He recalls the film The Scoundrel, in which Noel Coward's unloved editor dies in a plane crash, is gloated over by New York readers, and is given three more days on earth to find one person who will shed a tear for him.
Date (happened)
before 29 June 1965
unresolved
before 29 June 1965
bound
Source
bound from the telling lecture nid 1229 (1965-06-29)
Reasoning
The event is told in the past tense in nid 1229, delivered 1965-06-29 (that claim's confidence: certain, preferred), so it had happened by that date. This is the same premise phase4 L6a and L4.5 rest on, stated at the precision the evidence actually supports rather than as a fabricated year. It replaces nothing: the 1900 placeholder row remains, lowered, as the record of what phase3b did. `bound` is never `preferred`, so this does not change what the event displays.
after 1935
bound · probable
Why
M7 dating pass (529; 525's readers, packet 011)
Reasoning
Passage 534026 names Noel Coward and Alexander Woollcott in The Scoundrel, a 1935 film ('came out years ago'); he can have seen it only after release.
before 1900
bound · refuted
Why
pm-actor-525: refuted by the M7 dating pass (529; 525's readers, packet 011): the 1900 year is a placeholder for 'unknown', not a date any source stated; Neville was born in 1905 and the film is from 1935, so a bound at 1900 is incoherent.
Reasoning
v1.1/l0.5/retype/w1-conv: type stated -> bound. Convergence of the w1 pass, which split on this exact shape — 25 rows with the 1900 sentinel year and a vague relative note were judged `stated` while 5 identical rows were judged `bound`. The 1900 here is a placeholder meaning "unknown, sometime before the telling", not a date any source stated; Neville was born in 1905, so "before 1900" is not a coherent bound on his own recollections. A claim whose year is that sentinel cannot be `stated`. Note the year itself remains wrong and is out of scope for L0.5, which may touch only `type` and `preferred` — reported separately. Source note as recorded: ""years ago", told in Summary 1965 (nid 1229)" || v1.1/l1.4/sentinel1900: year 1900 here is not a date. `corpus v1 / phase3b` emitted it as a placeholder for "unknown, sometime before the telling" whenever the speaker used a vague temporal phrase — this row's own source note is the phrase. The same sentinel was identified and converged on in run v1.1/l0.5/retype/w1-conv. It carried confidence `certain`, which no evidence supported. Lowered to `doubtful`; an honest `before 1965-06-29` bound is appended alongside from the telling lecture (nid 1229). Nothing deleted, no year invented.
Told / reported
20 December 1965
stated · doubtful
Sources
Source
- Summary 1965 ¶97 (Did you ever see that picture called The Scoundrel ? Well, it came out years ago—[...] was in it, Alexander Wollcott, but Noel Coward—he was the star—on his flight from New York to [...] the plane went down and undoubtedly he was dead.)