Starting today, I’m going to require folks who want to leave comments to register with TypeKey. I hate to do this–I tend not to leave comments on blogs where registration is required, and I’m sure lots of other people feel the same way.

Here’s the deal. For the past month I’ve been deleting on the order 200 to 300 pieces of comment spam per day. Most of it is reasonably harmless, but however you slice it, it’s a real nuisance. I’ve tried installing MT-Blacklist, a plug-in that filters out comment spam, but it didn’t work (I couldn’t get it installed correctly) and I haven’t pursued it.

TypeKey is a service provided by SixApart, the folks who sell MovableType (my blogging software). You can go to the TypeKey website and create an account for free. That account will let you leave comments on any MovableType blog that requires registration.

This is a bit of an experiment; if any of you frequent commenters are unwilling to register with TypeKey, send me some e-mail, and I’ll maybe reconsider.

In Wobble to Death we made the acquaintance of Sergeant Cribb
and his hardworking assistant Constable Thackery as they investigate a
murder that takes place during a fiendish kind of footrace called a
“Six-Day Go-As-You-Like”. This book, which follows shortly thereafter,
continues the sporting theme with a look at prize-fighting.

In England in those days, the term “prize-fighting” invariably meant
boxing with bare-knuckles–no gloves. Gloves were a recent innovation,
and were utterly disdained by the “Fancy”, the followers of the sport.
(See my review of George MacDonald Fraser’s
Black Ajax for another view of the Victorian Fancy.)
And in England in those days, bare-knuckle fights were illegal, and had
been for quite some time. Such fights as were held, then, were always
held out-of-doors in some remote location, and near the county border so
that if the location were discovered by the local magistrates it could be
easily continued in another jurisdiction.

As the present book begins, Sergeant Cribb is led to a body found
floating in the Thames. The body is headless, but otherwise bears all
the hallmarks of a bare-knuckle fighter. Someone has committed murder,
and the murderer is almost certainly belongs to the Fancy. Time for some
undercover work, and hence the silk drawers of the title.

In my review of Wobble to Death I noted that there wasn’t
anything particularly memorable about Cribb, but in this book his
personality begins to emerge. He’s clever, and is willing to do quite
unorthodox things in pursuit of his investigations, as he shows when he
enlists a young detective who’s good with his fists to infiltrate the
Fancy. Prize-fighting is illegal, and no exceptions are made for
detectives working a case; both of their careers are at stake.
And though he’s loyal to his underlings in his own way, he has a
remarkably cheerful–one might even say sadistic–lack of concern for their
comfort, a trait that only increases in later books.

So, the book is better than its predecessor, in that Cribb and Thackery
are more fully developed; otherwise it’s much the same, and that classic
Lovesey flair is still lacking.

The Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 DVD set came in the mail today from Amazon.com.

Bye for now.

Update: We watched the first disk through last night; it contains some real gems, cartoons I loved as a child but hadn’t seen in over thirty years. I’m especially fond of Baby Buggy Bunny, in which Bugs makes the acquaintance of a bank robber named Baby-Faced Finster. My older brother Charles, he who is designing a cover for Through Darkest Zymurgia, called me “Diddums” for years and years thanks to that cartoon; in fact sometimes he still does.

Jane read some articles recently about the demographic time-bombs faced by many countries, and notably Japan–the average age in Japan is, if I recall correctly, in the high-40’s, and the average family has only 1.1 or 1.2 kids. (The required rate for replacement is a little over 2.) So indeed, they’ve got a problem.

Now Cronaca tells me that the Japanese think they’ve found a solution.

Hmmm. Nope, I still don’t see it.

The Tensor has some interesting conjectures on the futuristic English used in John Barnes’ Jak Jinnaka novels (The Duke of Uranium et al) which I’ve reviewed here in the past. Interestingly, he has the same reaction to Barnes’ work that I do–the man writes interesting stories, and there’s something deeply foul about them.

This past weekend, I got sick; and amazingly, half-way around the world, Ian Hamet got sick as well. But somehow, Ian’s cold sounds more interesting than mine.

Snerds — so that’s what they’re called. Now I know. († Ian Hamet)

The November issue of Ex Libris Reviews is now on-line. Craig Clarke’s back this month, so there are some reviews that regular readers of the Foothills won’t have seen.

The Jupiter Myth is yet another Marcus Didius Falco mystery,
and it follows directly upon The Body in the Bathhouse. That
book left Falco and his family in Britain; his wife’s uncle Hilaris is the Roman
procurator in Londinium, and the current book takes place while Falco and
company are visiting Hilaris prior to returning to Rome. All is well and
good, and then a crony of King Togidubnus turns up dead in
a Londinium wineshop. The crony wasn’t supposed to be in Londinium; he
wasn’t even supposed to be in Britain, having been banished by Togidubnus
some weeks prior; but he and the king grew up together, and Togidubnus is
going to want to know who killed him. Falco having worked well with the
king in the past, he’s naturally dragooned to find out.

I don’t have much to say about this one, but I enjoyed it.

Which reminds me, I was on jury duty this week, and I feel cheated. I was told to call in on Sunday and see if they needed me to come in on Monday. They didn’t. They told me to call in on Monday evening.

Monday evening I called in and was told to call in on Tuesday.

Tuesday evening I called in and was told to call in on Wednesday.

Wednesday evening I called in and was told to be at the Jury Assembly Room on the fifth floor of what used to be called the Criminal Courts Building at 7:45 AM.

I was there at 7:35 AM; I’m like that. I sat outside the Jury Assembly Room until they opened it up, reading Mad Hatter’s Holiday by Peter Lovesey. When they opened the doors I went in, found a comfortable sit, and continued reading. They had the usual orientation song and dance, with a certain amount of paperwork, and I finished the book. I took Nevil Shute’s Lonely Road out of my backpack and continued reading. They called for a panel; it was pre-qualified for a 20 day trial. JPL only pays for 10 days, so I knew they weren’t even going to call my name.

Eventually it was lunch time. I took out my lunch, and continued to read while eating it. (They gave us a break for lunch, but walking around downtown Los Angeles by myself isn’t my idea of a good time.)

About halfway through the afternoon I finished Lonely Road (a real tear-jerker) and began reading Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde. They called another panel around 3:30; I wasn’t called, and went on reading. Around 4:15, they let us go home. That was it. We were done. Maybe they’d summon us next year.

Now, it’s nice that I don’t need to drive downtown any more. And I’ve certainly got more than enough to get done without missing work for a week or two. But if you’ve read this far I’m sure you’ll agree that it was a dead loss as from a blogging point-of-view. Oh, well.