Word: caractacus
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...illegal in Britain, they traveled to a Zurich clinic, where, for a fee of about $7,000 per patient, the group Dignitas arranges for death by barbiturate. "They drank a small quantity of clear liquid and then lay down on the beds next to each other," their son Caractacus said. They fell asleep and died within minutes, he reported, calling it a "very civilized" final...
Once upon a time (c. 1910) there was an inventor named Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke). He and his two children-apparently spawned by autogenesis, since there is no mention of a mother-live with their potty Grandpa (Lionel Jeffries) and a bunch of malfunctioning machines, ingeniously designed by Rowland Emett. Like the man who invented five-up and six-up and then gave up, Caractacus falls just short of greatness. His vacuum cleaner not only cleans the rug, it swallows it. His color television set just broadcasts wobbles. His Icarus act fizzles when the rockets tied to his back...
Just as the stream of self-conscious ness winds down to a thin treacle, the film-and the car-take flight. Caractacus spins a tale of adventure, with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as the hero. The car soars and sails, evil Baron Bomburst (Gert Frobe) covets it and unleashes comic villains to kidnap its owner. Instead, they get Grandpa. Off he goes to Vulgaria, a horrid land where children are forbidden. Underneath the baron's castle, the banished boys and girls have hidden for years, waiting for salvation...
...bedtime tales for small boys, they were not quite right. So the late novelist created a magical car in stories he told his son Caspar, now 12, and some of them will be published under the title, Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. The car's owner, Commander Caractacus Pott, fortyish, is rather like Commander James Bond, except that he has a family, and the car, a supercharged Paragon Panther, is a near cousin to 007's Bentley. "You see those knobs and levers and lights on the dashboard?" asks Pott. "We'll find out what they...
...Charles Jenkins," wrote Schoolteacher John, "married a Russian girl and Timoshenko (Timothy Jenkins) is their eldest son. Timo's grandfather was the Rev. Caractacus Jenkins, a fine nonconformist preacher in both English and Welsh . . . and he was also a Welsh bard...
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