Letting Go

Today was assignment deadline day so my submission (beautifully bound and printed) was handed in this morning. I am incurably vain so I will report on the mark I get only if it is a good one.

In truth I feel a little sad at letting it out of my custody which is a pretty damned silly way to feel about a play.

This though will not be the end. I intend to continue the project for my own entertainment, particularly now that William Shakespeare has let me have my desk back, although you are never, of course, truly free of Shakespeare. Nor should you want to be.

I am re-reading Black Mischief at the moment. For the bien pensant this is the most problematic Waugh novel I suspect. Is it racist? Well possibly but it is nonetheless bloody funny. Nor should we ignore the fact that the irredeemable Basil Seal is quite unquestionably white. A couple of good lines have caught my eye in the context of VB (the first one) and my Shakespeare essay (the second) which is about constitutional law.

One of the young men said: 'Could you lend me a fiver? I've a date at the Cafe de Paris.' ... 'No, you'd better ask Sonia.' ... 'But it's so boring. I'm always borrowing money from her.

... we've got a much easier job now than we should have had fifty years ago. If we'd had to modernize a country then it would have meant constitutional monarchy, bi-cameral legislature, proportional representation, women's suffrage, independent judicature, freedom of the press, referendums ...'  .....  'What is all that?' asked the Emperor.  .....  'Just a few ideas that have ceased to be modern.'  

I was going to say 'quite' but then you might think I was being serious and my cred would be banished from the street completely as opposed to now when my daughters allow me to take it for a very quick walk early on a Sunday morning when nobody else is up.