Birds, dreams, bells

[ashlyme]

 

Because some random things make a post:

 

Spacedog's Sarah Angliss looks at two centuries of sound effects here:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001hxs4

 

Bookmarking it here as I've not actually listened to it yet!

 

I spotted a grey wagtail in Kingstanding a couple of days ago. They're gorgeous little birds - slaty- backed with a lemon-yellow breast; tremulous. I note this as I've *never* seen one in a city suburb before; only by running water near my home. Pied wagtails are a fairly common urban sight. I don't know why this bird was pecking about on the concrete by Greggs - there's a canal about a mile away. 

 

A slew of strange vivid dreams the last few days. Lesbian demon mafiosi - fairly benign - at war with a male criminal gang; I was the non-binary gangster's moll in what felt like a very British animé story.  Drinking with a real-life friend in a not-real country pub, only for us both to be stalked by the Wild Hunt. The British Army (or maybe UNIT, but Doctorless) hopelessly bombing an alien mildew erasing the land.

 

I'm on a slow mission to re-read everything by Dorothy L. Sayers. STRONG POISON yesterday, which I loved. Wimsey seems a fairly attractive character to me still; urbane but not condescending, quite willing to look silly. I always did like detectives who underplay themselves. And here the limelight is shared by a few strong women who learn safecracking or the art of a dodgy séance to save someone from the noose. Next book up is probably John Camp's IN PRAISE OF BELLS, a little study of the traditions and folklore of British bells. I'm pretty sure Sayers' THE NINE TAILORS is mentioned a few times!

 

Comments

[sovay]

Spacedog's Sarah Angliss looks at two centuries of sound effects here

That's cool! I like the illustration of the foley artists.

Wimsey seems a fairly attractive character to me still; urbane but not condescending, quite willing to look silly. I always did like detectives who underplay themselves. And here the limelight is shared by a few strong women who learn safecracking or the art of a dodgy séance to save someone from the noose.

The question of how to share the limelight is so central to the Harriet Vane novels. I summarized them recently as "whodunnit and how do we prove it and how do we live with what we have done to other people and ourselves and our trauma and our desires for equality and selfhood in the world that exists," none of which have gone out of relevance in the last almost-century. So many mysteries are about reassuring a pattern; Sayers' are more about the breaking. I read them young and I think it was useful to me.

[ashlyme]

*Sayers' are more about the breaking.*

This exactly. I read Sayers a bit too young to pick up her subversive streak - but better late than never. I'm really looking forward to the Vane novels.

Aren't you a Campion fan? For some reason Margery Allingham slipped under the radar when I was reading the Golden Age stuff.

[sovay]

Aren't you a Campion fan? For some reason Margery Allingham slipped under the radar when I was reading the Golden Age stuff.

I am! I have only written occasionally about individual novels in the series, but I like them very much, especially after the first few as Campion begins to take canonical shape. Some of my favorites of the series are my favorite mysteries from their era.

[cmcmck]

The wagtails here love the local crown green bowling green.

[cmcmck]

If it was the wisht hounds you must have been on Dartmoor!

[ashlyme]

Do you know, I think you're right!