Distracted

Pliny is writing his complaining letter. I would like to help him, but I am distracted.

Pliny: Dear Mr Healy...or do you think I should say, Greetings Mr Healy?

Me: What? I don't know....greetings .....but Pliny, look up there!

Pliny: Greetings Mr Healy.....I wish to complain about the book Natural History: A Selection, of which you are, I believe, the translator and selector.....

Me: I think you should tell him who you are ........ but Pliny, look!

Pliny: What is it?

Me: Up there in the corner of the ceiling.

Pliny: It's merely a cobweb.

Me: No it isn't. It's a hair!

Pliny: I don't have time for this.....Allow me to introduce myself. I am Pliny the Elder, author of the Natural History which you have so blatantly ......what now?

Me: How on earth could it possibly have got up there? It looks like one of mine!

Pliny: I don't know. What does it matter? Go and get the long-handled brush. You'll see it's a cobweb.

Me: ( going out and coming back with the long-handled brush) No ! See, it's stuck. It's definitely a hair.

Pliny: ....which you have blatantly pecked at, magpie-like....

Me: Hey, that's good, Pliny, magpie-like..... but Pliny, this is totally inexplicable!

Pliny: What? I suppose he was pressed for space....

Me: What? I'm talking about the hair. It's impossible for it to have floated up there and got stuck!

Pliny: It probably happened when you were standing on that blue stool getting something out of the cupboard. Now calm down and let me get on with this..........magpie-like, and ruined....

Me: ( climbing up onto the blue plastic stool ) Look Pliny! Where is my head?

Pliny: ......my reputation as a polymath....