Jeeves Is Back

Three years ago I recorded the demise of P.G. Wodehouse's famous gentleman's gentleman Jeeves from Ask Jeeves, after IAC/InterActive bought the search engine for £970m (CLICK). The clueless boss thought Jeeves old-fashioned, gave him the chop and wasted a fortune on stupid TV commercials that tried to make Ask look more with-it to Yankee hippies. The ads simply made Ask look incompetent and ridiculous. Without so much as an apology, Ask has decided to resurrect Jeeves and revert to its previous name: Ask Jeeves. That's why the sterling fellow is looking so smug. (BBC take note, Jeeves was never a common-or-garden butler. He belonged to that elite among servants: the gentleman's gentleman.)