Richard Moore: Famous last words sum it all up too well

Famous last words: "Either this wallpaper goes or I do." - Oscar Wilde. Photo / Thinkstock

As predicted last week it was a quiet Christmas around my place with great food and, of course, even better company.

The pressie pile was small by other years' standards, but that was made up for by some truly awesome packages where folks had thought long and hard about what to give other family members.

Well, except for my one from Aunty Harriet, who still seems to think I need a comb.

Ah well, at least cousin Cyril's Guide to the Kiwi Language will be useful ...

Now the best pressie I got was the Dictionary of Hyperbole, Bluster and Famous Last Words that contains some of the greatest insights into over-confidence known to mankind.

Take for example one of last year's entries. Guess who said this. "John Key is gone-burgers."

Yup, you are right, David Cunliffe at a Labour Party electoral meeting. It was followed soon afterwards by "I'll be PM for at least two terms".

That, of course, was almost as clever as the Union general John Sedgwick in the American Civil War who, when warned by his men of getting too close to the Confederates, said: "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist ... "

Sedgwick became the highest-ranking casualty of that bloody struggle.

Also in America, but in vastly different circumstances, was Welsh poet Dylan Thomas who said "I've had 18 straight whiskies, I think that's the record ..." before lapsing into a stupor and dying of alcohol-related damage.

Another fellow who didn't quite get it right was Roman Emperor Caligula. He was so brutal and deranged, his own guards decided he should be put down in 41AD. Despite being stabbed more than 30 times he said: "I am still alive." He wasn't for long.

And novelist HG Wells last words were: "Go away. I'm all right."

In a similar vein leading actor Douglas Fairbanks Snr went out of this world through a heart attack saying: "I've never felt better."

One of my favourites has to be Oscar Wilde's farewell in 1900 when he said: "Either that wallpaper goes, or I do."

Anyway in modern times there have been a number of dictators who have tried to come up with great "will be remembered in history lines" but have failed miserably.

And it seems to me the further you get from Western civilisation, the more absurd and bombastic the threats.

Who can forget the terrible threat Saddam Hussein of Iraq issued to Western forces in the first Gulf War. He boasted the US-led armies there to free Kuwait would be slaughtered in "the mother of all battles".

Sounded good, but Hussein's bluster ended after a four-day ground blitz that saw his armies lose between 20,000 and 35,000 men killed and 75,000 wounded against the Coalition's 147 dead and just under 500 wounded.

Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut.

Or you have a leader like Russia's Vlad "the Invader" Putin who says: "The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres - economic, political and humanitarian - and has imposed itself on other states."

Hmmm, I wonder if Putin told that to the people of Ukraine, Georgia or Chechnya?

Another leader in the spotlight is Kim Jong-Un who has gone feral over the movie The Interview, a satire about North Korea. Officially it has said the release of the movie would be a "most wanton act of terror and act of war".

Crikey, they have tough film reviewers.

• Richard@richardmoore.com

Richard Moore is an award-winning Western Bay journalist and photographer