Shooting An Elephant

[GoBlue]

- George Orwell

Worth a read
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/887/
....Afterwards, of course, there were endless discussions about the shooting of the elephant. The owner was furious, but he was only an Indian and could do nothing. Besides, legally I had done the right thing, for a mad elephant has to be killed, like a mad dog, if its owner fails to control it. Among the Europeans opinion was divided. The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie. And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.

[MichaelUK]

1. From the Goon Show

Crun - Mnnk, the rain is lovely and warm...Minnie, I think I'll take one of my sowesters off.

Minn - You devil you!!

Crun - Yes I know - here, hold my elephant gun.

Minn - I don't know why you brought it? You can't shoot an elephant.

Crun - Why not?

Minn - They're out of season.

Crun - Does that mean we shall have to have pelican again for dinner?

Minn - I'm afraid so.

Crun - Then I'll risk it, I'll shoot an elephant out of season.

Wallace - Listener's who are listening will realise than Minn and Crun are talking rubbish. There are no elephants in Kent. They're only found in Sussex, north of a line drawn between 2 points, thus making it the shortest distance.

= Penny in Mug

Peter - Thank you

From the episode entitled Terror of Bexhill-On-Sea or (drumroll) The Dreaded Batter-Pudding Hurler, brought to you by the League of Burmese Trombonists.

[Pert_UK]

2. Orwell was a very, very strange man......

Changed his name to George Orwell because he thought his real name wasn't manly enough........well, he was called Blair I suppose.

I did a bit of a project on him when I was doing English Literature at college.

He was absolutely determined to be regarded as very masculine, to the extent that he'd go off and fight wars, head down the mines and smoke the roughest tobacco just to make the point.....The kind of man who'd introduce himself by going, "Name's Orwell, George Orwell....I'm not gay you know!". He made (IIRC) some suspiciously erotic descriptions of sweaty miners when he arsed around down a mine somewhere.