Jeeves & Wooster: 100 Years of Comic Rannygazoo

Jeeves came in with the tea.

'Jeeves,' I said, 'we start for America on Saturday.'

'Very good, sir,' he said; 'which suit will you wear?'

New York is a large city conveniently situated on the edge of America, so that you step off the liner right on to it without an effort. You can't lose your way. You go out of a barn and down some stairs, and there you are, right in among it.

The only possible objection any reasonable chappie could find to the place is that they loose you into it from the boat at such an ungodly hour.

And so one of the great comedy duos of English literature was established, exactly a century ago today.

On 18 September 1915, PG Wodehouse's short story Extricating Young Gussie appeared in the American weekly magazine, The Saturday Evening Post.

The Octagon at Hunstanton Hall, Norfolk,
memorably used as a setting in the 1930 short
story Jeeves and the Impending Doom.
I visited it in 2012.

Having been in publication since 1821, the Post was a grab-bag of opinion pieces, humorous items, poetry, fiction and illustrations (a year later it would discover the art of Norman Rockwell).

It was the perfect home for the trans-Atlantic comic fiction of Wodehouse, who was one of the first modern writers to establish a large following in both the UK and the USA.

A hundred years later, his fiction still reads well. Though it's set in a bygone age, that bygone age is itself a fantasy world which never truly existed; so it's still as entertaining an arena for Bertie Wooster's social mishaps as it was then.

So much have I enjoyed the Jeeves and Wooster stories (and the author's many other novels and short stories), that I've occasionally travelled to locations associated with Wodehouse.

There's something fulfilling about travel with a theme that has personal meaning. This is what I've been able to achieve so far along PG Wodehouse's timeline (click to follow links to more detail):

• Finding in 2011 the prison in Germany (now Poland) where he was imprisoned as a civilian by the German military in World War Two;
• Touring Norfolk with Britain's PG Wodehouse Society in 2012, visiting locations associated with the author, his work and his family;
• Joining a walking tour of locations in London's West End connected with Wodehouse's life and fiction, as a follow-up to the 2012 Norfolk tour;
• Toasting PGW in 2014 in the bar at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin, where he lived for a time after being released from the WWII prison camp;
• Visiting Wodehouse's grave on Long Island, New York in 2014.

Next month I'll be attending Psmith in Pseattle, the latest instalment of the biennial convention hosted by the USA's Wodehouse Society.

I'm looking forward to it. Following PG Wodehouse's footsteps around the world may be an obsession, but as obsessions go it's a harmless one. Bertie Wooster would likely describe it as "loony", but I trust the ever-tactful Jeeves would let me off with a mere "eccentric".

Extricating Young Gussie is out of copyright in the USA, so you may read the entire story here.

Poland 2: Silesian Curios

I've moved on from Kraków in this year's Lonely Planet assignment, and am now exploring the towns and cities of Śląsk (pronounced shlonsk)... or as it's better known in English, Silesia.

I've been doing what I call 'hubbing', that is I base myself in a larger city and do day trips by train or bus to each place I have to check out. It's a good way of working, as I can get straight into the research at each place, unencumbered by luggage.

The towns of Silesia have much to recommend them. Typically they're very walkable, based on an old rynek (market square) around which are arrayed a town hall and attractive old buildings. Somewere nearby will be lurking a castle, or at least the ruins of one.

And if I get to use the sentence "Jak dojść do zamku?" ("How do I get to the castle?") at least once in each town, I award myself bonus points.

Here are some of the quirkier items of interest, snapped in my Silesian travels so far...

1. As an exception to the pretty small village motif, I couldn't resist taking a photo of the communist-era Hotel Katowice (even the tram here is in sympathy with the period). Katowice is a major industrial centre and much of its architecture dates from the 1920s and beyond, so it's an interesting mish-mash of styles:

2. I spotted this little guy on the window of a bakery in attractive Pszczyna (pronounced pshchina - try saying that five times quickly). Żuczek means beetle, and there's possibly an interesting folk tale about him, but I haven't been able to discover anything further. Polish readers, can you shed any light?

3. The name of this Pszczyna street says it all; strażacka means 'firemen':

4. I like the simplicity of this shot in the side streets of Opole. A lot of clothing shops in the UK sell second-hand items from the UK, so this could be one of them:

5. Here's a wild hairdressers' sign from Opole. A unique style awaits within:

6. And finally, the market square in tiny Toszek. They haven't taken down the Easter decorations yet, as you can see: