Backlisted - The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith

Episode Date: July 6, 2020

The Diary of a Nobody (1892) by George and Weedon Grossmith is the book featured in this episode of Backlisted. Joining John and Andy to celebrate this touching and funny classic of suburban manners, first published in 1892 and never out of print since, are writer and critic Laura Cumming and novelist and Grossmith expert E.O. Higgins. Also in this episode Andy has been on an imaginary pub crawl round The Local by Maurice Gorham and Edward Ardizzone, while John has been enjoying Percival Everett's 2009 novel I Am Not Sidney Poitier, newly published in the UK by Influx Press.Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)9'52 - The Local by Maurice Gorham18'50 - I am not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett 26'24 - The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Ah, hello. Andy here. Thank you for listening to episode 115 of Backlisted on the Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grosmith. I just want to alert you to the fact that the sound quality on this episode is not everything that we might have wished. As you'll be aware, we're recording Backlisted under quite challenging circumstances at the moment. We had a few technical troubles while we were recording the episode

and then when we played the different feeds back, we found that the gremlins had got into them too. But we didn't want to lose the episode because laura and edward were such great guests and because we all love the book so much so we hope you enjoy this episode of backlisted we apologize if the sound quality isn't up quite up to our normal standards but we hope it doesn't spoil your enjoyment too much. Anyway, this episode of Backlisted was recorded on Thursday 25th June 2020 and reflects the language and social attitudes of its time. Laura, where are you?

I am about half a mile away from Clapham Common, where there are currently, I think, something in the region of about a million people. Most of them with nothing on. Oh, in a bad way. That sounds good. They've been there all the way through the virus. So if you've got it, it's come from them.

OK. We should say we're recording this on Thursday the 25th of June. Thursday the 25th of June. 2020. It's the hottest day of the year. I don't know about everyone else who I'm talking to at the moment, but it is very unpleasant in here, in my

little box. Sticky. Edward, where are you? I'm holed up in Hitchin in Hertfordshire, and I'm dying. This is no fun for the hussute gentleman. Did you used to live in Broadstairs or do you still have a place in Broadstairs or what? I used to live in Broadstairs, but that was nice.

But I'm probably going to mention the fact that I fess up to the fact that I fess up to the fact that I lived in Basingstoke, which I think is... I saw when I was reading your article the other day, Andy, that you were complaining about Croydon being terrible and you have problems with people saying how shit Croydon is all the time. I really do. That is nothing compared to coming from Basingstoke.

So you're trying to out-suburb me with your... I'll see your Basingstoke and raise you a pearly. I always thought there was... Exactly, I always thought there was a level between, you know, crap towns, you know, which was obviously tended to go towards the kind of Combinoles and the Hulls and the Skelmersdales.

Actually, Dull Towns would be a good book, wouldn't it? I mean, towns in which almost nothing happens and there is almost nothing of value. Kind of inspired by Betjeman's Slough. We may encounter that poem later in the podcast. We may. I tragically

moved from Brighton to Basingstoke when I was seven and thought it was better. We're going to deal with all these topics at some length in the hour ahead, so why don't we crack on? Shall we crack on? Hello and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast that gives new life to old books. Today you find us in Brickfield Terrace, a pleasant street in the agreeable North London suburb of Holloway, standing outside a nice six-room residence with a garden running down to the railway line, and a boot scraper outside the front door that seems to bark the shin of every tradesman that visits. I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher of Unbound, the platform where readers crowdfund the books they really want to read. And I'm Andy Miller, author of The Year of Reading Dangerously. And joining us today are returning guest Laura Cumming and new guest Edward Higgins.

Hello, both of you. Hello. Edward, you must know that obviously I really wanted to find, given we have one guest called Cumming, I really wanted the second guest to be someone called Going or Gowing because of the book that we're talking about. But we've got a Higgins, so that's good news. Good news for fans of My Fair Lady or Magnum P.I. Higgins and Coming could definitely be a double act in this book. If you like Hancock's Half Hour, Higgins is a hilarious surname so but higgins is their go to idiot so again we may be hearing something from that later on in this podcast so laura is

returning for her uh second visit she first joined us in december 2016 goodness me to discuss jane gardens a long way from verona and let's just say that that's still one of my favorite books that i had not read before batlisted which i read because of and i know many listeners will feel the same way so once again laura thank you so much for i'm now going to reveal that that jane gardham's editor came up to me uh at it marks and spencer's at st pancras station and thanked me the podcast and you and hillary murray hill for talking about um jane gardham and that wonderful book on on the podcast. So thank you. Laura is the Observer's art critic and wrote The Vanishing Man,

a book about Velazquez that's centred on a Victorian bookseller who resembles the eponymous hero of today's book in certain touching ways, and which featured in the B.S. Johnson episode. I talked about The Vanishing Man in that episode as well. And last year she published a memoir about her mother's strange early life on Chapel Sands, which we featured in the Ray Bradbury episode. So we are big fans of Laura's work on Backlist.

We are. Laura's mother, once bound and illustrated, an edition of the book we're discussing today as an art student. Laura's only other claim of connection. Why don't you tell us, Laura, what is your other connection? Well, I'm afraid my claim of connection is actually very puterish because I used to live in a long time ago when I first came to live in London. I got the luck of having a sort of you know completely barren bedsit but the barren bedsit was in a beautiful Georgian building owned by the Portman estate and it was down the side of the Wallace Collection in London.

And on the front of the building were two blue plaques. And the first was for Captain Marriott, who wrote... New Forest? Thank you, John! Great. The other one was George Grosemith. And I was incredibly excited by this because of my love of the book that we're about to discuss today.

And it's only very recently, when communicating with Edward Higgins, who's coming on also later, as you know, that I discovered that it's not the George Grosmith at all. In fact, I suppose it's probably his son, is it? I don't know. But anyway, it says actual manager on it. I got it wrong. He was in Dorset Square around the corner. But I think I might have preened a bit in a puterish sort of way. It was.

