Legal Research

The Friday Fillip

By Simon Fodden

April 13.?An extraordinary coincidence: Carrie had called in a woman to make some chintz covers for our drawing-room chairs and sofa to prevent the sun fading the green rep of the furniture. I saw the woman, and recognised her as a woman who used to work years ago for my old aunt at Clapham. It only shows how small the world is.

August 28.?Found a large brick in the middle bed of geraniums, evidently come from next door.

Pooter’s son, Lupin

Well, these are a bit too long for Twitter but might just be someone’s blog entries — in fact, though, they’re from a 19th century publication, proving that nothing is new under the sun. The Diary of a Nobody, by the brothers George and Weedon Grossmith, was published in Punch in 1888 and 1889 and features the deliciously named Mr. Charles Pooter, who opens up the book with this introduction:

Why should I not publish my diary? I have often seen reminiscences of people I have never even heard of, and I fail to see?because I do not happen to be a ?Somebody??why my diary should not be interesting. My only regret is that I did not commence it when I was a youth.

And on it goes, as our hero steps through 24 chapters of domestic life in detail, always taking himself too seriously, which has led to the term “Pooterish” to describe such a person. The book, along with the original illustrations is available free online at Authorama and via Project Gutenberg in various formats. And there’s an audio version available on LibriVox read by Martin Clifton in a perfect flat voice. (There was also a movie made of the book about ten years ago, shown, I think, on BBC.)

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on April 17, 2009 (boomark / email).