This means nothing to me

[nmg]

Next month, just after Easter, I have a business trip to Vienna for a project meeting (hopefully - the project coordinator has *still* not sent the details for a planned meeting that's now less than a month away), and so ias, the garklet and garklet2 (WINYOLJ) are coming over to make a short break of it. We've been trying to enthuse the garklet with the idea of the trip, but he's currently being quite grumpy and negative.

On the way to school this morning, I broached the subject with him again. After an initial "it's boring", he advanced the notion that it might be fun "because they have lungans in bins there".

nmg:

What's a lungan?

garklet:

They go in bins. We saw it in a film.

nmg:

We? You and I? I'm not sure what a lungan is.

garklet:

Yes, we saw them in the film we watched about Vienna.

nmg:

Are lungans animals or people?

garklet:

(with an odd look) They're people, dad!

nmg:

Sorry, I'm just being a bit dim this morning! Was this film in black and white? (thinking that it might be a dim and toddler-memory-accented recollection of The Third Man)

garklet:

No, it was a colour film.

nmg:

Gosh. You've got me stumped here. Can you remember anything else about the film?

garklet:

Yes, there were people in bed and they were talking about things.

nmg:

What sort of things were they talking about?

garklet:

Interesting things!

nmg:

Of course.

garklet:

And he had a blackboard in his bedroom.

nmg:

(realisation dawns) You're talking about A Very Peculiar Practice! They're not lungans, they're nuns!

garklet:

(embarrassed) Yes! Nuns, not lungans!

nmg:

That programme is set in, well, a made-up university, not Vienna. There will almost certainly be nuns somewhere in Vienna, but I very much doubt that we'll see them going through bins.

garklet:

(disappointed) Oh.

nmg:

Vienna has other things. It has very chocolately chocolate cake!

garklet:

(brightening) Oh!

No wonder the lad has been lukewarm about Vienna - he's been under the misapprehension that we're going on holiday to a crumbling 1960s university campus!

Comments

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

You may or may not be pleased to know that my dear wife and I were in absolute fits over that. Superb.

Altered priorities ahead.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

There are some things that he gets, and some things that he partially gets, and clearly some things that he doesn't get at all. We're currently working on a chronology of the last three or four millennia; he knows about romans, knights, vikings and the world wars, but tends to be a little vague on the exact order.

[tlrmx.org (from livejournal.com)]

http://pbfcomics.com/209/

Real history is silly too. The Americans had a fission bomb before they had any jet bombers. What sort of tech tree is that?

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Nuns going through the bins?

...and all this time I'd thought it was foxes.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

If you look closely, you can tell which is which by the rosaries and the lingering smell of incense.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I've missed your dialogues with the Garklet. It's really good to read one again.

(I was telling one of the older ones to my brother in law only yesterday - about the child with two mums and the Garklet's insistence that there had to be a mum and a dad in spite of all evidence to the contrary.)

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I've not seen A Very Peculiar Practice but... nuns in bins?

[nmg.livejournal.com]

At the start of every episode. Not necessarily in bins, but usually doing something un-nun-ly.

For example: http://youtu.be/VTticYbgWyU?t=50s

[unwholesome-fen.livejournal.com]

The nuns are like the ravens at the Tower of London.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Heh... yes, essentially, it is about a decaying modern university and as a metaphor for this, near feral nuns roam the campus and are pictured scavenging through bins or similar disruptive activities. Brilliant television.

[marklesuk.livejournal.com]

Schonnbrunn palace has red squirrels in its park:)
and the BIG wheel is in Vienna
lil

[nmg.livejournal.com]

I know - the Wiener Riesenrad is most definitely on our itinerary (Third Man, dontcha know).

As for the red squirrels, we failed to see them in the Lake District, so we'll no doubt fail to see them here...

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

LOL. Kurtzhau once thought... oh well, you know.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Heh... love it.

I believe it is specifically Keele campus he is confusing with Vienna here.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

Meesa no nun!

[ruthj.livejournal.com]

A lot of the 1960s campus scenes were filmed on the 1960s bits of the University of Birmingham. So everytime I watch A Very Peculiar Practice I spend the whole time location spotting ;-)