Programming note: For the first time in many a Sunday, there is no Song of the Week at SteynOnline today. I thought of sticking with my original selection because many people quite appreciate a respite from the hell of the headlines. Then I tried switching it to something more relevant to the horrors of the weekend, but my heart wasn't in that either. So, unusually at this shingle, we are without a song in our heart. I am fearful where this deranged but accelerating plot is headed, and there are still four months to go. More on this tomorrow.
However, the day before the Republican candidate took a bullet in the ear, we launched our brand new Tale for Our Time, and we are sticking with that nightly schedule - in part because the time in which it is set, like the preceding half-decade, derives from a political assassination (of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo) that wound up unravelling the world - and from which unravelling the west has never recovered.
So welcome to Episode Three of my serialisation of Sapper's tale of globalist plotters in the leafy lanes of England: Bulldog Drummond. Thank you for all your kind words on this latest entry to our series. Brian Warner, a First Hour Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club, cheers:
Hi Mark,
I'm following along with delight and nostalgia your marvelous reading of Bull-Dog Drummond in my own original copy .
Around the age of 12, my father was reading Sapper, Edgar Wallace (Sanders of the River), P. G. Wodehouse, and Richmal Crompton's William ("Crumbs!"), among others. He passed the books along to me and I devoured them at roughly the same age.
Nearly seven decades later, I'm delighted to listen to you bring Sapper's vivid writing to life, and can hardly wait to hear your interpretations of the various heroes and villains in the pages ahead. My 1950s self could certainly have used your help in pronouncing such words as Guy, pince-nez, and Boche.
Maybe in future you'll favor us with some Edgar Wallace. "It is impossible not to be thrilled by Edgar Wallace." I would love to hear you enact the dialogue between Mr. Commissioner Sanders and Bosambo.
A boy can dream, can't he?
Many thanks!
Well, we're not doing too badly, Brian. Of your father's literary quartet, Tales for Our Time has already covered three-quarters: P G Wodehouse, Richmal Crompton and now Sapper. Maybe we'll get around to completing the foursome with Mr Wallace. On the other hand, it's all new to New Jersey Steyn Clubber Michael Cavino:
Thank you, Mark, for the latest Tales for Our Time! I only know the name "Bulldog Drummond" from the list of detectives mentioned in the Coasters' hit "Searchin'." I thought he was another of the 1930s and 1940s characters from movie film serializations who Leiber and Stoller remembered for the song.
Well, he was, Michael. I count at least seventeen Bulldog Drummond films from the Thirties and Forties, and several with big-name stars in the role: Ralph Richardson, Ronald Colman, Ray Milland... That's certainly where Leiber & Stoller know him from.
At any rate, in tonight's episode, we pick up where we left off - with tea in the lounge of the Carlton (see picture above):
With a short laugh she turned to Hugh. "You've stumbled right into the middle of it, my friend, rather sooner than I anticipated. That is one of the men you will probably have to kill...."
Her companion lit another cigarette. "There is nothing like straightforward candour," he grinned. "Except that I disliked his face and his manner, I must admit that I saw nothing about him to necessitate my going to so much trouble. What is his particular worry?"
Incidentally, the Carlton was one of the grandest hotels in London, the brainchild of César Ritz, with M Escoffier himself presiding over the kitchen. It stood at the corner of the Haymarket and Pall Mall but fell into disrepair, and eventually it was torn down by the New Zealand High Commission. Canada House, Australia House and South Africa House are all splendid adornments to the imperial capital, but, no disrespect to our Kiwi members, New Zealand House (opened in 1963 by Her late Majesty, who can't have enjoyed the experience) is a hideous excrescence for such a prime location - as I reflected just last month when heading from my lodgings to the High Court in the Strand.
But enough of the architectural criticism. Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read Episode Three simply by clicking here and logging-in.
You can enjoy Bulldog Drummond episode by episode, night by night, twenty minutes before you lower your lamp. Or, alternatively, do feel free to binge-listen: you can find the earlier instalments here.
If you've yet to hear any of our first sixty-something Tales for Our Time, you can do so by joining The Mark Steyn Club. Or, if you need an extra-special present for someone, why not give your loved one a Gift Membership and start him or her off with over five dozen cracking yarns? And please join me tomorrow for another episode of Bulldog Drummond.
