That's Not Ruleful
At the moment, I am alternating between reading Antony and Cleopatra (good) and Point Blanc by Anthony Horowitz (not so good). I began reading it out of mild curiosity after my brother expressed his undying hatred for all things Alex Rider, and so far, although I haven't read that much of it, I've already learnt several things.
- If you intend to murder someone, you should never go for an efficient method when a hideously expensive but visually impressive method also exists.
- It is a brilliant idea to leap on your bike and go tearing off after a criminal on a whim.
- When you discover a crime going on, you should never go to the police, not even if a police station is just metres from you! You should take it into your own hands, even if this ‘taking it into your own hands’ endangers the lives of multiple people! Especially if this ‘taking it into your own hands’ endangers the lives of multiple people!
- It's okay to break into a construction site and use the crane to pick up a barge (having previously sneakily locked all its exits) and drop it sixty feet through the roof of a building, very nearly killing the two people inside the barge and causing untold amounts of damage, if said inhabitants are drug dealers.
- Everyone wants to kill poor innocent Alex Rider for no reason. He's so long-suffering and misunderstood!
- Rich country teenagers are Pure Evil and think it Most Amusing to shoot at poor innocent middle-class Londoners with rifles.
- Rich pretty teenage country girls are Pure Evil and think it Most Amusing to torment poor innocent middle-class Londoners for no reason and try to get them run over by trains.
- If a person drugs your drink and you realise it just before you pass out, when you regain consciousness it will not occur to you to wonder why you were drugged. No, not even if you're a 'teenage superspy'.
- You will need all of the gadgets you were given at the start of your mission and only the gadgets you were given at the start of your mission. You will only need to use each gadget once. At no point will you think 'Damn, I wish I hadn't used up my only stun dart, it would be really useful now.' Should all of your gadgets but one be taken from you, the one that remains will be the one you need to get out of the situation. Isn't life convenient?
- It is possible to survive being thrown at incredible speed from a train into a barbed-wire fence with an ironing board strapped to your feet if you have a really good ski suit.
- Everyone should buy a certain type of Rolls-Royce, the name of which I cannot recall, so I will call it the ‘Rolls-Royce Calamari’. There is a passage in the book which I will paraphrase as best I can from memory, because I do not actually own a copy transcribe accurately, because I just looked it up! It's actually called a 'Corniche', but I will continue to call it a 'Calamari' because I can.
The chaffeur-driven Rolls-Royce Calamari cruised along a tree-lined avenue, penetrating ever deeper into the Lancashire countryside, its 6.75 litre light pressure V8 engine barely a whisper in the great green silence all around. Alex sat in the back, trying to be unimpressed by a car that cost as much as a house. Forget the Wilton wool carpets, the wooden panelling and the leather seats, he told himself. It’s only a car.
The book actually has quite a few of these pointless descriptions of cars, cranes et cetera, although nowhere else does it sound quite so like an advertisement. It's a bit like in The Da Vinci Code, with all the random droppings-in of trivia that give you the distinct impression that the author is dancing around, waving his hands and yelling “Look at me! Look at how much I know about art/machinery/Christian mythology/the Golden Freaking Ratio!” Of course, it’s worse in The Da Vinci Code, because it’s got those pointless flashbacks to Langdon teaching lessons in which Brown can spout his ohsospecial trivia through Langdon and have Langdon’s students go ‘Oh, Robert, you astound us with your knowledge! You’re so smart and handsome and clever and brilliant and wonderful!’
SHUT UP, DAN BROWN.
...‘SHUT UP, DAN BROWN’ probably wasn’t the originally-intended conclusion for this poking-fun-at-Anthony-Horowitz, but I think it’s a rather good conclusion nonetheless.
Anyway! I would very much have liked to add a scan of what is by far my favourite card out of the hundreds that have been created in my many games of 1000 Blank White Cards, but alas the scanner hates me and refuses to scan it in. It was created by my disgruntled younger brother - I must have forbidden him to do something or other in the game, because the title is ‘RULE BITCH’, the picture is of me wagging my finger petulantly and saying ‘THAT’S NOT RULEFUL’, and the text is ‘Take as many cards from the discard pile as you can without letting Harriet see’. I adore it. I want to frame it and put it up on my wall. ‘THAT’S NOT RULEFUL.’ Hee hee hee!
