One of the many reasons C.S. Lewis’ Narnia novels are so much better than J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books is that you could be one of those four kids. Even though the magic world they enter cannot be ours, the emotions the children feel and their roots in the real world are ones that are universal. Harry Potter comes across as a spoiled brat, and he is special, marked from birth by a scar. The reader cannot identify with him, a wizard, when the reader is but a mortal. And just to heap it on, why couldn’t Ron Weasly make nicer robes for the friggin’ ball? They could make a three storey tent out of thin air, for Woden’s sake.
But sometimes an author can create a character that is somehow everyman despite his lofty status, and P.G. Wodehouse does so in the timeless Bertie Wooster. I am an admirer not just because I had a grandfather [who was passionate about 12th century constitutional matters, and whose hair you used to trim when you were but a babe of 16 and he was alive and dinosaurs roamed the prairies, ed.]
whose given name was, in its entirety, Bertie, for reasons that shall never be known, just assumed. The only time his father was asked why he had named his son Bertie, the father turned to his wife to ask why they had done this, and she replied, “That was your first wife, dear.”
But it was a popular name in its day, because of Queen Victoria’s Prince Consort, Albert, who had been an active and well-liked man, who encouraged the Queen to allow Parliament a greater role by being less partisan in her actions, and also helped in the worldwide effort to abolish slavery. He died young, at 42 in 1861, and it left the Queen forever in mourning. He must have been rather, um, attractive as well as active, as they managed to have nine children together before he died. And just to make it tacky, he was her first cousin.
Perhaps Bertie Wooster managed to capture the spirit of the good Prince Consort, but completely free of social influence or demand. Somehow through his seemingly mindless attempts to navigate the social difficulties of his extended family and peculiar friends and fellow members of the Drone’s club, one gets lost in his world, and he serves as an everyman despite his wealth. Couldn’t we all just use a Jeeves to smooth out the wrinkles in our clothes and lives, while bringing the perfect cup of tea in the morning, followed by the perfect Scotch and soda in the evening, dispensing life altering advice all the while: “You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.”
It is rare that television can do justice to literature, and once again books win, but Hugh Laurie of later House fame and Stephen Fry just about pull it off, as the Jeeves and Wooster series I have been watching with my aged mum have been proving. Night after night after night after night … but I digress. I only just realized that of course Hugh Laurie plays George in Blackadder, and Stephen Fry was also a prominent cast member in that strange but entertaining television series.
However, nothing beats the actual prose of Wodehouse, and here he is, baiting his critics in the introduction to Summer Moonshine:
“A certain critic — for such men, I regret to say, do exist — made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained ‘all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.’ He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.”
Wodehouse was extraordinarily prolific, and as he himself said, “I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don’t know what I did before that. Just loafed, I suppose.” A marvellous man who makes me laugh out loud to this day, and slips in profound truths in the midst of hilarity:
“As we grow older and realize more clearly the limitations of human happiness, we come to see that the only real and abiding pleasure in life is to give pleasure to other people.”
Well, he should certainly know. A rare gift to create an imaginary world that contains the real one, and to thereby make the real one more sound (unlike Nietzsche) and happier.
“I can detach myself from the world. If there is a better world to detach oneself from than the one functioning at the moment I have yet to hear of it.”
No kidding. But while he detached himself virtually, he did not do so literally, and has made the world a more pleasurable place. Jolly good show, and really puts the butter on the spinach of life.
Wodehouse with his wife Ethel, circa 1942.
And he loved dogs. No wonder he was happy. A mentor indeed. It is definitely time for another cup of tea. Perhaps Darjeeling in the morning, and Earl Grey in the afternoon ….
Good Morning
What a fabulous bunch of comments on the last thread – that painting of the Boulevard was stunning. My in-laws actually once owned this painting – it hung over their fireplace, sigh:
And the Saint walking ten k while holding his head and preaching a sermon – now that would make for one awesome Olympics.
This is most odd. I can click on leave a comment, and then see my comment, and comment some more. But it says there are no comments yet/
Am I in? This one was done as a reply to yours, if that helps. It seemed to be the only way.
Weekend from hell here. Da Wife is in major housecleaning mode, which means misery for me. If it wasn’t so damn cold out I’d go “run the dogs”…for a few hours.
This is my punishment for not going deer hunting today. 😥
I have no idea what happened. I just recopied and pasted the whole post and it seems to be working!
xty ..thats right; welcome to my world..thought it was just me. i like this song anyway and something got me thinkin bout legs. thank you for your effort(s) and this fine place.
Your song of the day made me think of this one. These boys are the real deal.
