Monday, August 16, 2010

The correct answer is, of course, 'a card stand'.

In many ways, Chez Blue Cat/Patroclus is like a literary salon of the olden days, where they had big hats and gas lights. Consider the following conversation.

CONSIDER IT:

ME: ... although I never liked the Sherlock Holmes books that much to be honest, there were always umpty-tum reasons people might have a bit of pale mud on their turnups or summat, didn't automatically mean their sister was having an affair with a interior decorator just back from the Crimean or whatevs, anyway I always preferred Edgar Allen Poe's Dupin, who totes preceeded Holmes and invented the whole 'deductive reasoning' thing, although he called it 'ratiocination', 'The Adventure of the Purloined Letter' is great, someone hides a letter in the last place you'd expect, completely the last place, where do you think the last place anyone would look for a letter is, where do you think he hid it?
PATROCLUS: UP HIS ARSE.

A shocked silence ensues. Finally:

ME: Well!

(I think it's a letter rack, it was ages since I read it)

12 comments:

Tim F said...

She’s getting confused with The Adventure of the Engineer’s Bum.

patroclus said...

Ooh, the Engineer's Bum is a good one, although the act of hiding an entire industrial press up one's fundament is perhaps a touch far-fetched.

Vicus Scurra said...

It is nice to see that the art of literary analysis is alive and thriving.

Neil said...

Edgar Allen Poe - miles better than Mr Conan Doyle :)

James Henry said...

I reckon, although Doyle did do dinosaurs.

Christopher said...

And cricket.

Dave said...

Oh yes, and cricket.

Dave said...

I once bowled a Spedegue's Dropper. The umpire called 'no ball'.

Boz said...

I like G K Chesterton's Father Brown, but he seemed to do bugger-all actual detective work, as far as I can recall.

He's probably due for an update, thinking on it. **hint hint**

James Henry said...

I'm already failing to get one G.K. Chesterton adaptation off the ground, two might be considered grounds for hopelessness.

Boz said...

But it's very reassuring to know that out there, somewhere, people are failing to get things I like off the ground and onto my telly screens and radio speakers.

The world is still a better place, even if it doesn't help you viz the rent.

James Henry said...

Well as long as I get things to the script commission stage, I get money, and the rent is paid. I'd rather make a living writing my own stuff, and it never quite make it to the screen, than write for other people and have work I don't care about guaranteed to end up on BBC3 or whatevs. Although my bank manager may not agree.