–The papers last week reported that the James Tait Black literary awards for this year are in jeopardy due to a labor dispute at Edinburgh University. Here’s an excerpt from the Edinburgh Evening News:
The UK’s oldest literary prize, which counts DH Lawrence and Evelyn Waugh among its previous winners, looks set to be scrapped this year for the first time in its history amid strike action at the University of Edinburgh.
This year’s James Tait Black prize for fiction, awarded at the university since 1919, is in jeopardy after the lead judge said it was unlikely to go ahead due to a marketing and assessment boycott.
Dr Hannah Kate Boast said the university was withholding 100 per cent of her pay due to her participation in the boycott and said “at present, there will be no prize”…
Waugh received the award in 1952 for Men at War, the first volume of his war trilogy.
—The Times has an article about the history of public toilets in London. This is entitled “Spend a Penny”. Here’s an excerpt noting a contribution by Evelyn Waugh:
… Privision for women lagged behind that for men. It was said that women avoided wearing underwear for Ladies Day at Royal Ascot in case they had to relieve themselves behind the shrubbery, and sadly the belief that a pregnant woman was legally entitled to urinate in a policeman’s helmet is an urban myth. As early as the 1850s the Ladies Sanitary Association was campaigning for “special erections”, while a public campaign for a women’s toilet in Camden took until 1905 to achieve its aim. Women were sometimes embarrassed about discussing such matters — Evelyn Waugh had a female friend who always referred to the “West Central” postcode area, as its abbreviation had “indelicate associations”.
—The Spectator has an article noting similarities between a currently popular TV series and an earlier example based on a Waugh novel. Here are the opening paragraphs:
At first glance, there are few similarities between Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh’s classic 1945 novel – later adapted into an equally classic ITV series – of prelapsarian bliss in Oxford and Industry, the BBC’s adrenaline-fuelled show that exposes the dark iniquity at the heart of the financial industry. The one is a languid examination of (discreetly portrayed) same-sex love and Catholic guilt, and the other is a profane, sexually charged and palpitation-inducing dive into hedonistic self-indulgence. Brideshead is plover’s eggs and Meursault; Industry class A drugs and group sex. They would seem as distinct from one another as chalk and (Comté) cheese.
Yet the continuing appeal of Mickey Down and Konrad Kay’s show, now into its fourth season, is that it has as deep and innate an understanding of British high-end society as Waugh ever did, even if its expression is louder and more vulgar. Down and Kay were (of course) students who met at Oxford, and subsequently hit upon the idea of fictionalising their own experiences in investment banking. Both worked at Morgan Stanley, although that notoriously hard-nosed institution is milquetoast compared to the fiendishly pressurised Pierpoint & Co, the fictitious bank that lies at the dark heart of Industry. The very first episode begins with the death of a young banker who has been popping pills and glugging caffeinated energy drinks in order to keep up with the punishing regime that Pierpoint describes, and it only gets worse from then on…
–Max Hastings has an article in The Times about the centennial anniversary of the General Strike. He also reviews a new book about the event (Nine Days in May by Jonathan Sneer) and offers this reference to earlier writers’ descriptions of the events:
…The social highlights of the strike are the stuff of legend — debutantes running canteens at London stations and such novelists as Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell figuratively manning the barricades while their most repugnant Oxbridge contemporaries equipped themselves with truncheons and raced off to the East End as special constables, to beat up dockers: the Bullingdon Club spirit enjoying its happiest hour.
–Finally, the Androssan Herald in Scotland has a story about a WWII incident which lives on largely as a result of Evelyn Waugh’s description of it. Here is the introduction:
Back in 1942, at the height of World War II, No. 3 Commando were based in the North Ayrshire Estate, planning for the invasion of Europe.
Keen to keep in with the owner, Lord Glasgow, they agreed to get rid of an old tree stump in the grounds for him. But their decision to use explosives backfired… badly.
The story has been immortalised by Brideshead Revisited author Evelyn Waugh, who had recently joined 3. Commando and was stationed at Kelburn at the time…
The story then quotes at length Waugh’s letter to his wife about the event (Letters 160-61).