And we're still doing so until this week. Oh, it was George Grosmith's feast rather than George Grosmith's pear. It was, yes. Okay. rather than George Gershwin's Pear. It was, yes. Okay, well, you know, your status as a Diary of a Nobody super van takes a bit of a knock there, Laura. Laura, I did tell you to style it out and you haven't done, so...

LAUGHTER And we're also joined today by Edward Higgins. Edward is the author of one novel, Conversations With Spirits, which was published by Unbound in 2013 joined today by edward higgins edward is the author of one novel conversations with spirits which was published by unbound in 2013 and was shortlisted for the guardian first book award he's the former editor-in-chief of the bluffers guide and the current editor-in-chief of a free app called sidekick helping people with mental health issues last year he wrote introductions and annotations for the book Under Discussion Today.

So he is a bona fide expert. He wanted me to say he isn't, but listen, he really is. He is a dire-ever-nobody expert. A super fan. And he is currently writing, producing, and performing a new podcast set to go live this week called Lars Head Supernormal. Is that right? Is that right? Is that right? I didn't think you meant to idiot this.

Okay. Which also contains readings from the eponymous hero's autobiography, There Is No Life, based on the novel by Victorian psychic Florence Marriott, of whom more later. And he's also finishing a novel based on the book we're here to discuss, which is The Diary of a Nobody by George and Whedon Grosmith, first serialised in Punch magazine in 1888 to 1889 and published in volume form by J.W. Arrowsmith,

a publisher in Bristol, in 1892. It has been in print ever since. Bristol in 1892. It has been in print ever since. But before we mount the horse-drawn cab for Holloway, Andy, what have you been reading this week? Well, it's the latest instalment in a series of books that I've been talking about on the last few episodes of Batlisted. I've been reading a book called The Local, which was written by Maurice Gorham with illustrations by Edward Ardizzoni. And I'm assuming listeners will all be familiar with Edward Ardizzoni's work. But Laura, if they aren't, given that you are an art critic, could you tell them in 10 seconds about Edward Ardizzoni? Edward Ardizzoni is absolutely benign, wonderful drawings. They are softly rounded, little

groups of figures in these sort of solid group scenes. And the staging of the events, little dramas that he shows are very larky he did wonderful drawings of the second world war um and even those drawings which might have been in other hands you know very devastating to look at that they've got a sort of you know felini-esque garyless experiment to them and i don't think anyone uh looking at his lovely love these beautiful color um graphic line and watercolor illustrations for so many books that we loved um i don't think anybody isn't made better by looking at them two of the greatest children's books ever published in my view stick of the dump anyway the otterberry incident which isn't as well known but ought to be read it's one of my

my five minutes is ticking down. Sorry. I'll shut up. So I came to this book, The Local. I'm going to read out the captions of some of the illustrations. Obviously, we can't show you the illustrations because this is audio, but I'm going to read out the captions of some of the illustrations in a minute. But I came to this book because it was mentioned alongside John Piper's Brighton Aquatints, which I talked about a few episodes ago, and High Street by Eric Revilius and J.M. Richards. And it's of a piece with Romantic Moderns, which is another book that I've talked about on the podcast, and Square Haunting, which I talked about on the last episode.

I bought this book, The Local at Christmas, and I just have to tell you, listeners, I'm really sorry because since I purchased this, I've realised it's such a wonderful book. It was republished by Little Tola about 10 years ago, but it's out of print. So it seems like I'm taunting you. I really don't mean to, but it's actually quite expensive to buy a copy now. So I'm very sorry in advance, because you will want to get hold of a copy of this book. What it is, it was published in 1939. It's a book about pubs. Gosh knows we're all keen to revisit pubs under safe circumstances. So what The Local does is it takes us through the pubs of London just before the Second World War. And in fact, this is quite a rare book before it was republished, because like John Piper's Brighton Aquatints, lots of copies were either lost or destroyed during the war. And getting paper was obviously an issue as well, and the kind of paper that could

sustain illustrations and colour illustrations. And so the book is like a little portrait of what pubs were like in London in the late 1930s. And we meet the regulars, solitary drinkers, barmaids, groups of customers, a guide to food in pubs, the general tenor of which is don't eat in pubs. It's sort of, and they talk about tin whistle musicians and they talk about the games that are played in pubs

and there's a fantastically useful glossary of terms, a few of which I'll just read out here, but it tells you, for instance, what beer means in a pub in this era. A generic term for all malt liquors. It is sometimes used to include even stout. If you ask for beer in a London pub without specifying what beer you want, you will probably get bitter so it talks you through the different types of drink it talks you through the fact that you would go in and and get different types of beer mixed together so john you would ask for a pint of bitter and stout you know but but but this is the thing i wanted to ask you, John. So a man can build a powerful thirst reading this book.

And there's a drink, a draft beer called Burton, presumably from which we get the phrase gone for a Burton. Yeah. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that that might be the case. No, it's a suit. It's a suit. Ah, okay. All right. No, great great that's good to know you know you

weren't living in george grossmith's house and uh so so so there we are uh burton a draft beer darker and sweeter than bitter called originally after the great brewing town of burton-on-trent burton is also known as old popular Popular compounds are BB, bitter and Burton, and Old and Mild, mild and Burton. Some pubs keep a special Burton, which is more of a strong ale and makes an excellent mixture with mild, having more body than the ordinary Burton,

even when mixed. Many pubs do not keep Burton during the hot weather, counting it a winter drink. So it features in this book regularly. And it made me want a pint of Burton more than I've ever wanted any drink. You haven't got any, Johnny, have you? I haven't, but I know that it is. I think it is being made by some people still.

