2 February, 2003: Caught

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I went to see Catch Me If You Can the other day. A bit disappointing, though it's a pretty film with a very cool title sequence. My mistake was probably to read the book before seeing the film. The book is very entertaining -- it has to be, to compensate for the appalling journalese in which it is written, for which co-author Stan Redding may be to blame. But really, what induces anybody to write something like (picking at random)

[I] stuck a packet of the [forged] cheques in my coat and went out to buck the tiger.... The tiger, for me, was a pussy cat. I ironed out Vegas like a bed sheet.

Please. Even worse, the British edition of the book has clearly been translated from the American by the simple expedient of search-ing-and-replacing `check' with `cheque', with little regard for context. So Frank Abagnale forges cheques and occasionally goes to a supermarket checkout -- but from time to time we discover him chequeing something out. Gah. Hire a proofreader!


Copyright (c) 2003 Chris Lightfoot; available under a Creative Commons License.