This week’s whimsy comes via Shakesville: Tweet of the Day
Pretty epic typo for Benedict Cumberbatch in Washington Post, third paragraph (via @sstummeafp) twitter.com/Alex_Ogle/stat…
— Alex Ogle (@Alex_Ogle) May 8, 2012
If you can’t view the image, the typo is “Bandersnatch Cummerbund.” I now demand to know what the Momerath and Borogove Cummerbunds look like. Also, who has Bandersnatch as an entry in their spelling-dic (the one on my computer wants to correct it to Understandable)?
Please share any bits and pieces you have come across recently that have surprised, delighted, intrigued or otherwise positively engaged you. Here’s some photos of Benedict (with a Rubik’s cube) to get you started (from the Benedict Touching Things tumblr):
Benedict Cumberbatch triptych: holding a Rubik's cube. In a field.
Sorry to say it’s deliberate. I will find the article from yesterday where it gets explained.
ETA: Here is the article.
Feel a bit like the Grinch who stole Christmas now. :(
So it’s meant to be a dig at him? She’s just given him a totally awesome nickname! I hope all his friends call him Bandersnatch forever now.
I hope he thinks it is an awesome nickname, I suspect it will be how many people remember him now.
He must have got blah-blah Cummerbund stuff all through his school years, at least the Bandersnatch is something to beware.
I want to see his frumious face…
BTW? Rubik’s Cube Art.
I’m sure Bandicoot Slumberpatch would be rocked and florified at the news.
A bit of looking at fan tumblrs (recommended: bbccheekbones) shows that Bandersnatch (usually The Bandersnatch) appears to have been an affectionate nickname for young BTCC well before this WaPo writer tried to make it some sort of insult.
BTCC chatting to Alan Carr about his nickname at school:
Taking the conversation in another, not entirely unconnected direction: did anyone else notice that Downton Abbey nicked a whole chunk of season one episode 5 from Mrs Miniver?
orlando, I didn’t catch up with Downton Abbey until mid-season, so no. What elements particularly?
**minor spoilers alert**
Mrs Miniver is a 1940s Greer Garson film with a subplot in which the local dowager is awarded the prize for the best rose without fail each year. This year a little old working class man has grown a perfect specimen. The dowager is most offended when it is suggested that she always gets the prize out of deference, and that this might not be a good thing this year. However, when she is presenting the award she looks down and sees her own name, but announces the man instead.
Its an example of a hunch I have that the scriptwriters are working to a certain assumption of ignorance, which leads to a kind of predictability if you know a bit about British culture already. For instance, as soon as they spoke of sending Sybil off to the dressmaker, I turned to my husband and said: “You know she’s going to end up in bloomers.”
But Mrs Miniver is not only awesome, it won 6 Oscars and remains one of the best British films ever (so is always appearing on various lists). As such, you can buy it on DVD etc. So, I think that the use of its storylines is meant to be referential; it’s meant to be familiar. Both because it gives the programme kudos as a form of ‘art’ and because it helps the show feel like its ‘our’ history, because of that familiarity, and so also makes it feel more ‘realistic’ to the historical period (because we all know that everything in ‘the past’ is the same, right?)
Why do you assume it was intended as an insult? I took it as a kind of teasing. The whole article seemed pretty tongue-in-cheek.
For that matter, if the nickname was already in use on line, that might be where the Washington Post author got it from.
AMM: Maybe my snark-o-meter needs recalibration.