I'm going to find some. No, here's the thing. Fuller's Brewery in Chiswick, where I used to live, not the brewery, Chiswick, is currently selling Burton to a 1931 recipe. In their past master's range, it's 7.4% proof and is 3.7 units a bottle so you could you would disregard the daily units intake just by drinking a bottle of this but unfortunately it costs 45 pounds

so if anyone from fullers is listening and regards that as product placement. I'm easy to find. Or any listeners who happen to have a spare bottle of Burton lying around from 1931. We should make our first recording post, as it were, lockdown. Definitely, that's something we need to have on the table, I think, don't you? Wouldn't that be amazing? It would. Well, I'll just read a tiny bit. So this inspired me back in January when I first read this book

to go on a little tour of Muse pubs because I was so taken with this description of the Muse pub, a pub in a Muse. And I went to around Knightsbridge and around the back of Buckingham Palace, I went to the Grenadier and the Horse and Groom and the Star Tavern in the space of an afternoon in a sort of very genteel pub crawl. And this is what Maurice Gorham says about muse pubs. The most obvious advantage of the muse pub is that it lies to some extent off the main track and you can therefore get a spurious sense of discovery or knowledgableness out of going to it. Equally, if you are a furtive drinker,

its air of secrecy may appeal to you. To turn down the muse and then duck into the pub is less embarrassing to the easily embarrassed than to walk boldly into a pub on the main street. Apart from these psychological points, pubs in Mews often have real advantages. Often you find pubs in the Mews when the streets themselves have none.

And on the whole, Mews pubs are quieter than pubs in the street. And it goes on about the sort of people who might drink in a Mews pub. And it talks about the nicest Mews pub I have come across is the White Hart in Brooks Mews North, not far from the Bayswater Road. Listeners, I can tell you it was demolished in 2002. So don't look for it at

Spinal Tap and say it's not there anymore. So some of the illustrations by Artisone in here are called, just to give you a sense of it, Saloon Bar at the Prince Alfred, Public Bar at the George, Loon Bar at the Prince Alfred, Public Bar at the George, the Jug and Bottle at the Green Man. It's the most beautiful thing. Anyway, that book was published by Little Tolar. If someone from Little Tolar is listening, you ought to reprint this, really. I don't know what the rights issues are,

but everyone should read this. But another wonderful book that I discovered as a result of our friends at Mainstone and John Piper's Brighton Aquatint. Thank you, John. What have you been reading this week? I've been reading a novel by American novelist called Percival Everett. It's called I Am Not Sidney Poitier. It is one of the funniest things I have read for many years. Everett is the author of 18 other novels. This was published first by Grey Wolf in America in 2009, and it's taken 11 years, bafflingly, to be published in this country, which it's now been done with some style by Influx Press.

Kit Kalis at Influx Press. And Gary Budden, our former guest on Backlisted. Indeed. It's a comic novel. The eponymous hero is called, his name, he's called by his mother, not Sid guest on Backlisted. Indeed. It's a comic novel. The eponymous hero is called, his name, he's called by his mother, not Sidney Poitier. So I am

not Sidney Poitier. It's literally so. And it's rather like Darling in Blackadder. That joke runs through the whole book. In fact, I'm going to read you a little bit where it comes up. You know, people say, what's your name? He says, I'm not Sidney Poitier. And they say, no, but what's your name? I'm not Sidney and so on. It's very, very funny, but it's also incredibly clever. If I'm going to compare

it to anything that I've read recently, it's in the kind of George Saunders short story, Francis Plug, How to Be a Public Author, Andrew Sean Greer's Less. I mean, the plot is absurd. public author, Andrew Sean Greer's Less. I mean, the plot is absurd. His mother, he has a two-year gestation. Behind it all is Tristram Shandy. It's that kind of playful, ludic, abstract novel. Yeah, OK.

His mother has him in the womb for two years. He doesn't know whether this is true or not, but he's born. She invests in Ted Turner's TV channel and makes a massive amount of money. So he's born in LA. in Ted Turner's TV channel and makes a massive amount of money. So he's born in LA. His mother leaves him, dies when she's young, leaves him lots of money. He buys his way into college.

He tries to get into a fraternity and decides he doesn't want to be part of a fraternity. Ted Turner becomes a friend of his. He's a sort of kind of ominous Grease philosopher who guides him on his passage to adulthood. The other character who guides him to his passage to adulthood is Percival Everett, an English professor who spouts kind of postmodern nonsense in the lectures, but who gives him some good kind of personal advice. There's so much incident in the book,

but one of the things he does is he sends him on two trips outside of Atlanta, where he's at university. One is to Peckerwood County in Georgia, where he's chained to a cracker, a kind of a sort of stupid white guy who he has to escape with. And they get rescued by a couple of hillbillies. And he manages to get back to Atlanta. And then a second journey out, he ends up in Smut Eye, Alabama, where almost the same thing happens again, except he decides he's going to use his vast wealth to help these elderly women to build the church that they want to build.

Anyway, it delivers, I think, on almost every level. It never stops being funny. It never stops making you realise that what the book is to some degree about is the identity of being a black American, an African American, and how identity is continually being foist upon you. And he does that with a subtlety. There's a great introduction by the wonderful novelist, Courtier Newland, who says at the beginning of the book, he said that he's ignored, Percival Everett has been ignored by the publishing industry

because he's not considered black enough. And Courtier says, I'm an author who considers himself ignored by the industry because my work is too black. I mean, what I will definitely be doing is reading more of the novels. There's a brilliant bit towards the end where one, the Percival Everett character, one of the other characters, in fact, Ted Turner says, I read your book Erasure,

which is a real book by Percival Everett. He said, I didn't like it. And Percival Everett said, I didn't like it much either. But in a sort of John Irving-y way. Yeah, it sounds really great. And it also sounds, you know, it's really good that Influx, it's a not insignificant thing for Influx to take this and do it. You know, it really reminds me of the, I mean,

they might and they probably would still do it, but it's very much the sort of thing that Canongate under Jamie Bing were doing about 20 years ago. You know, Dan Rhodesy but it's very much the sort of thing that canongate uh yeah under jb being we're doing about 20 you know the other person you know dan rodsey it's dan it's got that as well it's right but it doesn't drop a stitch i i couldn't recommend it highly let me read you a little bit from it let's hear a bit uh he's here talking to percival everett in the in this in the canteen he's about to go um to the parents in a it's it's in a scene that really reminds me of the movie Get Out. He's going to go and see his girlfriend. Not only is he cool, not Sidney Poitier, he looks like Sidney Poitier. So

there's that double thing going on all the way. So he's asking for advice. And here was I going to invite you over to my place for Thanksgiving, Everett said. Really? No. We were sitting in the student centre. He picked a muffin. I'm sure you'll have a fine, memorable time in Washington. Young Miss Larkin seems very nice. I think she's quite bright, though I'm not a good judge of these things. Her old boyfriend will be there, I said. He has to be someplace. Why does that make you nervous? He's the old boyfriend. What if she still has feelings for him? Better to find out sooner than later. Of course he was correct, but I was finding little comfort in that fact.

