Off the Cliff

Inspector Yashim has a habit of taking caïques. In the current book a character compares them with gondolas, to the disparagement of the latter. I thought gondolas were pretty slim and light for boats, but evidently caïques are slimmer and lighter. ( Collapse )
Picture of imperial caïque to be found here. Three feet wide, though? That's worse than a canoe. I see why he said that if you stand up in a caïque you have three seconds before it tips.

In other news, Mieville's imagination makes me feel grubby no matter what he's writing. When he's writing worshippers of the giant squid it gets worse. And he still has this obsession with turning people into machines, if not actually Thomas the Tank Engine.

I've had an interest in the unfortunately named turducken since reading about it some time in the early 80s. I have the recipe from then too, tucked away in some cookbook. (In those carnivorous days there was no talk of the even more unfortunately named vegetarian version, the tofucken-- unless someone is pulling wikipedia's leg about that last one.)
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