"The Commonwealth honours bestowed by Buckingham Palace did not create
good families. The abandonment of gongs in most countries reveals how
mingy the British were."

Can someone please explain the reference to gongs? [riffled hair e, from the breeze as the meaning of this sailed right over my head]

A gong means a medal, but out of context I can't tell what this extract is getting at. Suppose ICLIU.

As found here: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=33729&dict=CALD it seems to be used for the awarding of medals. It sounds like the minginess of the British led to the discontinuing of the practice of awarding medals to (possibly?) civilians.

>It sounds like the minginess of the British led to the discontinuing
of the practice of awarding medals to (possibly?) civilians.

or another interpretation might be that, as the colonies drifted away from Mother England, they themselves discontinued the practice as it was deemed to be of such small merit.

the colonies … themselves discontinued the practice

That wouldn't square with the quote's The abandonment … reveals how mingy the British were.

The television cartoon show "The Wacky Races" spun off a derivative television cartoon show called "Dastardly and Muttley" in 1969. Set in WWI, the premise was that Dick Dastardly, his faithful dog Muttley and the members of the Vulture Squadron were responsible for capturing Yankee Doodle Pigeon, who delivered messages to their enemies. Muttley's motivation was entirely that he might be awarded a medal. This rarely happened, as his complex plans came a cropper and his designs were foiled by the wiley pigeon. So Muttley was left to utter that immortal line: "ASSAFRASSARICKARETS."

Ah, sweet nostalgia!

yeahbut® that's just the way I'm reading it: The abandonment (by the colonies) reveals how mingy the British were.

Wellbut®, if I were to barge into your house and institute a policy of rewarding your family members for telling me what a great guy I am and then I finally decided you were more trouble than you were worth so I left and you stopped giving out the brownie awards, that would prove that *I was mingy?

...and I might well start wearing a lovely bronze medal, which upon closer inspection reads ".. and all the Queen gave me is this Stupid Gong".

Mebbe you could get on The Gong Show.

Living in one of the countries that has abandoned British gongs, I have to say that I understood the quote to mean exactly what tsuwm did, and I'l wager good money that the writer did mean exactly that - the gongs themselves were considered evidence of British mingiess, and so dropped, as being of no consequence. Perhaps living here made it easy, but I'm surprised that anyone could interpret the comment differently - its meaning was crystal clear to me, and I would just about guarantee that if you asked 100 K1W1s to read the statement, 90 of them would say the same thing.

its meaning was crystal clear to me

I guess you had to be there.

I stand head to foot with my brother :)

head to foot

Uh-huh. It's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide.

But you speak such perfick Snide, my dear Fong

It's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide.

"Mad" magazine. Circa 1961?

max>its meaning was crystal clear to me

fong>I guess you had to be there.

not necessarily.. <g>

>"Mad" magazine. Circa 1961?

veeblefetzer! furshlugginer!! potrzebie!?

not necessarily.. <g>

Wellbut® when you live in Minnesota…

Well, for that, one would have to know that a gong wasn't necessarily a gong.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [light bulb e]
Nah, surely not: it's way too convoluted...[second thought e]
But look at who-all does it... [am I being too suspicious but they really do have weird senses of humor e]
But--could the ones (1's) in place of the i's in Kiwi refer to snake eyes when 2 dice are rolled, each with one dot up? (Snake) eyes = i's?
If I don't get some other explanation, I'm going to assume that this one is it, because otherwise I am going to lose it completely: every time I see that "spelling" I cannot bring myself to put, I read it phonetically as key-one, we-one, and I can't stand it any longer, I tell you!