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=== New Draft of the Week <font size=1>[ [[CZ:New Draft of the Week|about]] ]</font> === | === New Draft of the Week <font size=1>[ [[CZ:New Draft of the Week|about]] ]</font> === | ||
'''John Brock''' is a fictional British undercover agent created by [[Desmond Skirrow]]. He appeared in three fast-paced, witty, and irreverent spy novels written in the late 1960s. Like his creator, he is a successful advertising executive in London; but he is also a part-time agent coerced to work from time to time for a secret department on the Addison Road run by the fat man.<ref>Although he is invariably referred to as the fat man, and is called He and Him by some of his underlings, in neither the British nor American editions is he ever capitalized as The Fat Man or the Fat Man.</ref> Brock is tough, witty, combative, extremely competent, and supremely resilient. Even by fictional standards, he absorbs incredible amounts of physical damage at the hands of his adversaries before, after a few whiskeys and a few hours sleep, he is ready for his next fight against overwhelming odds and, quite likely, yet another beating. | |||
==Cigarettes and sweet white wine== | |||
At the time of his first appearance in ''[[It Won't Get You Anywhere]]'', published in 1966, Brock is most likely in his early 40s, a large, tough, extremely strong man who had apparently served with British special forces in small boats during [[World War II]], probably with SIS ([[Secret Intelligence Service]]} or SOE ([[Special Operations Executive]]). An elliptical reference to climbing Gothic church spires, a traditional activity of students at [[Oxford]], indicates that he may have attended that university before his military service. In the second book, in reply to a direct question about attending Oxford, he says that he was at [[Pembroke College|Pembroke]], one of its colleges.<ref>''[[I Was Following This Girl]]'', Curtis Books paperback edition, New York, 1968, page 80</ref> He smokes cigarettes, drinks large whiskeys, prefers sweet white wine and Champagne to dry, and has an eye for the ladies, with whom, as is usual with fictional agents, he is frequently, though '''not''' always, successful.<font size=1>[[John Brock|['''more...''']]]</font> | |||
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Draft of the Week [ about ] (?) Image: University of Amsterdam Archives Johannes Diderik van der Waals, most probably around 1910 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Johannes Diderik van der Waals (Leiden, November 23, 1837 – Amsterdam, March 8, 1923) was a Dutch theoretical physicist. His name is primarily associated with the van der Waals equation of state that describes the behavior of gases and their condensation to the liquid phase. His name is also associated with van der Waals forces (forces between stable molecules), with van der Waals molecules (small molecular clusters bound by van der Waals forces), and with van der Waals radii (sizes of molecules). He became the first physics professor of the University of Amsterdam when it opened in 1877. Johannes Diderik was the oldest of ten children born to Jacobus van der Waals and Elisabeth van den Berg. His father was a carpenter in the Dutch city of Leiden. As was usual for working class children in the 19th century, he did not go to the kind of secondary school that would have given him the right to enter university. Instead he went to a school of "advanced primary education", which he finished at the age of fifteen. He then became a teacher's apprentice in an elementary school. Between 1856 and 1861 he followed courses and gained the necessary qualifications to become a primary school teacher and head teacher.[more...] New Draft of the Week [ about ]John Brock is a fictional British undercover agent created by Desmond Skirrow. He appeared in three fast-paced, witty, and irreverent spy novels written in the late 1960s. Like his creator, he is a successful advertising executive in London; but he is also a part-time agent coerced to work from time to time for a secret department on the Addison Road run by the fat man.[1] Brock is tough, witty, combative, extremely competent, and supremely resilient. Even by fictional standards, he absorbs incredible amounts of physical damage at the hands of his adversaries before, after a few whiskeys and a few hours sleep, he is ready for his next fight against overwhelming odds and, quite likely, yet another beating. Cigarettes and sweet white wineAt the time of his first appearance in It Won't Get You Anywhere, published in 1966, Brock is most likely in his early 40s, a large, tough, extremely strong man who had apparently served with British special forces in small boats during World War II, probably with SIS (Secret Intelligence Service} or SOE (Special Operations Executive). An elliptical reference to climbing Gothic church spires, a traditional activity of students at Oxford, indicates that he may have attended that university before his military service. In the second book, in reply to a direct question about attending Oxford, he says that he was at Pembroke, one of its colleges.[2] He smokes cigarettes, drinks large whiskeys, prefers sweet white wine and Champagne to dry, and has an eye for the ladies, with whom, as is usual with fictional agents, he is frequently, though not always, successful.[more...] | ||||
- ↑ Although he is invariably referred to as the fat man, and is called He and Him by some of his underlings, in neither the British nor American editions is he ever capitalized as The Fat Man or the Fat Man.
- ↑ I Was Following This Girl, Curtis Books paperback edition, New York, 1968, page 80