Tom Holmberg

How likely, in real life, the characters in the song would say "haggard."

I don't believe the official version has the "F" word (not that Shane MacGowan doesn't use the "F" word in plenty of his songs).

I remember that and I think Monty Python's Dennis Moore song was a parody of the "Robin Hood" theme.

Probably not on the BBC, but the original version is what you'd hear in pubs, etc. People complain about "Santa Baby" too. Thats what I thought: https://www.nme.com/news/music/bbc-defends-decision-to-play-censored-fairytale-of-new-york-on-radio-1-2828233

Due out in April 2022: "The Time Traveler's Guide to Regency Britain: A Handbook for Visitors to 1789–1830" by Ian Mortimer (ISBN 9781643138817)

"Judge Harvey"... I can't say what the appeal of Steve Harvey is. Don't get it.

Bond aficionados actually think "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is the best Bond film, but at the time it was considered a flop and Lazenby pretty much disappeared. I wish they'd go back to the books, start over, and set the films in the late 1950s and 1960s.

Probably Greenlight card. (That's the one I always see ads for) https://www.greenlight.com/

Probably for those "credit cards" for kids where parents (or anyone else, I guess) can add money and kids can spend it and the parents get a report of expenditures. Really not an awful idea.

I was just joking about this because I was wondering what the weirdest thing Shaq could do an ad for next.

I think the Nurx ads with Shaq shopping for birth control are ridiculous.

It's interesting that after "Upstairs, Downstairs" was a hit in the US, CBS in 1975 produced an American version called "Beacon Hill" which flopped and was cancelled before all the episodes were aired. Now "Downton Abbey" was a hit in the US and an American version is being produced.

I agree five books is too small, esp. for kids books. Our limit is 100 books, but even that isn't really enforced.

Anyone interested in reading the book I'd suggest the Oxford World's Classics version (2008). A lot of earlier translations were "loose", which was typical at the time.

Some useful new reading terms: https://bleedingcool.com/comics/tom-gauld-collects-literary-cartoons-in-revenge-of-the-librarians/

My favorite Christmas song. (Sadly, it makes me think of my parents.)

So they can charge even more?

I can see eliminating fines for kids books, because kids often are dependent on others to get to the library (though a link with the local schools for library book returns would be useful). But encouraging the prompt return of books helps everyone.

I think its a hoarding syndrome. You can't really read that many all at once. The problem is often they'll have 75 new books out for a month or more, keeping others from seeing them. And since books only stay "new" for a limited time, and this is their best chance of circulating, they are hurting the circulation of these items. A lot of libraries will deliver and pick up books for people who are homebound or have other issues. People might want to look into that if they have similar issues.

That's basically Fogg in the book. It's Verne making fun of a stereotypical Englishman (in the French mind). Growing up in Chicago the local channels played a lot of Cantinflas movies at weird times, early mornings and late at night. He struck me as kind of a silent movie comedian in the talkie era, like a Charlie Chaplin who talked.

The balloon from Paris is based on the use of balloons to get mail out of Paris during the 1870 siege of Paris. Not in the book, though Verne did have a thing for balloons and airships.

You have a group of book hoarders who will have 50-75 or more books out at a time, with a quarter or more of them overdue,, who nothing will make them act in a responsible manner. But most people were sensitive to overdues, and actually tried to return books on or before there due dates. I'm not sure why we assume that "the population that can least afford fines" were somehow unable to return books (or renew their books-we automatically renewed books if they weren't on reserve for someone else) on time.

Our library got rid of fines, but the only people who were fined were people who had books other patrons were on hold for or people who had a book out for more that 15 weeks. Now, no matter how many people are waiting for a books, people can keep them for six or eight weeks overdue with no consequences, which is nice if I have the book and not so nice if I'm waiting for the book. Fines weren't to make money, they were to encourage people to return checkout items.

This has little to do with the original story, except for going around the world. In the book Fix is Detective Fix (a male) who thinks Fogg is an escaping bank robber and is chasing him. There is a female character in the novel, a woman in India who is saved by Fogg from suttee and who travels with them there after. Fogg's personality in the book is more like a Sheldon Cooper ("Big Bang Theory")- he fired his last valet because his shaving water was slightly less than ideal temperature. Abigail Fix, in the series, is basically Nellie Bly, a reporter who actually went around the world in 80 days (actually less than 80 days).

"Fairytale of New York" by the Pogues gets voted the most popular Christmas song in the UK every year.