Resumo de Less Is More, Please

BarryHumphries? Less Is More, PleaseExcerptedfrom More, Please, this is the story of a music-hall actor?s andwriter?s childhood in Australia. He grew up in a prosperous family, butdoesn?t seem to have retained much gratitude for it. Still, the story contains a few insights Ishould record:1.The family used a ouijaboard and thought it great fun until one night one relative asked when hersoldier brother would return home and the demon spelled out N-E-V-E-R. One good result?they did not play that gameagain. The occult is not a game. Never.2.?Sport was my greatestproblem at school. I was alwaysperfectly healthy and yet I could never see the point of games. Paradoxically, I attribute my excellentconstitution and energy today to the fact that since school I have neverengaged in more than a minute of athletic activity? (p37). This he says after having mentioned hisearlier sickliness. Still, he has apoint in avoiding sporting activities that bring other boys home with lifelonginjuries. I remember thinking basketballso silly for its endless runs up and down the court, and American footballsillier still, for its ?mayhem punctuated by committee meetings? as George Willsaid. And doctors tell us walking is thebest exercise.3.He talks about Sundaysat his house, listening to a boring sermon in church, then going home to hearhis parents argue: ?Sunday lunch?ordinner as it was called?always consisted of a Roast; lamb, pork or beef. This was always cooked, as I still prefer it,until it was an attractive shade of grey.The roast was accompanied by potatoes, parsnips and pumpkin baked to acrisp, the pumpkin caramelized. Thiswould be followed by tinned peaches or a steamed pudding in which apricot jam,golden syrup or sultanas were alternating constituents. Much as I looked forward to this mealthroughout the tedious tracts of Canon Robinson?s sermons, I dreaded the returnhome as well. For Sunday was the daythat my parents usually had ?words.? Itwould be more truthful to say that they had no words at all, but there was apalpable atmosphere of tension which had no explicable origin. It may have been that my parents, to allappearances a happily married couple, found the prospect of one day in the weekspent in each other?s company unendurable.This oppressive atmosphere, which froze the heart of a child, may havehad a purely gastric origin, as we consumed those large quantities of fat?(p42). Then his family went for theirSunday afternoon spin to look at beautiful homes, a practice having more sensefor his family than for mine, since his father was a building contractor whilemine was raising up a building not made with hands, in which case a moreappropriate activity would probably have been studying how such are made. Anyway, it gave my dad relaxation for a fewminutes, more than it did for Barry Humphries? father.BarryHumphries blasts away at schoolteachers, various other people in terms farstronger than I think facts would warrant.He mentions fear of litigation, which I think justified, and I?d derivegrim satisfaction hearing someone sued him successfully for characterassassination or libel.

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