Inescapably reminiscent of that fantastic painting of the judgment of Phryne

I found this hilarious statement in one of the prefaces to R. Austin Freeman's Thorndyke mysteries:

In appearance he is handsome and of an imposing presence, with a symmetrical face of the classical type and a Grecian nose. And here I may remark that his distinguished appearance is not merely a concession to my personal taste but is also a protest against the monsters of ugliness whom some detective writers have evolved.

These are quite opposed to natural truth. In real life a first-class man of any kind usually tends to be a good-looking man.

Amazing. This is the guy responsible for the CSI subgenre of detective fiction: all his stories revolve around science, logic, trace analysis, etc. He's even got other forewords where he humbly explains that he made sure everything that happens is physically possible and all the clues are laid before the reader in the spirit of fairness!

He just thinks it's a scientific truth that the Ancient Greeks were right and people who are truly great at anything at all will just naturally happen to be beautiful. I guess there you have the state of Popular Science, late Victorian edition (his writing is Edwardian and ends around 1940, but this means, of course, that Freeman's worldview was mostly shaped by a late Victorian upbringing).

Doorbell repair. Plants. Good Omens.

1. Wax thought of a new way to Google the little connector that the tip of the wire broke off in when I accidentally broke the doorbell. And it worked! She found the right bit and we picked it up this afternoon at Tokmanni and she managed to get the doorbell functional and back on the wall.

2. They had the tiny miniature cousins of the giant monstera too, and she's been curious about them, so she got one. The other day we also bought two small Coleus scutellarioides, or painted nettles, which I've been coveting for a couple of years; we were planning to put them in the garden, but when Wax googled she found out they can't survive the winter outside here so they're really houseplants. People buy them in fall for planters around here and then just leave them to freeze to death as if they were annuals, something they actually do with a fair number of exotic perennials that are unsuited to our climate. As you can probably tell, I feel pretty judgy about the practice. Anyway, that's three new houseplants, and Wednesday, on Wax's next day off, we're going to the flower shop down the road from my job: the lady told me last week that she should have some more red and pink phalaenopsis orchids this week!

3. Finished season 2 of Good Omens at last, so I can stop worrying about accidentally seeing spoilers. Whew. I'm pretty happy with it. I can see why certain segments are in an uproar, though.