Spinning a yarn

“In short, this is a person who tells funny stories, and can chat and make charming asides from time to time while doing so. Examples could be satirists, lyricists, poets or jacks of all trades.” This quaint definition is provided by Wojciech Młynarski in a book entitled ‘Forgotten Words’ by Magdalena Budzińska. It is also the favourite word in this book of Kasia Szumańska, who gave me this tome not so long ago. But was it the facecjonistas who died out – or have we just forgotten a word that can still enrich our vocabulary? It definitely seems to be the latter, because a representative of this milieu sits in our editorial office. (He knows who he is!) Whenever asked why his article is not yet ready he employs the full range of his facetious talents to distract, out-talk or faze you with a clever retort. However, he did eventually actually manage to finish a few texts this month and thanks to this you can read how representativ