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Dad's Army

Dad's Army, first broadcast from 1968 to 1977, is a British sitcom about the Home Guard in World War II written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft. The show focuses on the Walmington-On-Sea platoon of the Home Guard, commanded by pompous bank manager. Captain Mainwaring, assisted by his mild-mannered chief clerk, Sergeant Wilson. Other members of the platoon include: Lance Corporal Jones, an enthusiastic old soldier who now runs a butcher shop; Private Frazer, a Scottish undertaker and former Naval CPO; Private Godfrey, the elderly medical orderly; Private Pike, a naïve teenager and, by some distance, the youngest member of the platoon; and Private Walker, a black marketeer. This motley band of men provide Walmington-on-Sea's last line of defence against the threat of invasion.

Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr. Hitler?

 * Lyrics by Jimmy Perry, music by Derek Taverner, performed by Bud Flanagan.

 * Who do you think you are kidding, Mr. Hitler
 * If you think we’re on the run?

 * We are the boys who will stop your little game!
 * We are the boys who will make you think again!

 * 'Cause, who do you think you are kidding, Mr. Hitler,
 * If you think old England’s done?

 * Mr Brown goes off to town on the eight twenty one,
 * But he comes home each evening and he’s ready with his gun.

 * [The following verse was omitted from the broadcast theme tune.]

 * So watch out, Mr Hitler,
 * You have met your match in us.
 * If you think you can crush us,
 * We're afraid you've missed the bus.

 * 'Cause who do you think you are kidding, Mr. Hitler,
 * If you think old England’s done?

"The Man and the Hour" [1.01]

 * [First lines. The episode opens in present-day Britain, this being 1968, and a group of people are sitting round a table as one man, Arthur Wilson, makes an introductory speech]
 * Wilson: And so... And so, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to introduce our guest of honour - one of Walmington-on-Sea's most distinguished citizens. A man of many parts. A banker, soldier, magistrate, alderman and secretary of the Rotary Club. A good fellow all round. Ladies and gentlemen, Alderman George Mainwaring!
 * [Everyone claps their hands as George Mainwaring stands up]
 * Mainwaring: Mr Chairman, Mr Town Clerk, ladies and gentlemen. When I was first invited to be guest of honour tonight at the launching of Walmington-on-Sea's I'm Backing Britain Campaign, I accepted without hesitation. After all, I have always backed Britain.
 * Frazer: Hear, hear!
 * Mainwaring: I got into the habit of it in 1940, but then we ALL backed Britain.
 * Wilson: Hear, hear.
 * Mainwaring: It was the darkest hour in our history. The odds were absurdly against us, but, young and old, we stood there, defiant, determined to survive, to recover and, finally, to win.
 * Walker: Hear, hear.
 * Mainwaring: News was desperate, but our spirits were always high.

"Museum Piece" [1.02]

 * Jones: Don't be like that dad, there's a war on.
 * Jones' Dad: Oh, I wondered what the noise was.

"The Enemy Within the Gates" [1.04]

 * Polish Officer: You're supposed to keep a look out like soldiers, not talk like old women. You will be reported for slacking - what are your names?
 * Jones: Jones, sir.
 * Pike: Pike, sir.
 * Walker: Smith.
 * Jones: Walker.
 * Walker: Oh, thanks very much.
 * Polish Officer: It's no good you try and give me falsies.

"Sgt. Wilson's Little Secret" [2.04]

 * [Note: "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker" (2.03), "A Stripe for Frazer" (2.05) and "Under Fire" (2.06) do not survive in the original versions. In 2019, they were remade with a new cast.]

"The Bullet Is Not For Firing" [3.04]

 * Vicar: Mr Mainwaring, if you can do your blood-curdling bayonet practice in the middle of my responses, I can do my Jubilate in the middle of your inquiry!

 * Jones: I was just going to give the order... just going to give the order... just going to give...
 * Mainwaring: What's the matter, Corporal?
 * Jones: I think I'm going, sir. I hear angels' voices!
 * Mainwaring: Those are not angels' voices; it's the choir in the office!
 * Jones: Well if that's what it's like to go, I like it, I like it!

 * Jones: Come on boys, show 'em [the platoon cock their guns and aim them upwards], enemy plane I said, just like you said Sir. Swing with the plane, boys, swing with the plane, aim just in front. And then I gave the order 'shoot'.
 * Mainwaring: No, no not 'shoot'; FIRE!
 * (BANG!)
 * (The platoon have instinctively followed the order and pulled the triggers on their guns, which were loaded, unknown to them. Pieces of debris rain down from the roof as the Vicar and Mr. Yeatman come rushing in)
 * Mr Yeatman: VANDALS!
 * Mainwaring: Shall we meet again at the same time, same place next week?

"The Day the Balloon Went Up" [3.08]

 * ''[In the church yard, Private Godfrey is holding onto a rope which is attached
 * Mr Yeatman: (off camera) Help!
 * Godfrey: Oh, excuse me, Mr. Yeatman. If you could manage to hang onto this a little longer, I'll try and summon assistance.
 * [His sister, Cissy, is also watching from the church yard]
 * Cissy: Mr. Mainwaring! Oh, Mr. Mainwaring, the verger has been taken from us.
 * Mainwaring: Don't worry. We'll soon have him under control. (Runs over to Private Godfrey)
 * Godfrey: I'm very glad you're here, sir. Something rather odd seems to have happened to the Verger.
 * [The other men join]
 * Jones: Don't panic! Don't panic, Mr. Mainwaring!
 * Mainwaring: No intentions of panicking. Just working out what to do.
 * Cissy: Vicar, I heard a voice from above.
 * Vicar: Yes, yes, very distressing for you, Miss Godfrey.
 * Cissy: I thought an angel from on high was visiting him.
 * Vicar: Well, you would naturally.
 * Cissy: And then he cried out unto me, "Help. I'm caught in this ruddy string."
 * Mainwaring: Come on, all of you. Grab this cable and heave. (The men grab hold of the cable that's tied to the barrage balloon) Come on, Godfrey.
 * Godfrey: (handing out the walking stick to Mainwaring) Would you mind holding this, sir?
 * Mainwaring: Oh, throw it away, man!
 * Jones: Don't panic now. Don't panic, anyone.
 * Mr Yeatman: (off camera) Well somebody had better panic. This is killing me!
 * Mainwaring: Hold on, Verger! Help is at hand! Right, heave!
 * Walker: Oi! Hey, hey, hey, hey! Oi! Hang on, Hang on! Look, it's twisted around that weathercock thing, round the steeple.
 * Mainwaring: Ah, so it is. (to Wilson) Sergeant Wilson!
 * Wilson: (from a distance off camera) Yes, coming, sir! (Exits the church tower) Coming, sir!
 * Mainwaring: You quickly run up the tower and then climb up the steeple.
 * Wilson: Oh, my God!
 * Frazer: There's no time for all that palaver. One good heave will bring it away. Come on, come on. Heave!
 * Wilson: Oh, that's done it.
 * Walker: Look out, Vicar!
 * [Sand falls on Cissy and the Vicar]
 * Cissy: Ohh. Oh, Vicar, do you think this is a judgement on us?
 * Vicar: You speak for yourself! I haven't done anything.
 * Mainwaring: Right, here he comes. Steady does it. Grab him. (The men pull Mr. Yeatman gently to the ground) That's it.
 * Walker: There you are, Verger.
 * Mainwaring: Right, undo him, Walker.
 * Walker: Right.
 * Mainwaring: Hang on, the rest of you.
 * Pike: You're all flushed.
 * Man: There we are, son.
 * Pike: How did it happen, Mr. Yeatman?
 * Mr Yeatman: Well I saw this cable thing wrapped round a lamp post.
 * Jones: Well, Let that be a lesson to you not to touch things that don't really concern you. You're a troublemaker, you're a troublemaker.
 * Mainwaring: Jones! Jones! Jones!
 * Walker: What are we gonna do?
 * Mainwaring: We're gonna hang on for a minute while we think what to do.
 * Godfrey: Perhaps if we all let go, suddenly it might might float away.
 * Mainwaring: Can't do that. If this cable goes across any high-tension wires, it could black out a whole county.
 * Frazer: We cannae hang on here for the rest of our bloomin' lives.
 * Wilson: Perhaps if we brought the whole thing down a bit further, we could grab onto the ropes attached to the balloon itself.
 * Mainwaring: Ah, that's a very good idea. Now when I tell you, heave.
 * Jones: I've got a good idea. If we brought it down a bit further, we could grab hold of the things which are attached to the balloon itself.
 * Mainwaring: Thank you, Corporal. Right, one, two, three...
 * Men: Heave!
 * Mainwaring: One more.
 * Men: Heave! Heave! Heave! Heave!
 * Mainwaring: Right, grab a rope, Pike! Walker!
 * Walker: Right, sir! Right, sir!
 * Mainwaring: Jones.
 * Jones: I'm going to grab hold of one of these, I am. (Grabs a rope that's attached to the barrage balloon)
 * Mainwaring: (off camera) Well done.
 * [Then, Mr. Hodges arrives and speaks to Private Walker]
 * Hodges: Oi! Oi! Who's in charge here?
 * Walker: Oi! Who are you knocking about?
 * Hodges: Where's Mainwaring?
 * Walker: He's piggy in the middle.
 * [Mr. Hodges walks up to Mainwaring]
 * Hodges: Just what sort of game do you think you're playing?
 * Mainwaring: One of these days, I'll have you suspended.
 * Hodges: Don't stand there muttering threats. Get that thing shifted! You should never have been allowed to bring it here in the first place.
 * Mainwaring: Now look here, Warden, this is a runaway barrage balloon, and we're trying to control it to prevent any further damage.
 * Hodges: Well, get on the phone to the RAF, then, instead of hanging on here like Winnie-the-Pooh.
 * Mainwaring: That's exactly what I aim to do.
 * Hodges: Well, hurry up then.
 * Mainwaring: Right, come along, Wilson.
 * Wilson: (off camera) Right, sir.
 * [Mainwaring lets go of his rope and everyone starts shouting]
 * Men: Hey! Hey!
 * Mainwaring: Vicar! Come and lend a hand with one of these ropes while we phone for help.
 * Vicar: Come along, Mr. Yeatman.
 * Mr Yeatman: No, Vicar. I'm not going up for a second time.
 * Walker: Oh, don't worry, Verger, lightning never strikes twice.
 * Mr Yeatman: It does in our family. I was one of twins.

"No Spring for Frazer" [3.13]

 * Having cleaned and returned a Lewis gun
 * Frazer: Thank goodness! I won't have to clean that thing for three weeks.
 * Mainwaring: That is not the right attitude to adopt, Frazer. You should consider it an honour and a privilege to use this Lewis gun.
 * Frazer: If it was a privilege, none of us would ever be getting a look in; you and the Sergeant would be doing it all the time.
 * Mainwaring: That'll do. That'll do. The butterfly spring seems to be missing from here Frazer.
 * Frazer: What? Oh aye. So it is. I must have left it in me workshop.
 * Mainwaring: Your workshop?
 * Frazer: Aye. I took the gun home to be cleaned.
 * Mainwaring: Look. For a start you've got no right to take that gun off these premises. Most of all that gun is totally useless without its butterfly spring. If a Nazi Storm Trooper came rushing in through that door you could do nothing with that, but hit him with it.
 * Jones: Permission to speak sir. If Frazer were to hit him with it, it wouldn't half make his eyes water.

