Ok - I've just noticed this on my re-read: when Thursday is taking over from Mary Jones, the first bit of story she is in runs like this:

"DCI Briggs was sitting on a low wall with a plainclothes policewoman who busied herself taking notes and did not look up. ... 'What have you found so far?' She dug in her pocket for a notebook, couldn't find it so counted the points off on her fingers instead." (pp 20-21)

How does Thursday lose her notebook within a page of writing in it? Do you think this is an accidental bloophole, or a deliberate way of showing how bad Caversham Heights is?



I drink to drown my sorrows. Unfortunately they've learnt how to swim.

hehehe, possibly a little of both??

I had a similar thought with 'scampo' !

I leave people to puzzle and explain later ;-)

(although I'm sure someone will know what I'm talking about.)

I think I know. Except I didn't, if that makes sense...

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Anyway, me and the lads in the yard have a job lot of four-by-two plot crutches left over from an implausible Western that got cancelled when everyone decided that sci-fi was the new biography. One careful lady author, only wrote on a Sunday just before church.

Tell you what, we could splice in a couple of implausibly long-lost indiginous American siblings of the otherwise implacable chief - you won't even notice the join. We decided not to scrap them, just billeted them in an old joke, jogging outside a bar. Above all, we left our injuns running.

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Uh-oh, it's a cowboy plot-builder....



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

I thought it was a way of showing that there were real people rather than book people in Caversham Heights - a book person would never lose their notebook, whereas Thursday has to eat three meals a day and "real life" things like that...

That looks like a good explanation for the scene to me.

By the way, when Jack Spratt was originally created for Jasper's own unpublished first novel 'Nursery Crime' his female sergeant was Mary Mary Quite Contrary...

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"This was willed where what is willed... can get rather silly."

Not really plotholes but.... a couple of things which I've been mulling over and wouldn't mind hearing my learned friends' opinions on.

Firstly, on pages 126 and 127, Catherine Linton and Heathcliff (respectively) both say "here here!" in agreement to something that's spoken aloud.

Now whenever I write that I tend to spell it "hear hear!", since to my mynd it relates to something heard and not scene (if you see what you mean!)

Anyone else have an opinion on this? Has it been written that way intentionally and I'm missing a pun somewhere, or am I merely being pernickety? Or just plain wrong?

Similarly, there's two references (pages 247 and 273) to a bell being "tingled". Again, when I write this I tend to spell it "tinkled" not "tingled". Have I been wrong all my life or am I missing something here too?

I have no opinion on the "here here" thing...I've seen it used both ways. I think it's one of those old-time sayings that has kind of morphed into both spellings being correct and no one really knows the true origin.

As for the "tingled/tinkled" thing. I think bells can do either! Have you ever heard that song That's Amore? "the bells go ting-a-ling-a-ling ting-a-ling-a-ling vita bella..." And I think larger bells make more of a 'ting' sound and smaller bells make a 'tink' sound. ROFL!

Y'know AAC, I t'ink you could be right! Thanks! :)

I think the 'hear/here' thing can be interchangeable - I always thought of is as 'hear' as in "I hear what you are saying", but it could be 'here' as in "I agree with you, over here."



I drink to drown my sorrows. Unfortunately they've learnt how to swim.

'Here here' (I think!) started off in parliamentary debates, to draw the attention of the Speaker (as in the guy responsible for choosing who'll speak next) to the MPs who agreed with whoever had the floor (i.e. was making a speech), as in "Oi, it's me here, the Member for Lower Plughole, and I agree - can I speak next please mum? Gwan, let me pleeease?" and has since turned into just agreement... well it sounds good anyway! Anyone with better info feel free to steamroller me please!

I agree with the parliament thing but always thought it was 'hear, hear' as in 'listen' (I agree with what this guy's saying). That's my two penn'orth FWIW.

I agree Rob; and having given it much thought I'm definitely sticking by "hear hear" as being the correct form. I'm also convinced "tingled" should read "tinkled" and that "eviornment" is a typo. Not that it matters a jot or a tittle in any case. It's Jasper's book, and the real beauty of having a mispeling vyrus is of course that you can blame anything you want on it!

FWIW the one irresistably LOL moment for me in TWOLP (ha! I'll run that shorthand through the ImaginoTransference Device before I post this I think...) came late on and unexpectedly on page 330, with the comment about Heep's handwriting being so poor that instead of Thursday getting shot, a character named Thursby from 'The Maltese Falcon' died instead. It's either so brilliantly clever or so in tune with my own sense of humour that there was nothing I could do to prevent an explosive guffaw on the 1:56 from Salisbury!

It also set me thinking that something I'd love to see in a future story would be Thursday finally solving the riddle of who shot the chauffeur in 'The Big Sleep' (a genuine "plothole" by all accounts - even Raymond Chandler later admitted he had no idea!)

I believe I've generally seen "Hear hear" myself, FWIW.



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"I've often said that the difference between British and American SF TV series is that the British ones have three-dimensional characters and cardboard spaceships, while the Americans do it the other way around."
--Ross Smith

Re the bells ("The bells!" The bells!") : There was also a song, of WW I vintage IIRC, which referred to the bells of hell going "ting-a-ling-a-ling".

And what DID happen to Edwin Drood?

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"This was willed where what is willed... can get rather silly."

Simon, it's not disputed that bells are able to "ting", but in the same way as a bell can't "tink" but can "tinkle", and can "jingle" but can't "jing", I'd argue that it can "ting" but can't "tingle".

Oh dear... starting to confuse myself again now... :)



Post Edited (07-11-03 16:20)

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* I'm backing the campaign to get the official Stalker for 2007 evicted *

Simon - that's the mystery.

As far as I know their 4th album was a commercial flop and they folded....

In reference to bells:

A tinkling bell, is one being swung by the wind or pushed. The word suggests a light sound.

Bells may be 'rung' by swinging by hand or rope.

As the verb 'tingling' is used twice, both times in reference to the Bellman's bell, I think that Jasper has chosen it deliberately to create an effect. A tinkling bell wouldn't be loud enough to attract attention, which the Bellman's bell must do. To say that Thursday rang the bell, could cause confusion, as these days readers are likely to think of ringing electric push bells, like a door bell.

I think 'tingling' would be a sound louder than 'tinkling', but not quite the same as picking up a handbell and swinging it back and forth. The Bellman's bell may be freestanding and have something attached to the clapper, to jerk it against the side of the bell, more like the mechanism of a ship's bell.

Tingle is a perfectly good noun (the natural habitat of tingles is the spine), so I don't see why Jasper shouldn't verb it if he likes, but I'm afraid it doesn't conjure up bells to me. Consider the phrase 'a tingling sensation'. Doesn't say 'bells', does it? Ring, clang, tinkle or even tintinabulate, but not, perhaps, tingle.

Anyway, anyone interested in plotholes should read the series 'Puzzles in Classic Fiction' by John Sutherland. These very interesting and entertaining books consider plotholes and other mysteries in fiction, and present ingenious solutions to some of them - including who shot the Sternwood's chauffeur in 'The Big Sleep'. The full series is;

Can Jane Eyre be Happy?
Is Heathcliff a Murderer?
Who Betrays Elizabeth Bennet?
Where was Rebecca Shot? and
Henry V, War Criminal?

I have them all, and now I want you to guess which internationally best-selling author also has a set.



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty