BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs

Subject: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 10:45 AM

...shaky eggs and bodhrans and spoons and any other instrument not expensive enough for them. Wise up, people.

I've just finished a mystery, "The Cipher Garden, A Lake District Mystery" by Martin Edwards. At the heart of the plot are two women, about 38, and best friends. Roz and Bel. They live and work in the valley where they've been all their lives. One day Bel comes home to her cottage and finds the landscaper, Warren, dead (in pieces) in the garden. He's been scythed to death with his own scythe! The police were baffled, and it's now a cold case.

1. Warren was quite the lad. He had boffed both Roz and Bel in high school.

2. Before his death Warren was boffing the wife of his business partner, Peter.

3. Peter is now boffing Tina, Warren's widow.

4. Tina has a son, Sam. We can't tell you who Sam's boffing, because not even Sam knows their names.

5. Sam's sister, Vicky was it? isn't boffing anybody. As the only person in the valley not in an illicit relationship, she feels deep shame. She's in love with Oliver, the chef.

6. Oliver's the chef, and he's shacked up with Roz, the restaurant owner. But it's not that simple...

7. Roz's friend Bel is married (I guess) to Chris. Chris is bisexual and had run off with Jason, the old chef.

8. Chris had also been boffing the Detective Sergeant, but that's old news. Or is it?

9. The DS works with the DI, Hannah, who's shacked up with Mark. She's getting tired of him, being attracted to our protagonist, Daniel.

10. Daniel got tired of being rich and famous and has moved to the country. (He's a noted TV historian.) He's shacked up with Miranda, but he's getting tired of her.

11. Will Daniel and Hannan detach from their present boffees and link up? The suspense is not killing me.

Everybody agrees that society is very permissive now and none of this is really important. Until somebody's dead. (Anybody who reads a paper can see the same things happening in the real world.)

These People Need Something To Do. If young Sam had said to himself, "I think I'll take my shakey egg down to the folk club rather than drink beer and do meth," he would have been a lot better off. If Daniel had decided to take up the bodhran rather than seduce his dead father's former partner, he would be better off. There is a chance that Sam and Dan might make some real friends and even might start acting intelligently. Once in a while.

That's what I think.

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: CarolC
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 10:58 AM

They make fun of accordions, too, and they're terribly expensive. But what would all of those murderous psychopaths in that book do if they didn't like someone's instrument?

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: Leadfingers
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 11:59 AM

Take up the banjo ?

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: gnu
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 01:06 PM

Hahahaha... I love it.

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 03:11 PM

Thank you, thank you.

It was pretty ridiculous book. However, I wanted to find out the cipher of the cipher garden and to get some insight into the life of a noted TV historian. But I never did find out exactly what a noted TV historian does.

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 09:13 PM

"But I never did find out exactly what a noted TV historian does. "

Doubtless though, he is noted for it. But by WHOM?

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 03:33 AM

Well they sure as hell don't have any input into 'Bonekickers' on TV in the UK these days.... think 'Time Team' meets CSI:Bristol & Avon.

History has gone out the window on that programme, but it has had a few funny lines.

Anyone else have an underpant situation?

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: GUEST,chippinder
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 03:47 AM

Ah! Bonekickers. I love it. It gets more and more preposterous each episode. What act of destruction in the name of archaeology will they commit next? And have you noticed the "Time Teamesque" drum motif in the title music?

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 04:10 AM

Bonekickers - the hidden underground of England! Every episode thus far had had them discovering a hitherto unexplored subterranea, most worryingly at Garway (Episode 1), where there is, indeed, a medieval dovecot with 666 chambers... And to think this drivel comes from the makers of Life on Mars, lumbering stereotypes and all! Of course I watch it religiously

For a more convincing treatment of Garway & Templars in a mystery setting, check out Phil Rickman's last novel The Fabric of Sin, the latest in his Merrily Watkins mysteries. Merrily is a parish priest, a widowed mother of a spirited teenage pagan daughter, the lover of an ageing folk singer, an unrepentant smoker, as well the diocesan exorcist of Hereford Cathedral. Often described as The Vicar of Dibley meets Cracker, they are as beautifully written as they are finely honed; essential reading for your average folkie with a yen for top quality detective fiction with a hint of the convingly supernatural I'd reckon! Read all about it at http://www.philrickman.co.uk/

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: Stu
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 04:26 AM

"If young Sam had said to himself, "I think I'll take my shakey egg down to the folk club rather than drink beer and do meth," he would have been a lot better off. If Daniel had decided to take up the bodhran rather than seduce his dead father's former partner, he would be better off."

They might have been better off, but what about the other poor sods down the session when the new percussioneers turn up?

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 11:26 AM

No problem. If Sam's not competent yet, they just classify his sound as background and ignore it. Does a musician get thrown by the chink of the cash register? the squirting of the beer? The slamming of a door? No.

Oh - I forgot that 'meth' means something different across the pond. Here it's methamphetamine, a cheap and all-too common toxic street drug. Just now I saw an article where an Englishman put meth on the charcoal for a barbecue. Must be different stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: BusyBee Paul
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 12:00 PM

That will be "meths" as in "methylated spirits".

Not that I use it, of course!.

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 11:04 PM

"an Englishman put meth on the charcoal for a barbecue"

Hmmm, sounds like you stand downwind - like when the authorities here have a bonfire of 'seized plants'//// :-)

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: Bert
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 12:08 AM

...like when the authorities here have a bonfire of 'seized plants...
Where is 'here' Foolestroupe?

They used to do that in Tennessee and our friend used to send her kids out to play in the yard.

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 06:06 AM

Sounds like all the civilised world behaves like us here down under.... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 08:58 AM

They did that back in Illinois and the cops busted the downwind inhalers.

I don't think I'll visit the Lake District anytime soon. It seems to have changed since the days of Wordsworth and Co. -- or maybe not, come to think of it.

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 12:03 PM

Don't lose heart, Rapaire. It was only fiction. Just think, foreigners thought that family life in America was like the soap operas...

On a serious note, I know that when adults in poor societies are asked what their big problems are, they often name 'nothing for the young to do' as a major factor. I think that the problem of 'nothing to do' doesn't just apply to the young. That's why I wish people would be more welcoming when it comes to sessions, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: and yet people make fun of shaky eggs
From: Gurney
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 05:59 PM

Leeneia, is there any mention of the location that the book is set in, and of property prices there?


Only joking.

Technically, I would imagine it would be quite difficult to dismember someone with a scythe.