Wooster: Pity about my idea of investing in this Real Estate scheme on the Galapagos Islands.
Jeeves: I did caution against it, Sir.
W: Yes. Rotten luck. And just when some of my dearest aunts lost all their dosh in that South Sea thingy…
J: Bubble, Sir?
W: Don’t mind if I do, yes, thank you. We made it out of Blighty in the nick of time and right under the noses of the bally bailiffs, did we not?
J: Indeed, Sir. A most fortuitous escape.
W: I’ll say. Still, it’s not so bad here in France, now is it? Better that than being confined at Her Majesty’s pleasure. I managed to pull enough strings to find us a flat and have enough left over for a car…
J: Ahem, Sir…
W: Now, now, Jeeves. I realize our little Renault is not up to usual standards, but it’s the best mode of transport I could afford, at such short notice. It will have to do in the meantime. Stiff upper lip and all that, what?
J: Stiff indeed, Sir.
W: Look, I miss the old Aston too. But I was just so eager to make that ferry. I didn’t think it was already pulling away. Trick of the light, one surmises.
J: The sound of the vessel’s foghorn was clearly audible, Sir. That is the traditional method by which ships signal their having left the shore.
W: Oh, is that what that was? Never mind. Couldn’t afford the petrol for that Aston, in any case. And now that it’s stuck in the beach in Dover, there’s little chance of getting it back on the green, even with a sand wedge and that Sarazen chappie. So let us put that in the “bygone” category.
W: Right-ho, do I have everything for cousin Ethelbert’s wedding? Gloves, cravat, cuff-links, shoes, vest. Looks like the main characters are all part of the plot…
J: Almost, Sir.
W: Almost? What am I missing? Oh, yes. Where the deuce is my top hat?
In honour of the 100th anniversary of the first publication of Wodehouse’s My Man Jeeves, the first Jeeves & Wooster book, without which the world would not be the tranquil and harmonious place it has become since 1919.
“What, ho!”, indeed!
Most excellent, old boy.
You have convinced me of a few things. First, I suppose that there is little about a French car that would make sense to a traditional Englishman.
Second, I need to read some Wodehouse. I spent quite a bit of time reading Robert Benchley when I was younger, but have only touched on his English contemporary in wit.
I recall that the gentleman moved to the States in his later years. Perhaps you might continue this series with, say, a 59 Cadillac?
Chevy Biscayne, Ford Custom or Plymouth Plaza two-door post, in bright red or a suitably late-50s pastel.
The Brits never really went for two-door sedans above the Morris Minor/Ford Anglia class, never had much of a market for big-and-basic and stuck with very dark and muted colors through most of that decade.
JP, PG Wodehouse did move to the US after WWII due to the fact that during the war he was captured by the Germans @ his home in France in 1940. After spending some time in an interment camp, he was sent to Berlin to do a series of radio broadcasts directed to the still neutral US to assure his US fans that he was OK. He mainly talked about his time in the camp & nothing else. However, many in the UK thought him a traitor, especially in the Government & there was a chance that he could have been arrested if he returned. The only thing that he was guilty of was poor judgment. In that he acted like Bertie w/o Jeeves. He spent the rest of his life living in Long Island,
As for what PG Wodehouse to read, as someone who has most, if not all of his 90+ books, I would suggest any of the Jeeves books, as well as the Blandings Castle series. There are several compilations that can serve as a gateway. The genius of Wodehouse is his use of language & how he manipulated 2-3 basic plots.
As for the car, I don’t think that Jeeves would let Bertie drive the Renault. I think that he would get him one of the upscale versions of the Mini like the Riley Elf or a Woosley.
Brilliant! Though I suppose that’s a much newer Anglicism that Jeeves and Bertie would never have used.
Jeeves was always able to extract Bertie from disastrous Bertie Wooster plans. Jeeves would never had permitted Bertie to end up with a Renault 5.
Bertie: “Dash it all Jeeves! I could have sworn that I employed a marvelous little French confection capable to carting us away to my Aunt Hortense’s lovely Paris flat! Where could our conveyance be?”
