His manner was curt. A few weeks later, Connor delivered a BBC broadcast, following the nine-oclock news. As Bertie says, "I don't know if you have even seen those pictures in the papers of Dictators with tilted chins and blazing eyes, inflaming the populace with fiery words on the occasion of the opening of a new skittle alley, but that was what he reminded me of. We could argue all day about the shades of grey, but when the question is as black and white as the fight against fascism, I would be mighty glad to link arms with someone with such a strong sense of fair play, such generous kindness, and so much warm feeling for his fellow humans. I propose a merge of the several short articles on minor Wodehouse characters to P. G. Wodehouse (minor characters) in line with normal practice for fictional subjects on WP. Wodehouses most enduring literary creation is the duo of Jeeves and Wooster. There were angry letters to the BBC, calling the broadcast slanderous. Not by force, or ethical argument, but by knowledge of his secret: he is a co-owner of Eulalie Soeurs, a womens-underwear line. This was a sinister, leering, Underworld sort of animal, the kind that would spit out of the side of its mouth for twopence.. [14], Although Spode regularly threatens to harm others, he is generally the one who gets injured. He perfectly captures the bluster, blather, and preposterous intellectual conceit of the interwar aspiring dictator. There's a brilliant scene (not in the book) where he outlines his five-year plan. They are so offensive to peoples ideals that they inspire massive opposition, and that opposition in turn creates public scenes that gain a greater following for the demagogue. That is where you make your bloomer. Mosley appeared in The Code of the Woosters, published in 1938, thinly disguised as Sir Roderick Spode, the leader of the "black-shorts". As for my schooldays. Spoke perfectly captures the bluster, blather, and preposterous intellectual conceit of the interwar aspiring dictator. Bertram (Bertie) Wooster is a hapless but sweet member of the English upper class; Jeeves is his laconic, dry, and brilliant valet. Their plans for economic life are ridiculous. It was as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment. Indeed, about 30 minutes into the second episode of Series 2 ("A Plan for Gussie"), spode is shown rehearsing his stance and gestures in front of a photograph of Benito Mussolini. Here is a not untypical early entry: August 27. They were nativists, protectionists, longed for dictatorship, and believed that science had their back. In June, 1941, Wodehouse was released. You hear them shouting Heil, Spode! and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. Bertie then hits Spode with a vase, but gets grabbed by Spode; Bertie frees himself by burning Spode with a cigarette. Spode's head goes through the painting, and while he is briefly stunned, Bertie envelops him in a sheet. Roderick Spode of Totleigh Towers, head of the Black Shorts in The Code of the Woosters, secretly designs ladies' underclothing under the trade name of Eulalie Soeurs, of Bond Streetknowledge of which renders him harmless to Bertie, whom he despises, distrusts, and often threatens with violence. The first time I read Wodehouses Camp Note Book, I kept waiting to see the bonhomie and the buoyancy flag. They are still engaged at the end of the novel. A large and intimidating figure, Spode is protective of Madeline Bassett to an extreme degree and is a threat to anyone who appears to have wronged her, particularly Gussie Fink-Nottle. He had been smoking tea. In his memorandum to his masters in London, Sir Patrick showed that he saw no place in this arcadia of mini-skirts and psychedelic ties for the man who had given more pure pleasure to literate English-speakers throughout the world than any other writer then alive. Bertie then hits Spode with a vase, but gets grabbed by Spode; Bertie frees himself by burning Spode with a cigarette. I have no hesitation in saying that he has not the slightest realisation of what he is doing, a good friend of Wodehouses wrote to the Daily Telegraph. He is an easy-going and kindly man, cut off from public opinion here and with no one to advise him. George Orwell, in his essay In Defence of P.G.Wodehouse, from 1945, concluded, of Wodehouses broadcasts, that the main idea in making them was to keep in touch with his public andthe comedians ruling passionto get a laugh.. Connor became, according to Wodehouse, a great friend, and, in a 1961 letter, he asked Waugh not to say bad things about the journalist on TV. Within days, he was asked by the German Foreign Office if he would record some radio broadcasts for American audiences. We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. Mosley appeared in The Code of the Woosters, published in 1938, thinly disguised as Sir Roderick Spode, the leader of the "black-shorts". However, the blackmail plan is unsuccessful, because, as Spode tells Aunt Dahlia, he has sold Eulalie Soeurs. This was a sinister, leering, Underworld sort of animal, the kind that would spit out of the side of its mouth for twopence. People need to understand, as F.A. Humor is a great method for dealing with clowns like these, as Saturday Night Live has recently rediscovered. A week after Wodehouse was released, the journalist William Connor, writing under the pseudonym Cassandra, suggested in the Daily Mirror that Wodehouses early release had been part of an unsavory deal. I seem to remember that the new Lord Sidcup strongly considered disclaiming the title (under the Peerage Act 1963) in order to stand for the Commons, but his Countess wouldn't stand for it. Because he is a butterfly, who toys with women's hearts and throws them away like soiled gloves! At age two, he was sent to Bath, to be brought up by a nanny; he went to boarding school at age seven. Perhaps our bigger problem is that all laughter dries in the throat. Such menacing is brought to an end thanks to a typically clever intervention from Jeeves and in