What do you do?

when a mentally-unstable moral degenerate is elected President? Seek repentance, and get on with your life.

Amazing professor

Gilligan's Island was, of course, a complete farce, as it was intended to be. Nothing was logical about it. For example, the girls and the Howells evidently took with them most of their wardrobe for a "three hour tour." All of that served to make the program enjoyable, since it was not intended to be logical. One of the amazing inconsistencies on the program was the wide range of the Professor's knowledge. I don't know if they ever said what his specialty was, but he seemed to have been expert at just about everything.

A good New York cop

Bart Burns played New York police Captain Pat Chambers on the Mike Hammer TV show. He did a great job, and had a realistic accent.

Bob Cummings as a serious actor

Cummings did a few serious roles from time to time in his career, and was not bad in them. However, after you have seen him in his frothier comic roles, it takes a little mental discipline to accept him as  a serious actor. It can be done, though.

A bold secretary

Ellen: Nice tie, Vance.

Philo Vance: Do you like it?

Ellen: The only thing that would look better around your neck would be my arms.

Perfect practice

I am sure it was not original with him, but one of my college music teachers used to say, "Practice does not make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect. If all you are doing is repeating mistakes, you are just getting better at making mistakes."

There is a good lesson in that for life in general. If we would correct bad behavior patterns, then we must take whatever steps are necessary to break the downward spiral and start in the correct direction.

How to make old folks happy

It is the seventeenth time this year that I have been summoned to my Aunt Elizabeth's death-bed. She's no end bucked because I always come. She isn't goin' to die for the next hundred years or so, but it keeps the old dear no end amused to go on sendin' for me, and alterin' her will, and givin' good advice all around. She always tells me about all my little faults and failin's, anad I say "Righto," and she's no end bucked. Her doctor says it's a splendid tonic.

(from Grey Mask by Patricia Wentworth)

A tasty dish

Grilled piranha

Oh, well, I tried

I have another grandson on the way, and, as usual, I am giving all the help I can in the choosing of a really unique name for my progeny. A few days ago I suggested Scrymgeour. It certainly has the stamp of blue blood, Alexander Henry Scrymgeour being the 12th  Earl of Dundee. The name traces at least to 1306, the date of the death of Sir Alexander Scrymgeour of Dudhope, who fought in the Battle of Stirling Bridge as the Hereditary Standard-Bearer, and who was hung, drawn and quartered for his trouble.

Alas, my wonderful suggest did not pass the test.

What a name!

"Sidney McMurdo was a lover, but he was also a second vice-president of the Jersey City and All Points West Mutual and Co-operative Life and Accident Insurance Company."

Who but P. G. Wodehouse could come up with a company name like that? Who but Wodehouse would have enough time on his hands to say it all the way through?

A not-very-good poem

Timothy Bobbin has a canary.
As regards its sex opinions very.
If it just goes tweet-tweet,
We shall call it Pete,
But if it lays an egg, we shall switch to Mary.

(from Rodney Has a Relapse, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Spillikens

In a story by P. G. Wodehouse, we find this sentence: "Before making a shot, he would inspect his enormous bag of clubs and take out one after another, slowly, as if he were playing spillikens." An alternate spelling is spilikins. You might not have heard of this game, but it is another name for Jackstraws, a game played with a heap of small rods of wood, bone, or plastic, in which players try to remove one at a time without disturbing the others. We used to call it Pick-up Sticks.

Past trouble can't hurt you

"Tiger going away from village is never feared."

(Charlie Chan in Dangerous Money)

Not the best of golfers

          It was a stimulating experience to listen to his fine, frank enthusiasm. He spoke of the President's Cup as some young knight of King Arthur's Round Table might have spoken of the Holy Grail. And it was consequently with peculiar satisfaction that I noted his success in the early rounds. Step by step, he won his way into the semi-finals in his bracket, and was enabled to get triumphantly through that critical test owing to a fortunate circumstance of his opponent tripping over a passing cat on the eve of the match and spraining his ankle.
          Many members of the club would, of course, have been fully competent to defeat Horace Bewstridge if they had sprained both ankles, or even broken both arms, but Mortimer Gooch, his antagonist, was not one of these. He scratched, and Horace walked over into the final.

