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Morticia
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« Reply #90 on: 10:47:45, 30-04-2008 » |
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CRIPES!! I can't believe that I forgot this fellow. I loved those books   Marmalade sandwich, anyone? |
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A
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« Reply #91 on: 10:47:49, 30-04-2008 » |
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Was this the inspiration for Steve Miller's The Joker?
"Some people call me Maurice
I'm a smoker,
A joker,
A midnight toker,
Take my loving on the run"
Good song Ant!! A |
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Well, there you are.
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IgnorantRockFan
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« Reply #92 on: 11:17:06, 30-04-2008 » |
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MJ, I'd forgotten all about Richard Scarry - I didn't have any but my younger brother had plenty. I remember being somewhat bemused by American food, in fact I'm still not sure I know what 'alfalfa' is.
I remember the same bemusement with 'alfalfa' in Of Mice and Men, and my English lit teacher confidently explained that it was a kind of cabbage. Now that I eat (and occasionally grow) alfalfa, I can confidently report that it is nothing like cabbage  |
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Allegro, ma non tanto
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ahh
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« Reply #93 on: 20:31:17, 30-04-2008 » |
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MJ, I'd forgotten all about Richard Scarry - I didn't have any but my younger brother had plenty. I remember being somewhat bemused by American food, in fact I'm still not sure I know what 'alfalfa' is.
I remember the same bemusement with 'alfalfa' in Of Mice and Men, and my English lit teacher confidently explained that it was a kind of cabbage. Now that I eat (and occasionally grow) alfalfa, I can confidently report that it is nothing like cabbage ...and I'm still none the wiser...gonna change my name to IgnorantRocketFan! Though when I read Of Mice and Men I at least got a sense that it was poor (peoples) food. |
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insert favoured witticism here
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Morticia
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« Reply #94 on: 20:40:20, 30-04-2008 » |
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Here you are, ahh. Alfalfa sprouting seeds of the type that often turn up in sarnies and salads  However, the story doesn't stop there, but I won't add to your puzzlement  |
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Daniel
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« Reply #95 on: 22:56:58, 30-04-2008 » |
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(Please Sir, I mentioned The Midnight Folk .) Oh sorry, George, so you did. It was a long thread and poor standards of information retention applied I'm afraid, and all the while I had to carry on breathing AND make sure I didn't fall off my chair as well so all in all I was pretty busy  , but anyway I'm glad my fondness for the memory of the book is in the company of such exalted sensibilities. These constant references to Tootles have tempted me to abandon my sense of on-topic propriety and briefly share with you a warning to English-speaking motorists in Tokyo that Bill Bryson quotes on the opening page of Mother Tongue: 'When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigour.' I hope that Tootles the Taxi would instinctively know that this was always the right way to behave. |
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MabelJane
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« Reply #96 on: 23:45:44, 30-04-2008 » |
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Just been on the phone to my father - he's highly amused at all the attention Tootles the Taxi is receiving on r3ok! He read to me from his treasured copy (Tootles is safe and well at my parents' - relieved smiley ) so here's our favourite for you all: I'm Stumbles the Steam-roller Clumsy and slow, Flattening the road out Wherever I go. Sending out clouds Of dirty black smoke, Making my driver Splutter and choke. |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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Kittybriton
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« Reply #97 on: 00:37:42, 01-05-2008 » |
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Oh, thank you MJ! (and MJ's Father)
I was trying to remember it from the days when I used to read it (as dramatically as possible) for my son.
I seem to have been something of an oddball. I read a lot of Sci-fi (Larry Niven's Ringworld is still a favourite) and Fattypuffs and Thinifers was quite fun.
