Posts by Jolisa
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Footnotes:
1. This was written in late (US) summer but superseded at literally the last second by the Christchurch earthquake, which made this piece seem suddenly too flippant. But here it is, as promised at the time.2. I did not take a single Classics paper at university so all mistakes are mine and Wikipedia's alone. Also, all those boys who attempted to seduce me with their knowledge of the Greeks.
3. Tip of the hat to Ian Frasier, whose Lamentations of the Father is the gold standard, nay, the stone tablet, of parental parody.
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That Dr Haywood, as well as being an unrepentant flatterer, is extraordinarily well-connected.
He's gotten Dave Dobbyn to write a poignant theme song for the forthcoming sequel, in which Albert tires of royal wedded bliss and develops a wandering eye, much to the princess's anguish.
I refer of course to "Shouldn't You, Otter, Be in Love?"
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You'll find it in the wardrobe in the spare room.
He's not lyin'. But which wardrobe?
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As an Indian food-related aside...
Has anyone here tried a chicken tarka?
It's like a chicken tikka, but a little 'otter.
Groan. Cue Mrs Stephen Fry: "We've ordered the C.S Lewis set meal from our local indian takeaway. It's like the regular set meal, only naanier."
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There's not enough books about monotremes...
I have a draft of a very overcooked alphabet book lying about somewhere, with the working title The Platitudinous Platypus...
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The real Albert Otter (left) and the fictional Albert Otter (right).
Whoah. That's uncanny.
As one who was privy to the PRE-first-edition edition, and has thus been reading the book at bedtime for a week or so now, I can offer some reviews:
"I really liked it. My best bit was at the end, where he turned out to be a [spoiler redacted]. Hey, let's read it again!"
-- Toby (4.5)"It was OK. Bit young for me. But if you were aged 3-6, it would be basically the Harry Potter of that age range."
-- James (9)"By no means my least favourite book to be asked to read several nights in a row. And, while it does not technically pass the Bechdel test, it also does not push our grrrr feminist buttons in the way that traditional fairy tales often do. Plus, hello, an otter, for f^&'s sake. Not just any otter: a beautifully drawn, earnest, brave little otter. In a school uniform. I expire, nightly, from the otter deliciousness of the conceit."
-- Jolisa (a surprisingly well-preserved 29) -
And, if you are aesthetically judging the guys, you kind of are doing homoeroticism ;-)
Call for Dr. Tiso...
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No fair. Ugly people are sexy too. Sometimes sexier.
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I had a teacher like that in 4th form. I was topping the class anyway (out of sheer asynchrony and infallible memory), but it was a revelation that you could do that by being interesting and creative, not just by rote regurgitation. Also, the other kids suddenly got a lot smarter too. And for a brief shining moment, school was something to actually look forward to.
Sigh.
or insisting that students salute the flag like Merv Wellington did.
OMG, return of the repressed memory! I wrote a satirical poem about Merv Wellington which was deemed too disrespectful for the school magazine. The final line was "We'll vote him out and chop him down: another useless flagpole."
(I didn't say it was a good satirical poem.)
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And if one didn't want actual death, what about a massive ego-destroying cutting-down-to-size, with a side-dressing of learned irony?
Oh wait - it's not David you wanted seen to? Oops, well, nice thing about doing this over the internet is the "undo" keyboard shortcut.