Welcome to Part Twenty-Five of my sequel to and contemporary inversion of Anthony Hope's Ruritanian classic The Prisoner of Zenda. Robert, a First Month Founding Member from Ottawa who came to see us last year in Syracuse (back when live stage performances were not illegal) writes of last night's episode, and Rudy Elphberg's address to an education conference:
Any way to making this speech accessible to all, and forwarded to lists?
Have you seen H.W. Crocker's Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire?
I know Harry Crocker rather well, Robert. He was my editor on America Alone. That's a very thoughtful suggestion about the speech, but I'm not sure it would work out of context. As you undoubtedly know, the great speech-disaster scene in English literature is Gussie Fink-Nottle's address to the Market Snodsbury Grammar School, which is a work of genius by P G Wodehouse. I was simply musing on the bizarre reality of our times - that these days a statement of the obvious (ie, the virtues of British imperialism) would be the biggest disaster of all.
CrossBorderGal, on the other hand, thinks such a speech might have certain practical benefits for Rudy Elphberg:
What a guy! I wonder if Belinda or Wendy just might follow him back home?!?
Well, we shall see about that, CBG. In tonight's episode, Rudy's aides try to figure out a way to do damage control on his keynote address:
"This is what we're going to do," said Rory, holding up his hand to silence me. "The autocue in Manchester was one of those new models from Maxim Rogovsky's partnership with the Chinese in Hubei. Unfortunately, the Ruritanian content farmers hacked into it and planted that speech on it, and you just went ahead and delivered it. Sorry, Rob, but I'm Europe's highest-paid spin doctor, and that's the best I can do."
"But doesn't that make me sound like just a hollow airhead sock-puppet who simply reads out whatever's put in front of him?"
"I wish," said Rory. "Whatever happened to that Rob Rassendyll?"
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear Part Twenty-Five of our adventure simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes of The Prisoner of Windsor can be found here, and more than three-dozen other Tales for Our Time here.
For more on The Mark Steyn Club, please see here. And, if you've a chum who enjoys classic fiction, we've introduced a special Mark Steyn Gift Membership.
See you for Part Twenty-Six of The Prisoner of Windsor tomorrow.