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Molesworth as role model: Difference between revisions
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{{a|devil|{{image|Molesworth|png|I mean just look at him.}}}}Asked to chose his favourite literary character as an inspiration for law, the [[JC]] — after a wistful look at [[A. P. Herbert]]’s curmudgeonly litigant [[Albert Haddock]] — chose of course Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle’s immortal, heroic schoolboy [[nigel molesworth]], self-styled “curse of st custards”, made real through the winsome prose real-life schoolmaster Geoffrey Willans and real-world illustrating genius, Ronald Searle, in a series of books published in the 1950s and now available through compendiums like {{br|The Complete Molesworth}}. | {{a|devil|{{image|Molesworth|png|I mean just look at him.}}}}Asked to chose his favourite literary character as an inspiration for law, the [[JC]] — after a wistful look at [[A. P. Herbert]]’s curmudgeonly litigant [[Albert Haddock]] — chose of course Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle’s immortal, heroic schoolboy [[nigel molesworth]], self-styled “curse of st custards”, made real through the winsome prose real-life schoolmaster Geoffrey Willans and real-world illustrating genius, Ronald Searle, in a series of books published in the 1950s and now available through compendiums like {{br|The Complete Molesworth}}. | ||
Molesworth — a ner’er do well 12 year old at a Boarding School that may well have inspired Hogwarts | Molesworth — a ner’er do well 12 year old at a Boarding School that may well have inspired Hogwarts — stands on neither form nor ceremony in how he expresses himself. For our age of obsessive modern formalism, nigel is the embodiment of unapologetic, old-fashioned ''substance''. He cares no fig for spelling or grammar — “uterly wet and weedy” he would sa, no doubt — but, through a savant genius for subversion of the vernacular, has still generated his own idiom which — [[as any fule kno]] — survives to this day in publications as august as ''Private Eye'', ''Test Match Special'' and (cough) the [[Jolly Contrarian|jole contrian]]. | ||
Molesworth cuts through where the insipid bromides we have become accustomed to do not: his language and his clarity of vision survives the ages: | Molesworth cuts through where the insipid bromides we have become accustomed to do not: his language and his clarity of vision survives the ages: | ||
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Thus, nigel molesworth is for ever one of the troops, a rank and filer, but for his wit and his wry observation, at the mercy of masters, matron, the skool dog, sossages and GURLS chiz chiz. But he believes in himself, what he stands for, and realises it takes grit and determination not to mention knowledge of ''How To Be Topp''. | Thus, nigel molesworth is for ever one of the troops, a rank and filer, but for his wit and his wry observation, at the mercy of masters, matron, the skool dog, sossages and GURLS chiz chiz. But he believes in himself, what he stands for, and realises it takes grit and determination not to mention knowledge of ''How To Be Topp''. | ||
I mentioned regretfully overlooking Mr Haddock, though I am not sure I have: I fancy that, when young Molesworth grew into an adult — he would be in his eighties now — he would be just the sort of fellow who would present | I mentioned regretfully overlooking Mr Haddock, though I am not sure I have: I fancy that, when young Molesworth grew into an adult — he would be in his eighties now — he would be just the sort of fellow who would present payment for his tax arrears to Her Majesty’s Revenue made out, crossed non-negotiable, [[Negotiable cow|on the side of a cow]]. | ||