Category: belles-lettres
You Are The Umpire
Published in the Cricket Society Journal October 2018 For ten summers from 2007 to 2016 the Observer newspaper carried a popular illustrated feature called “You Are The Umpire.” Its creator was the English and international umpire John Holder. He highlighted unusual situations which he had encountered in a distinguished career. One I particularly remember: a […]
Letter in Pedantry Corner, Private Eye No 1452
“In your previous issue, Nursery Times must have misquoted the Big Bad Wolf when referring to his ‘vulpine activities’ – unless he was cross-dressing as the Fantastic Mr Fox. A wolf’s behaviour is normally lupine. I am not allowed to get out more because I suffer from intermittent lycanhtropy.”
Screenwriting Blues
I reach this point in every Screenplay. It arrived this morning in the Lahore Movie. I have pared down the major characters. I have wiped out all the colourful but cluttering minor characters. I have murdered all the little darlings, those cutesy bits of dialogue or business that seemed irresistible on first creation. The Screenplay’s […]
A Modest Proposal To Help Tailend Batsmen Earn A Draw In Cricket Matches
Proposed amendment to Law 16 section 6 Last hour of match: number of overs Add at end of first paragraph “Before that over commences, the batting side captain may on notification to the umpires decline during the next session of play the extra delivery which would normally be awarded for a no-ball or a wide […]
Luke Upward Meets Monsieur de Crapaud
As Luke Upward’s patron, the amiable Marquis de Tarpaulin, became more and more devoted to his collection of old cars, his soirées became more and more over-run with old car bores who did not know a salon from a saloon. Upward found himself wasting some of his finest figures of speech on people who thought […]
Three Dickensian death tributes
Published in the Yorkshire Post 23 Dec 2011 (revised 23 December 2016) Ebenezer Scrooge was a successful banker who survived early derision to earn recognition as a champion of sound finance and a pioneer of environmentally sustainable living. Scrooge began his career in the warehouse business. Through exceptional economy (and by forsaking the prospect of […]
Luke Upward and General Zia ul-Haq
One of the joys of being Luke Upward’s official biographer is that I sometimes uncover new information about the life of England’s premier but often elusive man of letters. I recently discovered that Upward was a diplomatic correspondent in the 1980s, for the influential Noticias Esquitas do Sāo Tomé e Príncipe, while also contributing to […]
Luke Upward Discovers A French Spin On Agincourt
Luke Upward could not stand the Prince de Millecrêpes, first husband of Annie Oldiron, who later married his patron, the affable Marquis de Tarpaulin, and helped him create a “big tent” for writers in their regular Friday salons where she poured out the Clicquot with considerable verve. However, Upward was intrigued by his ancestor, the Sieur de Millecrepes, […]
Peccavimus (We Have Stayed In The Sind Club)
Impressions of a first visit by Peter Oborne and Richard Heller (November 2012) For a first-time visitor, the Sind Club is hard to believe. Set within a sprawling, noisy turbulent city, its order, its elegance, its history make the Club feel like a fantasy kingdom. As devotees of P G Wodehouse, we sustained the fantasy […]
A Wounded Tiger At Bay In Pakistan
With the Wounded Tiger Cricket Tour of Pakistan 2014: a few personal notes Weds Nov 5: satisfactory PIA overnight flight to Lahore, although unable to resort to normal longhaul relief by drinking myself insensible (cf Squire Haggard). To refurbished Faletti’s Hotel, Lahore, used by visiting Test sides and by Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger during […]
Luke Upward’s Great Lies Of Modern Times (some additions)
1) Your call is important to us 2) Easy to assemble 3) Serves 2 4) Fun for all the family 5) You can’t miss it 6) I didn’t get your email for some reason, could you send it again? 7) Of course it’s not too much trouble eight*) I’d love to come but it depends […]
Luke Upward London Library Lion
Needless to say, Luke Upward was a lion of the London Library. His subscription was paid irregularly and in arrears, but he was never challenged since it was unthinkable that the greatest private lending library in the world should bar England’s finest man of letters. Upward rejoiced particularly in its unique cataloguing system – infinitely […]