- If you intend to murder someone, you should never go for an efficient method when a hideously expensive but visually impressive method also exists.
- It is a brilliant idea to leap on your bike and go tearing off after a criminal on a whim.
- When you discover a crime going on, you should never go to the police, not even if a police station is just metres from you! You should take it into your own hands, even if this ‘taking it into your own hands’ endangers the lives of multiple people! Especially if this ‘taking it into your own hands’ endangers the lives of multiple people!
- It's okay to break into a construction site and use the crane to pick up a barge (having previously sneakily locked all its exits) and drop it sixty feet through the roof of a building, very nearly killing the two people inside the barge and causing untold amounts of damage, if said inhabitants are drug dealers.
- Everyone wants to kill poor innocent Alex Rider for no reason. He's so long-suffering and misunderstood!
- Rich country teenagers are Pure Evil and think it Most Amusing to shoot at poor innocent middle-class Londoners with rifles.
- Rich pretty teenage country girls are Pure Evil and think it Most Amusing to torment poor innocent middle-class Londoners for no reason and try to get them run over by trains.
- If a person drugs your drink and you realise it just before you pass out, when you regain consciousness it will not occur to you to wonder why you were drugged. No, not even if you're a 'teenage superspy'.
- You will need all of the gadgets you were given at the start of your mission and only the gadgets you were given at the start of your mission. You will only need to use each gadget once. At no point will you think 'Damn, I wish I hadn't used up my only stun dart, it would be really useful now.' Should all of your gadgets but one be taken from you, the one that remains will be the one you need to get out of the situation. Isn't life convenient?
- It is possible to survive being thrown at incredible speed from a train into a barbed-wire fence with an ironing board strapped to your feet if you have a really good ski suit.
- Everyone should buy a certain type of Rolls-Royce, the name of which I cannot recall, so I will call it the ‘Rolls-Royce Calamari’. There is a passage in the book which I will paraphrase as best I can from memory, because I do not actually own a copy transcribe accurately, because I just looked it up! It's actually called a 'Corniche', but I will continue to call it a 'Calamari' because I can.
The chaffeur-driven Rolls-Royce Calamari cruised along a tree-lined avenue, penetrating ever deeper into the Lancashire countryside, its 6.75 litre light pressure V8 engine barely a whisper in the great green silence all around. Alex sat in the back, trying to be unimpressed by a car that cost as much as a house. Forget the Wilton wool carpets, the wooden panelling and the leather seats, he told himself. It’s only a car.
The book actually has quite a few of these pointless descriptions of cars, cranes et cetera, although nowhere else does it sound quite so like an advertisement. It's a bit like in The Da Vinci Code, with all the random droppings-in of trivia that give you the distinct impression that the author is dancing around, waving his hands and yelling “Look at me! Look at how much I know about art/machinery/Christian mythology/the Golden Freaking Ratio!” Of course, it’s worse in The Da Vinci Code, because it’s got those pointless flashbacks to Langdon teaching lessons in which Brown can spout his ohsospecial trivia through Langdon and have Langdon’s students go ‘Oh, Robert, you astound us with your knowledge! You’re so smart and handsome and clever and brilliant and wonderful!’
SHUT UP, DAN BROWN.
...‘SHUT UP, DAN BROWN’ probably wasn’t the originally-intended conclusion for this poking-fun-at-Anthony-Horowitz, but I think it’s a rather good conclusion nonetheless.
Anyway! I would very much have liked to add a scan of what is by far my favourite card out of the hundreds that have been created in my many games of 1000 Blank White Cards, but alas the scanner hates me and refuses to scan it in. It was created by my disgruntled younger brother - I must have forbidden him to do something or other in the game, because the title is ‘RULE BITCH’, the picture is of me wagging my finger petulantly and saying ‘THAT’S NOT RULEFUL’, and the text is ‘Take as many cards from the discard pile as you can without letting Harriet see’. I adore it. I want to frame it and put it up on my wall. ‘THAT’S NOT RULEFUL.’ Hee hee hee!