Word: herbert
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...saucy little book called The Point of Parliament, a collection of Punch articles, last week was selling like nylons on London bookstalls. The author was Sir Alan (A.P.) Herbert, M.P., professional humorist, amateur pedant and enthusiastic beller of stray cats...
...series of talks with fictitious youngsters "Richard & Ivy," Author Herbert dissects piecemeal Parliament's intricate anatomy in a warm, simple, tot-on-each-knee manner. First he winces through the exigencies of being an M.P., describes the House of Lords (". . . Still very useful for correcting mistakes of grammar and spelling . . ."), then leads a bill entitled "Ivy's Christmas Dinner" through labyrinthine Parliamentary procedure...
...Says Herbert: "After the Bill is printed and everyone can look at it quietly," it is "set down" for Second Reading. "That gives anyone interested in Ivy's stomach an opportunity ... to say, 'it should be a Christmas luncheon, because [I] do not approve of Ivy staying up late and going to bed with a distended tummy...
...Herbert, who has spent eleven years in Parliament as Independent Member for Oxford University, weaves into each chapter a theme of "words-not swords." "The English, long ago, made up their minds that it was better to decide things by talking than by cutting off people's heads, which...
...Herbert has other reasons for being sure that British methods are best: "There are no questions to Ministers in the American Congress. For one thing, the Ministers are not there and cannot be hounded about by the Members. I do not know what happens in Russia; but I doubt very much whether nasty questions to Ministers in public are strongly encouraged...