It's just that I like her so much. You're rapidly becoming a boring fellow, Everett said. Have you had sex with her? I believe that's my business. I'll take that as a yes. I don't really think we should be talking about this, I said, looked out the window. OK, OK, relax, don't get your no-doubt patterned bloomers in a clove hitch. I drummed my fingers on my thigh, upset that I was not relaxed, but I said, I'm relaxed. What about her parents? Are you nervous about meeting them? Extremely.

Well, don't tell them that you've seen their baby naked. That's my best piece of advice. Thanks a lot. And be yourself. Who else would I be? I don't know. You might suddenly decide all of a sudden that you are Sidney Poitier. You're not, you know, though you do look alarmingly like him. Tell me, who do I look like? I looked over his facial features. His sad but alert brown eyes were too close to his face. His lips were strangely thin.

His large nose looked like it had been broken several times. I could think of no one he resembled. I don't know many actors, I finally said. What about Roscoe Lee Brown? I don't know who that is. Come on, you know Roscoe Lee Brown. He was all over the television. Maybe he still is. He was in The Cowboys with John Wayne. I don't much like John Wayne, but Roscoe Lee Brown was great. Anyway, you'd know him if you saw him, much like John Wayne, but Roscoe Lee Brown was great. Anyway, you'd know him if you saw him, he said. I know you would. What about Bill Cosby? You look nothing like Bill Cosby, I said. Thank the Lord, Everett said. If only there were such a thing. But seriously, you have to know that you look more like Sidney Poitier than Sidney Poitier ever did. Have you ever seen In the Heat of the Night? No. It's a beautiful love story, that movie. Let me hear you say, they call me Mr Tibbs.

They call me Mr Tibbs, I said. No, say it as if a crab is biting your ass, as if something is peeling an unpleasant and undesired memory from your core, as if you're feeling a little bitchy, as if you might be gay. But even you don't know. I said it again. Uncanny. You ever do drugs?

I shook my head. That's too bad, but hardly surprising. He stood, looked out the window at a Spelman girl in a short skirt and then down at me. Enjoy your break. And remember, be yourself. Unless you can think of someone better. Very good. Very good. We'll be back in just a sec. Let me ask you first, Laura, when did you first discover The Diary of a Nobody? Well, earlier than I think by the sound of it, because I used to dance to that music at Miss Littleton's dancing class in Edinburgh when I was about eight. Oh, how brilliant. I mean, we all sang that music. So so yeah, it's lovely to hear it. I heard the diary of an old lady read aloud by my mother when I suppose I was about eight.

And she had loved it for many years. And as you said at the beginning of the programme, she had done an illustrated version of it herself. Anybody listening to this is bound to have a copy of it somewhere in their house. So are all their forebears. And there are hundreds of different versions of it um we we can grow smith himself i think incomparably illustrated it but loads of artists including artisani have actually wanted to do more with the character the characters in the book um that this sort of wonderful you know list of um perk-ups and putleys and poshes and pits and so on are kind of irresistible to English. Wow that was a lot of pits right there. Well yeah exactly. You did well though.

It was great but I remember being read of that very well because my brother and I were sitting, we would be lying in our beds next to each other in a tiny little room with, you know, my mother sitting in between us. And my brother would howl with laughter at certain points and I would cry. I still feel very strongly that the great feat of this book is to be so very funny and so very poignant. So that is my earliest memory of it. Well, all readings are valid Edward can you remember when you first came across Grosmith or the Diary of a Nobody I can

why not tell me yeah I could do that I bought it at a jumble sale because I'm classy when I was about 9 years old and I think it cost about 5 pence 5 new pence. And my main interests at that point were the Victorian period

and Hancock's Half Hour. And this kind of was basically everything for me. So it was those two things that kind of cemented together. Your annotations for the edition that we that you published last year are a lovely mixture of fact yeah and the personal commentary and in the nicest possible way as a reader that i felt looking at them that i was being treated by someone whose whose enthusiasm was palpable in the in how they felt about the book yeah I'm I'm a fan I think you've I've been basically reading this book every year all my life and the weird thing is that my

affiliations with the book change uh when I was young uh when i was 10 i loved lupin and the and the holloway comedian and now as a as a horrible rank old man i'm much more sympathetic to to puta this is exactly the same experience that evelyn war had didn't he he had exactly that he he read it on the and he was on the side of of lupin and then as you get older you you kind of you see more to the to the to the well we're very similar people john as you know comic novelists yes let's be sure if there's any reason there's anyone listening to this he doesn't know the diary of nobany if they don't they kind of do because it's so seeped into the culture anyway but i want to play you the very

a clip of a reading of the very beginning of the book this is my favorite audiobook reading of all time it's by the late arthur lowe uh most famous for as his past captain manoring in dad's army but of course an actor who worked in all sorts of spheres. And he recorded The Diary of a Nobody for the BBC in 1975 or 77. This has been available commercially, but it hasn't been available commercially for quite a long time and it's not available in the digital realm. So this is rather a hissy recording because I took it off the cassettes and then I cleaned it up to the best of my ability.

But here is Arthur Lowe reading the beginning of The Diary of a Nobody. Why should I not publish my diary? I have often seen reminiscences of people I have never even heard of and I fail to see, because I do not happen to be a somebody, why my diary should not be interesting. My only regret is that I did not commence it be a somebody, why my diary should not be interesting. My only regret is that I did not commence it when I was a youth. Charles Pooter. After my work in the city, I like to be at home. What's the good of a home if you're never in it?

