Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Great Speeches of the 20th Century

The Guardian is printing a series of Great Speeches of the 20th Century. The following extract is taken from a speech made by the great orator, Sir Kingston Burchill, on June 4th 1969...

"...we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in our trunks, we shall fight in our bikinis, we shall fight with our handkerchiefs folded upon our heads, we shall fight with our trouser legs rolled up as we paddle in the shallows, we shall fight with 99s dripping down our forearms, we shall fight with spades in our right hands and buckets in our left, we shall fight with the Welsh Dragon flying on top of our sandcastles, we shall fight as we apply calamine lotion to our babies' arms, we shall fight even as we are buried to our necks in sand, we shall fight with our beachballs and our frisbees in the air, we shall fight as we bowl Grandad out for a golden duck, we shall fight as we stub cigarettes out in the sand and shake salt onto our bitten tomatoes, we shall fight as we turn rocks to get at crabs...

...we shall fight our brothers and sisters for they are spiteful little spoilt little brats who knock over our sandcastles;

we shall never surrender...

for we are good little boys and girls."

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:30 AM

    And one of Kingston Burchill's other witticisms:

    Never...in the field of human conflict with credit card companies and banks...was so much owed by so many to so few.

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  2. Kingston's full of them, isn't he?

    Must be the brandy at breakfast.

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  3. I got 2 great speeches at the weekend - Grauniad and Observer, but was more entertained by the Observer Book of Genius. Genius flavours include (from memory as the book is at work) "lobster and vanilla". What?

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  4. I found the Nikita Kruschev great speech book from The Gaurdian yesterday in a pie'n'mash shop in Plaistow.

    I found the actual food more interesting though.

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  5. Yeltsin's would have been covered in liquor.

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