The book dialog game

[orlok]

Neither of those. I'm sure I'll hear a chorus of shouts that you've all never heard of it, but here's one more quote before I get blatant about it:

"And so Mau Mau seeped outwards from the cities, soaking through shambas, and penetrating into the bush, until Mau Mau, still passive and nearly invisible, washed over the White Highlands."

[HomeInMyShoes]

I know what White Highlands refers to, but I've got no book for it.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by orlok

"If a man does away with his traditional way of living and throws away his good customs, he had better first make certain that he has something of value to replace them."

The title is actually included within the quote above. I'll be off the air for a while, so whoever can get it from that, please feel free to go ahead and pose another question.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by orlok

The title is actually included within the quote above. I'll be off the air for a while, so whoever can get it from that, please feel free to go ahead and pose another question.

The only book title-like phrase that springs out to me is "Something of Value".

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The only book title-like phrase that springs out to me is "Something of Value".

It seems that is right. A 1955 book by Robert Ruark. I must confess I've never come across the title or the author before.

[pdurrant]

This quote is from a compilation. I'll accept the name of the compilation, or any of the books in the compilation, or even BOTH authors and the origin of the book.

First quote for you:

Every now and then somebody comes on the wireless and talks about bee-keeping, and they always say that you can't keep bees in a city, that to keep bees you need to own land so that they can have acres of fields and flowers to feed on. I just smile, and look at fat, happy Diaghilev buzzing round my window-box, and I hum a little hum to myself. I hum —

"My bee eats because I'm a landowner!"

[orlok]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

It seems that is right. A 1955 book by Robert Ruark. I must confess I've never come across the title or the author before.

That's correct. It was about the Mau Mau uprisings in Kenya in the early '50s, made into a film starring Rock Hudson, Dana Wynter and Sidney Poitier. It holds some meaning to me, as my Dad was in the Military Police in Keyna at that time, and was assigned a detail to capture the Mau Mau insurgents. Not a time he ever spoke about. I confess I thought it would be better known by the MR crowd.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by orlok

I confess I thought it would be better known by the MR crowd.

Not to worry, I rather think that mine will stump everyone too.

Since my last excerpt was from an end of a 'chapter', here's a bit from the start of one of the 'chapters'.

To my generation, that line of Masefield's must be the best-known line of poetry in the English Language. In Broadstairs we grew up with it ringing in our ears. If we were nabbed by a constable riding away from school on a bicycle with a wobbly saddle we were required to recite ‘Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack’ faultlessly or were booked for not only riding a bicycle with a wobbly saddle but also for being drunk in charge of a bicycle with a wobbly saddle.

In those careless, carefree years of the ninteen-twenties and thirties we flung ourselves recklessly into the business of living.

[orlok]

I've really no idea. Is it fiction or biography?

[pdurrant]

It's humour. Occasionally including biographical info, so the dates are about right, giving some indication of the authors' ages. (There are two authors.)

[pdurrant]

OK, no guesses at all? Let me put you out of your misery.

It's a book by Frank Muir and Denis Norden "The Complete and Utter ‘My Word’ Collection".

There used to be a radio show called "My Word". A sort of literary quiz. The last round was to explain the origin of a famous phrase or saying. But instead of attempting the true answers, Frank Muir and Denis Norden took to making up fanciful stories.

Apparently, according the the introduction to the book, the first quotations in the first show were "Let not poor Nellie starve" and "Dead, dead and never called me Mother!", for which they came up with

"It was first said by the chef at the Savoy when, late at night and short of puddings, he poured things over a peach, hastily christened it "Peach Melba", and sent it out to a famished Dame Nellie Melba"

"It was first said by a lad reeling away from a vandalised phone-box after failing to telephone his parent."

And as time went on, the stories got longer, and the puns got more contrived.

This book is a collection of those stories.

[EDIT: In case anyone didn't get it, the quote punned in the first except I gave (above) is "Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner".]

Someone else, give us a book excerpt.

[orlok]

Wouldn't have got this in a month of Sundays, I'm afraid. And I call myself English .

As I've just recently had a go, I'll leave it up to someone else to offer the next challenge.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

...There used to be a radio show called "My Word". A sort of literary quiz. The last round was to explain the origin of a famous phrase or saying. But instead of attempting the true answers, Frank Muir and Denis Norden took to making up fanciful stories....

I loved that show; especially those stories at the end where they would take a well-know quotation and invent a tale using a twisted version of that quote as the punchline.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I loved that show; especially those stories at the end where they would take a well-know quotation and invent a tale using a twisted version of that quote as the punchline.

Then I'm surprised you didn't get it! Perhaps I should have let it run for a bit longer and given more excerpts.

[WT Sharpe]

Looking back over the quotes, I would still have missed it. The Complete and Utter ‘My Word’ Collection—sounds like a massive tome. Does it include every word of every transcript of the show?