Oh my god you got it you got it you got it! The Bagthorpes! Yes! I was beginning to think that Best Beloved and I were the only people on the planet who had read these books. (We may still be the only adults who frequently reread the books, but, well, they're great books.)
Warning: if you haven't read the books past book four, don't bother. Five and six are just kind of weak, but the ones after that are absolute horrors. Total betrayals of the perfection of the first four.
(And I also use "selectively deaf"; it's so much a part of our household lexicon, in fact, that it took me several minutes to realize that, yes, it comes from the Bagthorpe books. "Mutton-headed, pudding-footed hound" doesn't get extensive play around here, but only because the mutton-headed hound in this house is not pudding-footed, and vice versa. And I use "Reconciling the Seemingly Disparate" constantly, and "all the bees are dead," and, well, I could go on, but just writing this comment has made me need to go reread the books right now.)
no subject
Warning: if you haven't read the books past book four, don't bother. Five and six are just kind of weak, but the ones after that are absolute horrors. Total betrayals of the perfection of the first four.
(And I also use "selectively deaf"; it's so much a part of our household lexicon, in fact, that it took me several minutes to realize that, yes, it comes from the Bagthorpe books. "Mutton-headed, pudding-footed hound" doesn't get extensive play around here, but only because the mutton-headed hound in this house is not pudding-footed, and vice versa. And I use "Reconciling the Seemingly Disparate" constantly, and "all the bees are dead," and, well, I could go on, but just writing this comment has made me need to go reread the books right now.)