July 3rd, 2015
4 Jul 2015 · page 503 of 1306
Sorry for the site outage, my host was having rare issues! All sorted now, hopefully, and here's the page!
I guess she hadn't got very far into that book, then.
Cast: Henry Barber, Isabelle Holt
Comments (63)
Events
ThoughtBubble
14 Nov 2026 – 15 Nov 2026
Harrogate Convention Centre
Manchester Megacon
31 Jul 2027 – 1 Aug 2027
Manchester Central
Tut, tut, Isabelle.
"Guideline of Etiquette #34: Yank people by their shoulder, not their elbow."
Good thing that Isa wasn't reading "The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries". #34: If you're leaving scorch-marks, you need a bigger gun.
Rule #83: If there's any sign of the enemy left after firing your weapons other than craters and blood stains, you need a bigger gun.
Rule #87: You need a bigger gun.
Rule #88: Why are you still reading this, you poser?
So is it "The Increasingly Inaccurately-Named Seventy Maxims" then?
Nah, just subtitled "Hey, we never said Mercs count good" [sic]
Blame Douglass Adams. He started the trend, with his five-book-length "trilogy".
#87: Never drink anything stronger than gin before breakfast
No, no, no! Its never drink anything weaker than gin before breakfast.!
Drink Gin before breakfast.
Never drink anything but gin.
Never drink gin, have some madeira m'dear.
It's ever so much nicer than beer.
What drink, stronger than gin, would you ever want to drink without dilution anyways? What, do you guzzle Everclear neat?
Oh, Henry, you're the James Bond of Widdershins.
You weren't planning on doing anything else today, anyway, correct?
Gardening nerd, she's got one up on who that book is written for. I think she's pretty cool already.
Yay, we're back !
Well, I suppose that was marginally more romantic than Harry and Sid's first meeting. At least she didn't have to threaten him with a gun.
I suppose it depends on what turns you on. In Sid's case, it appears that it's women who can kick his ass.
For Henry Barber, I suspect it is 'female and with a pulse'.
Oh, there are particular reasons for Henry to be attracted to Isabelle - like him, she investigates things and isn't afraid to get dirty or speak her mind, and her sense of humor is stronger than her "restraint and decorum". And they both have great smiles. I ship them hard.
I think it's hilarious that people are shipping them, even though we know for a fact that they get married later. The redundancy is strong here.
If you'd prefer "I'm delighted that they're going to end up together and I can see why they're a great match," consider it said.
I dunno, it's wanting to watch a romance unfold knowing it has a happy ending. A lot of stories start making it clear the ending will be happy.
Being a statuesque stunner/sexy librarian type might also help.
Later evidence would suggest female is not a requirement, if I'm reading it right.
Correct indeed!
Maybe she just wanted the etiquette so she could move in circles of people who might read her paper, since that is where her true passion lies?
She doesn't strike me as someone who would have ignored all someone's efforts to speak to her about her paper - so was Lust lying about that? (It is "the Liar's Heart" he wants to get back, anyhow.)
Henry looks happy too - what a great couple!
While it seems a weak point, women are the weird sex, and there can be only a small difference between saying something that causes her to refuse to speak a word to you and saying something that causes her to not stop even to draw breath. Of course it doesn't help that men often have trouble realizing there is a difference between "when I look into you eyes, time stands still" and "your face would stop a clock." So Lust could have written most anything just a little wrong and got things off on the wrong foot.
She also might have some hint that Lust is not a good one to get involved with.
"Women are the weird sex"??? Um, I'm not going to debate that any further than to say I completely take issue with both the sentiment and the phrasing.
Agreed! I don't really appreciate having half of the population of the planet generalised like that, especially in such a cliche, 60s sitcom fashion.
"Men often have trouble realizing there is a difference between "when I look into you eyes, time stands still" and "your face would stop a clock."
I honestly don't think that's a male/female divide. It's about whether one understands metaphor, poetry, connotations, context... all the elements of language beyond the purely literal. It is also one of the essential differences between a good writer and an awful one, and since many excellent authors are men, I find it hard to believe there is any gender tendency here.
That said, while the second line is a pretty good insult, the first is so cloyingly florid that I'd hope not to see it used without irony, in any text less than a century old...
Aww, she's so cute.
The way to a girl's heart is... through her research. xD
Her research on the aforementioned heart, of course.
I thought it was up through the ribcage
it's easier to go under the breastbone (paraphrasing leela from dr who)
That's basically what I just said.
Wouldn't the kettle be boiled dry by this time?
Clearly you are unfamiliar with the perfect sense of tea-timing developed by the British. ;)
A proper kettle is cast iron, holds at least a gallon, and stays gently simmering all day so it's just a moment to bring it to a full rolling boil.
Fair enough.
I love how he doesn't seem to mind being yanked about by his arm. He's like "Beautiful women can lead me anywhere!" wink, wink, nudge, nudge
Girls who tell you things are interesting.
More interesting ;D
Somebody once said something along the lines of "etiquette is for people who don't have manners"
I forget who said it, and I can't google it because I can't remember the exact words they said
Are you thinking of the line “Etiquette is for people who have no breeding; fashion is for those who have no taste,” from Chiswell Langhorne? (I did not have this off the top of my head, I took a guess on a quotes site.)
No, but I like that one better.
Hmm interesting. My sources say it was Queen Marie of Romania. It sounds more like the sort of think a grand-daughter of Queen Victoria would say, rather than an American railway baron (even one from the Deep South).
I even found a newspaper cutting, back from when Google were digitising old newspapers, before they got bored of it or realised they'd massively underestimated the size of the poject. [https://news.google.com/new...](https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19380413&id=3jobAAAAIBAJ&sjid=B00EAAAAIBAJ&pg=1865,5429042&hl=en "https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19380413&id=3jobAAAAIBAJ&sjid=B00EAAAAIBAJ&pg=1865,5429042&hl=en")
Certainly possible. My source was [http://www.quotesea.com/quo...](http://www.quotesea.com/quote/etiquetteisforpeoplewhohavenobreeding "http://www.quotesea.com/quote/etiquetteisforpeoplewhohavenobreeding"), no immediately-obvious citation on said page.
It's quite possible it got attributed to Queen Marie in the same way all sorts of things get attributed to Oscar Wilde, Twain and Churchill, just because it sounds like the sort of thing they'd say
I really like Isabelle, her breadth of interests, her enthusiasm, how expressive her face and body language are. She's very well realised.
Suddenly the front page for this chapter makes so much sense
Yes, I do believe I like her.
"June 3rd"? My calendar appears to be wrong.
Fixed. Stressful weekend, what can I say!
What about that chaperone now?
Who needs etiquette when there's tea?
I love how she's taller than him <3
That last panel. His face. This is where the love starts.
Aaaand it took me till this page to realize she's future "Grandma".
I am an idiot.
I do admit to being rather partial to how tall she is.
A shame tall women on average favour even taller men.