"Boots, Boots, Boots" [4.03]

 * [Captain Mainwaring and his men are parading in the church hall]
 * Mainwaring: So to sum up. Whatever form of transport we use, whether it be bicycles, Jones' van, or any other form of vehicular transport, the whole thing boils down to one thing in the end - the three Fs. Fast feet, functional feet and, last but not least, fit feet. I have got here two diagrams issued by the Royal Army Medical Corps... (Opens a diagram of someone's foot) and the first one... (Shows his men the diagram) ...shows what a good foot should be. Now, take the first metatarsal here... (Points to the first metatarsal)
 * Jones: Permission to speak, sir?
 * Mainwaring: Yes?
 * Jones: I am not formed as other men, sir. My foot's not the same as that, sir.
 * Walker: Blimey, don't tell me they're webbed!
 * Mainwaring: All right. That'll do, Walker. (to Jones) In what way is your foot different, Jones?
 * Jones: Well, sir, I haven't got a first meta meta... I've got a big toe there, sir.
 * Mainwaring: Metatarsal is the medical term for toe, Jones.
 * Jones: Thank you very much, sir.
 * Mainwaring: We have the first metatarsal, second metatarsal, third metatarsal, fourth metatarsal, and last but not least...
 * Walker: The little piggy that went wee-wee-wee-wee-wee all the way home.
 * Wilson: (Laughs)
 * Mainwaring: Not really a laughing matter, Wilson.
 * Wilson: Well, funny.
 * Mainwaring: Hold that for a minute. (Gives Wilson the other rolled up diagram)
 * Wilson: Right, sir, yes.
 * [Mainwaring shows the men the diagram again]
 * Mainwaring: Now, you see how perfectly the line of the boot is, no pinching and no cramping. Now, in contrast to that, I'm going to show you something rather nasty. (to Wilson) Show them your foot, Wilson.
 * Wilson: I beg your pardon?
 * Mainwaring: Unroll your foot.
 * Wilson: Well, I really I don't quite...
 * Mainwaring: The di... Let them see the diagram!
 * Wilson: Why didn't you say so, sir? It's quite simple. (Unrolls the other diagram that was issued by the RAMC which is of a ravaged foot)
 * Mainwaring: Now there you see what can happen in a really bad-fitting shoe. So obviously, the first thing I'm going to do is check your boots and see that your feet fit into them properly.
 * Wilson: Right, sir.
 * Mainwaring: Right, Sponge. (Inspects Private Sponge's left foot and feels the left boot) Yes, yes, that seems all right... all right. Pike.
 * [Private Pike sticks his left foot out and Mainwaring inspects his left boot]
 * Pike: Are my metatarsals fighting fit?
 * Mainwaring: Yes, they're very good, Pike. (Gets up) Very goo... good indeed.
 * Wilson: All right, sir?
 * Mainwaring: Yes, thank you, Sergeant. (Turns to Godfrey and feels his left boot) Godfrey, ohh. Put your foot up, Godfrey. (Godfrey raises his left foot) No, higher than that. (Godfrey raises his foot a bit more but he starts to wobble and gets hold of Mainwaring) Whoa! Oh! (to Wilson) Get me a chair. Get me a chair.
 * Wilson: Chair, er, Pike, please.
 * [Pike goes to get a chair]
 * Godfrey: None of us are getting any younger, are we, sir?
 * Mainwaring: Look to your front! (Pike returns with a chair) ...Long time since that happened... (Godfrey sits on the chair, but then Mainwaring turns to him) That chair's to put your foot on, Godfrey.
 * Godfrey: Oh, I'm so sorry. (Stands up and puts his left foot on the chair)
 * Mainwaring: Yes, well that seems all right, yes. That should carry you a good 20 miles.
 * Godfrey: Thank you for your confidence, sir.

"Don't Fence Me In" [4.05]

 * (Trying to find someone to open the door of a prisoner of war camp)
 * Jones: Is anybody there? Is anybody there? If you are not there, say so.

"The Test" [4.10]

 * Watching Hodges' opening bowler walking to his mark
 * Mainwaring: Where is he going?
 * Hodges: It's when he comes to you, you want to worry. That ball leaves his hand at ninety five miles an hour. This guy would've been playing for England if the war hadn't started. ("The Bowler" is played by former England fast bowler Fred Trueman).
 * Mainwaring: What?
 * Hodges: I'm gonna enjoy this.
 * (The Bowler runs in and Mainwaring is beaten for pace and knocked off his feet)
 * Hodges: (Laughing) Enjoying yourself, Mainwaring?
 * Mainwaring: He's not bowling at the stumps. He's bowling at me.

"A. Wilson (Manager)?" [4.11]

 * [Mainwaring has just received two phone calls informing him that Wilson has been made manager of the Eastgate branch and Wilson has been commissioned. Shortly afterwards the phone rings again]
 * Mainwaring: Yes, Mainwaring here.
 * Vicar: Good Morning Mr. Mainwaring, Vicar here.
 * Mainwaring: What are you going to tell me about Wilson; that he's been made Archbishop of Canterbury?

"Uninvited Guests" [4.12]

 * [Captain Mainwaring has gone into the Vicar's office to have a word with Mr Hodges]
 * Mainwaring: Now look here, Hodges.
 * Hodges: No, you look here, Mainwaring. My headquarters has been put out of action and I have official permission to use these premises here.
 * Mainwaring: On whose authority?
 * Hodges: See for yourself. (Opens a piece of paper) There you are. (Passes the paper onto Mainwaring) Now I'm, I'm a reasonable sort of man. I know you and I've had our differences in the past, but we are both on the same side and I want to be generous. I don't want to, er, well, I don't want to er, you know, be stand-offish and uh, I'm prepared to go shares with you. So I'll tell you what I'm going to do. Now, this half here with your chair, you can have. This half here is me. Right? Draw a line here like this. Got it? (Uses some chalk to draw a line) Here we are, down the wall.
 * Mainwaring: Just a moment. What are you doing?
 * Hodges: Now now, Mainwaring, when it comes to the desk, you keep your stuff over there, and I'll keep my stuff over here, alright? (Draws a chalk line on the desk)
 * Mainwaring: How dare you mark my desk? (Rubs the chalk line off the desk using a cloth)
 * Hodges: I'm only trying to fair and reasonable.
 * Mainwaring: Rub this out at once.
 * Hodges: Then I shall chalk in again. I can chalk quicker than you can rub, mate.

 * [Inside the church hall, Captain Mainwaring and his men are continuing their lecture with tin cans and pieces of string]
 * Mainwaring: Now, you're not going over when I say "over". So let's do it in turns, shall we? All my file will say it first, and then Wilson's file say it after. Right, one, two, three. (Speaks through his can) Over.
 * Men on Wilson's side: Over.
 * Men on Mainwaring's side: Over.
 * Men on Wilson's side: Over.
 * Mainwaring: That's better.
 * Jones: I think I've got the hang of it, sir. Can I do it on my own?
 * Mainwaring: We're not quite ready for that, Jones.
 * Jones: Oh, let me go solo, let me go solo sir.
 * Mainwaring: Oh, very well.
 * Walker: This should be good.
 * Jones: (speaks through his tin) Hello, all stations. Charlie One. Hello, all stations. Charlie One. Report my signals, all stations. Charlie One. Over.
 * Walker: (off camera) Blimey.
 * Mainwaring: That was very good, Jones.
 * Jones: Thank you, sir.
 * Mainwaring: Excellent. You got that quite correct.
 * Jones: Thank you very much, sir. I bet they all thought I couldn't do that.
 * Pike: You did it beautiful.
 * Jones: Yeah, I'm not such a fool as I may think I am.

 * [after talking (for a considerable time) about how he had seen a curse]
 * Frazer: DEATH! THE RUBY WILL BRING YE DEATH! DE-E-ATH!
 * Pike: Did the curse come true, Mr. Frazer?
 * Frazer: Aye son it did, he died....last year, he was 86.

"Fallen Idol" [4.13]

 * Drinking game in the officers' mess: being made a Cardinal
 * Mainwaring: (tipsy) Here's to the health of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
 * Square: (laughs) What's that got to do with it?
 * Mainwaring: It's all the same thing. It's all religious, isn't it?
 * Square: It's the wrong denomination.
 * Mainwaring: Wrong denomi-...nomination?
 * Square: Yes, it's RC. You wanted C of E.
 * Mainwaring: Yes. Right. (raises his glass) Here's to the health...of the Duchess of York...who's a friend of Cardinal Puff-Puff-Puff-Puff!

"Keep Young and Beautiful" [5.02]

 * [Sergeant Wilson is waiting for Godfrey, Frazer and Jones to fall in as quickly as possible]
 * Wilson: Come on. Come on, gents, hurry up, hurry up. Come on. Come on, Godfrey.
 * [Privates Godfrey and Frazer enter with makeup and black hair and join the platoon. Then, Lance-Corporal Jones comes in with black hair and looks at Sergeant Wilson]
 * Jones: Oh, there you are.
 * Wilson: Over there.
 * Jones: Oh, right. (Joins the platoon, but he stands in front of Frazer)
 * Wilson: All right, Jones, fall in. Quick as you can. Come on.
 * Walker: Come on, Jonesy. Come on. (Drags Corporal Jones into position) In you get.
 * Jones: I'm sorry, Sergeant. Only without my specs, I'm a bit hard of seeing.
 * Wilson: Yes, of course. Right, squad. (Jones stamps his foot) Wait for it, Jones.
 * Jones: I'm sorry, Sergeant, I'm a bit too alert this morning.
 * Wilson: Yes, of course you are. Right, squad, attention!
 * [The platoon stamps their feet, with Jones doing it last]
 * Jones: Is that better?
 * Wilson: No, it wasn't really much better, but it doesn't matter. (to Mainwaring who comes in) Platoon ready for your inspection, sir.
 * Mainwaring: Thank you, Sergeant. Now, I think you all know me well enough to know that this inspection by the Area Commander is very much against my wishes. However, orders are orders. But if any of you are urged to join the ARP against your wishes, I shall complain to the very highest authority possible.
 * Men: Thank you very much, sir.
 * [Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson start inspecting the men, with Private Pike going first]
 * Mainwaring: I think you'll be all right, Pike.
 * Pike: Yes, sir.
 * Mainwaring: And you, Walker. (Goes to Jones) And... Who is this?
 * Wilson: I think that's Jones, sir.
 * Mainwaring: Jones? What on earth have you been doing to yourself?
 * Jones: I didn't want to leave you, Captain Mainwaring, nor these brave troops that you captain and I lance corporal. Private Frazer's fixed me up.
 * Mainwaring: What's the meaning of this, Frazer?
 * Frazer: (Mutters)
 * Walker: What did Horace say, Winnie?
 * Jones: He's not speaking very plainly this afternoon, sir, on the account that his cheeks is puffed up with cotton wool.
 * Mainwaring: Did you know about this?
 * Wilson: Yes, I did, sir, but I turned a blind eye to it.
 * Mainwaring: Well, you've no business to. I'm the only one with authority to turn blind eye. (Goes over to Godfrey who has put makeup on) God. Godfrey? Whatever's happened to you?
 * Godfrey: Well, it's Mr. Frazer's fluid, sir. It stretches the skin.
 * Mainwaring: This is ridiculous. He looks like Madame Butterfly. (to Godfrey) Get it off at once!
 * Godfrey: I don't think I can, sir.
 * Mainwaring: How long does it last, Frazer?
 * Frazer: (Mutters)
 * Mainwaring: What did he say?
 * Jones: He says he's never dug anyone up to have a look.
 * [Then, Mr Hodges walks in]
 * Hodges: Ah, there you are, Napoleon.
 * Mainwaring: How dare you barge in here like that in the middle of parade! What do you want?
 * Wilson: Clear off, will you?
 * Hodges: I just wanted you to know, if you've got any ideas about getting me into your shower, forget it. Look. (Removes his helmet to reveal that his hair is now white)
 * Mainwaring: Very distinguished.
 * Hodges: Not bad, eh?
 * Walker: Wait till he tries to get it off.
 * Mainwaring: I can't think why you went to all that trouble.
 * Hodges: Why? Because I'd rather look 107 than serve under you. That's why.
 * Mainwaring: I see. Pity it doesn't show under the hat.
 * Hodges: Well, what if it doesn't? I'll stoop. That's what I'll do, I'll stoop a bit. Yes, stoop. (The men start talking) They're not getting me into your squad, Mainwaring. The way I'm going on parade, they wouldn't even have me in the Chelsea Pensioners.
 * [The men start talking again until Captain Mainwaring speaks]
 * Mainwaring: Now I don't approve of this ridiculous charade, but it's too late to do anything about it. So be it on your own heads.
 * Wilson: That was rather witty, sir.
 * Mainwaring: Carry on, sergeant.
 * Wilson: Aye, sir. (Turns to the platoon) Attention. Platoon, left, turn. (The platoon turns left) By the right, quick march. Left wheel. (The men start marching as Jones walks up to Mainwaring)
 * Mainwaring: That way, Corporal. (Turns Jones round so that he follows the others)