(from Excelsior, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

A disturbing bit of news

          In short, to hurry on this painful part of my story, when Sidney McMurdo eventually arrived with his suitcase and bag of clubs and was about to clasp Agnes Flack to his forty-four-inch bosom, he was surprised and distressed to observe her step back and raise a deprecating hand. A moment later she was informing him that she had made a mistake and that the photograph on her dressing-table at even date was not his but that of Captain Jack Fosdyke, to whom she was now betrothed.
          This, of course, was a nice bit of news for a devoted fiance to get after a four-hour journey on a hot day in a train without a dining-car, and it is not too much to say that for an instant Sidney McMurdo tottered beneath it like a preliminary bout heavyweight who has been incautious enough to place his jaw en rapport with the fist of a fellow member of the Truck Drivers' Union.

(from Feet of Clay, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Be careful of Ks and Gs together

The K sound and the G sound are produced the same, except that G is voiced, while K is not. Thus, when those two sounds are placed back-to-back in a word or consecutive words, it is slightly awkward to enunciate.

I have a good name. Mark Green. Simple enough, except that it is difficult to say plainly in a hurry, because a space has to be put between the K and the G and it sounds a little like you are gagging.

Sam Sabaya

In my humble opinion, Jay Novello's portrayal of the police Lieutenant Sam Sabaya in the radio series Rocky Jordan was one of the best in that genre, certainly one of the best supporting roles. He comes across as sympathetic and compassionate, yet at the same time an efficient policeman whose patience is tried sorely by Jordan's continual skirting around official police procedures.

Be careful how you swim

          When girls are floating in warm water, dreaming of the man they adore, it sometimes happens that there comes to them a sort of exaltation of the soul which demands physical expression. It came now to Agnes Flack. God, the way she looked at it, was in His heaven and all right with the world, and it seemed to her that something ought to be done about it. And as practically the only thing you can do in the way of physical expression in the water is to splash, she splashed. With arms and feet she churned up great fountains of foam, at the same time singing a wordless song of ecstasy.
          The trouble about doing that sort of thing when swimming is that people are apt to be misled. Agnes Flack's was one of those penetrating voices which sound like the dawn express letting off steam at a level crossing, and in the number which she had selected for rendition there occurred a series of high notes which she held with determination and vigour.  It is not surprising, therefore, that a passing stranger who was cleaving the waves in her vicinity should have got his facts twisted. A moment later Agnes, in the middle  of a high note, was surprised to find herself gripped firmly beneath the arms and towed rapidly shorewards.

(from Feet of Clay, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Just the club for muscles

        There was Poskitt faced with the task of playing two from the interior of a sort of jungle. Long grass twined itself about his ball, wild flowers draped it, a beetle was sitting on it. His caddie handed him a niblick, but I could not but feel that what was really required was a steam shovel. It was not a golf shot at all. The whole contract should have been handed to some capable excavation company.
          But I had not realized to what lengths an ex-hammer-thrower can go, when armed with a niblick and really up against it. Just as film stars are happiest among their books, so was Joseph Poskitt happiest among the flowering shrubs with his niblick. His was a game into which the niblick had always entered very largely. It was the one club with which he really felt confident of expressing his personality. It removed all finicky science from the proceedings and put the issue squarely up to the bulging biceps and the will to win.

(from The Letter of the Law, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Concetto or concerto

In one episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, a big deal is made that the word concetto is a misspelling of the word concerto. Once it was mentioned the second time, veteran listeners of old time radio would know that this was a definite clue and that the key to the mystery hinges upon it. Incidentally, concetto means "conceit."

Shades of The Ransom of Red Chief

(Pinky Lee speaking)
"Mr. Vallee was kidnapped when he was six years old. His parents offered a reward, but the kidnappers refused to keep him."

Rudy Vallee and Pinky Lee

During the period of the long-running Rudy Vallee radio program when Pinky Lee (below) was his main regular side-kick, the program was OK, but no better. Vallee was not a good comedian, and Lee was mainly just irritating. However, they did have a few good skits and quite a few good guest stars.

His name shrank a little

Actor Alan Alda was born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo. One can somewhat understand why he took a stage name. Of course, his father, actor Robert Alda, was born Alphonso Giuseppe Giovanni Roberto D'Abruzzo.

How to get an unusual name

Fred Allen's wife and fellow radio actor, Portland Hoffa, was named for the city where she was born. This was also true of her sister, Lebanon, and her brother, Harlem.

I wonder which title she valued most?

Actress Denise Darcel once won the title, "The Most Beautiful Girl in France." Later she was awarded the title, "Miss Welder of 1952" by the  National Eutectic Welders' Club. Sort of like being Miss America and Miss Boiler Factory at the same time.

