636: Political Stuff

The other day, I posted here about the rather pathetic Nick Clegg, with his rejection of the proposed ban of the brutal slaughter practices of the religious extremists with which this country is rapidly becoming over-run.

I read, I think yesterday, about the results of a poll carried out concerning the "public's" opinion of the leaders of the principal political parties.

I'm not at all interested in what they thought about the ludicrous Millipede, Weather-vane Clegg, or even UKIP's Nigel Farage, the latter apparently doing quite well. As my regular readers will know, I am no enthusiast for democracy, since there are too many oiks, chavs and thickos allowed to vote in our system, the inept system of universal suffrage as it is called.

My opinion is confirmed (at least in my view) by the fact that a criticism that was voiced in the poll was that Mr David Cameron was "too posh."

I take it from this unpleasant outcome, that it would be perfectly acceptable according to the aforementioned oiks, chavs and thickos, were Cameron to speak with the repellent "Estuary" accent currently so fashionable at the BBC.

After all, if the findings had revealed that a political leader attracted opprobrium by virtue of the fact that he was too common, then I'd bet a pound to a penny that we would never be told...

And since Mr Cameron does not (to me at least) sound at all "posh" I can only shudder in imagining how the respondents in the poll speak.

Vote for Nancy Mitford I say, or even better, George Sanders.

Gawd 'elp us, gorblimey guv, a merry Christmas on yer, strike a light, lumme, don't dis us, innit...

Until the Next Time

Wonderful Style: George Sanders

George Sanders. Image Source, here

For reasons I can only hint at, the late George Sanders is one of my favourite actors. I cannot remember when I last saw a film in which he appeared - you might say that it is simply a sort of cultural memory.

His appearance was part of it, but best of all it was his magnificent voice: I once had a girlfriend who would turn almost to a jelly when she heard him speak (I recall feeling pangs of jealousy as we watched the fim together).

For some reason I decided to research him a little today. I came across a site, salon.com, which included the following story, which to me epitomises my image of Sanders:

In "Memoirs of a Professional Cad," Sanders recalls an early movie called "Lancer Spy" in which, he writes, "I wore a monocle to some effect. As a result of this, when my next role came along, that of a pirate in a thing called 'Slave Ship,' I was again called upon to wear a monocle. It was useless for me to protest that at the time of this particular story monocles had not yet been invented. Such pedantry made little impression on the film's producer, and I duly became history's first monocled pirate."
One can scarcely blame the film's producer for making use of Sanders' capacity to carry off Cyclopean eyewear, however: as Time magazine noted, Sanders was "the only actor since Erich Von Stroheim and Charles Coburn who can wear a monocle without looking as if he is going to drop it into his soup."

The following delightful clip from "Jungle Book" provides an example of Sanders' wonderful voice when playing the character of Shere Khan, the tiger.

Sanders died in 1972, by his own hand. Depressed and with failing health he left the following note:

"Dear World. I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck."

Stylish to the end.

Until the next time