Wednesday 20 February 2008

happy birthday

last week billy bunter, of greyfriars school, turned 100. he is one of the great characters of english literature, as impressive and estimable as any of dickens heroes. (for an outline of the bunter phenom see george orwell's celebrated essay "boys' weeklies".) bunter is swell: fat, greedy, lazy, skiving, deceitful, covetous and unintelligent. though, i confess, he doesn't make quite the startling impression he used to. that's because everybody's obese nowadays. that's not his fault.

2 comments:

Little sausage said...

And, yet, the boy never ages...

Gerald Campion was very good, no?

coffeesnob said...

never seen a tv bunter. has never been in shown in oz to my knowledge. only know bunter through books (very very hard to get) and audiobooks.