Control the mind

"Thoughts are like noble animal - unchecked, they run away causing painful smash-up."

(from Charlie Chan in London)

How to get to sleep

According to Falstaff Oppenshaw (Alan Reed) on the Fred Allen radio show, all you have to do is take twenty tiddlies, cut them in two, and you'll have forty winks.

Braying in the night

I recently spent a couple of evenings with friends who lived in the country. Their neighbor across the road had a donkey in the pasture who was wont to bray at intervals during the night. They apologized for the noise, but I must admit that it had a certain pleasant and haunting quality. I didn't mind.

Unappreciated string quartets

In several instances, we learn that a composer's string quartets are considered to be among the more outstanding of his compositional efforts. Assuming that to be true, how often do even musical people remember any of his string quartets? They are among the greatest music, but very, very few remember them.

Absolutely pie-faced!

          "I want to tell you just one thing. Either you throw the bloke Spelvin out on his left ear and send for the police if he tries to get in again, or I push off. I mean it! I absolutely push off." There was a tense silence.
          "Indeed?" said Jane at last.
          "Positively push off," repeated William, firmly. "I can stand a lot, but pie-faced Spelvin tries human endurance too high."
          "He is not pie-faced," said Jane, warmly.
          "He is pie-faced," insisted William. "Come round to the Vienna Bon-Ton Bakery tomorrow and I will show you an individual custard-pie that might be his brother."

(from Jane Gets Off the Fairway, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Eddie the waiter and Rochester

Eddie, the waiter in Duffy's Tavern and Jack Benny's valet Rochester both had similar roles in their programs. They were got many of the best lines. Both had menial employment, but usually came out a notch ahead of their employers. Both poked fun at their employers' idiotic ideas, frequently in a dead-pan manner.

Sussex Downs

According to the Sherlock Holmes, the detective retired to the Sussex Downs and became a bee keeper. Below are some views of that area of England.

He trod the heavy fantastic

The week that followed was one of much festivity in our village. There were dances, picnics, bathing-parties, and all the other adjuncts of high summer. In these William Bates played but a minor part. Dancing was not one of his gifts. He swung, if called upon, an amiable shoe, but the disposition in the neighbourhood was to refrain from calling upon him; for he had an incurable habit of coming down with his full weight upon his partner's toes, and many a girl had had to lie up for a couple of days after collaborating with him in a foxtrot.

(from Rodney Fails To Qualify, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Another Arkie in old movies

Actress and singer Marion Hutton (sister of Betty Hutton) was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas in 1919.

The three lowest

          "You don't seem to realize, wretched William Bates, that Jane is an extremely romantic girl. A fascinating stranger like this, coming suddenly into her life, may well snatch he away from you before you know where you are."
          "That's all right," said William, lightly. "I don't mind admitting that the same idea occurred s to me. But I made judicious inquiries on the way round, and found out that the fellow's a poet. You don't seriously expect me to believe that there's any chance of falling in love with a poet?"
         He spoke incredulously, for there were three things in the world that he held in smallest esteem - slugs, poets, and caddies with hiccups.

(from Rodney Fails To Qualify, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Modest goals

Rollo was consumed inwardly by an ever-burning fever of ambition. His aims were not extravagant. He did not want to become amateur champion, nor even to win a monthly medal;  but he did, with his whole soul, desire one of these days to go round the course in under a hundred. This feat accomplished, it was his intention to set the seal on his golfing career by playing a real money-match; and already he had selected his opponent, a certain Colonel Bodger, a tottery performer of advanced years who for the last decade had been a martyr to lumbago.

(from The Awakening of Rollo Podmarsh, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Papaw and the banana plant

My father-in-law was a man of varied interests. Once, while on a trip somewhere down south, he brought back a banana plant, or perhaps someone gave it to him. In any case, he had one and was determined to make it grow. Obviously, the winters in our part of Arkansas are too severe for such a species, so he would dig up the plant, put it in a large pot, and bring it into his garage for the winter. Then, in the spring he would take it out again. This went on for several years, as I recall. The plant survived, but it never did thrive, as one might expect.

One-sided love at first sight

Rollo Podmarsh shook hands with Mary. And at her t ouch the strange dizzy feeling which had come over him at the sight of her suddenly became increased a thousand-fold. As I see that you are consulting your watch once more, I will not describe his emotions as exhaustively as I might. I will merely say that he had never felt anything resembling this sensation of dazed ecstasy since the occasion when a twenty-foot putt of his, which had been going well off the line, as his putts generally did, had hit a worm-cast sou'-sou'-east of the hole and popped in, giving him a snappy six. Rollo Podmarsh, as you will have divined, was in love at first sight. Which makes it all the sadder to think Mary at the moment was regarding him as an outcast and a blister.

