Ten Ten Ten's Ten Tens: Chickens II: The Chickening

CHICKENS! (A sequel to "Poultry in Motion," 1/21/2008)





















(More Ten of a Kind here.)

Monday Night Murals: Chicken running in my death trap

Say, where are all the Titans and the Teen Titans and Little Red Riding Hood rushing to?

Titans #12-13, Vigilante #5-6, Teen Titans #70 (June-July 2009), art by Andrew Robinson and Greg Digenti
(Click picture to .50-caliber-size)

Are they...

1. They're trying to avoid being simultaneously shot by the Tetradecagonean, the DC Universe assassin who can shoot fourteen targets at once
2. Dick Greyson has a new costume and they're hurrying to see it
3. Dick Greyson has a new costume designed by George Pérez and they're running away as fast as they can
4. Sprinting to get out of another DC crossover story, little knowing they've played right into Dan DiDio's hands
5. Their cartoon show is on
6. The killer called Honey Bun is back and deadlier than ever
7. ...say, why is Flash in the middle of this chase?
8. Running away from, or towards, a kiss from Michael Caine
9. Rushing to get to the end of the story before Vigilante's comic is cancelled (again)

There are no wrong answers.

Today in Comics History, Easter: Easter Morning Cartoon: Super Chicken in "The Easter Bunny"

Super Chicken: "The Easter Bunny" (1967), starring the voices of Bill Scott and Paul Frees, and produced by Jay Ward and Bill Scott

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Foxbusters...plus Nazibusters and Deathstarbusters

"Foxbusters" (pilot) (1999), directed by David Freedman and Alan Gilbey, produced by Cosgrove Hall Productions, based on the book by Dick King-Smith. More info about the cartoon.

I was pleased to recognize that the main music in the chicken-bombing sequences as one of my favorite pieces of British light music, the title theme to 633 Squadron, the great 1964 film whose bombing sequence inspired the trench attach in Star Wars:


Which of course, is as good a reason as any to post this delightful mash-up:


So. Chickens!

Ten of a Kind: Poultry in Motion

Chicken Monday Continues!





















(More Ten of a Kind here. And a special tip o' the beak to Chickeny Chris Sims for a couple suggestions.)

Mystery Science Monday: "The Chicken of Tomorrow"

Hey, long as we're talkin' 'bout chickens...


"The Chicken of Tomorrow" Part One (1948), this version from Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode #702 (1996), starring Michael J. Nelson, Trace Beaulieu, and Kevin Murphy
Here's Part Two.

A Wodehouse a Week #39: Love Among the Chickens

"I was reading your last book the other day."

"Yes?" I said, gratified. "How did you like it?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, laddie, I didn't get beyond the third page, because the scurvy knave at the bookstall said he wasn't running a free library, and in one way and another there was a certain amount of unpleasantness. Still, it seemed bright and interesting up to page three."—from Love Among the Chickens

A Month of Firsts continues this week with Love Among the Chickens, which is the first literary appearance of Wodehouse's Stanley Featherstone Ukridge. It is also, by a curious coincidence, Ukridge's chronologically final appearance. Gasp! Consternation! Uproar! How is that so, Bully? you demand, grabbing me by the fuzzy little neck and shaking me vigorously. We're not fools! We happen to know that there are later stories about Ukridge! Are you lying to us? Are you? Are you? Well, s-s-s-stop s-s-s-shaking me and I'll tell you!

Love Among the Chickens was originally published in 1906 (1909 in the US), but Wodehouse later re-wrote and re-published it in 1921. (I'm reading the 1921 version). Even that stretch of 15 years doesn't account for my original statement, however. While this is Ukridge's only novel, he appears in nineteen short stories, all of which are published after (both versions of) Love Among the Chickens, but which take place chronologically before Love. Clear yet? Ah yes, but how can I tell? Ukridge is married in this one, and single in the stories. He gets married to the delightful Millie at the of 1924's Ukridge. And he's married in Love Among the Chickens. So Ukridge's literary debut is also his chronological ride into the sunset. Meta, huh?

Whatever the timeline, this is mild but entertaining fun. Ever quick with a get-rich-fast scheme, Ukridge cons his writer friend Jeremy Garnet into helping him and Millie to start-up a chicken farm in the Dorset countryside, a surefire way of making money, if Ukridge actually knew anything about chicken-farming:

"The incubator has not done all that it should have done," I said. "Ukridge looks after it, and I fancy his methods are not the right methods. I don't know if I have got the figures absolutely correct, but Ukridge reasons on these lines. He says you are supposed to keep the temperature up to a hundred and five degrees. I think he said a hundred and five. Then the eggs are supposed to hatch out in a week or so. He argues that you may just as well keep the temperature at seventy-two, and wait a fortnight for your chickens. I am certain there's a fallacy in the system somewhere, because we never seem to get as far as the chickens. But Ukridge says his theory is mathematically sound, and he sticks to it."