"Round and Round Went the Great Big Wheel" [5.12]
Mainwaring is not surprised to hear Wilson defending Captain Stewart
 * Mainwaring: You both went to public schools, didn't you?
 * Wilson: You know, I can't help feeling, Sir, you've got a little bit of a chip on your shoulder about that.
 * Mainwaring: There's no chip on my shoulder, Wilson. I'll tell you what there is on my shoulder, though: three pips, and don't you forget it.

"Time on My Hands" [5.13]

 * German airman: Bitte, mein Herr! Oh, bitte, bitte! (Please, sir! Oh, please, please!)
 * Jones: It's no good trying to apologise.
 * German airman: Schnell! Schnell! (Quick! Quick!)
 * Jones: Never mind about the smell. That's got nothing to do with it.

"The Deadly Attachment" [6.01]

 * Video version, on Youtube
 * German U-boat Captain: I am making notes, Captain, and your name will go on the list; and when we win the war you will be brought to account.
 * Captain Mainwaring: You can write what you like; you're not going to win this war!
 * U-boat Captain: Oh yes, we are.
 * Mainwaring: Oh no, you're not.
 * U-boat Captain: Oh yes, we are!
 * Pvt. Pike: [Singing] Whistle while you work, Hitler is a twerp, he's half-barmy, so's his army, whistle while you work!
 * U-boat Captain: Your name will also go on the list! What is it?
 * Mainwaring: Don't tell him Pike!
 * U-boat Captain: Pike!

 * Later on, after the tables have turned courtesy of a foolish mistake by Hodges, the platoon are ordered to accompany the German crew on their boat, to protect them from the Navy (who will not blow up their boat if there are British men aboard):
 * U-boat Captain: When we arrive in France, you will be MY prisoners and then - we shall examine the List!

 * U-boat Captain: Just to make sure, Captain, that your behaviour is correct, this old man will march in front of me [puts grenade down Jones' trousers with string attached to pin]. One false move from you...and I pull the string!
 * Jones: Oh...don't make any false moves Mr Mainwaring, and don't make any real ones either!
 * U-boat Captain: Seven seconds will be enough for me to get clear, but I don't think it is enough time for the old man to unbutton his tunic.
 * Frazer: A terrible way to die!
 * Mainwaring: (to the U-boat captain) You unspeakable swine!

"The Honourable Man" [6.05]

 * [The Vicar is riding his bicycle along a country lane when Sergeant Wilson speeds past him on the motorbike, causing him to cycle into the grass beside the road. He then gets off his bicycle]
 * Vicar: Ooh, you silly man!

"The Recruit" [6.07]

 * (about Mr Yeatman)
 * Frazer: He has a face like a sour prune.

 * The Vicar has just joined the platoon, and Mainwaring is not happy about it.
 * Vicar: Could I stand by and watch my wife being raped by a Nazi? Finally I said to myself, no I couldn't.
 * Mainwaring: But you're not married.
 * Vicar: I have a very vivid imagination.

 * [Captain Mainwaring and his platoon have returned to the church hall after their evening duty]
 * Frazer: Ah, sir. He's a cheeky, wee devil. He deserved a good skelping.
 * Mainwaring: Thank you, Frazer. (to Wilson) All right, if you've got all the details down, Wilson, I'll sign it, and we can put it on record. Although, from my experience in these matters, that's the last we shall hear of it.
 * Wilson: Yes.
 * [Then, Mr. Hodges enters the hall with the Scottish boy who has turned out to be his nephew Hamish]
 * Hodges: Right, Mainwaring, get your jacket off and come outside!
 * Mainwaring: (Turns to Hodges and Hamish) What are you talking about? How dare you come barging in here?
 * Hodges: Hamish. Repeat what you just told me.
 * Hamish: (points to Mr. Yeatman with his newspaper) That's the one, Uncle Willy. He hit me time and time again.
 * Mainwaring: (off camera) Uncle Willy?
 * Man in Platoon: Uncle Willy?
 * Hodges: Oh.
 * Hamish: (points to Jones) And he pointed his bayonet at me! (Turns to Mainwaring) And that fat, pompous one said (Plummy accent) "Just run along or my sergeant will put his belt across your backside."
 * Hodges: Yeah, so that's your mark, isn't it, Mainwaring? Bullying little boys. Why don't you pick on someone your own size? Come on, try having a go at me. Come on. Come on.
 * Mainwaring: Hold my glasses, Wilson. (Gives his glasses to Sergeant Wilson) All right.
 * Jones: Just a minute, sir. Allow me, sir! Don't you tangle with him in your crippled state. I'll do it for you, sir.
 * Frazer: No, no, Jonesy. Man, you're too old, too old. Here. (Starts acting like a fighter) Come on, put them up, put them up.
 * Hodges: Oh, yes, that's very nice, that's very nice, that is. Yeah, eight against one.
 * Pike: No, it's only seven. I'm not feeling very well.
 * Hodges: (Points to the platoon) Right, that settles it. I'm bringing a charge. I'm having you all up in court. You'll hear a few home truths there.
 * Hamish: They're a laughing stock, aren't they, Uncle?
 * Hodges: Yeah, course they are. Laughing stock.
 * Hamish: Playing at soldiers, that's all they can do.
 * Hodges: Playing at soldiers, that's it.
 * Hamish: (about Jones' sausages) And his sausages are all bread.
 * Hodges: Yeah, all bread. All bread!
 * Jones: My sausages are not! (to Mainwaring) Well, you can't get the meat, you know, sir.
 * Mainwaring: All right.
 * Hodges: Tell them, Hamish.
 * Hamish: You should hear me and my mates laugh when you come on church parade. (Turns to Godfrey) And his hobbling around with his Red Cross handbag.
 * Hodges: (to Godfrey) Yeah, you and your Red Cross handbag. (Laughs) Yeah.
 * Hamish: They're almost as funny as the wardens!
 * Hodges: That's right, they're almost as... (to Hamish) What did you say?
 * Hamish: Well, you with your white hat and your flat nose and your "left, right!".
 * Hodges: Ooh, you cheeky little whippersnapper! (Starts chasing Hamish) You wait till I get you outside! I'll give you a flat nose!
 * Mainwaring: Ha ha ha. Well I should think that's the last we've heard of that. (Clears his throat) Although one thing is quite clear. If you, Vicar, and you, Verger, had dealt with that matter in a proper military fashion in the first place, this occurrence would never have happened.
 * Vicar: Oh, I see. It's all my fault, is it?
 * Mr Yeatman: So it's His Reverence's fault, is it?
 * [The Vicar and Mr. Yeatman walk up to Mainwaring]
 * Vicar: Well, as far as I'm concerned, it just goes to show how very silly the whole thing is. I'm fed to the teeth with the whole lot of you. You can keep your silly gun... (Drops his gun and takes his hat off) and your silly hat... (Starts removing his tunic) and your silly tunic! (Walks away, but Mr. Yeatman stops him)
 * Mr Yeatman: Oh, what about the silly trousers?
 * Vicar: I'll send them 'round in the morning. Oh, come along. (He and Mr. Yeatman leave)

"A Man of Action" [7.02]

