As long as the discussion is on the “all” theme, I used to work with a youngster (I was 30, he was 19) who was one of those jumpy guys ready for action. This was at a retail center and he was the two-stroke-motor champ—i.e. chainsaws and weed-eaters. He could sell them, service them, provide the necessary parts—in short, he had grown up in the biz and there was nothing about two-strokes he didn’t know. The supervisor was joking around one day and said, “D’ya know what a customer said about him? He’s all nuts and bones!” (The guy was skinny.) Unwillingly my eye shifted to the young’uns crotch region and the supe said, “You don’t have to look there, dipwad!”
Anyway, about Noel Coward, anybody who’d stake his reputation as a playwrite on the line “How far are you from Maidenhead?” from a man to a woman at a respectable getogether deserves all the opprobrium he can get. He’s a starched collar without the starch. Much like the difference between Sir Larry (those who know call him Larry) Olivier and Sir John (always John) Gielgud. The latter was a man of such insubstantial vagaries and unpleasantness that he never failed to please, whereas the former seemed to like the look of his visage on camera only too well. Perhaps I am too harsh.
Allright, allright, give NC a break, he deserves it. My god! what talent to little avail.