This article by Sam Jordison appeared online at The Guardian today: The Code of the Woosters: PG Wodehouse’s guide to fighting fascism | Books | The Guardian In many respects it’s a welcome move in the right direction, away from the usual misinformation and conjecture about Wodehouse’s wartime experience. Sam Jordison is right to point out that Wodehouse made fun of the British fascist Oswald Mosley in The Code of the Woosters (1938): 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, … Continue reading The Code of the Woosters: PG Wodehouse’s guide to fighting fascism (The Guardian)

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Guest Posts, P.G. Wodehouse, War and Politics, WritersLeave a comment

The Wipers Times (and Wodehouse?)

June 3, 2014June 30, 2014 Honoria Plum

Originally posted on Great War Fiction:
Next week on BBC TV there’s a promising-looking film about The Wipers Times. Ian Hislop and Nick Newman are the authors. It will tell the story of how they found a printing press under the blasted ramparts of Ypres, and put it to use to create a very witty paper. I Like Newman’s comments on the aim of the film: I imagine viewers might be expecting to see a tragic tale of lives lost in a futile war, and we’ve had a lot of films like that and some of them are very, very… Continue reading The Wipers Times (and Wodehouse?)

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P.G. Wodehouse, War and Politics, Writers12 Comments

Suffering from cheerfulness – Wodehouse at War

May 31, 2014October 5, 2020 Honoria Plum

It is not enough that Wodehouse has been exonerated. It is time he was recognised as part of the wartime humourist tradition to which he belongs. Continue reading Suffering from cheerfulness – Wodehouse at War

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I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

July 2, 2013September 27, 2016 Honoria Plum

Whenever I begin something new from (Bollinger Wodehouse prize-winner) Terry Pratchett these days, I prepare myself for the possibility that it might not sparkle quite so much as old favourites, like Carpe Jugulum. I remind myself that Pratchett has given us so much already, and that he’s entitled to ‘slip’ a little since being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease in 2007. But Pratchett isn’t slipping. Each new book is as fresh, engaging, and bloody marvellous as the last, and I consider recent works such as Dodger (2012) and I Shall Wear Midnight[ (2010) among his best. I feel an overwhelming sense … Continue reading I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett