a chiz is a swiz or a swindle as any fule kno.
the goriller of 3b
nigel molesworth, goriller of 3b and curse of st custards, is a brittish skoolboy from the 1950s whose poor speling do not hold him back from rekording his GRATE THORTS about skool, life, foopball, crikit, grown-ups, GURLS, interplanetry travel ect ect chiz chiz. It could be deskribed as Diary of a Wimpy Kid crosed with Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, but set in (slightly shabby, fading) fiftys Britain. (mouldy chizz thoze ones came aftur...)His jadid and world-weery comentry hav been fathefully transcribed by geoffrey willans and georgously ilustrated by ronald searle of St. Trinian's fame in four volumes (pub. grabber and grabber): Down with Skool!, How to be Topp, Whizz for Atomms and Back in the Jug Agane.
felow-inmates inklude:
- peason, nigel's grate freind
- gilibrand, whose pater was a general
- grabber ma. head of skool captane of evrything winner of the mrs joyful prize for rafia work and Miles Gloriosus-in-traning
- fotherington-tomas, wet and weed who sa Hullo clouds, hullo sky
- wee bro molesworth 2
There are also the masters aka beaks viz. headmaster GRIMES, sigismund the mad maths master ect, and of coarse the skool dog. The books also divert into subjecs such as The Great British Seaside, compleet with British Weather.note
The golden prose hem-hem of our hero hav been enjoyed by genarations of tiny pupils and often continue to hold its allure into adulthood. molesworth fans are a rare but rabid breed who rekognise each other by use of sekrit code phrases such as 'cheers cheers cheers', 'poo er gosh' and 'as any fule kno'. molesworth's influence on a generation or 2 of British humerists was surely immense if sutle but he would be too much the realist to icspect any credit.
Tales of molesworth's endevors hav okasionalli been told on the RADIO (poo gosh v. hi-tek), most reesently in december 2014.
This series provide xsampls of:
- Adults Are Useless - parents just do not care, but after being xposed to the likes of molesworth 2 and peason, WHY SHOULD THEY TRY?
- all lowercase letters - Employed in a very specific way. Despite what the examples on this page suggest, molesworth in fact start his sentences with capital leters, but doesn't use them for proper names.
- Annoying Younger Sibling - molesworth deskribe his bro molesworth 2 as "uterly wet and a weed" and sa "it panes me to think i am of the same blud." When we see both molesworth bros together, molesworth 2 do all he can to get on nigels nerves.
- Artistic License – Education - st custard's is BASD on realiti (willans was a reel beak), but uterly exajerrated for the sake of comic parody - or SO THEY WOULD HAV YOU THINK
- Author Catchphrase - molesworth is positivly Homeric in his use of epithets coo er posh prose eh
- Big Eater - molesworth 2 is "always eating" sa molesworth, and we see this in scenes of domestic blis set at the molesworth house where molesworth 2 keep asking for more toast and tea
- Bilingual Bonus - mostly for french and latin, and not so much for reel noledge of those languages as for experiense of the kind of textbooks used to teech them in british skools once upon a time
- Bizarrchitecture - st custard's was built by a madman and therefor hav an observatory to study worms and a cupola which serv no purpose at all
- Black Comedy - o yes it all LOOK sweet and harmless but with all the bullies and blubbing and ice cold baths, well LIFE IS PANE my dear and there is 0 to be dun about it
- Boarding School - in the obvious sense, st custards IS a boarding skool. More importantly, these books are a creul parody of the traditional boarding skool story, and replase pranks and joly fun with sinasism and dark obsevation. nigel okasionally make reference to old-fashioned skool stories, but cleerly know them for fantasies.
- Boarding School of Horrors - the masters are all teddy boys and they will rip you with a botle for two pins
- Bold Inflation - ALLCAPS gets used for emphasis in fairly random places
- Book Dumb - molesworth constantly displa an intelligence not matched by his skool grades
- Brilliant, but Lazy - if we beleeve "I Am Going to Be Good" in Back in the Jug Agane, molesworth mite be grate at skool if he did but care about it, but when GRIMES giv all the prizes to grabber at the end of the yere anyway, why ort he to care?
