American Fiction: Pynchon and Fitzgerald

Hi, how are y'all? Do ya wanna hear 'bout some cool and wonderful books from the US of A? Oh say, do you see the star spangled novel? But outta my old man Thomas Pynchon here (who sure writes a damn good conspiracy thriller, despite his vile profanity) and the dude with sentences as sweet as a sip of ma favourite bourbon, F. Scott Fitzgerald: which of these two fellas is top dog?
As you may have realised, I do not make a convincing American. and I apologise profusely to our friends across the pond. But despite being a bourgeois Brit through and through, there is something compelling about American literature, and the American character at large. American fiction presents the flip side of the stereotypical arrogance and optimism of the American character, and the writing, especially Thomas Pynchon's, seems free from the straight-jacket like hold of what the English consider 'elegant sentences'.

Starting with Pynchon's postmodern classic, Gravity's Rainbow, and one is presented with an amorphous work, where the pages are teeming with oddball characters. Gravity's Rainbow is perhaps the postmodern novel. One naturally judges it in the context of Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse 5, two other major American postmodern works on the Second World War, and it certainly compares favorably. Pynchon has Heller's erudite wit and charm, combined with Vonnegut's determination to be as strange as he possibly can be.
To say what the book is about is no easy task. Paranoia? Calvinist predestination? Love? Sex? The break down of cause and effect? Racial conflict? War? Pynchon effortlessly weaves multitudinous themes whilst combining maths/physics ("double integral" anybody?), mysticism (there's a rather amusing scene involving communication with the spirit of Germany's ex-foreign minister: Walter Rathenau) and shameless lewdness. Fifty Shades of Grey has got nothing on this! Some of it may offend delicate sensibilities like mine, occasionally it borders on Naked Lunch levels of vulgarity, but the tangled mass of plots is so compelling that one can't help reading on.
The premise is certainly unusual. Our unwitting hero, Tyrone Slothrop, was experimented on by mad Pavlovian psychologists as a baby, and somehow this means that V2 rockets land on the exact location of his sexual conquests. As a consequence, he is abducted by the evil and barking mad Pointsman, and taken to Hotel Herman Goring where an encounter with a killer octopus introduces him to the mysterious Katje, a seductress with a dark past. Pointsman's plan begins to deteriorate due to Slothrop's crafty drinking game, and after becoming obsessed with the mysterious 00000 rocket and the plastic Imipolex G, Slothrop flees into the Zone (post-war Germany) where he is caught in the cross-fire of conspiracies, family feuds and the omnipotent Them.
So the reason to be reading Gravity's Rainbow is that it is one of the few works I've encountered that blur the lines between high and low culture, metaphysics and profanity, whilst presenting destabilised characters that occasionally dissolve before our very eyes. It's epic scope is captivating, and Pynchon manages to stray away from traditional syntax so the words flow in smooth perfection. The novel is insistently beguiling.

Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night is nothing short of beautiful. It bears more similarity to the sprawling farce of The Beautiful and Damned rather than the refined poetry of The Great Gatsby, but whilst the emptiness of Gatsby is what makes it beautiful (can anybody really say what Jay Gatsby is like?), Tender is the Night is more mimetic. Fitzgerald sings of love and misanthropy with "full throated ease", just like Keat's nightingale, as "tender is the night" alludes to this Ode. Unlike Gatsby, Fitzgerald finally has some developed female characters (who were also notably absent from The Beautiful and Damned), you can almost sense him releasing his inner feminist as Nicole longs to be free from simply being a satellite orbiting Dick Driver.
Dr. Driver is a flesh and blood Gatsby, a magnetic and initially mysterious figure. The first part of the novel focuses on Rosemary Hoyt, a naive starlet (Fitzgerald is very good at satirising youth and yet simultaneously longs for it) who is an awe of the Diver couple, and attempts to seduce Dick. Book One ends with a shocking revelation, before Fitzgerald fills in the Divers back-story, and Dick's enigma is replaced by his tragic fall from grace. Fitzgerald describes the novel as 'A Romance' in his subtitle, and Dick and Nicole's love dominates. We are left with a tragicomedy with a tone of muted sorrow, and an occasionally harrowing portrait of mental illness.

