The writer Stephen J. Cannell’s work is funny witty hilarious and complexly mysterious, anytime  you can watch one of his pieces I suggest you do!

My DVD  rec. for the holidays is Double Exposure a Columbo mystery with guest star Robert Culp ( from I Spy) , two great actors going at it, love Culp’s outfits ! The 70′s did have style after all. 

He gives a great interview about his work as a part of  the Rockford Files DVD bonus materials.

Have a Jolly Holiday mystery fans!

” She spilled chocolate chips on the kitchen floor as she turned to lock the door, a man with a shovel dragging something had just passed her window.”

CORRECTION – STEPHEN GALLAGHER was the sole writer for this episode – Wow, I watched it again, Love your work Stephen,  please accept my apologies for the writing credit error!

My DVD  rec. is   ” The Cup of Silence “  Series 3 volume 3.

An old hotel and winery that  is working to get its reputation back on the wine and food circuit, competing brothers, a wedding planner, B movie aficionados- oh ,the list of suspects goes on…

Full of laughs and final resolutions that speak of how in life… friendship and  mad scientist ingenuity is really all you need,

Check it out.

Rosemary & Thyme
Rosemary and Thyme
Genre	Crime fiction
Created by	Tom Clegg Brian Farnham
Starring	Felicity Kendal Pam Ferris
Opening theme	Variation on Scarborough Fair
Ending theme	Idem
Country of origin	UK
No. of series	3
No. of episodes	22
Production
Producer(s)	Carnival Films
Running time	20×60 minutes 2×120 minutes (including adverts)
Broadcast
Original channel	ITV
Original run	31 August 2003 – 6 August 2007

They are beautifully filmed and the gardens are luscious, wish my garden was as abundant in blooms!

_____________________

“ She took her spade and wiped the bottom, placing it quietly back into the greenhouse.”

 So I was finishing up Ellery Queen with Jim Hutton ( I love that actor ) when I thought that series really reminds me of the short-lived Nero Wolfe series on A&E and that Tim Hutton so reminds me of Jim, as I was unwilling to run out of DVD’s before the holidays were over,I searched out a Nero Wolfe Box set – got complete seasons with a discount… it was meant to be!

Wikipeded Jim and Tim and they are father and son ! Tim Hutton expands on his fathers work in this interprative genre and infuses it with his own sense of SWING as his father did before… very interesting bio check it out,

 So light up that fire break out the bubbly and canapes and snuggle down for a long night of tit for tat banter cars that won’t quit and good old fun,   Happy new year mystery aficionados!!

“Don’t mean a thing,  if it ain’t got that swing,”

Do wah  do wah dooooo wah!

-DUKE ELLINGTON

Images Coutesy of Google

________________________

” The fire shone in the reflection of her freshly painted nails while she crunched another stack of papers  into the flames, the pounding on the door had nearly ceased. ”

The cashier spoke not a word but went straight to his work slapping down a bill that didn’t make me feel like a jerk,

I heard them exclaim as I drove out of sight, happy shopping to all, try online next time ! 

Laying a finger aside my nose, I opened the package along with some hose,

Placing the show in the player with the wink of an eye and the twist of my head, I soon realized I had nothing to dread,

Jim Hutton’s Ellery Queen entranced my funny bone -sometimes not on purpose ( the alice in wonderland party episode ” The Adventure Of The Mad Tea Party” is one of the strangest TV shows I have ever watched!  )… but all in classical great mystery mode of fun,

check it out to wile away the holiday hours -or- as a way to hide from visiting relatives … MERRY XMAS mystery lovers and to all a good night!                   My DVD rec. of the day!

“Match wits with Ellery Queen and see if you can guess who done it!”

Now the funniest item in this episode, to me, is the way Shawn runs around the planetarium with his blue overall and dangling stargazing items (” Why do you keep running ?” Gus) but…besides that make sure you catch his narration for the night sky show-

 Shawn is undercover, leading a show at the planetarium]
Shawn Spencer: Hello, ladies and gentlemen, I will be your narrator. My name is Aurora Borealis. There are over four… hundred stars in our galaxy, maybe more. No one knows for sure. Many have said that the universe is even larger than the Indian Ocean, and that is why it is called Infinitum Starioctopusium.
[constellations light up]
Shawn Spencer: Ah yes, our glorious constellations. There they all are, take a look. Over here, we have one with a guy holding some sort of… thing. Over here, our beloved Olympic rings, all seven of them. And here, here’s one with a fish.
Vernon Stallings: [whispering] You gotta name them.
Shawn Spencer: Notice straight, straight above you, the Hammer of Jeff. And over there to the south…
Vernon Stallings: [whispering] North.
Shawn Spencer: …north, you will see Monkey With Rash. The Egyptians used to set their clocks by it. Oh, look, there goes an asteroid!
Vernon Stallings: [whispering] Comet.
Shawn Spencer: Comet! It’s what they named that cleaning solution after. I know it may stink when you leave it in the sink, but boy oh boy, does it clean.

