A review:

“What joy: all the witty pleasure of “My Fair Lady” without the tiresome bursting into song. Lovely as that production certainly was, beautifully as it was restored, I find I much prefer the rapid-fire dry wit of this 1938 production of George Bernard Shaw’s 1916 play.

The story is a satire on class and language: two linguists bet cynically on the transformation of a Covent Garden flower seller into a fine lady through speech and appearance alone. Bent on immediate success, they fail to consider the consequences, and their once-unwashed protégée teaches them the casual selfishness of their act. (* * small spoilers from here * *) It’s also a rather modern romance, though I’ve read that Shaw hated this aspect of it and tried hard to neuter the theatre-goers’ burgeoning castle in the air, through an afterword. It clearly didn’t stick, which is why “My Fair Lady” was made and remains the much-adored classic it is today. Poor old Shaw. I don’t feel sorry for him – I’m romantic too.

Leslie Howard’s wonderfully eccentric and flawed Professor Higgins soon had me hanging on his every word, snorting with laughter as line after memorable line came rattling out at classic 30’s/40’s breakneck speed.

I’m British and have at least one eccentric uncle, and I can testify that his portrayal isn’t at all over the top. His alternately adoring and despairing mother treats him with weary tolerance; but she’s kinder than he is; less wilful and less blind, as his friend Colonel Pickering. But with Higgins’ many faults come great wit and intelligence, penetration, a constant challenge to anyone who cares to meet him half way.

But in an intensely class-conscious England where one minutely ‘knew one’s place’, for all his boastful assertions, he’s part of the same rigid social system that is more 1888 than 1938. He goes to the embassy balls, he knows just what to wear, he delights that his protégée is “talking to a Duchess”; and his magnificently arrogant and idle “you might marry, you know, I daresay my mother could find you someone” is something he’d never have said to a woman he truly thought of as an equal. But their need is symbiotic: for her to leave him, and make him recognise her as an equal, though she needed his education.

I love the point where she spells out to him how she sees their relationship. The camera, having previously been very British (i.e. it thinks it’s still at a play, fixed-distance, unswerving), suddenly swoons vertiginously close to Eliza while she tells him how much she loved being with him “all friendly-like”, and not because she wanted him to ‘make love to her’.

The camera switches back to Higgins, forced off his guard by this unexpected honesty and quiet dignity. “That’s exactly how I feel”, he says, and then, after a baffled pause, “and Eliza you’re a fool.” Only that’s exactly what at that moment she isn’t: and we all know it. It’s a crucial moment in the film: it’s funny and sad, and so is this story, really, whichever ending you choose (Shaw’s, or the film’s, or any ending the viewer wishes to dream up).

And Wendy Hiller! I’d never before known of her as a sparkling young actress. Of course she doesn’t have that pearly, matinée beauty – she has something better: the way emotions wash across her face; bright eyes and high cheekbones and a fleeting, occasional beauty that disappears when you look too hard for it.

Hiller herself, I believe, had elocution lessons, and her Eliza’s transformation is never entire: you always know that she’s playing a part beautifully which of course is just what ‘well-bred’ people are themselves carefully trained to do – look no further than the Queen for a modern-day example. No wonder Shaw himself championed Hiller. I’ve loved watching her lately in Powell & Pressburger’s outstanding 1945 “I Know Where I’m Going!”

I defy Shaw: I think they do love each other, but not with swirly-music romantic love. Theirs is more like the relationship of two artists, two dominant personalities who will fight a great deal, but may just produce great work, if they can stay together without cracking. For once, the cosy doors into the future are opening, not closing, and the future is unknown.

Shaw’s scenario was I think a signpost to the world we now live in, where Britain claims to be a meritocracy, nurturing its class awareness on the sly; and where the traditional sanctity of marriage is giving way to something more fluid and egalitarian.”

 

Steve: The Winter Solstice is the 21st of December this year. Something seasonal sung by the beautiful and very talented Candice Night … Blackmore’s Night – “Once Upon December”

JH: First a literal translation … very best folk group. Hundred summers to you, guys, you (plural) geniuses. A better way to put it revolves around 100 years. In Russia, that’s a trad sort of bravo, wishing you 100 years good life … in other words, the very best to you.

In short, there’s no fully adequate English equivalent. If that was written by a Russian, it’s praise indeed. However, he looks Ukie to me with the “chik” ending. Checking with the exgf.

(0857) Have I said morning all yet? Morning all. (1003)

 

15. Epstein files

As expected, promise again not fulfilled. As if it ever would be.

Problem I have with it all is how much the real paedoism is still hidden. If you were watching as I was, you would have seen that child with Obama in the boat and I do not mean Giuffre age, as are all officially released photos of them so far. This was a child of dark complexion … from where? Haiti? Maybe nine or ten years of age. That’s the issue, far more than in the Giuffre age cusp. We saw Roberts too but standing in the shallows, not with a child.