Home, sweet home, that's my motto. Now for my diary. April the 3rd. Tradesman called for custom, and I promised Farmerson, the ironmonger, to give him a turn if I wanted any nails or tools. By the by, that reminds me, the bells must be seen to. The parlour bell is broken,

and the front door rings up in the servant's bedroom, which is ridiculous. April the 4th. In the evening, Cummings unexpectedly dropped in to show me a Meerschaum pipe. He'd won in a raffle in the city. He told me to handle it carefully as it would spoil the colouring if the hand was moist. He said he wouldn't stay, as he didn't care much for the smell of paint, and fell over the scraper as he went out. Must get the scraper removed, or else I shall get into a scrape. I don't often make jokes. Oh, it's so good.

Well, I think it is anyway. Laura, you don't love that reading, though. Do you want to say why? I don't love that reading. It's not that I don't love that reading, though. Do you want to say why? I don't love that reading. It's not that I don't love the reading, Andy. I don't think anybody has ever read it better. And as everybody knows, you know, in this programme, there are numerous recordings of it.

And, you know, he beats Martin Jarvis into a cocked hat. But it's the type of thing. He really does. He really does. But that's not my prop that my my worry is not to do with the extraordinary high quality of that reading it's that i don't want to hear it read it probably goes back a bit to um listen to my mother or maybe something i like that i know but for me um arthur low when he reads, it becomes Manoring, Captain Manoring.

And Captain Manoring stands between me and Pooter. So I don't really want to hear that. And the reason I don't is because, as I was saying earlier, I really treasure, as everybody on this podcast does, I'm sure, I really treasure Pooter. He's terribly pompous and, you know, his puns are absolutely appalling and so on, but he's also terribly modest. And the world divides somewhat on this subject and no doubt we'll be discussing it. But what I feel about him is that the real comedy of this book, which I think can only be in silence on the page, is to do with the fact that when he tells his day,

and we've just heard it beautifully read, as you say, by Arthur Lowe, when he tells his day, he is telling you all of the stupid things he's done, all the minor pomposities, all the unbelievably irritable vanities that he has and so on, and then he's giving you his comeuppances. So he tells you about the things that led up to the humiliations of which this book is replete,

and he does so with this complete candour, which really, I think, marks him out against... If I could throw this one down, all the people who have drawn from this character and made sitcoms and so on out of it. I'm afraid I haven't read Edward's novel yet, so I don't know what you think about that. No one has. I'll be really interested to hear.

I think that what I worry about in this book, and obviously the book is very much about hope and a certain arrogance and great expectations and so on all of which are you know comically deflated and um it always ends for him in humiliation and when i was a little girl on that bed you know that was what made me cry because i felt he wasn't captain manring so much as godfrey so he was this figure who um was you know always always humiliated, always humiliated. He was the man who, if he'd been an older gentleman, he'd have been the one who had to go home

because he had to relieve himself, you know, like poor Godfrey. Why were you crying at Pouta? Because of those reasons, I'm saying, because every single time he gets into this sort of dilemma, I don't cry about him now, Edward, don't worry, I have grown up over the age of eight. I did at the time. And I suppose what I feel is that he's one of the reasons I think this is such a masterpiece of prose.

He is a truly humble creation, actually, insofar as he writes it all down. He doesn't just come along and tell you that everybody was terrible to him and they were all appalling. He tells you all the things that happened to him that led to these ridiculous humiliations, many of which he deserves. And so for me, when you hear Arthur Lowe reading it, you're hearing what is essentially, because of his brilliance and because of the character he plays, a kind of dramatization of the book. And it isn't a drama to me. It is this very intimate piece of comic writing. OK, before I go to Edward, may I just say that I've got a very straight, no, two very straightforward readings why I love Arthur Lowe's reading.

The first is just technically, in terms of the delivery, the things that he's getting the laughs off in the bit that we listen to are exquisite. Timing, the timing, the persistent timing is incredible, right? That's the first thing. The second thing is, you talked about Martin Jarvis. We're not singling Martin Jarvis out. I'm also throwing Hugh Bonneville into this bin.

I can't stand right because of because you because the genesis for better or worse of diary of a nobody is in punch and is kind of based in some kind of hatred of the middle class or or the lower middle class and then they kind of as it goes on they lose some of that so the early passages particularly the bits we've just heard, they're laughing at clerks, which is a big thing for high culture in that period, is sneering at the suburbs. But as the book goes on, that falls away, it seems to me. I can't stand any adaptation or audio reading if the person speaks like that.

Oh, Mr. Pooter, I'm Mr. Pooter, and they tripped over the scraper because we're common and we're sort of – that interpretation is laughing at Pooter and that class of people, whereas what Arthur Lowe does is warm that through you know there isn't he takes it out of the realm of that kind of sneering and brings it into a more universe place so that's why i love it so much anyway edward where do you stand on the great arthur lowe issue i love arthur lowe obviously he, well, my favourite thing in the world when I was a child was Mr Men.

Of course. I would like to buy some potatoes. He said, this is really. So, I mean, where did he go wrong there? And there's nothing. So, I don't think he's as ridiculous as Captain Mannering. I think he's a little more subtle than that. But, I mean, it's a brilliant reading

because Arthur Lowe is brilliant at reading. There's loads of other versions out there. Don't obviously go for the LibriVox recording. Never do that. I mean, one never would. Are there any versions? I wish I was found recording by an American doing it. There must be some, right?

No, it's never really taken off in America. That's one of the peculiar things. It's just never happened. Orwell thought that it should have been translated into Russian because he thought it was like Chekhov. I think that's fair. Which I think is pretty good. Orwell complains about the name of the house in Coming Up For Air.