(from The Awakening of Rollo Podmarsh, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

A smell to remember

Bradbury Fisher uttered a low, bleating sound. The water had had the worst effect on the animal. Even when dry, Alfred was always a dog of powerful scent. Wet, he had become definitely one of the six best-smellers. His aroma had what the advertisement-writers call "strong memory value."

(from Keeping In With Vosper, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Almost Basil, but not quite

Tom Conway replaced Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes on the radio series, and, quite frankly, he did a very good job. He was able to imitate Rathbone's inimitable clipped manner of speaking fairly well. In short, he was a creditable Holmes. He was almost Basil, but still fell somewhat short of the master.

He was just the guy

He might not look like a Viking, but after all, it is the soul that counts and, as this afternoon's experience had taught her, Ramsden Waters had a soul that seemed to combine in equal proportions the outstanding characteristics of Nero, a wildcat, and the second mate of a tramp steamer.

(from The Rough Stuff, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

The definition of boredom

Playing the bass part in Ravel's Bolero.

Duffy's Tavern's motto

(Archie the Manager speaking): Remember our motto: "The customer is never right. If he was, he wouldn't be eating here."

Not a dazzling conversationalist

He was one of those men who fall over their feet and start apologizing for themselves the moment they see a woman. His idea of conversing with a girl was to perspire and tie himself into knots, making the while a strange gurgling sound like the language of some primitive tribe. If ever a remark of any coherence emerged from his tangled vocal cords it dealt with the weather and he immediately apologized and qualified it.

(from The Rough Stuff, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

The cost of bathing

Archie: Hey Finnegan, loan me fifty cents.

Finnegan: I can't, Arch, not until I get me allowance.

Archie: You get an allowance?

Finnegan. Yeah, I get fifty cents a week to take a bath.

Archie: You have to get paid to take a bath?

Finnegan: Yeah. Me Mother pays me Dad a dollar to take one, and he splits it with me to take it for him.

(from Duffy's Tavern radio show)

The Big Three

We are awash in all sorts of pain killers these days, but in my childhood, the Big Three (at least in terms of television ad time) were Anacin, Bufferin and Bayer (not necessarily in that order).

One of Fibber McGee's greatest lines

(speaking to Doc Gamble)
"You don't count blood, Tummy Thumper, you measure it!"

Sparkling conversation

"Fine weather we're having," said Mortimer, who was a capital conversationalist.

"Yes," said the girl.

"I like fine weather."

"So do I."

"There's something about fine weather!"

"Yes."

"It's - it's - well, fine weather's so much finer than weather that isn't fine," said Mortimer. He looked at the girl a little anxiously, fearing he might be taking her out of her depth, but she seemed to havfe followed his train of thought perfectly.

"Yes, isn't it?" she said. "It's so - so fine."

"That's just what I meant," said Mortimer. "So fine. You've just hit it." He was charmed. The combination of beauty with intelligence is so rare.

(from Sundered Hearts, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Wrong emphasis

One of the great faults with the common system of raising children these days is that the visible rewards are for the most part for things of no real consequence.

His part for the war effort

Conrad Veidt's was a familiar face in World War II era movies, usually playing a Nazi. Actually, Veidt had left Germany in 1933 because his wife was a Jew. He was very good at making his characters have a very arrogant, despicable demeanor, and in portraying them that way, he struck his blow on the home front for the war effort.

Sort of a surprise

In the pause which followed this brisk move it soon became evident to John, rubbing his shoulders against the oak panel and glowering upon the two treasure-seekers, that if the scene was to be brightened by anything in the nature of a dialogue the ball of conversation would have to be set rolling by himself. Not for some little time, it was clear, would his companions be in a condition for speech. Chimp Twist was looking like a monkey that has bitten into a bad nut, and Soapy Molloy like an American Senator who has received an anonymous telegram saying, "All is discovered. Fly at once." This sudden activity on the part of one whom they had regarded as under the influence of some of the best knock-out drops that ever came out of Chicago had had upon them an effect similar to that which would be experienced by a group of surgeons in an operating theatre if the gentleman on the slab were to rise abruptly and begin to dance the Charleston.