Petes brain on random select. you’re welcome. wake-up Woodpecker!
tried to edit that crappy video, oh well…gonna call mr fix on the 800# he’ll have the answer for sure. 💡
man…it actually worked. incredible beautiful day here, but xty’s nasty cold winds will arrive soon enough.
jerry and carlos and the nevilles……..the mutual respect is impressive..anyway, carry on.
as we travel 😕 ➡
I thought this was pretty interesting. Long time bears getting tired of underperforming, throwing in the towel. That’s what I did…a year ago.
http://www.businessinsider.com/hugh-hendry-turns-bullish-2013-11
winter is officially here. i have a dead car battery. dang thing only made it 8 years.
this artist lives close to you Xty. i think you will like her. she seems to thoroughly enjoy hockey. 😆
http://www.carolespandau.com/index_003.htm
google Carole Spandau paintings if you are interested because the link is too long.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8M8R835Ck4
Everybody just keeps grinding their own axe. The Hugh Hendry news is a great case in point. The link from Business Insider above gives the story sort of a bullish bandwagon tilt, which one would expect.
A little different tack from Josh Brown here:
The Barry Ritholtz/Josh Brown School (of which I am a member), tends to ask a lot of questions, but provide very few answers. Outright opinions are pretty much verboten, and there’s a lot of humility about how most of us are hardwired to do a pretty bad job at investing, and the best advice revolves around how to deal with that reality. This paragraph is a case in point:
“This game is really hard, even for the smartest guys who play it, guys like Hugh Hendry who can get almost all of the facts right and yet still reach a precisely incorrect conclusion. And if that can happen to him, think about how difficult the prediction game can be for the rest of us.”
Then of course there is ZH. Their take gives a distinct “that’s the top, crash ahead” sort of flavor, as expected. But what I really love is this paragraph:
“And since Hendry is constrained by daily, monthly and annual P&L, he simply does not have luxury of waiting for the “fat tail” event, which incidentally will be quite terminal and thus hardly profitable for anyone exposed to fiat-denominated assets.”
So, I guess if you are not in need of actual investment returns ( like some internet bloggers these days), or are independently wealthy (sugar daddies of various stripes), then you can easily hew to the party line on the whole libertarian/austrian/permadoom line, and continue to pitch it to others for fun and profit.
However, if you have actual money on the line, and (worse yet) need that money like 98% of the rest of us plebes, then you are somehow compromised, and can’t ultimately be trusted to adhere to the One True Faith when the going gets tough.
Does Tyler Durden not understand that one can go broke while waiting for the fat tail event, or does he not care?
Just a little axe grinding of my own on a fine Sunday morning. A second cup of tea in 3…2…1…
I did double check, but as soon as I saw that painting I knew it was Montreal. Very different architecture, with lots of apartments and stairs. They barely plow but get tonnes of snow too. Crazy little streets and drivers. If one had enough money, it would be a fun place to live sometimes. Or if one is a starving student, it kind of works too, in a full on grungy way.
And yes, EO, re being able to intelligently consider all sorts of facts and then come to a predetermined conclusion based on emotion, but engage in a strange self-deception because one hates to be wrong. I suffer from this on many levels. 2nd cup of tea, and I am not missing coffee much. Still having the occasional cup, but it just drifted out of my diet. Can’t sleep worth a bean, though, so that didn’t help. But my belly feels better.
Btw, does it show as only one comment for you too? I messed up somehow or there is a glitch in the wordpress software.
Oh, and I think he doesn’t care if people go broke. People going broke just adds to the disaster environment.
Yup, it says there’s just one comment.
The doomer sites make their living by constantly stoking a state of hyperarousal (sounds sexy, but it ain’t). This is not exclusive to the right. The left does it too (see peak oil and global warming sites). And of course, left and right both scare their own faithful all the time with cherry picked or outright fabricated stories about the other side.
Edit: that was a long winded way of saying “fearmongering”.
Here’s a link with some interesting long term charts. Stocks, bonds, gold. That sort of thing. What caught my eye was the comment about how badly all commodities have done lately, not just gold and silver.
“The chart shows that the current relative under performance by Gold against Stocks is a huge 45% on annualised basis. This is the worst performance Gold has posted during a stock market rally since the early 1980s.
But… it is not only Gold but also Silver down 53% relative to S&P, Corn down 56% relative to S&P, Coffee down 45% relative to S&P, Wheat down 40% relative to S&P, Copper down 40% relative to S&P and so forth! The whole commodity sector is extremely oversold.”
Wait a minute. I thought gold and silver were being manipulated lower by a global evil cabal, running a century long conspiracy, hell bent on enslaving us all.
Apparently corn, coffee, wheat, and copper are “threats to power” as well. 😉
Oops, forgot the link.
http://theshortsideoflong.blogspot.com/2013/11/stock-market-only-game-in-town-for-now.html
Well, on with my day. Go Packers!
you are wrong until you are right. and you can be wrong for a very long time. when you finally are right, you can forget about ever being wrong, no matter how long you were wrong, as long as you are an internet blogger. if that sounds like a poem, i’ll title it “3rd cup of coffee in my pajamas”.
