The Sentimental Truth of Gentlemanality

🎩🧐 #Tomfoolery 🎩🧐 Get your mustache properly primped. The very fancy white glove have been thrown. Will you keep a stiff upper lip… or return fire with fine proper diction? XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX Step 1: Drop Your Retort Remix, mash-up, or other craft your own civil savagery. Bring your best bars beau monde to the chap-hop scene. Go sharp and show these old chums that the water’s not too hot. XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX Step 2: Dress for the Duel Create cover art that feels like a Victorian vanity project gone wild. If your pinky is up high and your posture is perfect, you’re doing it right. XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX Step 3: Hijack the House of Lords Tag your creation with #Tomfoolery You can add this to your lyrics section: ==========☕🎩🍰========== Made for #Tomfoolery. Check the link for more details. [Placeholder link] ==========☕🎩🍰========== XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX Step 4: Mind Your Manners Comment on the original track so the gents know you’ve stepped into the lobby. XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX Step 5: Mix the Biscuits Blast your fellow duelists across the playlist banquet. They will appreciate your spittle. XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX Step 6: Echo the Etiquette Paste these rules (or the short link version) into your track description so the patrician addiction keeps multiplying. XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX And that’s it. Fix your collar and pour the tea. 🎩🧐 The tomfoolery has begun. XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX [A grand flourish. Glasses clink. Someone unnecessarily announces himself with a trumpet.] My dear fellow! Now, now, now. A gentleman ought never arrive at a duel already perspiring. Come, stand beside me a moment and let us discuss your sister with the dignity the occasion deserves. A remarkable woman. A spender, certainly. A believer in love at first sight, unquestionably. And for a most splendid period thereafter—years, days, several afternoons, perhaps a quarter of an hour shy of eternity itself—we existed in a state of such romantic vigour that it would be ungentlemanly to keep proper records. Wonderful cigars she sold. I bought many. Here—allow me. No, not that one. This one. Syrah dipped. Far better suited to your disposition than brandy. And let us avoid ugly words such as class. We are all gentlemen here, merely standing upon different piles of borrowed fortune. Why, the modest sum I lent your sister worked marvels. Extraordinary what a proper heel can do for legs raised among potato fields. Though between ourselves, have you considered lifts? For your own boots, I mean. But enough! Music! Music at once! Let no man say this room lacks fellowship! [An absurd fanfare erupts. Several attendees cheer despite having no idea why.] Welcome, good people! Raise your glasses! Embrace your neighbours! Forgive old grievances! Invent new ones! Let us be chaps! Let us be fools! Let us be magnificent examples of both! [The orchestra strikes a jaunty and wholly unnecessary tune.] [Verse the First] Pray gather near, you paragons of polish and of poise, With waistcoats cut in confidence and laughter dressed as noise, We dine upon absurdity with silver spoons of grace, And toast to our superiority in every common place. We promenade through pleasantries with scandal in our sleeves, Exchange the most outrageous lies as though they were reprieves, For what is truth but something dull that lesser minds pursue? We gild our words with flourish and declare them all as true! [Chorus] Oh welcome in, you gents of gents, with pedigree and flair, Where nonsense wears a monocle and floats upon the air! We bow, we grin, we preen, we spin, in cultivated delight, A symposium of splendid fools who dine upon the night! [Verse the Second] Observe the art of idleness refined to noble craft, Where every sigh is practiced and each anecdote is laughed, We squander time with elegance, we squander wit with pride, And call it all philosophy with port at either side. Our diction drips with decadence, our vowels recline at ease, We conjugate extravagance with ornamental ease, And should the world grow serious, we simply raise a brow, For gravity is quite beneath the likes of us just now. [Chorus] Oh welcome in, you gents of gents, with pedigree and flair, Where nonsense wears a monocle and floats upon the air! We bow, we grin, we preen, we spin, in cultivated delight, A symposium of splendid fools who dine upon the night! [The applause is enthusiastic and entirely self-generated.] And before we part, my good man, take this coupon. Syrah & Sons Outfitters. Twenty percent off a smoking jacket. No offence intended, of course, but such a magnificent collection of brass upon your person must be placing tremendous strain upon the spine. There is no class here. Only gentlemanality. Now then. Close your eyes. Inhale deeply. The sentimental truth of gentlemanality. In... And out... Ahhhhh. Marvellous. That reminds me. Do give your sister Brandy my deepest regards. And one final word of caution: Never trust peacocks. They decorate better than they decorum, and vastly better than they vote. [Polite applause. A peacock objects from somewhere in the gallery.]