Shiny Gems

A few weeks ago, Wolfie and I went to the local toy shop. Not to buy anything, just to see what there was available, see if we could find as a present idea for the next birthday, or just the next special celebration. Every time we stop, I get a few pictures, as a reminder for the future. And this is one of the things that caught Wolfie's attention: a bag of "shiny gems". I can see rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds. All in plastic. They'd make for great MacGuffins in some of our games, especially our Secret War Game. And for props at D&Dr. But the nicest thing about these shiny gems is that, unlike real ones, they're quite cheap.

Emerald Hunters?

 Oh the things you sometimes learn thanks to random online researches. Like a few days ago, when I stumbled on this article from the Guardian. Well, an article, more like a pictorama. It's about a yearly emerald hunt in Colombia. it looks muddy, messy and far less glamorous than sounds. And I learned that Colombia is the main producer of emeralds. Like I said, the things you learn randomly online. I only Colombia for another natural resource (you know the one), far more sinister. But this emerald hunt would make for a great backdrop for an epic crime fiction story. Emeralds make for great MacGuffins to begin with. In And what an array of characters these emerald hunters would make: some like the gold diggers of old, trying their luck, some obsessive, some maybe more prone to gain the precious green stones through any means necessary. It might have been written before, who knows. I will look into it.

The £60,000 diamond ring

 Sometimes, I check crime news just for kicks and one piece of news caught my attention recently. Two thieves got caught after stealing a ring worth £60,000 in a jewelery in Eastbourne, East Sussex. A single ring, worth so much. This is what shocks and fascinates me when I read such news. Not so much the crime as the motivation, the luxury object worth so much, yet often so small. Jewellery and diamonds (as well as other precious gems) fascinate me because they make for great MacGuffins. Every time I read a story of a burglary where diamonds are involved, I think there is a crime fiction story to be written. I know, sometimes I have a twisted mind.

Play Cash

We went to the local toy shop recently, Wolfie and I, while mummy was busy buying new shoes. I had decided to keep the purchases to the minimum. Which I did, for the record. I only bought two or three items and they were cheap. Among them, this play cash. £1,131.50 to be precise. Worth £4.99. Why play cash, you might ask? No, I don't wan to teach my son to gamble. Neither do I want to use it to teach him mathematics or economy (although it might come in handy for that very purpose). I just thought and Wolfie agreed with me, that play cash would make a great addition the ongoing "police game" (as he calls it) we have been playing. Money, even a small amount, makes for a great MacGuffin, after all. Back when I was his age, my brothers and I did the same with cash from our board games. So yes, we now have play cash in the arsenal drawer. Ready to use when necessary.

Gold Divers

A few days ago, we were flicking through channels when we stumbled a reality tv program called Gold Divers. This is the UK title. The original title is Bering Sea Gold, but I don't find it nearly as good or evocative. We watched it a few minutes, five tops, as it had big machinery and this got Wolfie interested for a little bit. I don't know if it is any good, I find reality TV pretty rubbish in general. There was a lot of bleeped swearing in it. But anyway, what I liked about it is the premisse: the show is about, as it says in the evocative British title, people digging gold in water. Shallow water, sea and even ocean. Now this premisse is fascinating and I would say way too good for reality TV. Gold is one of these perfects MacGuffins and I am surprised that nobody thought about a story in a nautical environment with gold divers, who could be the target of brigands or pirates. There's room for a lot of drama there. I think I might just watch more of this show.

Jewellery Thefts

 Sometimes, I read crime news just for kick. Also, I love crime fiction, I try to write some and I think reading crime news is good for inspiration. So two bits of crime news came to my knowledge recently. The first story about a bungled burglary of a jewellery where the thief still managed to steal £23,400 worth of gold. The content of one tray. That's what caught my attention: the large amount of money that represented a fairly small quantity of items. The second story was about two brothers robbing a jewellery in Essex. They used masks of old men, which I thought was an interesting MO. I am reminded of two principles reading about these two stories. One, that jewels always make for great MacGuffins. They have been from the beginning of crime fiction and it is for a reason. And two, that jewelleries are great settings for crime drama.

Crime Diamonds

For today's post, I'm giving you a little bit of crime news that caught my attention: contraband luxury goods that were taken by French customs were auctioned off recently. Among them, of course, were diamonds. The uncut diamonds were estimated at around €30,000 to €40,000. Not exactly the biggest loot, but not cheap either. I sometimes check if diamonds are on the news, because I consider them a great MacGuffin, asI mentioned before. They were cliché back in the days, but they are seldom used today, at least from what I can tell as an avid reader of crime fiction. So I'd love to bring them back again. Every time I see something like this on the news, I think there must be a way to make a story about it.

