Today I was reading The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé. The name of the story was Flight 714 to Sydney. This is my first time reading any of Tintin's adventures. In this story, we were introduced to Professor Cuthbert Calculus and Captain Haddock, as well as Tintin himself, and they all traveled to Djakarta.
It seemed that Professor Calculus was somewhat eccentric. Despite Tintin and Haddock repeatedly trying to make the professor understand that they'd just arrived in Djakarta, the professor seemed to not believe them. After landing at the airport, the professor saw a poster that said the following:
KEMAJORAN (DJAKARTA) INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
But the professor didn't read the whole thing, and seeing only Kemajoran, he started blaming the duo for taking them somewhere besides Djakarta! Then, angry, he said something like the following to them:
"Always the same, isn't it? 'Poor old Cuthbert, doesn't listen to word you say . . . head in the clouds again . . . always gets the wrong end of the stick!' And on and on and on and on and on!"
I could not connect this part with the rest of their conversation. What does the quote above, said by the professor, mean?
Here is the full rant in its entirety:
"Hey! Stop! Are you trying to make a fool of me?" yelled Cuthbert. They turned around to see him pointing to a sign that says 'KEMAJORAN (DJAKARTA) INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.' "There! Look! Kemajoran! Tell me, is this or is this not Djakarta?" said Cuthbert angrily. Haddock turned around and huffed. "Always the same, isn't it? 'Poor old Cuthbert, doesn't listen to a word you say . . . head in the clouds again . . . always gets the wrong end of the stick.' And on and on and on and on and on!" ranted Cuthbert. They kept walking and heard Haddock mumbling angrily to himself then he tripped over someone's luggage and into a man.
Best Answer
I'll take a crack at this, although I agree with chrylis that it's a little hard to figure out for sure what you are asking.
Okay, forget about the airport and the context of the story. You have a group of people together, and one of them feels like the others think he's foolish. So he starts a rant:
That means: No matter what we're doing, you think the same thing of me.
Cuthbert is talking here, so he is saying what he thinks everyone else is thinking about him: namely, that he doesn't listen.
means: Cuthbert doesn't pay attention to what's going on around him; Cuthbert always finds himself confused in life.
Means that he could keep going with his grumbling rant, if he wanted to, adding things like: Cuthbert always has his head up his ass, Cuthbert never does anything right, Cuthbert couldn't find his way home if you gave him a map and paid for his taxi fare, etc.
If I've not answered your question correctly, let me know, I'll delete my answer.