Warmer than this old place
It’s good to see the old friends back together. Time has passed very slowly in Solver. Lottie arrived in Sheffield in September (in 2022), and it’s now November. This glacial pace wasn’t intentional, but it’s good to acknowledge it. Scary Go Round used to run in virtually real time!
That bedazzling is a sign of someone with stress related issues
Also ‘Bip Bip Bop’ for the keypad… reminds me of a song
‘Pip pop plop’ is the title of the original Peep Show theme?
What is The Critical Bar, I ask?
I think I was thrown out of there in 2017.
They were just too critical of you
Pretty sure I was friends with the bouncer, because I wasn’t thrown out but I remember you flying out the door.
For real though, what?
In case the inquiry is serious, Glerf would read Lottie’s memoir because his standard for “I’d read that” is underground, as demonstrated by what he is currently reading.
In case it’s not, The Critical Bar is the exam that critical lawyers have to pass.
Nah. This is a reference to an unseen solo Grerg adventure, taking place between Wobbly Head and this story, in which our hero ended up in possession of a powerful metaphysical artifact known as the Critical Bar, which he had to bury deep underground to keep it out of the wrong hands.
Aha! It’s another marvellous crossover in the making – the Critical Bar must be connected in some way to the magical crowbar wielded by the Wrecker.
I’ve been using the phrase “lowered/raised the critical bar” for a lowering or raising of expectations my whole adult life. I did not realise it was such an obscure idiom. I’m starting to worry that when I speak or write, I sound like someone speaking Latin to a modern-day Italian.
Tu moda classica
Well I’m familiar with “lowered the bar” but the addition of the word “critical” through my for a loop. Also the fact that it was italicized made me think it was a publication of some sort. What a wild journey this has been.
Candy and soap also come in bars (there are brands of both called “Dove”). I guess some could be critical (maybe a critical mass of them causes a chain reaction?).
Is that Energy Crow on Lottie’s trousers? (or maybe those are leggings; I can’t tell for sure)
I believe it’s a jumpsuit which Lottie has bedazzled.
Easy to see why that stopped once Bad Machinery jumped three years ahead, but it is interesting to look back at SGR (and Bobbins) with that knowledge.
It’s a little confusing figuring out what year anything takes place after that.
Great to see our heroes again as well as a new Lottie purple puffer variant!
That’s the Wizard Magazine Exclusive mail-away Purple Puffer Variant Lottie!
They were giving those away at SDCC, but I was in line for the podracing sequels, 2 Star 2 Wars and Tattoine Drift
That place must be cold for them all to be wearing jackets in the kitchen
It’s the UK, what do you expect?
A friend of mine once woke up in a B&B somewhere in England to find her hair frozen to the bedroom wall.
Bed and breakfast. Nothing in there about heating.
I am currently sitting at my desktop PC in my own house in the north of England, and I am wearing a sort of sleeveless puffer jacket gilet thing on top of a fleece. I only took off the scarf an hour ago, when I got a bit warm doing some light housework. Wearing such garments indoors is completely normal hereabouts.
Wait! Does this mean we are about to explore that classic British mystery subgenre, the Timetable Mystery? Like such classics as George Bellairs’ The Case of the Seven Whistlers, Yu Aoi’s Funatomi no Sangeki, and, of course, Mr. Neville Shunt’s immortal It All Happened on the 11.20 from Hainault to Redhill via Horsham and Reigate, calling at Carshalton Beeches, Malmesbury, Tooting Bec, and Croydon West
I thought the sequel, Replaced By Buses Until Further Notice, was a great twist.
This is giving me Reggie Perrin flashbacks, e.g. “Twenty-two minutes late, escaped puma, Chessington North” ( https://www.leonardrossiter.com/reginaldperrin/Train.html )
Super!
Knockout!
Some people have seen Shunt’s work as a load of rubbish about railway timetables…
…but it’s a plea for understanding in a mechanized world. Ecce homo, ergo elk.
How to Be a Pythonista, indeed
We can also include Borges’ The Garden of Forking Paths, which despite being Argentine literature, is set in the Britain:
“I was going to the village of Ashgrove, but took a ticket for a station further on. The
train would leave in a few minutes, at eight-fifty. I hurried, for the next would not go
until half past nine… were it not for the precious accident of the train schedule, I
would be in prison or dead.”
Also is it too much to ask that someday we get Solver: Into The Pufferverse?
Since the homeless have colonized our local library, perhaps I’ll start auditing a few college courses to keep warm.
…Or perhaps I should start teaching a few. I’m sure I’m qualified to teach “The intersection of confabulation with prevarication in modern corporate environments.” Or maybe “Logic and the indoctrination of thought under a pluralistically vocal society.” Upper level classes both of them, I’m sure. Then there’s my introductary course, “How to get ahead in society without really trying.
Lottie can’t wait to back in action, Claire seems to be happy and Glenn is grumpy. The last detail is worrying me, his post near-death experience could be so bad that he wants to leave.
Also Claire’s looking really stylish and cute in that outfit.
I feel like Claire is looking a bit like she’s cosplaying the 13th Doctor here… Or maybe the 13th Doctor was cosplaying Claire…
(It’s great to have the team back!)
That Energy Crow jumpsuit! We love a girl who makes her own merch 🙏
Glerf! Wonderful.