14. Second of a Steve double

I had no idea James Woods was Jewish or Israeli, maybe he’s not. I know our Julia is pro British but also sympathetic to Israel. MMutR is pro Israel military.

Complication with anything Jewish/Israeli, is that there are the real Jews and then Revelation 3:9 … wolves in sheep’s clothing. There’s the little complication as well of Christians being the most oppressed group worldwide, even by the whited sepulchres and mob they controlled.

This thing is not all straightforward.

13. First of a Steve double

Not entirely sure where this one was going, what Steve intended, but I’m thinking it was to show we have to be careful with sources. I’ve known for a long time that Newsmax has been iffy, not unlike GB News, Hannity, and a few others. The issue is when they present themselves as “of the right” or MAGA or pro Trump but in fact, they’re playacting, saying many good things but then failing to come in to support.

With Gateway Pundit, which we run each morning as part of the post item … well it’s clearly Jewish perspective … the Hoff Bros. As with Laura Loomer. So what? South Front is clearly Russophile, no question, as is Alex M.

What of me? Taught at a Jewish school, have been in a synagogue a few times in kippar, had a gf I think was Jewish but so secular, it did not really emerge. I’ve been close to a few Jewish ladies. I’ve also been in a mosque as a guest and went to Moscow with a Muslim high up in order to go to the British embassy to secure a visa for his daughter to our school. I’ve been to a local theatre in that city, theatre which was pro Bolgar and anti Rus, I’ve had two almost Mus gfs and two I was in the process of marrying at different times … such that my Uke mate was appalled … it was him or her. I chose him, ha ha. WN2 from some decades ago was Serb. I’ve been close to a French, Spanish, two Austrian girls. Brit of course, Canadian, Oz, NZ. With southern US friends. Obviously many Russian girls, one seriously.

Epoch Times … ultra Israel perspective, like Memri … again, so what? A known known. Problem is not them or those showing the Star of David … again, known known. Problem is those pretending to one thing, as a neutral purveyor of news … but they are not. In some cases in thrall to the corporates, so not religious in the least, or Masonic … and too often wrong, as Newsmax is.

Now, how is a reader to know unless we tell them? And as for me again … my first loyalty is to the Triune God, second to the Cross of St George, plus to the White Rose, plus friends with other home countries, plus Oz, southern US, NZ, Canada, France.

12. Another from this lady

11. DAD at 1237

a) Autonomy, Identity, and the Future of European Farming. Europe must acknowledge that agricultural diversity cannot be effectively governed through exclusively centralised instruments.

b) Tear gas and water cannons deployed against 10,000 farmers protesting in Brussels over Mercosur free trade agreement, which threatens to destroy Europe’s food security.

c) Italy’s last-minute pressure has exposed deep-seated discontent that turned the immediate signing of the treaty into a political risk for the European Union.

d) The UK Electoral Commission’s Statement……”We are disappointed by both the timing and substance of the statement. Scheduled elections should as a rule go ahead as planned, and only be postponed in exceptional circumstances. We are concerned by the possibility of some council elections in May being postponed, and even more by any further postponement to those which already had been deferred from 2025…”

e) NANTES – Again. Railway Police were on patrol at 7:40 p.m. on Monday, December 15, 2025, when they stopped an unaccompanied minor at Nantes train station. The teenager, who claimed to be 16 years old, was in possession of a 7.65 mm handgun with an empty magazine.

 

Also symptomatic of takeover by the asset-stripping mind … the predatory side of capitalism. The first video is by a most disgruntled real or AI voice … it goes on and in, ostensibly point by point, but actually repeating the same theme over and over.

So why watch it, why expebd this time? Because it has some great turns of phrase, succinct, along the way … so much so that I’m going to watch again and write a few down. And the malaise it describes is very much across the west today in this low moral compass society.

That was that but when a second video (below) emerged, I stopped, sat up and relooked at this thing.

Haven’t looked at this one yet but shall now over coffee.

(0618) DAD’s coming up in Sat 11. (0645)

 

10. Moosh corner

9. Why did she resign?

There are her stated reasons … and then there was Donny and the GOP passing her over for prime positions. Why? Incompetence? Maybe, couldn’t quite cut it, lacked the base, the funds … but there were also some dissident positions she’d taken.

