Word: cole
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Cole's Capers
...interested in a footnote [TIME, May 10] about one of the undergraduate activities of the late William Horace de Vere Cole (see cut), brother-in-law of former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. An English friend of mine . . . told me of a couple of other exploits carried out by Cole while still an undergraduate at Cambridge...
While posing as the Sultan of Zanzibar, he reviewed a unit of the British fleet at Portsmouth, England. With his "suite,"* Cole rode down on a special train for the review, and he noticed that the dining-car attendants were without white gloves. He had the train stopped and white gloves were procured from the next town, as "His Royal Highness" was unused to being served by ungloved attendants. The actual review of the fleet was carried out successfully...
...Though far from the best hoax in university history. Cantabrigians would rank higher the fictitious Sultan of Zanzibar (the late William Horace de Vere Cole, brother-in-law of former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain), who, in 1910, bamboozled the Vice Chancellor into entertaining him at tea. The record at Oxford appears to belong to "George Psalmanazar" (real name unknown), who palmed himself off, in 1704, as an authority on the language of Formosa, published a fake Formosan geography and history, taught at Oxford for six months, was not exposed until four years later...
...formula is a well-stirred ragout of one part Henry Morgan, three parts Arthur Godfrey and a dash of Colonel Stoopnagle; it is a blend of the outrageously unexpected and the shaggy dog joke. In the middle of a recording, a voice may suddenly announce: "I've got cole slaw in all my pockets. I'm cold." Sometimes Hawthorne heckles his lovesick records. "What are you in the mood for, honey?" he will ask during the opening bars of a song. "I'm in the mood for love," the record croons back...