He's whinging about the names of various horrible houses that just have the same name. And the laurels is the first one he picks. He should have called it Coming Up For Air, Gowing Up For Air. We should have called it coming up for air, gowing up for air. So we've got, normally we'd read a blurb now on backlisting, but we've got a guest to come in and give us a description of the book. Here's a clip of the late film director Ken Russell recorded in 2004,

talking us through the plot and the themes of The Diary of a Nobody. Yes, I love the 19th century. One of my very favourite books from that century is George and Weedon Grosmith's The Diary of a Nobody. In fact, I loved it so much I made a film for the BBC on it, which was shown in the 60s. It was liked so much, it was never shown again. Actually, the publishers didn't like the way I treated the subject. A bit controversial. But the story's about a very amiable sort of fellow. He's a clerk in a business establishment in the city. He lives at the

railway cuttings in Holloway, and the house is called the Laurels. He's married, wife Carrie, and a renegade sort of son called Lupin. But he tries to emulate, I guess, the upper middle class a little instead of the class he's in, which is sort of lower middle. It's a diary of trivia, misunderstandings, arguments, petty annoyances, mostly with tradespeople and clerks at the office where he works, and even his own son and wife and even his friends. But it's a very amicable thing, and as the mistakes and the trivialities which cause him a great deal of concern, grows, so your love of the character grows with it,

or it does as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, spot on. That's pretty good, isn't it? Spot on. I think that's spot on. Laura, have you got a bit of the Diary of a Nobody you could read to us? Yeah, I should say that, as I, like you, Edward,

when we change over with our, you know, you like Lupin and then eventually you like Poot or you sympathise or your empathy is in that direction. For me, I think it runs all the way through every kind of comic trope, actually, it seems to me. So it has, you know, slapstick and it has running gags and it has Frida the Scallier

and it has wonderful satirical sends-ups and so on. And there are moments in it that I suppose would be... They were theatre people, George and Ruth and Grossmuth, as you said at the beginning. And there are moments that would... And this is what I think is one of the genius aspects of this book, that would look absolutely brilliant on stage and have been done on stage.

I mean, there's a marvellous bit where he goes to the firework party and the enormous, incredibly expensive Catherine wheel that everyone is always waiting to begin doesn't begin. And, of course, it's he, of all the people at the party, who taps it and immediately falls off the wall. And you read these moments in the book would be wonderful visual gags, but they're also beautifully written.

I think he's a genius for combining the two. They're about mortification. All about mortification. He's always saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing and knowing it. Yes, which is why I think I love him so much, because he does it. He's irritated enough to do it, or he's stupid enough to do it,

or he's immodest enough to do it. Then he does it, and then he gets his punishment. And all of these things are written down so brilliantly. I mean, you know, Ken Russell. so weird hearing Ken Russell talking about his Twitter. Hey, I meant to say that his adaptation is, it's all about YouTube, Diary of a Nobody. Of course it is. Ken Russell's adaptation is on YouTube at the moment. I don't know how long it will last.

It's clearly been uploaded from a slightly dodgy copy, but it's really worth watching. It's very good. And he treats it as a silent film with narration. Oh, I'd love to see that. And it was a monitor, so it's like 50 minutes or something like that. Anyway, please read this. I'm going to just read a little bit because it's...

Obviously, Pooja has a very happy marriage. And given that we're supposed to be laughing at him, this seems to me to be another great feat of wonderful writing. Yes, absolutely. As a portrait of a marriage. Honestly, I have read this book myself at times in my own life where I've thought, Christ, I wish I had this marriage. It's so genial.

You know, they never kind of flash. You know, the most... The greatest point of friction, I suppose, is the diary itself, which is another bit of wonderful, wonderful sort of... Oh, the borders, Tom. Come on. No, well, absolutely, there are others. But, you know, when he's really disappointed in his wife,

it's because she doesn't love his diary, isn't it? Because she wasn't listening or she was doing the laundry or she doesn't care. Well, that's the moment where he's futurist the most. Where he's the most futurist, yes, absolutely, completely. But otherwise I think this book is suffused with this rather kind of tender marriage, you know. And when the wretched Lupin announces

that he's going to marry Daisy Muttlor, Daisy Muttlor, there are tremendous neologisms of names in this book, all the way through. And it's obviously sort of going to be a very premature engagement because he's only just come back from being chucked, another neologism, by the... Is it Oldham, I think, where he's been in a bank?

So he's met this woman. She's obviously going to be completely unsuitable. She's considerably older, she's quite loud, and she's got really heavy eyebrows, which Weedon Grosmith, in the great illustrations that run through the book, shows. It's always laid out so well by publishers, I think, and originally as it appeared. If you see these drawings in the V&A where they are, you know,

you see how well publishers have used them over the years, squashing them down and, you know, and you turn the page to find out what Mutt-Laura looks like, sorry, Daisy Mutt-Laura looks like, and sure enough, you know, she's horrendous looking, a garboil really almost. And so they're very worried. And my reading is simply this. They are very worried about this marriage.

The engagement's just been announced. Carrie and I talked the matter over during the evening and agreed that it did not always follow that an early engagement meant an unhappy marriage. Dear Carrie reminded me that we were married early, and with the exception of a few trivial misunderstandings, we had never had a really serious word. I could not help thinking, as I told her,

that half the pleasures of life were derived from the little struggles and small privations that one had to endure at the beginning of one's married life. Classic Pooja this. Carrie said, I had expressed myself wonderfully well and that I was quite a philosopher. And of course he has to brag, but she's right and he is. And so I love him for that. It's a beautiful panel. Brilliant. It's a beautiful panel.

Brilliant. The slang element there. Laura was talking about the slang in Diary of a Nobody. So there are numerous terms, aren't there, that hadn't entered the English language. Right, the two that I've written down are Chuck. When Lupin says he's got the Chuck from his job and that one of his speculations is a dead cert, both are cited by the Oxford English Dictionary as being the first.

So dead cert and Chuck are two of the terms. Mitch, have you got any more? Well, yeah, apparently busing was another one and the first use of the term blithering idiot is recorded in... That can't be the case, surely. The first time blithering is in the OED is in 1868. That's that first time blithering, but in association with idiot. But basically, Lupin's slang is, as I think we mentioned earlier,

the slang was kind of controversial because he was a fast talker. He was speaking often in ways that his father didn't understand at all. Was he a swell? We think he might be a swell. I think he might have been a swell, yeah. But the use of slang is a tell to the contemporary reader, isn't it? That's the point. There were, in etiquette guides in this era, you were advised, if you wanted to be respectable in the way that Charles Pooter does, then you would not indulge in slang because people would think the less of you.

