Monday, March 24, 2008

A. A. GILL reviews The Passion for the London Times. The review itself is pretty funny, but even better is this anecdote about Oscar Wilde:
The Passion and The Curse of Steptoe

At Oxford, Oscar Wilde had a gay old time aphorising into the early hours. He failed to do any Greek, and his professor, the Reverend Spooner, begetter of the Spooner-ism “Christianity is a completely different lay of wife” called him in for a test in front of a board of classics tutors so that they could expel him.

Wilde had to translate the selling of Jesus by Judas in Matthew’s Gospel. Wilde began to read the Easter story perfectly. After a few minutes, the thwarted Spooner said that that would be all. Wilde continued. “That will be all, Mr Wilde,” Spooner repeated. Still, Wilde went on. “Will you stop now?” shouted the furious Spooner. Wilde looked up as if hearing him for the first time: “Sorry, do you mind if I carry on? I want to see how it ends up for the poor chap.”

[...]
I have more on A. A. Gill here.