 * [Mainwaring and Wilson enter the Vicar's office where the Vicar, Mr. Yeatman, Mr. Hodges, Inspector Baker and a fireman are all bickering]
 * Hodges: We can't get anywhere. We're all talking at once, we won't get anywhere! (Sees Mainwaring) Ah, where have you been? Don't you know there's an emergency on?
 * Mainwaring: How dare you hold a meeting in my office without my permission?
 * Vicar: This happens to be MY office, Captain Mainwaring.
 * Mainwaring: It also happens to be my office.
 * Hodges: And it also happens to be my office, and I'm holding an emergency meeting.
 * Mainwaring: Emergency. What emergency?
 * Vicar: Oh. Do you mean to say you haven't heard? Oh, uh, you know Inspector Baker and Fire Officer Dale.
 * Mainwaring: Yes.
 * Wilson: How awfully nice to see you. It was fun last night, wasn't it? You know, Connie wears awfully well, doesn't she?
 * Mainwaring: Never mind about Connie. (to Hodges) What's happening here?
 * Hodges: What's happened? A land mine has landed on the railway line, just outside the town.
 * Inspector Baker: Fortunately, nobody was seriously hurt, but it's destroyed over 100 yards of railway track!
 * Hodges: And the town's gas and water supplies have been cut off!
 * Fire Officer Dale: And if those Jerry planes drop any firebombs, we've had it.
 * Mainwaring: This is serious, I'm getting on to GHQ.
 * Hodges: Look, the telephone lines are down as well. That's no good.
 * [Mr Gordon enters]
 * Mr Gordon: I've just heard the news! No gas, no water, no telephones! The town's cut off! We're marooned! Marooned! What are we going to do?
 * Mainwaring: All right, all right, Mr Town Clerk. No need to get into a panic.
 * Mr Gordon: I'm not in a panic! But somebody's got to do something.
 * [Everyone starts arguing while Mainwaring and Wilson go over to a quieter part of the office]
 * Mainwaring: Something's got to be done, Wilson.
 * Wilson: Certainly has, sir.
 * Mainwaring: There's only one thing for it. I shall have to take charge.
 * Wilson: I quite agree, sir.
 * Mainwaring: That's just the sort of remark I'd expect... What did you say?
 * Wilson: I said "I quite agree, sir." Without you in charge, God knows what's going to happen to this town. I'm right behind you.
 * Mainwaring: Thank you, Wilson.
 * Wilson: Not at all, sir. Don't mention it.
 * Mainwaring: Now get Frazer, Jones and Godfrey in here.
 * Wilson: Sir.
 * Mainwaring: At the double.
 * Wilson: Right, sir.
 * Mainwaring: Rifles and bayonets.
 * [Wilson goes out into the hall and calls for Frazer, Jones and Godfrey]
 * Wilson: Frazer! Jones! Godfrey! In here at the double! Rifles and fixed bayonets! (Goes back into the office and speaks to Mainwaring) There you are, sir. How was that?
 * Mainwaring: I can hardly believe my ears. Is this really you?
 * Wilson: Yes, sir, it's really me, yes. When the occasion demands, I can bawl and shout just like you.
 * [Mainwaring goes over to the Vicar]
 * Mainwaring: Now, Vicar! Vicar, I'm very sorry to do this. Corporal Jones.
 * Jones: Sir.
 * Mainwaring: Frazer.
 * Frazer: Here.
 * Mainwaring: Clear my desk.
 * Jones: Clear the desk, clear the desk. (Threatens Mr Yeatman with a bayonet)
 * Mr Yeatman: How dare you threaten His Reverence with a bayonet?
 * Jones: He's not the only one who's being threatened. Now you clear off, mate.
 * Vicar: I think we better humour him, Mr Yeatman. It's quite obvious Captain Mainwaring has gone mad!
 * Mainwaring: Right, form in a tight group behind me.
 * Jones: In a tight group behind the captain! At the double, march!
 * Frazer: Right.
 * [Frazer, Jones and Godfrey form a group behind Mainwaring, albeit too tightly]
 * Wilson: All right, sir?
 * Mainwaring: Not as tight as that! Get their attention!
 * Frazer: Cap'n Mainwaring! Aroo! Aroo! Aroo, you Han Sassenachs! Aroo!
 * Mainwaring: All right, all right, Frazer.
 * Wilson: All right, Frazer, that's enough. Captain Mainwaring would like to make an announcement.
 * Mainwaring: As from now, this town is under martial law.
 * Everyone: Martial law?
 * Hodges: What's that mean?
 * Mainwaring: I am now taking over.
 * Hodges: Ooh! Ooh! He's been leading up to this for years, and now he's finally done it! Well, you won't get away with this, Napoleon! (Turns to Inspector Baker) Inspector, arrest that man!
 * [Inspector Baker stands up]
 * Inspector Baker: Captain Mainwaring, you, you really can't do this, you know. I mean, after all, if anyone should take charge, the police should. Anyway, where's your authority?
 * [Mainwaring places a gun on the desk]
 * Mainwaring: There's my symbol of authority. And I have 15 fully-armed men behind me. What have you got?
 * Inspector Baker: Well, there's me and my sergeant, two constables...
 * Fire Officer Dale: Yeah, that's right, Dick and George.
 * Inspector Baker: That's right, Dick and George.
 * Mr Cheeseman: Captain Mainwaring, man of action! I'm right behind you, boy. The power of the press, remember. The power of the press!
 * Mainwaring: Thank you, Mr Cheeseman.
 * Mr Cheeseman: Yes.
 * Mainwaring: Sergeant Wilson.
 * Wilson: Sir?
 * Mainwaring: Bring some paper and pencils.
 * Wilson: Aye, sir.
 * Mainwaring: The rest of you, follow me.

 * Mainwaring: No liquor is to be taken without my permission.
 * Frazer: Hold on! That is undemocratic!
 * Mainwaring: You, Frazer, will be in charge of all liquor permits.
 * Frazer: I'm right behind you, Cap'n!

"Gorilla Warfare" [7.03]

 * Frazer: Would you like to hear the story of the old, empty barn?
 * Mainwaring: Um. Yes, yes, ehh yes, it might put us in a good mood before we go to sleep. Pay attention everybody. Private Frazer is going to tell us the story of the old empty barn. Carry on Frazer.
 * Frazer: Right. The story of the old, empty barn. Well. There was nothing in it.
 * Mainwaring (To Godfrey) You can't move swiftly across country loaded down with that.
 * Fraser: He couldn't move swiftly across country stark naked.
 * Pike: Uncle Arthur, Captain Mainwaring's just gone past with a monkey on his back.

"The Captain's Car" [7.05]

 * [Mr. Hodges, Captain Mainwaring, Sergeant Wilson and Private Pike go outside the church to check out the camouflaged Rolls-Royce 20/25]
 * Mainwaring: Look at that, Wilson.
 * Wilson: Yeah.
 * Hodges: You shouldn't have it by rights! She would have given it to me if you hadn't shoved your oar in.
 * Mainwaring: Magnificent, isn't it, Wilson?
 * Wilson: Yes.
 * Mainwaring: Look at that craftsmanship, eh? British throughout. Show me the French car that could match that.
 * Pike: Yeah, or a Yankee one.
 * Mainwaring: As indeed you say, Pike, or a Yankee one.
 * Wilson: I must say, it looks awfully good as a staff car.
 * Mainwaring: I'll say it looks good. I'll bet there isn't another one like this in the whole of the British Isles.
 * [But then, a second camouflaged car comes down the street]
 * Mainwaring: Great Scott! What's that?
 * Pike: It's twins.
 * [The sound of a honking horn is heard as the car pulls up behind Mainwaring's car. Inside it are Lance-Corporal Jones and Private Frazer]
 * Jones: Look at that, Mr Frazer. They've got another one.
 * Frazer: Aye. Typical Mainwaring. One on and one in the wash.
 * Mainwaring: (Where did you get that car, Wilson?
 * Wilson: Outside the Town Hall with Angela's chauffeur.
 * Mainwaring: Then where did that one come from, Jones?
 * [Godfrey comes out to speak to Mainwaring]
 * Godfrey: Captain Mainwaring, I...
 * Mainwaring: Yes?
 * Godfrey: I'm sorry to bother you, but the town clerk is on the telephone. He wants to speak to you rather urgently. It seems the Mayor has lost his Rolls-Royce.
 * [Mainwaring goes inside the church hall to answer the telephone]
 * Pike: Uncle Arthur?
 * Wilson: Yes?
 * Pike: Do you think the Mayor's going to be cross with Mr. Mainwaring for putting dirty brown paint all over his Rolls-Royce?

"Ring Dem Bells" [8.01]

 * The platoon has gone into a pub dressed as Nazis, without Mainwaring's permission
 * Jones: We shouldn't do this, Sergeant Wilson.
 * Wilson: Well, what are you going to have?
 * Jones: A pint.

 * Landlord: Good morning, Gentlemen. What can I get...(turns and sees the platoon dressed as Nazis)
 * Pike: (in a German accent) Gut afternoon, mein host. 16 shandies mit the ginger beer.
 * Landlord: (stammers) Pints or 'alves?
 * Pike: Pints!

"When You've Got to Go" [8.02]

 * Mainwaring: This really is most awkward, isn't it, Wilson?
 * Wilson: I really do feel very deeply for you.
 * Mainwaring: Look, couldn't you help us out?
 * Wilson: I'm terribly sorry.
 * Mainwaring: You must realise how embarrassing a situation this is for me.
 * Wilson: Well, can't you and Frank go round again?
 * Pike: I think Mum wanted to come, but she's ever so upset at losing me. I'm all she's got, you know. That's why she was a bit off with Uncle Arthur when he asked her.
 * Mainwaring: Oh, you did ask, then?
 * Wilson: Yes.
 * Pike: At breakfast.
 * Wilson: Frank.
 * Pike: I think she was going to say yes, that is until Uncle Arthur mentioned that there was a sort of burnt taste about the... that porridge, so she picked up the pan and poured it in his Homburg hat. They haven't spoken since.
 * Mainwaring: You take my advice. Whomever you marry, take a very firm stand with your wife from the outset.
 * Pike: Start as you mean to go on, eh?
 * Mainwaring: That's right.
 * Pike: I'll remember that.
 * Mainwaring: Good lad.
 * Pike: Mrs Mainwaring coming? I said is Mrs Mainwaring coming? (Pulls a silly face)
 * Mainwaring: Y'know, you're going to have to do something about that habit of yours.
 * Pike: What habit?
 * Mainwaring: This. (Pulls a silly face like Pike just did)
 * Pike: What? (Mainwaring pulls the silly face again) Do I do that?
 * Mainwaring: Almost at the end of every sentence you go... (Pulls the silly face)
 * Pike: Oh, how awful. Oh, thank you for telling me, Mr. Mainwaring. (Pulls the silly face)

 * [Lance-Corporal Jones enters the church hall]
 * Jones: Sir, Captain Mainwaring, sir. I've done it, sir. I've done it. Ninety-seven pints I've got, sir. I've done it, sir.
 * Mainwaring: What are you talking about, Jones?
 * Jones: Frazer, come on, bring the Sergeant in.
 * [Private Frazer brings in the captured sergeant]
 * Frazer: Go on! Get in there. Go on, go. Right, left, right, left, halt! Salute the officer. Salute the... (Poke the sergeant with a stick)
 * Italian Sergeant: (Yells) (in Italian accent) What the for you stick me with the bayonet? I no make trouble. Me buddy-buddy, friend.
 * Mainwaring: What's all this about?
 * Jones: Well, sir, I went down to the Italian prisoner of war POW camp and I saw the guard there, and I gave him a little bit of fillet steak, sir, and he let me bring 80 prisoners of wars out for donoring purposes, sir.
 * Hodges: I object. That's not fair, that's enemy blood.
 * Mainwaring: Of course it's fair. They started it.
 * Italian Sergeant: Hey, what you calling me enemy for? I not enemy. I sit at home, mind my business. Trattoria Paisano. Very good food. I cook myself. Then they... Then they come to me, they say, "Hey you! You got to go, you got to go fight! You got to go bangy bang!" We is not to blame, Signor Capitano. It's the Signor Adolf Hitler, they is to blame.
 * Mainwaring: Your government should be more careful about who it chooses for friends.
 * Italian soldier: Friends? Oh, you can talk about friends. What about the Stalins?
 * Mainwaring: That's enough of that.

"High Finance" [8.05]

 * Hodges: (about lowering Mrs. Pike's rent) I'll do nothing of the sort. It's my property, and I'll charge what I want for it.
 * Jones: Oh, no you won't. I shall report you to the Chamber of Commerce, and they'll throw you out on your ear.
 * Frazer: And, as a member of the Chamber of Commerce (taps the table), I second that.
 * Godfrey: And I third it.
 * Frazer: (Amid much noise) You're not a shopkeeper, so shut up.

"Knights of Madness" [9.03]

 * Mainwaring: A man in my position can't be seen fighting a dragon in cardboard armour!

"The Miser's Hoard" [9.04]

 * Mainwaring has given the platoon a lecture about how they should keep their money and valuables in the bank.
 * Mainwaring: I don't think Frazer suspected I was referring particulary to him, do you?
 * Wilson: Oh no sir. No, not at all, no.  But I must say when you said the word "gold", I did just notice that he jumped every so slightly out of his skin.
 * Mainwaring: Well, I'm quite sure he had no inkling that I really knew.
 * Wilson: Oh, no sir. No, no, no.  Not at all, no.
 *  (Frazer knocks on door)
 * Mainwaring: Come in... Yes Frazer.
 * Frazer: Captain Mainwaring, there's just one thing I want to say to you. If you think you are going to get your hands on my gold, you can think again.  I don't trust banks, I don't trust bankers and I don't trust you.  That's all I want to say.  Thank you.