But in the end, the sheer scope of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow just about triumphs over the rare intimacy of Tender is the Night. Both however, are very funny and occasionally profound.

Woeful Misinterpretation: Pulp Fiction

John Travolta (here playing a small time gangster named Vincent), after displaying some alarming dance moves with Uma Thurman, is shot. Several times. His unfortunate weakness of going to the toilet at precisely the wrong time (which bizarrely is a common occurrence throughout the film) has finally cost him his life. Well, he did leave his massive gun in the kitchen, so I didn't have much sympathy.
But suddenly he is back with  Samuel L. Jackson, and for some reason they seem to be harassing teenagers again. And these teenagers look remarkably like the teenagers they harassed at start of the film. Do Jackson and Travolta really not like these adolescents? Don't they have anything better to do? Is Vincent's return simply Tarantino sticking two fingers up to common sense, in an ironic, postmodern way? What is happening?
By the end of the film I realised something was amiss, and so Tarantino's jumbled chronology had to be explained to me carefully and slowly. So John Travolta was dead, is dead, will now forever be dead at the hands of an insufferable Bruce Willis. It was certainly a blow. And the reason Samuel L. Jackson is absent during much of the film is because he's wandering the Earth, like Cain, after finding God. And rather than the triumphant final scene with the two mobsters triumphantly outwitting the pair of truly awful armed robbers, it ends with Bruce Willis escaping with his dreadful girlfriend and the Big Boss Man bemoaning his sore bottom.

At this point I burst into tears. Damn you Quentin, for pulling the rug of my happy ending from under my gullible feet.

Machiavelli: Evil Mastermind or Subtle Pragmatist?

Steven Fry assaults Olivia as the 'Machiavellian' Malvolio

I first came across the term Machiavellian to describe Malvolio, the hapless puritan from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Of course the description was entirely inadequate. Malvolio is an easily deceived fool and killjoy, Machiavelli a subtle schemer and womaniser. Whilst the term Machiavellian offers a handy club to bash politicians you don't like around the head with, its far from the true message of Machiavelli's controversial book: The Prince.

The Prince is a handbook for rulers to gain, and keep, power: The Idiots Guide to Conquering Places. Practical advice is offered: avoid mercenaries, and definitely avoid foreign armies; if you conquer a place it might be a good idea to live there; fortresses: good idea against foreign invaders, next to useless against your own people. This is all supported by endless detailed references to historical examples, the least one can get from The Prince is a real feel for Italian politics during the 15th and 16th centuries. So unless you happen to be a 16th century king who fancies extending his territories (which is always a possibility), all of this is antiquated and next to useless, apart from it being quite fun to contemplate 16th century Italian politics.

But as the book unfolds you sense that Machiavelli is getting a little carried away, and

suddenly you realise where the claims for extreme nastiness creep in. The reader is instructed to be exceedingly generous until the moment he seizes power, as afterwards this will seriously damage the state, unless of course you're spending other people's money and then it's imperative that you make a show of lavish spending. It's incompatible to hold all the traditional virtues while still being a good ruler, so it doesn't really matter if you get a reputation for vice as its more or less necessary. One should never keep promises, as no one else will keep theirs. One must be both aggressive and cunning to outwit one enemies.

From this develops an extremely bleak world view, Machiavelli comments a few times on how awful people are, and then uses this to justify an if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them policy. It gets worse. Machiavelli starts going all gooey over extremely nasty people. Olivoratto decided he'd quite fancy taking over the town of Fermo, so he instructed his Uncle to organise a homecoming feast at which all of the town's leading men would

The murderous Cesare Borgia

attend, and then he had them all killed. Cesare Borgia is even more homicidal, and yet Machiavelli responds "having summed up all the Duke did, I cannot possibly censure him". Really? I could certainly give it a go. And yet Machiavelli makes Borgia the hero of the piece, he just keeps cropping up.

