Put Out More Flags

"In the case of Waugh I would actually say that Put Out More Flags is more directly politically satirical. It explores pretty well the European reaction to Communism and Fascism in the 1930s. It’s one of his six comic novels. Waugh was sent to cover the coronation of Haile Selassie in Ethiopia and from that he spun three novels: Black Mischief, Scoop and Put Out More Flags. I suppose Put Out More Flags is the least known of his comic novels. There’s A Handful of Dust and…they’re like the Seven Dwarfs, I can never name all of them. The satire of Black Mischief involves a primitive society getting all sorts of modern ideas. Gosh. Can I? No, or I’d be as good as Waugh. It is kind of a political version of Scoop . It’s about blacks who are in fact red, as in Communist and then there are the blacks who are black, and there is an explanation of the political situation in this imaginary African country that is every bit as good as Mr Salter and Lord Copper at The Daily Beast in Scoop . Whenever Lord Copper was right Mr Salter said: ‘Definitely, Lord Copper.’ Whenever Lord Copper was wrong Mr Salter said: ‘Up to a point, Lord Copper.’ ‘Hong Kong belongs to us, doesn’t it?’ ‘Definitely, Lord Copper.’ ‘Yokahama, capital of Japan, isn’t it?’ ‘Up to a point, Lord Copper.’ But I can’t recite it."