8. Collusion?

7. Chemo and cancer

6. Over at OoL

https://orphansofliberty.blogspot.com/2025/12/of-false-flags-and-inability-of.html

(0428) Dawn still 3.5 hours away. (0451)

 

5. Locals should go for it, gather while it’s raining spuds

4. Let’s await more on this

3. Fancy going for a swim?

2. Steve at 1237

• RFK Jr. Unveils Sweeping Protections to Shield Children from Irreversible Gender Experiments
• The Lost Generation: Woke DEI, the End of Meritocracy, and the Rise of Mediocracy
• Migrants and Asylum Seekers Vandalizing and Disrupting Christmas Celebrations
• Trump Suspends ‘Green Card Lottery’ After Program Let Brown University–MIT Shooting Suspect Enter the US
• CNN Forced to Admit Inflation is Coming Down Under Trump: ‘No Other Way to Spin it’
• Putin marathon Q&A; conflict, theft and love. €90B “Loan” to [The] Ukraine.
• Protecting children online is a pretext for total digital surveillance
• Salvini Acquitted of All Charges in Open Arms Case
• Canada in Crisis: Angus Reid Poll Shows Plummeting Faith in Provincial Governments
• Much more.

(0415) There are 32 items redacted and compressed ready to go before even getting to Saturday, some of them longish and this standalone now may be the longest. (0427)

 

The mystery woman at the centre of the “scandal”

Couldn’t understand why she kept posting and had such a huge number following her utterances, why no pushback from those in high places.

(1513) Lengthy, slow build, quite a backlog of politics, also gym.

 

20. Moosh from the past

19. Steve at 1237 with war room

• Joe Allen And CPT Maureen Bannon Discuss The Threat Of Radical Islamic Terror In America

• Bannon: We Are A Christian Nation. There Are Many Muslims In This Country That Are Patriotic And Assimilate. But There Is A Significant Minority That Does Not And Plots Every Day! If I’m A Hater, Then I’m A Hater. They Must Go!

• Frank Gaffney: The Problem With What Tucker Is Saying Is That He Is Ignoring The Essence Of Authoritative Islam. It Is In The DNA Of The Political Ideology Of What Their Prophet Muhammad Taught. Jihad

18. See Fri 16

"Drugs from overdoses, fentanyl poisoning; In the second year of the Biden open border policies that allowed the cartels to flood our nation; 110,000 Americans were murdered by illicit drugs" @SebGorka https://t.co/gDboRgk4JZ pic.twitter.com/SKPMARhpL3

— Hearts of Oak (@HeartsofOakUK) December 19, 2025

17. The one demographic I’ve not defended all that much to date

… coz it’s me, my fellow lil tackers. Thing is though, I’m thinking of us in my day … hardly needed much defending … but today? Hmmmm … maybe there’s something to it, they seem motherised in single mother households or wimpy men agreeing to horrible things for the boy and govt taking an unhealthy interest.

16. Steve at 1237

Hearts of Oak: Dr Sebastian Gorka – Trump’s Triumphs: Obliterating Cartels, Muslim Brotherhood & Global Threats

15. Agreed … well done … if real of course

14. Non-Woke churches … huge need

13. My heart is certainly back then in many ways

12. The false pretences of war

I would certainly physically fight the enemy withing, should that time come and we could trust our higher uppers. As for o/s … got to be kidding right now.

(1337)(1348)

 

Assuming that, like me, all Google/you tube offerings at HQ are “server stopped responding” just now … this might be Ggl YT itself or else is an HQ prob, an internal gremlin. Whatever, expect disruptions today, patient patrons.

Meanwhile, here’s something which was on X:

Mary Miles Minter (born Juliet Reilly; April 25, 1902^[1][2]– August 4, 1984) was an American actress, and one of the leading ladies who established the early Hollywood star system.^[3] She appeared in 53 silent films from 1912 to 1923.

In 1922, Minter was involved in a scandal surrounding the murder of director William Desmond Taylor, for whom she professed her love. Gossip implicated her mother, former actress Charlotte Shelby, as the murderer, and as a result Minter’s reputation was tarnished. She gave up her film career in 1923.^[4]

JH: Tales such as that of Juliet Reilly here abounded in the tween wars period and tragedies also abounded, esp. for young women … a most interesting period.

 

“The 1960s saw a plethora of two kinds of spy movies: the outrageous semi-serious James Bond ripoffs (like the Flint and Matt Helm movies) and the very dry, methodical ones that were more talk than action (mostly John Le Carre and Alistair MacLean adaptations).

This is one of the better examples of the talky thrillers. Not that the movie is boring… there is lots of good, cat-and-mouse dialogue courtesy of playwright Harold Pinter. George Segal plays the hero, an undercover spy who goes to West Berlin to find out who killed his predecessor… who was on the trail of modern-day Nazis.

Segal has surprisingly little difficulty in finding himself right in the thick of things… being captured and drugged by the baddies… and even having time for a romance with a German schoolteacher who may know more than she lets on.

Parts of the movie reminded me a lot of the classic “The Third Man”… which I think the director was trying to emulate at times.

Well, this is not quite a classic of that caliber but it is a very well-written and smoothly-paced “old school” thriller. Segal makes a very cool lead… witty and sarcastic, yet with a vulnerable side, too.”