{"id":15772109,"date":"2025-04-17T15:50:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T20:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wodehouse2.websitesforasong.com\/?p=15772109"},"modified":"2025-04-17T16:28:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T21:28:11","slug":"pgw-here-there-and-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wodehouse.org\/test\/pgw-here-there-and-everywhere\/","title":{"rendered":"PGW Here, There, and Everywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is a sign of P. G. Wodehouse\u2019s enduring popularity that references to the author, his works, and his characters can be found in the media almost every day. He can also turn up unexpectedly in works by other authors. Here is a selection of recent heartwarming moments when Plum popped up in our reading.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Substack column \u201cIllustrating the Public Doman\u201d recently included an illustration for \u201cJeeves and the Song of Songs\u201d that was published in The Strand Magazine<\/em>, September 1929. In an Afterword, the author, Jules, spoke of how he found the illustration on \u201ca fantastically thorough database of P. G. Wodehouse\u2019s pre-1930 writing\u201d on which he heaped great praise. The database? Why, Madame Eulalie\u2019s Rare Plums<\/a>, of course! (\u201cNew Discoveries,\u201d Substack, February 28, 2025<\/a>)<\/p>\n

In February, Vikram Doraiswami, the High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom, was the guest speaker at a meeting of The P G Wodehouse Society (UK) at the Savile Club in London; other attendees included TWS\u2019s president, Bill Franklin. Mr. Doraiswami spoke warmly of his appreciation for Plum\u2019s artistry in prose, citing numerous humorous examples. \u201cFew authors can claim to have created a world\u00a0 as perfect as he did.\u201d (Eastern Eye<\/em>, March 1, 2025<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The Canadian author Mark Steyn has an online newsletter called The Mark Steyn Club<\/em>. A Wodehouse fan, Steyn recently paid tribute to one of Plum\u2019s works, The Girl on the Boat<\/em>, which he covered in installments starting on March 14 and concluding on April 5. Members of Steyn\u2019s club can log in and hear him reading the book; anybody can join the club. (Steyn Online:<\/em> March 14<\/a>; March 15<\/a>; March 16<\/a>; and so on.)<\/p>\n

In a short piece for WSHU public radio, journalist David Bouchler pondered on the importance of humor in our lives. His thoughts were sparked by the 50th anniversary of P. G. Wodehouse\u2019s death on February 14 this year. Says Bouchler: \u201cWodehouse\u2019s subject was always human comedy\u2014the endlessly entertaining contrast between what we pretend to be and what we are.\u201d (\u201cNothing Serious,\u201d March 24, 2025<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Congratulations to Sir Stephen Fry, who was knighted at Windsor Castle on March 25. Sir Stephen is well known to Wodehouseans for his portrayal of Jeeves in the 1990s television series Jeeves and Wooster<\/em>; his longtime friend Hugh Laurie played Bertie Wooster. Sir Stephen has long been an admirer and champion of Wodehouse and is a patron of The P G Wodehouse Society (UK). For one of many reports of his knighthood, see this article in the Independent<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

In an examination of \u201cAunts, Godmothers and Other Interfering Females,\u201d blogger Yvonne Setters includes two of Wodehouse\u2019s most famous characters. Representing \u201cGood\u201d is Aunt Dahlia; representing bad is, of course, Aunt Agatha, she who eats broken bottles and so forth. (See Libertabooks, April 6, 2025<\/a>)<\/p>\n

For fun: A recent post by \u201cFoodieSnark\u201d on Reddit posed a quiz in which one must guess whether certain slang terms or abbreviations were \u201cused by modern food personalities or Bertie Wooster<\/a>.\u201d See how well you do!<\/p>\n

Stumbling across Wodehouse in a book, whether fiction or nonfiction, is always fun isn\u2019t it? Take, for instance, this snippet from editor Adam Sisman\u2019s introduction to Patrick Leigh Fermor\u2019s Dashing for the Post<\/em> (2016): \u201c\u2018He [Fermor] was the most English person I ever met,\u2019 recalled Agnes \u2018Magouche\u2019 Philips, later Xan Fielding’s second wife: \u2018Everything was\u00a0ripping<\/em>, and there was more talk of PG Wodehouse than of Horace or Gibbon.\u2019 Indeed Paddy himself was something of a Wodehouse hero, in his boyish manner, his innocence, his gentleness, his playfulness with language, his sense of fun, and his tendency to get into scrapes, particularly when driving.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you find a reference to Wodehouse in a book, send it to elinwm@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is a sign of P. G. Wodehouse\u2019s enduring popularity that references to the author, his works, and his characters can be found in the media almost every day. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15772110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15772109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wodehouse.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15772109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wodehouse.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wodehouse.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wodehouse.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wodehouse.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15772109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wodehouse.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15772109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wodehouse.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15772110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wodehouse.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15772109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wodehouse.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15772109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wodehouse.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15772109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}