Thank you all for the warm and kind responses. I value all the comments. Peg_in_Oregon, I wanted this thread to be more about thoughts and writings about gardening, not about post- ing my garden pics. I have a feeling that no matter what I post, for you it will be a lie. I will post pics of roses when I wish to, not when the great Peg in Oregon says I should, to "prove myself". I have posted rose pics before in Rose Gallery, if you want to look those up. They are'nt a big deal though. But you and some others will still have your doubts. That is your choice, but your only fooling yourself. Maybe I should choose to believe that you don't exist either.

Yes, love all the characters in the BBC 10 year old version and have been Tivoing the Masterpiece Theater series. The BBC mother was such a wonderful embarrassment. Mr. Collins so oily--how he would rush his fingers to his lips when interrupted. Colin--what else to say but to drool! Lady Catherine DeBeurve (sp?) was so much better scripted in that version too. Clearly, the BBC script was superior--how else to explain Sutherland and Judy Dench being so forgettable? The BBC father was loving to his daughters, while Sutherland seemed merely a disconnected slob. Mr. Bingley in this version was so daft, silly and effeminate that I wonder why anyone would be attracted to him except for his fortune. And with such an unpleasant mother and father, how on earth could the elder daughters have turned out to be so nice? Moreover, the costuming left a lot to be desired. Clearly it did depict them as poor and with poor taste as well. I noticed they also truncated the story of the youngest sister's potential ruination of herself and her sisters. I prefer the BBC version in every aspect.

Predictable--but when you have to wait 98 episodes (as well as many pages in the book), it is--oh, so satisfying--isn't it! Well done--but I'm still wondering if we will hear more about Lydia's future. Will she run off with the creep--which the novel would seem to require--or do we get a NEW LYDIA, the upcoming modern woman striking out on her own? (Which is the one change I would make--but then I was never fond of whatshisface!) Kate

Vee -- Good question. What MAKES a work a novel? Is it length? Content? Lack of illustrations? Lack of "words" (shall we call them "pseudo-words"?) such as "splat" or "aarrgghh"? Are we to constrain the term "novel" to merely works that are predominantly comprised of text? What if a work had one or two illustrations? Shall we consign such works to the bonfires of the "non-novel"? Of course, if a work had equal parts illustration and text, what shall we call those? Picture books? Half-novels? Literature for the illiterate? Yes vee, graphic novels are just picture books with few or no words. And you are correct -- those of us who purchase such works are lookers and not readers. You see, we don't really know how to read anything other than large, stylized but emotive printed text like "yeek" or "aargh" or "splat". These terms, by the way, follow a unique canon of agreed upon words, conventions, pictures, exclamations, and sock colors that all graphic novels MUST abide by. If they don't abide by them, then they can't be called graphic novels. It is put out by the Graphic Novel Code Authority and all graphic novel purchasers are REQUIRED to buy a copy otherwise they won't understand what's going on (after all, the medium and the paucity of words does not lend itself to expression). A select and secret committee of graphic novel artists and writers get together every full moon to discuss the entries in the canon and they burn their notes afterwards. If the smoke arising from the fire is purple, it means that they have a new definition but if the smoke is colored green, it means that they couldn't agree on a definition or whether to order subs or wraps for lunch. As a sampling of such terms and their agreed upon definitions, here are a few : yeek - a codeword for something icky -- as in when someone sees a mouse, you see the term "yeek" with the character pointing at the offending item/creature aargh - in graphic novels, this is placed in a panel with a stricken character as a form of extreme unction signifying that the character is about to shuffle off this mortal coil (or is in the process of shuffling off but can't seem to figure out where he left his house keys especially when the cabbie's waiting at the door) splat - a very old and respected brand of cushion that used to buy hidden advertising space in comic books. It is used to signify mushy things suddenly decelerating against a non-yielding surface. The term has migrated to the graphic novel space in honor of the company's previous support of the graphic arts. Unfortunately, the financial support that they provided stopped when the company went bankrupt following a bank run in Honduras after a bizarre banking scandal. The company's employees had discovered that when the company said it was investing their 401k into CDs, the company really WAS investing in compact disks manufactured in Honduras. The company CEO subsequently disappeared but is...