From: Stuart Inman <S.Inman-AT-greenwich.ac.uk>
Date:          Wed, 4 Dec 1996 12:50:01 GMT
Subject:       Re: childhood culture


For me the "Just William" books were seminal when I was about 9. 
Before that I read both the Iliad and Oddessey, probably my first 
adult books. I remember a rather poor version of some Arthurian 
stories that filled me with an acute, but delicious discomfort. Fear, 
melancholy, longing.

Television. I would love to discuss this from the surrealist point of 
view later. My first memories of the idiot box: A man smashes his 
hand through a window, two tramps talking, chess pieces at the end of 
a game carry their dead comrades off the board. Upon a ship there is 
a murderer, killing off the passengers. It emerges that he is a 
clown. The clown is seated upon a throne, he runs from the captain 
and his crew, falls over the side and is cut to pieces by the ships 
screws. I have never quite trusted clowns since.

Stuart