(Quote from www.IMDB.com)

Sticky wickets abound as the psych team manuever their way through the dungeons of mayhem like jackals. ( you’ll see…)

Have a amusing evening!

Image Courtesy of Google

_____________________________________

“She pushed the suds from her toes and the wet grass and mud off her boots, her trail now concealed.”

Shawn Spencer: [doing the Monarch Lodge's secret handshake with the security guard]

Hold it,

fold it,

skim it,

crouching tiger,

zookeeper’s boy,

hairdresser on fire,

girlfriend in a coma,

slap it on a biscuit.

___________________________From www.imdb.com

_______________________________

This episode of PSYCH has dark wood ladened old buildings, secret members, safe cracking, familial tensions- everything needed for, 1-a cold winter’s night entertainment. or  2-relief from a hot sweltering  day…either way mucho laugh-itos!

Season 2

” Sam laid down the candlestick and searched for a pulse.”  Happy Friday…

The Natural Order   (Sentence advice continued)

Writing sentences which are easily understood frequently depends upon keeping sentence elements in their natural or logical order.  Many sentences are ineffective because their various elements  seem to have been flung together haphazard.

Remember the three simplest kinds of order – the order of time, the order of cause to effect, and the order of climax-are particularly useful in helping you to arrange details in a natural and easy series.

ex. – He flung himself over the cliff, crazed with jealousy

reverses the order in time, puts effect before cause, and is anti-climax.

The sentence would carry its meaning more clearly and more forcefully if reversed,

Crazed with jealousy, he flung himself over the cliff.

We must not forget, however, that an un-natural order may be justified if it serves the purpose of emphasis and is judiciously handled.

Above advice is courtesy of David Lambuth and Company.

Bye,  ” He tried to gulp the last part of his beer, it was frozen solid and soon he would be too unless he found a way out of this meat locker”

Image Courtesy of Google

Psych is a wonderful combination of screwball comedies the Marx  brothers with a splash of The Rockford files i.e. alot of FUN.  The two main characters, Shawn and Gus, are twenty somethings  with a sense of  history in the comedic detective  department.

A typical repartee  goes as such,

‘I want him.”

“No you don’t.”

” Yes, I do .”

” Do you think he’s up?”

A nice mix of  semi eccentric work mates finishes off the scene.  A classic soft-boiled Nick and Nora type of detective narrative.  Favorite episode?   “ Shawn (and Gus) Of the Dead “

Their performances along with the inventive storylines moves them into the pantheon of great detective characters, Sherlock Holmes you have some competition !

Psych
Title card
Format	Comedy-drama Police procedural
Created by	Steve Franks
Starring	James Roday Dulé Hill Timothy Omundson Maggie Lawson Kirsten Nelson Corbin Bernsen
Opening theme	“I Know You Know” by The Friendly Indians
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	63 (List of episodes)
Production
Location(s)	White Rock, BC Vancouver, BC
Running time	43 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	USA Network
Picture format	1080i (HDTV)
Original run	– present
External links
Official website   www.usanetwork.com     series/Psych

 BYE,   ” Cracking ggs always reminded her of the way his head split, she took the frying pan and put it back in the cupboard.”

The sentence (Continued)

The Frontal Attack

A sentence is a sort of moving picture of thought – it will have the clearest continuity when it follows the natural order of our thinking. 

This means that the thing thought about – the subject-should usually appear near the beginning of the sentence, and that what is thought about it – the predicate- should follow after, with the various modifying clauses, phrases, and so on-introduced in the order in which  they naturally come to the mind in its onward movement.

When a sentence doesn’t seem to be going well, stop and ask yourself,

“What is it I am really talking about in this sentence?”

After deciding on the central idea the rest of the sentence should unfold easily.

Remember,If you have a nail to hit, hit it on the head.

Above advice courtesy of David Lambuth and Company 

Bye,  ” She shuffled the deck watching the door all the time, two minutes past the deadline and she was a dead woman.”

Image from Google

Unity in a sentence

In addition to being complete, a sentence must be unified.

A sentence containing  two or more distinctly separate statements lacks unity and ought to be broken up into two or more sentences

UNLESS

the two statements are so closely related that they depend upon each other  for their full meaning.

The more closely the parts and clauses of a sentence can center about one dominating subject, the simpler that subject is for the mind to grasp.  Such simplicity is one of the first requirements of careful writing.

EX.

Though I had met him before, his face was unfamiliar  is a grammatically correct sentence; but  Though I had met him before, I could not remember his face is simpler and better because it does not change subjects between clauses.

Your first duty in writing is to make it as easy as possible for your reader to follow your thought.

Obscurity is not profundity.  Neither is it art.

Advice thanks to David Lambuth and Company

Bye,   ” He went out in her back field to see if the snow angel was finished but all that remained were her boots and a trickle of blood over the patterns of snow. “