tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post6177688352021077515..comments2024-03-28T08:37:58.136+01:00Comments on Limited, Inc.: American Adam takes a headerRoger Gathmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-70403255560543454282008-03-18T16:35:00.000+01:002008-03-18T16:35:00.000+01:00Ah, Mr. Lawrence, one of those school facts that b...Ah, Mr. Lawrence, one of those school facts that blur with time.<BR/><BR/>But a very nice quote from Gertrude Lawrence.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, in my defense, I'll bring in the great Sherlock Holmes. This is from Study in Scarlet, Watson's first impressions of his apartment mate:<BR/><BR/>"His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge.<BR/>Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared<BR/>to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle,<BR/>he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had<BR/>done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found<BR/>incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory<BR/>and of the composition of the Solar System. That any<BR/>civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not<BR/>be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to<BR/>be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly<BR/>realize it.<BR/><BR/>"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it."<BR/><BR/>"To forget it!"<BR/><BR/>"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain<BR/>originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out,<BR/>or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it."Roger Gathmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-53395987161775482572008-03-18T09:06:00.000+01:002008-03-18T09:06:00.000+01:00"You can fold, spindle, and mutilate yourself, but..."You can fold, spindle, and mutilate yourself, but the distance from the sun to the earth will remain 180 million miles" - no it won't; that's more like Mars's distance from the sun (very roughly).<BR/><BR/>It reminds me of the story of how Gertrude Lawrence once wrote in a child's autograph book, "remember, great elms from little acorns grow"; underneath which, her agent added "and also remember, Miss Lawrence is no botanist".<BR/><BR/>When you wrote "pop goes the weasel", were you just being colourful or were you aware that it is a coded decription of pawning one's coat in a longer coded account of life bumping along the bottom of old London?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-43920984144561601752008-03-17T17:22:00.000+01:002008-03-17T17:22:00.000+01:00Now now Brian, it is time to keep the stiff upper ...Now now Brian, it is time to keep the stiff upper lip!<BR/><BR/>Things aren't as dire as all that! I think you need to watch this <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnRqYMTpXHc&feature=related" REL="nofollow">video.</A>Roger Gathmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-82828194760336989192008-03-17T07:56:00.000+01:002008-03-17T07:56:00.000+01:00Ah, roger...given that our elites have offshored t...Ah, roger...given that our elites have offshored the entire economy (as have the British elites), derivatives and nfancy paper shuffling are the only base for the economy anymore! That and 100 YEAR WAR, of course. President McCain will save us all. John Hagee said so!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com