This was the Britain of the Beatles, Carnaby Street and the Swinging Sixties, where a modern nation was being forged in the "white heat of technology". Like all great comedy, his books contain flashes of insight into the human condition that keep us laughing. Today the bread ration failed and we had small biscuits, he writes, on August 12, 1940. Tamfang 08:17, 11 July 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply], In Much Obliged Jeeves (1971) Spode is roped in to support Bertie's friend Ginger Winship who is standing in a by-election. What the Voice of the People is saying is: Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! You will recall how my Aunt Agathas McIntosh niffed to heaven while enjoying my hospitality. Wodehouse was always careful for a credible background to his characters. Spode is a man whom Wooster describes as appearing as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment. His general idea, if he doesnt get knocked on the head with a bottle in one of the frequent brawls in which he and his followers indulge, is to make himself a Dictator. Well, Im blowed! I was astounded at my keenness of perception. Liberalism has nothing to do with all this. Civilian men were normally released at the age of sixty. "[4], Like Bertie, Spode had been educated at Oxford; during his time there, he once stole a policeman's helmet. . One of the squad has an apoplectic fit and keels over. After being hit by a potato at a lively candidate debate, Spode changes his mind about standing for Parliament and decides to retain his title, leading to a reconciliation between him and Madeline. I suppose even Dictators have their chummy moments, when they put their feet up and relax with the boys, but it was plain from the outset that if Roderick Spode had a sunnier side, he had not come with any idea of exhibiting it now. First, Spode thinks Gussie is not devoted enough to Madeline, who is engaged to Gussie. 2.25.37.191 (talk) 22:37, 22 December 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply], It isn't to Bertie that Spode reveals he sold the business, but to Dahlia. As Bertie says, "I don't know if you have even seen those pictures in the papers of Dictators with tilted chins and blazing eyes, inflaming the populace with fiery words on the occasion of the opening of a new skittle alley, but that was what he reminded me of. [3], In Bertie's eyes, Spode starts at seven feet tall, and seems to grow in height, eventually becoming nine feet seven. They are just dudes who are exploiting public curiosity and fear to gain attention and power. The crucial scene comes just over halfway through, after Bertie and his friend Gussie Fink-Nottle have endured 100 or so pages of intolerable bullying from the would-be fascist dictator Roderick. Madeline accepts Spode's proposal. That innocent people are being attacked on our streets and our politicians have been threatened and murdered. I looked like a movie star in my Bruce Oldfield wedding dress, Air pollution exposure can damage the heart within hours, Don't kill the Coronation with trendiness, Ukraine needs equipment to mount its offensive, More households install alarms and doorbell cameras over crime fears, Red Roses show worth in backing the womens game its time for rivals to take note. Bertie only finds out about that later when Dahlia tells him about it and how she solved the problem by discovering the cosh Bertie dropped by the safe. That the people calling themselves the alt-right are twerps. Wodehouse had a rarer trait, too: a capacity for remaining interested and curious, even in a setting of deprivation. The discussion of these antagonisms must therefore necessarily prove fruitless Nothing is more absurd than this belief Rhetorical bombast, music and song resound, banners wave, flowers and colors serve as symbols, and the leaders seek to attach their followers to their own person. In The Code of the Woosters, Spode is an "amateur dictator" who leads a farcical group of fascists called the Saviours of Britain, better known as the Black Shorts. After the success of his speeches, Spode considers standing for election himself for the House of Commons, which would require him to relinquish his title. Like that of many comfortable teen-agers, my reading taste was more for the moody, or the extreme. Spode threatens to beat Bertie to a jelly if he steals the cow-creamer from Sir Watkyn. Aunt Dahlia ends up using a cosh she found on the ground to knock out Spode, which allows her to retrieve her fake necklace from a safe in order to hide it so it cannot be appraised. In June, 1941, Wodehouse was released. Welcome back. Apart from anything else, Sir Patrick's memo was extraordinarily insulting to Americans. A fellow standing around says, I say, Ive never quite thought of it that way.. created a composite and caricature of all would-be fascist dictators and turned it to hilarity. Thats how Wodehouse presented his fascist just as a silly distraction whose only value is a good joke. : 21: The Plot Thickens", "Classic Serial: The Code of The Woosters", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roderick_Spode&oldid=1150150913, Fascist politician and designer of ladies' lingerie, later Earl of Sidcup, This page was last edited on 16 April 2023, at 16:01. Wodehouse. Later in the story, Spode identifies a different pearl necklace, one belonging to the Liverpudlian socialite Mrs. Trotter, as fake. Bertie's Aunt Dahlia is a customer at Eulalie