Drinking Corner with Jeeves
Triumvirate: Schall writing about a Wodehouse book for which Belloc provided by the introduction. The Week End Wodehouse. I gotta get this volume. Notable excerpt from Schall's essay: "What struck me on again reading Wodehouse was the central place smoking played in the everyday affairs of English gentlemen. If they still smoked cigars and cigarettes at the pace they did in Wodehouse, it would be enough to replant all of Virginia in tobacco. Tobacco is now a weed to be avoided at the cost of our lives. I do not recall one line in Wodehouse that ever hinted that smoking was anything but an innocent pleasure. We seem to have the resultant health but not the innocent pleasures. Our vices are redefined."
But Wodehouse didn't just refer to a lot of smoking. He also referred to a lot of drinking. One of Modern Drunkard Magazine's finest essays featured Wodehouse. I highly recommend it. Link. Funny stuff, through and through. Sample:
Jeeves is famous for two especial drinks. One is a corpse reviver for young men inflicted with what Wodehouse delicately calls “a morning head.” Wodehouse does not specify, but avers that this concoction will cure anybody short of an Egyptian mummy. The epitome of modesty, Jeeves confesses to Aunt Dahlia that he has never actually tried it on a corpse.
From what one gathers, it is a species of Bloody Mary fortified with unusually generous amounts of red pepper, Worcestershire Sauce and egg yolks.
Its initial, but only momentary disadvantage is to cause the eyeballs to pop from their parent sockets and to ricochet off the opposite wall. After the first sips, as Bertie puts it, “It felt as if someone had touched off a bomb inside the old bean and was strolling down my throat with a lighted torch.”
But after that, full health is restored and young gentlemen are ready for a luncheon of a dozen lamb chops and a battered pudding. “Young gentlemen,” Jeeves informs Bertie, “have told me that they have found it extremely invigorating after a late evening.”
Mystery Solved
TDE consistently receives 7,000 unique visitors every month. On average, about 7,400 different computers grace TDE with their digital presence. That's very good for a blog.
But I've always wondered, "Why isn't there more commentary?" When I check out comparable blogs, their comments boxes routinely have 10-15 comments every day, but TDE gets, on average, 2-3 a day. I'm not real good with the "comment box banter," so the dearth of comments doesn't bother me, except it always made me wonder if my stat counter was somehow inflating my numbers. My web guy (a brilliant kid who was accepted to Harvard) told me there's no way for it to happen, but it has always bothered me.
And then a few days ago, I was studying the traffic statistics and I noticed that I get a lot of traffic from bizarre sites (airjordanebaystore.com and miscellaneous gambling sites). I don't know why those sites are sending me traffic, but I think it's safe to say very few, if any, of those "visitors" stay for more than a nano-second. Another section of the traffic stats, however, shows people who use a bookmark or email link to come to TDE. The figure: about 45%. Another section shows people who come to TDE after doing an Internet search. Those folks comprise about 8% of TDE traffic.
So, I'm content to announce that, although TDE gets about 7,400 different visitors every month, only about 4,000 are coming here on purpose. That's still good. I appreciate everyone's continuing patronage, and I'm glad I have put this 3-year mystery to bed.
