Stephen Fry (and The Life of Barry)
(Quiz master supreme…)
No news today.
Just a reminder that life (as we all know) is short, cruel and often quite hilarious.
I was reminded of that when I watched an old BBC clip of Stephen Fry’s more than quite interesting QI show.
If you don’t know it, it’s a quiz show, in which the master (S.F.) asks weird & hard questions, gives points to panel members for being entertaining and punishes them whenever their answer is too predictably boring.
It’s a great show and it often informs the viewers of things that are not only quite interesting but also pathetic and, yes, hilarious.
Take, for instance, the German Saint Bernard dog Barry.
Now, I’m sorry to say that these rescue dogs never actually carried brandy in those little wooden caskets that they wore around their necks. (Alcohol would kill people with hypothermia, it seems.) Still, however mythical that casket of booze is, there’s nothing even slightly apocryphal about these famous Saint Bernard Dogs.
They are very real and they have saved many an innocent traveller and stupid tourist.
Which takes us back to Barry, who plied his trade in the early 1800s.
According to quiz master Stephen Fry our canine hero rescued a grand total of 43 people.
Barry died in the line of duty.
He was killed while trying to help a 44th person, who thought the Saint Bernard was a wolf and subsequently shot him…
(Barry’s monument)
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