To make all this even worse, Machiavelli then decides to tell us that if you're going to have to do something unsavoury, just make it quick, bloody and threatening. Then you'll be fine. So essentially, if Macbeth had somehow managed to kill all the important Thanes in Scotland rather than just King Duncan at once, in a way that announced to the world that he should be feared, then he could skip happily off into the sunset with Lady Macbeth and the awful Malcolm and embittered Macduff wouldn't come to get him with trees, because they'd be dead.

But, as many before me have also done, I am forgetting what The Prince is about. The book is one of the most focussed I have ever read, it's all about getting power, to the point that moral qualms can be dispensed with. But what Machiavelli is trying to achieve is rather admirable, stable states that hold strong against revolutions and foreign invaders. Its just that the means of achieving this are, quite frankly, horrific. If more world leaders had been reading The Prince back in 1918-19, then the Treaty of Versailles wouldn't have been such an awful mess. Machiavelli has clear advice: either you reconcile with the enemy or crush them. Simple. Germany was left in an odd state of limbo, angry and able to seek revenge.


One of the key questions The Prince poses is how far should one go for the good of the state? Machiavelli demonstrates that private morality and the public good are more or less incompatible: "If a ruler wants to survive, he must learn to stop being good". By the end of The Prince, as well as being morally appalled, the reader becomes aware that Machiavelli's brutal utilitarianism is the only way to be successful in politics. Indeed, perhaps one must do unsavoury things (and I'm not suggesting homicide) for the greater good.

Machiavelli: saint or sinner?

American Hustle: Worthy of its Seven Golden Globes?

David O. Russell is a bit of a niche director. All his films are deeply actor and character led, with a hazy plot that never really announces itself other than to provide situations to show off acting ability and character development. It all tends to be about having a social conscience and Doing What's Right for the Community. A faintly useless man has his love for The Right Woman tested, only to end up reaffirming his feelings for her in a wholesome style. I could go on.

This is all being a little harsh on poor Mr Russell. In fact I did really enjoy American Hustle. True, sometimes watching it felt a bit like wading through treacle, but as we all know, treacle is rather tasty. And to continue with this rather odd analogy, American Hustle is saturated with really brilliant moments. Christian Bale's mistress and wife confronting each other in the ladies'. Bradley Cooper's heated exchanges with his long suffering, ice fishing boss. Jennifer Lawrence singing Live or Let Die to her baffled child, who is just thankful that she's not indulging her pyromaniac habits (it seems she hasn't changed much since The Burning Plain).

American Hustle is a lot like Silver Linings Playbook. Both have really stupid names for starters. Both have Bradley Cooper talking at a million miles per hour and with vague anger management issues, and both have Jennifer Lawrence playing stormy women you would not like to meet on a dark night. But whilst whilst Silver Linings Playbook is about mental disorders, American Hustle is about...hair. I have never seen such a variety of over-the-top hairstyles on display. A balding Christian Bale has the most elaborate comb over you will ever see, whilst Bradley Cooper's hair is a nest of tiny little ringlets, we even have the pleasure of seeing him with his curlers in. Jeremy Renner meanwhile has a quiff that simply defies gravity, and for many, all sense of taste. Meanwhile, much of the film is an exercise in How Many Different Angles Can We See Amy Adam's Bare Cleavage From. My only conclusion is that the woman must be allergic to bras.

Despite all this, I seem to be failing to answer the question of whether American Hustle is any good or not. The truth is, I don't really know. David O Russell has developed a unique style that is not to everyone's tastes, I'm not quite sure if it appeals to mine. But rest assured, although on the whole the movie may be a bit of a disappointment, if a film is the sum of its parts, American Hustle is very, very good.

