The Sword and Laser discussion

Part of the ongoing mystery of Rivers of London involves (view spoiler)[the use of Punch and Judy as a theme for the crimes. It's something I had only vague knowledge of. My wife watches a lot of British TV and figured it out fairly quickly. IIRC she said she'd seen it on Midsommer Murders soon before reading the book.

When did you figure it out? I asked my wife not to spoil anything even tho she was bursting to talk about it. I didn't get it until towards the end. Others? Does it help if you're British or is Punch and Judy more widely known and I just missed it? (hide spoiler)]

It’s certainly something that’s a part of the typical British childhood, at least for people who grew up in the 80s or earlier - I remember seeing a show at the seaside as a child.

As discussed in one of the other threads, it does go to explain some of the more shocking scenes in the book.

First read-through I didn't pick it at all. Second go around he certainly does drop some very obvious hints. As an Australian I guess I would say it's something I had awareness of, but maybe not the specific details.

Reminds me a bit of the most recent book (view spoiler)[where if you get the reference in the title (and I'm guessing 99.9% of his readers would) then at least some of the mystery is easy to guess (hide spoiler)]

I remember picking it up about halfway through.

I remember bowdlerised shows on TV in the seventies in Australia. Definitely in the pantomime and Vaudeville tradition. Not sure I want audience participation at that level though.

Heh.

I just realised this isn’t the last time Ben Aaronovitch uses a children’s show (view spoiler)[ that talking foxes that show up later in the series could have been inspired by Basil Brush… (hide spoiler)]

I'd say they are more drawn from European folklore than that show.

(view spoiler)[From foxes like Reynard.

There is even a character in later books called Reynard Fossman who is very foxish looking (hide spoiler)]

Tim wrote: "First read-through I didn't pick it at all. Second go around he certainly does drop some very obvious hints. As an Australian I guess I would say it's something I had awareness of, but maybe not th..."

Yeah, that reference completely spoiled a large part of the mystery of the latest book for me! That’s the problem with having a similar cultural background to Aaronovitch, I see all these things coming.

I can’t remember, when I first read this book, at what point in the narrative I first twigged what was happening, but on the re-read I definitely saw all the clues.

I do wonder how many references I miss in his books. He throws them away without explaining them most of the time. For example the "Purley squire, famous place" in this book (Monty Python sketch), or a reference to the God Emperor of Mankind in False Value (Warhammer 40k reference). I think you'd probably just skip over them without realising if you didn't know.

I've never been obviously confused by a phrase he's written but I assume there's just some I don't get, but aren't so weird that I twig that I've missed it.

Tim wrote: "I do wonder how many references I miss in his books. ..."
The Late Great Sir Terry Pratchett was similar - in fact I think he was even better at it. Words (and names) that seem to be pure parts of his imagination often turn out to have some obscure, but highly relevant, cultural reference, that the average reader could easily miss. I think the Selachii family is the one that really made me look seriously for others - and I am sure I still missed some!

Tim wrote: "God Emperor of Mankind in False Value (Warhammer 40k reference) ..."

There's Tolkien asides too, I remember, but not in which book, and some other nerdy references. Peter's pop-culture tastes definitely helped me out. If it was all jazz and architecture I'd be completely lost, but since Peter reads some of the same books as the people who read him, I can identify with him a bit, even being an American.

Its more like a part of the world that Neil Gaiman "s Neverwhere; no wonder Neil always looking around at corner of his eye. expecting for the london special magical section to show up.

Tim wrote: "First read-through I didn't pick it at all. Second go around he certainly does drop some very obvious hints. As an Australian I guess I would say it's something I had awareness of, but maybe not th..."

I think I’m in about the same boat, but from the USA, not Oz. I had a rough idea of the characters and the name, but did not know the details, or the history.

I had heard of the characters (view spoiler)[ Punch and Judy (hide spoiler)] but I know I didn't put two and two together the first time I read the book.

I think it helps a lot if your a brit. As soon as somebody said "That's the way to do it!" I knew instantly what he was getting at.

I did not get it at all. Here in Germany, all of the versions are extremely tamed, even though the characters remain the same. It is fascinating and made me read up a lot on the background.

Yeah, like Ruth said, as a British kid who grew up in the 80’s, Punch and Judy was a fairly regular part of my childhood. I think it’s a lot less common these days, but I remember loving it as a kid - lets face it, kids are really into messed up stuff! lol

I've seen them referenced in some other things, mostly TV, though right now I'm not quite able to pull them up (Grimm, maybe?) so as soon as the (view spoiler)[weird face shape was mentioned it keyed on my memory and I thought, "Huh, that's a specific choice." But I didn't expect it to be so central to the plot, I just assumed it would be a clue to follow to a certain costume shop or something, a la a Guy Fawkes mask out of season. (hide spoiler)]

I'm from California, but my family have always been fans of British things. I knew of (view spoiler)[Punch & Judy newspaper cartoons at least, so I knew who Punch was, (hide spoiler)] but not much more. I loved all the references & got some of them.

Follow on question: How many non-Brits Googled 'ASBO'?

All...of them? Man, my kindle got worked overtime with highlight>definition and then if that failed, "search the web."

Ooooh, does it make me a bad person to admit this makes me positively gleeful?

There is a vengeful little part of me that remembers my pre-google young teenage days staring confusedly at my point horror books, wondering what on earth terms like ‘faucet’ might mean! lol

Pumpkinstew wrote: "Follow on question: How many non-Brits Googled 'ASBO'?"

lol a Ford asbo is a bit of a British culture deep cut …a Ford Focus ST (a fast but affordable and reasonably practical, hence very popular, hatchback car, available in an especially lurid Orange) dubbed an ‘asbo’ (anti-social behaviour order) by Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, the name then adopted as a badge of pride by certain people, some of whom even put special “asbo” stickers over their Ford badges…

Those sort of fast hatchbacks (“hot hatches”) were all the rage 10-15 years ago (my husband had a tomato red Mazda 3 MPS which is the same sort of thing) but changes to the car tax system, plus the rising cost of petrol, has made them less affordable and hence less popular these days.

I Googled "A Levels".

Ian (RebelGeek) wrote: "I Googled "A Levels"."

The process where teenagers have there life options narrowed to a ridiculous degree by the age of 17.....

Still better than a US high school education.