 *  Mainwaring opens Frazer's money box
 * Mainwaring: It's a brick! It's a damn brick.
 * Frazer: Aye! It's a brick!  And yon vicar can have it for the fabric of his kirk. [he gestures to himself] I'm hangin' onto my money. You're not gonna put your hands on it at all. [as he leaves] You're not gonna have my gold. You're not gonna have my gold.

"Never Too Old" [9.06]

 * [Final lines. Mr. Hodges arrives at the pier where Captain Mainwaring and his men are keeping guard]
 * Hodges: Hello, what are you lot doing here?
 * Mainwaring: In case you'd forgotten, there's an invasion alert on.
 * Hodges: Haven't you heard? It was a false alarm. We got the stand-down half an hour ago.
 * Wilson: So Hitler won't be joining us tonight then?
 * Hodges: No. It's just as well with you lot guarding us. (Laughs)
 * Mainwaring: What does that mean?
 * Hodges: Well, I mean, look at you. What good would you be against real soldiers? (Snickers) Oh, dear. They'd walk straight through you. Goodnight. (He leaves the pier)
 * Jones: Here, he has no business to...
 * Mainwaring: All right, all right. Don't take any notice of him, men. (Turns to Jones) Here's to your future health. (Clings mugs with Jones)
 * Wilson: Yes, here's to you, Jonesy.
 * Frazer: Here, Jonesy.
 * Wilson: Good luck to you.
 * Pike: Mr Mainwaring?
 * Mainwaring: Hmm?
 * Pike: Warden wasn't right, was he, when he said the Nazis would walk straight through us?
 * Mainwaring: Of course he wasn't right.
 * Jones: Well, I know one thing. They're not walking straight through me.
 * Frazer: Nor me. I'll be beside you, Jonesy.
 * Mainwaring: We'll all be beside you, Jonesy. We'll stick together. You can rely on that. Anybody tries to take our homes or our freedom away from us, they'll find out what we can do. We'll fight, and we're not alone. There are thousands of us all over England.
 * Frazer: And Scotland.
 * Mainwaring: And Scotland. All over Great Britain, in fact. Men who'll stand together when their country needs them.
 * Wilson: 'Scuse me, sir, don't you think it might be a nice idea if we were to pay our tribute to them?
 * Mainwaring: For once, Wilson, I agree with you. To Britain's Home Guard. (Raises his mug)
 * Men: (to the camera) To Britain's Home Guard. (They drink their mugs of champagne)

Cast

 * Captain George Mainwaring - Arthur Lowe
 * Sergeant Arthur Wilson - John Le Mesurier
 * Lance Corporal Jack Jones - Clive Dunn
 * Private James Frazer - John Laurie
 * Private Charles Godfrey - Arnold Ridley
 * Private Frank Pike - Ian Lavender
 * Private Joe Walker - James Beck

title: Dad's Army


text:
Brigadoon

Brigadoon (1947) was a Broadway musical play written by Alan Jay Lerner (script and lyrics) and Frederick Loewe (music) which opened March 13, 1947; in 1954 a motion picture version directed by Vincente Minnelli was released. Both play and film are about two American hunters who stumble into a mysterious Scottish village that doesn't appear on any map.

Tommy Albright

 * Why do people have to lose things to find out what they really mean?

Jeff Douglas

 * Well, most of my friends who have inferiority complexes are absolutely right. They're NOT as good as everybody else!

 * If they want to disregard two hundred years of human bing-bang, that's their privilege.

 * There's nothing a woman hates more than her fiancee's best friend. He knows all the secrets she's going to spend the rest of her life trying to find out.

 * You're confused, aren't you, boy? If you believed as much as you thought you believed, you wouldn't be confused.

 * If you scratch the surface of any woman, she'll like it!

Mr. Lundie

 * It's the hardest thing in the world to give everything. Though it's usually the only way to get everything.

 * '''I told you if you love someone deeply enough anything is possible. Even... miracles.

Andrew McLarren

 * You'll never find peace by hating, lad! It only shuts ye off more from the world! And this town is only a cursed place, if ye make it so! To the rest of us, 'tis a blessed place!"

Dialogue

 * Jeff Douglas: Frank, put it on the bill.
 * Bartender (Frank): The bill, sir, is very high.
 * Jeff Douglas: So am I!

 * Tommy Albright: [in a crowded bar] It's hot in here.
 * Jeff Douglas: It's not the heat, it's the humanity.

 * Meg Brockie: I'm highly attracted to ye. Why, when I look at ye, I feel wee tadpoles jumping in my spine.
 * Jeff Douglas: That's about as repulsive an idea as I've heard in years!

 * Jeff Douglas: Can you think of one good reason why I, a strange man, should be interested in proposing to you, a mighty strange woman, and at this hour of the day?
 * Meg Brockie: Because you're a lad and I'm a lass!
 * Jeff Douglas: Well, with that philosophy you must have had a provacative career!

 * Mr. Lundie: They were indeed horrible, destructive women. I dinna suppose you have such women in your country?
 * Tommy Albright: Witches?
 * Jeff Douglas: Oh, we have 'em. We pronounce it differently.

Quotes about Brigadoon

 * Does anyone ever get two chances? Is the Door in the Wall always gone when next you look? Where do you catch the boat for Brigadoon?
 * Robert A. Heinlein, in Glory Road (1963), Ch. 22

 * I was grounded while you filled the skies I was dumbfounded by truth you cut through lies I saw the lone empty valley you saw Brigadoon I saw the crescent You saw the whole of the moon!
 * Mike Scott, in "The Whole of the Moon" on This Is the Sea (1985)

Cast

 * Van Johnson - Jeff Douglas
 * Gene Kelly - Tommy Albright
 * Cyd Charisse - Fiona Mamabell
 * Barry Jones - Mr. Lundie
 * Dodie Heath - Meg Brackie

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Brigadoon


text:
They Live

They Live is a 1988 science fiction film about two construction workers who discover that the world's population is controlled and exploited by an alliance of alien colonizers and human elites.
 * Written and directed by John Carpenter and inspired by Ray Nelson's story "Eight O'clock in the Morning."

You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they're people just like you. You're wrong. Dead wrong.taglines

John Nada

 * I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubble gum.
 * Mama don't like tattletales!
 * Come to show 'em where I am? Not nice!
 * I don't like this one bit. Not one bit!
 * Brother, life's a bitch, and she's back in heat.
 * You know, you look like your head fell in the cheese dip back in 1957.

Frank Armitage

 * The steel mills were laying people off left and right. They finally went under. We gave the steel companies a break when they needed it. You know what they gave themselves? Raises.
 * The whole deal's like some crazy game. They put you at a starting line, and the name of the game is "Make It Through Life," only everyone's looking out for themselves and looking to do you in at the same time.

Bearded Man on TV

 * Look around at the environment we live in. Carbon dioxide, fluorocarbons, and methane have increased since 1958. Earth is being acclimatized. They are turning our atmosphere into their atmosphere.
 * They are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery. We could be pets, we could be food, but all we really are is livestock.
 * The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent. They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices. Their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness. We have been lulled into a trance. They have made us indifferent to ourselves, to others. We are focused only on our own gain.

Other

 * Graffiti: They live, we sleep
 * Subliminal Messages on Billboards and Magazines: "OBEY“, "MARRY AND REPRODUCE“, "NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT", "NO THOUGHT", "CONSUME“, "CONFORM", "SUBMIT", "STAY ASLEEP", "BUY", "WATCH TV", "NO IMAGINATION", "DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY", "SLEEP", "WORK 8 HOURS", "SLEEP 8 HOURS", "PLAY 8 HOURS", "HONOR APATHY", "NO IDEAS", "FOLLOW", "SURRENDER", "COOPERATE", "DOUBT HUMANITY", "REWARD INDIFFERENT"
 * Subliminal Message on US Currency: "THIS IS YOUR GOD"
 * Gilbert: The world needs a wake-up call. We're going to phone it in.
 * Drifter: You still don't get it, do you, boys? There ain't no countries anymore, no more good guys. They're running the whole show! They own everything, the whole god-damn planet. They can do whatever they want!
 * Announcer: Attention: Your wristwatch has malfunctioned. This entryway is temporary and will disappear in 10 seconds.

Dialogue

 * Frank: I got a job now and I plan on keeping it. I'm walking a white line all the time. I don't bother nobody. Nobody bothers me. You better start doing the same!
 * Nada: White line's in the middle of the road. That's the worst place to drive.

 * Frank: So how you gonna make it?
 * Nada: I deliver a hard day's work for my money. I just want the chance. It'll come. I believe in America. I follow the rules. Everybody's got their own hard times these days.

 * Frank: [about the glasses] We can't be the only ones who can see. We've got to find the people who made these.
 * Nada: Yeah, if any of them are still alive.

 * Nada: I'm giving you a choice: either put on these glasses, or start eating that trash can.
 * Frank: Not this year.
 * Nada: OK. All right. (Fight ensues)

 * Frank: How long have they been there?
 * Nada: Who knows.
 * Frank: What are they? Where do they come from?
 * Nada: Well, they ain't from Cleveland.

 * Frank: What do these things want?
 * Gilbert: They're free-enterprisers. The earth is just another developing planet. Their third world.

 * Drifter: What is wrong with having it good for a change? Now they're gonna let us have it good if we just help 'em. They're gonna leave us alone, let us make some money. You can have a little taste of that good life too. Now, I know you want it. Hell, everybody does.
 * Frank: You'd do it to your own kind.
 * Drifter: What's the threat? We all sell out every day. Might as well be on the winning team.

 * Frank: Maybe they've always been with us, those things out there. Maybe they love it — seeing us hate each other, watching us kill each other off, feeding on our own cold fucking hearts.
 * Nada: Well, I've got news for them. Going to be hell to pay, 'cause I ain't daddy's little boy no more.

Taglines

 * You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they're people just like you. You're wrong. Dead wrong.
 * Who are they? And what do they want?

About They Live

 * They Live is definitely one of the forgotten masterpieces . ... The sunglasses function like a critique of ideology. They allow you to see the real message beneath all the propaganda, glitz, posters and so on. ... When you put the sunglasses on you see the dictatorship in democracy, the invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom.
 * Slavoj Žižek,

Cast

 * Roddy Piper - John Nada
 * Keith David - Frank Armitage
 * Meg Foster - Holly Thompson
 * George Buck Flower - The Drifter
 * Peter Jason - Gilbert
 * Raymond St. Jacques - Street Preacher
 * Jason Robards III - Family Man
 * John Lawrence - Bearded Man
 * Susan Barnes - Brown Haired Woman
 * Sy Richardson - Black Revolutionary
 * Wendy Brainard - Family Man's Daughter
 * Lucille Meredith - Female Interviewer
 * Susan Blanchard - Ingenue
 * Norman Alden - Foreman
 * Dana Bratton - Black Junkie

title: They Live


text:
User talk:218.109.208.14

This IP has been blocked for 24 hrs. because the posting of SPAM was occuring from it. Spamming is not welcome here. ~ Kalki 09:18, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:218.109.208.14


text:
Stephen Spender

Stephen Spender (February 28, 1909 – July 16, 1995) was an English poet and essayist who focused on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work.

