The Excitement is building!

There is less than a week until the First World Championships of Parasol Duelling are held at Beakerhead in Calgary!

Many Ladies are signing up to compete in this elegant and exotic combat.

After much agonizing, and ladylike gnashing of teeth, Madame Saffron Hemlock has put out the format that the competition will have and I have posted it in its entirety below.

This will truly be a one of a kind event and I will post photos and the results right here so stay tuned!

For more information go to:
Madame Saffron Hemlock’s Parasol Duelling League for Steampunk Ladies

First Parasol Duelling World Championship event details

For background on the history and development of Parasol Duelling 
or click the Parasol Duelling tag.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Parasol Duelling World Championships

Calgary, Alberta, CANADA

 1:00pm, September 13, 2014

The World’s First Parasol Duelling Championships will take place at Little Big Street, adjacent to Calgary Stampede Grounds, Calgary, Alberta, CANADA

Competition consists of three Elements, from which the competitors’ points are drawn to calculate World rankings:
1. Compulsory Figures – to demonstrate proficiency in basic positions and transitions.
2. Flirtation Trials – to demonstrate understanding of the social functions of basic positions as well as their  physical mastery.
3. Duelling – two-duel Round Robin followed by semi-finals and finalist duels.

Open competition; no pre-qualifying necessary (subject to change as wider pools of candidates seek to enter).

Pre-registration is encouraged, via statement of intent to compete posted on the event copy or emailed to Madame Saffron (madamesaffron@gmail.com)

Registration at the event will be accepted up to the start of the Compulsory Figures Competition.

Competitors may enter any one, two, or all three segments of the Championships; however only those competing in all three segments will gain sufficient points to contend for the title of World Champion. Junior Ladies, those under the age of 16 years, are not permitted to enter the Flirtation Trials.


Competition Format: Compulsory Figures: 

      These demonstrate competence with the three basic figures: the Snub, the Twirl, and the Plant.
     
Format: 

      Each competitor will perform the sequence of Plant / Twirl / Snub within the 5-count, holding in the Snub for the Doctor’s ‘Hold.’  Each basic figure must be completed in its entirety before moving on to the next. Judges may, at any point in a sequence, call a Hold to determine whether a parasol is correctly placed in any figure.
     
Scoring:
     
      Each competitor performs the sequence three times, for a score out of a possible 10 on each sequence. Their best score of the three sequences, as awarded by each judge individually, is aggregated for a category score out of 30. This counts toward both the category ranking and the overall title of World Champion.

Judges’ Note:

Each of these basic figures has both a physical and a social component. In addition to watching for correct completion of figures and smoothness of transition between figures, judges will consider the competitor’s communication of the social purpose of the figure as follows:

Plant: Every lady must at some time take a stand, either in defence of her person or her principles. The Plant says, “This far and no further.” Or, alternately, as if she is Gandalf upon the Bridge, telling the Balrog, “You Shall Not Pass.” But gracefully. And without raising her voice.

Twirl: A lady in a tete-a-tete with a friend creates a personal space behind her, into which nobody can stick their long nose or their over-eager ears without looking ridiculous. A well-place Twirl not only frames the lady’s face becomingly from the front and enhances the intimacy of her invitation to a tete-a-tete, it protects her rearward space from busy-bodies and the over-familiar hands of passing cads.

Snub: Self-evidently, a Snub enforces a forward personal space against riff-raff, upstarts, former friends, arch-enemies, and other undesirable persons.

Competition Format: Flirtation Trials:

    These demonstrate the three basic figures in their natural habitat, the Promenade, where ladies would interact with each other and with gentlemen, as well as repelling cads and other uncouth persons. The basic figures are expanded upon to serve the purposes of social intercourse, either attracting or rejecting friends, acquaintances and potential suitors.

Format:

    Each competitor performs three 5-count sequences, each sequence elaborating on a single figure and ending in an artistic variant of that figure.  The judges decree the order in which the sequences are performed, and may vary that at will so long as each competitor performs a Plant sequence, a Twirl sequence, and a Snub sequence.

