flemmings | (no subject)

Mug, mug, mug. Went to the super two blocks away, came back, dropped groceries in blissfully cool by comparison house, went up to physio three blocks away and was *sopping* when I arrived. Yes, good thing I showered before leaving, but now must shower again before going to bed. And frankly I see no evidence that sweating actually cools you.

Temps should drop in tomorrow's storms but they're still calling for humid weather. A humid 26 isn't that much different from a humid 30 in my experience.

The linden is shedding its secondary leaves or whatever they are. Some day will get around to sweeping them up. Some day will attack the backyard vines that totally cover the walkway and are trying to seal the garage door shut. Gardener emailed me asking would I like some work done. Yes, but can't afford it. It's not that she charges $75 an hour, it's that she takes two hours to cut the backyard vines.

I have The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes from the library, John Dickson Carr and Adrian Doyle's missing cases. Have read Adrian's before, haven't read John, am actually not that impressed with him. But dissatisfaction may be due to the weather and the aches as much as anything else. Roll on mid-month when autumn is supposed to start.

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If I remember the Exploits correctly, then the Carr ones are rather more Carr than Doyle. I’m still reasonably pleased with them, though, and I think he manages their speech patterns better than a number of more modern pastichers.

Yes, rather more Carr than Doyle. Though better than many modern pastichers is rather a low bar to clear. I'm still not convinced any married woman of the time would call herself Mrs Firstname Husband's surname, no matter how long she'd been married.

Possibly my own fault for reading so many homage anthologies. All the micro-"wrongs" in language or choice or words leave me that much more vulnerable to one which sounds "right".

(Yes, I'm very picky. I admit it. Even if I can't necessarily do it myself, I get thrown out of the flow by things which Just Aren't Right.)

And of course Common Knowledge of period language use is sometimes wrong, as in the case of medieval Tiffany. But some things just grate. 'There may have been exceptions- there may have been middle-aged men who addressed a woman of their own social class, met for the first time, by their first name in the first half hour, but that wasn't the norm!'

Absolutely.