Fungi, Train Crash, Allingham
Oct. 4th, 2022 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloThe lawn is sprouting fungi all over. We went round with an app to identify what they were. The little brown jobbies are nitrous bonnets- and not the least bit magic (more's the pity.) The white buttons are meadow mushrooms- and we ate one raw because we're Mother Nature's children...
I dreamed I was riding on a train that was going to crash. We knew it was going to crash. It was fated, fore-doomed- and everyone would be killed. The authorities could have cancelled the service or removed the obstacle from the track but had chosen not to and the passengers were there by choice. I was trying to imagine the impact and moment of my death and found it impossible. "Actually I don't want to do this," I thought to myself. So I opened the carriage door, stepped out and walked home.
I'm reading Margery Allingham's The China Governess. I devoured most of Allingham in my twenties, but this is one that our local library (in Cambridge) didn't have and couldn't get- so it escaped me. 50 years on the magic isn't working. I want the mystery solved but I'm finding the people and their problems unlikely and tiresome. Allingham's series detective Albert Campion (who in a perfect world would have been played on TV by Alec Guinness and in our imperfect world was played by Peter Davidson) puts in an appearance but doesn't do much more than look quizzical. He lends charm but could be pruned without affecting the story. Allingham wrote one great book- The Tiger in the Smoke- and a whole lot of others that pass the time of day. Still, one great book is more than most of us will ever manage...
I dreamed I was riding on a train that was going to crash. We knew it was going to crash. It was fated, fore-doomed- and everyone would be killed. The authorities could have cancelled the service or removed the obstacle from the track but had chosen not to and the passengers were there by choice. I was trying to imagine the impact and moment of my death and found it impossible. "Actually I don't want to do this," I thought to myself. So I opened the carriage door, stepped out and walked home.
I'm reading Margery Allingham's The China Governess. I devoured most of Allingham in my twenties, but this is one that our local library (in Cambridge) didn't have and couldn't get- so it escaped me. 50 years on the magic isn't working. I want the mystery solved but I'm finding the people and their problems unlikely and tiresome. Allingham's series detective Albert Campion (who in a perfect world would have been played on TV by Alec Guinness and in our imperfect world was played by Peter Davidson) puts in an appearance but doesn't do much more than look quizzical. He lends charm but could be pruned without affecting the story. Allingham wrote one great book- The Tiger in the Smoke- and a whole lot of others that pass the time of day. Still, one great book is more than most of us will ever manage...
