Honoring Jane Austen's legacy with a tea cup full of P&P flavored humor

Today is the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's departure from this earth, an occasion marked by her fans with fond remembrances of her life and works. A solemn moment, to be sure, yet I do believe that the lady herself would not mind a little bit of laughter in her honor as well.

After all, this is the woman who had one of her characters proclaim "For what we do live but to make sport for our neighbors and be laughed at them in our turn?" as well as have another one say that "Follies and nonsense,whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.” 

Both of those lines come from Pride and Prejudice, the most celebrated of Austen's novels, and with that in mind, I have arranged a quartet of parody pastries for your Austen amusement, a little satirical snack,if you will, to liven up the tone of this somber event:

A MOST REFRESHING REFRESHER: Let us begin with a riveting recap of P&P, in a laugh fest of a lecture from Professor Sparky Sweets from his acclaimed Thug Notes series.

His most amusing analysis shows us the immense irony lying beneath the surface of what could easily be seen as a simple love story, not to mention that Darcy and Lizzy both acted the fool at times:

SOME POSH DANCING PUFFS: The fine fellows of Mitchell and Webb were kind enough to serve up a lovely silly soufflé of a skit where Darcy, Elizabeth and the always charming(not) Caroline Bingley chat about dancing.

Debating the merits of the conga vs. freestyle disco is entertaining enough but the true moment of joy comes when Darcy finally says to Caroline what many of us have longed to tell her for a good number of years and it was well worth the wait indeed:

A BEEFY BITE OF TIME TRAVEL: Worlds do collide in rather an odd fashion in this Impressions Show skit where the time traveling lead of the British series Ashes to Ashes runs into Mr. Darcy and finds him guilty of being "an arrogant fancy pants".

Quite the scurrilous charge, especially with Wickam as the chief witness to such a crime. However, all's well that ends well as DCI Hunt is delighted to investigate further, starting with the Bennet sisters:

A RATHER LOADED BINGLEY BUN: This is a new recipe for laughter (to me,at least) from a group known as Pineapple Shaped Lamps, who image what Darcy's BFF aka Mr. Bingley's version of internet communications would be like.

Quite naturally, these drunken texts would be in a more tangible form than our modern day editions, not to mention that servants would have to deliver many of these misguided missives. Also, that it would be rather easy for anyone else to read them and unlike the naive Jane, catch on to their true meaning far too quickly:

I do wish everyone a good day of Jane Austen reading and remembering, along with looking back with merriment at the pleasures she has given us with her lively wit and delightful story telling. Even her unfinished works bring us plenty of happy thoughts and hopefully, we will always look to Jane Austen for those much needed bursts of humor that make the hardships of life all the more bearable: