What the Dickens!

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St. Luigi Scrosoppi

St. Luigi Scrosoppi

Well-Known Member
Mar 26, 2011
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Southampton
You might like to read this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jan/21/portsmouth-tax-michael-appleton

Apparently Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth and as you would expect from someone born in that den of iniquity he was born into a difficult family and his father was imprisoned for debt (It must be something in the water). Dickens apparently based his charachter Mr Micawber in David Copperfield on his father and reading the above article I was left thinking that Andrew Andronikou
was sounding just like Mr Micawber.

So I thought you might like to see a few quotes from Dicken's Mr Micawber to read as you wipe away the tears from your cheeks as you read the news of Dear Old Pompey's demise.

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

"I have no doubt I shall, please Heaven, begin to be more beforehand with the world, and to live in a perfectly new manner, if -if, in short, anything turns up."

"Welcome poverty!..Welcome misery, welcome houselessness, welcome hunger, rags, tempest, and beggary!"
 
Godders, there's no apparently about it. Dickens was born in Portsmouth, or Portsea, as the area was called. His father was a Royal Navy office clerk, who went where he was posted. Hence, Dickens was born in Portsmouth, then went to live in London, and then to Chatham. Then the family moved back to London, where John Dickens got into financial problems, simply by living a little bit beyond his means. he wasn't great with money, but then many people are guilty of that, aren't they..? He was sent to a debtors jail [The Marshalsea] where he was unable to work, and therefore unable to pay his debts - great punishment, don't you think..? Just think how many people today would be in a debtors prison, if those institutions were still around.

As it happens, I kind of live by McCawber's financial maxim. A few months back, a credit house phoned me up to give advice on how to manage my debt. I said that I only had a year to go on my mortgage, so thanks, but no thanks. No, they said, your other debt. What debt would that be..? I asked. The debt, for example, on your credit card, what you owe to finance companies, etc... I said, I don't have any debt. What none..? asked the person on the other end of the phone. Zero..! I replied. Oh, he said. Well, have a good day then.

So it works. :D

Incidentally, Peter Sellers was also born in Portsmouth. Southsea, to be exact.
 
TheSecondStain said:
As it happens, I kind of live by McCawber's financial maxim. A few months back, a credit house phoned me up to give advice on how to manage my debt. I said that I only had a year to go on my mortgage, so thanks, but no thanks. No, they said, your other debt. What debt would that be..? I asked. The debt, for example, on your credit card, what you owe to finance companies, etc... I said, I don't have any debt. What none..? asked the person on the other end of the phone. Zero..! I replied. Oh, he said. Well, have a good day then.
Click to expand...

Very wise. My mortgage was paid off years ago and the lovely Mrs Godders manages the household budget and she is very shrewd with money. I live within my means and owe not a penny to anyone. I am trying to ensure I don't touch my capital as I plan to use it to help our grandchildren through University and the house will be our children's inheritance. I only have two extravagances in life and they are my season ticket at St Mary's and entertaining the very lovely Mrs Godders and she is worth every penny.
 
All these fantastic story writers, yet none of them could write a comedy so tragic as the one playing out over there now.
 
Excellent thread. Continuing the comparisons with Pompey and Macawber , this is the character who famously always believed something good will come up - probably not too similar if you take this to be the continued string of charlatans who have run the club of late !!

There is a bit about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Portsmouth career in the Hampshire CC publication "Association football in Hampshire until 1914" by Norman Gannaway which is a fascinating read. You can get a copy from the record office in Winchester for about £4. Doyle played in goal and also as a back for Portsmouth Association Club and was a founder member in 1884. I am not sure that this is the same club as PFC who , I believe , were formed in the next decade. There were several teams in Portsmouth at this time just as was the case in Southampton with the two deadly rivals, St. Mary's and Freemantle. As a professional man, Doyle played under the name A C Smith as football was not deemed appropriate for a gentleman. He also played cricket at county level and was invited to play football for Hampshire too.

I think there have been several writers who have also enjoyed playing football, the most famous being Albert Camus who was also a goal-keeper. (One of the few French writers I have never been tempted to read.)
 
I tried to find two threads back on the old BBC606, one was about Dickens where everyone had to talk in quotes of Dickens and the other was Pirate day where everyone had to write in Pirate speak, aar Jim lad etc;

Sadly it's all gone, I felt really miserable about that, but good that we still managed to get both threads past those scurvy BBC moderators, even if Father Time has now succeeded, where they failed.
 
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