Dull the Amazing Reporter

Looks like a lot of readers didn't quite get me in my last post. Oops.

Amongst the characters in The File of H is the state spy Dull Baxhaja, the governor's pet spy. The governor prizes Dull above all for Dull's superb report writing skill. Dull's reports ARE amazing - amazingly atrocious, peppered with bombastic words and alltogether too.. too..

Here's an example of Dull's reporting. To me it has a certain 'duh' humour.

Malicious persons, he continued, would no doubt attempt to explain this request as a petty manoeuvre related to dissatisfaction over his rank, for instance, or his salary, etc., but he trusted the governor knew Dull well enough to believe that he had never allowed personal ambition or personal interest to influence his work. Other persons of ill will would perhaps attribute his resignation to the humiliation, or even to the jealousy, he had allegedly experienced on the arrival of the English-speaking spy. Coming from them, such an explanation was entirely natural, since just as a cucumber is nine-tenths water, so their lives consisted in equal proportion of offences taken and resentments harboured.

And worse is the governor's esteem of Dull.

Nine-tenths water! the governor repeated to himself. Dull knew even that kind of thing! That man had the makings of a university professor, he thought, not just a mere spy.

There are a few even better paragraphs of Dull's writing skills and the governor's awe, but they are too long to type out. Go pick up the book if you like to read more :).