The things I do for research

[impulsereader]

A list of things I am currently watching on youtube in order to write as accurately and entertainingly as possible:

driven game shooting parties
rabbit dissection
rat dissection - system by bloody system
dancing (severed from rest of frog) frog legs

Oh - ETA - is anyone fussed about the size of my pictures when I post? I know I need to scroll a bit to the left, but I can't seem to find an easy way to reduce the size of groups of pictures on Photo Bucket. If it's inconvenient or obnoxious for anyone as I'm currently doing it, do let me know and I'll set myself the task of figuring it out.

Comments

[natsuko1978.livejournal.com]

:) BTW - did you notice/get my comment about the dates shooting can begin?

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I did, and I was pleased to find that there seems to be lots of shooting going on in late December with no exotic birds necessary. Writing a shooting scene is so far proving to be extraordinarily boring, so feeling a bit like Sherlock might be amusing once it sinks in and I actually write something.

[natsuko1978.livejournal.com]

Good-o. I was a bit worried you were planning on cricket (Summer game, traditionally) and shooting (Autumn pasttime, more or less) in the same house party. :)

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

Oh. Hm. Brick Wall.

I did want to put in cricket - but am limited to December.

My brain is cast into a flurry here - I haven't planned any actual cricket scenes but really wanted the tea break!

[natsuko1978.livejournal.com]

Rugby is a winter game. John can canonically play Rugby. But then Rugby needs rather more field set-up than two wickets, two bats and a ball. (I can't see your cast playing footie, really, somehow... but in spite of Euro 2012 going on as we speak, association football is also a "Winter" sport.) Maybe a friendly "5-a-side" football match? Or just someone suggesting a bit of a kick-about? Or "Tag Rugby"? But then Rugby-purists would shudder at Tag Rugby...

Cricket involves a lot of standing around (especially for the fielders), you see, which makes it slightly less appropriate as the temp falls towards freezing.

Where in the country are you locating the House? I can't remember from ATGB, I'm afraid. But though snow is more usual in January, you could always have a heavy freeze and people larking about tobogganing or snow-ball fighting or skating on the pond/lake and Mrs Bale bringing out a selection of hot drinks to warm everyone up.

Mind you, you don't need a sports event to have "afternoon tea"! (Tea, scones (with jam and cream, natch), cakes (Victoria sponge often a favourite) and maybe little sandwich triangles served at about 4pm. Children's "Tea" (i.e. light evening meal - as in Great Game when John says he "won't be in for tea") would then be at about 6pm and the adults would gather for dinner at about 7.30pm, sitting down at about 8pm.)

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

Hm.

Well, part of the problem is I'm currently waffling about where to put the house. I'd originally sited it near Haslemere (nearest rail station) because of the Conan Doyle connection, and I wasn't really fussed about where it was, it didn't matter to the story really. But now I'm considering shoehorning in Silver Blaze, and if that's the case I need a more specific landscape going on.

I've had all the characters mentioning that the weather has been mild for December - I'm not sure why, I think it was because in my head I had to explain why they were all wandering around the grounds instead of being snug inside by the fire. I had a pretty firm notion that I didn't have to worry about making it snow, but making a point of mentioning that the weather was mild seemed important for some reason. I really have very little control over what happens once I start typing...John posing shirtless being a terrific example of this. In my head it was 'hahahahah, of course john turns him down flat' but then what i typed was different.

The appeal for me with cricket and its tea break was that moment of heated argument over one of the umpire's calls -

"Are you bloody blind, Mycroft??!"..."Oh, time for tea." and then everyone abandons the argument, sips tea, then goes back to it as if there had been no interruption.

I'm in favor of tea in any instance, of course, but in this particular context, that was the prime motivator. :-)

Oh, well, once I have my shooting scene written I'll plunge on into the middle of this story. Just what I've written on this first holiday is totaling up to over 14k words already, and this is terrifying to me in the extreme. How long is this thing going to end up being? I'm glad I've written the beginning and end already so that I know it has an ending!

Gah, Silver Blaze is too much work! Too much work! But it would be so cool...life is very difficult at this moment because of this issue...

[natsuko1978.livejournal.com]

Well I'm not aware of an actual *law* that says you can't play cricket in December and it may be one of those "delightful eccentricities". But if it is John or another outsider should comment on it.

Incidentally, football (the Association variety) has just as many rows over referee and linesman calls on "handball" and "off-side" and "was that really a goal". And there can be rows over such calls even when watching Match Of The Day on TV. :D So there may be other ways to have an argument pause for tea.

(Not that *anyone* I know would stop arguing over sports just b/c the tea had come in!)

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

oh dear. I'm ooc with the world around me...actually, that's not new.

I just can't see Sherlock playing anything other than cricket (and being sporty in this only out of serendipity), and the point - possibly, it's still fuzzy - was to put j&s into a scene together.

but for the first holiday i think i might sub in the second sitting with Claude and revisit the sport if necessary.

All your info has been very helpful - thank you!

[quarryquest.livejournal.com]

Can I add something on the conversation about 'tea'?
I have been BritPicking for someone and had to explain what that means. Here is what I wrote:

'Tea' as a meal comes from 'tea time' and just means a meal taken some time in the afternoon with tea to drink. It can be of varied types of meal.

'Afternoon Tea' is light and posh (scones and jam and little cakes and dainty sandwiches) Mycroft's men at the Diogenes are often seen with that on the three-tier stand beside them. When sis and I were little, and staying in hotels which still served afternoon tea in the 1970s my parents often used it to feed us and then went to dinner themselves in the evening.

'Tea' for us up north was when northern folks had food about 5.30. We always had 'dinner' in the middle of the day but even that could be sandwiches ('bait'or 'snap') if you were away from home. Evening meals in the hard working North (when you were down the pit or in the mills spinning cotton) had to be filling, so it was often a chop or sausages, and cake (or black pudding or tripe). Then you might have 'Supper' if you were working late (more sandwiches, more meat, more cake) later or just supper as a biscuit and milk before you went to bed.

In Scotland there is a meal called 'High Tea', and they had added oat cakes and parkin and other types of thing. Those could kill a man they were so filling. It nearly did that to me when I had one when I was a child on holiday on the Isle of Arran.

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

This is all lots of good info. When I happened into the posh restaurant in Edinburgh's National Museum they clarified multiple times if I was after 'tea' or 'afternoon tea' and now I understand why - well, I partially understood why at the time since 'afternoon tea' was quite over-priced - lol - but in the moment I was simply bemused at having to repeat myself. I was also mostly in need of a nice, comfortable sit-down because it was the first day out after I'd messed up my knee and was happy to pay for the overly posh tea tray of lovely things to go with my cuppa.