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#105448 06/12/03 11:07 PM
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If you can find it try Paul Gallico's "The Adventures of Hiram Holiday" it is so much deeper and richer than the adventure story promised by the blurb. Another that is a bit lighter is "Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris" also by Gallico.


#105449 06/12/03 11:15 PM
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What, you mean i am not the only person on earth to have read Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris?

i enjoyed them several of the Mrs 'Arris books as a kid.. i am afraid to read them again.. even as a kid i thought them well, silly.

(maybe i just didn't get the class thing... why should a cleaning lady have a custom ball gown.. oops, there are no cleaning ladies in UK, they have cleaning woman..)


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Try re-reading Mrs. 'Arris. I didn't find the sequels anything special but as an adult you may get the subtext of the char woman understanding just how silly she is being but wanting that moment of glamour anyway.


#105451 06/12/03 11:52 PM
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"...found him to be among the most egotistical, self-obsessed, self-promoting, self-congratulatory writers I have ever read."

It's been some time since I read those books... He might've been egoistic, but that just might be a part of his personality (which I'm neither qualified nor interested in commenting upon.) As a reader, I still remember the books as being amusing...


#105452 06/13/03 12:47 AM
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..and both books were written by him for the purpose of glorifying himself.

Personally, my feeling is that if you have as much insight and intelligence as he did - not as a writer particularly but as a physicist - then you're entitled to as big an ego as you want. (Impersonally, of course, I think he was supremely egotistical and self-obsessed.)

For another (and more balanced) assessment of this amazingly versatile, fascinating, multifaceted person I unhesitatingly recommend Feynman , the biography by James Gleick.


Edit: Correction -- that's Genius, by James Gleick. Thanks, ff.

#105453 06/13/03 02:48 AM
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self-obsessed, self-promoting, self-congratulatory

When's the last time *you figured out how to break into everybody's safe in your place of business?


#105454 06/13/03 05:20 AM
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When's the last time *you figured out how to break into everybody's safe in your place of business?

My strong suspicion is that neither my Bishop nor the Chief Justice would be amused if I did.



#105455 06/13/03 07:37 AM
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oops, there are no cleaning ladies in UK, they have cleaning woman..

8what do you mean there is no cleaning ladies in UK? we have all sort of ladies (including cleaning), UK is the country of origin of the ladies
and secretaries we don't have, there are some personal assistants



#105456 06/13/03 11:09 AM
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We do keep private secretaries in the cabinet though.


#105457 06/13/03 11:45 AM
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We do keep private secretaries in the cabinet though.

It must be an English thing... Harry Potter kept in a cupboard under the stairs and private secretaries kept in cabinets... I guess it is a testament to the strength of English woodworking...


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