It's so Victorian

[callmemadam]

Remember Matthew in Anne of Green Gables? And any number of Victorian novels in which ashen faced characters clutch their brows, stagger about and cry, 'The bank has failed! We are ruined!' A useful plot device which I thought had gone for ever.

Whenever our new Chancellor of the Exchequer appears on television, we shout out, 'How's Sybil?' Are we alone in this?

Comments

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Why "How's Sybil?" Am I being dim?

I have been mostly thinking of the end of the film of Mary Poppins where Micheal causes a bank catastrophe.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Sybil is the new Downing Street Cat. Yah boo sucks to cat-hating Cherie.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I mostly think Blackadderish thoughts around Alistair Darling.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Heh!
I think of him as little as possible.

[dorianegray.livejournal.com]

Is there a rule that the Downing Street cats must be black-and-white? Or am I merely making assumptions from insufficient data (the photos in that article of Sybil and Humphrey)?

BTW, have you read "On Her Majesty's Wizarding Service" by Diane Duane? Humphrey has a cameo role.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I wonder what the proportion is of black & white cats to the general cat population? Perhaps there are just more of them.
BTW, have you read "On Her Majesty's Wizarding Service"

Ooh, no, never even 'eard of it. A book with Humphrey in can't be bad?

[dorianegray.livejournal.com]

Sorry, "On Her Majesty's Wizardly (not Wizarding) Service". "To Visit the Queen" in the US.

YA fantasy; cats are wizards and trying to sort out a very messy time paradox. Utterly wonderful, as all Duane's work is. Humphrey is one of the sources our heroes go to for info. As are the ravens in the Tower of London.

(Unfortunately, probably out of print atm.)

[minniemoll.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten Matthew and the bank, I just keep thinking of Mary Poppins...

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Funny, I never thought of Mary Poppins like you two.

[debodacious.livejournal.com]

We were an A of GG household here too - I got quite tearful thinking about Matthew the other night. Definitely one of the saddest deaths in fiction and one that never fails to make me howl.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I'm currently re-reading all the Anne books. I'm always surprised that Anne seems to mind Matthew's death more than Marilla does; putting flowers on the grave and so on. I know Marilla was buttoned up, but even so...