(from Money For Nothing, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Better make SURE it cannot happen

"The impossible sometimes permits itself the luxury of occurring."

(Charlie Chan's Chance)

Buster V. Davenport - one of Lum and Abner's funniest

One of the funniest sequence of programs in the entire history of the Lum and Abner radio show is when Grandpappy Spears is hit on the head and gets amnesia. He then concludes that his name is Buster V. Davenport (because those initials are in his underwear), and that he is a vacuum cleaner salesman from Toledo. Great fun!

The curse of Literary Societies

I do not know if you have had any experience of suburban literary societies, but the one that flourished under the eye of Mrs. Willoughby Smethurst at Wood Hills was rather more so than the average. With my feeble powers of narrative, I cannot hope to make clear to you all that Cuthbert Banks endured in the next few weeks. And, even if I could, I doubt if I should do so. It is all very well to excite pity and terror, as Aristotle recommends, but there are limits. In the ancient Greek tragedies it was an ironclad rule that all the real rough stuff should take place off-stage, and I shall follow this admirable principle. It will suffice if I say merely that J. Cuthbert Banks had a thin time. After attending eleven debates and fourteen lectures on vers libre Poetry, the Seventeenth-Century Essayists, the Neo-Scandinavian Movement in Portugese Literature, and other subjects of a similar nature, he grew so enfeebled that, on the rare occasions when he had time for a visit to the links, he had to take a full iron for his mashie shots.

(from The Clicking of Cuthbert, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Not very conducive to romantic thought

There is probably no better corrective of the pangs of hopeless love than a real, steady application to the prosaic details of an estate. The heart finds it difficult to ache its hardest while the mind is busy with such items as Sixty-one pounds, eight shillings and fivepence, due to Messrs Truby and Gaunt for Fixing Gas Engine, or the claim of the Country Gentleman's Association for eight pounds eight and fourpence for seeds. Add drains, manure, and feed of pigs, and you find yourself immediately in an atmosphere where Romeo himself would have let his mind wander.

(from Money For Nothing, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Dante television program

This series  starred Howard Duff of Sam Spade radio fame as a night club owner who ends up being a detective most of the time. Sort of reminds you of Rocky Jordan. The plots are interesting, and the supporting cast is strong. A number of the episodes are available on Youtube.

Alan Mowbray - one of our favorites

He was in at least one of the Sherlock Holmes movies; he starred as the head waiter in the Dante television series; as the sidekick of the Lone Wolf in one of the films in that series; and in an almost endless series of guest appearances in numerous movies and television shows. Always entertaining. Always classy.

Watch out!

If you are ever in a detective program, and at some point someone you don't know or someone you suspect offers you coffee, DON'T DRINK IT!! It will be a mickey. (You would think these dumb gumshoes would have figured that out by now.)

I take it he was not overly intelligent

"Sweet potatoes!" moaned Dolly. "Use your bean, you poor sap, use your bean. If you had another brain you'd have just one."

(from Money For Nothing, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Here is a creative insult

          "I don't get it," he said.
          Mrs. Molloy straightened herself militantly in her chair. Of all masculine defects, she liked slowness of wit least; and she had never been a  great admirer of Mr. Twist.
          "You poor, nut-headed swozzie," she said with heat. What don't you get? It's simple enough, isn't it?

(from Money For Nothing, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Nut-headed swozzie? Now there is a new one to me. I'll have to remember that one. Might or might not want to use it, depending on what it means in the ever-changing world of slang.

"Time for a work break"

The President of a company I worked for in my youth used to say that when he needed to talk to someone who was engaged in a non-essential conversation. I get to feeling like that quite a bit of the time, myself.

Sort of deadpan?

          "You know what old John is. One of these strong, silent fellows who looks on all occasions like a stuffed frog."
          "He doesn't."
          "Pardon me," said Hugo firmly. "Have you ever seen a stuffed frog? Well, I have. I had one for years when I was a kid. And John has exactly the same power of expressing emotion."

(from Money For Nothing, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Trivia facts about The Quiet Man (movie)

LINK

Not as attractive as he had thought

Left alone at the table with nothing to entertain him but his thoughts, John came almost immediately to the conclusion that his first verdict on the Mustard Spoon had been an erroneous one. Looking at it superficially, he had mistaken it for rather an attractive place: but now, with maturer judgment, he saw it for what it was - a blot on a great city. It was places like the Mustard Spoon that made a man despair of progress. He disliked the clientele. He disliked the head waiter. He disliked the orchestra. The clientele was flashy and offensive and, as regarded the male element of it, far too given to the use of hair oil. The head waiter was a fat parasite who needed kicking. And, as for Ben Baermann's Collegiate Buddies, he resented the fact that they were being paid for making the sort of noises which he, when a small boy, had produced - for fun and with no thought of sordid gain - on a comb with a bit of tissue paper over it.