Rating: 8/10

Journey of a Gentleman in Search of Culture (The Final Bow)

It's journey's end for the bourgeois gentleman. His desperate (and homicidal) measures to seek out culture have caught up with him, and ultimately look set to lead him to his grave.

Our bourgeois gentleman's life flashes before his eyes as he stares down the cold barrel of the police officer's gun. He thinks of his collection of vintage wines, the holiday he's booked to meditate in the Alaskan wilderness and the Richard Curtis films he is yet to watch.

"I say old chap!" The  bourgeois gentleman (BG) attempts to sound slightly less like a pompous twit, but has great difficulty pulling this off "I'm sure this is just a big misunderstanding. That fellow liked Robin Thicke you know! If I had let him live he would have corrupted the young, and abetted Blighty's current state of moral decay." The police officer simply stares, obviously not in agreement with BG's argument. His finger is hovering dangerously close to the trigger.

"Old sport, you don't understand! We're on the same team! It's you and I against the great unwashed. You see, thanks to me, there's one less of them out to get us!" A solemn silence is maintained. "Come on my man! I'd bet my diamond encrusted tie pin we're both Daily Mail readers, none of that Guardian nonsense, eh!"

BG's impassioned arguments have led to him being labelled criminally insane, with the insidious Middle Class Moron Syndrome. His is certainly a severe case, and this has led to him being confined to the Middle Class Rehabilitation Unit in the heart of Shropshire. BG's days are now spent attending classes on Minimising Boastfulness Relating to One's Offspring, Tolerating Outsiders and Generally Being Less Angry. In the corridors, the bourgeois inmates have impassioned arguments:

"Now The Wasteland is a classic example of the effectiveness of literary allusion in 20th century poetry. The first line's reference to Chaucer is simply divine, and the way the whole thing leads back to the Fischer King..."

"Oh Fitzwilliam, that's nothing compared to Byron's sustained use of romantic irony throughout Don Juan. Besides, I always found Eliot a little chilly for my liking" BG is frustrated, despite having his fair share of middle class prejudices, he lacks the subtleties of literary wit.

"Ooo, well you'd certainly know about chilly wouldn't you Tarquin! Now I've been engaging in increasingly explicit flirtation these last few months..."

This lovers tiff  reminds BG of the cult ITV sitcom Vicious, a programme that has made his stay in the Middle Class Rehabilitation Unit bearable as The Archers is banned, and for a moment BG feels smug about his new found liberal tendencies. But then he remembers the extended conversation he had with one of his gaolers about Romanian immigrants....

"No, no, no, no!" squeals Fitzwilliam. "Darcy would not allow himself to be bossed around by Trevor Eve, and Elizabeth was never this docile!" BG realises it was mistake to suggest watching the Beeb's new adaptation of Death Comes to Pemberly.

"Well, I see where you're coming from Fizz, but you have to admit that Lydia and Mrs Bennet are just as insufferable as Austen imagined them." BG has retreated into a deep sulk. It's like the opera all over again, he believes his middle class credentials are under threat. So he retreats to a happy place, where his younger self is demonstrating some appalling dance moves around the family record player, sweating abominably in his ill advised tank top to Johnny Marr's frantic guitar. Sweetness, sweetness I was only joking when I said, by rights you should be bludgeoned in your be-ed.O the lyrical genius of Morrisey! BG attempted to read Autobiography yesterday and was left utterly confounded after the first page. Death Comes to Pemberly predictably arrives at a saccharine ending and gives way to the Ten O'Clock News. BG's heart skips a beat. The past week's strikes have given way to violent riots. Have the proletariat finally seized their opportunity? Is it all over for Western capitalism? Predictably the reporter has chosen to interview someone who has precisely nothing of note to say.

"Well, it's all a muddle," he whines. This reminds BG of the equally simple Stephen Blackpool. See, Dickens! His literary allusions are improving all the time!

