Just ahead of Episode Twelve of The Flying Inn, a reminder that tomorrow, Wednesday, I'll be conducting another Clubland Q&A live around the planet at 3pm North American Eastern/8pm British Summer Time. Steyn Clubbers ask the questions, and I try to answer them.
Thank you for all your kind comments about this serialisation of G K Chesterton and about all our other Tales for Our Time. Over seven years ago now, we launched this series of audio adventures on a whim, threw it together somewhat hastily, and learned on the job. So I'm enormously grateful for your appreciation of it.
In tonight's episode, after last night's militant vegetarianism from Lord Ivywood, the action moves outside where Hump, while cooking wild mushrooms in the forest, has his own thoughts on the subject:
"You see," he said to his friend the Captain, "eating vegetables isn't half bad, so long as you know what vegetables there are and eat all of them that you can. But there are two ways where it goes wrong among the gentry. First, they've never had to eat a carrot or a potato because it was all there was in the house; so they've never learnt how to be really hungry for carrots, as that donkey might be. They only know the vegetables that are meant to help the meat. They know you take duck and peas; and when they turn vegetarian they can only think of the peas without the duck. They know you take lobster in a salad; and when they turn vegetarian they can only think of the salad without the lobster..."
If you're a member of The Mark Steyn Club you can hear Part Twelve of our serialisation of The Flying Inn simply by clicking here and logging-in. All previous episodes can be found here.
James, an Ontario member of The Mark Steyn Club, writes of last night's episode:
I must admit that it hadn't occurred to me, as Lord Ivywood said, that the Parable of the Prodigal Son would look rather different from the point of view of the Fatted Calf. Still, what did it think it was being Fatted for—vibes? papers? essays?
A historical point: when Ivywood asks 'Did not an Empire nearly slip out of our hands because our hands were greased with cow-fat? And did not the well of Cawnpore brim with blood instead of water because we would not listen to the instinct of the Oriental about the shedding of sacred blood?' he's spreading 1857 mis- or disinformation.
There was a rumor that the paper cartridges Indian troops were issued were greased with a mixture of pork and beef tallow, which would defile them if they bit it open. As far as real history is concerned, this isn't true—it was beeswax and mutton tallow, which would not have been a problem.
I say mis- or disinformation because it's 'mis-' if people just make it up at random, 'dis-' it's started by the Czar's forces, which may have happened—we don't know, and even today the Russians wouldn't want to admit.
What Ivywood is saying is that the 6,000 British killed in the Mutiny, and the 206 women and children thrown into Cawnpore Well, a notable atrocity of the Mutiny, are the fault of British insensitivity.
Indeed, James. "Why do they hate us?", and all that.
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Please join me tomorrow for Part Thirteen of The Flying Inn, a few hours after our live Clubland Q&A.
