Put Out More Flags (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Basil is frivolous, mischievous and incorrigible. His antics are also indulged and even grudgingly admired by his closest friends and connections. Upper-class rogues, bohemians, dowagers, socialites, bureaucrats and delinquent evacuees prepare for England to change forever, in this hilarious and deadly serious 1942 satire on the 'phoney war'

And true to his principles, whilst the other characters are all trying to scuttle into cosy government sinecures or soft commissions as officers, Alastair volunteers to join the ranks. He endures the miseries of basic training without complaint (although he makes sure his wife Sonia has booked a comfortable nearby hotel for weekends). And in the end he is volunteering for Special Services – though it does seem to be the Boy’s Own Adventure prospects which appeal to him. But he is a character who develops, and he obviously represents what Waugh sees as the remaining strand of decency in upper-class values. Single date flag: the data series contains a single “1” corresponding with a specific date on the timeline. All other cells contain zeroes. Used to identify when in the model a single event occurs e.g. f inancial c l ose date flag . Alastair Trumpington endures the petty bureaucracy of life in the ranks. Ambrose Silk is working at the Ministry of Information, worried that even fellow-travellers might be at risk. Angela Lyne has shut down her home and is enduring a lonely existence in a Grosvenor Square flat. Alastair Trumpington is involved in absurd training exercises.What’s more, when it comes to modelling flags, you will find that there are only five core structures that you need to know. Once you master all five, you can model flags. Between 2 dates flag: the data series contains consecutive “ 1”s that start only once a single date is reached and end after another single date is reached. All other cells contain zero. Used to identify periods occurring in between 2 dates e.g. operations period flag. A later film adaptation of Vile Bodies by Steven Fry was released in 2003 under the title Bright Young Things. The IMDB also records a 1939 BBC TV series called Table d’Hote in which one episode was entitled “Doubting Hall”. The information on this is sketchy but several characters listed also appear in Vile Bodies. There was also a stage version of that novel in the early 1930s which Waugh mentions. But this 1970 BBC TV production may be the only film version of Put Out More Flags ever made. For servants, the pay would be better working in a manufacturing industry, but they would also have more personal liberty and be free of the patronising and authoritarian discipline imposed by traditional upper-class employers. They would be free of the stifling deference required by the landed gentry who for generations had regarded themselves as superior beings. Cedric Lyne goes to see his estranged wife before his departure for Norway. Basil plans to reveal Poppet and Ambrose as communist sympathisers. Cedric is met by a shambolic embarkation of troops at the port.

A pansy. An old queen. A habit of dress, a tone of voice, an elegant, humorous deportment that had been admired and imitated, a swift, epicene felicity of wit, the art of dazzling and confusing those he despised - these had been his; and now they were the current exchange of comedians; there were only a few restaurants, now, which he frequent without fear of ridicule, and there he was surrounded, as though by distorting mirrors, with gross reflections and caricatures of himself.Through his unsavory vision, we see how England rapidly converted from the drawing-room to the battlefield in the course of a year. Basil resists finding a war job until it's absolutely necessary, and watches his friends and acquaintances join forces with the war effort. Waugh wrote this book in real time; it came out in 1942, so the voices and attitudes are those of the upper class that were part of his daily round. We see the language change from society shorthand to military doublespeak, the outfits from tea gowns to fatigues, and the attitudes from conversation to action.