Walter Meyer <[log in to unmask]> writes of Gilbert: >It is clear from many of his texts that he liked to puncture bubbles >of pomposity. Not knowing more about him, I still think it possible that >by impugning the above attitudes (alas not totally unknown in Victorian >England) to a sort of buffoon from an exotic land, he was holding up a >mirror to his own society reminding them that they were not really so very >different from what they were laughing at. Quite. Remember the last line Gilbert puts into the mouth of his not-so-highly-respectable Lord High Executioner: "But it really doesn't matter whom you put upon the list, For they'd none of 'em be missed - they'd none of 'em be missed!" Yes, we're all there, every one of us - together with all the social misfits, all the victims of our prejudice, all our cherished pet hates. The defence rests! Christopher Webber, Blackheath, London, UK. http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm "ZARZUELA!"