h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Terry Pratchett
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31858156

I haven't read as many of his books as perhaps I ought to have. I went through a little phase of collecting them a few years ago, when I could find hardback copies at the local second hand book shop, but the supply seemed to be pretty well exhausted by the time I became a bit more impecunious, and they were mostly his later novels rather the earlier ones, which really wanted to start with.

I've enjoyed all the television productions I've seen, though, and the BBC has done a pretty good job of turning a fair few of them into very fine radio adaptations.

Shaw Taylor
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-31954540

"As advertised on Police 5" was a pretty standard selling point amongst stallholders on most London markets when I was a kid. There really wasn't anything else like Police 5, was there Shaw was a one-off too, and a good sport, it seems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4-8rTZMn_s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ObXLUYah7k

And the real thing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KpfHPOA3jw

Sheriff Ros-cohhhhh P Coltrane
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-32208585

I did enjoy the Dukes of Hazzard of a Saturday evening in the early 80s

This one makes me very sad, for several reasons. We'll never hear that unique and idiosyncratic commentary again, plus, it's another part of my, well, I was going to say childhood, gone, but he was more a part of my adolescence and adulthood really.

Richie Benaud
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/cricket/32182999
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/cricket/32189688

"And Glenn McGrath dismissed for two, just ninety-eight runs short of his century"

Viv Nicholson
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-32275463

As well as the West End musical about her, there was a 1977 Play for Today of the same name, written by Jack Rosenthal - a BBC production which the BBC seems to have overlooked.

Guenter Grass
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32285705

I only put this here, in a list of people who have usually meant something positive or pleasurable to me, because we had an English teacher at secondary school who was a huge fan of Grass and who made us read, analyse, adore The Tin Drum, none of which I wanted to do, and none of which I could do

I liked the film. But there is no way they could make it today. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if someone is or has been arrested for possessing it on DVD.

I'll be honest with you, I remember nothing at all about the story. My mind has expunged all memory of it. I remember the bloody teacher, although not his name.

The film was very well directed. It had a very unique mood to it. I haven't read the story, but this could be a situation like _The Shining_ where the film is considered by some to be better than the book.

But basically, what I remember of it from the top of my head is a very strong willed young boy in prewar Germany who decides he never wants to grow up so he leaps from the basement staircase and never grows another inch. I remember a few scenes distinctly and strangeness of it, if not the full plot.

I should probably watch it again.

I will say that as much as I enjoyed it, I never felt moved to read the book.

I've had the book sitting on my shelf for about 20 years since I decided I simply must read the German classics. In German. I have loved Kafka and some others but can't get more than 2 pages into Die Bechtrommel - life's too short

Oh dear Bob, Kafka That same English teacher made us read Metamorphosis too, and maybe The Castle. And he also made us sit through a screening of The Bicycle Thieves, which actually wasn't too bad.

Dang it, now I don't remember where I saw that graphic a few days ago. It was on Twitter but it wasn't in my own timeline - I was looking at someone else's. It was one of those Venn diagrams that people with too much time on their hands like to come up with. There were two circles, slightly overlapping in the middle. One was called 'What the author meant' and the other was 'What the English teacher thinks the author meant', and it rang a very, very loud bell with me because of all the things our O level English teacher was trying to tell us certain things in Jane Eyre meant, even down to the big ring of several keys one of the characters carried around.

Anyway, underneath it was an example.

Author: The curtains were blue.
Eng. teacher: TThe curtains were blue, representing (trails off into a long description about something to do with melancholy which I can't remember).
Author: The curtains were blue!

There's a story about Ray Bradbury. He was at some university, on a panel discussion maybe or just giving a lecture. He got into a heated argument with a fan who refused to believe him when he insisted he did not write Fahrenheit 451 about censorship.

I think the same kind of thing (but less argumentative and more cerebral) happened with Tolkien and Lord of the Rings.

Anyway, the Venn diagram http://weknowmemes.com/2012/06/what-the-author-meant-vs-what-your-english-teacher-thinks-the-author-meant/

I get it, and the sentiment is funny, but the meme author doesn't understand Venn diagrams.

The overlapping aqua section should be blue as blue is the only thing in common between the two larger sections.

As far as I'm concerned there should be no overlapping section cos English teachers just make shit up

Yep.... I remember this same sort of thing reading Madame Bovary, how this color represents this, that color represents that. But blue was very important when she drinks from a blue phial. Blue did NOT represent some deep, depression and ennui; it represented POISON!


Then there was my favorite poet, T.S. Eliot. He really didn't want anyone to really understand what he was saying. While the teacher was probably wrong about his overly complicated explanation of the author's subtext, the author's subtext was probably even more overly complicated than that.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and the color green

Geoff Duke
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/p...-titles-in-five-years-10251423.html

His active years were a little before my time, but his name is one that was always around during my childhood, like Fangio and Stanley Matthews.

BB King
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-32747861

I must admit I wasn't particularly a fan, but the bloke was a leg end so he merits an entry.