Scoring:
     
      Each competitor is awarded a mark out of 10 from each judge for each of the three sequences. These marks are averaged for that judge’s score. The three judges’ scores are added together for a category score out of 30. This counts toward both the category ranking and the overall title of World Champion.

Judges’ Note:  Junior Ladies, those under the age of 16, do not compete in Flirtation Trials, as Her Britannic Majesty believes very young ladies should remain invariably demure in public, and not attract attention to themselves. If there are sufficient Junior Ladies registered in advance for a formal competition, a suitable alternate to the Flirtation trials can be scheduled. In all other aspects of competition, including duelling, Junior Ladies compete as equals with their elders.

Competition Format: Duels

    These establish the competitor’s ability to read and react to changes in their social environs.

Format:

Each combatant is assigned two opponents in the opening round, and will duel with each in succession. Standard duelling format: overseen by The Doctor, duelists begin back to back, pace out as directed, turn, and commence to duel for the count of 5. At the hold, the winner is determined. Each combative pair duels three times, with the best two of three determining the winner of that combat.

Scoring:

Duelling points are as follows: each individual duel win gains 5 points; each loss gains 3 points. With six duels against two opponents in the opening round, a combatant may gain up to 30 points. These points determine who moves up to the semi-finals and count towards the overall title of World Champion.

In the semi-finals, combatants are assigned two opponents at the same scoring of 5 points for a win, 3 points for a loss.

The highest-scoring combatants (those with the most wins overall) advance to the Finals. The winner of this round is the Duelling Champion.


World Champion: Highest total points added across all categories.

The murderer unmasked?

We come to it at last!

The final post of Jayne Barnard's "The Evil Eye of Africa."

In which our intrepid investigator holds the traditional summation with all the suspects together in the manor of the late Baron Von Boddy!

If you think you have solved the mystery email your deduction to:  madamesaffron at gmail.com.
We will be accepting your guesses and deductions until midnight on Sunday September 14th.

Madame Saffron (aka Jayne Barnard) will be drawing from all the correct solutions for some prizes from Tyche Books!

 The first post is here.
A list of all the characters is here.

You can get all the posts by clicking on the mystery tag.

Good luck with your sleuthing!
Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

"The Evil Eye of Africa"
By Jayne Barnard

A Guess-the-Murderer Mystery in Two Acts 

Act II: Hercule Hornblower Investigates

---

From the Case Journal of Hercule Hornblower: 

August 30, 1898




It is time.
As  I have collected all the images from all my spiders old and new, I have assembled all the suspects and will now put to them the questions of my little gray cells.

Madame Midas-White: Did you or did you not know the research that guided Baron von Boddy on his travels was in fact stolen? Did you kill the baron to silence the man you believed the only one who might challenge your claim to a treasure you had invested so much to recover from its desert hiding place? Or, when he refused to refund to you all the money he had cost you by claiming all his purchases in England and Egypt were made with your approval, did you shoot him for ruining your perfect record of money-making?





 

Professor Plum: You stole the research into the Nubian mask from Professor Indy Brown, is it not so? Did you come to Boddy Manor to claim your share from the baron, and kill him when he refused to split the proceeds? Or, if he had failed, to kill him before he could confirm your theft and see you ejected from the highest university in the land (yes, I know Cambridge will argue that it is the highest, not Oxford, but for the purpose of this discussion…)

 


Colonel Cardsharp, er, Mustard: You claim to have been the oldest friend and the trustee of Baron von Boddy, and you were missing from London when he reappeared here and vanished again. Did you, being desperately short of money and on the verge of being thrown out of the very regiment where you had accumulated so many battle honours, kill your old friend for the treasure he may have brought back from Africa?