one of the most satisfying speeches in the western canon, when Bertie declares: The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think youre someone. Madeline, who wanted to gain the title Lady Sidcup, breaks their engagement, and says she will marry Bertie instead. I looked like a movie star in my Bruce Oldfield wedding dress, Air pollution exposure can damage the heart within hours, Don't kill the Coronation with trendiness, Ukraine needs equipment to mount its offensive, More households install alarms and doorbell cameras over crime fears, Red Roses show worth in backing the womens game its time for rivals to take note. Its a private notebook, after all. He has a low opinion of Jeeves's employer Bertie Wooster, whom he believes to be a thief. "[4], Like Bertie, Spode had been educated at Oxford; during his time there, he once stole a policeman's helmet. Welcome back. It was at least understandable, and particularly in the decade or two after the war, that successive British governments should have been reluctant to honour a man who, however innocently, had allowed himself to be used by the Germans. He generally wrote one or two novels a year but published nothing in the U.K. between 1941 and 1945. But many English people heard that they happened. Wodehouse, and hilariously portrayed in the 1990s TV adaptation starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. There is a strong liberal spirit running through the whole series. Mosley himself started as a Mussolini admirer, and was influenced by Hitler as the 1930's went on. In the television series Endeavour (series five episode four "Colours"), there is a reference to "Spode and Webley" being shot as fascists. Spode soon wakes up, but is knocked out again, by Emerald. Many great writers, including George Orwell and Auberon Waugh, argued for years that it was mean-spirited of the Establishment to vilify Wodehouse for what they said was an act of naivety, and to deny him the honour that they felt was his due. . He describes having ten minutes to pack a suitcase while a German soldier stands behind him telling him to hurry up; his wife thinks he should pack a pound of butter; he declines, saying he prefers his Shakespeare unbuttered. He also forgets his passport. Oh, how I wish that Wodehouse was still around to paint a pen-portrait of that frightful ass Sir Patrick, swanking about in his pin-stripes as he plotted to eradicate the Empress of Blandings. Second, Gussie has insulted Spode in a notebook, writing that Spode's mustache was "like the faint discoloured smear left by a squashed blackbeetle on the side of a kitchen sink", and that the way Spode eats asparagus "alters one's whole conception of Man as Nature's last word. Confronted with evil, Wodehouse made a ghastly error | Robert McCrum, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. [13], In Much Obliged, Jeeves, which takes place at Brinkley Court, Spode has been invited by Bertie's Aunt Dahlia to Brinkley for his skills as an orator. Connors address on the BBC began, I have come to tell you tonight of the story of a rich man trying to make his last and greatest salethat of his own country. Later, he described Wodehouse falling to his knees as Joseph Goebbels asks him to bow to the Fhrer. The sight of it seemed to take me into a different and dreadful world., It was as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment.. He perfectly captures the bluster, blather, and preposterous intellectual conceit of the interwar aspiring dictator. Spode is a friend of Sir Watkyn Bassett, being the nephew of Sir Watkyn's fiance Mrs. Wintergreen in The Code of the Woosters, though she is not mentioned again. He is desperate to keep this a secret, believing this profession to be incompatible with the career ambitions of an aspiring dictator. Roderick Spode, 7th Earl of Sidcup, often known as Spode or Lord Sidcup, is a recurring fictional character from the Jeeves novels of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being an "amateur dictator " and the leader of a fictional fascist group in London called The Black Shorts. [7] At some point, he leaves the Black Shorts. A large and intimidating figure, Spode is protective of Madeline Bassett to an extreme degree and is a threat to anyone who appears to have wronged her, particularly Gussie Fink-Nottle. He is horrified. In one of Woosters most anxious moments in the novel, Jeeves offers him instruction on the hem of his trousers: The trousers perhaps a quarter of an inch higher, sir. It was as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment. Harold Pinker steps forward to protect Gussie, and after Spode hits Pinker on the nose, Pinker, an expert boxer, knocks him out. Or at least was in the room while they were on. She says that she must marry Bertie to reward his love for her, but Spode and Jeeves convince her that Bertie came to Totleigh to steal Sir Watkyn Bassett's black amber statuette, not out of love for her. If he was naive, he was culpably so. Spode is also blackmailed into taking the blame for the theft of Constable Oates's helmet. Liberalism has nothing to do with all this. He was nearly sixty when he was released. in the UK, or more well-known statesmen in interwar Europe. The statist Left and the statist Right play off each other, creating a false binary that draws people into their squabble. Many men with false teeth find it impossible to eat the biscuits in their natural state, he notes six days later. