We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

“The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone. You hear them shouting ‘Heil, Spode!’ and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: ‘Look at that frightful ass Spode, swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a frightful perisher?'”

– Bertie Wooster helps Keith Windschuttle describe the English-speaking century

8 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Paul Marks

    And yet stupid people called P.G.W. a “Nazi” and a “traitor” for broadcasting similar things to the United States after he was arrested by the Germans.

    Transport was not too bad – “if you like cattle trucks” (and so on).

    It is hard to say who was more stupid, the Germans (for allowing him to broadcast, in the hope that this would make them seem benevolent), or the British “progressives” who denounced him.

  • RAB

    Just the finest and funniest writer of English,
    in the 20th Century.

    I will brook no opposition on this, Jeeves!

  • I just bought this book and look forward to reading it. I will report on my blog ASP

    My blog is
    http://www.anglosphereunionnow.blogspot.com

  • Absolutely the best writer of “I’m in bed with a cold and I feel rotten!” books ever written.

  • Johnathan Pearce

    I agree totally with Beachhutman (magnificent signoff, wish I had thought of that) and RAB. Yes, PG Wodehouse was a bit naive but having read a lot about him, he was no Nazi dupe. The late George Orwell wrote a splendid defence of him in his collected essays.

    Code of the Woosters remains one of my favourites. It is desert island reading, along with Wind in the Willows, the complete CS Forester Hornblower novels, Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo, and Saki. Honorable mentions to Ian Fleming and Waugh.

  • Sam Duncan

    I’ve always felt Samizdatistas were my kind of people (I’ve been reading the blog a lot longer than I’ve been posting the odd comment), and this simply proves it beyond doubt. Plum was the finest English writer of the 20th Century, and that is one of his finest paragraphs.

  • RAB

    Sam, welcome.
    post more, your our kind of guy
    Too !

  • I have only one thing to say…

    “Eulalie”