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* "Sucker" by BronwenSM (emerging adolescence & humor) 10, 10, 10 * "Sucker" by BronwenSM (bronwensm@cuckoo.clara.net). Live and learn, that's what I always say. I've spent my life on this side of the pond. I always thought the British were much like the rest of us. I read Shakespeare, of course, but I always figured he's been dead for nearly a hundred years now, and I figured the British didn't really talk that way. I have always been pretty sure that the people of the UK really liked us over here in the colonies, because after all the American Revolution was really a fight between a group of British subjects and a German King - the Germans, don't get me off on them or I'll never get back to this review. I figured MAYBE the British talked in iambic pentameter and expressed their love in sonnets and could actually understand what John Milton was talking about and sang "Singing in the Rain" on those occasions when they raped somebody. But even though I often wondered how they got along with almost no real television and why all the good musicians left the country as soon as they grew up, I knew that deep down they were ordinary blokes, although I wasn't really sure whether it was proper to refer to a female Brit as a bloke. I could go on, but the point is that along came BronwenSM, who has two capital letters at the end of her name. So right away I knew that I was going to learn things about my confreres from the Mother Country. Anyway, this is a story about a 16-year-old girl {that would probably be 17 in ordinary years, eh Mate?} who was formerly what we Americans call a plain Jane. While she's laid up {no sexual connotation, even in England} with glandular fever, her body goes through what American talk shows {BBC Channel 2} sometimes call adolescent metamorphosis. In short, she comes back a babe - a young femme fatale, one might say - after spending some time convalescing at huge tatty mansion on a cliff with a private beach of Aunt Dolly in Wales. Or, as a more astute British author might put it, during her hiatus she had gone from the plainly porcine to lithe and lascivious loveliness. When she returned to school, her impact on society was emphatic if not traumatic. Great gangs of men on building sites shrieked at her like gibbons, old men slipped off their Zimmer frames when she went into the post office, and her terrifying chemistry master went red all the way up his neck whenever he looked at her and then left a really embarrassing poem in my pigeon hole. So when this bloke she fancied asked her to go swimming with him, she nearly dropped down dead with delight. See what I mean? American teenagers would simply cum in their panties, which doesn't even alliterate, as if they would know what that means! Way gone, dude! I think I'm going to give up trying to imitate the British style in this subtle manner and simply get on with it. After all, I have viewed the dismal situation and it is ours, as the Great British Poet once said. The boyfriend's name is Oliver, which is sometimes another name for John Thomas (or, in America, Johnson or more informally Dick), and so this reminds me of another story that I heard back in the 70's. A man and a woman went on their honeymoon - in Wales, I think. After several hours of what the man considered to be a most excellent First Night Experience with his virgin bride, she went to the bathroom - I forget what the British call it - you know, the crapper. Anyway, the man looks over the newspaper for something to do the next day, and he comes across an interesting movie. So he shouts, "Would you like to see "Oliver Twist," Luv?" The wife replies, "You do one more trick with that bloody thing, and I'm going home to my Mum." {By Jove, I think I got it!} Anyway, Oliver develops an infirmity (the blood suddenly rushes to his thing), and the young lady has to give him first aid. She quickly becomes so good at first aid that the boys are pretty much lining up to be serviced. This is an excellent story - both sexy and humorous. Before I end this review, I'd like to say just one more thing about British speech, which gets especially awkward when they ride bicycles. For example, I picked up this anecdote on another newsgroup: I was walking down the street with my wife the other day when we saw our neighbor (a very genial Jamaican bloke) riding by on his bike. Suddenly the bike flips and our poor neighbor finds himself spread eagled on the pavement. My wife immediately said: "That black bloke's bike's back brake block broke." British people can actually SAY things like that! Just imagine if the Jamaican bloke would have been a bleached blond! Ratings for "Sucker" Athena (technical quality): 10 Venus (plot & character): 10 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10