On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 3:29 AM, Neil Cerutti <mr.ceru...@gmail.com> wrote: > Many of the main villains in > the book are hilarious and mean-spirited parodies of > a series of British children's literature, The Wombles, > and a British TV show, Steptoe and Son, but the characters work > fine on their own.
Yeah, that's definitely the best way to do it. You don't need to know The Beauty Stone to understand that Colinette, in the city of Lenalede, is trying to get herself appointed as Lord Chief Justice on the grounds that (she claims) the current incumbent is unfair in his rulings. But if you _do_ know that obscure 19th century opera, you'll know there's a line in it "And Colinette from Lenalede, who counts herself the fairest there". (The opera has absolutely nothing to do with justice, incidentally. Colinette is entering herself in a beauty contest. Quite a different meaning of "fairest".) ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list