Quotes

 * The ultimate aim of politics is not politics, but the activities which can be practised within the political framework of the State. Therefore an effective statement of these activities — e.g. science, art, religion — is in itself a declaration of ultimate aims around which the political means will crystallise … a society with no values outside of politics is a machine carrying its human cargo, with no purpose in its institutions reflecting their care, eternal aspirations, loneliness, need for love.
 * Life and the Poet (1942)

But what we are?''' We are, we have Six feet and seventy years, to see The light, and then resign it for the grave.
 * '''Since we are what we are, what shall we be
 * "Spiritual Explorations" from Poems of Dedication (1947)

 * Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.
 * As quoted in The New York Times (26 March 1961)

 * I am very honoured by your wanting to write a life of me. But the fact is I regard my life as rather a failure in the only thing in which I wanted it to succeed. I have not written the books I ought to have written and I have written a lot of books I should not have written. My life as lived by me has been interesting to me but to write truthfully about it would probably cause much pain to people close to me — and I always feel that the feelings of the living are more important than the monuments of the dead.
 * Response to a would be biographer in 1980, as quoted in "When Stephen met Sylvia" in The Guardian (24 April 2004)

 * I simply had to get there.
 * Remark in 1980, after riding in a taxi for 287 miles, after his plane was grounded because of bad weather, to attend a dinner date with Jacqueline Onassis; as quoted in "Stephen Spender, Toady: Was there any substance to his politics and art?" by Stephen Metcalf at Slate.com (7 February 2005)

 * There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife — a tyrannical midwife.
 * Lecture at Brooklyn College, as quoted in The New York Times (20 November 1984)

I was your son, high on your horse, My mind a top whipped by the lashes Of your rhetoric, windy of course.
 * When a child, my dreams rode on your wishes,
 * On his father in "The Public Son of a Public Man" as quoted in Time magazine (20 January 1986)

 * I'm struggling at the end to get out of the valley of hectoring youth, journalistic middle age, imposture, moneymaking, public relations, bad writing, mental confusion.
 * On turning 70 in Journals 1939-83 (1986), as quoted by R Z Sheppard in Time magazine (20 January 1986)

 * History is the ship carrying living memories to the future.
 * As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Times (1993) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 247

Drink from here energy and only energy'''
 * '''I say, stamping the words with emphasis,
 * "Not Palaces" (l. 8–9).

Drinker of horizon’s fluid line; Ear that suspends on a chord '''The spirit drinking timelessness; Touch, love, all senses'''...
 * Eye, gazelle, delicate wanderer,
 * "Not Palaces"(l. 12–16). ..

Shall hunger: Man shall spend equally. Our goal which we compel: Man shall be man.
 * No one
 * "Not Palaces" (l. 23–25)

 * Death to the killers, bringing light to life.
 * "Not Palaces" (l. 32)

The black statement of pistons, without more fuss But gliding like a queen, she leaves the station.
 * After the first powerful plain manifesto
 * "The Express" (l. 1–3) in Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (1988) edited by Richard Ellmann and Robert O’Clair

Wrapt in her music no bird song, no, nor bough Breaking with honey buds, shall ever equal.
 * Ah, like a comet through flame she moves entranced
 * "The Express" (l. 25–27) in Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (1988) edited by Richard Ellmann and Robert O’Clair

With laughter on their lips and with winds blowing round them They record simply How this one excelled all others in making driving belts. One cog in a golden singing hive...
 * Death is another milestone on their way.
 * "The Funeral" (l. 1–4)
 * They think how one life hums, revolves and toils,
 * "The Funeral" (l. 13–14)

Was the gradual day Weakening the will Leaking the brightness away'''
 * '''What I had not foreseen
 * "What I Expected Was" (l. 9–12)

Some brightness to hold in trust, Some final innocence To save from dust'''
 * '''For I had expected always
 * "What I Expected Was" (l. 25–28). ..

Mediterranean August morning The dolphins write such Ideograms: With power to wake Me prisoned in My human speech They sign: 'I AM!'
 * Across this dazzling
 * "Dolphins"

They beg, their eyes made big by empty staring And only measuring Time, like the blank clock.''' No, I shall weave no tracery of pen-ornament To make them birds upon my singing tree: Time merely drives these lives which do not live As tides push rotten stuff along the shore.
 * '''In railway halls, on pavements near the traffic,
 * "In Railway Halls, on Pavements Near the Traffic"

Where the soul rests, proclaims eternity. But let the wrong cry out as raw as wounds This Time forgets and never heals, far less transcends.'''
 * '''Paint here no draped despairs, no saddening clouds
 * "In Railway Halls, on Pavements Near the Traffic"

Which, when she sleeps, seems the carved face of an angel.'''
 * '''At dawn she lay with her profile at that angle
 * "Daybreak"

Swam in blue through her rose flesh that dawned. From her dew of lips, the drop of one word Fell like the first of fountains: murmured 'Darling', upon my ears the song of the first bird. 'My dream becomes my dream,' she said, 'come true. I waken from you to my dream of you.' Oh, my own wakened dream then dared assume The audacity of her sleep. '''Our dreams Poured into each other's arms, like streams.'''
 * Then, in a flush of rose, she woke and her eyes that opened
 * "Daybreak"

Poems (1933)

Who, from the womb, remembered the soul's history Through corridors of light where the hours are suns, Endless and singing.''' Whose lovely ambition Was that their lips, still touched with fire, Should tell of the spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
 * '''I think continually of those who were truly great.
 * "I Think of Those Who Were Truly Great"; also in Collected Poems 1928-1953 (1955)· Full text online and audio file of recitation by Spender, at the Poetry Archive

The delight of the blood drawn from ancient springs Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth'''; Never to deny its pleasure in the simple morning light, Nor its grave evening demand for love; '''Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.'''
 * '''What is precious is never to forget
 * "I Think of Those Who Were Truly Great"

See how these names are fêted in the waving grass And by the streamers of the white cloud And whispers of the wind in the listening sky. '''The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre. Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun And left the vivid air signed with their honour.'''
 * Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields,
 * "I Think of Those Who Were Truly Great"

With burring furred antennae feeling its huge path Through dusk, the air-liner with shut-off engines Glides over suburbs and the sleeves set trailing tall To point the wind. Gently, broadly, she falls, Scarcely disturbing charted currents of air.
 * More beautiful and soft than any moth
 * "The Landscape near an Aerodrome"

Behind the aerodrome, where boys play all day Hacking dead grass: whose cries, like wild birds Settle upon the nearest roofs But soon are hid under the loud city.
 * In the last sweep of love, they pass over fields
 * "The Landscape near an Aerodrome"

Reaching across the landscape of hysteria, To where larger than all the charcoaled batteries And imaged towers against that dying sky, Religion stands, the church blocking the sun.
 * Then, as they land, they hear the tolling bell
 * "The Landscape near an Aerodrome"

The Still Centre (1939)

Poetry does not state truth, it states the conditions within which something felt is true. Even while he is writing about the little portion of reality which is part of his experience, the poet may be conscious of a different reality outside. His problem is to relate the small truth to the sense of a wider, perhaps theoretically known, truth outside his experience.
 * A poet can only write about what is true to his own experience, not about what he would like to be true to his experience.
 * Foreword

With faces swung to their prodigious North Like compass iron.
 * Our single purpose was to walk through snow
 * "Polar Exploration"

All sense of space.''' We tramped through Static, glaring days, Time's suspended blank.
 * '''Extensive whiteness drowned
 * "Polar Exploration"

My greed to enjoy''': boys, grass, the fenced-off deer. It leaves those figures that distantly play On the horizon's rim: they sign their peace, in games.
 * '''What the eye delights in, no longer dictates
 * "Experience"

Habitation of foxes and fleshy burrows, Where I learnt to uncast my childhood, and not alone, I learnt, not alone. There were four hands, four eyes, A third mouth of the dark to kiss. Two people And a third not either: and both double, yet different. I entered with myself. I left with a woman.
 * There was a wood,
 * "Experience"

Has angels has guns — has saved has praised — Today proclaims Achievements of her exiles long returned''' Now no more rootless, for whom her printed page Glazes their bruised waste years in one Balancing present sky.
 * '''History has tongues
 * "Exiles From Their Land, History Their Domicile"

Number there freedom's friends.''' One who Within the element of endless summer, Like leaf in amber, petrified by light, Studied the root of action. One in a garret Read books as though he broke up flints.
 * '''The laurelled exiles, kneeling to kiss these sands.
 * "Exiles From Their Land, History Their Domicile"

Through parks. All were jokes to children. All had the pale unshaven stare of shuttered plants Exposed to a too violent sun.
 * One, a poet, went babbling like a fountain
 * "Exiles From Their Land, History Their Domicile"

The young men to the Pole, up Everest, to war: by love, be shot. For the uncreating chaos descends And claims you in marriage: though a man, you were ever a bride''':
 * '''Let your ghost follow
 * "The Uncreating Chaos"

I shall always have a fare, an affair, or a revolution.''' I shall always have a boy, a railway fare, or a revolution.'''
 * ''' Whatever happens, I shall never be alone,
 * 'The Uncreating Chaos" — This poem was originally published in Poems (1933) where it reads: '''Whatever happens, I shall never be alone.

Outside the ordinary range Of what are called statistics.''' A hundred are killed In the outer suburbs. Well, well, I carry on.
 * '''Of course, the entire effort is to put myself
 * "Thoughts During An Air Raid"

Its nose right through this bed, with me upon it? The thought is obscene. Still, there are many To whom my death would only be a name, One figure in a column. '''The essential is That all the 'I's should remain separate Propped up under flowers, and no one suffer For his neighbour. Then horror is postponed For everyone until it settles on him And drags him to that incommunicable grief Which is all mystery or nothing.'''
 * Yet supposing that a bomb should dive
 * "Thoughts During An Air Raid"

Moving against your horizontal tower Of steadfast speed. All England lies beneath you like a woman With limbs ravished By one glance carrying all these eyes.
 * You drive the landscape like a herd of clouds
 * "The Midlands Express"

Dig their machinery, to destroy each other. Men freeze and hunger. No one is given leave On either side, except the dead, and wounded.
 * Deep in the winter plain, two armies
 * "Two Armies"

That each man hates the cause and distant words Which brought him here, more terribly than bullets.
 * All have become so nervous and so cold
 * "Two Armies"

In letters of lead on the spring hillside. But the boy lying dead under the olive trees Was too young and too silly To have been notable to their important eye. He was a better target for a kiss.
 * The guns spell money's ultimate reason
 * "Ultima Ratio Regum"

The world maintained its traditional wall Round the dead with their gold sunk deep as a well, Whilst his life, intangible as a Stock Exchange rumour, drifted outside.
 * His name never appeared in the papers.
 * "Ultima Ratio Regum"

In terms of employment, hotel ledgers, news files. '''Consider. One bullet in ten thousand kills a man. Ask. Was so much expenditure justified On the death of one so young and so silly Lying under the olive tree, O world, O death?'''
 * Consider his life which was valueless
 * "Ultima Ratio Regum"

Grows this flower, which is a wound.''' It is easier to ignore Than the heroes' sunset fire Of death plunged in their willed desire Raging with flags on the world's shore.
 * '''Under the olive trees, from the ground
 * "The Coward"

