an obituary for Ronald Searle

Ronald Searle's obituary in the Economist. As delivered by Nigel Molesworth.

http://www.economist.com/node/21542712

Molesworth sa on the contry the most beatiful form in art is a Ronald Searle GURL from St Trinian’s in a tunick with black suspenders and armed with a hockey stick to beat the daylites out of another gurl or maybe just a teacher chortle chortle. Mr Searle sa he hav based her on his sister Olive. She hav wild platts and an empty gin bottle in her pocket a sack of poysinous todestools two sticks of dynamite and possibly a hippo on a lede while an old crone alias a teacher sa from a window Elspeth put that back AT ONCE. Or she will be sharpening a massiv knife on a grinder with grusome heads of gurls on a shelf behind and the headmistres will be telling the surprized parent this is Rachel, our head gurl, ha ha ha. We offer every attention to your prescious chicks including drunken orgeys wiches sabbaths every form of the subjunctive in fr. or lat. and coffin-making for a modest charge.

[...]

And speking of Life, sa silently the long black undertaker in his tall black hat sitting by the grave, I do not think much of that as a titel for a magazine, why not Dethe, but Dethe where is thy sting, where Grave thy victory cry Molesworth (over the WHACK of the Kane), when everbode still kepe larffing at the world Mr Searle hav made.



An awesome tribute.

a warm comforted feeling

A nice day. Slept in. Did some shopping. Found some nice fabric in the market at a low price that's just right to back a quilt I'm working on. Had a good supper. Sang along (badly) with chunks of Carmen. Got a bit of writing done. Have tomorrow to look forward to.

And the last episode of Sherlock, of course. Please let it live up to the best that the series has been . . .

---

It was late that night when Holmes returned from his solitary excursion. We slept in a double-bedded room, which was the best that the little country inn could do for us. I was already asleep when I was partly awakened by his entrance.

"Well, Holmes," I murmured, "have you found anything out?"

He stood beside me in silence, his candle in his hand. Then the tall, lean figure inclined towards me. "I say, Watson," he whispered, "would you be afraid to sleep in the same room with a lunatic, a man with softening of the brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?"

"Not in the least," I answered in astonishment.

"Ah, that's lucky," he said, and not another word would he utter that night.

-- The Valley of Fear, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

post-Reichenbach

For those who take an interest in the Sherlock tv series:

No, it did not disappoint. There might be a few plot points that are a tiny bit shaky in retrospect . . . but no, it did not disappoint.

And that's all any of you would want me to say in a post like this.