Detached from pain

"It should be possible so to divorce the mind from the body that one could look at one's own physical pain with the same analytical detachment one directs toward the agony of another person."

This is a statement made in Dame Ngaio Marsh's novel, A Man Lay Dead. I will grant that perhaps this is theoretically possible in a few cases, but it is not something I would ever expect to be able to do.

Be skeptical

"When player cannot see man who deal cards, much wiser to stay out of game." 

(from Charlie Chan at the Race Track)

Emotional suicide

"He used, as far as I can recollect,  these very words: 'It's no go, Benny; I've been caught poaching and I've lost my license.' I asked him what he meant by that, and he laughed, very bitterly I thought, and said that marriage with a woman who understood you was emotional suicide, a phrase that had the advantage of sounding well and meaning nothing."

(from A Man Lay Dead, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)

When a great detective picks up the scent

The voice crackled on. Alleyn extended his call. He wrote busily, and gradually a curious expression - eager, doubtful, intensely concentrated - stole over his face. It was a look with which they were very familiar at the Yard.

(from A Man Lay Dead, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)

Get a butler before you plug him

"As a rule," he observed, "there is much less to be gleaned from the clothes of a man with a valet than from those of the poorer classes. 'Highly recommended by successful homicide' would be a telling reference for any man-servant."

(from A Man Lay Dead, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)

Women are worse

"When a woman is wicked and unscrupulous," said Parker, sententiously, "she is the most ruthless criminal in the world - fifty times worse than a man, because she is always so much more single-minded about it."

(from Unnatural Death, by Dorothy L. Sayers)

My favorite day, weather-wise

After one of our brutal, sauna-bath Arkansas summers, that first day when the air has just a little bit of that cool nip of autumn is my favorite. It refreshes the body, the mind - and the soul.

Gorse bushes

In her novel Unnatural Death, Dorothy L. Sayers refers to "gorse bushes." This is a common name for Ulex, which is a genus of flower plants.

Loneliness

Loneliness is one of the most painful of the emotions through which humans go. It is a tremendously powerful motivator, and frequently not a good one. Many people make bad decisions in order to escape loneliness. They think, "Better bad friends than no friends," when just the opposite is true.

If you want to get lost, go here

To the person who has anything to conceal - to the person who wants to lose his identity as one leaf among the leaves of a forest - to the person who asks no more than to pass by and be forgotten, there is one name above others which promises a haven of safety and oblivion. London. Where no one knows his neighbor. Where shops do not know their customers. Where physicians are suddenly called to unknown patients whom they never see again. Where you may lie dead in your house for months together unmissed and unnoticed till the gas-inspector comes to look at the meter. Where strangers are friendly and friends are casual. London, whose rather untidy and grubby bosom is the repository of so many odd secrets. Discreet, incurious and all-enfolding London.

(from Unnatural Death, by Dorothy L. Sayers)

Never foolishness

     "Regular brought up with 'osses I've been all my life. Work with 'em, slept with 'em - lived in a stable, you might say, sir."
     "You couldn't have better company," said Lord Peter.
     "That's right, sir, you couldn't. my wife always used to say she was jealous of the 'osses. Said I preferred their conversation to hers. Well, maybe she was right, sir. A 'oss never talks no foolishness, I says to her, and that's more than you can always say of women, ain't it, sir?"
     "It is indeed," said Wimsey.

(from Unnatural Death, by Dorothy L. Sayers)

Noisy failures

It's always the failures that make the noise. Successful murderers don't write to the papers about it. They don't even join in imbecile symposia to tell an inquisitive world "What Murder Means To Me," or "How I became a Successful Poisoner." Happy murderers, like happy wives, keep quiet tongues. And they probably bear just about the same proportion to the failures as the divorced couples do to the happily mated.

(from Unnatural Death, by Dorothy L. Sayers)

How to get by with crime

"Society is at the mercy of a murderer who is remorseless, who takes no accomplices and who keeps his head."

 (Edmund Pearson, from Murder at Smutty Nose, as quoted in Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers)

Strange-looking woman

Tall, over-dressed, Musquash and those abbreviated sort of shoes with jeweled heels and hardly any uppers - you know the sort of thing. Heavily peroxided, strong aroma of orifan wafted out upon the passer-by; powder too white for the fashion and mouth heavily obscured with sealing-wax red; eyebrows painted black to startle, not deceive; finger-nails a monument to Kraska - the pink variety.

(from Unnatural Death, by Dorothy L. Sayers)

Actually a very good singer

Roy Rogers actually had an outstanding light tenor voice. It was clear and clean and very listenable. He reminds me a lot of popular singer Jimmie F. Rodgers, who became famous for his rendition of "Honeycomb," among other hits. (See photo below.)

I think Dorothy has them pegged

Lord Peter paused, in the very act of ringing the bell. His jaw slackened, giving his long, narrow face a faintly foolish and hesitant look, reminiscent of the heroes of Mr. P. G. Wodehouse

(from Unnatural Death, by Dorothy L. Sayers)

Lord Peter is Lord Peter Wimsey, the amateur sleuth hero of several of her novels.

Roy Glenn of the deep voice

If you are an old movie and television fan, you probably would recognize the face and voice of actor Roy Glenn. His voice was amazingly deep and resonant. He appeared a few times on the Jack Benny television show as a friend of Rochester.

And, without any chance of being sued for slander, you could have said that he was married for about 35 years to a "fractious" woman. In 1936 he married Pauline Fractious, and they remained married until his death in 1971.

Navy Log

This television series aired for one season in 1955-56. It was a group of true-life adventures and problems from various areas of the Navy, most of which are set in the context of the Korean War. It is reasonably well done, and the quality of the production is acceptable. If you like military stories, you might enjoy this. Many of the episodes are available on YouTube.

Gotobed

In the Lord Peter Wimsey novel, Unnatural Death, we encounter the surname Gotobed. I assume it is pronounced just like it looks. Other spellings have been found in history. One site I found said that its original meaning was "the son of Godbert." One of the first known bearers was Roger Godberd in 1273.

Jassackaphone

This was a musical "instrument" played by Smiley Burnette, the sidekick one a multitude of old western films. Here is a LINK to a video of Burnette (as "Frog" Millhouse) playing the jassackaphone in The Old Barn Dance (1938).