So part of the friction in the in the original reading if you were there then was the freedom with which lupin employs all manner of slang terms and the the offense that it causes his long-suffering parents so we were talking earlier about the the um influence of the diary of nobody and how it seeps into the culture and one of the ways and how it seeps into the culture. And one of the ways in which it seeps into the culture is the pooterish character, the word pooterish in the OED, obviously,

but also how it's reflected in... Yeah, I've got an issue with that, by the way. I don't think pooter is pooterish. Yes, I know exactly what you mean. Yes. I don't think he's poerish the beginning of every chapter is basically about him telling jokes and being silly and doing doing nice things and he dances he dances his wife he does a polka on his uh in his living room and it's that's not a puterist

is it i'll tell you what edward every time I hear somebody use the word pootrist, I think, oh, right, yeah, you hate people from Croydon like me. Yeah, that's what you mean by pootrist. Yeah, I get you. I see you. There's a marvellous moment where, which Matthew Sweet mentions in his book too,

is where when they're doing the Shiraz, he suggests the game, the Blondin, he comes in as the Blondin Donkey. And that was like one of the biggest kind of most sensational acts that was a tightrope walking donkey. And there's little bits like that where you think, he's a bit more hip and a bit more down with stuff than he lets on. Well, look, here is, I pulled together a selection of clips

of characters from British sitcoms that I think owe a debt to Charles Pooter and to the Grossmiths. I've got it all down in me diary. I didn't know you kept a diary, Tub. Of course I keep a diary. All great men keep diaries. Old Peppies and... ..Boswell, Shaw, all we literary herbets. Every little thing that happens in my life goes down in this book. Well, you never know, they might want to publish it in years to come or

put it on the radio every day. What's happened in your life that could be of any value to anybody else? They will probably marvel at me perspicuity. What's that? It doesn't matter what it is as long as people marvel at it. So what shall we do then? You choose. We could change the spark plugs on the door mobile. Spark plugs don't really set me alight, Martin. I think you should know that.

Fancy varnishing something? Not really. Look, why don't we do something we used to do badminton now we haven't played badminton for ages i wouldn't give that big head at the leisure center the satisfaction what's he got to do with he thinks he owns those courts i said to him when i book a court for half an hour i said i expect half an hour not 28 minutes when was this three years ago come friendly bombs and fall on slough it isn't fit for humans now right i don't think you solve town planning problems by dropping bombs all over the place so he's embarrassed himself there next come friendly bombs and fall on slough to get it ready

for the plow the cabbages are coming now the earth exhales he's the only cabbage around here hello i'm alan partridge and i'd like to tell you about a very special place whether you know it is East Anglia, the Plump Peninsula, home of the Broads, although that sounds like a refuge for fallen prostitutes, Albion's quarters, or quite simply, the Wales of the East. This is Norfolk. Oh, glorious. So in order, we had Tony Hancock in Hancock's Half Hour, Martin Bryce, played by Richard Bryers, in The Great Ever-Decreasing Circles,

David Brent, played by Ricky Gervais, in The Great Ever-Decreasing Circles, David Brent played by Ricky Gervais in The Office, and Alan Partridge played by Alan Partridge in a trailer for Midmorning Matters with Alan Partridge. I think that's what that was from. I've got a question. So I'm going to ask Laura first and then Edward. Does The Dire Over Nobody work as a novel? Well, as I say, I think it works brilliantly as a novel.

And I marvel at the way that they pick up the editorial problems that they've got, you know, such as the point at which Punch suddenly decides to stop publishing issues. Punch itself, I think, wasn't published for a few months. And when they pick up again, he says, Pooter says, you know, so these pages in my diary have gone missing

and someone's taken them. Who's taken them? And then there's a great long comic, a really brilliantly placed comic unfolding that runs through many pages, during the course of which he's searching for which servant is it who could have done this who could have you know and so on and um so they shaped their very limber these writers and they shaped the book according to i'm saying the book because in a way obviously you know we all know that in victoria never you know everybody was

serializing stuff and so on and i don't know um Edward will know I'm sure you know I don't think that they knew this was going to be published as a book but it's it's it's shaped like that I mean it as you know we we know it begins with a scraper and it ends with a scraper it begins with enamel paint it ends with enamel paint it's beautifully symmetrical it goes through a sequence of humiliations which I think are sort of climaxing in the scene that you, I hope, I think, Andy, are going to read from later on. That moment where we see him listened to, a front-on, I think he's supposed to be a parody

of Frank Harris, the American writer. We see him front-on in front of ten people, all named. This vicious, vicious attack, you know, is sent in his direction. And he's gradually realizing that the man with the soft head and the soft body and the soft brain and the soft hair and the soft life and the soft, stupid figure, soft suburban man is him. And that he is himself being mobbed. To me, the only really very strong political point in a book which keeps its politics very carefully and subtly balanced all the way through is when this scene occurs and he is thinking about what is just and

what is right and money and so on and um the book then comes gradually round to a sort of um a slow crescendo and then a sort of finale, which I feel by that stage they must have known was going to be a sort of complete, a completing circle. And, you know, it ends beautifully. I mean, I would argue that there are moments in the last quarter that, you know, maybe they could have... I don't know what kind of deadline they were working to. They had to very rapidly turn out and so on.

But so I think it does... Nobody who reads this book doesn't end up loving Pooja somewhat very rapidly turn out and so on. So I think it does. Nobody who reads this book doesn't end up loving Poot-er somewhat by the end. And that is the absolute evolution of a character in a novel. Edward, what do you think? Does it work as a novel? Yeah. It's probably a very satisfying novel that um nothing really happens in and i i i i really like that as a book it's a very unusual book insofar as fuck all happens but everyone's really

it's just a lovely read and it's funny and it's and um i've got a i've got a line that i think that i might have as my epitaph that is from this book and it says i swept out of the room in silent dignity and i caught my foot on the carpet i genuinely can't think of a better way of explaining my life. I mean, it's an amazing book. It reminded me of that thing Matt Groening said about The Simpsons, that when they were originally pulling The Simpsons together, one of the things that they agreed upon was that for every extremely in-pop culture reference they made in the script,

they must remember to put in a gag with Homer hitting his head or hurting himself so that they have the right balance between, because they're playing to a mixed audience, and that they have the right balance between physical jokes and intellectual jokes. And actually, funnily enough, again, the correlation between The Diary of a Nobody and sitcom rather than The Diary of a Nobody and fiction is different types of joke run all the way through the book. It's very interesting as a comedy writer to see how they...

