Blow Hot, Blow Cold - Discussion Thread

The Greenslade family dog is named The Blot. When Dr. Hotty van Hunkydoctor first hears the name, his response is: Escutcheon or Landscape? I could have come up with landscape, but alas, I had to look up escutcheon. Also, why is Titus named because of a reference to porridge? P.S. Betty is smart. For those who are not as smart as Betty (like me) here's what an escutcheon is:
es·cutch·eon
1. Heraldry: A shield or shield-shaped emblem bearing a coat of arms.
2. An ornamental or protective plate, as for a keyhole.
3. Nautical: The plate on the stern of a ship inscribed with the ship's name.
Idiom: a blot on (one's) escutcheon
Dishonor to one's reputation.

The patients were 'shrouded in decent obscurity' during surgery. I'd like to think so. The only major surgery I've had (c-section not included), I was naked under the sheet...while waiting (in the hall on a gurney!) for my turn in the operating theatre, a doctor from my church stopped by to say 'hi'. I would have been embarrassed, but the pre-op medication was doing a fine job of dulling my senses.

Sophy climbs a tree in stockings? and then says she shucked her shoes because she was afraid to ruin them? There's no way in heck her stockings would have survived the climb...unless they were cable knit knee highs. She would have been better off shucking the stockings too.

Max is described as a 'pin up boy'. Hah! Love, love, love it. There are so many RDD's that could be described as such, but he's the only one that actually is.

Grandma Greenslade is a crossword doer. When I have time, I too love to solve a crossword (NY Times crossword). I'm really smart on Monday and Tuesday, so-so on Wednesday...Thursday is pretty iffy...and I only do Friday or Saturday if I've got a lot of time to waste (plus I usually have to use Google). I bet I'd be awesome on Friday and Saturday if I was smart enough to know why the cat is named Titus and what an escutcheon is.

Max has vanity plates. It makes me giggle to think that a RDD would waste good money on something so...frivolous. It's always seemed so silly to me - but maybe back in 1970 it was super cool...Max's plates have his birthday and initials. When you come to think about it, it's sort of like an e-mail account ID . If you had vanity plates what would yours say?

Adelaide (from Sister Peter's in Amsterdam) and her husband show up in the book. Their baby has an 'embryonic beaky nose'. It's interesting that The Great Neels started using cross-over characters right at the get-go.

Sophy invents an imaginary boyfriend when she's put on the spot. Sure she names him after a car, but really, as made up names go, it wasn't all that bad. Of course Max figures it out immediately. Have you ever felt the need to invent someone? If so, what name did you use?