Jeeves: “If you recall sir, you wisely requested that a suitable motor-car await us by the front kerb and arranged for Aunt Hortense to supply the monies necessary to replace the Renault with this Bentley. Well played, sir!”
Bertie: “Oh – yes! Yes, I do think I recall that – now that you’ve mentioned it Jeeves! The Bentley will have to do for now, Jeeves. Adventure awaits!”
Jeeves: “Indeed it does, sir.”
Bertie: “Where is the blasted driving wheel, excuse my choice of words Jeeves, but where in the dickens is the tiller for this infernal machine? This car has suffered from lackadaisical assemblage!”
Jeeves: “Sir, I have upon authority that the French, like the Americans, drive on the left side of roadways. The steering wheel is in front of me.”
Bertie: “So it is. As it should be. Let us not tarry a moment longer Jeeves! Aunt Hortense is expecting me any moment. She is much too old for us to dilly dally. She’s become comatose with each passing moment! I just hope she wears her teeth. I can’t understand a single word she says without them.”
Jeeves: “I had taken the liberty of bringing along an extra set of dentures, in case she has misplaced hers again.”
Bertie: “I hope they’re not too white. She complained last time that her dentures make her look like David Lloyd George.”
“I say, Jeeves, if the French drive on the left side of the roadways, as you said, why is the steering wheel also on the left? Most confusing, what?”
Those illustrations from the 1970s Penguin paperbacks are my favorite Wodehouse illustrations.
Going back to cars, in the Jeeves/Wooster series, Bertie always seems to be driving a 2 seater, so it’s probable that he could own a Spitfire, although he could have a Lotus Elise like Mrs. Peel
Excellent parody, also a reminder to always invest the opposite of any PG Wodehouse character except Jeeves.
Wodehouse and a Renault 5……..most spiffing, old chap. Must get you dinner next time we meet at the Club. Are you going to the test match this weekend? Headingley, for the Ashes. Bit of a trek, Yorkshire and all that, I know but I understand it’s actually quite civilised nowadays, and Jeeves’ cousin has found us a passable hotel in York….
Absolutely spot on, top hole, full marks!
If I knew how to do it I’d post the Jeeves and Wooster intro and exit theme music. It’s quite excellent.
The R5 is more for someone like Uncle Fred I think, flitting by.
Amazing the influence of TV. Reading the dialog, I was hearing it in the voices of Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry.
As for their choice of an R5, I hear Jeeves saying something along the lines of gentlemen do not go out in public in such a conveyance.
Fortunately, I am not such a slave to convention.
Oh, I say, that’s just tickety boo my dear fellow. Surely a newly-discovered French interlude that fell from the typewriter of the old buffer himself.
Here’s to all that harmony, what.
(Not for you the hackneyed portraits of a hocked-to-the-gills kerbside 1928 Bentley sedanca that common dullardry would have me choose. No, you have fashioned from the tomtoms of your own drumkit a link between a minute Renolt and 100 years of Anglo high wit that only a dewdropper would have the gall to suggest is the most tenuous link yet made on this site. Which calls for a toddy).
Forgot to add the sound of Wodehouse on the BBC, from my childhood. Glorious stuff. This series was actually introduced each week by (very) old PG himself.
I have that on DVD. The first season was indeed introduced by PGW just before he died in 1975. The main characters were always played by a husband & wife team.
In ’75, I was 7, and though I loved the show, I’m sure I didn’t really get it. I have watched some of them in recent years, and ofcourse they creak technically, but are still funny (and now I get the jokes, natch). The central idea of having John Alderton and Pauline Collins – I remember the names unprompted, they’d been in Upstairs Downstairs just previously – playing all the leads works wonderfully, as it is a good and ironic representaion of the endless reworking of Wodehouses’s three or so plots (as you note above). That said, I don’t reckon PG reduces to film: the funniest essence is all in the play of the words on the page. Mind you, I have read 75 less of the books than you!
I don’t know about the Aston Martin. What happened to Bertie’s Triumph Spitfire?