy Lies: Decoding Diplomatic Chatter

Dangled: All you never saw about mob lynching

The Kids are All Bright: A Schoolteacher's Rise to Fame

No County for Old Men: or, Why Saurav Ganguly cannot play anymore

Cemento: A thrilling inside-view of the Construction Industry

Bat on a Hot Tin Roof: The Fourth Batman Movie starring Christian Bale

Anonymous said...

The Incredible Tightness of Being
- The story of Roopa Underwear

The Holy Buble
- What they read to you in hell

The Loud of the Rings
- The film version

The Da Vinci Cod
- About fish which is actually descendent of Jesus Christ

Anindya said...

Kahabharata? : The epic quest for the sea-route from Europe to India.

Unaccustomed Dearth : How the market crash impacted upon the lives of affluent Americans.