My god, I love you Stephen, I do. Why? Because you make me laugh – heartily. Because you make me think – broadly. Because you make me look up definitions (note to self: twazzock has been added to the vocabulary.)
We share an era (actually you are a mere month older than I) and I recall that “springy thump that is heard no more in the world” with nostalgia and a half smile. It goes hand-in-page with the excitement of finally being old enough to be allowed access to the “adult side” of the library along with the smell of oak tables and book binding glue.
I am an American with a body and head in the Colonies and a heart and sense of humor resident in the Green and Pleasant Land. I loved England the first time I spied the patchwork quilt of hedge rows through the plane window as it lowered itself into Heathrow. Well, really, my love affair began with the English language, British accent and self-deprecating wit that was piped into my Chicago childhood home via PBS (Public Broadcasting System) and, yes, rabbit ears! So smitten was I that I enrolled, at 42, as a mental health nursing student at the University of Nottingham (sans Robin Hood). Alas, plans didn’t work as I’d imagined and I returned to the States, but spent the next 25 years crossing The Pond as often as I could to visit, absorb and enjoy.
I haven’t been to England since 2020 at the height of Covid. I miss it, but I don’t miss getting there. For me, you evoke so many of the things I enjoy most about England. Best of all, I don’t have to fly or put up with twazzocks while I’m enjoying. I look forward to our next merry meeting.
Wonderful stuff, once again, and this time with a cliffhanger! I can’t help but think back to the infamous dinner where Wilde and Conan Doyle agreed to write pieces for an American magazine and the subsequent books that came out of that dinner: The Portrait of Dorian Gray and The Sign of Four respectively. It would seem Conan Doyle gifted Holmes with some Bohemian qualities that seem sure to have been inspired by Wilde, but I wonder if the slightly Gothic horror of Dorian Gray was inspired in part by the fog, gaslights, and hansom cabs of Holmes. We’ll probably never know but it seems to me that there was some cross pollination between the authors out of mutual respect and admiration. Certainly that dinner produced literary magic.
What a very interesting story you’re telling Mr Fry. I am very much impressed, and I’m very much impressed with the word you put from Oscar wild the importance of being earnest and this word:“I hope I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection.” believe me I’ve watched the movie where you played Oscar Wilde I thought that was incredibly good and may I say this that I hope I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly, but you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute words
Mr Fry, ‘I hope I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the audible personification of absolute perfection.’
One of the great delights in this Substack is the elegant verbiage. Growing up in a time and place where knowing at least one three-syllable word was the very essence of being erudite, my repertoire of words is quite limited. So it was that I found myself delving the Internet to discover what a "poncy twazzock" is. Happily I have only fit the definition on a few rare occasions.
Mr. Fry: You are not a poncy twazzock, in this reviewer’s opinion. Far from it! “Laughter is a plucking on the overstretched strings of cognitive dissonance” is one of the finest definitions I’ve ever read!
My god, I love you Stephen, I do. Why? Because you make me laugh – heartily. Because you make me think – broadly. Because you make me look up definitions (note to self: twazzock has been added to the vocabulary.)
We share an era (actually you are a mere month older than I) and I recall that “springy thump that is heard no more in the world” with nostalgia and a half smile. It goes hand-in-page with the excitement of finally being old enough to be allowed access to the “adult side” of the library along with the smell of oak tables and book binding glue.
I am an American with a body and head in the Colonies and a heart and sense of humor resident in the Green and Pleasant Land. I loved England the first time I spied the patchwork quilt of hedge rows through the plane window as it lowered itself into Heathrow. Well, really, my love affair began with the English language, British accent and self-deprecating wit that was piped into my Chicago childhood home via PBS (Public Broadcasting System) and, yes, rabbit ears! So smitten was I that I enrolled, at 42, as a mental health nursing student at the University of Nottingham (sans Robin Hood). Alas, plans didn’t work as I’d imagined and I returned to the States, but spent the next 25 years crossing The Pond as often as I could to visit, absorb and enjoy.
I haven’t been to England since 2020 at the height of Covid. I miss it, but I don’t miss getting there. For me, you evoke so many of the things I enjoy most about England. Best of all, I don’t have to fly or put up with twazzocks while I’m enjoying. I look forward to our next merry meeting.
Wonderful stuff, once again, and this time with a cliffhanger! I can’t help but think back to the infamous dinner where Wilde and Conan Doyle agreed to write pieces for an American magazine and the subsequent books that came out of that dinner: The Portrait of Dorian Gray and The Sign of Four respectively. It would seem Conan Doyle gifted Holmes with some Bohemian qualities that seem sure to have been inspired by Wilde, but I wonder if the slightly Gothic horror of Dorian Gray was inspired in part by the fog, gaslights, and hansom cabs of Holmes. We’ll probably never know but it seems to me that there was some cross pollination between the authors out of mutual respect and admiration. Certainly that dinner produced literary magic.
What a very interesting story you’re telling Mr Fry. I am very much impressed, and I’m very much impressed with the word you put from Oscar wild the importance of being earnest and this word:“I hope I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection.” believe me I’ve watched the movie where you played Oscar Wilde I thought that was incredibly good and may I say this that I hope I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly, but you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute words
Thank you for liking it, Mr Fry
Mr Fry, ‘I hope I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the audible personification of absolute perfection.’
One of the great delights in this Substack is the elegant verbiage. Growing up in a time and place where knowing at least one three-syllable word was the very essence of being erudite, my repertoire of words is quite limited. So it was that I found myself delving the Internet to discover what a "poncy twazzock" is. Happily I have only fit the definition on a few rare occasions.
Mr. Fry: You are not a poncy twazzock, in this reviewer’s opinion. Far from it! “Laughter is a plucking on the overstretched strings of cognitive dissonance” is one of the finest definitions I’ve ever read!
Please DO NOT get on with it, Stephen!! More! MORE!
Delicious! Can't wait for part 2. ❤️
So beautiful!
Damn you Stephen Fry for hooking me. Much love and camaraderie in early adoptive behavior with all things Apple.
😑