PLUM PUDDING

PLUM PICKINGS 2

noreply@blogger.com (K J SHENOY) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 09:35:00 +0000

THE MOOD

A sparkle returned to the lack-lustre eyes and the soul seemed expand as if someone had had got to work on it with a bicycle pump.

RE-ENTRY
He ran for cover at the arrival of his bête-noire. And, presently, the door opened and his head emerged cautiously like that of a snail taking a look around after a thunder storm.

BAD LUCK

It was one of those days when, as my luck runs foul, the horse that I bet on decides to sit down in the middle of the race and take rest.

CHEERED

Earlier, he looked like a sheep with a secret sorrow and now, with positive turn of events, he is beaming like a searchlight.

SHOCKED

He was shell-shocked and his appearance was now rather like one who, picking daisies on the railway track, has just caught the down express in the small of his back.

THE EFFECT

The effect he had on me whenever he appeared was to make me want to slide into the cellar and lie low till they blew the all-clear.

PLUM PICKINGS 1

noreply@blogger.com (K J SHENOY) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 06:12:00 +0000

DUKES AND COOKS

The waiting room of the employment agency was full of dukes who wanted cooks and cooks who wanted dukes.

THE QUAKE

The two warring parties within the family met suddenly and I may say at once that there ensued something in the nature of a family earthquake.

NIAGARA

He was silent for a long time and when he could bear no longer, he plunged into a perfect Niagara of speech.

THE CHOICE

His sternness conveyed the impression that anybody who had the choice between stealing anything from him and stirring up the hornet’s nest with a short walking stick would do well to choose the hornets.

NIGHTLY DANGER

It was a still night with deafening silence. So when she made the loud noise, she was expecting doors to open all over the castle belching forth men with pistols.

THE BIRDS

She was on a park bench reflecting on recent events. For a moment her attention was drawn to a couple of birds who were having an argument in a nearby tree.

MR MULLINER SPEAKING (AGAIN)

noreply@blogger.com (K J SHENOY) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:36:00 +0000

ORGY AT HOME

[This was when Osbert returned home and found two burglars inside. He hid behind curtain before burglars could see him.The uninvited visitors drank and ate and fought among themselves before falling unconscious. Then....]

It was some moments before Osbert Mulliner could bring himself to peep from behind the curtains. When he did so, he seemed to be gazing upon one of those Orgy scenes which have done so much to popularise the motion-pictures. Scenically the thing was perfect. All that was needed to complete the resemblance was a few attractive-looking girls with hardly any clothes on.

He came out and gaped down at the ruins.The burglar Harold was lying with his head in the fireplace: the burglar Ernest was doubled up under the table: and it seemed to Osbert almost absurd to think that these were the same hearty fellows who had come into the room to take pot-luck so short a while before. Harold had the appearance of a man who had been passed through a wringer. Ernest gave the illusion of having recently become entangled in some powerful machinery. If, as was probable, they were known to police, it would take a singularly keen-eyed constable to recognize them now.

GNU HUNTERS VIEWS

[ At Bludleigh Court, Ms Charlotte meets Colonel Pashley-Drake, the great gnu hunter. Colonel tells Charlotte his nephew Aubrey did not deserve he love, When..]

"You are quite wrong," said Charlotte warmly. "You have only to gaze into Mr Aubry Bassinger's eyes to see that his morals are above reproach."

"I never gaze into his eyes," replied Colonel Pashley-Drake. "Don't like his eyes. Wouldn't gaze into them if you paid me. I maintain his whole outlook on life is morbid and unwholesome. I like a man to be a clean, strong, upstanding Englishman who can look his gnu in the face and put an ounce of lead in it."

WOODPECKER

It was the opinion of Roland Attwater that he was now entitled to the remainder of the night in peace...................And then into the silence it seemed to him that some sound intruded - a small tapping sound that might have been the first tentative efforts of a very young woodpecker just starting out in business for itself.

MR MULLINER SPEAKING

noreply@blogger.com (K J SHENOY) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:20:00 +0000

ARCHIBALD'S INTELLECT

People who enjoyed a merely superficial acquaintance with my nephew Archibald ((said Mr Mulliner) were accustomed to set him down as just an ordinary pin-headed young man. It was only when they came to know him better that they discovered their mistake. Then they realised that his pin-headedness, so far from being ordinary, was exceptional. Even at the Drone's Club, where the average of intellect is not high, it was often said of Archibald that, had his brain been constructed of silk, he would have been hard put to find sufficient material to make a canary a pair of cami-knickers.

THE TOUGH EGG

" You do not think that a man with such a name would be likely to be a toughish sort of egg?"
" He might be , now you mention it."
" He was. In Central Africa, where he spent a good deal of time exploring, ostriches would bury their heads in the sand at Brashford Braddock's approach and even rhinoceroses, the most ferocious beasts in existence, frequently edged behind trees and hid till he passed. And the moment he came into Osbert's life my nephew realised with a sickening clearness that those rhinoceroses had known their business.

OSBERT'S WEALTH

He (Mr Osbert) had so much money that Income-Tax assessors screamed with joy when forwarding Schedule D to his address.

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LAUGHS FROM ' BIG MONEY '

noreply@blogger.com (K J SHENOY) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:34:00 +0000

CARRYING DICTIONARY

" I'm sorry," said Ann. " I should have....It was too bad of me......But you know how it is when you're nervous."

" Nervous! " Lord Hoddesdon snorted. " You nervous? If ever I've seen a girl calmer and more -er- what's the word? -more-ah-...begins with a b...."
" George, " said Lady Vera, " be quiet. "

Lord Hoddesdon subsided into his chair. He seemed to be wishing that he had brought his Dictionary of Synonyms along with him this evening.

CHOOSY PEKE

Ann detached a piece of cake and dropped it before the Peke(the dog). The Peke sniffed at it disparagingly, and resumed its steady gaze (at the dinner table). It wanted chicken. It is simple creed of the Peke that, where two human beings are gathered together to eat, chicken must enter into the proceedings somewhere.

SHAREHOLDES' MEET IN TUMMY!

( Mr Paterson, the CEO of a Company, lay in his bed with severe indigestion after eating roast duck....)
What was going on in T. Paterson's interior resembled in some degree a stormy Shareholders' Meeting. Nasty questions were being asked. Voices were being raised. At times it seemed as though violence had broken out. And the pepsine tablets which he kept swallowing so hopefully were accomplishing nothing more than might on such an occasion the bleating ' Gentleman, please! ' of an inefficient chairman.

WHAT BOOZE DID

A diet of large whiskies and small sodas, persisted in through the whole of a long afternoon and evening and augmented by an occasional neat brandy, is thing that cuts, as it were, both ways. ..............: but it had left him in a state of uncertainty on three cardinal points.
They were:
[a] Who was he?
[b] Where was he?
[c] Why was he?

( Contents within brackets are blog-author's inputs for clarity)
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HUMOR FROM ' BIG MONEY '

noreply@blogger.com (K J SHENOY) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 10:12:00 +0000

(More humour from 'Big Money)

HODDESDON DREAM

(For some reason, Lord Hoddesdon was annoyed with his sister, Lady Vera.....Then)
Lord Hoddesdon ground the teeth behind his grey moustache. In their nursery days he would have found vent for his emotion by hitting his sister on the side of the head or pulling her pigtail. Deprived of this means of solace be the spirit of noblesse oblige and the fact that the well coiffured woman does not wear a pigtail, he kicked a chair. The leg came off, and he felt better.

