One is not surprised. My mind boggles like billy-o that anyone would think a chappie like Wodehouse would be swanning around in footerbags like a bally fascist, shouting ‘Heil’ to this fellow or that fellow. Or that he would muck about with the Serene Soviet in the labour interest. No, the shot is simply not on the board. The Conservatives had all the best clubs

Dashed Fink-Nottle has had the immortal crust to open a dashed school for dashed rhetoric for politicians. If the babblings of the blighter in his cups can be trusted, some of the most prominents sorts of chappies attend, like that fellow Brandon or the old boy from Harvard, Ketterfish or Fettleman or some such name. It astounds the mind. There is blasted Fink-Nottle, touting to all and sundry his supposed success at the Market Snodsbury Grammar School, and teaching these respectable political johnnies to appear on the hustings blitzed, or soused if you prefer, out of their ever living minds.

In the full swing yesterday of preparation for a convivial foregathering, I came to the donning of the raiment, laid out as it had been by one’s faithful manservant.  But where I had looked for vim and zip I saw clothing in the soberest of cuts and color.  “Jeeves,” quoth I, “why this solemnity of garb?  Why these dim-hued items of apparel?”

With his usual tact, Jeeves broke to me the news.  Stout fellow.  One’s feelings were dashed stirred up.

Mad science isn’t dead, dash it! (more…)

I and sundry lads repaired to a masque–a costume ball sort of thingy, don’t you know–and what to Bertram’s wondering eyes should appear on making his grand entrance on said precincts than said lads all dressed identically to Bertram, viz., as truckers.  What ho, what ho, what ho, quoth I.

Under the circumstances one felt rather obliged, after partaking freely of the potations, to form a convoy.  The proposition being put to the lads, they being of one mind and unanimous assent, we set for freely into the night with a parting “ten four, good buddy.”

It was dashed festive.

The c. eventually decided, a destination being rather essential in such matters, to pay a call on “Blackface Trudy” Trudeau.  Rather a rotter when at school, if one recalls, though a vehement faction maintained the mot juste was stinker, and a small but determined minority asserted he was Canadian.  But old school ties being what they are, the motion was moved, seconded, and carried to pay the rotter a visit.  Or stinker or Canadian, as the case may be.

Of course the stinker–or rotter or Canadian, as the case may be–was not in residence, having been called away at the last minute on urgent affairs.  But no matter.  The locals are rather cheery.  I anticipate plucking the gowans fine until the cows come home, if not later.

We are a society now where people say, “sort of,”, “kind of,” “in a way,” “I mean ,” “I mean to say,” “you see,” all those things — over and over and over again — like the gossiping women who say, “She said, she said, she said …” They’re a kind of stuttering, a kind of self-imposed idiocy, a kind of pretense very often found in people trying to show that they are just like everybody else — quite stupid really. Stupidity in a democratic society as a whole produces pseudo-stupidity in its leaders, with appalling results. Once there is television in the House of Commons — and I hope it will never happen — everybody there will be pretending to be as stupid  as their electorates. This kind of manipulative pretense at being more stupid than the other person was first noticed by Wyndham Lewis in the twenties and documented in the speech of Bertie Wooster.

–Arthur Henry King, The Abundance of the Heart

(more…)

A crimson mask, or zits, but not both.

The nibs down at the Drones Club assevere that shots and jabs are a sovereign specific against the virus thinggummy.

The Woosters are known for their manly fortitude, practically bathing in the stuff don’t you know, but all the same I meet the invitation to be poked in the snoot with a hearty n., dash it!  Jabs are right out.  So liquor it is.

It is with great whatchamacallit that I can report that yours truly has a spot of a gig with the Biden campaign.  They want ol’ Bertram as a speech consultant thingummy.  They put it to me that I was positively known for my lucidity and gift of blarney and all that, the words positively flying from my lips like bread from the hand at a Drones’ Club dinner.  “What ho!” said I, “I accept.  Dashed humbled and honored, you know the the thing.”

This systemic discrimination against toffs, boulevardiers, trust fund boys, and other young men who are more ornamental than productive has roused a sleeping giant, viz, the Drones Club. We are taking to the streets to have a stiff word with the management of this bally concern. We will be heard or we will give them what-for, I dare say!

Right ho, then. Let all willing to take a stand in favor of spats, espeglierie and the culinary standards to which we have become accustomed take aforesaid stand. No gelato, no peas!

Merry Christmas, what ho, what ho, what ho! (more…)

What with one thing and another I cannot say I have dipped much into either–the plots fail to grip, dash it, the Wooster taste literaire running rather more to clues and sprightly murders–but is the Book of Mormon really all that similar to the Lord of the Rings? Mine eyes goggle like billy-o. At 20-1 the idea is still a rank outsider.

Smashing good suggestion, what? (more…)

I’m not one of those chappies that as a regular thing gives gallery owners more than a civil how-do-you-do and a lift of the chapeau, but I’m not above parting with a bit of the Wooster plenty to encourage art of the right sort.

Does this mean that Mormons really do worship a different Jesus? One’s bean is too full of airy nothings to tell. I asked Jeeves about it, but the fellow was rather shirty on the subject. Said that even a dashed tophole gentleman’s personal gentleman might cavil at explicating matters of philo-theological concern, or words to that effect.