(from Money For Nothing, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Trying to figure Bing Crosby

He was not tall, nor athletic. He was not bad looking, but with those ears certainly not dashingly handsome. (And, of course, there was that famous pot belly.) He had a smooth style, but it had enough of a dash of the corny that it did not rate with many of the great screen lovers. He was no challenge to Adolph Menjou as a stylish dresser. He was an awkward kisser and dancer on the screen. Yet he ranks as one of the great heart-throbs of all time. Go figure. I guess it must have been that voice, reckon?

Diminishing regard

There had been a period when, he being fifteen and she ten, Pat had lavished on him all the worship of a small girl for a big boy who can wiggle his ears and is not afraid of cows. But since then her attitude had changed. Her manner towards him nowadays alternated between that of a nurse towards a child who is not quite right in the head and that of the owner of a clumsy but rather likeable dog.

(from Money For Nothing, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

The Emperor Waltz

This is a Bing Crosby movie, pure schmaltz, waltzes, and sentimentality, with some gorgeous Austrian scenery. Not to mention a very nice love story and a couple of the most beautiful tunes Crosby ever sang. "I Kiss Your Hand, Madame" is a song  that will get in your mind and stay there.

Here is a LINK to the song.

Curious names for best friends

It is evident when reading the Sherlock Holmes stories that Holmes and Watson are best friends. Yet, they always address one another by their surnames, not their first names. It is always Holmes or Watson, never Sherlock or John. Sort of an unfamiliar familiarity.

She's getting ready to explode!

There was the sort of silence which I believe cyclones drop into for several seconds before getting down to it and starting to give the populace the works. Throbbing? Yes, throbbing wouldn't be a bad word to describe it. Nor would electric; for the matter of that, and if you care to call it ominous, it would be all right with me. It was a silence of the type that makes the toes curl and sends a shiver down the spinal cord as you stand waiting for the bang. I could see Aunt Dahlia swelling slowly like a chunk of bubble gum, and a less prudent man than Bertram Wooster would have warned her again about her blood pressure.

(from How Right You Are, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

In other words, she is stupid

The silly young geezer. I nearly conked her one with my trowel. I'd always thought her half-baked, but now I think they didn't even put her in the oven.

(from How Right You Are, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

One reason I am for law and order

A few years back (well, quite a few years), I stood a reasonably good chance of out-running any bad guys who might accost me with weapons other than firearms. Not any more. It would have to a thug from the Sunnyvale Nursing Home if I was to outrun him these days, and that might be a doubtful issue.

Why only one?

I listened to the last movement of the Grieg Piano Concerto on the way to work today, and was reminded again of what a monumental composition it is. Surely it is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.

This raises the question of why Grieg wrote only one Concerto. If this one was such a success, why not duplicate the effort. I have no idea why, of course, but perhaps we can find the answer in considering other famous efforts in that field. Rachmaninoff wrote four Piano Concertos, but it is the gorgeous Second that we remember. Prokofiev wrote five Concertos, but it is the pyrotechnics of the Third that make their way to the stage most often. Maybe Grieg figured that if you have hit a home run, there is no need to go to the plate again.

Terror-ists

We sometimes forget that the main object of terrorists is not necessarily to inflict damage, but to inculcate fear. It is not so much what happens as what might happen. Hitler was able to do that with continental Europe, but not with Britain. In fact, in his first important speech as Prime Minister, Winston Churchill said that their nation's object was "victory in spite of all terror."

Wesley?

Chester Wesley  Proudfoot: that was his full name, I learned today from an old Gunsmoke radio episode. He had inherited $300+ from a cousin in Texas and had a terrible time trying to decide what to do with it.

One of the really loaded straight lines

"Mortimer, how can you be so stupid?"

This is what Edgar Bergen asked Mortimer Snerd each week on their radio show. Mortimer always had a clever come-back.

Not-so-tasty breakfasts

          "Was he the Pride of the School?"
          "Oh, rather."
          "Not that it was much of a school to be the pride of, from what he tells me. A sort of Dotheboys Hall, wasn't it?"
          "Conditions under Aubrey Upjohn were fairly tough. One's mind reverts particularly to the sausages on Sunday."
          "Reggie was very funny about those. He said they were made, not from contented pigs, but from pigs which had expired, regretted by all, of glanders, the botts and tuberculosis."