Pressing against the net of flesh: and those Countries that crept back across the boundaries Where you had forced open the arena Of limelit France with your star at the centre, Closed in on you, terrified no longer At the diamond in your head Which cut their lands and killed their men.
 * Your heart was loaded with its fate like lead
 * "Napoleon In 1814"

Had frozen to the stare of a straight line Which only saw goals painted in its beam And made an artificial darkness all around Which thickened into Allies.
 * Your quicksilver declaiming eye
 * "Napoleon In 1814"

Into a lucid day is all my will.''' My words like eyes in night, stare to reach A centre for their light: and my acts thrown To distant places by impatient violence Yet lock together to mould a path of stone Out of my darkness into a lucid day.
 * '''To break out of the chaos of my darkness
 * "Darkness And Light"

And shut upon obscurity; my acts Cast to their opposites by impatient violence Break up the sequent path; they fly On a circumference to avoid the centre.
 * My words like eyes that flinch from light, refuse
 * "Darkness And Light"

Curves back upon my weakness at the end; Whether the faint light spark against my face Or in the dark my sight hide from my sight, Centre and circumference are both my weakness.
 * The iron arc of the avoiding journey
 * "Darkness And Light"

Contain the universe they see; Their mirrored multiplicity Is packed into a hollow body Where I reflect the many, in my one.
 * '''My single pair of eyes
 * "The Human Situation"

The image shattered, My perceived, rent world would fly In an explosion of final judgement To the ends of the sky, The colour in the iris of the eye. '''Opening, my eyes say 'Let there be light', Closing, they shut me in a coffin.'''
 * And if this I were destroyed,
 * "The Human Situation"

Crowding on the mind with coal And the will turned against it Only drills new seams of darkness Through the dark-surrounding whole. Our vivid suns of happiness Withered from summer, drop their flowers; Hands of the longed, withheld tomorrow Fold on the hands of yesterday In double sorrow.
 * Here where I lie is the hot pit
 * "The Separation"

Laid upon my cheek'''
 * '''I wear your kiss like a feather
 * "Two Kisses"

Launches among the swans and the stretched lights Laid on the water, as on your cheek The other kiss and my listening Life, waiting for all your life to speak.
 * And then the heart in its white sailing pride
 * "Two Kisses"

Turning a pitted surface towards a space, I am a world that watches through a sky And is persuaded by mirrors To regard its being as an external shell, One of a universe of stars and faces.
 * Involved in my own entrails and a crust
 * "The Mask"

Their glass barrier that arrests the sight. But the world's being hides in the volcanoes And the foul history pressed into its core; And to myself my being is my childhood And passion and entrails and the roots of senses; '''I'm pressed into the inside of a mask At the back of love, the back of air, the back of light.'''
 * The seen and seeing softly mutually strike
 * "The Mask"

Of a world exploding: Stones and rubble thrown upwards in a fountain Blasted sideways by the wind. Every sensation except loneliness Was drained out of your mind By the lack of any motionless object the eye could find. You were a child again Who sees for the first time things happen.
 * You stared out of the window on the emptiness
 * "To A Spanish Poet" (for Manuel Altolaguirre)

Everything in the room was shattered; Only you remained whole In frozen wonder, as though you stared At your image in the broken mirror Where it had always been silverly carried.
 * When you smiled,
 * "To A Spanish Poet"

Selected Poems (1941)
All the leaflets in the streets Are mutilated, destroyed or run in rain, Their words blotted out with tears, Skins peeling from their bodies In the victorious hurricane.
 * All the posters on the walls
 * "Fall of a City"

The young, who learned to read, now blind Their eyes with an archaic film; The peasant relapses to a stumbling tune Following the donkey`s bray; These only remember to forget. But somewhere some word presses On the high door of a skull and in some corner Of an irrefrangible eye '''Some old man memory jumps to a child — Spark from the days of energy. And the child hoards it like a bitter toy.'''
 * All the lessons learned, unlearned;
 * "Fall of a City"

Ruins and Visions (1942)
Like rootless weeds the torn hair round their paleness.
 * Far far from gusty waves these children's faces.
 * "An Elementary School Classroom In A Slum" in Modern British Poetry (1962) edited by Louis Untermeyer (1962) variant : Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around their pallor.

With ships and sun and love tempting them to steal — For lives that slyly turn in their cramped holes From fog to endless night? On their slag heap, these children Wear skins peeped through by bones and spectacles of steel With mended glass, like bottle bits on stones. All of their time and space are foggy slum. So blot their maps with slums as big as doom.
 * Surely, Shakespeare is wicked and the map a bad example
 * "An Elementary School Classroom In A Slum"

This map becomes their window and these windows That shut upon their lives like catacombs, Break O break open 'till they break the town And show the children green fields and make their world Run azure on gold sands and let their tongues Run naked into books, the white and green leaves open History is theirs whose language is the sun.
 * Unless, governor, teacher, inspector, visitor,
 * "An Elementary School Classroom In A Slum"

World Within World (1951)

Thus I could not escape from myself into some social situation of which my existence was a mere product, and my witnessing a willfully distorting instrument. I had to be myself, choose and not be chosen... But to believe that my individual freedom could gain strength from my seeking to identify myself with the "progressive" forces was different from believing that my life must be an instrument of means decided on by political leaders. '''I came to see that within the struggle for a juster world, there is a further struggle between the individual who cares for long-term values and those who are willing to use any and every means to gain immediate political ends — even good ends. Within even a good social cause, there is a duty to fight for the pre-eminence of individual conscience. The public is necessary, but the private must not be abolished by it; and the individual must not be swallowed up by the concept of the social man.'''
 * I am for neither West nor East, but for myself considered as a self — one of the millions who inhabit the earth... If it seems absurd that an individual should set up as a judge between these vast powers, armed with their superhuman instruments of destruction I can reply that the very immensity of the means to destroy proves that judging and being judged does not lie in these forces. For supposing that they achieved their utmost and destroyed our civilization, whoever survived would judge them by a few statements. a few poems, a few témoignages [testimonies] surviving from all the ruins, a few words of those men who saw outside and beyond the means which were used and all the arguments which were marshaled in the service of those means.

The Struggle of the Modern (1963)

 * The prose method might be described as that where the writer provides a complete description of all those material factors in the environment which condition his characters. The poetic method sees the centre of consciousness as the point where all that is significant in the surrounding world becomes aware and transformed; the prose method requires a description of that world in order to explain the characteristics of the people in it. The hero of the poetic method is Rimbaud; of the prose method, Balzac.
 * Ch. 5

 * Critics of visual arts and of music describe in words — that is to say, a system of signs other than those made by brushes on canvas or chisels into stone or notes of music — those characteristics of painting or sculpture or music which can be described or analysed. Visual artists and composers can disregard critics on the ground that the medium of verbal criticism bears so indirect a relation to the medium in which they make something. Poets are in a different situation. With the development of so-called scientific methods of criticism they are made ever conscious that criticism of poetry is in the same medium of work as the art which they practise. “Close analysis” is useful to critics and readers. But for the poet there is the danger of disintegration of poetry into paraphrase, examination of technique, influences, all analysed in the language of criticism.
 * "Tradition-Bound Literature and Traditionless Painting"

 * The immediate reaction of the poets who fought in the war was cynicism... The war dramatized for them the contrast between the still-idealistic young, living and dying on the unalteringly horrible stage-set of the Western front, with the complacency of the old at home, the staff officers behind the lines. In England there was violent anti-German feeling; but for the poet-soldiers the men in the trenches on both sides seemed united in pacific feelings and hatred of those at home who had sent them out to kill each other.

 * Both Hopkins and Lawrence were religious not just in the ritualistic sense but in the sense of being obsessed with the word — the word made life and truth — with the need to invent a language as direct as religious utterance. Both were poets, but outside the literary fashions of their time. Both felt that among the poets of their time was an absorption in literary manners, fashions and techniques which separated the line of the writing from that of religious truth. Both felt that the modern situation imposed on them the necessity to express truth by means of a different kind of poetic writing from that used in past or present. Both found themselves driven into writing in a way which their contemporaries did not understand or respond to yet was inevitable to each in his pursuit of truth. Here of course there is a difference between Hopkins and Lawrence, because Hopkins in his art was perhaps over-worried, over-conscientious, whereas Lawrence was an instinctive poet who, in his concern for truth, understood little of the problems of poetic form, although he held strong views about them.
 * Pt. 2, Ch. 3

Quotes about Spender

 * You will be a poet because you will always be humiliated.
 * W. H. Auden as quoted in Spender's Journal entry for 11 April 1979, recalling conversations with Auden at Oxford. Published in Journals 1939-1983(1985), by Stephen Spender.

 * In 1960, Spender was renowned as a figure from the past — a poet of the nineteen-thirties — and his work was deeply out of fashion... Most of us had been told in school that of all the thirties poets Spender was the one whose reputation had been most inflated. He lacked the complexity of Auden, the erudition of Louis MacNeice, the cunning of Cecil Day-Lewis. He was the one who had believed the slogans — "Oh young men oh young comrades" — and, after the war, the one who had recanted most shamefacedly. He was the fairest of fair game...
 * "Spender's Lives" by Ian Hamilton in ''The New Yorker, (28 February 1994)

 * For Stephen Spender, the Spanish Civil War in 1936 was a war of classes, on an international scale; the capitalistic class, backed by international imperialism, against the democratic will of 80 percent of the Spanish people. In 1990, the reality of Latin America is not very different from Spender's Spain. In Latin America, wars are class wars, on one side the oligarchy linked to the military class and the great capital and, on the other, the poor people, the ones who have nothing to lose. Fear of communism in 1936 is still flagrant in 1990. And more absurd, more mediocre.
 * Elena Poniatowska "A Question Mark Engraved on my Eyelids" in The Writer on Her Work (1992), translated from Spanish by Cynthia Steele

 * "But do you really think I'm any good?" a nervous Stephen Spender asked WH Auden, some six weeks after they'd met. "Of course," Auden said. "Because you are so infinitely capable of being humiliated." Humiliation was Spender's lifetime companion. Few poets have been more savagely reviewed. And none has nurtured a greater sense of inadequacy. This is the man who, having dismissed John Lehmann as a potential lover because he was a "failed version of myself", adds: "but I also regarded myself as a failed version of myself." With Spender, self-deprecation reaches comic extremes of self-abasement.
 * John Sutherland in "A talent for friendship" : a review of Stephen Spender: The Authorised Biography (2004) in The Guardian (8 May 2004)

title: Stephen Spender


text:
Zbigniew Brzezinski

Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski (March 28, 1928 - May 26, 2017) was a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor in the administration of President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981.

Quotes

 * I felt strongly that in the U.S.-Soviet competition the appeal of America as a free society could become an important asset, and I saw in human rights an opportunity to put the Soviet Union ideologically on the defensive....by actively pursuing this' commitment we could mobilize far greater global support and focus global attention on the glaring internal weaknesses of the Soviet system.
 * National Security Adviser to Jimmy Carter, US President (1977-1981). Power and Principle. Chapter 5.

 * This will require a review of our policy toward Pakistan, more guarantees to it, more arms aid, and, alas, a decision that our security policy toward Pakistan cannot be dictated by our non-proliferation policy.
 * Memo to President Carter following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979).

 * History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy.
 * The New York Times, January 18, 1981 Quotation of the Day.

 * Nation state as a fundamental unit of man's organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.
 * Between Two Ages: The Technetronic Era, 1971.