"Do you hear the people sing? Singing the songs of angry men. It is the music

of a people who will not be slaves again!" This ominous chant echoes throughout the Middle Class Rehabilitation Unit, along with the sound of marching feet. The proletariat have manned the barricades, and are currently laying siege. This is the end, my only friend, the end. Shut up Jim! BG stares down at his pocket watch dramatically. It is the eleventh hour. What an antisocial time to invade! Sirens sound as the first grenades smash through the Touchett Wing. Do not ask me for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for me. BG has become saturated by culture to the point that Jim Morrison and John Donne are having a heated debate in his head.

"No man is an island," proclaims Donne.

"Break on through to the other side," insists Morrison.

"The sun shines out of our behinds." Now Morrissey has joined the argument. The Touchett Wing has fallen to the sound of bourgeois screams. The wall that protects BG from the invasion outside suddenly crumbles, revealing the ruins of the Rehabilitation Unit. Out of the burning  rubble stalks a familiar figure: the proletariat sniper from the Stoke Odeon.

"Well look who it is! We didn't get you at the Regent, but there's no escaping now!" The proletariat sniper takes aim. BG is terrified, desperately searching for a brave comeback.

"You-you don't scare me! You're just-just a-a jumped up pantry boy, who never knew his place." Morrissey is on hand to save the day! The proletariat sniper looks baffled.

"The time of bourgeois repression is over!" declares the sniper smugly. "We've taken Parliament. There's no stopping a dictatorship of the working class now."

"Don't get too complacent old sport! Keats and Yeats may be on your side, but Wilde is on mine!" BG soon realises he's championing cheap epigrams over jolly good poetry, but the proletariat sniper mercifully hasn't registered this. Thankfully, before any other Smith's lyrics come to mind, a battle cry can be heard:
"By jingo, we'll give those develish fellows a good seeing too!". The bourgeoisie have come to BG's aid!

The wounded are sprawled amidst the ruins of the Rehabilitation Unit as the bourgeoisies' briefcases collide with the proletariats' faces, sending baseball caps flying into the flames. BG would be joining the fight for Western capitalism, but unfortunately has found some whisky and is now drunkenly arguing with Tarquin.
"I'm sorry, but Macbeth is a ridiculous play. I mean, he's a completely unbelievable character, for starters he-he listens...to his wife...." Both of them giggle at the casual sexism. But BG's intoxicated ramblings are rudely interrupted. Out of the smoke emerges his arch nemesis, the proletariat sniper. BG staggers over the rubble to meet him.
"Now look here you rascal, lets end this here and now." BG believes he sounds menacing, but unfortunately the proletariat sniper does not.
"Fine by me," he retorts, and before BG knows it he is once again looking down the barrel of a gun, and a bloody massive one at that! Before he can stop himself, BG is saying:
"Overcompensating, are we?" The moment this escapes his lips, BG knows he's doomed. The proletariat sniper's face turns a purplish hue in rage as he prepares to pull the trigger. But it

is at this precise moment that a Midsummer Murders boxset collides with the proletarian's head at such velocity as to cause a fatal blow. Fitzwilliam has saved the day.

And so, Fitzwilliam, Tarquin and BG have made a break for it, after filling their hipflasks to the brim with the remainder of BG's whisky. It seems the bourgeois gentleman has dodged all threats, overcome all obstacles, in order to sample the best British culture has to offer. He has seen two Shakespeare plays, an opera, a Danny Boyle film and a comedy gig. BG is rightfully proud of himself. True, the UK has been taken over by the proletariat, private property confiscated and BG's face already appearing on several most wanted lists for bourgeois related crimes. But that's business for another day. Right now BG has whisky and friends and...BG suddenly feels faint and collapses to the ground. Fitzwilliam rushes to his aid. Tarquin delivers a knowing cackle and soon all is clear. The Middle Class Rehabilitation Unit has been infiltrated by a proletariat spy, who has poisoned BG's whisky.
"Tarquin, how could you deceive me?" gasps a horrified Fitzwilliam. Tarquin, whose real name is Tony, born in a council estate in Sheffield, replies in thick Yorkshire tones.
"Mixing with the bourgeoisie was tough I admit, especially self-satisfied idiots like you, but it was all worth it. The infamous bourgeois gentleman is slain." With this, Tarquin/Tony skips into the distance, imagining himself arm in arm with his childhood hero: Julie Andrews. The illusion is so strong that he is completely impervious to the agony of being blown to smithereens as he accidentally steps on a proletarian mine.

