hoopdriver
Guru
- Location
- East Sussex
My daughter - aged 11 - is a huge Enid Blyton fan. She must have read at least 75 of her books. My 13 year old daughter is big into Skullduggery Pleasant, something I just don't get at all....
Favourite childhood books
- Thread starter TVC
- Start date
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hoopdriver
Guru
- Location
- East Sussex
It's also Jupiter's seventh moon and one of the most interesting in the solar system...
Ganymede
Veteran
- Location
- Rural Kent
And I did study Astronomy with the OU a few years ago so it's all of a piece.
Dear Lord Almighty.
I meant that I didn't see the video - I knew you were of the distaff side. My female detector sensors were alerted ages ago
threebikesmcginty
Corn Fed Hick...
- Location
- ...on the slake
My female detector sensors were alerted ages ago
Was that when you got a bollocking?
KEEF
Veteran
- Location
- BURNOPFIELD
Toilet Walls a great read
<edit> Interesting piece - next time you're down my way...I meant that I didn't see the video - I knew you were of the distaff side. My female detector sensors were alerted ages ago
Spot on 3BM!
EltonFrog
Legendary Member
Yep, I thought you were the bloke. Sorry!
Ganymede
Veteran
- Location
- Rural Kent
No you didn't!!! Really? Do you know it never occurred to me that people would think that. I do make it clear down the thread that I am the snogg-er, not the snog-ee....
Joshua Plumtree
Approaching perfection from a distance.
I remember reading Agatha Christies "Ten Little N*****s" as a boy and not blinking an eye-lid! Still have a copy of the book, I believe. Title later changed to "Ten Little Indians." On reflection, that seems hardly less racist!
Another
moment recently. Re-read "The Return Of The Native" by Thomas Hardy. Part of an omnibus Hardy I bought in the 1970's.In one scene (I paraphrase), Hardy says something like:
"The figure merged into the darkness of Egdon Hearth like a fly on a n****r!
40 years ago it seems this made it past the edit.
I recently read an Ed McBain where the cop says something like, " It was a week of minor crimes, jewel robbery, bar brawl and wife beating"!I remember reading Agatha Christies "Ten Little N*****s" as a boy and not blinking an eye-lid! Still have a copy of the book, I believe. Title later changed to "Ten Little Indians." On reflection, that seems hardly less racist!
Another
In one scene (I paraphrase), Hardy says something like:
"The figure merged into the darkness of Egdon Hearth like a fly on a n****r!
40 years ago it seems this made it past the edit.
citybabe
Keep Calm and OMG.......CAKES!!
- Location
- Lowestoft Suffolk
For me it was the Faraway Tree and The Secret Seven.
As I got a little older it was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
As I got a little older it was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
swansonj
Guru
The thing about Johns' racism as displayed in Biggles is that it is insidiously manifest in a set of assumptions rather than explicit actions. I'm not sure that Biggles ever uses racially offensive language directly to another person (unless the various terms for Germans used during the wars are regarded as offensive). But the starting assumption about every single person is defined by their racial and/or national origins. Black people are stupid, lazy and needing leading; orientals probably clever but potentially duplicitous; Americans naive; French and other Mediterraneans emotional and ineffective; Scots hard working but destined for subordinate positions; Germans sufficiently like English to be quite decent chaps if they hadn't had the misfortune to end up on the wrong side; etc; and "half-breed", a pretty offensive term in itself, is a lazy indication by Johns of someone who should never be trusted because their mixed background prevents them being true to any one thing, innit. There are plenty of examples (well, some, anyway) of Johns allowing his characters to overcome the handicap of their origin and being treated surprisingly positively by him (Biggles' own chosen successor in the unfinished final book is technically a "half breed"), so when he put his mind to it, he could overcome his racism; but the universal, unthinking (and offensive) assumption is what becomes wearing after a while.
