Word: franco
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Father was a Sicilian from Palermo who had come to London 20 years ago. He was still loyal to his native country, passionately defending its dignity against all challengers. Franco thought him amusingly oldfashioned, but on the whole harmless. He simply belonged to a different era. Patriotism meant nothing to the young people of today. There had been an attempt, some years earlier, to popularize a European an them and a European flag but neither had been taken seriously. People moved freely across national frontiers, there was a common European currency and members of the European Parliament were elected...
...Franco bitterly reflected that if he had been born twelve years earlier, he would have found it relatively simple to do the same. It was his dearest wish to have a small apartment in Calabria; what else was there after you had installed three color television sets, two refrigerators, and all the other necessities? What else would you dream about after each member of your family had acquired his own single-color, single-shape Eurocar? But a lot of Europe's beaches had been acquired by holiday camps, and seaside property had become hideously expensive. If only Father...
...Franco's attractive Dutch secretary broke into his thoughts. "The computer," she said, "has been on the phone again." Franco cursed. Damn the computer. Orwell had been right: the wretched things were taking over. You rarely talked to business contacts these days-you made your deal directly with a computer. No more business lunches, no more cocktail parties. It was all very efficient, of course, and productivity had speeded up enormously. But where...
...Franco sighed. It was a computer, no doubt, that had standardized all the food in Europe to the point where everything tasted like frozen fish-fingers. Computers wrote songs and turned out plays and musicals by simply juggling with all previously successful formulas. They produced nearly all political speeches in the same cold-blooded manner, and they were soon to take over the actual selection of candidates for office...
...Franco's Danish-born wife had proposed to him, fixed their wedding date, and bought their house. She earned more money than he did, and paid most of the bills. She decided when, and where, they were to have sex and, no doubt, kept a lover on the side. When he had remonstrated-once-she had told him that as the breadwinner, she was entitled to call the tune. She had gone on to suggest that his job was irrelevant: Why didn't he stay at home and become a househusband...