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. You hear them shouting "Heil, Spode!" What the Voice of the People is saying is: 'Look at that frightful ass Spode, swanking about in footer bags! Bertie only finds out about that later when Dahlia tells him about it and how she solved the problem by discovering the cosh Bertie dropped by the safe. Very few English people heard the broadcasts when they first aired. And in their private lives, they are just like everyone else: they arent demigods or elites or superior in any sense. Instead, his father arranged for him to work as a bank clerk in London. He was speaking of the forty-eight weeks between 1940 and 1941 that he spent in a series of German-run civil-internment camps. [7] At some point, he leaves the Black Shorts. I frequently mentioned it to you. Yes, sir. And this one is even riper. In 1946, when the new Attorney General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, was asked in the House of Commons whether Wodehouse would be tried for treason, he answered that the question would be addressed if and when the writer returned to England. Mr Blair would like the world to think that this is a country full of Conran restaurants and cutting-edge artists who dissect cows and pickle them in formaldehyde. He leaves the group after he inherits his title. Aunt Dahlia ends up using a cosh she found on the ground to knock out Spode, which allows her to retrieve her fake necklace from a safe in order to hide it so it cannot be appraised. Jeeves & Wooster: Roderick Spode 1 - YouTube 0:00 / 2:53 Jeeves & Wooster: Roderick Spode 1 LIST Analysis 6.52K subscribers 235 46K views 15 years ago Roderick Spode, amateur. That should inspire us to smile from time to time. A group of rare-book dealers and collectors explain their specialized language. [15] In other novels, Spode is knocked out three times: he is hit with a cosh by Bertie's Aunt Dahlia in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, he is punched by Harold Pinker in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, and Emerald Stoker smashes a china basin on his head in the same book. Some British libraries banned his books. Their pretensions to command a massive following are completely wrong. He had published four novels in his nineties. In The Code of the Woosters, when Spode advances to attack Gussie, Gussie manages to hit him on the head with an oil painting. Its a novel by one of the finest exponents of the English language at the very top of his game. [2] When he first sees Spode, Bertie describes him: About seven feet in height, and swathed in a plaid ulster which made him look about six feet across, he caught the eye and arrested it. and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. [4] Spode adopted black shorts as a political uniform because, as Gussie Fink-Nottle says, "by the time Spode formed his association, there were no shirts left". Second, Gussie has insulted Spode in a notebook, writing that Spode's mustache was "like the faint discoloured smear left by a squashed blackbeetle on the side of a kitchen sink", and that the way Spode eats asparagus "alters one's whole conception of Man as Nature's last word. Bertie's Aunt Dahlia is a customer at Eulalie Soeurs and remarks that the shop is very popular and successful. The crucial scene comes just over halfway through, after Bertie and his friend Gussie Fink-Nottle have endured 100 or so pages of intolerable bullying from the would-be fascist dictator Roderick. Sir Patrick was strongly against it, not only on the grounds that it would revive the controversy about Wodehouse's broadcasts during the war, but for this reason: "It would also give currency to a Bertie Wooster image of the British character which we are doing our best to eradicate.". True defenders of liberty get it. Spode soon wakes up, but is knocked out again, by Emerald. Like that of many comfortable teen-agers, my reading taste was more for the moody, or the extreme. But the idea was now up for debate. There is a strong liberal spirit running through the whole series. What the Voice of the People is saying is: "Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Civilian men were normally released at the age of sixty. He didnt go out much. In the television series Endeavour (series five episode four "Colours"), there is a reference to "Spode and Webley" being shot as fascists. "Norfolk shall make umbrellas and Suffolk shall produce their handles." Roderick Spode, 7th Earl of Sidcup, often known as Spode or Lord Sidcup, is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves novels of English comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. Spode threatens to beat Bertie to a jelly if he steals the cow-creamer from Sir Watkyn. She was bouncing through Dixie. Opposition blocked Wodehouses being knighted in 1967, but sentiment was shifting. ~ Bertram "Bertie" Wooster, The cup of tea on arrival at a country house is a thing which, as a rule, I particularly enjoy. Verified account Protected Tweets @; Suggested users they were just six years of unbroken bliss. In his final year at boarding school, his father told him that there were too many kids to educate, and that Wodehouse could not go to Oxford, where his brother was studying. [5] While the leader of the Black Shorts, he is also secretly a designer of ladies' underclothing, being the proprietor of Eulalie Soeurs of Bond Street. Although I yield to nobody in my admiration of Wodehouse's writing - he was unquestionably the greatest master of the English language of the last century, and in my book the funniest of all time - I was never entirely convinced by his champions' arguments. Its one of Bertie Woosters funniest, silliest and most perfectly rendered adventures. That these are all mirthless, absurd nincompoops. Which book would that be? Bertie does not learn the true meaning of "Eulalie" until the end of the story. And, if he should ask why? His idea, if he doesn't get knocked on the head with a bottle in one of the frequent brawls in which his followers indulge, is to make himself Dictator. Far from gruntled John Turner as Roderick Spode and Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster in ITVs Jeeves and Wooster. Wodehouse, and hilariously portrayed in the 1990s TV adaptation starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. After being hit by a potato at a lively candidate debate, Spode changes his mind about standing for Parliament and decides to retain his title, leading to a reconciliation between him and Madeline.
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