Winnie the Poo
THE GATHERING STORM
HBO, tonight at 8, Eastern and Pacific times; 7, Central time.
JPR's note:
Here is portrait of dear Winston, who smokes his big fat cigars for BF, lunch and dinner. The Fat Cigar, as an appendage dangling from his mouth, is a marker of the leftover infantile urge to nurse and draw ego nourishment from all his contacts, for he always impressed others as to how important he is in their lives. The second marker, his physiognomy, unmistakably tells of his deep disdain for other mortals including Gandhi; his life-long struggle with depression; a matchless canine surliness towards lesser motals, but loyalty to England; and an ego larger than his corpulent self.
Champagne ran in his blood; his currency is ever-growing ego; and his innate natural high brow blowhard image was larger than his generously endowed corpulence and was his calling card. Everybody fell at his feet and adored this larger-than-life Gargantua. I like the bloke though: He is cute and cuddly when he is not sneering.
He was trying to save England from Gandhi and subversive Hindus! When was the last time a Hindu did damage to England?
Winny must have had somebody else in his mind, or he simply didn't have the prescience of events to come.
Here is a sample of the conversation in the play, where his wife Clemmie addresses the boulder of a man.
Write-up in NY Times
Here are Winston and Clemmie (as Jiggs and Maggie).
She asks him if he has forgotten to pay the butcher's bill.
He looks up from his papers grumpily, saying he is "trying to save England from Mr. Gandhi and
his gang of subversive Hindus."
"In other words," she says, "you haven't paid the bill."
Sounding like some sort of dog himself, he growls, "Woman, I can't do everything."
How did Winston Churchill prepare for the rigors of leading Britain through World War II? He moped about the countryside, smoking fat cigars, even during meals. He drank prodigious quantities of Champagne, although he could barely afford beer. He kept telling anyone within earshot what a great man he was. And he acted selfishly toward everyone from his wife to his butler, all of whom responded to his boorishness with devotion. |
