Top 5 fannish things meme (which I reserve the right to change my mind about tomorrow, because I am very probably wrong about my own opinion, oops).

( Top 5 Campion moments, for wishfulaces: )

( Top 5 Doctor Who Moments that make you like the companion involved in them much more than you normally do, for ionlylurkhere: )

( Top 5 Classic Doctor Moments, for taperoo2k: )

( Top 5 On-Screen Kisses, for violetcreme: )

( Top 5 Father Dougal moments, for __kali__: )

Will happily do more if anyone feels inspired.

I have watched many many things. This is justifiable through the need to sit quite still in a chair with some poo on my hair for several hours yesterday, neatly encased in a most attractive cling-film head-condom. (OK, so I only had to do that for about 3 hours, but still, a wide range of viewing materials pre-henna, mid-henna, and post-henna when one is wondering how it will turn out is perfectly legitimate. For those interested, I succeeded in only dyeing my hair and not various other portions of my anatomy, nor indeed my bathroom, and am now more pleasingly red than before - which counts as a triumph, I feel.)

So, the viewage:

( Campion )

( lovely old crotchety Who )

( the inestimable fabulousness of Romana II )

( Bettie Page )

Now exhausted. Shall collapse in front of telly to recover...

One day in 1941, Margery Allingham sat down and thought 'I wonder what that nice uktechgirl would like me to write in a Campion novel?'. (uktechgirl had not been even slightly born at the time, which only goes to show how clever and thoughtful Margery was.) A bit of hurt/comfort seems to tick her boxes, Margery thought. Pacy exciting mystery fun, with a lashings of people being bashed on the head with lead piping. Some fond moments with Lugg. The presence of the Lieut always seems to please (what is it about this woman and redheads?). But what she really likes, Margery thought to herself, is the way Campion stories are so beautifully understated on the emotional front - and yet, she'd quite like to get some additional insight into the character; to see something of the inside of his head, without that sacrificing the innate dignity and poise of his consciously-artificial persona.

And then she wrote Traitor's Purse, just for me.

Amnesiac Campion. On the run. In terrible terrible danger, as is the entire country, and he is the only man in the world who can prevent genuine disaster, and he can't remember a thing. And Amanda, and Lugg, and the most heartbreakingly wonderful wonky interactions between them and the new, fumbling, lost Campion, who exposes all his emotional frailty without really knowing it. God. It's so completely brilliant a way to do it, I am in trembly-kneed awe. Not one to start with, because at heart it's a trashy 39 Steps sort of affair, but in context of the earlier ones...gosh. I read it cover to cover, making small squeaking noises. And now I want to read it again.

Fortunately, thanks to the marvellous bimo, I have Dancers in Mourning to distract me. Yay!

17 charming square gentleman detectives.

( irrelevant observations )

The first 6 are Allingham quotes (though I expect he probably says 'hullo' and 'I wonder' at some point: not so sure about 'fucksocks'). Poster image from US promo campaign, adapted and reproduced without permission (terribly sorry about that). There is no 18. (Doh.)

Do help yourselves. Credit and comments are both lovely.

I finished The Fashion in Shrouds, featuring that nice Mr Campion. I would like to go to the 1930s now, please.

"I'm not anti-social. I'm against murder on principle. I think it's unethical and ungentlemanly and also unkind."

(BTW, wishfulaces, it was Pearls Before Swine you recommended to me, which is apparently called Coroner's Pidgin here. I am on the case!)

Campion. Oh, so, so, lovely. I have now read Sweet Danger, and am entirely entranced by the wonderfulness. Allingham is thoroughly at the Sayers end of the detective fiction spectrum, where the point is to write a proper clever witty book with fabulous people in it, which also happens to be a detective story (unlike Christie - spit spit - who can't even write decent mysteries since the denouement always relies on information you couldn't have known, and whose characterisation is shockingly lazy. He is...Belgian! She is...young and wears red lipstick! Mhmm). She also included a character called Stukely-Wivenhoe, which is the sort of thing that makes me very pleased indeed. And Campion describes himself as a 'Universal Uncle and deputy adventurer', which makes me want to give him a hug (and does nothing whatsoever to separate him in my mind from His Beigeness).

Am now on The Fashion in Shrouds, which, by pure coincidence, follows on with a certain character from Sweet Danger. More than that, it takes place 8 years later, and the change in him, and in the tone of the novel, is so marked it's heartbreaking. I had this lovely theory about detective fiction (like many other clearly-defined 'lowbrow' genres) relying on being static, because it was comforting to know that at the end you would surface in the same place, and the detective would solve the case, and thus there is order to the universe. Even Lord Peter and Harriet develop only in the sense of getting married, after all. But this...the whole plot revolves around someone knowing him well enough to exploit his weaknesses, and the whole point of Campion is that he doesn't exist: he's a fantasy in his own head, playing silly games, and suddenly someone is forcing him to engage in some self-examination, to admit he's now 38 and instead of it being all jolly scrapes and a bit of a lark, it's life, and he's getting a little long in the tooth for daft pseudonyms and secrets. And it's the late 1930s, and everyone's so much more brittle, so much more knowing, than even ten years before. It's all so sad.

Back before he was emo 1930s-style, however, there was The Case of the Late Pig, what I watched on the telly with that nice Mr Davison. The entire plot revolves around gingerness. It's like someone out there is making telly just for me!

There must and shall be icons, and I shall make it so, but to facilitate such things I did cap, quite frenziedly. (This time using VLC, bless it, so they are nice .pngs and not shite bitmaps, hurrah.) 40ish caps under the cut: it's only polite to share, after all. (NB: photobucket is being typically infuriating, so lots of them are wee. If you want a biggerer version of any of them, email me, and I shall furnish you with the Peteyness.)

( hatporn! )

Feel free to snag them and make pretty pictures. Or just look at the hats for a bit. Whatever.

My inadvertent Peteython continues, with the very lovely Albert Campion Goes To A Country House And Is Fey. Cut-price Wimsey he may be, he's still completely fab, and has all the soothing powers of Black Orchid.

( screencaps of Petey joy (of apparently random sizes, most odd) )

Still feel like shite, but now I feel like 1930s shite with hats on. Think I might read some Allingham: have only read The Crime at Black Dudley, which I thought was arse, but I'm told the others are considerably better.

*pokes Screenselect and demands more BBC mystery fun*