Why Enid Blyton? What do people like about her books?

The books! Over seven hundred of them and still counting...
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Chrissie777
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Re: Trains.

Post by Chrissie777 »

MJE wrote:
Chrissie777 wrote:I'm talking about the Rocky Mountaineer train.
     That *was* horrendously expensive - all the more so if those were old prices from years ago.
Michael.
Hi Michael,

This was not years ago, it was last year in March when we started looking for a decent honeymoon trip (we are both not into the usual tropic/exotic islands). This was actually my husband's suggestion for a honeymoon and I fell in love with the idea.
AAA sent us a brochure, so we thought maybe it's more expensive via AAA. Online research resulted in the same price, US $12.00 for just 6 nights on a train (???), maybe all meals included, but still! No wonder that all these trains get closed down more and more.
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Re: Trains.

Post by Chrissie777 »

MJE wrote: If a train is tourist-oriented, it's not likely to provide options that tourists don't like taking anyway.
Michael.
That was exactly our thought: how can the Rocky Mountaineer survive on such horrendous fares? Probably nobody is crossing Canada from East to West on a train these days.
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Re: Trains.

Post by MJE »

Chrissie777 wrote:This was not years ago, it was last year in March when we started looking for a decent honeymoon trip (we are both not into the usual tropic/exotic islands).
     Sorry, Chrissie - it appears I didn't read your comments carefully enough. Francis made a reference concerning years ago, and I think I somehow mistakenly confused that with your comments, and thought it possible you were talking about some time ago - and I was careless enough not to go back and check, and sort it all out properly.
     Still, it is extremely expensive, all the same.
Chrissie wrote:Online research resulted in the same price, US $12.00 for just 6 nights on a train (???), maybe all meals included, but still! No wonder that all these trains get closed down more and more.
     I assume they did their market research before designing their business model. Perhaps they are appealing to a super-rich subset of tourists - I don't know. And the services and features included may truly be over the top which would justify very high prices, I suppose. Super-extravagant things do exist in this world, and I assume they survive at least some of the time.

Regards, Michael.
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Re: What was the Enid Blyton Secret?

Post by 70s-child »

Enikyoga wrote: It is in Five On Kirrin Island Again that Uncle Quentin reveals his scientific blueprint to her daughter, George, while in captivity on their own island, Kirrin Island, about his intentions of ridding the world of oil, coal and coke, the leading pollutants of the environment. Therefore in retrospect, Enid Blyton was one of the earlier precursors to the modern environmental movement way back in 1947 (when Five On Kirrin Island Again was first published) since nowadays, coal, coke and oil have been identified as the key contributors to the current climate change. I even sent a message to the former US Vice-President, Al Gore (http://www.algore.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;), a current leading environmental activist, by reminding him that before he was born (in 1948), Enid Blyton had advocated the same aspects i.e. of ridding the world of its key pollutants i.e. oil and oil.
Did Al Gore respond? :D Actually, the way I see it, the concern with oil and coal expressed in that book has nothing to do with the current thinking on global warming, and certainly I don't think Blyton was being clairvoyant or anything. Since the industrial age was well underway at the time Blyton was writing, the industries in all major towns of that era would have been very polluting. All of them depended heavily on coal and oil for their energy needs, and the air would have been anything but clean at that time. In the US for instance, the air in cities has become cleaner over the last several decades due to stringent emission norms, re-location of industries, and improvements such as unleaded fuel and so on. But if you have been in New York and other cities in the frost belt like Baltimore, you can clearly see all the remains of the industrial times - old factories and warehouses with brick walls covered in soot and grime. Also, the global warming debate, from what I know of it, has less to do with this sort of air pollution, and more to do with greenhouse gases that things like air-conditioners emit. I am pretty sure Blyton's concern with the finding a replacement for oil and coal stemmed from the pollution she was likely seeing in the cities of her time, than anything related to GHG emissions.
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Re: What was the Enid Blyton Secret?

Post by Chrissie777 »

70s-child wrote: Since the industrial age was well underway at the time Blyton was writing, the industries in all major towns of that era would have been very polluting. All of them depended heavily on coal and oil for their energy needs, and the air would have been anything but clean at that time. In the US for instance, the air in cities has become cleaner over the last several decades due to stringent emission norms, re-location of industries, and improvements such as unleaded fuel and so on.
Years ago in the eighties in Liv Ullman's autobiographi(es) I read that people who spend more than 2 weeks in Los Angeles have already so much pollution inhaled that it's supposedly visible on x-rays. I found that very scary and never longed to spend more time than I have to in L. A..
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Re: Trains.

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Chrissie777 wrote:I'm talking about the Rocky Mountaineer train... AAA sent us a brochure, so we thought maybe it's more expensive via AAA. Online research resulted in the same price, US $12.00 for just 6 nights on a train (???), maybe all meals included, but still! No wonder that all these trains get closed down more and more.
Are you sure you meant to write US $12.00, Chrissie? I just checked that on an online currency converter and it came out at £7.65 in British Sterling, which would be fantastically cheap!
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Re: What was the Enid Blyton Secret?

Post by Francis »

Chrissie we didn't sleep in the observation cars - they were for observation
only. There were only a limited number of seats so we had to rotate their
use with other passengers.
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Re: Trains.

