Now presenting, in its full, complete, and downloadable glory, the Racism and Middle Earth series! This six part guide to Tolkien and Racism collects relevant tidbits from Tolkien’s own writings (from the most familiar to the most obscure) in order to highlight what the most problematic and the most potential-ridden parts of Middle Earth are, and outlines how we, as fans, can make Middle Earth a better place for characters of all ethnicities.
So you’ve got this bitch-ass fitted sheet that you would normally pile into a ball and shove into a closet so you won’t have to deal with it, yeah? Well. Quit acting like a piece of linen is better than you are. You can make a fitted sheet bend to your will. And here’s how…
First, put your sheet on the floor. Stand above it for a few seconds so it knows who’s boss.
Then, put your hand in the lower left corner so that it’s inside out. Do the same to the lower right corner.
Now, your lower left and right corners of the fitted sheet should be inside out. (Shoutout to Amy Poehler, love your work).
Then, take the lower left corner (that’s still inside out) and tuck it into the upper left corner. It should look like the picture above once you’re done. Then, do the same with your right corners.
It should look something like that. Right now, she’s your friend at the end of a good night out. Doesn’t look really bad, but you know she deserves better.
Pull at the corners until you get something like this shape, as it makes it easier to fold. You’ve given your friend some plain white bread and a glass of water. She’s looking much more presentable now.
Now, pull in at the elastic until you make a rectangle. You’ll want to tuck and smooth the excess fabric away from the elastic seams and towards the closed edge of the fitted sheet.
Once you’ve got a (semi) neat rectangle, fold the the top of the sheet down about a third of the way through. I like to fold the upper part of the sheet down first, because it’s not as straight of an edge as the bottom. You can find your own meaning within that description.
Now, fold the lower portion of the sheet on top of the part you’ve already folded down.
Fold the left side of the sheet into the middle, and then fold the right side of the sheet on top of what you just folded.
Congratulations. You just made a fitted sheet your bitch.
Note: This is almost impossible to get exactly accurate and should be viewed as hypothetical. Wodehouse himself seemed to pay little attention to chronology and consistency of cultural references, so the best I can do is guess. The novels in particular are difficult to arrange, since they are supposed to take place in such a short time period, yet seem to require more time if they are to occur as described.
According to this hypothetical timeline, Bertie Wooster was born around 1901. If so, he would have been seventeen when World War I ended and so could not have participated. If we suppose Jeeves to be ten to twenty years older, he would have been born around 1881-1891, making him between twenty-three and thirty-three when WWI began and ensuring that he would definitely have “dabbled in it to a certain extent,” as he tells Lord Rowcester in Ring for Jeeves.
“Jeeves Takes Charge” – Summer 1925 (Bertie is twenty-four, and the narration is taking place six years in the future, presumably 1931.)
“Extricating Young Gussie” – September 1925 (This story isn’t usually included in the series, but its events are referred to in later stories and so it’s clearly part of the timeline.)
“The Artistic Career of Corky”- Autumn 1925-sometime in 1926 (Necessarily takes place over a long period of time, possibly the entire New York trip.)
“Jeeves and the Hard-boiled Egg” – Autumn 1925 (A few months into the NY stay.)
“Jeeves and the Chump Cyril” – 1925 or 1926
“Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest” – Autumn 1926 (Set during Coolidge’s presidency (1923-1929), about a year into the stay in NY, “about the time of the year when New York is at its best.”)
“The Aunt and the Sluggard” – Spring 1927
“Jeeves in the Springtime” – April/May 1927
“Scoring off Jeeves” – Summer 1927
“Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch” – Summer 1927
“Aunt Agatha Takes the Count” – Summer 1927
“Comrade Bingo” – Late July or early August 1927 (Around the time of the Goodwood Cup.)
“The Great Sermon Handicap” – August 1927
“The Purity of the Turf” – August or September 1927 (Three weeks into the stay at Twing.)
“Bertie Changes His Mind” –
“The Metropolitan Touch” – November-December 1927 (A Friday, December 23 is mentioned, making the only possible years in the right range 1921, 1927, or 1932. In light of information in later stories, 1927 seemed the most plausible option.)
