For Oscar Wilde Posing Somdomite

The shirtlifters strike back!

“Sodomite” /grammar nazi (on behalf of flippin, SFL, and the rest)

They treated him so badly.

@Mistress Cynica: Thank you doll. My eyes were burning.

@Mistress Cynica: “Somdomite” / history nazi (on behalf of the Marquis of Queensberry)

Today’s episode of Mike Lee is a dick.

Sodamncute.

@nojo: I thought it might be that moron Queensbury’s mistake rather than yours. I should have trusted in you. Perhaps the grammar and history nazis can come together on “Somdomite [sic]”?

@Mistress Cynica: Depends on context. The quote is famous enough (well, literary famous) that siccing it would sully it.

eyeing the coming SC decision they just want to get on the daisy train before we do. darn limeys

The most famous card ever dropped. I reckon that Wilde thought that anyone who couldn’t spell sodomite was beneath contempt. If the father was bad the son was worse and Wilde was a fool. Bosie is probably the worst boyfriend ever. The Paris Hilton of boyfriends. I have very mixed feelings about Wilde. The Importance is divine. But everything else he wrote is lousy with the aristocracy. Everyone’s titled. What does that say about the son of an adored Irish revolutionary poet, his mother? What must Shaw have made of his behavior? And let it be noted that Shaw was one of his chief defenders and most courageous allies. Wilde was even left in a hotel room, unguarded, with a direct link to the channel ports so he could escape and he wouldn’t go. What did he need? A sign saying Piss off Pansy? Hop it Homo?

If there’s one thing the English knew how to do it was how to get members of the ruling class with a taste for butt secks out of the country when necessary.

It’s not Wilde I think of now but of all the men entrapped by cops in the 50s and 60s. John Gielgud, for example. Arrested for indecency. In rehearsal for a new play. Hauled up before a magistrate and publicly humiliated. Wanted to withdraw from the play. Couldn’t face the disgrace. Ralph Richardson, who’d been a great friend, turned his back. Other friends prevailed. Begged him to continue. And he did (I had dinner with him once. So charming and intelligent). And so he walked out to make his first entrance not knowing how he’d be received but fearing the worst. And the house rose to cheer him.

When will they apologize to Alan Turing, WWII hero and the father of modern computing?

@Benedick: Moving

@Benedick: John Gielgud: “Of course I can play a heterosexual – I am an actor!”

@Dodgerblue: Thankfully, they did.

@Benedick: One of my favorite items we ever had in stock was a private press edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets on vellum that was given to Gielgud by an admirer of his Richard II. He’d had a lovely morocco box made for it so it was in pristine condition. I do admire people who take care of beautiful books.

@¡Andrew!: That’s good, but I want the Queen to get down on her fucking knees and wail.

@Benedick: Wilde’s writing may have been targeted to the upper crust but his wit crossed all classes.

“I am not young enough to know everything. ” Anyone raising a teenager should get this one.

“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.” Amazing that I paid for my load of experience.

@¡Andrew!: @Dodgerblue: Apology – good. Pardon – better.

Stephen Hawking says so: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/dec/14/alan-turing-pardon-stephen-hawking

@DElurker: Couldn’t agree more. I just find it strange that a writer who so peopled his work with lords and ladies – you know Mrs. Erlynne’s up to no good as she’s only Mrs. just as the Foreigner is always suspect in Christie’s plays – has such a reputation as a modernist. He used titles to an unusual degree. But wonderful.

As Lady B says, “Ignorance is like a delicate, exotic fruit. Touch it and the bloom is gone.”

@Mistress Cynica: OMG!!! Folio typo!!!

@nojo: /clutching pearls

@Benedick: Many thanks for telling the story of the house cheering John Gielgud after his arrest. I’m glad to know it. I love him.