Like my new look? Actually, it's not me but this fine fellow. Burke's Peerage's judgement - "he seems only to have existed for the purpose of giving a melancholy and unneeded illustration of the truth that a man with the finest prospects, may, by the wildest folly and extravagance, as Sir Thomas Browne says, 'foully miscarry in the advantage of humanity, play away an uniterable life, and have lived in vain.'" - seems a little harsh, though life is indeed uniterable. You can understand the Pagets not being very keen on him, but the grand tradition of loony English aristos - in which Paget holds an honoured place - surely enhances the gaiety of the nation. And gaiety is something we could all do with - especially those of us who are at this moment wrestling with infuriatingly recalcitrant technology in steam-room temperatures...
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Uniterable
Like my new look? Actually, it's not me but this fine fellow. Burke's Peerage's judgement - "he seems only to have existed for the purpose of giving a melancholy and unneeded illustration of the truth that a man with the finest prospects, may, by the wildest folly and extravagance, as Sir Thomas Browne says, 'foully miscarry in the advantage of humanity, play away an uniterable life, and have lived in vain.'" - seems a little harsh, though life is indeed uniterable. You can understand the Pagets not being very keen on him, but the grand tradition of loony English aristos - in which Paget holds an honoured place - surely enhances the gaiety of the nation. And gaiety is something we could all do with - especially those of us who are at this moment wrestling with infuriatingly recalcitrant technology in steam-room temperatures...
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Seems like a man after my own heart.
ReplyDeleteIt's what New Labour somehow failed to realise. A rationally organised democratic system is fine but there's not much fun in it. You can't beat a spot of feudal nonsense, preferably involving feathers.
I'm a tolerant man (and so's my wife) but that headdress is a little too much gaity for any nation.
ReplyDeleteReminiscent of George Harrison.
ReplyDelete(A Beatle, m'Lud.)
Yes Dearieme - with a touch of John Phillips too...
ReplyDeleteDearieme -- when I first glanced at the photo, I thought it *was* George Harrison, in getup for some Beatles photo shoot.
ReplyDeleteThis guy went through his money *very* fast. Guess he never read any of those cautionary tales by Dickens, et al.
What a Space Cadet.
ReplyDeleteI read elsewhere that his grandfather lost a leg at an early stage of the Battle of Waterloo but insisted on carrying on to the battle's conclusion. He must have thought the best way to encourage national gaiety was to put a few more Frenchmen to the sword!
Mark, that reminds of the fabulous scene in Python's "The Holy Grail" where the knight wants to keep fighting, even after he's virtually limbless. Bon courage indeed!
ReplyDeleteSo, Lucan surfaces at last, as Siegfried.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletemy god, looking at that photo has turned my eyes gay
ReplyDeleteHe was Lord Beaudesert - a strangely named village near my office, which is mediumly pretty, yet strangely lacking in the desert department
update: and weirdly enough a girl I work with comes from there and is called Paget! She doesnt know of any relation to him though, and its hardly like he was able to breed
ps. nige - I've got a butterfly on my blog you may not have seen before!
ReplyDeleteA remarkable similarity to Freddy Mercury.
ReplyDelete