Professor Indiana Brown: You lost your own original research, the product of many years’ labour, to the baron. You were laughed out of the most illustrious university in the English-speaking world (yes, I know all about what Cambridge would have to say on this subject). You were beaten to a treasure and the undoubted fame that would rightfully have been yours. Did you come here to confront the baron on his secretive return, and kill him in a fit of your undoubted American temper?






 

Sir Ambrose Peacock: Perennial financial distress is your lot. You gambled away the last of your own fortune to Colonel Mustard – and nobody would blame you for wanting to murder HIM – and your hope of marrying another fortune was misled by a female fortune hunter of convincing guise. Did you kill your uncle to inherit his estate, and any treasures he may have accumulated in his latest African adventure?

Lady Peacock, you loveliest of liars: You tried to induce the baron to marry you in Cairo, or, failing that, to take you with him on his treasure hunt. When that failed, you lured his feckless heir into marrying you instead, that you might inherit that treasure by another route. Did you come here to Boddy Manor to silence the baron before he could reveal to his nephew your true nature, if not your true name?

Lady Peacock?

Where is that young woman?

 The Lady disagrees

Here is the next post of Act II of Jayne Barnard's "The Evil Eye of Africa."

The first post is here.
A list of all the characters is here.

You can get all the posts by clicking on the mystery tag.

Remember that if you think you have solved the mystery email your deduction to:  madamesaffron at gmail.com.
Madame will be drawing from all the correct solutions for some prizes from Tyche Books!

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

"The Evil Eye of Africa"
By Jayne Barnard

A Guess-the-Murderer Mystery in Two Acts 

Act II: Hercule Hornblower Investigates

---

From the Case Journal of Hercule Hornblower: 

August 28, 1898



 Colonel Mustard has fallen from formerly valiant warrior to vile seducer and worse. In my collection of images from the parlour spider-eyes is recorded a scene between himself and Lady Peacock that concluded with overt violence, from which the lady defended herself adeptly.

There are, however, a number of good views of the lady’s jewels, and it comes to me where I have seen them before: in a report in Cairo, from the jeweler who left the gems with Baron von Boddy “on approval” and never saw their return.

Can it be that the lovely and delicate Lady Peacock, who married Sir Ambrose within three days of meeting him, is the same woman as the mysterious widow the baron dallied with in Cairo?

What does she know of the baron’s quest? Has she too come seeking the treasure? Were she or Sir Ambrose, singly or together, at Boddy Manor when the baron’s ship came to rest here for that brief interval from his telegram to his death?

Click here for the next installment.

Threats!

Here is the next post of Act II of Jayne Barnard's "The Evil Eye of Africa."

The first post is here.
A list of all the characters is here.

You can get all the posts by clicking on the mystery tag.

Remember that if you think you have solved the mystery email your deduction to:  madamesaffron at gmail.com.
Madame will be drawing from all the correct solutions for some prizes from Tyche Books!

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

"The Evil Eye of Africa"
By Jayne Barnard

A Guess-the-Murderer Mystery in Two Acts 

Act II: Hercule Hornblower Investigates

---

From the Case Journal of Hercule Hornblower: 

August 25, 1898





Professor Henry Walton Brown Jr., of Indiana, USA, has joined us today.

 I discovered him in the parlour, threatening Professor Plum with a revolving pistol.
 

 In the trunk I saw yesterday was a map such as Indiana Brown, in his ill-starred Oxford speech, claimed to have created, and a hand-drawn sketch of a mask such as he claimed he had assembled from ancient written descriptions. These resemble most closely the pages seen in Baron von Boddy’s photograph of the Eye of Africa mask. I am convinced Brown could identify them as his own property.

It is indisputable now: Professor Plum perfidiously stole his fellow academic’s research and sold it to the baron.

Click here for the next installment.

The Devil in the details

Here is the next post of Act II of Jayne Barnard's "The Evil Eye of Africa."

The first post is here.
A list of all the characters is here.

You can get all the posts by clicking on the mystery tag.

Remember that if you think you have solved the mystery email your deduction to:  madamesaffron at gmail.com.
Madame will be drawing from all the correct solutions for some prizes from Tyche Books!

