h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Concrete Detective - A57068526
Author: Pheroneous II - U186787

Could this be the start of something... ??

I really like it the way it is.

Good style, giving it a period feel.

Good job, making the setting of concrete interesting.

I can't think why you have ever found the setting of cement uninteresting. I refer you to the first thing I ever did here A407620

I found it very hard to get a Victorian/Edwardian feel when writing this and didn't think I was very succesful or could sustain it. Which is why I gave up and am left with this, intended (in my head anyway) to be the start of something bigger. Maybe, one day...

You are not the first person to comment that cement is more interesting than it looks. My father is a civil engineer...

Needless to say, I am not.

I found the descriptions very interesting, and reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes. (I may not know cement, but I know prose.)

Yes, this does make setting concrete interesting!

It also succeeds in evoking the feel of the time, but you've used a lot of short sentences, doubtless to make it sound vernacular. You might want to consider making the style more literary, which would be more authentic for the time.

I particularly liked the image of the woman in the middle of her spider web.

Good point re: sentence length. Will revise over next few days and drop a note here then. Thanks

Interesting and enjoyable read - and I like a good detective story which presents to me to new knowledge.

I agree, it is well written and leaves vivid images in the mind. I also agree about making the structure of the sentences more elaborate (if that is the right word) to fit the laguange of the time.

The only bit that annoyed me was the descriptions of the photo; people 'were stood', too many times in a row. There must be another word, equally 'old fashioned', to vary the description.

Sorry, English is my second language, so it is difficult for me to be as clear and precise as I want to.

Hey, don't be sorry. It's a very good point and exactly the sort of comment that I find very useful. Look back in a few days for the repaired version.

I will return - and remember to 'bump' it.

Yesterday I was writing while on the train back home from a meeting in Copenhagen, and I now see that I've made some 'serious typos'

Great story. I didn't see the ending come. However, I very nearly burnt a pancake when reading this the other day, because I was so engrossed that I forgot about the pancake.
I remembered just in time to save it from turning to charcoal.

Thanks B'Elana. Charcoal is an essential component when making lime, so not all need be wasted.

Thanks everyone for your comments.

I have re-visited and repaired this piece now. I wasn't unhappy with it before, so was surprised to see so many errors! Quite apart from style points. This I hope is a more finished article.

I know I am not supposed to put up work that is unfinished. My excuse is that sometimes it just gushes out and I have to put it somewhere, and am over-eager to know if it works or not.

If you are interested I had in mind the "La Samar1taine" store, as was, in Paris. I set the story in Somerset because there is a great little building called Castle house in Bridgewater which was built as a concrete showroom and is built entirely of concretes of different sorts. I mean entirely, window frames, stair bannisters, floors, door frames etc etc. I visited it as a ruin some years ago, and it was more recently featured on that TV programme about restoring old buildings, though knocked out in an early round. Happy googling!

There is also a very small producer of building limes working in Somerset, though, nowadays, lime cement is used mainly for restoration repair work. And Minehead was one of the places where "cement stones" were collected from the shore.

I think the longer sentences do make it feel more Victorian/Edwardian.

By the way, I remember reading in Robert Harris's 'Pompeii', that the Romans had a way of making concrete underwater.

Odd you should mention that because it was mentioned on TV last night, a programme called, I think, "Grand Tour".

I think, all cements will set under water, unless there is a flow that washes some of the components away. Once the setting reaction has started it is unaffected by water. The Pozzuolanic cements the Romans used were a mix of lime and volcanic ash (from vesuvius). Curiously the natural cements that I have mentioned (cement stones) did not need any sort of addition, but were called 'Roman' Cements for commercial reasons, although they were quite different chemically. Quite popular nowadays are concretes that use fly ash from power stations, and they, probably, are much closer to the concretes that the Romans made than the 18th and 19th century "Roman" cement concretes.

(Well, you sort of asked for it!!)

I never knew anything about cement before (other than that it was used a lot when I was a child, and we used to be fascinated by the turning drums you could see on all construction sites). The drums were loud, and they meant work.