Rejected Reading #2

When one of your lifelong friends asks you to read something at his wedding what do you choose? This is a series of posts that highlight passages I was going to read but ultimately didn't...

As every skoolboy kno luv is for sops like fotherington-Tomas who skip about saying hello flowers hello clouds. and poetry is all sop. so i think, molesworth, he have many ansers, perhaps he has counsul on luv too chiz.

Whizz for Atomms

As I sit among my faded memories and old relicks e.g. lat books, bungy, caterpillers, mice and old stamps which i hav not stuck in, wot do i find but my Skoolboy’s diary. At this moment fotherington-Tomas skip in –

‘O molesworth,’ he cri. ‘Do read me your diary go on o you mite.’

JAN 1. did nuthing.

JAN 2. mucked about.

JAN 3. Went to a party.

‘Genius,’ cri fotherington-Tomas, claping his hands. ‘Economical, stark, compressed t.s. eliot himself.…’

But i do not listen for I think about parties and parties mean gurls chiz chiz chiz..…All girls are soppy. This fact is recognised by all boys and the mesage is clear but seme to become dimmer as they draw on to man’s estate chiz. Eventually it fade altogether and all is lost in a welter of SOP and SLUSH, like you get in the films they dare not show us at Skool. e.g. darling chiz i guess this is the end. Gurl cries tho heaven knos why, she luv other men beter and hav a husband anyway. Man then go into the night from which he should hav never emerged.

‘How beautiful,’ sa your mum to your pater who is sitting despondently behind her. ‘If only you could be noble like that ocasionaly.’

‘It is only a world of makebelieve,’ he repli. ‘You must face up to reality.’

‘Reality,’ sa molesworth 2, ‘is so unspeakably sordid it make me shudder.’

He take a bullseye and pater lite his pipe. The matter is closed.

Illustration from The Compleet Molesworth
by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle