(no subject)

[desperance]

M'friend Val McDermid has won the Theakston's Old Peculier award for crime novel of the year, with her book 'The Grave Tattoo'. I'm very pleased. What with m'other friend Ann Cleeves picking up the Dagger, I'm beginning to feel encompassed by awardees.

[Edited for accuracy: it's not 'The Grave Tattoo' at all, and I'm an idiot; it's 'The Torment of Others'. Hangs head in shame, and creeps away...]

Speaking of Daggers, though, their new sponsors Duncan Lawrie have sent me a copy of their in-bank magazine, with an article about the awards and the Crime Writers' Association more generally. Very sweet of them: just a bit of a pity that they can't spell either John Creasey who founded the association or Ann Cleeves who has just won their inaugural award. Ah, me.

Barry has caught the note of celebration in my typing, and celebrated himself by assassinating another of my chilli plants. I am going to have no harvest at all this year, between his depredations and the greenfly. Though I have successfully hatched five ladybirds, which is something. I suppose. Can't eat ladybirds.

Comments

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Yay for Val!

I think her BLUE GENES and BOOKED FOR MURDER are both excellent!

(Haven't read the latest thrillers, though. Not really my genre.)

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

Trivia department: Have you noticed that, very different though they are, Raven Black and The Grave Tattoo have something in common about the body of a murder victim? So as not to provide a spoiler, you will have to hover your cursor here to find out what it is.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Roger, I have to tell you that yr clever hovering-trick doesn't work on my system.

I also have to own up to an error (yikes!) - it's not "The Grave Tattoo", it's "The Torment of Others". I just assumed it'd be the newest book, but of course not: the Theakston's is by popular vote, so it has to be a book that's out there in a popular edition.

[gauroth.livejournal.com]

Theakston's Old Peculier... Mmmm...

Val McDermid is one of the few authors that Ye Olde Manne and I both read. I shall be looking for Ms Cleeves' books, too. I'm sure she's sick'n'tired of Ann of Cleeves references, but I can't get the image out of my head of a Tudor lady in headdress and veil and velvet gown with cloth-of-gold sleeves, sitting by a window in Hatfield Palace, with quill and parchment, writing... Murder Mysteries!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Of course she's sick & tired of it, but it's entirely her own fault. She married a man called Cleeves, and then she took his name; this double folly deserves every detail that you so aptly describe...

(Actually he's very nice - Britain's Best Birdwatcher, I'm told - and they've just moved back to the north-east, so I am much chuffed.)

[guipago.livejournal.com]

Hi! Thought I'd see who you were and popped by. Just a thought for the following:

Barry has caught the note of celebration in my typing, and celebrated himself by assassinating another of my chilli plants.

Depending on the assassination attempt: Tabasco on the leaves works wonders. Even for the cat that likes hot spicy food (ahem, my Loki) dislikes the direct taste of tabasco on leaves.

Digging in the dirt of the plant and uprooting it? Screening over the top of the pot works. Take a piece of window screen cut it in a square large enough to fit over the top of the pot, and lay down along the sides. Bind with rubber bands, wire, or string. Make sure you cut a hole for the plant in the screen of course. :) You can still water, the dirt can breath, but no more digging, or peeing in the plants :)

Just an FYI.

Nice to meet you:)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Thanks for these. Barry's assassination method is, alas, more direct: he leaps up onto the windowsill, and one way or another, the plant ends up on the carpet, all spilled out of its pot. And chillies hate having their roots disturbed, so repotting is a vain gesture.

Next year I'm going to find or build some kind of trough to put the pots in, that will just be too heavy for him to knock over. This year's a write-off (much distress - see icon for portion of previous harvest).

The tabasco tip is very welcome, though - he also likes chewing metal (radio aerials, etc), which disconcerts me thoroughly. I'm worried for his teeth, so I will try that. Never had a cat with an oral fixation before; he eats everything, all the food he can get hold of, ditto flies, ditto chewables. Ditto me. I've got scars...

And it's nice to meet you too. I'm new around here, and lovin' it already...

Things to eat

[poesmother.livejournal.com]

You may not be able to eat ladybirds, but Barry probably could. Unless you cover them in Tabasco to....

Re: Things to eat

[desperance.livejournal.com]

It's a concern, I do agree. Indeed, it may even be why he was so joyously leaping up onto the windowsill and knocking my plants over, perhaps he was on a ladybird-hunt. Damn predators...