Wreathed Horn

Today we had coffee in the Midland Hotel which reminds us of Hercule Poirot (see the link) who reminds me of Poul Anderson's Trygve Yamamura, an interesting character but a very junior member of the fictional detectives' fraternity, especially since he is only a supporting character in one of his three novels, Murder In Black Letter, where the concluding chapter comprises merely gunfire and fisticuffs between the viewpoint character, Robert Kintyre, and the villainous gang. (How's that for a long sentence?)

Tomorrow, I hope that my technical assistant, Ketlan, will publish on the blog an article by our regular guest writer, Sean M. Brooks. Ketlan should date

the article 7 June so that it will remain at the top of the blog for a week. That makes this current post the 160th and also the last for May. I will be back next month although my posts will appear under Sean's for a week. Please read his illuminating exposition of a very difficult Poul Anderson short story.

On the ceiling above a circular staircase, the Midland Hotel has a mural (see image) surrounded by the concluding line of the above sonnet by William Wordsworth, which is appropriate to our frequent discussions of monotheism versus polytheism.

Onward, Earthlings!

Clues

"Hiding Place."

The pilot of the captured spaceship must be:

strong, long-armed and large-handed - like a giant;

 

able not only to read very small display panels but also to turn a key at the bottom of a small, narrow hole - like a dwarf.

 

Clues to the pilot's nature accumulate. 

 

Van Rijn practices detective skills like Poirot. Van Rijn and Poirot are Catholics, are not native English/Anglic speakers and are first seen late in their careers. However, their differences are more numerous than their similarities. Poirot is known through cinema and TV. Van Rijn should be.

 

I prefer sf to detective fiction. In particular, I dislike the crossword puzzle aspect of detective fiction, having to reread passages in earlier chapters in search of the clues that are supposed to be there.

 

Addendum: After I published this post, Poirot was on TV in the episode where he walks out of our local Midland Hotel in Morecambe.

Time And Tide

So far, seven posts today but they must compete for time with other activities, like driving family members to Morecambe for the Vintage by the Sea Festival: old cars; clothes; music; a bar in a bus; food stalls; fairground; good weather; the two surviving Lancaster Bombers flying overhead. See attached image for cars and the renovated Midland Hotel, which Hercule Poirot walks out of on television.

I leave the family near the Promenade, drive to find a car park with some spaces left, walk to visit a good friend who lives on two floors above a second hand bookshop (and who has been mentioned on this blog before), emerge to find family, which is now easy with mobile phones, and eventually return home to meditate, eat and post about the end of Eternity, Captain Flandry and Chunderban Desai.

This has been a Sunday but, in retirement, every day can be like this, more or less.