Soeurs and remarks that the shop is very popular and successful. The two men feature in novels and stories that make up more than a dozen books. One of the many tragedies of our times is that we have taken so many perfect perishers so seriously instead of laughing them off the stage. Sir Oswald Mosley, 1930's leader of the British Union of Fascists. Many take place in country houses, and often turn on such events as the hope of extracting an allowance increase from a difficult uncle. Spode soon wakes up, but is knocked out again, by Emerald. I used to think that this was because it was easier to write the voice of a familiar fool than that of a mastermind. This idea is reinforced by the fascist symbol illustrated being referred to at the time as the "flash in the pan", as in bed pan or toilet pan. Roderick Spode is a character who makes appearances at odd times, making speeches to his couple dozen followers, blabbing on in the park and bamboozling nave passersby, blowing up at people, practicing his demagogic delivery style. . (I think that image may even come from a Wodehouse novel, but which one?) [3], In Bertie's eyes, Spode starts at seven feet tall, and seems to grow in height, eventually becoming nine feet seven. Spoke perfectly captures the bluster, blather, and preposterous intellectual conceit of the interwar aspiring dictator. True defenders of liberty get it. He had already written and published a lightly comic account of his time in camp for The Saturday Evening Post. In The Code of the Woosters, when Spode advances to attack Gussie, Gussie manages to hit him on the head with an oil painting. Spode shares a few insights on the subjects of bicycles and umbrellas with the ihabitants of Totley on the Wold. Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?'"[19]. Tell him I'm going to break his neck. Page contents not supported in other languages. Bitter wind and snow, he writes, in December. Spode is a friend of Sir Watkyn Bassett, being the nephew of Sir Watkyn's fiance Mrs. Wintergreen in The Code of the Woosters, though she is not mentioned again. A group of rare-book dealers and collectors explain their specialized language. The Wodehouses ended up spending the last years of their life in Remsenburg, Long Island. Not by force, or ethical argument, but by knowledge of his secret: he is a co-owner of Eulalie Soeurs, a womens-underwear line. In Berlin, he was reunited with his wife. Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?. He quickly starts to think of Bertie as a thief, believing that Bertie was trying to steal Sir Watkyn's umbrella and also the silver cow-creamer from a shop. That Donald Trump is Donald Trump. As Spode's fiance, Madeline goes with him. Madeline, who wanted to gain the title Lady Sidcup, breaks their engagement, and says she will marry Bertie instead. It was as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment. It called Wodehouse a traitor to England, and again claimed that he had engaged in a quid pro quo for his early release. At one point, Wooster tells Sir Roderick: "The trouble with you, Spode, is that because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of halfwits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you're someone. Get book recommendations, fiction, poetry, and dispatches from the world of literature in your in-box. I thought that people, hearing the talks, would admire me for having kept cheerful under difficult conditions but I think I can say that what chiefly led me to make the talks was gratitude. Later, Wodehouse wrote to the editor of The Saturday Evening Post that he didnt understand why the broadcasts were seen to be callous: Mine simply flippant cheerful attitude of all British prisoners. He wanted everyones knees compulsorily measured: Not for the true-born Englishman the bony angular knee of the so-called intellectual, not for him the puffy knee of the criminal classes. He died a month later. and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. Aunt Dahlia ends up using a cosh she found on the ground to knock out Spode, which allows her to retrieve her fake necklace from a safe in order to hide it so it cannot be appraised. Discuss. 92.15.12.165 (talk) 19:17, 4 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply], The TV series Spode can not in my opinion be described as Hitleresque, but rather "Mussolini-esque". He is an easy-going and kindly man, cut off from public opinion here and with no one to advise him. George Orwell, in his essay In Defence of P.G.Wodehouse, from 1945, concluded, of Wodehouses broadcasts, that the main idea in making them was to keep in touch with his public andthe comedians ruling passionto get a laugh.. Spode is described by Wooster as looking "as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment", which brings to mind the image of Johnson who broke his nose four times at Eton playing rugby and, only last year, shoulder-barged a ten year old to the ground during a street game in Tokyo. Error rating book. Sir Patrick was strongly against it, not only on the grounds that it would revive the controversy about Wodehouse's broadcasts during the war, but for this reason: "It would also give currency to a Bertie Wooster image of the British character which we are doing our best to eradicate.". Roderick Spode is the founder and head of the Saviours of Britain, a Fascist organization better known as the Black Shorts. By the time Spode formed his association, there were no