Fitwilliam runs for help but it is already too late. BG feels the poison coursing through his veins and the light growing dim. This world, full of cultural promise, has room for the bourgeois gentleman no longer. He remembers wistfully that Hamlet was poisoned, and aims to die with the same grace. Such thoughts are promptly abandoned as BG feels his end encroaching sooner than he'd expected. Last words? Better be something good. No Morrisey this time. He tries to think of some Shakespeare for the occasion, but the appropriate quotation alludes him. Fitzwilliam returns, realising all hope is lost. He has an audience now, he must be eloquent. Even at the very end, the show must go on. Now there's Abba in his head, and death seems infinitely more agreeable. And just like that, the perfect last words plop into BG's head.
"I did it..." he croaks.
"Go on." encourages Fitzwilliam.
"I did it...for the bourgeoisie!" With this BG expires, and Fitzwilliam releases a harrowing wail.

RIP Bourgeois Gentleman 1889-2014

Journey of a Gentleman in Search of Culture (Part 2)

Time is running out for the bourgeois gentlemen. The proletariat are encroaching as he desperately tries to sample some premium British culture.

Eight months since our pompous protagonist's brush with his own mortality as a result of some impudent snipers outside the Odeon cinema, and the bourgeois gentlemen settles down, surfeited with port and a belated mince pie, to recount nostalgically his latest encounters with culture. Our resident snob nearly didn't make it into 2014, once again risking his life for the sake of culture.

'Twas a cold October night when our bourgeois gentleman went on his first outing with the SixArts society, a cultural entity full of like minded culture vultures. His motives for joining, one must admit, were a little mercenary. If he was surrounded by fellow members of the bourgeoisie and kept a low profile, he deducted that the murderous proletariat would bump off his friends first, allowing him chance for a cowardly getaway. Indeed he should have been somewhat nervous, after choosing his stripy bowtie and Hamlet cuff-links to attend a comedy gig. But fortunately, our bourgeois gentleman was happy to overlook the odd glances in his direction, with no realisation that perhaps he was overdressed.

The comedy soon was underway, with the headline act being Ed Byrne moaning about becoming middle aged. This seemed a well trodden theme, and a depressing one at that. Bourgeois gentlemen don't often like to contemplate the horror of middle age and the pain of having a trendy sports car and spacious house, yet still lacking in hair and youthful vigour. The bourgeois gentleman was beginning to enjoy himself, but, horror of horrors, the comedy was becoming a little...vulgar. Mr Byrne was talking about subjects such as intercourse and coitus interuptus, topics which are prone to upset prudish middle class sensibilities. Horrifyingly, our bourgeois gentleman was unable to contain himself, laughing in an unbecoming fashion at Mr Byrne's scatological humour. Mr Bourgeoisie considered this a serious lapse in character, and went home in shame.

The bourgeois gentleman's next encounter with culture proved to be even more embarrassing. He and his fellow culture vultures were raring to set off for Manchester at the appointed hour to see Richard III, when he unwitting stumbled across a member of the proletariat obnoxiously playing the misogynistic anthem Blurred Lines by the notorious scoundrel Mr Robin Thicke. There was nothing for it but to challenge this ne'er-do-well to a duel, and fortunately his opponent at least had the foresight to carry his sabre with him. After summoning an independent adjudicator, bourgeois and proletariat swords clashed.

