Discover Top Posts Tagged with #the irregular

I’m probably late to the party but I really enjoyed the Holmes pastiche I read recently, H.B. Lyle’s The Irregular. Ok, so it’s not a Holmes story as such, though he does make a cameo apprearence. It focuses on a grown up Wiggins of the Baker Street Irregulars who is recruited by the fledgling MI5. As one reviewer says ‘it bridges the gap betwen Holmes and Bond’. But that’s not all it does.

The Irregular is set right at the cusp of a new age, the modern world familiar to us all, 1909. The slums and politics are still Victorian but new electric lights, early cars and changes in attitudes to women are all in their infancy. The author does a good job of showing this change without being too heavy handed. And while there were a couple of linguistic and historical issues they didn’t have me rushing to the dictionary or encyclopaedia to check them out.

The story rattles along like a hansom cab and, unlike many crime novels, provides you with the clues to solve it yourself.

In style it reminds me a lot of the Inspector Pekkala novels of Sam Eastland which I love. Definately one for the keep shelves along with a handful of others - yes, that does include Larry Townsend’s Sexual Adventures of Sherlock Holmes so sue me :-) and Dibden’s The Last Sherlock Holmes Story.

#H.B.Lyle #The Irregular #Sherlock Holmes #Wiggins #pastiche #Pekkala #Sam Eastland

I was looking for something in netflix when I noticed the thumbnail for The irregular looked TOO similar to Homura from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, so I searched for some photos to be sure and I realized she’s totally Homura.

They messed up (again)

@ netflix, wtf are you doing?

#netflix #madoka magica #homura #the irregular #miyuki #wtf netflix

the irregular

#the irregular #anime

Yeah no, not continuing with the Irregulars

You can't ask me to accept a show where you don't bother to get the (admittedly, possibly not historically accurate) feel of Victorian London in, make Watson an asshole *and* give all the plot/investigation-moving to the prince instead of the character you introduced as you protagonist

#the irregular #nope #Sparkling watch

MOS Chapter 3: A Long Drink of the Blues

A Long Drink of the Blues is a 1957 studio jazz album by saxophonist Jackie McLean. The title track is, appropriately, rather long.

A Long Drink of the Blues, Jackie McLean Sextet.

The pianist, Daniel Hossack, was a classically trained music teacher at Westminster School for the terminally privileged.

Westminster School is a private secondary school (or public school, as we Brits tend to call them) and, with fees around £24k a year, the pupils are indeed on the privileged side. Rather a lot of famous alumni (including a fancast-favourite, incedentally...) Boys only except for sixth-form (Years 12 and 13, A Level study) which is co-educational.

James Lochrane [...] taught seventeenth-century French history at Queen Mary's College

Queen Mary's is part of the University of London.

On Friday night in Soho, going across the river [to get the drinks] might have been quicker

This is not an exaggeration; the whole of Soho is packed after work on a Friday. To get to the bar, you first have to penetrate the pub itself through the crowd outside on the streets. Think mosh pit at a rock concert and you're basically there. This interferes with pedestrian - and vehicular - traffic in the streets around Soho, which is alluded to elsewhere in MOS during action sequences. It also means that Peter has an audience for the same.

We ended up in Wong Kei on Wardour Street, where the food is reliable, the service is brusque...

Wong Kei was notorious as the "rudest restaurant in London", and people would go there for the entertainment value of being shouted at to "go upstairs!" or "Sit with them!" by the surly waiting staff. They've had a bit of a revamp recently, though.

A pair of pale American students, who up til then had had the table to themselves, visibly cowered as we plonked ourselves down.

[...]

'Hi,' one of them said. 'We're from Kansas.'

Possibly a reference to The Wizard of Oz, inferring being something of a fish out of water (the students are clearly uncomfortable) i.e. "you're not in Kansas anymore..."

Both American students were wearing neat red Adidas sweatshirts with MNU PIONEERS embroidered across the chest.

[...]

'What's an MNU anyway?' asked Max.

MNU stands for "Mid-Nazarene University" which is a Christian liberal-arts college in (you guessed it!) Kansas. Although it is also the acronym for the evil military company in District 9.

I caught Daniel pinging his radar at a couple of tasty young men checking themselves out outside the Admiral Duncan

A well-known gay pub in Soho. The site of one of the racism- and homophobia- driven nail bomb attacks in 1999. Of relevance (from the Wikipedia article): " the Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner [who] undertook to maintain a crime scene van outside the pub to take witness statements and gather evidence until the perpetrator was found; the van would be staffed entirely with openly gay and lesbian police officers. This was a turning point for the often tempestuous relationship between the LGBT community and the Metropolitan Police."

There’s always been a po-faced seriousness about the British jazz scene, and a kind of chin-stroking ‘yes, I see’ roll-neck jumperness to the fans

If you want to get an idea of how this manifests, have a look at this historical document sketch from the Fast Show. Nice....

...even my dad admitted that a man who could solo on a slide trombone had to be something special. Then he’d talk about Kai Winding, or J.J. Johnson.

Not a particularly important reference, but here they both are duetting on a version of Cole Porter’s “It’s Alright With Me”, and it’s a joy so I thought why not.

I had a horrible feeling I’d turned up two coupons short of the popup toaster

A variant euphemism for being a bit of an idiot/missing a trick (see also: couple of cans short of a six-pack, etc). This specific version used by Victor Lewis-Smith to describe fellow columnist Lord Rees-Mogg. And a favourite of Peter’s...

‘He’s the jazz police,’ said Max, meaning me, I suppose. ‘We’re more like the Old Compton Street Irregulars.’

A nod to ACD/Holmes, and the seeds of their new identity as a band, with Lord Grant...

#moon over soho #chapter 3 #a long drink of the blues #soho #the irregular #wong kei #admiral duncan #jazz