Luke Upward’s Wisden Obituary
UPWARD, Luke Constant Lee, whose death due to pernicious anomie was announced on 31 June, was once described as the David Gower of English literature, delighting his followers with a stream of effortlessly exquisite aphorisms and apophthegms. He also assisted many social and artistic cricket clubs as a right-arm purveyor of his own wrist-spun inventions, […]
Luke Upward’s Legend of Pimlico Part 2
The story so far: Imperial China in the 1860s. Beautiful, gifted peasant girl Pim-Lee-Koh (Little Oyster of the Prairie) is groomed to become the concubine of the Manchu Emperor. Instead, she becomes the lover of the Loyal King, military leader of the Tai-Ping uprising. Together they use daring tactics based on her invention of cavalry […]
Luke Upward: The Legend Of Pimlico part 1
As previously noted, Luke Upward was intermittently banned from racecourses and betting shops, when it was discovered that other punters were betting the field against his selections. During one of these periods of relative prosperity, England’s pre-eminent man of letters was able to move to London’s fashionably Bohemian milieu of Pimlico. This runs between Chelsea […]
More of Luke Upward’s Excellent Business Advice
1) Be on the alert if you see what might be a Scots, Welsh or Irish name. The Scots, Welsh and Irish, after centuries of subjugation, like to show that they are fully assimilated into British society, and they will resent it very strongly if you insist on referring to their national origin. Make a […]
Luke Upward’s Excellent Business Advice
Luke Upward’s loyal disciple, Ted Level, was touchingly anxious to give England’s premier but indigent man of letters any opportunity to earn easy money. He thought he had found one when he met an American businessman who was complaining about his difficulties in adapting to the British business way of life. He asked for a […]
Luke Upward’s Drinking and Driving Video
Pursuing his theory that drink-drivers should be made to feel ridiculous, Luke Upward wrote the following video for the Ministry of Transport, suggesting that drink can turn genius into David Brent…. EXT. LORDS CRICKET GROUND. DAY Wide-angle view of Lords Cricket ground. A match about to start, with a full bowling side, two batsmen, two […]
Luke Upward Confronts Boris Johnson
Despite the generous terms offered by Juan Fordamoni of T-Wrecks Rentals, Upward spent more and more of his life as a pedestrian. This should have been no hardship, for Upward had eighteenth-century standards of distance, and thought nothing of walking twenty miles to a dinner party or even a modest selection of canapés. However, Upward […]
Waiting For Gordo (2005): Prime Minister’s Questions
TONZZO: As I was saying gentlemen, I am here to listen, because it is important that we listen to what is important. And it can get lonely for a man, being right for eleven years, with no one to listen to except the voice in his own head saying “Yes, that’s the right thing to […]
Luke Upward Makes A Gogol Search
The world of Luke Upward was sadly beset by jealous rivals. He himself had Walter Downer, his great friend Ricky Rubato had to endure Johnny Atempo, and even Beppo The Wonder Dog suffered from the backbiting of Mini-Mariachi Maxie, the Chihuahua With the Wah-Wah. Saddest of all was Upward’s patron, the amiable Marquis de Tarpaulin, […]
Luke Upward Discovers A Hero Of Agincourt
Luke Upward could not stand the Prince de Millecrêpes, first husband of the genial Marquise de Tarpaulin, and described him as a bigger bore than the Severn, but he was intrigued by his ancestor, the Sieur de Millecrepes, who was awarded the family circumflex by King Charles VI (the Mad) for his services at Agincourt. […]
Waiting For Gordo 2005: Gordon Brown Speaks – And Sings
Dear Prudence, always saving for a rainy day, Dear Prudence, always worried what the Bank will say. The pound is up, but trade’s in red. Our industry has gone to bed. Dear Prudence, always saving for come what may. Dear Prudence, try to keep house prices high, Dear Prudence, making sure consumers buy. Inflation’s low, […]
From “Waiting For Gordo” 2005 – my bleak, existential drama of backbench life in the Labour Party
LACKEY (Blairlike intonation and pauses): I believe – passionately – that it is important – to greet the world with a celebration that is so bold, so beautiful, so inspiring that it embodies the spirit of the future for the many not the few in 45 minutes or less. A modernized social democracy with eye-catching […]