Dear Alexander McCall Smith

I picked up the most recent 44 Scotland Street novel, The Word According to Bertie at the airport in Johannesburg last week. It made excellent airplane reading. I am quite relieved about Cyril, happy for Matt, and suspect that Bruce has only the faintest idea of what he has gotten himself into.

So could you please be nicer to Pat? Yes, I know she is only 20 and a certain level of heartbreak is inevitable at that age. A few months without a man won't do her any long term harm. But she ought to at least have a few friends her own age.

Also, and this is really a nit, the Polish form of Mark is Marek, not Markus. Perhaps he can learn to say "wood," as well as "brick"?

Another Parlor Game

Thanks to the aforementioned The World According to Bertie, I have a new parlor game to play.

Matthew (who is an art dealer) tells Angus (a painter) about Antonin Artaud (the French dramatist / critic who shares my birthday). Apparently, Artaud painted monochrome canvases and gave them clever names as a joke. The all white one was "Anaemic Virgins on their Way to their First Communion in a Snowstorm." An all red one was "Apoplectic Cardinals Picking Tomatoes by the Red Sea."

Matthew then has Angus try to come up with a few titles. For blue, he proposes "A Depressed Conservative at a Risque Film Convention" or "A Sailor at Sea, Swearing." My favorite was for green - "An Envious Conservationist Sitting on the Grass Reading Our Man in Havana."

What I've come up with so far is:
Yellow: Cowardly Canaries in a Field of Buttercups
Pink: Healthy Socialists Snipping Fabric at a Barbie Convention

Your turn.

Brilliant Twist in a Comic

I have been a fan of Hereville for some time, having found it via a link from Jewish Comics blog.

This plot twist had me squealing with delight.