stonepicnicking_okapi

My own list poem based on Chapter 12 of Agatha Christie's After the Funeral. Mister Goby was my favorite part of the book.

Objects in the Room Mister Goby Looks at Rather than Hercule Poirot by okapi

[left-hand corner of the chromium-plated fireplace curb]
Mister Goby is a small and spare and shrunken man,
[electric plug socket] an information agent
who protests education and finds fault [lampshade]
with the youth of today. [cushion on a sofa]
[left cuff] he consults a scrubby little notebook. he licks
[radiator] a finger and turns a page, rubs a nose.
[door] he winks, nods, shakes a head, so like a furnishing,
so non-descript [patent leather shoe] as not to be there.

I just returned from the cinema to see "A Haunting in Venice," which is a modern adaptation of Agatha Christie's Hallowe'en Party. I know Hallowe'en Party intimately because I did an adaptation myself in fic form in the Jeeves & Wooster fandom called Boo, Jeeves! so I was interested to see what they would do with it.

I originally thought it was on Netflix, but I was happily corrected and able to get to the cinema before the boys' father left. (I suppose I could go to the movies while the boys are at school but it would make me nervous).

I enjoyed it. Kenneth Branagh will never be Poirot to me but I still enjoyed it. It is set in Venice and it is good to see that on the big screen. The scenery and setting were suitably atmospheric (there is a horrible storm). There is still a children's party. There are ghosts. It's interesting to see how the first victim (Joyce Reynolds) is transformed from her book version and I think it makes sense. I really liked Tina Fey as Ariadne Oliver. You need someone with comedic timing in that role.

If you are a veteran mystery reader, then you will guess one of the plot points early on. And if you've read any Christie at all the murderer won't come as a surprise. But I enjoyed myself.

[I had a side plot in the theatre as I kept feeling something tapping the top of my right shoe. At first, I thought something had slipped from my lap, then I thought something had rolled under the seat, finally I concluded there was a leak in the roof--unless it was GHOSTS!]

A variation on an exercise from thisbluespirit. Here are the steps.

1: Pick five fandoms. List them in alphabetical order.

2: Visit this site to find your first RANDOM POEM OF POWER [Note: Random Poem is the fourth tab from the left]. Write down the 5th line. Repeat five times and - you guessed it - list them in alphabetical order!

3: Write a very quick 50-word half-drabble for each fandom (try to do it all in one sitting), using the line from the poem as a prompt. You don't have to include it in the drabble - it's just inspiration. [Note: I did a full drabble for each]

My fandoms:

Agatha Christie
BBC Sherlock
Good Omens
Jeeves & Wooster
Sherlock Holmes (ACD)

My random poem 5th lines:

He never misses a Degree— [Dickinson, “The Moon is distant from the sea”]

His thoughts were bare, his words were brittle [Robert Service, “Rose Leaves”]

That sowed the flower, he preferred— [Dickinson, “Although I put away his life”]

through wire and fog and dog-bark [Charles Bukowski, “Love & Fame & Death”]

--"You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks, [Thomas Hardy, “The Ruined Maid”]


( the fills )