Right ho, Wodehouse!

Today is the 139th birth anniversary of my favorite author P. G. Wodehouse.  Thanks to PGW's brilliant novels, my adolescent years were spent in the esteemed company of many Jeeveses, Berties, Psmiths, Mr. Mulliners, an army of butlers, valets, aunts, uncles, dukes, earls, viscounts, and a pig called The Empress of Blandings, who all seem to come to life and share room and board with me through PGW's brilliant prose.  Wodehouse was my comfort reading growing up, and continues to be so even today.  PGW, or 'Plum' as his first name Pelham had apparently elided to in his circles, undoubtedly stands among the tallest of the tall in written comedy.  

One of my absolute favorites is 'The Code of the Woosters'.  If you have read the book, you know what I am talking about.  How could one forget how the droopy saucer-eyed Madeline Bassett breaks off her engagement with the horn-rimmed spectacled newt-fancier Gussie Fink-Nottle, and how Bertie travels to Totleigh Towers to heal the rift between the Bassett and Gussie under the pretense of assisting his Aunt Dahlia, famed for her booming voice owing to years of fox-chivvying with the Quorn and Pytchley, in pinching a silver 18th century cow-creamer from under the nose of Sir Watkyn Bassett in order to appease Aunt Dahlia's husband Tom and in turn prevent a life-ban from the delicious food dished out by God's gift to the gastric juices aka Anatole at Brinkley Court in Worcestershire, and how in the end Jeeves relies upon the psychology of the individual to save the day and wins Bertie's approval to go on his world cruise!

Thanks to both my parents being huge fans of P.G. Wodehouse, our bookshelf in my childhood home was filled with a battery of lightly tattered orange spined Wodehouse paperbacks, each one containing the small Penguin publications logo on the cover and moderately foxed pages inside waiting to tickle my funny bone with the most absurd premise imaginable.  It owe to both my parents for introducing me to the idyllic world of PGW and his idiosyncratic band of characters ranging from the quirky members of the British nobility to the unemployed but rich English youth living their lives on inheritances to dignified and erudite valets capable of solving any problem!

Okay, time to curl up with 'Uncle Fred in the Springtime' now!