Withering Insults

[MickyD]

Two of my favourites -

George Bernard Shaw received an invitation from a society hostess. "Mrs ----- ------- will be at home on Monday, 11th November."
Shaw's reply: "So will GBS."

The other, when Shaw sent this message to Churchill: "Please find enclosed two tickets to the opening night of my latest play. Bring a friend - if you have one."
Churchill's reply: "Sorry, unable to make the first night, but will try to get to the second - if there is one."

[Bryn]

Wonderful. But (a pedant writes) Nancy Astor was the first woman MP, sort of. Constance Markiewitz (later Countess Markiewitz) was elected for Sinn Fein in 1918, but never took her seat. Nancy Astor – who was first to take her seat – was elected in a by-election the next year.

Indeed. My mother long held that she had been named in honour of the first female MP, and was most put out when I advised her that Nancy was actually pipped to the post by Constace.

[Hornspieler]

Overheard during an office row:

"There are two faces that I can't stand in this department and you own both of them!"

[Pabmusic]

Hans Richter conducted Dvorak's New World in Manchester in the late 1890s. Now Dvorak is very frugal with the percussion in this work (not to mention the infamous 14 notes for the tuba - only 7 of which he wrote anyway) and he gives a little triangle in the scherzo and one cymbal stoke (or clash - he doesn't make it clear) in the finale (pianissimo, to boot).

When it came to the concert, the Halle's percussionist missed the single stroke. Easliy enough done, I suppose, but just a little embarrassing.

A few years later, they programmed the New World again and Richter began the rehearsal with "Zat becken man - is he dead?"

[Richard Tarleton]

Lady Astor is also said to have responded to a question from Churchill about what disguise he should wear to a masquerade ball by saying, "Why don't you come sober, Prime Minister?"

On similar lines, a female Labour MP - I think Bessie Braddock - said "You, Mr Churchill, are drunk", to which he replied "You, Madam, are ugly, but I shall be sober by morning".

Disraeli a source of great insults, many directed towards Peel or later Gladstone. Of the latter: "He has not one single redeeming defect".

One of the great insulters, the recently departed Christopher Hitchens, here on CNN in 2007, speaking of the death of the Reverend Jerry Fawell:

The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing. That you can get away with extraordinary offenses to morality and truth in this country if you just get yourself called reverend. Who would, even at your network, have invited on such a little toad to tell us that the attacks of September the 11th were a result of our sinfulness and were God’s punishment if they hadn’t got some kind of clerical qualification? People like that should be out on the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup. The whole consideration of this horrible little person is offensive to very, very many of us who have some regard for truth, and morality, if you think that ethics do not require that lies be told to children by evil old men. We [will not be told] that people like Fawell will be snatched up into Heaven (where I am glad to see he skipped the rapture and was found on the floor of his office) while the rest of us go to hell. How dare they talk to children like this. How dare they raise money from credulous people on their huxter-like, Elmer Gantry radio stations, and fly around in private jets, as he did, giggling and sniggering all the time at what he was getting away with. Do you get an idea now of what I mean to say?

Hitchens, Christopher. (2007) Televised interview CNN speaking on the death of Jerry Fawell.

[Pabmusic]

...Hitchens, Christopher. (2007) Televised interview CNN speaking on the death of Jerry Fawell.

It's too subtle for me - what do you think he was trying to say?

[salymap]

I think I got this from HS.

Beecham was conducting his then wife, Betty Humby Beecham in a concerto. After the performance, which didn't please Sir Thomas, someone asked when the piano should be removed. 'Leave it' said Tommy,'let it crawl away on its own'.

[Richard Tarleton]

It's too subtle for me - what do you think he was trying to say?

Yes, perhaps not, on reflection, withering.

[Sir Velo]

I think I got this from HS.

Beecham was conducting his then wife, Betty Humby Beecham in a concerto. After the performance, which didn't please Sir Thomas, someone asked when the piano should be removed. 'Leave it' said Tommy,'let it crawl away on its own'.

Off topic (sackcloth & ashes) - more of a withering put-down - but I can't help recalling Beecham's famous quip when asked how his late wife was: "Last I heard she was on tour with Vaughan Williams."

[umslopogaas]

(Reputedly) by Max Reger in response to an unfavourable critical review of one of his works:

Sir, I am sitting in the smallest room in my house and your review is in front of me, but soon it will be behind me."

[Thropplenoggin]

Hitchens, Christopher. (2007) Televised interview CNN speaking on the death of Jerry Falwell.

Hitchens could be succinct. About the same man and on one of the news channels, perhaps even CNN, he said:

"If you gave him an enema, he could be buried in a matchbox."

Ouf!

[Keraulophone]

Of course, Tommy Beecham was renowned for his put-downs and insults, perhaps none more withering or misogynistic than this one, directed at a female cellist:

"Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands, and all you can do is sit there and scratch it!".

[Thropplenoggin]

Of course, Tommy Beecham was renowned for his put-downs and insults, perhaps none more withering or misogynistic than this one, directed at a female cellist:

"Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands, and all you can do is sit there and scratch it!".

[Ferretfancy]

I've always liked Mary McCarthy's comment on Lilian Hellmann --" Everything she writes is a lie, even and and the"

[Tapiola]

"Like being savaged by a dead sheep": Denis Healy on Geoffrey Howe's debating style.