Xty – we woke up this morning colder. i checked.
was looking for some hibernaculum themed art. i did find a book of poetry of that title, but no free stuff was displayed. maybe i should just take a picture of my unmade bed.
G’Morning all,
Xty- what do they call a 5 gallon bucket in Canadian? That’s about all the time or energy I have for now, gotta go to town and register my buck.
I’ll leave you with one of my all time faves:
The nice thing about being a pure trend follower is that yes you can be wrong, and will be wrong (late to get in, and then late to get out, typically), but you are never wrong for very long.
But if you stick to the fundamentals, or go with simply being contrarian, or are just stubbornly dug into your position, you can be wrong for a long, long…devastatingly long, time. That can really wear you down emotionally after a while.
The trend follower spends more of his time being happy. I’m all for that.
And yes, I think it’s going to be a “jammie day” here as well.
had to break down and fire up the furnace, the heat pump ain’t got the ass to handle 28…f-it my gas bill will be stupendous. hi all, best as always.
didja close the windows? 28 degrees. heck, i’d put on shorts. 🙂
i googled it, and did not find consensus. the best answers in my opinion are 20 litre (liter) bucket, depending, of course, and the free container you receive at the cinema when you order a large Coke.
windows are closed, my brother who lives across the st,walked over and said his chimney just caught fire…just a warning but i’m pretty sure he knows that i don’t worry about shit of that nature.
it may be cold here, but it’s dry Canadien
air. so there’s not a cloud in the sky, and the sun itself is extra bright.
… so i have decent light in the house for a change.
this is about six inches long, and four wide. i dug it up myself at the Blue Points mine,
near Thunder Bay Ontario.
http://www.mcrocks.com/ftr10-1/MerkelOctober2010.html
very cool….going out of range here..but i do not believe that we are a cosmic accident.
there have been no parameters defined, nor the need.
This is hilarious. C&p from a discussion on searing steak in a cast iron pan:
“Since it’s so cold down here in Texas (60 deg F, too cold to grill), I decided to try this last night. I had mixed results, prob because I made it to complicated. I used 1-inch, bone-in, “certified angus” NY Strip.”
Smoked milk???!!!
This looks like a cool site: http://www.cauldronsandcrockpots.com/
“Cauldrons and Crockpots is a blog about food, herbs, travel and magic. Not Harry Potter magic or Wiccan magic or pagan magic but good old every day practical magic. You know, the magic that’s in the scent of a few sprigs of rosemary and some rose petals in a hot cup of tea on a rainy afternoon. The magic of the love in a sprinkling of sugar on a fresh-out-the-oven biscotti for your friend who’s having a bad day. The magic in thyme syrup bubbling away on the stove for treating a nasty cough. In burning juniper twigs for sick rooms and in crushed sage leaves for grounding. Or the magic in sitting on your front stoop watching the light change in the morning warming your hands on a steaming cup of coffee and a dream that’s still being woven from the night before. Like I said, practical.”
(sample article)
Adventures in sailing
(thoughts on fear, on adventure, on doing it regardless and tips on how to float like a jellyfish) Jam and I raised our anchor in Ibiza and cast off at 2am, in the pitch black of a night when the moon had already set. The outline of Ibiza rock hung heavy on the horizon, outlined […]
(recipe excerpt): cold weather beater CONTAINS WHISKY (my caps)
To smoke the milk:
Place the milk, cream and sugar in a bowl, in a shallow dish of some kind. Place this shallow dish in a larger, deeper dish. Light the charcoal brickette, place it on a piece of tin foil, and set that alongside the shallow dish in the larger dish. Then place the bits of conifer atop the charcoal. It should start smoking. When it does, cover the whole thing with tin foil, tightly, and leave it for 20 minutes, checking periodically to see that the wood is still smoking (if not, re-light the charcoal or rearrange the wood).
Taste it. It should be smoky.
Put this milk mixture, plus the rest of the ingredients except the whisky in a saucepan over low heat. Heat gently until the chocolate is melted. Remove from the heat, stir in the whisky (more or less to your taste) and serve. Preferably with a good book and a fireplace and a cold winter’s evening.
i use my cast iron, most of the time, on the grill. i should really say ‘in the grill’. roasts turn out the best, in a dutch oven, in the grill. (surrounded by, or even buried in the coals) i love pan fried steaks, but don’t generally do them, because well, what’s the point? it’s never really too cold to grill, and you can get the pan hotter over an actual fire (i can use real wood in my Weber for this). the idea is to sear the steak. but really, why make the extra dishes? besides pan frying steaks in the house, which really only works if you have a gas range like i do, tends to set off the smoke alarms. but i ramble.
Go Packers! well at least the Vikings and their fans left the game thoroughly chilled. 😳
sunday night curfew might get violated, even though i need some sleep.
yep, that was hornsby sittin in.
cast iron pan is exactly what my kitchen is missing, gonna get one..top of my eternal list.