The usual suspects

Perhaps the greatest thing about the dectective stories of Ngaio Marsh is the 'Cast of Characters' at the beginning of each one. Posing like a police line-up or screen credits these names create the doubt & intrigue which festers inside your head as you try to piece together the fragments & clues into a pattern. With her background in theatre, the inclusion of a cast of characters transforms her novels into plays, an apt analogy of the classic whodunnit.

The mystery of the two cups of tea

While Florence Broadhurst was celebrated for her brilliant fabric, wallpaper designs and patterns, her 1977 death remains shrouded in mystery. Speculation was rife that she had fallen victim to a serial killer who murdered elderly woman However others believed Florence's killer was known to her, due to the presence of two cups of tea found near her body, suggestive of a rendezvous.

Dizzy Like A Fox!

Dr Jacoby experiences paranormal activity in 1963's The Haunting resulting in his prescription 3D glasses. Can I get anyone a drink?

Like Len Lye

Library find of the day: a bookmark advertising the latest Len Lye book, adorned with a comment by poet Alistair Reid.
Len Lye - "The least boring person who ever lived."
I feel that being the second least boring person to who ever lived definitely a goal to strive for.

Fiction & Pictures

I have decided to stop reading non fiction books. From now on I intend only to read tales fictitious in nature, as these happen to be the books that influence my art the most. Everyone I have mentioned this to either think I am a genius or a fool.
From now on every art book I browse, I will have to just look at the pictures. Which really, is what I used to do anyway.
Now its off to the library for some high literature and Philip Marlowe novels.

Are you a Mod or a Rocker

Perhaps one of the most perfectly crafted music videos I have seen, with some choice hand gestures from Ray himself thrown in for good measure. The simplicity of '65. According to those who live to tell the tale, they were real menaces in their live performances also.
Happy 40th Wedding Anniversary, Ray Columbus and the Invaders.

She always took her wooden leg off before having a bath

She always took her wooden leg off before having a bath. She would unhook the leg, and slip it off over her knee while sitting on the lip of the bath.
The bathroom was a sparse one, overtaken by a bath/shower combination. Everything else existed as a single entity: one toothbrush, one towel, one facecloth, one razor. In fact, the bathroom was so cramped it took just a little hop to reach basin, so she could rinse the wooden leg under the tap before before draping it over the shower rail to dry.
The only feminine trait of the room were the stockings dangling above the bath, drying.

Vixen

Peter Gabriel, 1973

A coffee with two sugars

While at the opening of the exhibition To Have and To Hold: Making Collections at Objectspace, my cousins and I began to amass a collection of words which we were forever finding spelt incorrectly. One cousin provided the greatest rule for remembering the spelling of 'necessary'.

"One Coffee, Two Sugars, please."

Installation shot of To Have and To Hold: Making Collections, 2009

image from Objectspace.