Roderick Spode

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Roderick Spode, 8th Earl of Sidcup, often known as Spode or Lord Sidcup, is a recurring fictional character from the Jeeves novels of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being an "amateur Dictator" and the leader of a fictional fascist group in London called The Black Shorts. In the television series, he is portrayed by John Turner, and depicted as having a very Hitleresque appearance.

1 Overview
2 The Black Shorts
3 Past life
4 Stories
5 References

[edit] Overview

Spode is a large and intimidating figure, appearing "as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment". He is constantly in love with Madeline Bassett, and though he intended to remain a bachelor during his career as a dictator, he nevertheless attempted to protect her from men "playing fast and loose"; to this end, he threatened on several occasions to beat Bertie Wooster and Gussie Fink-Nottle to jelly. He marches his followers around London and the countryside, preaching loudly to the public on the dissoluteness of modern society until a heckler hits him in the eye with a potato. Spode's grotesquely lampooned character is possibly Wodehouse's surest defense against charges of Nazi sympathies.

[edit] The Black Shorts

Spode is modelled after Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, who were nicknamed the blackshirts. The name was probably suggested by Mosley's family connection to the Potteries area in Staffordshire, where the famous Spode pottery is made. Spode was at first an 'amateur dictator' who led a farcical group of fascists called the Saviours of Britain, better known as the Black Shorts. Spode adopted black shorts as a uniform because, according to Gussie Fink-Nottle in The Code of the Woosters, "By the time Spode formed his association, there were no shirts left." (alluding to Garibaldi's socialist red shirts, and various fascist groups -- the black shirts of Mussolini, the brown shirts of Hitler, the blue shirts of Ireland, the green shirts of the National Corporate Party, the yellow shirts of the People's Alliance for Democracy and the silver shirts of the United States). Bertie Wooster believes that wearing black shorts is an extreme social and sartorial faux pas (shorts being inappropriate for a grown man outside a sporting context) and uses it to make fun of Spode:

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. 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?"

— P. G. Wodehouse (Bertie Wooster speaking to Spode) , in The Code of the Woosters (1938)

[edit] Past life

Before Spode inherited the title of Earl of Sidcup from his uncle, he made a living as the "founder and proprietor of the emporium in Bond Street known as Eulalie Soeurs", a famed designer of ladies' lingerie.^[1] Out of embarrassment, Spode had long attempted to keep his ownership of the business a secret, though Jeeves discovered the fact in the Junior Ganymede Club's official Book, where one of Spode's former valets had inscribed it. In The Code of the Woosters, this discovery allowed Bertie to threaten Spode with public embarrassment and prevent being coshed: as Bertie says, "You can't be a successful Dictator and design women's underclothing. One or the other. Not both." Indeed, whenever Bertie mentions the name "Eulalie" throughout the book, Spode instantly becomes meek and acquiescing. Bertie plans to use the same stratagem in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit to prevent Spode – who is an expert on jewellery – from revealing that Aunt Dahlia's pearl necklace is in fact a fake (she pawned the real one to raise money for her magazine, Milady's Boudoir). Before he attempts the blackmail, however, Spode dashes his hopes by telling Bertie that he has sold Eulalie Soeurs. It is left up to Aunt Dahlia to save the day by actually coshing Spode herself.