h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

An excellent performance by an absurdly talented ensemble last night of Gogol's The Government Inspector. It zipped along at a fair old pace with the comic timing and visual inventiveness of a Marx Brothers film. The role of the Inspector had, in the adaptation, originally been devised with Rik Mayall in mind, and the performer had two marvelous set pieces, one in each half, in which he excelled. Everyone else was simply magnificent. One completely unexpected moment featured a wee old scruffy waiter breaking into a dance of lithe balletic grace and delicacy which came from nowhere and returned to nowhere in thirty seconds flat. What an evening. I will remember it for a long time.

It is absurd to crow over the deceased because all it amounts to is the statement that 'I am alive and you are dead', and that can only ever be a temporary state of affairs. If you cannot be courteous towards the dead then be ambivalent, and avoid crowing triumphalism

You who dance around our hearse
Remember this is true
That you must soon be one of us
As we were once like you.

The absurdities of dyed-in-the-wool atheists wishing people away to hell - desperate with the need for some post-death 'payback' - aye, Guardianistas, mind, and therefore of unimpeachable ethical rectitude. Secularism's grim calvinists. The stunted celebrations of faux-moral goblins. Hah! Peet's site was somewhat unpleasant last night.

This said, for Hume's sake bury her quickly and decently and let's get on...


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I agree.

I agree too. The Government Inspector is a fine play and I have seen several excellent productions over the years. The situation still rings true today so translators have felt free to adapt it for a modern audience rather than playing it as a period piece. The production I saw at the Citizen's in the 70's had the classic line - when Khlestakov is trying to get money out of one of the merchants - "I find myself in need of some money. You look as if you've got piles". Well, it was hilarious to a group of teenage schoolboys.

On the other matter, the champagne is on ice. According to the news reports, her family is having her cremated. Presumably to avoid unseemly scenes of dancing after the funeral?

On Radio 4 this morning, one of the commentators (Max Hastings?) described her as a pragmatic moderate. It didn't feel like it at the time, but compared to the shower who are in charge now ....?

best regards from a still wintry Surrey.

PJ's OH

And best wishes to yourselves from a still wintery Aberdeen and shire.

Sue