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December
24, 1905
The
Caledonian dinner was a glorious and enjoyable function. I went as Guy
Charteris’ guest. The C. is a club for Scotchmen, and the enthusiasts
turn up in kilts and sporrans. The performance consists in a dinner where
one eats haggis, a noisome dish to look at, but not unpleasant to eat, and
drinks Athol Brose, a delicious drink, but insidious, composed of whisky,
honey, cream and rum. Afterwards we danced – a dangerous game, but full
of interest. John Gore and I were knocked backwards into the fireplace.
Sir
Alan ‘Tommy’ Lascelles
December
24, 1954 [Jamaica]
Oh,
how nice it would be just for today and tomorrow, to be a little boy of five
instead of an aging playwright of fifty-five and look forward to all the
high-jinks with passionate excitement and be given a clockwork train with a
full set of rails and a tunnel. However, it is no use repining. As
things are, drinks will take the place of parlour games and we shall all pull
crackers and probably enjoy ourselves enough to warrant at least some of the
god-damned fuss.
The news from home is mainly concerned with disaster, floods and gales and
houses collapsing. I am very lucky to be here in the warmth and so I will
crush down the embittered nausea which the festive season arouses in me and
plunge into gaiety with an adolescent whoop.
Noёl Coward
Bryan
Ferry: Another Time, Another Place (1974) (Link)
Wood
engravings by Eric Gill (1916)
Eve Arden
One
of this year’s regular pleasures has been listening to Eve Arden
in Our Miss Brooks broadcasts
on satellite radio.
I’ve
loved the show since I was very young, but previously was only familiar with
the television version. Like so many entertainments, listening to it on wireless
and mentally filling
in the visuals decorating the actors' voices (with their flawless
diction and vivid intonations) is the superior aesthetic experience.
As
beautiful and radiant as she was, Eve Arden’s honey- ochre voice defines her,
and she delivers all of Connie Brooks’ clever observations, asides, straight lines and punch lines
with devastating, unerring, but gentle precision.
Our
Miss Brooks, for anyone unfamiliar with it, is a fairly straightforward American
high school situation comedy, which is both middle-of-the-road and nicely,
unexpectedly offbeat.
Consistently
amusing, unlike today’s
feel-bad, sarcastic and smutty television comedies, it earns
its laughs and vibrates
in tune with human nature as I used to perceive it.
With Gale Gordon (as Madison HS principal Osgood Conklin)
Two
of the show's other actors, the great Gale Gordon and the then-faux-juvenile (he had
already fought bravely in World War II in both Europe and the Pacific) Richard Crenna,
were also masterful voice artists. I happily accept Gordon’s narrow
range because he’s so funny
inside it, but historical perspective makes Crenna’s versatility
and varied
career achievements incredibly impressive.
Merry
Christmas, Eve.
With Richard Crenna (as Walter Denton)
Our Miss Brooks: Home Cooked Meal (television link)
