Half a pound of tea and the poems of Tennyson

Here is an interesting article from the UK's Daily Telegraph. Was Bertie Wooster a Silly Ass or a Wise Man? by AN Wilson, February 18th, 2008. The article is interesting and useful in its own right but as interesting is 1) the fact that it is there at all; I can't think of anything similar in our US papers, and 2) the rich display of filters illuminated in the comments section. In the US we tend to, most often inaccurately, view most controversial issues through the lenses of race whereas in Britain there is still the tendency to see things through class. Hence the conservative, Tory oriented readers in the Daily Telegraph advising the negative commenter Ilia to return to The Guardian (a notoriously labor oriented paper but with a great book section). Also, it is intriguing to see the easy erudition among the commenters.

And here is a revealing vignette from Wilson on Wodehouse. Wodehouse was resident in France at the time of the German invasion at the beginning of World War II.

When he was arrested in Le Touquet, only a year after becoming a D Litt of the University of Oxford, PG Wodehouse was allowed, by his German captors, a few moments to assemble his belongings.

He packed tobacco, pencils, three scribbling pads, four pipes, a pair of shoes, a razor, some soap, shirt, socks, underwear, half a pound of tea and the poems of Tennyson. Then came the big question. Should he pack the typescript of the novel Joy in the Morning, on which he was then engaged? In the event, he packed his constant companion, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare