charlie_cochrane: (lessons for survivors)
charlie_cochrane ([personal profile] charlie_cochrane) wrote2013-10-19 12:38 pm

A real life Jonty or two!

I ran across the most wonderful book a few months back. "Your Case is Hopeless" has been a real laugh out loud book, as well as a great research tool for getting into the minds of people either side of the turn of the century. It's the answers, published in the Boys Own Paper, to questions readers sent in. The questions themselves aren't given, which makes the contextless answers even more amusing. They prove that in many ways the past is a foreign country in that they do things differently there and in other ways the past is a foreign country in that they do things exactly the same there.

I'm sure Jonty wrote some of those letters to the editor, seeking advice or offering...something or other. "Correspondents are not expected to forward locks of their hair, even when of such a lovely golden brown as yours," surely has to be a response to Jonty getting over-enthusiastic? And, "You have no right to use a catapult in a road and the policeman was doing you a service in taking it from you" has House of Stewart written all over it. Although "We have no views on Danish butter. Is it a mystery?" just boggles the mind.

The best bits, of course, are about vaguely-alluded-to smutty thoughts/actions, including the delightful response to a question about smoking. "The worst thing a boy can do, bar one." *snigger*

[identity profile] bigolarthurfan.livejournal.com 2013-10-20 08:31 pm (UTC)(link)
I count myself as something of a foodie and was chagrined I had to look it up. As I have also had to do on some of the other sweets and candies enjoyed by the Cambridge Duo. But it's always worth it to acquire important and useful new knowledge. (I had wondered about that possibility with Ariadne, by the way.)

[identity profile] charliecochrane.livejournal.com 2013-10-20 08:40 pm (UTC)(link)
My one regret about the Cambridge boys is that the early books are too early for them to have enjoyed jelly babies.

The physical description of Ariadne (Lessons in Discovery?) could be me, as could the affinity for animals. "her beloved planarian worms, as well as other life forms—invertebrate, vertebrate, live or fossil—which she’d been inclined to go and catch, dig up, poke at or in any other way generally annoy," is me to a T. Only difference is the personal life.