More gems from the studio

We were treated to an especially bizarre and disturbing scenario in our recording script on Monday. (We should really cherish the novelty of it, I suppose, and not dwell on its grotesqueries.)

One of our monologues recounted the story of a baby bird that strayed into a Chinese middle school classroom. The children apparently closed all the doors and windows in order to trap it (there was no mention of whether the teacher was present in the room). They then proceeded to chase the poor thing around the room, throwing their pencils, erasers, and knives at it, until it dropped to the floor, exhausted and terrified.

This appeared to be a contemporary story, not a reminiscence of the daft Mao campaign to eradicate sparrows from the country. One can scarcely conjecture what kind of warped imagination concocted this macabre scenario. The only saving grace was that the narrator - alone amongst the schoolchildren, and rather 'out of character', since he had earlier appeared to be enjoying and joining in the tormenting of the bird - eventually took pity on the creature and released it outside.

And Chinese middle school students routinely carry knives???

Yes, that piece raised a lot of uncomfortable questions.

But let us swiftly move on to something lighter. The dialogues are usually lighter than the monologues - sometimes so light that any slender thread of logic they might have contained will blow away on a puff of breeze.

"Do you like squirrels?"

"No. But I like dolphins."

That's it. No context. No resolution. Just the random juxtaposition of two of the most unlike animals you could name.

I do hope these kids weren't talking about food preferences.