Bits And Pieces

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Eggs And Crumpets...


When I was a kid , any book that I wanted to read ,had to be first read and approved by the MomPop Censor ( atleast the ones that I told them about;) . So it was, that "Archie" and me were not allowed to meet till I was a teenager. Unfortunately for Archie, by the time I was 13, I preferred older men such as a certain mad English gentleman known as Bertie Wooster and a few odd Eggs and Crumpets here and there.....all of whom, resided somewhere on library and book store racks marked Wodehouse, P. G.



Some of the reasons why I am still captivated, may be found in the following quotes-





`She had wanted to borrow my aunt's brooch,' said Ukridge, `but I was firm and wouldn't let her have it - partly on principle and partly because I had pawned it the day before.'






There is only one cure for grey hair. It was invented by a Frenchman. It is called the guillotine.

The Old Reliable (1951)





There is no doubt that Jeeves's pick-me-up will produce immediate results in anything short of an Egyptian mummy.
The Inimitable Jeeves
(1923)






He had the look of one who had drunk the cup of life, and found a dead beetle at the bottom.





I have only two things to say to you, Lord Tilbury. One is that you have ruined a man's life. The other is Pip-pip.
Heavy Weather (1933)





``You can't do shorthand, I suppose?''

``I don't know. I've never tried.''

Eggs, Beans and Crumpets
(1940) ch. 7 ``A Bit of Luck for Mabel''






The only thing that prevented a father's love from faltering was the fact that there was in his possession a photograph of himself at the same early age, in which he, too, looked like a homicidal fried egg.
Eggs, Beans and Crumpets
(1940) ch. 4 ``Sonny Boy''



It was the look which caused her to be known in native bearer and halfcaste circles as 'Mgobi-'Mgumbi, which may be loosely translated as She On Whom It Is Unsafe To Try Any
Oompus-Boompus.



`Any moment now, he may get a vicarage, and then watch his smoke. He'll be a Bishop some day.'

`A fat lot of bishing he's going to do, if he's caught sneaking helmets from members of his flock.'

The Code of the Woosters
(1938)






Mr Waddington's expression was now that of a cowboy who, leaping into bed, discovers too late that a frolicsome friend has placed a cactus between the sheets.





Poets, as a class, are business men. Shakespeare describes the poet's eye as rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, and giving to airy nothing a local
habitation and a name, but in practice you will find that one corner of that eye is generally glued on the royalty returns.



Uncle Fred in the Springtime (1939)

3 comments:

shail said...

Hahaha! I really enjoyed reading those quotes. Yeah these are exactly what makes me go back for more to drink of the Wodehouse fount of books.
Just last week I read the old Reliable for the umpteenth time! :) Nothing like a Wodehouse book I say, nothing close enough to touch it. Oh no Siree, not at all.

BTW, glad you de-lurked. :)

Diary Of A Stardusted Dreamer said...

I think I found a little piece of heaven when I laid my hands on the Jeeves Omnibus. Have you read Picadilly Jim? One of my faves! And am currently re-reading Joy in the Morning for the 4375th time.

MRC said...

newmum,

Sadly my memory resembles a sieve, so I chuckle and re read from time to time...I think I have read Picadilly Jim, though I cant remember anything about it....but I do love any and all stories with Bertie, Jeeves,Lord Elmsworth and Freddie Threepwood and party in it. And a non bertiesh favourite is "The Girl on The Boat"

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