Verisimilitude

By Jove Yes, Elliott Ness

My Collins Concise defines it as "The appearance or semblance of truth or reality."  It's what a lot of artists strive for, especially authors.  Art!

"Well, Holmes, at least it's less bad for you than cocaine."

     Your Humble Scribe is at present about 850 pages into "The Short Stories Of Sherlock Holmes" and came across a splendid example of how Ol' Doyley attempted to create a sense of verisimilitude (not often you see a word with 4 'i's in it).  Here we have a paragraph from "The Golden Pince-nez" and as -

     What's that?  You want to know what a 'pince-nez' is and whether you can smoke it, eat it or drink it?  <sighs>.  Art!

     As you can see, they were a species of spectacle that were considered all the rage from 1880 onwards.  They had no legs and pinched the nose in order to stay static upon the nose, and the name comes from the French for pinch - 'Pincer' and nose - 'nez'.  Given tha

     ANYWAY what Ol' ACD did was to refer to a whole raft of cases that Watson mentions as being mysteries solved his mate Sherlock, to wit: "As I turn over the pages I see my notes upon the repulsive story of the red leech and the terrible death of Cosby the banker"  Art!

     That, gentle reader, is a giant Sumatran red leech.  One feels for Cosby.  Yet wait - there's more! "Here also I find an account of the Addleton tragedy and the singular contents of the ancient British barrow."  Let me assure you that this is not the gardening implement.  Art!

     Let us make what we can of that.  Ol' ACD continues qua Watson: "The famous Smith-Mortimer succession case comes also within this period, as does the tracking and arrest of Huret, the Boulevard assassin -"  Hmmm the succession case sounds quite dull, but it cannot have been, for Sherlock only took on cases he found to be interesting and unique.  The  'Boulevard assassin' sounds like racier stuff.  And he got an Order of the Legion of Honour out of it, so it must have been especially significant, because the M8s don't hand those out like Smarties.  Art!

     Conrad did wonder if anybody who happened to be a Sherlock fan, and obsessive about the extant literature, and could wield a pen convincingly, might not have gone and created a short story about these outlined cases, and here's the evidence right away.  Mr. Bishop appears to have a pretty sweet gig writing these novels, and if there are more than one, then he must be doing something right.  Also -

     Blimey!  What is this, exploitation or what?  This is only one of eight of these things.  Did Ol' Doyley's estate approve of this stuff?  Conrad thinks th
     ANYWAY to continue this theme, when Dorothy Sayers wrote about her aristocratic amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, she included mention of Lord P's first ever detective case, where he solved the mystery of the stolen Attenbury emeralds.  It was his introduction to polite society as a gentleman detective, and several characters in the novels and short stories, upon meeting him, bring up the case of the emeralds.  However, Ol' Dot never elaborated on the tale: verisimilitude, you see.

     However again ...  Art!

     <sighs>  It was inevitable, wasn't it?  This one was done with the co-operation and approval of the Sayer's estate, so Ol' Dot approves from beyond the grave (she died in 1957).

     Conrad can also think of another use of versimilitude in the case of Michael Crichton's novel "The Andromeda Strain".  Art!

     To increase verisimilitude - I apologise for using this word so often today, I'll try to avoid it for a couple of months once this blog is published - Crichton included a list of supposed reference sources that details micro-organisms used in research and for biological warfare.  He made these up out of whole cloth.

     Conrad thinks he came up with another example of ver - of this yesteryon whilst walking Edna, but I didn't make a note of it at the time and cannot recall what it was.  So we may come back to this topic.

     O, and inevitably - Art!

"Fybogel"

I know, I know, it sounds like a character from 'The Hobbit', doesn't it?  Fybold the mangel-wurzel merchant, with five carts, ten horses and a healthy appetite.

     Wellllllllll no.  Your Humble Scribe has just seen it on an advert.  Let us prod Art into wakefulness and have him earn his bowl of coal.

     So, it appears to be a species of laxative.  Conrad unsure what 'Ispaghula' is, except that it sounds like one of the bad guys in 'Lord Of The Rings' - Ispaghula, one of the Black Numenoreans who cosied up to Sauron and lived happily in Mordor.

How To Save Money And Really, Really Annoy People

Another pithy tale from Quora.  Okay, Original Poster said that a salesman worked at his company, who was diligent, honest and great at selling things.  He was, in fact, the best salesman the company had.

     Enter manglement.  A new Chief Executive Officer came into the post, determined to trim the budget, so he made up some nonsense and fired The Brilliant Salesman.  TBS was told to hand in his laptop, phone, keys and return his company car.

A car.

      "No problem," replied TBS, being suspiciously calm.  "It's parked on the street, I'll just drive it right into your parking lot."

     He carefully checks that the foyer is clear of people and drives straight into it, totally trashing the structure.

     "Ooops!" he exclaims upon leaving the car.  "I got my shoe stuck on the accelerator ('gas pedal' for South Canadians)."

     The police turn up but cannot prosecute for lack of evidence about intent.

     The kicker is, CEO had been ignoring his business insurance company, who had been trying to contact him about his cover expiring - you know, trying to cut costs.  There was no policy in place so the business had to foot the $200,000 bill.

     TBS got a new job straight away.  He became a legend in his old business.  Art!

Another car

"The Sea Of Sand"

The Doctor, a Sahariana desert car and four Farmers have been teleported back to the bio-vores homeworld.

‘The opposite of the Warriors?  You harvest and produce the algae cultures that sustain life on Wastelandworld?’

          With no warning – he’d been concentrating elsewhere when the alert sirens wailed – he was suddenly on a platform elsewhere with semi-circle of armed bio-vores watching him.  Him and the party that arrived with him.  Twin cooler suns and warmer winds played across his body.

          ‘You are the alien escapee,’ hissed one bio-vore, his mouth covered by a great spade-like hand.

          ‘That’s me.  I broke free.  So may you,’ agreed the Doctor.  ‘Metaphorically.’

          A reception party of Warrior bio-vores strode across the platform to take possession of the Sahariana.  They shoved the other bio-vores aside without any pause for thought, leading to an uncomfortable argument between the two parties.  The Warriors far outnumbered the four menial workers, who nevertheless stood up to the bullies. 

          Looking on, the Doctor realised he had arrived at a critical point in the revolution taking place in bio-vore culture.

          Matters reached a crux when one of the Warriors, indulging in what they had done to Farmers innumerable since recorded history, tried to Eviscerate one Farmer.  The leaching proboscis lanced out – 

     Aha, leaving it on a cliff-hanger!

Finally -

What a dirty dismal day it is.  As I have mentioned, there is little gloomier than an overcast, wet, rainy Monday morning.  Time to do the laundry and get some scoff together!