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

"The Evil Eye of Africa"
By Jayne Barnard

A Guess-the-Murderer Mystery in Two Acts 

Act II: Hercule Hornblower Investigates

---

From the Case Journal of Hercule Hornblower: 

August 24, 1898



A day of the most surprising in this investigation: Baron von Boddy did not drown. He was murdered.

The Cornwall Constabulary knows this, but has kept it silent from the newspapers to further the investigation. Naturally, I offered my inestimable services to aid them. It is to be hoped that Mrs. Midas-White did not kill him, as claiming my fee from a murderess I helped to arrest could prove awkward.

To record in brief my learnings:

1.    The skeleton clearly shows the nick of a bullet in a rear rib, indicating it was shot in the back.

2.    The airship salon’s panoramic forward window has cracks in one corner, radiating from a small hole.

3.    Some solvent, possibly fuel oil, has damaged the walnut flooring of the salon beneath the window. Did it dissolve a large blood stain?

4.    The trunk to which von Boddy was tied was filled with books and papers, much water-stained but all of them the property of the American Professor Indy Brown.

5.    Finally, the canopy and cork belt missing from the airship were found stuffed into a crevice on the moor.

For my reference, a view of the rocky shore where the skeleton washed up:

Click here for the next installment.

Searching

Here is the next post of Act II of Jayne Barnard's "The Evil Eye of Africa."

The first post is here.
A list of all the characters is here.

You can get all the posts by clicking on the mystery tag.

Remember that if you think you have solved the mystery email your deduction to:  madamesaffron at gmail.com.
Madame will be drawing from all the correct solutions for some prizes from Tyche Books!

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

"The Evil Eye of Africa"
By Jayne Barnard

A Guess-the-Murderer Mystery in Two Acts 

Act II: Hercule Hornblower Investigates

---

From the Case Journal of Hercule Hornblower: 

Later on August 22, 1898




 When I returned to the parlour, I surprised Lady Peacock groping under one of the sofas. An odd preoccupation of a delicate lady, but perhaps she merely seeks to familiarize herself with every nook and cranny of her new home.

She made a graceful exit on Sir Ambrose’s entering the room. After gazing gloomily upon her retreating figure, my host asked me if I might lend him money. His wife had not, he added, a farthing to her name beyond her jewels, which she refused to sell.

It seems to me that the jewels she wore were of a style I have recently seen described, or in a photograph, but I suppose there are many such. Styles do not vary greatly between ladies.

Tomorrow I go to seek the Cornwall Constabulary, to view the airship Jules Verne, the trunk with which the baron washed ashore, and, if possible, the beach upon which he was found.


Click here for the next installment.

The Professor consoles

Here is the next post of Act II of Jayne Barnard's "The Evil Eye of Africa."

The first post is here.
A list of all the characters is here.

You can get all the posts by clicking on the mystery tag.

Remember that if you think you have solved the mystery email your deduction to:  madamesaffron at gmail.com.
Madame will be drawing from all the correct solutions for some prizes from Tyche Books!

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

"The Evil Eye of Africa"
By Jayne Barnard

A Guess-the-Murderer Mystery in Two Acts 

Act II: Hercule Hornblower Investigates

---

From the Case Journal of Hercule Hornblower: 

August 22, 1898

While deploying my spider eyes about Boddy Manor today, I chanced upon Professor Plum consoling my employer, who appeared distraught. Doubtless her emotions are aroused by the possibility that she will not recoup her financial investment in von Boddy either by cash or by treasure. The professor is surely insinuating himself into her good opinion for future gains.

 I proceeded to place spiders in the library bookshelves, and in other presently unoccupied rooms. In several locations I discovered an older generation of spider-eyes, those incapable of self-mobility. They were placed discreetly among knickknacks to render them less noticeable. These I have replaced with my more elegant and functional insects, and will attempt to retrieve any older images captured by the stationary arachnoids.


Click here for the next installment.