Jeremy's more interested in a chick than a chicken: the lovely Phyllis Derrick. It was love at first sight when he spied Phyllis and her irritable Irish father Professor Derrick on the train down to Dorset, especially since Phyllis was reading The Manoeuvres of Arthur, one of Jeremy's novels. Complications set in (don't they always?) when Ukridge riles up the Professor at a dinner party (much like Basil Fawlty was warned not to talk about the war, Ukridge cheerfully and unconsciously commits the sin of discussing the Irish)—Jeremy is banned from Phyllis's sight, and the resourceful writer must resort to bribing a servant to tip over the Professor's boat in order to save him and win his respect—the sort of plot Bertie Wooster might come up with later on in the Wodehouse canon, with about the same backfiring results. It takes a golf tournament to smooth over the ruffled feathers, but here come Ukridge's creditors, storming down the country lane and demanding payment...

Love Among the Chickens isn't one of Wodehouse's finest novels, even judged against his earlier work, even in this rewritten form. Jeremy Garnet is no James Corcoran (Ukridge's later Boswell), and even Ukridge is not fully developed—the later rogue outshines this early prototype with blinding clarity. It's a very gentle romance plot with only a couple ups and downs, punctuated by lightly humorous recountings of trying to raise poultry but winding up eating most of them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Wodehouse's prose is clever and tight but not as sparkling as his later works, and he sometimes falls prey to a mawkish sentimentality which wouldn't be out of place in a motion picture of the time but which seems clichéd and caricatured compared to his later romances:

The sun was setting as I left to return to the farm, with Aunt Elizabeth stored neatly in a basket in my hand. The air was deliciously cool, and full of that strange quiet which follows soothingly on the skirts of a broiling midsummer afternoon. Far away, seeming to come from another world, a sheep-bell tinkled, deepening the silence. Alone in a sky of the palest blue there gleamed a small, bright star.

I addressed this star.

"She was certainly very nice to me. Very nice indeed." The star said nothing.

"On the other hand, I take it that, having had a decent up-bringing, she would have been equally polite to any other man whom she had happened to meet at her father's house. Moreover, I don't fee altogether easy in my mind about that naval chap. I fear the worst."

The star winked.

"He calls her Phyllis," I said.

"Charawk!" chuckled Aunt Elizabeth from her basket, in that beastly cynical, satirical way which has made her so disliked by all right-thinking people.

In keeping with A Month of Firsts, and perhaps for the very first time in the Wodehouse a Week project, this is the first time I have read Love Among the Chickens. I have only one copy of the book, a nice Herbert Jenkins uniform hardcover reprint from 1963. It may have sat in the bookstore for quite some time, as the initial used book price penciled inside the front cover is "12/6" (twelve shillings and sixpence). It was given to me by my friends Mary and Jay following their trip to London a few years ago. It's a lovely gift and I treasure it greatly, but I'm not certain I'll read it again any time soon. You might say "P. G. Wodehouse: he does chicken right," but on the other hand, while savory, this isn't exactly finger-lickin' good.



If, in your desire for fine chicken literature you feel a strong yearning to pick up a copy of Love Among the Chickens, why, you're in luck, cluck! Simply cluck...er, click on the Amazon sales box to the right to pick up your own copy. You might want to hunt around, though—I'm sure there are less expensive used copies on the marketplace. After all, if you're digging into your nest egg, you'll want to save some scratch. Look closely and you may be able to find a copy for a buck-buck-buck!

A Wodehouse a Week Index.

All around the town

Q: What's more fun than riding on the London Underground?

A: Nothing!

But the next best thing is riding on a London bus! And to be honest, London Transport has made it a lot easier to ride the buses these days with the addition of very clear and detailed route maps—much in the style of the famous Underground maps—at every major bus stop. That's why it was very easy to hop on the bus to Chelsea with John, Camilla and Christine this morning and head for London's best children's store, the justly famous Daisy & Tom. They have an amazing assortment of children's toys and books here, plus an enthusiastic, helpful, and child-(and little stuffed bull-)friendly staff, but best of all, they have an in-store carousel:



(Here I am riding on a chicken called "Tim!" I went around and around and around and around until I felt a little dizzy. Maybe I shouldn't have had that last biscuit at breakfast this morning!)

Camilla and Christine wanted to go baby clothes shopping then, but John and I had more excitement in mind than that! We wandered down the busy and trendy King's Road and finally hopped back on a bus heading back towards the centre of London. And from there we went everywhere!:

Trafalgar Square! This photo is by request of Chad, who wanted to see me with Lord Nelson. Here ya go, Chad! I am the one on the left.


St. Paul's Cathedral! Here is where I will get married to Keira Knightley someday. Mmmm...Mr. Bull Knightley. Sigh.


The Millennium Bridge! It is fun to be on and not nearly as wobbly as everyone says. Sadly, i did not spot Bridget Jones on it.


The Tate Modern Museum! It is not quite as spooky as this gloomy picture makes it look. They have a wonderful collection of modern art that i must admit I don't quite understand but the two gift shops were dead brilliant. I bought a pencil!


Shakespeare's Globe Theatre! Home to wonderful plays and dramatics but thankfully, no longer home to bull-baiting. Yikes! I'm glad that went away.


Greek food! Really, what better way to finish off a busy day wandering around London than with a hearty, juicy, lamb gyro?