And now I can tell you: from the bouncy opening credits to the last tearful moment, Iron Man is the feel-good movie of the summer; great fun for the entire family from nought to ninety. When brilliant inventor Toni Stark (Tina Fey) invents a unique new technology to integrate machines and humans, there's much confusion and action as everybody under the sun is trying to find out how to capture the Iron Man technology. The laughs begin when the Iron Man technology is accidentally implanted inside Stark's assistant, the bubbly Angie "Pepper" Potts (Amy Pohler) and Stark and Potts are forced into a uneasy alliance not unlike Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier in The Defiant Ones or Sylvester the cat and the bulldog in The Defightin' Ones. But guess who wants the Iron Man technology? Evil scientist Obladiobladah Stane (Greg Kinnear) who will stop at nothing to capture the secrets of this technological treasure! Is it thrilling? Heck yeah! Dah-dah-DAH!
Through long nursery nights he stoodPerhaps Robert Graves was more of a dog person. Which is his loss. But that's neither here nor there.
By my bed unwearying,
Loomed gigantic, formless, queer,
Purring in my haunted ear
That same hideous nightmare thing,
Talking, as he lapped my blood,
In a voice cruel and flat,
Saying for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..."
'Permit me,' said Freddie, suave to the eyebrows.And rightfully so, I do think.
And, bounding forward with the feeling that this was the stuff to give them, he barged right into a cat.
'Oh, sorry,' he said, backing and bringing down his heel on another cat.
'I say, most frightfully sorry,' he said.
And tottering to a chair, he sank heavily onto a third cat.
Well, he was up and about in a jiffy, of course, but it was too late. There was the usual not-at-all-ing and don't-mention-it-ing, but he could read between the lines. Lady Prenderby's eyes had rested on his for only a brief instant, but it had been enough. His standing with her, he perceived, was now approximately what King Herod's would have been at an Israelite Mothers' Social Saturday Afternoon.
Well, you can't say this was pleasant for poor old Freddie, and he didn't think so himself. He opened the door to perceive, without, a group consisting of Lady Prenderby, her daughter Dahlia, a few assorted aunts, and the butler, with poker. And he says he met Dahlia's eyes and they went through him like a knife.Quite.
'Let me explain..." he began.
'Spare us the details,' said Lady Prenderby with a shiver. She scooped up the Peke and felt it for broken bones.
'But listen..."
'Good night, Mr Widgeon.'
The aunts said good night, too, and so did the butler. The girl Dahlia preserved a revolted silence.
'But honestly, it was nothing, really. It banged its head against the bed...'
'What did he say?' asked one of the aunts, who was a little hard of hearing.
'He said he banged the poor creature's head against the bed.' said Lady Prenderby.
'Dreadful!' said the aunt.
'Hideous!' said a second aunt.
The spectacle he presented was so unpleasant that Freddie withdrew into his room and shut the door. His bosom, as you may imagine, was surging with distressing emotions. That look which Dahlia Prenderby had given him had churned him up to no little extent. He realized he had a lot of tense thinking to do, and to assist thought he sat down on the bed.To be fair to the hapless human Widgeon, 'twas not he who was responsible for the demise of my fictional brother, but the over-excited dog who had worried it to roughly. Still. This supposedly cheerful little romance Bully has given me has turned into a rather gruesome and grotesque murder drama, and we can only hope that the poor departed soul's mortal remains be treated with the respect and reverence that he deserves.
Or, rather, to be accurate, on the dead cat which was lying on the bed.
And then the thought came to him that it might be possible not to be discovered with it on his person. He had only to nip downstairs and deposit the remains in the drawing-room or somewhere and suspicion might not fall upon him. After all, in a super-catted house like this, cats must be dying like flies all over the place.
...He suddenly thought of the window. There lay the solution. Here he had been, fooling about with doors and thinking in terms of drawing rooms, and all the while there was the balcony staring him in the face. All he had to do was to shoot the body out into the silent night, and let gardeners, not housemaids, discover it.
He hurried out. It was a moment for swift action. He raised his burden. He swung it to and fro, working up steam. Then he let it go, and from the dark garden there came suddenly the cry of a strong man in his anger.
'Who threw that cat?'
It was the voice of his host, Sir Mortimer Prenderby.
'Show me the man who threw that cat!' he thundered.
Windows flew up. Heads came out. Freddie sank to the floor of the balcony and rolled against the wall.
'Whatever is the matter, Mortimer?'
'Let me get at the man who hit me in the eye with a cat.'
Spats! All the hip cool cats are wearin' 'em. From John Buchan (left) to John D. Rockefeller to Uncle Scrooge McDuck, spats make the man (and duck) and tell us, the spat-less observer, that this truly is a person (or miserly waterfowl) to be reckoned with. They're snazzy, stylish, and sharp—just like this week's Wodehouse! Young Men in Spats (1936) is a collection of short stories, mostly about the various members of the outrageous Drones Club. Interestingly, whenever there's a Drones story, there's neither hide nor well-combed hair of Bertie Wooster—not even a mention of him as one of the most illustrious members of that particular gentleman's social organization. No matter. These young men (chiefly Freddie Widgeon, Pongo Twistleton and Archibald Mulliner—yes, nephew of the illustrious Mr Mulliner) face challenges in love and life without the expert help of Jeeves, so there's no shame in them temporarily eclipsing the spotlight from Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, is there?