(from How Right You Are, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

The potato's effect on America

According to the BBC (Link), one-eighth of the population of Ireland died during the Great Famine of the mid-1800's, and about twice that number emigrated to America. So, if you are of Irish lineage, and you now live in America, your presence here is very likely related to the potato crop.

Tunney Plastic Surgery Co.

I took a seat and resumed my reading. I had had to leave off at a point where Ma Cream had just begun to spit on her hands and start filling the customers with pity and terror. But I hadn't put more than a couple of clues and a mere sprinkling of human gore under my belt, when the door flew open and Kipper appeared. And as the eye rested on him, he too filled me with pity and terror, for his map was flushed and his manner distraught. He looked like Jack Dempsey at the conclusion of his first conference with Gene Tunney, the occasion, if you remember, when he forgot to duck.

(from How Right You Are, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

The summer that would not end

1980 was the most  brutal summer of my recollection. Day after day of 100-plus temperatures, and no rain. And perhaps the worst part was that the heat did not break when it should have. I note that the record high for our area for today (September 14) is 103 degrees, set in 1980. The average high for today is 85. As the heat dragged on into autumn, it was exceptionally oppressive on the souls of most of us. When is it going to cool off?!

Double-barrell comic fun on radio

There are not a lot of episodes of The Penny Singleton Show radio program still existing, but they are a real treat because they had both Jim Backus and Gale Gordon in prominent roles. Having those two paragons of radio comedy on the same program is great fun.

What if harps were standard equipment?

Harps are used in some orchestral compositions, but by no means all of them. In common with the woodwinds, harps would not make a huge audible difference when the entire orchestra is playing loudly, but in the quieter sections, having a harp involved makes a profound difference in the sound. What if harps became as standard in orchestral instrumentation as clarinets? If a composer would do that, it likely would give his music a very unique identity.

A sympathetic listener

If I do say so, I told my story well, omitting no detail however slight. I had him Bless-my-soul-ing throughout, and when I had finished he t'ck-t'ck-t'ck-ed and said it must have been most unpleasant for me, and I said that "unpleasant" covered the facts like the skin on a sausage.

(from How Right You Are, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

No beauty queen

Mind you, I'm not saying a word against old Kipper. The salt of the earth. But nobody could have called him a knock-out in the way of looks. Having gone in a lot for boxing from his earliest years, he had the cauliflower ear of which I had spoken to Aunt Dahlia and in addition this a nose which some hidden hand had knocked slightly out of the straight. He would, in short, have been an unsafe entrant to have backed in a beauty contest, even if the only other competitors had been Boris Karloff, King Kong and Oofy Prosser of the Drones

(from How Right You Are, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Handle with care

Aunt Dahlia, describing  this young blister as a one-girl beauty chorus, had called her shots perfectly correctly. Her outer crust was indeed of a nature to cause those beholding it to rock back on their heels with a startled whistle. But while equipped with eyes like twin stars, hair ruddier than the cherry, oomph, espieglerie and all the fixings. B. Wickham had also the disposition and general outlook on life of a ticking bomb. In her society you always had the uneasy feeling that something was likely to go off at any moment with a pop. You never knew what she was going to do next or into what murky depths of soup she would carelessly plunge you.

(from How Right You Are, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Those fearsome butlers

It is a very intrepid young man who can see an English butler steadily and see him whole without feeling a wormlike humility, and all Jerry's previous encounters with Beach - in corridors, in the hall, at lunch and at dinner - had left him with the impression that his feet were too large, his ears too red and his social status something in between that of a Dead End kid and a badly dressed leper. There were cats on the premises of Blandings Castle, and those gooseberry eyes had always made him feel that he might have been some unsavoury object dragged in by one of these cats, one of the less fastidious ones.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

No kidding!

The world may be roughly divided into two classes - men who, when you tell them a story difficult to credit, will not believe you, and men who will. It was to this latter and far more likeable section of the community that, judging by his fatuous expression, George Cyril Wellbeloved belonged. He had the air, which Jerry found charming, of being a man who would accept without question whatever anybody cared to tell him. His whole aspect was that of one who believed everything he read in the Sunday papers.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Corpses, but not pigs!