- The Bully - well yes we are talking about SKOOL, enuff sed
- Canis Latinicus - the skool motto is quantum ille canis est in fenestra. note
- Cassandra Truth - in Back in the Jug Agane GRIMES ask molesworth what hav he read over the hols. Molesworth sa he hav read swan's way by grate fr. writer Proust, but is given a kaning as GRIMES beleeve there is no such book. There is such a book, but molesworth hav not read it and is only resiting a revew
- Catchphrase - fotherington-tomas is famous for saying "hullo, clouds, hullo sky" quite a lot
- Cheaters Never Prosper - the molesworth stories parody or subvert all traditional moralistic foopball- and crikit-related tropes at every opportuniti, but this one especially is taken to be a lie as a matter of coarse
- Class Trip - a visit to a farm and a trip on ye flying scotsman
- Corporal Punishment - This being a 1950s public skool, the kane is used ALL THE TIME.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive - grabber & grabber, purveyors of various dangerous-sounding toys to the tinys, and 1 stop shop for any Bland-Name Product required by the 'plot'
- Curb-Stomp Battle - always hapen to st. custard's on the foopball pitch. But with dere basil fotherington-tomas in goal, who sa "hullo, clouds, hullo sky" while huge centre-forward bear down on him and SHOT wistle past his nose, what else cud hapen?
- Down to the Last Play - parodied in one of molesworth's foopball-related daydreams
- Dreadful Musician -
- molesworth 2. When he pla fairy bells, the pore skool piano is never the same agane
- The boys put on a country danse during a parents open day, dragging the skool piano onto the skool field to do so. After Miss Pringle finish the song with a "WAM DUNK RILLY ME REE", the piano "burst into flames".
- Everybody Hates Mathematics - when he ask the point of maths molesworth is told that maths is a langwidge
- Fat Bastard - as molesworth himself sa "Every skool hav a resident buly who is fat and roll about the place clouting everybode."
- Funetik Aksent - not only molesworths speling of English, but when Armand from his french books sho up in britain in Back in the Jug Agane (and is not at all the wet weed molesworth thort he was) he speke English with one of these ("Zis where you live?" ect ect)
- Funny Foreigner - molesworth seme to spend his langwidge lessons imagining himself as 'molesvitch' or 'Don Jereth Molethworth' in a Theme Park Version of the relevant country.
- Girls Have Cooties - yes and no. Molesworth beleeve GURLS and boys shud not be in lessons together as gurls are teechers pets who spoil boys pranks, but by Back in the Jug Agane he sa he doesnt think they are disgusting as most boys his age think
- Gratuitous Latin - like most public skoolboys of the 1950s, molesworth never call his parents mum and dad, always mater and pater
- Henpecked Husband - when we see molesworths mater and pater, mater is always going on at pater for one thing or another such as how he did 0 during the war
- Homage - various day-dreams and piktorial interludes feature the adventures of 'interplanetary clot' captain molesworth in the style of Dan Dare and similar contemporary "Daring Space-Aces". The sheer number of such characters at the time is Lampshaded by the complaint that non of the various Parody Named Expys of the villains, such as the PUKON and his TREENS, are ever free for thwarting, being booked up till next year, chiz chiz ect
- It Came from the Fridge - One of the finest examples of nigels daethless pros and command of narative is "The Prunes are Revolting!", in wich the prunes served at the skool RISE UP and defy the boys and beaks in a campane stiled on brittish tales of the indian mutinny. This was more of an all-too-apt my dear coment on the taste of skool dinners in brittish skools at the time of riting than on their state of preservation, tho.
