*PG Wodehouse*

From the wonderful  Kohler's Week column out of Melbourne - an invitation

Next Friday is Pelham Grenville Wodehouse's birthday, a red-letter day in the Kohler calendar. I have loved Plum Wodehouse ,(pic left in 1904 aged 23),man and boy: my office is festooned with pictures of him and I possess a collection of first editions of most of his 96 books, and near-firsts of the rest. I have been collecting and reading Wodehouse for 45 years and still delight in picking up a well-worn copy of The Code of the Woosters or Uncle Fred in the Springtime to chuckle myself to sleep.


In many ways, PG is responsible for me becoming a journalist. I so loved the way he writes that I wanted to do that too. I never had the courage to become a novelist but I tried to write like him as a journo. Of course I didn't really succeed: financial journalism doesn't really lend itself to comedy too often. Although, then again …

Anyway, if here are any other Wodehouse fans among you, and you'd like to join me for lunch on Thursday in Melbourne (Friday is /Inside Business/ day) to raise a glass to the great man and read some of his priceless prose, let me know. A flat cap will be mandatory, and greetings on arrival must be: "What ho!", as in this quote from /Carry On, Jeeves./

"What ho!", I said.
"What ho!," said Monty.
"What ho! What ho!"
"What ho! What ho! What ho!"
\After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation."


* Here's a website that provides random PG Wodehouse quotes. Be
careful: it's addictive. Click here <http://www.drones.com/pgw.cgi>.