A HEART IN LOVE

(Berry Conway was on his way to meet his lover Ann at Hide Park. He was at his jovial best. And at Hyde Park..............)
True, the usual regiment of loafers slumbered on the grass and there was scattered in the path the customary assortment of old paper bags: but this afternoon, such is the magic of love, these objects of wayside struck him as merely picturesque. Dogs, to the number of twenty-seven, were barking madly in twenty-seven different keys: and their clamour sounded to him like music. If he had time, he would have pursued and patted each separate dog and gone the rounds giving sixpences to each individual loafer. But time pressed, and he had to forgo this piece of self-indulgence.

TALKING SWANS

(Berry met Ann near the lake where two swans, named(by PGW) as swan Egbert and swan Percy, swam. Then.....)
Berry caught her(Ann) in his arms. The swan Egbert turned to swan Percy and said something in an undertone. Percy nodded and both birds then sneered audibly. Swans, like sub-editors, are temperamentally incapable of understanding love's young dream.

ROCKETING PHEASANTS

Lady Vera had sprung form her chair and was now standing on the rug, panting at him. Lord Hoddesdon ground a heel into the carpet. There were moments when his sister reminded him of rocketing pheasant : and, while he liked rocketing pheasants at the proper time and in their proper place, he strongly objected to amateur imitations of them in a small drawing-room.

( All contents in brackets are blog authors inputs for clarity)
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FUN FROM ' BIG MONEY '

noreply@blogger.com (K J SHENOY) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:56:00 +0000

CON GAME

"But I keep telling you that (the company) Dream Come True hasn't any copper in it."(said Berry)

"Well, there are always mugs in the world, aren't there? It will be a sorry day for England,"said Lord Biskerton, "when you can't find some mug to buy a mine, however dud. You say yours hasn't anything in it? My old guv'nor once bought shares in an oil-well, and not only there was no oil, there wasn't even a well."

PENURY

(When Mr Frisby, Berry's employer, learns that his subordinate Berry hobnobs with the elite crowd, says,)
"I don't understand you," he(Mr Frisby) said. "You seem to mix with the Four Hundred, go to school with their nephews and all that, and here you are, working in my office on a..."

"Ridiculously small salary, sir?" ( said Berry). "Very true. It's rather a sad story. I was adopted by a rich aunt, and she suddenly turned into a poor aunt."

PLACID MULBERRY GROVE

Nothing marred the quiet peace of Mulberry Grove. No policeman ever came near it. Trademen's boys, when they entered it on tricycles, hushed their whistling. And even stray dogs, looking in with the idea of having a bark at the swans, checked themselves with an apologetic cough on seeing where they were and backed out respectfully.

(Contents in the brackets are blog author's inputs for clarity)

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PLUS MONEY FOR NOTHING

noreply@blogger.com (K J SHENOY) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 01:43:00 +0000

BURNING DESIRE

Gradually, driving everything from his mind, there stole upon him the realisation that unless he found something immediately to slake the thirst(for whisky) which was burning him up, he would perish of spontaneous combustion.

INTENSE DISLIKE

Mr Chimp regarded his partner with disfavour. He wished he had never seen Mr Molloy. He wished he might never see him again. He wished he were not seeing him now.

THE PUPPET

His hair was disordered, his face streaked with dust and heat, and his legs acted so independently of his body that gave him an odd appearance of moving in several directions at once.

CHAT 'N' WORK

It began to seem to Mr Soapy that the staffs of the English country houses must be selected primarily for their powers of conversation.Every domestic with whom he come in contact in Rudge Hall so far had had at his disposal an apparently endless flow of lively small-talk. The butler, if you let him, would gossip all day about rabbits and there was a chauffeur apparently settling down to dictate his autobiography.

MORE OF MONEY FOR NOTHiNG

noreply@blogger.com (K J SHENOY) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 01:14:00 +0000

PANACEA

Brophy(the skin lotion), it should be mentioned, had proved a sensational success. His Elixir was making the local gnats feel perfect fools: They would bite colonel Wyvern on the face and stand back, all ready to laugh, and the colonel would just smear Brophy on himself and be as good as new. It was simply sickening if you were a gnat.

