Rugby (Union) and fannish thoughts

[nineveh_uk]

In the previously-mentioned universe in which Harriet Vane’s detective novels are made into a TV series (hopefully more faithfully than your average Christie adaptation), someone will have to be found to play her detective, Robert Templeton.

[Robert Templeton] was a gentleman of extraordinary scientific skill, combined with almost fabulous muscular development. He had arms like an orang-utan and an ugly but attractive face. She took conjured up his phantom before her in the suit of rather loud plus-fours with which she was accustomed to invest him, and took counsel with him in spirit.

I can now announce that that man is French rugby union player Sebastian Chabal. If this was Harriet’s vision of the archetypal great detective, no wonder it took her a while to reconcile herself to fancying Lord Peter Wimsey, who undoubtedly spent his first two terms at Eton having his head stamped into the mud every time he was forced, white knees trembling, out on to the field.

Still perfecting my Yuletide sign-up plans. Question, if twenty-one people have already volunteered to write Wimsey fanfic, why the hell aren’t they doing it the rest of the time?

Comments

[bronze_ribbons.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

Not that I'm one of those twenty-one, but I will hazard a guess: because someone daft enough to start a Wimsey fic may well find themselves irretrievably distracted in the course of researching the dimensions of Piccadilly flats, fabrics for late-Edwardian-era dressing gowns, passages one can't look up in the copy of Unnatural Death that has somehow beetled off to somewhere other than the bookshelf on which it's supposed to reside, types of brandy, the spelling of French battlefields, and other digressions that end up being utterly irrelevant to the fic at hand.

Never mind visitors popping by to suggest Juliet!Wimsey/Paris!Biggs. Be still my creaking brain.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

Some of us have.

(And others need deadlines. And/or a place to post the resulting story.)

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Heck, I volunteered to write Barbara Hambly, and it'd never occur to me to do that the rest of the time; I'd be far too intimidated. Where do you find the statistics on who's offered to write what?

[tree_and_leaf]

Personally, I think he'd be ideal for Hagrid, but I do see your point.

[aella_irene]

I would if I could, but I'm (a) too young, (and is it me, or have they changed the age restriction from 17 to 18 recently? I could have sworn I'd be able to participate next year, but apparently I won't be able to until next year) and (b) too prone to being distracted by the pretty, pretty family trees. (I am unable to write anything without mapping out the generations three generations each way)

By the by, have you ever read Catriona McPherson's Dandy Gilver series? Its a series of mysteries set in 1920s Scotland, and starring an unromantic, married, detective who is in her late thirties. There are lots of lovely clothes, a handsome co-solver with whom she has a mild flirtation, and some thoroughly intriguing mysteries.

[gramarye1971]

I've signed up for Yuletide, but Wimsey-fic wasn't one of the ones I selected. Mainly because I don't have my books with me -- I don't quite trust myself to get the voices and settings right without them. ^^;; Perhaps next year I'll have more of my books with me and give it some thought.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

I think the perceived lack of a regular audience for Wimseyfic might be part of the problem - have you thought of putting the fics you've collected onto crack_van as a Featured Small Fandom when they go back up again in November? That would be one way of reaching a wider audience.

You have indeed found the perfect Robert Templeton, though I suspect Harriet herself rather looks down on her readers for liking that sort of thing (plus fours??) - but perhaps he is a Guilty Pleasure.

And I'm not sure about Peter as anti-rugger - if anything, I imagine him as the original little tyke who picked up the football and fled with it. After all, by the time he got to Eton, he'd already had his father's training in being whipped over jumps (what's the exact phrase? Something about learning to pretend you're not afraid and taking out the change in nightmares).

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

Watching QI rather than rugby, I've been considering Bill Bailey, but he could do with Sebastian Chabal's hair.

[lyras.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I think Sebastian Chabal's gorgeous! *is weird like Harriet*