- Jerk Jock - grabber ma. is head of skool captane of everything (tho he hav no aktual skil at any sport, but a big fat cheque paid to GRIMES wil get you anything) and winner of the mrs joyful prize for rafia work and will tuough you up if you so much as giv him a funy look
- Last-Name Basis - as in aktual brittish skools of The '50s, boys and beaks alike are almost always adresed by last name only, tho we sometimes see a first name (basil fotherington-tomas, timothy peason ect ect). molesworth even habitually refer to his brother as "molesworth 2".
- Mad Mathematician - sigismund arbuthnot, “the mad maths master,” is 1 of the beaks. However, he appear simpli to be a, hem hem, EKSENTRIK teacher whose subjekt happen to be maths.
- The Münchausen - the masters at st custard's are hapy to talk for ages about there war heroics, but molesworth sa if they did even half of wot they sa they did in the war it wud hav been over by 1940. And gilibrand is gud at Spotting the Thread in there stories as his pater is a general.
- Nobody Likes a Tattletale - molesworth hav no time for snekes, for whom he consider NO FATE too bad, even growing up to become hon secretary of a tenis club.
- no punctuation is funnier - molesworth doesnt use apostrophes (except in the name of st custard's) tho he does aktually use full stops as normal.
- Off to Boarding School - wot hapen when you annoy your mater and pater too much
- Precocious Crush - hinted at, despite his general attitude, whenever molesworth mention Prudence Entwhistle the glamorous under-matron hem-hem
- Quicksand Sucks - molesworth mention in passing that this is a danger in the muddier parts of the foopball field.
- Right Way/Wrong Way Pair - parodied by one illustration: 'Are you an Eric or a Nigel?: A smug chart for sissies'. Eric (unlike Nigel) sit erect and chew his food at leisure becos the weed hav got up early.
- Rouge Angles of Satin - as you might hav already guessed from this article.
- Sadist Teacher - lots! GRIMES must reqwire it when he hire new beaks for st custard's, as they are all brutes who kane the boys for anything or even for 0
- Santa Claus - referred to as "father christmas", these being BRITISH stories, and thoroughly subverted, as molesworth is old and more to the point cynical enough to know THE TRUTH
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money! - grabbers pater is v. rich and giv GRIMES and all the masters a big fat cheque (and a bottle of beer for dere old matron) every yere so his son who hav no talent for skool or sport is stil head of skool captain of everything and win all the skool prizes esp. the mrs joyful prize for rafia work (the only thing he hav talent for)
- Self-Deprecation - amongst the swots, thugs, oiks, and usefull foopball players of st custards and suchlike skools, molesworth is one who no his limits.
- Sketch Comedy - in literary form. molesworths thorts on skool ect were first published in small peices in Punch magazine and only later colected into books
- Slasher Smile - in the illustrashuns, molesworth only ever hav three expreshuns: a realisticnote half-frown, a big smile when posing for photos - and a wide, truly happy grin when preparing for some act of violenss such as setting a big spiked man-trap for Santa Claus.
- Smoking Is Cool - molesworth and peason are but two of many boys who smoke cigs (tho it make them feel sick) behind the skool potting shed. molesworth sa there are so many cig. ends "It look as if the skool gardener must smoke 500 a day."
- Thin-Skinned Bully - dekonstructed as molesworth sa standing up to bulies just make them try harder:Everyone sa stand up to bulies they will run away but do not believe it. A lot of them stand still and then where are you eh? i will tell you you are in the duck pond and it is joly freezing
- Toy-Based Characterization - in a flashback, molesworth depict himself as a young child, smashing a model trane into 1000 pieces with a hamer. all as you would expect for a "huge lout with 0 branes."
- Two-Teacher School - GRIMES and sigismund the mad maths master are the only named beaks, though teachers of lat, fr, geog, hist ect are mentioned in passing.
- Unnecessary Roughness - wot else can anyone xpect on the sports field?
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist - not that nigel is ENTIRELY unworthy of pity but he is a PRODUK of his TIME and so is driven to SINASISM and VIOLENSS on okajun
- Vitriolic Best Buds - molesworth and peason argue a lot and tuough each other up continually but are grate frends.
