Spode’s Bloomer(s)

“The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone.

Patrick Alfred Buxton. Photograph. Wellcome V0027930
You hear them shouting ‘Heil, Spode!’ and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: ‘Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?'”
Bertie Wooster in The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse

[Fun fact for readers: the character of Roderick Spode – founder of the Black Shorts – was inspired by Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Fascist Black Shirts. Alas, Mosley does not appear to have moonlighted as a designer of ladies’ lingerie.]

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