House of Forgotten Thoughts

I dreamed I encountered Jon Pertwee in an airport. Just heading opposite directions in the hall, all wearing ugly airport clothes. But I froze, and we did the body language that members of my family would sum up as the song lyric:
"Now you know that I know
that you know who I am.
Now you know that I know
you are my biggest fan."

And he responded with the slightly open body posture that said, "I've got a few minutes and not that many people can recognize me cold in an airport these days, so would you like an autograph?"

And I said out loud, "Oh, that's okay."

He said, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, but thanks. Thanks."

He smiled and nodded at me, and I said, "Um, but could I shake your hand?"

And he did the slight pause of someone who's been touched uninvited by fans, and then smiled again and shook my hand. He got my hand oddly, like the third part of the standard four-part secret handshake, so our thumbs were wrapped around, which was entertaining.

And then we nodded at each other and got on our way in the airport.

What with him being dead, it was really great to get to meet him.


Edited to add: I think I'm forgetting a fragment in the initial communication, because I think he complimented my scarf. He was wearing some kind of (very non Whovian) knitted and brightly colored scarf as well, which I found entertaining. It was mostly that regrettable shade of synthetic aqua and had wavy edges.

To: Gement
From: Random spammer
Subject: You will visit Doctor only in your dreams.

And even my spam doesn't promise to make my dreams come true. Sigh. I have carried a TARDIS key upon my person for years now, but all the randomly humming rectangular objects I encounter appear to be uninhabited.

Mind you, the only Blue Box I saw in England was in front of the American Embassy, which I found obscurely amusing. It was half-width, though, no actual room for a human to enter. But it did hum slightly to the touch. That startled me.


(The old-style TARDIS key, not the new Yale copycat model.)

So I've been imbibing a tiny smidge of media I didn't write lately, thanks to maribou, who turned me on to Sharpe's Rifles. I've both read the book and watched the BBC now, and enjoyed them both. The video adaptation felt rushed and clunky right after the book, but Sean Bean covers many sins.

For those who aren't familiar, it's Napoleonic infantry slogging, brutally described, which should send me screaming in the other direction. But it's also delicious character development, and honor porn, which I'm going to go make an LJ interest RIGHT NOW. (If you don't know what honor porn is, I'm not sure I can describe it, but if you like Bujold, you know honor porn. By the way, if you like honor porn, my work contains scads of it.) The main character is a lieutenant raised from the ranks, which is to say spat on by "real" officers and distrusted by enlisted men as no better than themselves.

But I had a point here, which was types of officers. In the BBC adaptation, there's a lovely little speech near the end, and it goes roughly like this (I'm borrowing someone else's transcription and have not verified its accuracy):

Harper: "Ye'll make a fine killin' officer, sir."

Sharpe: "A what?"

H: "Ye don't know about killin' officers?"

S: "No."

H: "Oh, now that's too bad, sir. I thought you'd 'ave known, coming up yerself from the ranks as ye did... There are only two kinds of officers, killin' officers and murderin' officers. Killin' officers are poor old buggers that git you killed by accident. Murderin' officers are mad, bad old buggers that git you killed on purpose, for a reason, for a country or a religion, maybe even for a flag. They're mean, murdering old buggers."

It is my opinion that Miles Vorkosigan is a killin' officer. Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood, at least in the first four episodes which I have now seen, is a murderin' officer if there ever was one. And I started thinking about it, because you don't need stripes to be in a position of authority where things of value are at stake and hard choices have to be made, particularly if you're a fictional character.

[Poll #1171534]

Edit: A summary of the first 48 hours of results (18 respondents) is available in the next entry.

If you think you can define honor porn or the difference between killin' and murderin' officers articulately, please attempt to do so in the comments. That would make me happy.