INTENT DOG

{Emily, the she-dog was busy watching Mr Chas. Bywater who often gave her toffees. Then Pat entered the scene}
'Hullo, Emily,' said Pat.
Emily(the dog) gave her a brief look in which there was no pleased recognition, but only annoyance of a dog interrupted during an important conference. Then she returned her gaze to Mr Bywater (in anticipation of a treat).

FOXED

There is no anguish like the anguish of the man who is trying to extract cash from a fellow human being and suddenly finds the fellow human being trying to extract it from him.

KINDLY EYE

There was a man he knew in London, a moneylender, a fellow who had a glass eye, and only thing that enabled anyone to tell which of his eyes was which was that the glass one had rather a more human expression than the other.

[ All the contents inside the brackets are the blog author's inputs for clarity.]

MONEY FOR NOTHING

noreply@blogger.com (K J SHENOY) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 02:29:00 +0000

COMFY AMBIANCE

"Along its narrow High Street, the only sign of life visible were a cat stropping its backbone against the Jubilee Watering Trough, some flies doing deep breathing exercises on the hot window-sills, and a little group of serious thinkers who, propped up against the wall of Carmody Arms(a pub), were waiting for that establishment to open.

TOILING BYWATER

Chas. Bywater is a live wire. He takes no afternoon siesta, but works while others sleep. (The town of) Rudge as a whole is inclined after luncheon to go to the back room, put a handkerchief over its face and take things easy for a bit.

{My Note: Chas. Bywater is a Nosy Parker who does not wish to miss any juicy bits of local gossip - the real reason for afternoon wakefulness!}

BURSTING WITH SECRET

Whether, if in a condition to give the matter careful thought, he would have selected Chas. Bywater as a confidant(to tell all), one can not say. But he(Colonel Wyvern) was not in such a condition. The stoppered bottle does not care whose is the hand that removes the cork - all it wants is chance to fizz and colonel Wyvern resembled such a bottle.

TOUCHING ON A STINGY UNCLE

{My Note: Mr Carmody's nephew, in order to humour his uncle before asking him for cash says}

"You look very fit, uncle."

Mr Carmody's reply to this was to make a noise like a buffalo pulling its foot out of the swamp. It might have been intended to be genial, or it might not Hugo(the nephew) could not tell. However, he was a reasonable young man, and quite understood that it would be foolish to expect the milk of human kindness to come gushing like a geyser out of a two hundred and twenty pound uncle who had been doing (strenuous) bending and stretching exercises.

[ All entries in the brackets are blog author's inputs for clarity of background facts]

P. G. WODEHOUSE

noreply@blogger.com (K J SHENOY) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 02:10:00 +0000

This blog is essentially a compilation of humorous quotes from P G Wodehouse novels as chosen by the blog author. P G Wodehouse, also referred to as Plum by his legion of fans, has been a powerful influence on my life.

The author of almost hundred books and creator of Jeeves, Blandings Castle, Psmith, Ukridge, Uncle Fred and Mr Mulliner, P.G. Wodehouse was born in 1881 and educated at Dulwich College. After two years with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank he became a full-time writer, contributing to variety of periodicals including Punch and the Globe. He married in 1914. As well as his novels and short stories, he wrote lyrics for musical comedies with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, and at one time had five musicals running simultaneously on Broadway. His time in Hollywood also provided much source material for fiction.

At the age of 93, in the New Year's Honours List of 1975, he received a long-overdue knighthood, only to die on St Valentine's Day some 45 days later.

WHAT THEY SAID.........

' The incomparable and timeless genius - perfect for readers of all ages, shapes and sizes ' - Kate Mosse

' I constantly find myself drooling with admiration at the sublime way Wodehouse plays with the English language ' - Simon Brett

' P G Wodehouse should be prescribed to treat depression. Cheaper, more effective than valium and far, far more addictive ' - Olivia Williams