Below, Mr Moan aka Tony Drury shares his thoughts on what makes a gentleman …..
A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally
Oscar Wilde
A Modern Gentleman
Mr Moan has a great respect for the Snowflake Generation. Secretly, he considers himself a modern gentleman. His politeness overflows and yes, he did receive a police caution for abusing a ninety-one-year old widow but she was holding him up at the supermarket checkout when she couldn’t remember her credit card pin number.
He read with interest an article in a recent edition of ‘Country Life’ which listed thirty-nine steps that a gentleman should take and/or achieve in his lifetime. Amongst the more interesting were:
- owning ones smoking slippers
- get married – at least once
- learn to foxtrot
- plough a field preferably on your own tractor
- have a child named after you. Or, at the very least, a former flame’s dog
But is this really what makes a gentleman?
The more you act like a lady, the more he’ll act like a gentleman
Sydney Biddle Burrow: 67. US Escort Agency owner known as Madame Mayflower
What Makes A Gentleman?
Mr Moan especially liked the following five steps:
- write a letter or give a speech that moves someone to tears
- break up a fight using your wits, not your fists
- open an expensive bottle of champagne with a sword
- quote a poem, both spontaneously and in a relevant situation
- buy or bid for a barrel of Burgundy
A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out
George Bernard Shaw
The article ended with the following summary:
A gentleman should be a modern renaissance man, capable of designing jewellery, writing a song and delivering a lamb.
A Gentleman’s Films
The American publication ‘Gentleman’s Gazette’ recently listed the thirty films that every gentleman should see. They included:
The Godfather: ‘the encyclopaedia of how to be a man’
Citizen Kane: ‘one of the most brilliant films ever made’
The Silence of the Lambs: ‘a disturbing chilling film. Jodie Foster’s portrayal of agent Clarice Starling is incredible’
Goodfellas: ‘our favourite mobster movie’
“I’m a gentleman”
Rod Stewart
One of the following is NOT a fictional gentleman detective:
Mycroft Holmes
Melrose Plant
Izzy Einstein/Moe Smith
Richard Rollison
Answer:
Izzy Einstein/Moe Smith were Prohibition Era US Federal Agents who used disguises to close down Speakeasies. During 1920 -1925 they made the most arrests (4,352) and achieved a conviction rate of 95%.
Mycroft Holmes was the elder brother of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes: a fictional character who has appeared in a range of stories.
Melrose Plant was a fictional character, created by Martha Grimes, who assisted Superintendent Jury of Scotland Yard in the Richard Jury mystery novels.
The Honourable Richard Rollison was an upper-class crime sleuth created by John Creasey, with the nickname, ‘The Toff’. ‘Introducing the Toff’ (1938) was the first of sixty adventures.
Zsa Zsa Gabor & Her ‘Gentleman’
No Gentleman should go through life without reading ‘How to Catch a Man, How to Keep a Man, How to Get Rid of a Man’ by Zsa Zsa Gabor (1969). Her quotes are world famous:
Men fall in love with their eyes, women with their ears
Husbands are like fires – they go out when unattended
How many husbands have I had? You mean apart from my own?
She was married nine times and had one child, Francesca Hilton. Her father was Conrad Hilton (married 1942 – 47). Zsa Zsa died in 2016 fifty days short of her one hundredth birthday. She outlived most of her Gentlemen.
