Ever since I read Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome decades ago, I’ve been a fan of it – so much so that I bought another copy when I couldn’t find the one I had bought all those years ago. I don’t usually buy copies of books which I can download for free from Project Gutenberg, but in this case, I did. I bought copies of two more books by JKJ, too, as you can see in the photo above.
Last night, I was chatting with a friend who recorded Three Men in a Boat and Three men on the Bummel for me so that I now have audio books to enjoy.
I browsed the web for information on JKJ and came across the Jerome K Jerome Society.
In the miscellanea section they have the youtube clips of the BBC adaptation from 1975 of the book.
I remember going to youtube last night to look
for some links to a film I never watched – Three men in a Boat, I fancy it was. I clicked on the link, and watched all I came to watch; and then, in an
unthinking moment, I idly clicked on ‘related’, and began to indolently
study films, generally. I forget which was the first episode I
plunged into – some fearful, devastating movie, I know – and, before I
had glanced half down the list of “related movies,” it was borne in
upon me that I had to watch them all. I began to get
interested in the German films of that name, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so
started numerically – watched the first clip, and learnt that the only thing it has in common with the book are the title and the names of the characters of the book.
I sat for a while, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of
despair, I again browsed youtube. I plodded conscientiously through the whole list, and the only clips that were good were the BBC ones.I had opened youtube a happy, healthy woman. I closed it
a decrepit wreck.
See what I did there? If not, I heartily recommend you read the book and don’t bother with the German film of that name!
