enter the Fen
Dec. 8th, 2004 01:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
incandescensChoir of schoolchildren from some local school singing in the street as I passed them at about 2.30 pm this afternoon, collecting for the Marie Curie Cancer Trust. No idea what school they were, except that they wore medium length skirts/kilts in brown and blue plaid. Enthusiastic, if not wildly on key, and pretty enough voices.
Christmas is coming.
Queries are rather slow at the moment. Touch wood that they stay this way.
Must rewrite murder game to alter at least one character's gender, as it is looking increasingly as if most players will be female.
---
I like this author and his style. So sue me.
A red object shot down the Woodstock Road.
It was an extremely small, vociferous and battered sports car. Across its bonnet was scrawled in large whit letters the words LILY CHRISTINE III. A steatopygic nude in chromium leaned forward at a dangerous angle from the radiator cap. It reached the junction of the Woodstock and Banbury roads, turned sharply to the left, and entered the private road which runs up beside the college of St. Christopher (for the benefit of the uninitiated, it should here be said that St Christopher's stands next to St. John's). It then turned in at a wrought-iron gate and proceeded at about forty miles an hour down a short gravel drive which was boredered with lawns and rhododendron bushes and which terminated in a sort of half-hearted loop where it was just impossible conveniently to turn a car. It was evident that the driver had his vehicle under only imperfect control. He was wrestling desperately with the levers. The car made directly for the window where the President of the college, a thin, demure man of mildly epicurean tastes, was sunning himself. Perceiving his peril, he retreated in panic haste. But the car missed the wall of his lodging and fled on up to the end of the drive, where the driver, with a tremendous swerve of the wheel and some damage to the grass borders, succeeded in turning it completely round. At this point there seemed to be nothing to stop his rushing back the way he had come, but unhappily, in righting the wheel, h pulled it over too far, and the car thundered across a strip of lawn, buried its nose in a large rhododendron bush, choked, stalled, and stopped.
Its driver got out and gazed at it with some severity. While he was doing this it backfired suddenly -- a tremendous report, a backfire to end all backfires. He frowned, took a hammer from the back seat, opened the bonnet, and hit something inside. Then he closed the bonnet again and resumed his seat. The engine started and the car went into reverse with a colossal jolt and began racing backwards towards the President's Lodging. The President, who had returned to the window and was gazing at this scene with a horrid fascination, retired again, with scarcely less haste than before. The driver looked over his shoulder, and saw the President's Lodging towering above him, like a liner above a motor-boat. Without hesitation, he changed into forward gear. The car uttered a terrible shriek, shuddered like a man smitten with the ague, and stopped; after a moment it emitted its inexplicable valedictory backfire. With dignity the driver put on the brake, climbed out, and took a brief-case from the back seat.
-- The Moving Toyshop, Edmund Crispin
Christmas is coming.
Queries are rather slow at the moment. Touch wood that they stay this way.
Must rewrite murder game to alter at least one character's gender, as it is looking increasingly as if most players will be female.
---
I like this author and his style. So sue me.
A red object shot down the Woodstock Road.
It was an extremely small, vociferous and battered sports car. Across its bonnet was scrawled in large whit letters the words LILY CHRISTINE III. A steatopygic nude in chromium leaned forward at a dangerous angle from the radiator cap. It reached the junction of the Woodstock and Banbury roads, turned sharply to the left, and entered the private road which runs up beside the college of St. Christopher (for the benefit of the uninitiated, it should here be said that St Christopher's stands next to St. John's). It then turned in at a wrought-iron gate and proceeded at about forty miles an hour down a short gravel drive which was boredered with lawns and rhododendron bushes and which terminated in a sort of half-hearted loop where it was just impossible conveniently to turn a car. It was evident that the driver had his vehicle under only imperfect control. He was wrestling desperately with the levers. The car made directly for the window where the President of the college, a thin, demure man of mildly epicurean tastes, was sunning himself. Perceiving his peril, he retreated in panic haste. But the car missed the wall of his lodging and fled on up to the end of the drive, where the driver, with a tremendous swerve of the wheel and some damage to the grass borders, succeeded in turning it completely round. At this point there seemed to be nothing to stop his rushing back the way he had come, but unhappily, in righting the wheel, h pulled it over too far, and the car thundered across a strip of lawn, buried its nose in a large rhododendron bush, choked, stalled, and stopped.
Its driver got out and gazed at it with some severity. While he was doing this it backfired suddenly -- a tremendous report, a backfire to end all backfires. He frowned, took a hammer from the back seat, opened the bonnet, and hit something inside. Then he closed the bonnet again and resumed his seat. The engine started and the car went into reverse with a colossal jolt and began racing backwards towards the President's Lodging. The President, who had returned to the window and was gazing at this scene with a horrid fascination, retired again, with scarcely less haste than before. The driver looked over his shoulder, and saw the President's Lodging towering above him, like a liner above a motor-boat. Without hesitation, he changed into forward gear. The car uttered a terrible shriek, shuddered like a man smitten with the ague, and stopped; after a moment it emitted its inexplicable valedictory backfire. With dignity the driver put on the brake, climbed out, and took a brief-case from the back seat.
-- The Moving Toyshop, Edmund Crispin
