He's nothing special, she's not too smart

[venta]

This morning, in my office, no one understood today's XKCD properly because no one had read both the relevant books. We sorted it out between us, because n-1 of those present were very familiar with Lord of the Rings, and 1 of those present was very familiar with Charlotte's Web.

I, um, er. I. Yes.

I'll be the 1.

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised - narenek just told me he has not read Charlotte's Web. I thought everyone had to read it at primary school, some sort of Rule! :)

I got it, having read both, although it made me shudder rather a lot.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm slightly confused about the shuddering (or is it just that you don't like our 8-legged friends?) I'm still mildly concerned I might be missing something in that cartoon :)

I didn't read Charlotte's Web at school, I read it in my own time. Actually, technically I have also read LoTR, but since I appear to have retained virtually zero memory of anything that happens in any of the books I'm not sure it counts!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I am indeed a huge arachnophobe. (Proper full-on physical phobic response, not just 'ick'. I threw one out of the window the other day and shook for 20 mins after.)

[lathany.livejournal.com]

I too thought everyone read Charlotte's Web at school.

Is it that you haven't read Lord of the Rings or that you're not very familiar with it?

[venta.livejournal.com]

See comment above :) Technically I have read it, when I was about 11. But I retain no memory of anything that happened in it.

I've also seen the first two films, and retained no memory of what happened in those either.

Obviously I've heard people talking about it, but for some reason I seem strangely impervious to acquiring any form of knowledge/familiarity. Not on principle, by the way! It just seems to happen :)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I have the same response to Babylon 5. I've seen all of it, some of it several times. I retain almost no information about it other than "oh, Neil Gaiman wrote an episode, didn't he? Was that Babylon 5?"

(That is now complicated by the fact that my brain says "no, he wrote an episode of Doctor Who". I appear unable to accept that he could have done both.)

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

There's always someone who falls inbetween(er) the two camps...

[marjory.livejournal.com]

Our Junior School headmaster took the best part of a year to read Charlotte's Web out to us, one lesson per week. We were not allowed to make any noise or ask questions at all. His delivery left a lot to be desired. I think it was all some small child taming experiment.

I was, therefore, very surprised to enjoy the book when I eventually got hold of a copy for myself!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Good grief!

Where did you go to junior school? For some reason I think you went to Aldo, but that seems unlikely from where your mum lives (unless you lived somewhere different then, of course...)

[marjory.livejournal.com]

Mowden with Mr. Shaw. He was very odd indeed.