Len Trim Posted 9 July , 2014 Share Posted 9 July , 2014 Just to clear up a popular misconception: the curate's egg in the original cartoon was wholly bad. When his host the Bishop comments 'I'm afraid you've got a bad egg, Mr. Jones', the Curate replies, in a desperate and patently absurd bid to curry favour and avoid giving offence to his superior: 'Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!' As a result, 'Curate's Egg' was originally meant to signify something which had actually been disastrous but which was made out to have had some positive aspects, usually for propaganda or face saving purposes (cf Robert Graves's brilliant poem 'The Persian Version', most England cricket and football press conferences). However, it now tends to be used in a non-ironic fashion to mean something that really does have good and bad features. Desperate Great War link: the original Punch cartoon was by Gerald Du Maurier , father of the more famous actor-manager of the same name and grandfather of Daphne and the Llewelyn Davies boys, inspirations for Peter Pan. George Llewelyn Davies, named after his grandfather, was killed in 1915 and is buried at Vormezeele Enclosure No 3. Thanks for explaining this and giving the background as the saying had always been a bit of a puzzle to me. Len Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fattyowls Posted 11 July , 2014 Share Posted 11 July , 2014 I finally got round to watching the programme this evening and thought it excellent. Neil Oliver is an outstanding presenter and Jack's explanation of enfilade fire was very clear (and as has been mentioned it was nice to put a face to the name). I have to say the BBC's documentary output about the Great War has been very good so far. Pete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbriscoe Posted 12 May , 2015 Share Posted 12 May , 2015 There is a story on the BBC site related to this. World War One's Battle of Festubert to be recalledThere is a conference in Portree at the end of this week WWI Centenary Conference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Broomfield Posted 31 July , 2018 Share Posted 31 July , 2018 Just to bring this to the fore, I have just ordered the DVD of this programme from Amazon. £8.49 (tho' I had the remains of a gift voucher which brought it to a fiver). After four years I'd quite like to see the programme again and I thought members of the Forum who'd not seen it in 2014 might be interested to know it was available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NigelS Posted 1 November , 2018 Share Posted 1 November , 2018 On 31/07/2018 at 14:29, Steven Broomfield said: Just to bring this to the fore, I have just ordered the DVD of this programme from Amazon. £8.49 (tho' I had the remains of a gift voucher which brought it to a fiver). After four years I'd quite like to see the programme again and I thought members of the Forum who'd not seen it in 2014 might be interested to know it was available. Another opportunity to view tonight (1st November '18) at 9pm on BBC4, followed by Blackadder Goes Forth (episodes 3 & 4) at 10pm, 'The Somme: Secret Tunnel Wars' at 11pm with the night (strictly speaking early morning) rounded off with 'Timewatch: The last Day of World War One' at 12:30am after an interruption from Top of the Pops:1986. NigelS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seaJane Posted 2 November , 2018 Share Posted 2 November , 2018 Missed the machine gun programme first time round but was much impressed with it last night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan24 Posted 2 November , 2018 Share Posted 2 November , 2018 Caught this by chance on BBC 4 last night having just watched '100 Days' earlier on the other channel. Neal Oliver's programme was excellent and reinforces my opinion that the TF were the 'original' Pal battalions before the Service battalions. The previous night I caught a programme on Boy Soldiers with Fergal Keane & Richard Van Emden...probably a repeat but the first time i'd seen it. Alan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helpjpl Posted 8 November , 2018 Share Posted 8 November , 2018 23 days left to watch: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03z2d1g JP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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