Comments on: Any fule kno that this is jolly good

Any fule kno that this is jolly good

greycap — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 06:01:26 -0800

St Custard's is an English preparatory school set in bracing downland country. Find out more about its teachers, the headmaster and his predecessors, the discipline, and its star pupil Nigel Molesworth. As a bonus you can find out more about how Kennedy captured the gerund and led it into captivity. If you're still confused, click here, here and here for the background to Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle's satire on a certain part of 1950s England.

By: Wolof

Wolof — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 06:07:14 -0800

Down with skool.

By: Hogshead

Hogshead — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 06:24:04 -0800

The Molesworth books contain some of the funniest writing in the English language, up there with Wodehouse, JKJerome and some other people. I know a lot of ex-public school types who insist that St Custards was based on their prep school. And they're all correct, because it was based on all of them. Mine never had a school dog, though in all other respects it was spot on, right down to the smell of cabbage, inkblots and sense of hopeless despair.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 06:27:46 -0800

What does the sense of hopeless despair smell like?

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 06:47:47 -0800

What I always found fascinating about Molesworth as a kid was how subversive he was, compared to the real public school types that I saw on TV and in the media. (Because I can't think that I've ever met anyone who went to public school in real life.) If Molesworth had gone to my school, he'd have gone from Special Needs class to Borstal in the space of about a year. An acute sense of class rage never stopped me loving him though.

By: Smart Dalek

Smart Dalek — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 06:56:13 -0800

Wow, this takes me back! I always thought the Molesworth Saga was a fitting prequel to Russel Hoban's Riddley Walker. But then, I've always been twisted like that...

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 06:56:52 -0800

What does the sense of hopeless despair smell like? Corporal punishment and sodomy, as eny fule kno.

By: Jody Tresidder

Jody Tresidder — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 07:00:36 -0800

"If Molesworth had gone to my school, he'd have gone from Special Needs class to Borstal in the space of about a year..." Nice one, Peter! I know hundreds of the buggers ("reader, I married one" etc) and your description is spot on.

By: mert

mert — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 07:14:53 -0800

Americans don't have a monopoly on retardation

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 07:30:04 -0800

Americans don't have a monopoly on retardation And Windows doesn't have a monopoly on the desktop.

By: athenian

athenian — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 09:54:37 -0800

I think this is great. I went to a minor public school, and there were strong elements of St. Custard's when I was there (1984-1991). I particularly remember one of the teachers, who was getting on a bit, telling me that on the day he knew he was going to die, he would get a bazooka and fire it into the town gasholders, that were behind his house. Even at the time, I realised it was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now, it's gone through a merger (with the girls' school), and, at least observing it from afar, it seems to have lost a lot of that amiable eccentricity. Very focused on academic and sporting results.

By: quarsan

quarsan — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 10:03:25 -0800

I never went to a public school, but I remember as a young pup, browsing a bookshop and picking up How To Be Topp and howling in laughter at it in the shop. so I bought the set. Fantastic stuff

By: muthecow

muthecow — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 10:05:54 -0800

bloody love molesworth, as any fule kno

By: IndigoJones

IndigoJones — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 10:24:30 -0800

Did I miss it, or have they left out the Latin play translated as The Hogwarts...? Eheu, indeed.

By: jam_pony

jam_pony — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 10:25:59 -0800

As a survivor of a somewhat retrograde boarding school here in the states, I can report that a lot of this rings true on this side of the pond as well.

By: IndigoJones

IndigoJones — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 15:38:02 -0800

(Sorry, I see now London Review of Books caught it in antepenultimate link. Good. It's annoyed me for years, Rowling stealing a good joke like that.)

By: IndigoJones

IndigoJones — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 15:39:02 -0800

Rowling's stealing.

By: The Bellman

The Bellman — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 08:56:12 -0800

I can't believe there's never been a Molesworth FPP before. Nice one, Greycap!