“The Delayed Exit of Claude and Eustace” – Probably early in 1928 (Set during the time of an unspecified Oxford term. Bertie’s age is given as around twenty-five or –six.)
“Bingo and the Little Woman” – Between October 1927 and February 1928 (Invitation received to go shooting in Norfolk indicates that it’s sometime during the hunting season.)
“Without the Option” – March or April 1928 (Boat Race Night is usually the last weekend in March or the first weekend in April.)
“Clustering Round Young Bingo” – Sometime in 1928
“Jeeves and the Impending Doom” – Spring[?] 1928
“The Inferiority Complex of Old Sippy” – Spring[?] 1928 (Takes place sometime before June 1.)
[“The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy” – The mention of the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley would set it around April-October 1924 or 1925. However, this does not fit the timeline as I’ve guessed at it, because it’s clearly set after Bertie’s brief engagement to Honoria Glossop. Adjusting the timeline to fit around this date would cause other problems, so I’ll call this an anomaly.]
“Fixing It for Freddie” – Summer[?] 1928
“Jeeves and the Yule-tide Spirit” – December 1928
“Jeeves and the Song of Songs” – Sometime in 1929
“Episode of the Dog McIntosh” – Spring[?] 1929
“The Spot of Art” – Summer[?] 1929
“Jeeves and the Kid Clementina” – Summer[?] 1929
“The Love that Purifies” – August 1929
“Jeeves and the Old School Chum” – Autumn 1929
“Indian Summer of an Uncle” – Sometime in 1929
“The Ordeal of Young Tuppy” – November 1929
“Jeeves Makes an Omelette” – Winter 1929 or 1930
Thank You, Jeeves – July 1930
Right Ho, Jeeves – July 29-31, 1931 (Cannot take place the same year as Thank You, Jeeves, because TYJ begins around July 15 after a three-month trip to America, while RHJ opens around July 25 after a trip to Cannes that started at the beginning of June.)
The Code of the Woosters – Autumn 1931
“Jeeves and the Greasy Bird” – December 1931 (It’s said to be more than a year after Sir Roderick’s engagement in Thank You, Jeeves, and Bertie’s awareness of the Junior Ganymede Club suggests that it’s after The Code of the Woosters.)
The Mating Season – April 1932 (The events of Right Ho, Jeeves occurred the previous summer, while the mention of Boat Race Night and Bertie’s cousin Thomas returning to school—presumably for the summer term—suggest an early April date.)
Joy in the Morning – Summer 1932
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit – July 1932 (Aunt Dahlia is said to have been running Milady’s Boudoir, first mentioned in “Clustering Round Young Bingo,” for three years.)
How Right You Are, Jeeves – Summer 1933 (Jeeves goes on holiday, not the same one mentioned in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit. Bertie’s moustache from the previous book is mentioned as having occurred a year ago. Aunt Dahlia is said to have run her journal for four years. The one thing I can’t account for is the claim that the events of Right Ho, Jeeves occurred the previous summer, so for purposes of expediency I will consider it an error.)
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves – Fall[?] 1933
Jeeves and the Tie That Binds – Fall[?] 1933 (Tuppy and Angela have been engaged for two years.)
Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen – Spring or summer 1934
Ring for Jeeves – June, sometime between 1946-1953 (Set explicitly post-World War II, with an emphasis on societal changes in the UK. Television is mentioned.)
AHA, yes, that is a neat trick, isn’t it, and actually my method is “i don’t know but it works.” basically back when livejournal wasn’t a barren wasteland, i saw people using faux commas in their icon keywords. i don’t know what manner of symbol it is, exactly, and i had no idea how to make it other than to copy + paste it. so i, uh, go to my lj usericons page and copy it from the keywords in that jim/bones icon and then paste it into the tag i’m writing.
IT’S THIS THING RIGHT HERE: ‚
what is it, i don’t know, it looks like a comma, but it’s magic instead.
Ok, welcome to Unicode where there are many characters that look perfectly alike, but are not the same and can be produced with different codes. To get the comma in the tags or rather a single low quotation mark, you press and hold Ctrl and Shift while entering U201A. At least this is how it works for Linux. Windows and Mac seems to have have other keys you must press and hold, but the U-code remains the same. Wikipedia has guides (x)
willowfoot 