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arch words from Archer
Feb. 25th, 2012 09:21 amI'm just starting to watch the televised version of Jeffrey Archer's First Among Equals. A new Conservative MP, being advised by his scout, is told his suit is too boisterous (it is, god help us, dark blue with an unobtrusive pinstripe: this *is* set in 1964...)
Scout: Once the Conservatives are back in power, sir, you might want to wear that. Something more subdued until then, though, I think. People might want to vote for Tom Brown; no one wants to vote for Flashman.
What a multitude of little digs: the implication that perhaps, as a new boy, he is a bit too goody-two-shoes, like Tom Brown. But that, at the same time, his taste is that of a crude, drunken bully (the story takes place before the elevation of that fictional person to his later status of heroic, knighted, military coward by his second chronicler). And, of course, the little pun pointing out that his suit is just too flashy.
Scout: Once the Conservatives are back in power, sir, you might want to wear that. Something more subdued until then, though, I think. People might want to vote for Tom Brown; no one wants to vote for Flashman.
What a multitude of little digs: the implication that perhaps, as a new boy, he is a bit too goody-two-shoes, like Tom Brown. But that, at the same time, his taste is that of a crude, drunken bully (the story takes place before the elevation of that fictional person to his later status of heroic, knighted, military coward by his second chronicler). And, of course, the little pun pointing out that his suit is just too flashy.