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« Last Edit: 01:09:52, 01-05-2008 by Kittybriton »
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Click me -> About meor me -> my handmade storeNo, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm only a halfwit. In fact I'm actually a catfish. |
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #98 on: 09:49:35, 01-05-2008 » |
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Barbar the Elephant. I got the book for a birthday (6th, I think) and loved it. It was only when I grew up and went to France I saw how utterly, hysterically French it all is:
The city Barbar goes to looks just like Paris, the old king dies eating 'un mauvais champignon', the old lady teaches Barbar to eat dinner properly, the parade of the trades before King Barbar is straight out of Act 3 of Les Troyens (Gloire, gloire a Didon), Celesteville is built with a Palace of Leisure and Palace of Work, elephants in wigs act Moliere in the theatre, and above all the curly handwriting.
It is that extraordinary French combination of didacticism and style. And in Barbar it is ever so gently sent up.
If only my ghastly prep school had taught us French using Barbar, I would have realised it wasn't a tortuous system of irregular verbs, but the inevitible language of a stylish nation who used to understand the importance of good food, such as was never seen at our school dinners.
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #99 on: 09:57:22, 01-05-2008 » |
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I had Babar, but I don't think I truly appreciated him. I always thought Celeste was a very unlikely name for an elephant.
Bizarrely, at school we read Emil and the Detectives in French.
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #100 on: 11:58:26, 01-05-2008 » |
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Sadly, Babar appears to be a pachyderm without honour in his own country. My daughter, when small, was a big fan and we spent one French holiday trying to find a plush-toy Celeste for her. Not easy - plenty of shopkeepers were wholly ignorant of Babar and in one toyshop the assistant answered my query with "Non, nous avons Mickey ..."  |
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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Kittybriton
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« Reply #101 on: 13:53:59, 01-05-2008 » |
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It was only last night, while gently dozing under a blanket of cats that I remembered two of the most important books of my distant youth: - Honey Bear
- Little Black Sambo (very non-PC)
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Click me -> About meor me -> my handmade storeNo, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm only a halfwit. In fact I'm actually a catfish. |
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MabelJane
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« Reply #102 on: 21:22:37, 01-05-2008 » |
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Barbar the Elephant. I got the book for a birthday (6th, I think) and loved it.
I loved Barbar too! We had (I still have!) all 12 of Hugh Lofting's Dr Dolittle books which are "bowdlerised" these days. I liked them, though I can understand why some of the language is now regarded as racist. The first one, written in the WW1 trenches was called: The Story of Doctor Dolittle: Being the History of His Peculiar Life at Home and Astonishing Adventures in Foreign Parts Never Before PrintedWe loved the pushmi-pullyu, and that's what we called the particularly pushmi-pullyu-like motorway bridges over the M4.  CRIPES!! I can't believe that I forgot this fellow. I loved those books Marmalade sandwich, anyone? Paddington's creator, Michael Bond, also wrote the lovely Olga da Polga books too - essential reading for all guinea-pig lovers. |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #103 on: 10:12:02, 02-05-2008 » |
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Other little boys have birthday cards in the shape of footballs or sports cars. My mother confirms that when I was six or seven, I asked, and got, a birthday cake in the shape of a book.
I think I read so much not so much because of interest in the content matter, as some sense that here was something where I was in control and had ability.
I read both David Copperfield and Ivanhoe when I was seven. Although the school scenes in Copperfield struck me as highly convincing, (given the nature of my prep school, passim) I got through Ivanhoe by the same method as I have later used for Henry James' The Ambassadors, the Swann and Odette bits in Proust and Vladimir Lossky's The Mystical Theology of the Orthodox Church. I turned the pages and noticed the words, but with little sense of what they meant.
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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increpatio
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« Reply #104 on: 11:24:25, 02-05-2008 » |
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Ramond Briggs was big too - When the wind Blows was a truly a modern fairy tale, at once homely and charming, dark and menacing. The difference being that it's cautionary note was aimed less at the indivdiual and more at 'the powers that be'.
I have an animated version of that that I've been meaning to watch for the last couple of weeks. Will get around to it eventually. Haven't read the original though. The only stuff I can remember off-hand were these 'stories for X-year-olds' books I used have read to me (and, later on, read to myself). RD also featured quite a lot. Incredible Mr Fox anyone? |
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