Crowbar Carl

 You might know that my son loves Playmobil.Maybe not as much as Lego, but still. He has a few sets that he loves. Last year, him and I agreed that, while he had plenty of police officers (some bought new, some obtained second hand from friends whose kids were too old for Playmobil, how sad), he lacked a few badguys. So at Christmas, I bought him a few Playmobils that had villains in it, including a police station, with jail cell, and this badguy. I named him Crowbar Carl. A new accomplice of Max la Menace. And like Max, Carl is holding a MacGuffin. Carl is a thief, his favourite tool is his crowbar. He is also a jailbreaker extraordinaire. He got arrested a few times already, but he always escapes when the game requires it. I hope Wolfie never outgrows his toys.

The Maltese Falcon for #Noirvember

As I mentioned before, I read , The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet for this year's #Noirvember. The first time in decades, but I watched the I watched the movie over and over again. I read it at a snail's pace, shame on me, but it was great to read a proper old fashioned hardboiled novel and to revisit a classic in its original form, and meet again so many larger-than-life characters, private eye Sam Spade and all the array of shady, vulgar, obscene villains the plot has to offer. And at the heart of the plot, the Maltese Falcon of the title, the most perfect and maybe the most emblematic MacGuffin crime fiction (or indeed fiction in general) ever offered. I don't think any other book or film ever gave us a MacGuffin that is so perfect. Anyway, I don't want to give anything away for those who have not read it or watched the film, but if you are still looking for some #Noirvember read, this is the novel for you.

Railway Watch

As I mentioned in this post, I often think about the National Railway Museum of York. Also spend a fair deal of time browsing through its online shop. And I saw this limited edition NRM Flying Scotsman Silver Plated Pocket Watch. Also available in gold. Both are at £145.00, both are amazingly low in stock. I willnot buy it, but I'd love, love, love to have one. Funnily enough, my brother Andrew received from my parents an old pocket watch like these when he was a child, although I hope my parents didn't buy anything that expensive. It was a silvery one, with the image of a steamed locomotive on it. We were very spoiled as children I guess. My bro even had his intial on his watch. Even though it was not meant to be a toy, we sort of used it as one, albeit a precious one to be treated with great care (wewere spoiled, but sometimes knew the value of things). The watch was a prop in our make believe, sometimes even a MacGuffin. It was then part of a treasure, or had a secret microfilm in it, or something of the sort. Be that as it may, I'd love to have a watch like this one.

A diamond for cryptocurrency

Sometimes, just sometimes, I start thinking about diamonds. As I mentioned in this post from 2020, I think they make for great MacGuffins in crime fiction. Precious gemstones is one of these tropes that in my opinion never gets old. So yes, sometimesI think of diamonds and I then read about diamonds. So I thus recently learned that Sotheby's will accept for the first time cryptocurrency for the auction in Hong Kong of a 101.38-carat diamond that could be worth $15 millions. Now, I don't know much about cryptocurrency, but I don't really trust it. I read this and it was like Sotheby's is selling a $15 millions rock and they'll accept Monopoly money. Something of the romanticism attached to diamonds get lost. Nevertheless, I can imagine the potential for a solid crime story, especially given the volatile (in my view) aspect of cryptocurrency and the ever darker aspect of diamonds, the embodiment in stone of human greed and the cause of so many crimes and wars. It's easy to imagine something going wrong in that auction.

Chasse aux trésor haïtien

 Des fois, je lis une nouvelle rien que pour le titre. Il y a quelques jours, j'ai vu celui-ci sur La Presse: Chasse au trésor pour retrouver les biens perdus d'un diplomate. Le trésor en question est de l'art haïtien, le diplomate en question aussi. Je ne sais pas, mais je crois qu'il y a là toute la matière première pour écrire une histoire policière. Avec MacGuffin, bien entendu.

Cops and Robbers

Wolfie has quite a few toys from Playmobil, it is one of his favourite brands. Among them, he has a number of police officers and police equipment, either bought new or second-hand. But he had no badguy to chase, so the criminals his cops were chasing were invisible. That is, until now. To give him a villain for his ever growing police force to fight (or "méchants" or "naughty badguys"as he calls them), I bought him this Policeman and Burgler set. It's not much, but boy does he enjoy it! So we have now a proper adversary for his cops to fight, with a cool mask, stubbles a beanie hat, black gloves and most importantly, a bag. In a bag there is a MacGuffin of some sort, maybe jewellery, maybe money, maybe a harddrive, maybe something else. Who knows. What matters is, Wolfie enjoys playing our own crime fiction games. The cop has no name yet, but I named the burglar Max the Menace, although this might change. So anyway, it really fired up his imagination.

Revisiting Treasure Island

I first read Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson ten years ago. It was one of these books I kept wishing to read, but always waited for the right moment to read to fully appreciate. You need a lot of free time, ideally during a holiday. If I discovered the novel itself as an adult, I was familiar with the story since my childhood: I first read a pop-up book adaptation (this one) bought in Montreal when I must have been six or seven. The plot had been reduced to a skeleton of itself, but the main characters were there and it got me into pirates, treasures and it influenced a lot of our make belief games, especially during summertime. Then there was a Japanese animated series back in the 80s which my brothers and I really loved, even though the pirates, even Long John Silver, had turned into physics defying ninjas. I was eagerly waiting for every new episod. Then, years later, I bought this edition of the original novel when I first came to England.