 * The crucial issue here, one that might well come to a dramatic head in the course of 1994, is the future stability and independence of Ukraine. It cannot be stressed strongly enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire. American policymakers must face the fact that Ukraine is on the brink of disaster: the economy is in a free-fall, while Crimea is on the verge of a Russia-abetted ethnic explosion. Either crisis might be exploited to promote the breakup or the reintegration of Ukraine in a larger Moscow-dominated framework. It is urgent and essential that the United States convince the Ukrainian government—through the promise of substantial economic assistance—to adopt long-delayed and badly needed economic reforms. At the same time, American political assurances for Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity should be forthcoming.
 * “The Premature Partnership,” Foreign Affairs, v 73, n 2 (March/April 1994), p 76.

 * ...foreign policy of a pluralistic democracy like the United States should be based on bipartisanship because bipartisanship is the means and the framework for formulating policies based on moderation and on the recognition of the complexity of the human condition. That has been the tradition since the days of Truman and Vandenberg all the way until recent times.
 * Address to the New American Strategies Conference, (October 28, 2003).

 * In the technotronic society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities effectively exploiting the latest communications techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason.
 * 1970, Between Two Ages : America's Role in the Technetronic Era.

 * Benchmarks are targets that have to be fulfilled. They cannot be fulfilled in an indefinite period of time, so there are timetables in benchmarks.
 * PBS NewsHour, October 26, 2006 PBS Newshour (2006). On the "benchmarks" used by George W. Bush.

 * The mistakes of the Iraq war are not only tactical and strategic, but historical. It is essentially a war of colonialism, attempted in the post-colonial age.
 * The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (January 11, 2007).

 * [President George W. Bush] has a vision which can be described with two other words: Manichaean paranoia... the notion that he is leading the forces of good against the empire of evil, that in that setting, the fact that we are morally superior justifies us committing immoral acts. And that is a very dangerous posture for the country that is the number one global power. ... The fact is he squandered our credibility, our legitimacy, and even respect for our power.
 * The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (March 14, 2007).

 * Major world powers, new and old, also face a novel reality: while the lethality of their military might be greater than ever, their capacity to impose control over the politically awakened masses of the world is at a historic low. To put it bluntly: in earlier times, it was easier to control one million people than to physically kill one million people; today, it is infinitely easier to kill one million people than to control one million people.
 * Speech, Chatham House, London, November 17, 2008.

 * I am very worried that most Americans are close to total ignorance about the world. They are ignorant. That is an unhealthy condition in a country in which foreign policy has to be endorsed by the people if it is to be pursued. And it makes it much more difficult for any president to pursue an intelligent policy that does justice to the complexity of the world.
 * Spokespersons of US Right 'In Most Cases Stunningly Ignorant', Interview in Der Spiegel, December 6, 2010.

 * ...'world peace' imposed by a dominant power assisted by a few partners is unlikely... only world peace driven by a recognition of the threat to everyone's survival is the most likely source of salvation...
 * Time, The Answers Issue (July 2015), p. 49.

 * [ American exceptionalism] is a reaction to the inability of people to understand global complexity or important issues like American energy dependency. Therefore, they search for simplistic sources of comfort and clarity. And the people that they are now selecting to be, so to speak, the spokespersons of their anxieties are, in most cases, stunningly ignorant.
 * Spokespersons of US Right 'In Most Cases Stunningly Ignorant', Interview in Der Spiegel (December 6, 2010).

 * We have a large public that is very ignorant about world affairs and very susceptible to simplistic slogans by candidates who appear out of nowhere, have no track record, but mouth appealing slogans.
 * Morning Joe (July 13, 2011).

 * This is a highly motivated, good country. It is driven by good motives. But it is also a country with an extremely simplistic understanding of world affairs, and with still a high confidence in America’s capacity to prevail, by force if necessary. (...) This is a country of good emotions, but poor knowledge and little sophistication about the world.
 * Interview in The National Interest - Brzezinski on the Syria Crisis, Interview in The National Interest (June 24, 2013).

 * You have to ask yourself, 'What was the desire of the people who, after more than 40 years of Soviet oppression, became free?' They didn’t want to be pawns between a residual West that ended somewhere on the borders of the old West Germany and a resurgent Russia. They wanted to be part of the democratic West and, eventually, of the European Union. Those are perfectly legitimate aspirations. This is no threat to Russia –- except to those Russians who cannot conceive of Russia as anything else but a dominant empire that rules not only over the Russian people but over those adjoining Russian territory.
 * Interview in The Huffington Post - NATO Should Stop Putin From Restoring Czarist Empire, Zbigniew Brzezinski Says (September 3, 2014). Commenting on criticisms of NATO expansion to Eastern Europe.

The Grand Chessboard (1997)

 * Like so many empires before it, the Soviet Union eventually imploded and fragmented, falling victim not so much to a direct military defeat as to disintegration accelerated by economic and social strains.
 * Chapter 1, Hegemony Of A New Type, p. 9.

 * The language of the internet is English, and an overwhelming proportion of the global computer chatter also originates from America, influencing the content of global conversation.
 * Chapter 1, Hegemony Of A New Type, p. 25.

 * For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia.
 * Chapter 2, The Eurasian Chessboard, p. 30.

 * Fortunately for America, Eurasia is too big to be politically one. Eurasia is thus the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played.
 * Chapter 2, The Eurasian Chessboard, p. 31.

 * The scope of America's global hegemony is admittedly great, but its depth is shallow, limited by both domestic and external restraints.
 * Chapter 2, The Eurasian Chessboard, p. 35.

 * It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America's power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization.
 * Chapter 2, The Eurasian Chessboard, p. 35-36.

 * In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geostrategy involves the purposeful management of geostrategically dynamic states and the careful handling of geopolitically catalytic states, in keeping with the twin interests of America in the short-term: preservation of its unique global power and in the long-run transformation of it into increasingly institutionalized global cooperation. To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.
 * Chapter 2, The Eurasian Chessboard, p. 40.

 * There is an element of delusional obsession in the French political elite's preoccupation with the notion that France is still a global power.
 * Chapter 3, The Democratic Bridgehead, p. 62.

 * It is conceivable that at some point a truly united and powerful European Union could become a global political rival to the United States.
 * Chapter 3, The Democratic Bridgehead, p. 75.

 * The key institutions of Soviet power - though weakened, demoralized, and corrupted - were still there. Symbolic of that reality and of the lingering hold of the Communist past was the historic centerpiece of Moscow: the continued presence of the Lenin mausoleum.
 * Chapter 4, The Black Hole, p. 104.

 * Russia's only real geostrategic option - the option that would give Russia a realistic international role and also maximize the opportunity of transforming and socially modernizing itself - is Europe.
 * Chapter 4, The Black Hole, p. 118.

 * The key point to bear in mind is that Russia cannot be in Europe without Ukraine also being in Europe, whereas Ukraine can be in Europe without Russia being in Europe.
 * Chapter 4, The Black Hole, p. 122.

 * The world's energy consumption is bound to vastly increase over the next two or three decades. Estimates by the U.S. Department of Energy anticipate that world demand will rise by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2015, with the most significant increase in consumption occurring in the Far East. The momentum of Asia's economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea.
 * Chapter 5, The Eurasian Balkans, p. 125.

 * The dynamic character of China's nonstatist economic transformation, including its social openness to the rest of the world, is not mutually compatible in the long run with a relatively closed and bureaucratically rigid Communist dictatorship.
 * Chapter 6, The Far Eastern Anchor, p. 161.

 * The most immediate task is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role.
 * Conclusion, p. 198.

 * In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but is also likely to be the very last.
 * Conclusion, p. 209.

 * To put it very simply, anyone can become an American, but only a Chinese can be Chinese - and that places an additional and significant barrier in the way of any essentially national global hegemony.
 * Conclusion, p. 210.

 * Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.
 * Conclusion, p. 211.

 * With the more endowed nations constrained by their own higher technological capacity for self-destruction as well as by self interest, war may have become a luxury that only the poor peoples of this world can afford.
 * Conclusion, p. 213.

Power and Principle (1983)
I felt strongly that in the U.S.-Soviet competition the appeal of America as a free society could become an important asset, and I saw in human rights an opportunity to put the Soviet Union ideologically on the defensive....by actively pursuing this' commitment we could mobilize far greater global support and focus global attention on the glaring internal weaknesses of the Soviet system.

Disputed

 * I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I encouraged the Thai to help the Khmer Rouge. The question was how to help the Cambodian people. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him. But China could.
 * Elizabeth Becker, When The War Was Over..., 1979, p. 435 ( Brzezinski responded in the letter the NYT clarifying his position at the time: "China acted alone [... Becker's article] asserts flatly as if it was a fact that the Carter Administration "helped arrange continued Chinese aid" to Pol Pot.[...] we told the Chinese explicitly that in our view Pol Pot was an abomination and that the United States would have nothing to do with him directly or indirectly." ).

 * According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
 * Interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris (15-21 January 1998).
 * According to : "The French interview has had a major impact on the historiography, being used as the almost sole basis to prove the existence of a concerted effort to lure Moscow into the 'Afghan trap.' There are, however, significant problems with it as an historical source. First, the title is deceptive. It reads (in translation): 'The revelations of a former adviser to Carter: "Yes, the CIA came into Afghanistan before the Russians ..."' Quotation marks and ellipsis indicate that this is a direct quote from Brzezinski and implies CIA operations inside Afghanistan before December 1979, which does not fit with the historical record. Although insisting on the accuracy of the interview, the journalist has since conceded that the quote in the title was not actually from Brzezinski but was 'invented' by the editors, which casts doubt on the subsequent text. Secondly, the published remarks were heavily edited and Brzezinski has denied the article's accuracy on numerous occasions, asserting that it was 'not an interview, but excerpts from an interview that was originally supposed to be published in full but which they never checked with me for approval in the form that it did appear.' It is also likely a casualty of translation—being conducted in English, translated and printed in French, and reconverted to English—with the original statements becoming skewed and distorted in their edited and translated form. Additionally, many of the interview's claims are unsupported by documentary evidence. For example, Brzezinski has denied he ever sent a note claiming the covert aid would 'lead to a Soviet military intervention,' and no such note, nor references to it, has ever been found. Nowhere else has Brzezinski ever referred to a systematic plan for the 'Afghan trap' and neither in his subsequent actions, writings, interviews, or public remarks on the topic has he shown any satisfaction that his strategy had worked. It is highly questionable that Brzezinski would attempt to bolster his reputation and disclose information on a secret plan to ensnare Moscow in an Afghan quagmire in just one foreign interview and then subsequently and repeatedly deny it. The editing, translation, inventions, and lack of final approval and corroborating documentation generates doubts on the accuracy of the words attributed to Brzezinski and, ultimately, if this one unreliable interview is discounted there is very little legitimate evidence to back up the 'trap' thesis."

About Brzezinski

 * Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, [historian] Richard Pipes and many other American politicians... are frozen... with unchanging blindness and stubbornness they keep repeating... this theory about the supposed age-old aggressiveness of Russia, without taking into consideration today's reality.
 * Interview with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,Forbes magazine (May 1994)

 * For Brzezinski, doing damage to Russia is a hobby.
 * James K. Galbraith, Democracy inaction, Salon.com (November 30, 2004).

title: Zbigniew Brzezinski