Bathos 7

Time to come down to earth.

BATHOS
The worst thing about WWI was the poetry.
He’s a legend in parts of Bicester. Eric Knowles

I must go down to the sea again
The lonely sea and the sky
I left my pants there and my vest
I wonder if they're dry

Double, double toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble. Stir halfway and leave for one minute before serving. (@dimwittedly)

On an inept portrait: His nose seems to follow you round the room.

Safety Warning! Opening this box will result in death by electrocution and a $50 fine.
Surely there must be less to life than this? (A weary reader on the perfumed prose of Angela Carter.)

What they actually meant by their statement “We thank the Otley Pub Club for their feedback on these investment plans. We always take the views of the local community into account when investing in a pub, and look forward to studiously ignoring them in the near future.” (Rory Whelan)

Not one redeeming defect. (Said who of whom?)

In the last century life expectancy has increased by thirty years, which we spend queuing nervously in airports. (@KarlreMarks)

My grandmother would be so happy and proud to see the way Ms. Phelps has brilliantly re-imagined her story - assuming of course that she recognised it in the first place. (Matthew Prichard – parody by Xavier Lechard)

Saul Bellow’s funeral in Vermont was “a good place to network”, the graveside thronging with publishers, agents, academics and other frightful literary hangers-on. (Times 2018)

It's past the stage where it looks revolting and has reached the stage where it looks merely unpleasant. (WS on tomato chutney)

Ratings for the current series of Dr Who have plummeted to their highest since 1982. (@NicholasPegg)

You all know in what high regard we hold this scumbag. 
I thought you didn’t care.
I don’t.
(The Fugitive)

I have the utmost disrespect for George Galloway. (via Twitter)

German never lets you down when you need a word that's both confusing and terrifying. (Amy Wilson @Vaxxish)

Boris Johnson - he's like a bull in a china shop, but not quite as graceful. (@bertothefirst)

There's nothing like fostering self respect, and that was nothing like it. (@volewriter)

If you had told me in about 1979 that when I was in my 50s I'd be watching pop videos based on Egyptian mythology on an electronic device and simultaneously having conversations with people thousands of miles away about durian fruit... I'd probably have been immensely relieved, actually. (LW)

Listeners really enjoyed the exchange between James and Paul, which started off bad-tempered and escalated quickly from there. (LBC)

I’m as pure as the driven slush. (Tallulah Bankhead)

Songs that remain as gorgeous as they were nearly three decades ago. (The Irish Times)

This is easily the best picture of snail duelling you will see today.

It is the greatest frog-worshipping zombie biker occult horror film ever made. (Pulp Librarian) (As somebody else said, "This is the most ludicrous psychedelic zombie biker movie that Beryl Reid ever starred in.")

Earlier, my unconditional love for what is surely the best music ever written in Stanmore, Middlesex had inclined me to give the production the benefit of the doubt. (A Handel opera, reviewed in the Times, 2018.)


BULLYou can fool some of the people all of the time. And those are the ones you need to concentrate on.

I never knew that! And I still don’t.

We do like the same things, don’t you?

He was a modest man.
He had a lot to be modest about.

Two men say they're Jesus/One of them must be wrong. (Dire Straits)

We should all do our bit towards climate change! (Bill Oddie in advert 2007)


PETRONIUS 
He was Nero's right-hand man who managed to keep his head by being very diplomatic.

Anyone who knows the Leader of the House at all well will have not the slightest doubt about her political ability and her personal character. (Bercow on Leadsom)

As ever when I visit, I'm impressed at the extent to which the US is an efficient and functional society. (@johnb78)

In the dressing room after the show: Darling! You’ve done it again!

And at art shows you say “That’s my favourite”. (Philippa Perry)

I’ll tell all my friends about it!

This book cannot be praised too highly!

More here, and links to the rest.