This book did not do well on first publication. And it was only in 1910 when I think it was its third publication that it did all right. And there is an amazingly horrible quote from the Athenaeum magazine. Please give us that quote. The republication of Punch's The Diary for Nobody by G. and W. Grosmith was hardly a happy thought, all calculated to profit anyone. For it must be confessed that the book has no merit to compensate it for its hopeless vulgarity. Blimey.

Not even that being amusing. The satire, if a photographic representation of middle-class boredom can be dignified with this name, is not only dreary, but also has a cruel ring which is positively offensive. Such jibes argue unpardonably for the taste of the maker. It causes no hilarity in the reader. Besides, it is so dull. And then he ends with this.

The illustrations by Mr. Whedon Grosmith are admirably suited to the text. Well, we won't be inviting the reviewer of the Athenaeum on to discuss. That's pretty fucking harsh, isn't it? Oh. Hey, now, well, John, you know, and John and Nicky will know that on Backlisted, the ultimate accolade that any book can receive is,

has it been made into a West End musical? And in the case of The Diary of a Nobody, it hasn't been made into a West End musical, but it has been made into an off-West End musical. Laura, are you a big fan of musicals? Yes or no is fine. No, no, totally not. It's an understandable perspective. Could you tell us a bit more about Whedon Grosmith and about Whedon's illustrations? Because we don't think that Whedon contributed to the text, do we? I'm kind of touched by the fact that it's always described as a book by George and Whedon Grosmith, because I because i i you know do we i don't know what we do know about that i mean it seems obvious that though

there's a very strong voice in it but you know they were great brothers and you know they worked together and they were on the stage together and so on i think they did they did co-write it they did co-write it well um lots of people people think they didn't. I don't know. His pictures weren't there until it was published as a book in... 1892. 1892, thank you. And so we do therefore know they must have written it together because it was always described as being by both of them. So well done, Whedon, on every front.

Well done, well done, yeah. The pictures are... You can see some of these drawings if you want. When lockdown's over, you can go and look at them in the V&A. And I think they are the best things he did. Whedon's gift is so light. At the beginning of this podcast, you were talking about Artesoni and Revilius and John Piper,

and it was making me think of that wonderful book, which please may I recommend in this programme, by Tom Lubbock, my very esteemed, great former art critic of The Independent, who died some years ago, but who adored Pooter, adored Pooter. And he wrote a book called English Graphic, which deals with, you know, all these different ways in which we have found to laugh at ourselves as British people. And Weedon Grosmith is a footnote in there,

and it's a very great book, very funny in itself. Well, I was going to read a bit from the book, but then I thought, well, why would I read a bit when I've got Arthur Lowe here to carry that particular weight? And also the reading of this is so tremendous. This is the bit that we were talking about earlier about Hardfur Huttel. And it really says something profound i think about the uh suburban mindset which puta represents if you listen to this you can hear him um doing anything in the teeth of

someone being quite rude to him and about people like him. And coming out with the upper hand. I think so, anyway. Here it is. May the 10th. Received a letter from Mr Franchi of Peckham, asking us to dine with him tonight at seven o'clock to meet Mr Hartfur Huckle, a very clever writer for the American papers. I must say it was quite a distinguished party.

And although we did not know anybody personally, they all seemed to be quite swells. I sat next to Mrs. Field at dinner. She seemed a well-informed lady, but was very deaf. It did not much matter, for Mr. Hartford Huttled did all the talking. He is a marvellous intellectual man, and says things which from other people would seem quite alarming. Mrs. Perdick, who seemed to be a bright and rather sharp woman, said,

Mr. Huttel, we will meet you halfway, that is. Till you get halfway through your cigar. And that, at all events, will be the happy medium. I shall never forget the effect the words happy medium had upon him. It positively alarmed me. He said something like the following. Happy medium indeed. Do you know happy medium are two words which mean miserable mediocrity?

I say go first class or third. Marry a duchess or her kitchen maid. The happy medium means respectability, and respectability means insipidness. Does it not, Mr. Puder? I was so taken aback by my being personally appealed to that I could only bow apologetically and say I was not competent to offer an opinion. He continued with an amazing eloquence that made his unwelcome opinions positively convincing. The happy medium is nothing more or less than a vulgar half-measure. It is half-hearted, respectable, in fact, a happy medium, and will spend the rest of his days in a suburban villa with a stucco column portico

resembling a four-post bedstead. We all laughed. That sort of thing, continued Mr. Huffle, belongs to a soft man with a soft beard, with a soft head and a made tie that hooks on. It seemed rather personal, and twice I caught myself looking in the glass of the chiffonier, for I had on a tie that hooked on, and why not?

If these remarks were not personal, they were rather careless. Edward, I've got an observation that Kate Flint makes about the Diary of a Nobody in relation to... Where she says that one of the reasons why the Diary of a Nobody continues to resonate or has been so popular for so long is it does a brilliant simultaneous thing, which it allows the reader both to identify with but also feel superior to one's neighbour.

It's like reading about somebody who lives next door or in the same street or who one works with and sympathising with. I've got an issue with this. That's my life. That is genuinely my life i live puter's life i put up everything i put on on facebook and say i've done this today people go yeah you didn't know and i go no i did i did this and so everything i do is basically i mean this is why uh it is the perfect lockdown book

because meeting people is awful and you should never ever meet people. You should just stay in your home and be alone and paint things. It's ridiculous. Well, thanks very much

Edward. Thanks very much, Laura. Both supers, if not swells, for polishing up a comic classic. To Nicky Birch for catching the conversation and turning it into a capital show. And to Unbound for allowing us to turn a meat tea into a slap-up feed. You can download all 114 previous episodes, plus follow linked clips and suggestions for further reading by visiting our website at backlisted.fm.

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