25 May 2007

Advice from a wise man

Being agnostic does not mean that you cannot listen to advice from others. I find it rewarding to read the educational fables of Jean de La Fontaine, Aesop (Αἴσωπος) and Ivan Krylov (Иван Андреевич Крылов). I think you can learn a lot from classic theatre like Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck (Vildanden) or Lorenzo Da Ponte's Così fan tutte.

One of my favourite theatrical characters is Major Dennis Bloodnok. In the many places he appears he has for example the following comments:

On Pleasure

I behaved like an absolute bounder and a cad. It's the only way you can enjoy yourself these days.

On other people

You naughty imbalatoola you!

I'll mugle your crampons with me griff club.

You naughty-nitty-naughty-nit gentlemen you.

Comments regarding Foreign Relations

Knuckle me sombrero and Spanish me knuckles!

Volkeshere berebackter, kabloong un kablootsiempire grung dang!

Achtung, gaflooden gablootz!

Soliloquies

Just like Hamlet, he excels in his sololoquies, when his thoughts are undisturbed by others:

Aeiough! Bleiough! Arangahahhh! Kitna Budgy Ha!! Aeiough! and other naughty noises.

Great galloping crabs!

Crod me klerdler and hit me naughty splow!

Nadger me standing load!

Great boiling buckets of bringe!

Great knobbly plates of toes!

Great naked kippers!

Fling me mottles overboard!

Slud blan dweee!

Lower me gringers!

Grab me scalibers and thud me gringes!

Great steaming heaps of green splat!

Noddle me steaming chuff!

Mashie me mogler with a thin crippler!

Flud me cystern with galloping crabs!

Great steaming lumps of therk!

Shutter me donger and thud me crimik!

Great brown nutted nurglers!

Murgle me rogers!

Graze me grundles!

Thud me gripkins!

Thud me cronker stops and duffel me latches!

Great larruping nurglers!

Thud me marling-spikes!

Great scorched thund bringe!

Flatten me Cronkler with Spinach mallets!

Flatten me krurker and nosh me schlappers!

Thud me cringing nurglers!

Great thundering widgets of Kludge!

Griddle me grodkins!

Strice me dongler and hell me iron thudders!

Great crongolers of steaming thund!

Great dollops of steaming thund!

Seekoo henk!

Oh, me puckes!

Thud me fneficks and fetch my fungs, and other time filling in phrases!



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, Bloodnok! My all time favourite character. Thanks for the memories.

Anonymous said...

Thank you! Summary like this can't easily be dismissed, however i shall try.
Summary Diiiiiis-missed!

Unknown said...

Ah... Goon but not forgotten. I think Eric Sykes is the only one associated with the Goon Show (writing, in his case) left now? Maybe there IS something in this lurghy rumour after all?

The Rat said...

Don't remember the episode, but there was in which he was introduced to the sounds of various explosions in the background, and his first line was "Oh, no more curried eggs for me."