shirts left. He wrote to a friend that it was a loony thing to do.. The article could mention this if it were to be expanded, but as a basic statement seems all right as it is. It is hard to know where to begin to explain what a crass judgment that was. Spode, seeing Gussie kiss Emerald Stoker, threatens to break Gussie's neck as well and calls him a libertine. Maybe for the first weeks an illusion that internment was a brief change of circumstance would persist. as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment, She laughed - a bit louder than I could have wished in my frail state of health, but then she is always a woman who tends to bring plaster falling from the ceiling when amused.. He has a low opinion of Jeeves's employer Bertie Wooster, whom he believes to be a thief. [2] When he first sees Spode, Bertie describes him: About seven feet in height, and swathed in a plaid ulster which made him look about six feet across, he caught the eye and arrested it. The tangles are perennially gentle: Wooster gets engaged to a girl he doesnt want to marry, or is thought to have stolen a silver cow creamer that he has not stolen (though later will be pressured to steal). They are still engaged at the end of the novel. At one point, Wooster tells Sir Roderick: "The trouble . Spode is a star in the TV series 'Jeeves & Wooster' & a shining exception to the general miscasting (Jeeves isn't old enough, Bertie isn't young enough, Madeline Bassett isn't silly enough & Sir Watkyn isn't nasty enough). Ideally clowns like this would be ignored, left to sit alone at the bar or at the park with their handful of deluded acolytes. It has the substance and the arguments. And the black-white-red of his banners seems also to imitate Hitler, not to mention the brown shirts. (Webley is another fictional fascist leader, from Aldous Huxley's Point Counter Point, and unlike Spode does end up being assassinated.). When he learned that the broadcasts horrified much of the English public, he recorded no more. An eloquent public speaker, Spode is founder and head of the Saviours of Britain, a mob of underlings wearing black shorts who shout "Heil, Spode!" Their eugenic theories are pseudo-science. In my memory, he watched these episodes, all of them, while wearing a towel, fresh out of the shower. What would he be thinking by November? A large and intimidating figure, Spode is protective of Madeline Bassett to an extreme degree and is a threat to anyone who appears to have wronged her, particularly Gussie Fink-Nottle. One sensed the absence of the bonhomous note. A wonderful day! Wodehouse wrote in his diary while in an internment camp. "[10] With help from Jeeves and the Junior Ganymede club book, Bertie learns the word "Eulalie", and tells Spode that he knows all about it. The Saviours of Britain, nicknamed the Black Shorts, is a fictional fascist group led by Roderick Spode. He should obviously have been bedded out in the stables., Dont you ever read the papers? [14], Although Spode regularly threatens to harm others, he is generally the one who gets injured. It was a short situation comedy! How about when you are asleep?, But when I say 'cow', dont go running away with the idea of some decent, self-respecting cudster such as you may observe loading grass into itself in the nearest meadow., I dont mind people talking rot in my presence, but it must not be utter rot., She was standing by the barometer, which, if it had had an ounce of sense in its head, would have been pointing to 'Stormy' instead of 'Set Fair, a chap who's supposed to stop chaps pinching things from chaps having a chap come along and pinch something from him., Scotties are smelly, even the best of them. The crucial scene comes just over halfway through, after Bertie and his friend Gussie Fink-Nottle have endured 100 or so pages of intolerable bullying from the would-be fascist dictator Roderick Spode. Wodehouse was the third of four children born to a British colonial administrator and his wife, who were based in Hong Kong. As Spode's fiance, Madeline goes with him. Its a book where perfect quotes fly off the page as frequently as the incomparable Aunt Dahlia smashes up mantelpiece ornaments. That is where you make your bloomer. But although there was nothing in the least bit political about the five radio broadcasts that Wodehouse made from Berlin, the great man's persecutors felt it to be treachery enough that he had co-operated with the recordings in the first place. Spode is a friend of Sir Watkyn Bassett, being the nephew of Sir Watkyn's fiance Mrs. Wintergreen in The Code of the Woosters, though she is not mentioned again. In The Code of the Woosters, when Spode advances to attack Gussie, Gussie manages to hit him on the head with an oil painting. We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. That is what makes his work timeless, and why it will endure long after the Swinging Sixties and Cool Britannia are forgotten. Apart from what Jeeves would have called the symbolism of the action, he had a grip like the bite of a horse.. (modern). He describes having ten minutes to pack a suitcase while a German soldier stands behind him telling him to hurry up; his wife thinks he should pack a pound of butter; he declines, saying he prefers his Shakespeare unbuttered. He also forgets his passport. Spode's head goes through the painting, and while he is briefly stunned, Bertie envelops him in a sheet. [9], In The Code of the Woosters, most of which