Post by Fiona1986 »

Anita Bensoussane wrote:
Chrissie777 wrote: price, US $12.00 for just 6 nights on a train (???)
Are you sure you meant to write US $12.00, Chrissie? I just checked that on an online currency converter and it came out at £7.65 in British Sterling, which would be fantastically cheap!
I'm assuming she meant $1200 or possibly $12,000. I know many countries swap decimal points and commas. We'd say twelve thousand, five hundred pounds as £12,500 whereas others would say it as £12.500. Similarly here twelve pounds fifty pence is £12.50, but elsewhere might be £12,50.
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Re: Trains.

Post by 70s-child »

Fiona1986 wrote: I'm assuming she meant $1200 or possibly $12,000. I know many countries swap decimal points and commas. We'd say twelve thousand, five hundred pounds as £12,500 whereas others would say it as £12.500. Similarly here twelve pounds fifty pence is £12.50, but elsewhere might be £12,50.
Yes, I think Chrissie meant $12,000. I know France swaps the decimal for the comma and vice versa; I suppose Germany does too.
Chrissie777 wrote: Years ago in the eighties in Liv Ullman's autobiographi(es) I read that people who spend more than 2 weeks in Los Angeles have already so much pollution inhaled that it's supposedly visible on x-rays. I found that very scary and never longed to spend more time than I have to in L. A.
I know a couple who refused to take up a very good job in LA about 6 years ago because of all the pollution there. Though it has got a lot better, LA is one of my least favorite cities. However, its suburbs like Santa Monica, Anaheim etc. are really nice.

By the way, Chrissie, in response to your question on Blyton's magic, I love the humor and the camaraderie in the books. The FFO in particular has a lot of very funny scenes.
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Re: Trains.

Post by Chrissie777 »

Anita Bensoussane wrote:
Chrissie777 wrote: Are you sure you meant to write US $12.00, Chrissie? I just checked that on an online currency converter and it came out at £7.65 in British Sterling, which would be fantastically cheap!
Hello Anita,

Sorry, it was a typo. I intended to write US $12.000 for 6 nights on the Rocky Mountaineer in a sleeping compartment with meals included (which is $2.000 per day). I think that's an outrageous price.
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Re: Trains.

Post by Chrissie777 »

70s-child wrote:
Chrissie777 wrote: Years ago in the eighties in Liv Ullman's autobiographi(es) I read that people who spend more than 2 weeks in Los Angeles have already so much pollution inhaled that it's supposedly visible on x-rays. I found that very scary and never longed to spend more time than I have to in L. A.
I know a couple who refused to take up a very good job in LA about 6 years ago because of all the pollution there. Though it has got a lot better, LA is one of my least favorite cities. However, its suburbs like Santa Monica, Anaheim etc. are really nice.
By the way, Chrissie, in response to your question on Blyton's magic, I love the humor and the camaraderie in the books. The FFO in particular has a lot of very funny scenes.
Hi 70s-child,

When you are in the San Bernardino Mountains outside Los Angeles, you can see the smog like a brown cloud deep down beneath you (the mountains are ca. 7.000 ft. high). You can see the ground and the towns far down below and that brown cloud a little further up. I didn't notice that on my first trip to Lake Arrowhead in 1997.

I agree, some of the FFO books are very funny, especially the one with Fatty's jogging along the river to get rid of Eulalia (maybe in the English version her name is different).
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Re: Trains.

Post by Moonraker »

Chrissie777 wrote:...some of the FFO books are very funny, especially the one with Fatty's jogging along the river to get rid of Eulalia (maybe in the English version her name is different).
What a lovely name,. much nicer than Eunice!
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Re: Trains.

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

70s-child wrote:
Fiona1986 wrote:I'm assuming she meant $1200 or possibly $12,000. I know many countries swap decimal points and commas.
Yes, I think Chrissie meant $12,000. I know France swaps the decimal for the comma and vice versa; I suppose Germany does too.
Thanks for that. I feel terribly unobservant now, as I've visited France and Germany several times without ever noticing that!
Chrissie777 wrote:Sorry, it was a typo. I intended to write US $12.000 for 6 nights on the Rocky Mountaineer in a sleeping compartment with meals included (which is $2.000 per day). I think that's an outrageous price.
Crumbs - that certainly is outrageous! It's £7646.47 in British Sterling!
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Re: Trains.

Post by MJE »

     Do the showers have gold-plated taps? I wonder if they serve lobster and 1,000-dollar bottles of champagne at every meal.
     It does sound a bit like that kind of thing.

Regards, Michael.
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Re: Trains.

Post by Chrissie777 »

Anita Bensoussane wrote:
70s-child wrote:
Fiona1986 wrote:I'm assuming she meant $1200 or possibly $12,000. I know many countries swap decimal points and commas.
Yes, I think Chrissie meant $12,000. I know France swaps the decimal for the comma and vice versa; I suppose Germany does too.
Thanks for that. I feel terribly unobservant now, as I've visited France and Germany several times without ever noticing that!
Sorry, I still get mixed up with the dot (Germany) and the comma (US). What I meant was a price of twelve thousand US Dollars.
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