If Lancelot Cooper, handing him the keys, had said, "Oh, by the way, when you get to Sunnybrae, you will find the kitchen rather full of pigs, I'm afraid," he would have known where he was. But not a word had been spoken on the subject. The animal had come upon him as a complete surprise, and he sought in vain for an explanation of its presence. It was not as though it had been a corpse with a severed head. A corpse with a severed head in the kitchen of Sunnybrae he could have understood. As a writer of mystery thrillers, he knew that you are apt to find corpses with severed heads pretty well anywhere. But why a pig?

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Carmen Miranda? This one I would not have guessed.

In 1946 she was the highest-paid woman in America according to the St. Petersburg Times. LINK

He couldn't help how he looked

The junior partner of Caine and Cooper, though a man of blameless life, had one of those dark, saturnine faces which suggest a taste for the more sinister forms of crime, and on one cheek of that dark, saturnine face was a long scar. Actually it had been cause by the bursting of a gingerbeer bottle at a Y.M.C.A. picnic, but it gave the impression of being the outcome of battles of knives in the cellars of the underworld. And on top of all that, he had been wearing lavender gloves.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Shostakovich could finish a symphony, too

Beethoven definitely knew how to finish a symphony. So did Bruckner and Mahler. But they were by no means the only composers who could. Take, for instance the end of Dmitri Shostakovich's 5th Symphony. Here is the LINK. Start at about the 44:30 mark. Less than two minutes, but it is stirring music.

At the end of the premier performance in 1937, it received an ovation that lasted well over a half hour.

Recycling radio music

Once again, I heard some of the music from the Barry Craig radio program and also from Tales of the Texas Rangers, this time on Hollywood Star Playhouse. It is amazing how much musical recycling was done.

Those blasted authors!

Authors are like that. No reticence. No reserve. You or I, or Beach, finding a pig in the kitchen of a furnished villa in which we had just hung up our hats, would keep calm and wait till the clouds rolled by. But not an author. The first thing this blighted Vail will do, unless nipped in the bud, will be to rush out and grab the nearest passer-by and say, "Pardon me for addressing you, sir, but there appears to be a pig in my kitchen. Have you any suggestions?" And then what? I'll tell you what. Doom, desolation and despair. In next to no time the news will have reached Parsloe, stirring him up like a dose of salts and bringing him round to Sunnybrae with a whoop and a holler.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Not very tasty

"Have your story all planned out. Get tough with her. Talk out of the side of your mouth. For heaven's sake, Clarence, don't keep groaning like that. She can't eat you. And I don't suppose she'll want to," said Gally, "for anything more closely resembling a condemned food product I never saw in my life."

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Composure under fire

With the possible exception of Mrs. Emily Post, a few of the haughtier Duchesses and the late Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, the British barmaid, trained from the earliest years to behave with queenly dignity under the most testing conditions, stands alone in the matter of poise.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

A wife in the series

Remember this face from Hogan's Heroes in three different episodes? She was Louise Troy, who was the real-life wife of Werner Klemperer, who played Colonel Klink.

Pride before the fall

"Swelled head sometimes give police more cooperation than criminal mistake." (Charlie Chan at Treasure Island)

Wrong numbers

"There is always something intriguing and stimulating about the ringing of a telephone bell. Will this, we ask ourselves,  be the girl we love, or will it be somebody named Ed who, all eagerness to establish communication with someone named Charlie, has had the misfortune to get the wrong number? Jerry, though always glad to chat with people who got the wrong number, hoped it would be Penny." (from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

I once had a lady call our number at work, and it took me five minutes of steady back-and-forth to convince her that this was not the jail, and that I had no idea when the man of her dreams was going to get out of jail.

Lord Epping

The Mexican Spitfire series of movies, starring Lupe Velez, are  entertaining taken one at a time, since a little of Velez goes a long way. The main attraction of the films is the performance of Leon Errol in the dual role of Uncle Matt Lindsay and Lord Epping, not to mention Uncle Matt disguising himself as Epping.

Rathbone and Bruce as Holmes and Watson

If you are a fan of the Rathbone/Bruce series of Sherlock Holmes fans, as my wife and I definitely are, then you may like this LINK.

Women on the telephone

For some moments after silence had come like a poultice to heal the blows of sound, all that occupied his mind was the thought of what pests the gentler sex were when they got hold of a telephone. The instrument seemed to go to their heads like a drug. Connie Keeble,for instance. Nice sensible woman when you talked to her face to face, never tried to collar the conversation and all that, but the moment she got on the telephone, it was gab, gab, gab, and all about nothing.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)