Rather a chump it made him feel, he tells me, because a fellow all by himself on the bank of a river shouting 'Prudence! Prudence!' is apt to give a false impression to any passer-0by who may hear him. However, he didn't have to bother about that long, for at this point, happening to glance at the river, he saw her body floating in it.Which is almost as serious a situation for Freddie Widgeon as when he tries to make his escape:
'Oh, dash it!' said Freddie.
...Not ten seconds, accordingly, after the other had disappeared, he was wrenching the front door open.And I think we all know how much of a setback that can be.
He was taking a risk, of course. There was the possibility that he might be walking into an ambush. But all seemed well. The Captain had apparently genuinely gone round to the back, and Freddie reached the gate with the comfortable feeling that in another couple of seconds he would be out in the open and in a position to leg it away from the danger zone.
All's well that ends well, felt Freddie.
it was at this juncture that he found that he had no trousers on.
'Looking for someone?' she asked.Not to mention Wodehouse's usual sparkling, technicolour descriptions:
'Why, yes,' said Freddie. 'I suppose you couldn't tell me when Miss Jennings will be in?'
'Miss Who?'
'Jennings.'
'How do you spell it?'
'Oh, much the usual way, I expect. Start off with a J and then a good many 'n's and 'g's and things.'
Always a natty dresser, today he had eclipsed himself. The glistening trousers, the spotless shirt, the form-fitting blue coat...all these combined to present an intoxicating picture. And this picture he had topped off with a superb tie which he had contrived to pinch overnight from his uncle's effects. Gold and lavender in its general colour scheme, with a red stripe thrown in for good measure. Lots of fellows, he tells me, couldn't have carried it off, but it made him look positive godlike.I'm sure Wodehouse only accidentally forgot to mention the spats in that last paragraph.
...Lord Ickenham lit the gas-fire and drew a chair up.Not content to simply put his feet up and relax, Uncle Fred involves himself in the affairs of the denizens of the house, including cementing a romance between the young woman of the household and her true love, disapproved of by the family:
'So here we are, my boy,' he said. 'A little tact, a little address, and here we are, snug and cosy and not catching our deaths of cold. You'll never go far wrong if you leave things to me.'
'But dash it, we can't stop here.' said Pongo.
Lord Ickenham raised his eyebrows.
'Not stop here? Are you suggesting that we go out into that rain? My dear lad, you are not aware of the grave issues involved. This morning, as I was leaving home, I had a rather painful disagreement with your aunt. She said the weather was treacherous and wished me to take my woolly muffler. I replied that the weather was not treacherous and I would be dashed if I took my woolly muffler. Eventually, by the exercise of an iron will, I had my way, and I ask you, my dear boy, to envisage what will happen if I return with a cold in the head. I shall sink to the level of a fifth-class power. Next time I came to London, it would be with a liver pad and a respirator. No! I shall remain here, toasting my toes at this really excellent fire. I had no idea that a gas-fire radiated such warmth. I feel all in a glow.'
So did Pongo. His brow was wet with honest sweat.
'I found to my horror that a young man of whom I knew nothing was arranging to marry my daughter. I sent for him immediately, and found him to be quite impossible. He jellies eels!'Uncle Fred is my favorite Wodehouse character, not merely for his enthusiastically carpe diem and laissez-faire lifestyle, or for his casually criminal view to putting things right that might have gone wrong. Most of all, however, Uncle Fred Ickenham reminds me of my own Uncle Fred, who taught me, among other lessons, that Things Oughta Be Fun. His spirit lives on in his fictional counterpart, and every time I read an Uncle Fred story, I think of my own Uncle Fred.
'Does what?'
'He is an assistant at a jellied eel shop.'
'But surely,' said Lord Ickenham, 'that speaks well for him. The capacity to jelly an eel seems to me to argue intelligence of a high order. It isn't everyone who can do it, by any means. I know if someone came to me and said "Jelly this eel!" I should be nonplussed. And so, or I am very much mistaken, would Ramsay MacDonald and Winston Churchill.'
The woman did not seem to see eye to eye.
It might be coincidence or it might be kismet, therefore, that last night I went out for a lovely evening of theater at Lincoln Center here in Manhattan to see John Lithgow's one-man show Stories By Heart, a celebrating of tales and story-telling. He recounts with humor and charm the effect of story-telling by his grandmother and father upon his young life, and how he was able to return the favor years later by reading to his parents when they were much older. The story he recounts reading to them? "Uncle Fred Flits By." And then Lithgow begins to read us the story, doing all the voices of the Crumpet and Pongo and Uncle Fred—and then he puts down the book and continues from heart, reciting with great energy and humor the text of the story, acting out the characters and their outrageous circumstances. I do truly love reading Wodehouse, but you pick up so much more when it it read or recited by a great storyteller, and I was laughing my stuffing out all the way through. If you're in New York City, I highly recommend seeing the show. Remember to turn off your cell phones because he'll scold you gently if you don't, and be ready to be charmed and amused!
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