takes place at Sir Watkyn's country house, Totleigh Towers, Spode is the leader of the Black Shorts. Jeffrey Tucker is a former Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education. [2] Bertie immediately thinks of Spode as "the Dictator" even before he learns of Spode's political ambitions. Spode leaves the Black Shorts after gaining his title. Like Mosley, Spode inherited a title upon the death of a relative; unlike Mosley, who inherited his baronetcy in 1928 (which entitled him to be called Sir) before forming his fascist group, Spode did not inherit his earldom (which made him Lord Sidcup) until after forming his group. The Jeeves-and-Wooster stories were made into a television series, which began airing on PBS in 1990. If he was naive, he was culpably so. That meanness and cruelty so often accompany an inability to understand comedy. [7] At some point, he leaves the Black Shorts. The book would be worth treasuring for such writing alone. The typewriter was housed in a room also used by a saxophonist and a tap dancer. and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. While interned, he kept a journal. . [15] In other novels, Spode is knocked out three times: he is hit with a cosh by Bertie's Aunt Dahlia in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, he is punched by Harold Pinker in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, and Emerald Stoker smashes a china basin on his head in the same book. It's quite impossible that the man who had invented Sir Roderick Spode in 1938 was prey to any covert sympathy for fascism. [15] In other novels, Spode is knocked out three times: he is hit with a cosh by Bertie's Aunt Dahlia in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, he is punched by Harold Pinker in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, and Emerald Stoker smashes a china basin on his head in the same book. These are not difficult modernist tomes. As Bertie says, "I don't know if you have even seen those pictures in the papers of Dictators with tilted chins and blazing eyes, inflaming the populace with fiery words on the occasion of the opening of a new skittle alley, but that was what he reminded me of. Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?, There is a fog, sir. Roderick Spode - 8th Earl of Sidcup : He knows why. Even when Wodehouse was imprisoned a second time, for a couple of months, in 1944, he worked on a novel. At the age of ninety-three, Wodehouse was finally knighted. Harold Pinker steps forward to protect Gussie, and after Spode hits Pinker on the nose, Pinker, an expert boxer, knocks him out. Nobody could honestly call Wodehouse a fascist sympathiser. I am on potato peeling fatigue. This cycle continues to the point that the entire political landscape becomes deeply poisoned with hate and acts of vengeance. His reputation in England was partly redeemed by the persuasive efforts of Evelyn Waugh, in a radio broadcast in 1961. When Bertie Wooster rebukes Spode in The Code of the Woosters (1938), he mocks Spode's black shorts, calling them "footer bags" (football shorts): "It is about time", I proceeded, "that some public-spirited person came along and told you where you got off. The character of Roderick Spode is a lesson in how Wodehouse metabolizes politics. they were just six years of unbroken bliss. In his final year at boarding school, his father told him that there were too many kids to educate, and that Wodehouse could not go to Oxford, where his brother was studying. Roderick Spode, 7th Earl of Sidcup, often known as Spode or Lord Sidcup, is a recurring fictional character from the Jeeves novels of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being an "amateur dictator " and the leader of a fictional fascist group in London called The Black Shorts. Roderick Spode - 8th Earl of Sidcup : Yes. They are so offensive to peoples ideals that they inspire massive opposition, and that opposition in turn creates public scenes that gain a greater following for the demagogue. [6] Spode later inherits a title on the death of his uncle, becoming the seventh Earl of Sidcup. This was a sinister, leering, Underworld sort of animal, the kind that would spit out of the side of its mouth for twopence.. Its tail was arched, so that the tip touched the spinethus, I suppose, affording a handle for the cream-lover to grasp. Sometimes Wooster dresses garishlyin a scarlet cummerbund, for example. The author invites The New Yorker to lunch. Gussie says of Spode, "His general idea, if he doesn't get knocked on the head with a bottle in one of the frequent brawls in which he and his followers indulge, is to make himself a Dictator. How about when you are asleep?, She laughed a bit louder than I could have wished in my frail state of health, but then she is always a woman who tends to bring plaster falling from the ceiling when amused.. Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (Jeeves, #11). His idea, if he doesn't get knocked on the head with a bottle in one of the frequent brawls in which his followers indulge, is to make himself Dictator. Like everyone else, I had assumed that it was because of his behaviour during the war that P G Wodehouse was kept waiting for his knighthood until a month before his death in 1975, at the age of 93. and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. . Later in the story, Spode identifies a different pearl necklace, one belonging to the Liverpudlian socialite Mrs. Trotter, as fake.