Programming note: On Saturday, please join me for a rather Victorian episode of our Serenade Radio weekend music show, On the Town. The fun starts at 5pm British Summer Time - which is 6pm in Western Europe and 12 noon North American Eastern. You can listen from almost anywhere on the planet by clicking the button at top right here.
~Welcome to the conclusion of our eighth-birthday Tale for Our Time: Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K Jerome. Many listeners will miss this caper, and indeed would wish for a JKJ serialisation every month. Our final episode contains some insights into the German character, written in 1900, that prefigure the half-century to come:
Individualism makes no appeal to the German voter. He is willing, nay, anxious, to be controlled and regulated in all things. He disputes, not government, but the form of it. The policeman is to him a religion, and, one feels, will always remain so. In England we regard our man in blue as a harmless necessity. By the average citizen he is employed chiefly as a signpost, though in busy quarters of the town he is considered useful for taking old ladies across the road. Beyond feeling thankful to him for these services, I doubt if we take much thought of him. In Germany, on the other hand, he is worshipped as a little god and loved as a guardian angel. To the German child he is a combination of Santa Claus and the Bogie Man. All good things come from him: Spielplätze to play in, furnished with swings and giant-strides, sand heaps to fight around, swimming baths, and fairs. All misbehaviour is punished by him. It is the hope of every well-meaning German boy and girl to please the police. To be smiled at by a policeman makes it conceited. A German child that has been patted on the head by a policeman is not fit to live with; its self-importance is unbearable.
The German citizen is a soldier, and the policeman is his officer.
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read the conclusion of Three Men on the Bummel simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
We'll have a new audio adventure for you later this month. In the meantime, a word on reader reaction to our other Tales: some like the ripping yarns for boys, some the more genteel social comedy for girls, and some of you even enjoy our ventures into summer whimsy from yours truly. But of the tales in totality all seem to be in favour.
If you've yet to hear any of them, you can enjoy eight years' worth of audio adventures - by Conan Doyle, Kafka, Conrad, Gogol, Dickens, Baroness Orczy, Jane Austen, George Orwell, Robert Louis Stevenson and more - by joining The Mark Steyn Club. For details on membership, see here - and, if you're seeking the perfect gift for a fan of classic fiction, don't forget our Steyn Club Gift Membership. Sign up that special someone today - it's the perfect birthday present!
Tales for Our Time will be back very soon, and don't forget the latest episode of The Mark Steyn Show.
