Dashed Sneaky - Rated 
"One is tempted to say," said the white wine and soda, "it was a positive wolf in the grass slothing lambs wool mittens!"
The tea with milk, no sugar, agreed.
With a clear and unambiguous title, Blandings Castle emblazoned on the dust cover, one is not expecting trips to Hollywood, even with the inestimable Mr. Mulliner and his ubiquitous family.
Sneakily slipped inside is the full title, `Blandings Castle and Elsewhere'. Damned cheek I'd call it - especially as I'd settled in to my summer holiday read and, like England, was expecting ...
In two clear parts with and entr'acte of mixed pedigree, this collection of short stories takes you through an early phase of Lord Emsworth's passions (strictly horticultural at first but moving swinewards), deals with the suicidal American publisher and comes to rest in the US of A's bitter world of celluloid sweat-shop.
Emsworth here seems to be a bit stronger - to be able to offer resistance to that most formidable of avenging hosts, his sister and even takes to refusing his Glaswegian sourpuss Head Gardener - but only with the helping hand of a London waif.
These are tales which wag with all the drunken puppy-dog vigour you would expect from Blandings and don't disappoint. The young characters are chumps, the older characters either fighting against the encroaching idiocies of youth, or rich enough to indulge them. Sailing through it all is Emsworth, concerned only with the important things of life - watching his marrow grow or fattening his pig to Shropshire Show prize winning proportions. His son is more concerned with selling dog biscuits.
This ends all too quickly - at page 160 of a 300 page book.
Mr Potter, publisher, gets dragged down to a very Blandings-inferior country residence for the between acts entertainment marking a sort of obvious transition - an American in England before we hit the English in America. What he is doing sneaking out of a punt and into the moat I'll leave it to you to find out - but star (or rather Lady Wickham's celebrated willpower) crossed love is involved, and furniture piled against the door.
Mr Mulliner then, as is his want, engages in a bit of storytelling in the local pub to assembled drinks. All are of related Mulliners, their blighted loves and interactions in the jungle we know as the film industry.
Mr Wodehouse seems to have a wormwood like inflection towards the Californian dream factory and one wonders if personal experience hasn't coloured his attitude.
Monstrous moguls, scheming starlets and writing prisons all feature in this most deceptive of environments - and the bland drift of English youth towards it is reminiscent of Pacific flotsam.
Amusing but cautionary, the moral high ground is scaled, whilst in the cellar the police are locked out of the illicit liquor store.
Good tales - but not what I wanted on the hot summer riverbank as I lazily watch the local anglers attempting to land the indolent carp.
A Pleasant Stroll Through the World of Wodehouse. - Rated 
`Blandings Castle' or `Blandings Castle and Elsewhere' to give it its full title is a collection of short stories set, surprising enough, in Blandings Castle and elsewhere. It is really a book of two halves with the first half chronicling the Threepwood family of Blandings, the second half concerning Mr Mulliners tall tales and a brief interlude of a story about Bobbie Wickham, a thoroughly modern girl.
The Blandings short stories allow the Threepwoods and particularly Lord Emsworth to come out of the shadow of being in the supporting cast of Wodehouse's novels to take centre stage. These six stories highlight whilst a character actor can make a story in support he cannot necessarily carry it alone. The stories which feature Lord Emsworth in the lead are the poorer stories whilst the ones which follow the novel template of boy meets girl, Aunt Constance refuses match, Lord Emsworth brings things to a satisfactory conclusion for the sake of an quiet life, are where these characters really shine.
The Bobbie Wickham story is, in my opinion, the best story in this collection, as Bobbie manipulates all the men captivated by her vivid red hair to get the better of her mothers desire to marry her to the nearest novelist or poet.
The five Mr Mulliner stories are better than the majority to populate his solo ventures possibly due to them being themed around the Mulliners whom work in the Hollywood film industry. No doubt tempered by Wodehouse's own experiences of being a staff man at MGM where he famously said `I've never been paid so much; for doing so little'. His stories of yes men and nodders (junior yes men whom agree with their superiors without recourse to chanting yes) are fantastic. The action in `Monkey Business' is worth the price of admission on its own.
Another great collection in the Wodehouse cannon and if I had a critism it is that it should be reverted to its original title to prevent it being used as an introduction to the Blandings stories. `Summer Lightening; A Blandings story' is the best introduction to Blandings Castle and I imagine this book has put off more weary travellers to the castle grounds than it has attracted.
P G GIVES US SOME GROWING TIPS! - Rated
This book is worth having for 2 stories alone - `The custody of the Pumpkin` - in which lord Emsworth loses and then regains the services of Alistair McCallister the recalcitrant scottish gardener with the power to turn his lordship`s pumpkin into a prize winning specimen and `Pig Hooey` where the Empress - his lordship`s prize winning Berkshire sow - pines for her absent pig man until his lordhip discovers the secret of pig calling. Both stories are classic Wodeshouse worthy of winning the local agricultural show - or the nobel prize for literature!
Mick Drake - author of the comic novel All`s Well at Wellwithoute.
Eclectic Mix of Blandings Castle and Hollywood Satire - Rated
Blandings Castle is an unexpected mix of short stories. After P.G. Wodehouse began to weave his novels about Clarence, Ninth Earl of Emsworth, and his improbable family and friends into a series of hilarious stories, he realized that he needed to fill in a gap. He warns that the first six stories in this collection constitute "the short snorts in between the solid orgies." Specifically, these stories tell us about happenings between Leave It to Psmith and Summer Lightning. You find out more about why Clarence doesn't like to have his son, the Honorable Freddie around. You also learn about how the Empress of Blandings won her first Fat Pigs competition. The Custody of the Pumpkin shows Clarence as a plant-focused competitor before he became a pig-focused one. Mr. Wodehouse also lets us know how Freddie came to marry his wealthy wife and join the dog biscuit business in the States. Some of these stories have plots that could have been turned into novels, which makes the short stories all the better. The most delicious of the stories is a sweet tale of Clarence taking it upon himself to do the right thing in Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend. The seventh tale is a typical Wodehouse country hullabaloo as Bobbie Wickham manipulates all involved to her advantage in dispatching an unwelcome suitor . . . playing the role for herself the Jeeves and Gally usually play in resolving romantic mishaps. It's clever and ever so liberated. In the last five stories, P.G. Wodehouse unleashes his dissatisfaction with the Hollywood studios into acid satires of moguls and their foibles. For those who know the Hollywood of those days, these tales are almost biographical. Like the Canterbury Tales, there's a delightful element of exaggeration that makes the humor ever so much more tangy. If you dislike phonies, incompetents and those who are out for only themselves, you'll love these stories. If you don't like biting satire, skip these stories. You'll like the earlier seven.
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