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just his administrative assistant
Aug. 13th, 2012 01:41 amOlympics now over, and I need to pay over the sweepstake earnings to whoever it was that drew America in the office sweepstake for most medals. No great surprise there... though Great Britain didn't do too badly at all. I suspect we may not do as well next year, when we don't have a home crowd. Ah well.
I was reading a few of my old Giles books, which had their share of cartoons about the Olympics, and one thing that struck me was how often people in them are portrayed as staying up late (or all night) to watch on the television, or staggering into work the next morning after having stayed up late all night. That's one of the differences this year. All the events happened during the UK day, or at least the UK evening. Which will not be the case in four years time, I fear. Ah well.
Rereading the Giles books has now also convinced me that Angleton from the Stross Laundry series must look like "Chalkie", the teacher from the Giles books. (I present http://www.gilescartoons.co.uk/cartoon.asp?cartoon=373, http://www.gilescartoons.co.uk/cartoon.asp?cartoon=449 and http://www.gilescartoons.co.uk/cartoon.asp?cartoon=171 as evidence.)
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I raise the camera and frame them in the viewfinder. One last chance before I blow them back to Molvania or wherever they came from, before they got swept up in the Russian civil war and ended up in one of the Bloody White Baron's death trains. ***I am the Eater of Souls! You are mine to command. Halt!***
It's a bit of an exaggeration (if not an outright lie: I am not the Eater of Souls, I'm just his administrative assistant) but for a miracle, the half-skeletonized soldiers stop dead just inside the threshold.
-- The Apocalypse Codex, Charles Stross
I was reading a few of my old Giles books, which had their share of cartoons about the Olympics, and one thing that struck me was how often people in them are portrayed as staying up late (or all night) to watch on the television, or staggering into work the next morning after having stayed up late all night. That's one of the differences this year. All the events happened during the UK day, or at least the UK evening. Which will not be the case in four years time, I fear. Ah well.
Rereading the Giles books has now also convinced me that Angleton from the Stross Laundry series must look like "Chalkie", the teacher from the Giles books. (I present http://www.gilescartoons.co.uk/cartoon.asp?cartoon=373, http://www.gilescartoons.co.uk/cartoon.asp?cartoon=449 and http://www.gilescartoons.co.uk/cartoon.asp?cartoon=171 as evidence.)
---
I raise the camera and frame them in the viewfinder. One last chance before I blow them back to Molvania or wherever they came from, before they got swept up in the Russian civil war and ended up in one of the Bloody White Baron's death trains. ***I am the Eater of Souls! You are mine to command. Halt!***
It's a bit of an exaggeration (if not an outright lie: I am not the Eater of Souls, I'm just his administrative assistant) but for a miracle, the half-skeletonized soldiers stop dead just inside the threshold.
-- The Apocalypse Codex, Charles Stross