It actually took me ten years to read it, which is pretty shameful. What struck me about the novel is that it can be read as proto crime fiction of the hardboiled kind, espcially at the beginning. All the pirates showing up at the Admiral Benbow, looking for the map that will lead them to the MacGuffin, it's all very common to modern crime fiction, if you think about it. Just like is the search for the treasure, where the investigation and the interaction between the characters more important than the resolution. Now I will not reread the novel any time soon as I have so many new books to read, but I have rediscovered the old animated series and I intend to binge watch it soon. I have seen the first two episodes and with all its flaws, it is still very solid entertainment.

Death Train/Detonator

There are bad movies, and there are bad movies one loves. Years and years ago, back in the days of VHS and videoclub, I rented a made for TV B movie. It's title is Detonator, or Death Train in the US. It's an action thriller set on a train hijacked by terrorists lead by a mysterious Russian general turned rogue. Not only did they hijacked the train, but they put an artisanal A bomb on it. And there is a second bomb somewhere else, to complicate things further. This is a sinister but (very) convoluted scheme to restore USSR and it makes very little sense. But there's action on a train going through Europe, with an nuke as a MacGuffin, so what's not to love? And a word on the casting: you have a pre-Bond Pierce Brosnan as the lead, Patrick Stewart to give this mess some proper British thespian gravitas, Christopher freaking Lee as the villain (magnificent as always), a pre Lester Freamont Clarke Peters... Seriously, if nothing else, the casting director did his job right. Is it good? No, not by any stretch of the imagination. But I had a ball rediscovering it recently.

About a diamond

I wanted to share a bit of fashion and luxury news that got me thinking: Louis Vuitton has revealed in Paris a diamond as big as a tennis ball. Now I know nothing about fashion, luxury retails handbags and what have you, but a big diamond always fires up my imagination. I blogged recently about the concept of the MacGuffin. I know that it is now a ridiculously overused cliché, but I think this diamond, or a fictitious one based on this diamond, would make for one Hell of a MacGuffin in a crime fiction story.

What is a MacGuffin?

For people into movies and genre fiction in general, you may have heard of the term MacGuffin, which was coined by Alfred Hitchcock. It is one of these concepts which I have been obsessing about, both in my own writing venture and in the crime and spy fiction I read. I finally found online the anecdote where Hitchcock explains what it is on The Dick Cavett Show. I had read the story, but never heard it straight from Hitchcock's mouth. I find it fascinating.

Crime (writing) in progress

I wanted to give a bit of an update about the creative writing workshop I attend. I now know when will be our next meeting: in the first half of April. Until then, I need to have a synopsis prepared. It is going fairly well. I have my MacGuffin and pretty much everyone's motivation. I have most of my character's names, except the one from my pickpocket. As for the plot, it is mostly finished, at least in its broad lines. What else do I know? The story will be set in Montreal (well of course), members of organsied crime will be involved in the story, including but not exclusively the mafia, and on the opposite side there will be some private eyes. Oh, and Krav Maga will be used in some capacity as a plot point. I still have a lot to go through, but at least I have my creativity working.

About secret passages

This is the classic board of Clue (or Cluedo as it was originally known in the UK) which is one of my favourite board games. there are two sets of secret passages: one between the kitchen and the studio and one between the conservatory and the lounge. As I blogged before, I always loved the mansion in the game. For many reasons, but one of them being the presence of these secret passages. Secret passages might be cheap tropes in whodunits an detective fiction, so gratuitous in fact that they were heavily criticized early on, but they were also a common element in my make belief games as a child. My brothers and I used them as plot points, sometimes as atmospheric settings themselves (and not merely part of the setting) or even as MacGuffin. We even had a few "real ones" to use sometimes (read my post here). And it never completely left me: I still love the idea of secret passages in fiction, if used properly.

De la nature de L'ostie d'chat

Quelque chose m'est venu en tête à propos de L'ostie d'chat. Bon, je le savais déjà, enfin j'en étais conscient dès ma première lecture de la bande dessinée, mais j'y ai pensé plus en détail ce soir. Le chat en question, appelé Legolas (ainsi nommeé en l'honneur de, ben, lui), est en fait un MacGuffin. Il est donc un prétexte à l'histoire. Sa présence dans la bande dessinée est périphérique et il apparaît donc très peu, toujours pour faire interagir les personnages et lancer ou relancer l'action, ou encore mettre certaines résolutions en suspens. On sait très peu de son passé, sinon qu'il a eu un ancien propriétaire schizo qui s'est suicidé. On sait aussi qu'il est moche, contrairement à son homonyme. Sinon, il n'est pas le personnage principal d'une bédé dont il est le titre.