Unfortunately, the bourgeois gentleman (who shall now be referred to as BG for short) was a little rusty on his swordsmanship, and was soon wounded by the valiant proletariat. Blood soaked BG's beautiful shirt, and this gave him the sufficient rage to finish his proletariat opponent. Tragically however, this homicide had made BG late, much to the annoyance of his bourgeois friends. After a frantic dash to Manchester, their intrepid driver could not prevent them missing the opening soliloquy. Indeed this was the winter of their discontent, but thankfully the villainous Gloucester had only just begun to argue with the Queen.

When it comes to theatre, BG has discerning tastes, and recollected a previous production of Richard III he had witnessed at The Globe with an all male cast. While obviously BG is not in the slightest bit amused by men wearing dresses, he couldn't help thinking that this modern re-imagining of the Shakespearean classic was somewhat lacking. It seemed the Bard had gone all Nineteen Eighty-Four, the first act closing with huge screens filled with close ups of Gloucester manically laughing. In the end, the balding King was killed by the riot police. If such institutions set up to protect the ruling classes turn on them in real life, then BG fears his days are numbered. BG concluded at the end of the evening that the acting was top notch, but the production seemed a little unsure of itself.

It was time for BG's most perilous outing yet. To the opera...in Stoke. It had been eight months, would the snipers have moved on or kept their bitterness intact? To add to BG's peril. he'd once again made an unwise choice of outfit, wearing a dinner suit and silk scarf so he was easily identifiable as the proletariats' oppressors. BG hurried into the Regent Theatre, where he breathed a sigh of relief as he located the rest of his bourgeois party. He foolishly seated himself next to someone who knew infinitely more about opera than he did, resulting in the lady's informed comments about allusions to other operas and the overuse of cadences going right over BG's head. Due to BG's insufferable laziness, he had neglected to learn Italian before arriving, but thankfully subtitles were on hand to help. On the whole, BG thoroughly enjoyed The Elixir of Love, although he was a little disappointed that the beautiful music and cynical message were undermined by a very simplistic plot.

When BG emerged from the theatre, the proletariat snipers were waiting for him. He had barely registered their shady presence before bullets were hurtling towards him. But BG was resourceful: on becoming aware of the danger he flung his knowledgeable operatic neighbour in front of him. This killed two birds with one stone, saving his beautifully moisturised skin whilst preventing him from feeling inadequate by allowing the operatic lady to take the bullets and so removing her from his life. Unfortunately, the operatic lady disagreed with his conclusions and managed to run to safety. But what is this? The snipers had disappeared! BG was saved! It was at this precise moment that BG became aware of a very loud noise and a wave of heat hurtling towards him. Looking back in surprise, BG discovered the proletariat had planted a bomb in the Regent Theatre to catch him in case the snipers failed. This necessitated a dramatic dive as a fireball surged forward to engulf our intrepid gentlemen.

And so, as BG sits with his port and mince pie in his favourite armchair by the fire, he concludes that the search for culture is more trouble than its worth. His latest encounters with the proletariat had resulted in a ripped and bloodstained shirt and a singed dinner jacket. Perhaps, BG ponders, he should try and be less of a snob, and then the proletariat wouldn't hunt him down with quite the same passion. But BG's reflections are interrupted by the appearance of a  police officer at the door of his mansion. BG naturally invites him in, there is after all an abundance of port remaining so it wouldn't be too much of a sacrifice to share it with an officer of the law. But in spite of BG's hospitality, the rather stern looking police officer ominously withdraws a pair of handcuffs, before announcing that BG is under arrest on the suspicion of the murder of the Robin-Thicke-loving-dueler. BG's thoughts are like lightening, and he quickly realises that he will be in prison with the proletariat, and this time there will be no escape. BG has no choice but to make a hasty escape, and in response the police officer whips out his pistol, and points it in our plucky bourgeois gentleman's direction.....

To be continued in the concluding leg of the Journey of a Gentlemen in Search of Culture!