unearths some literary gems.
From Murder as a Fine Art, by Carol Carnac:
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The Minister's room was hung with works by obscure contemporary painters....The typists called them "the Minister's funnies."
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"Edwin Pompfret....He spells his name with a p in the middle."
[And, we learn, Pompfret is indeed highly pomp-ous, a point the author takes pains to belabor.]
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"If Puddletown-in-the-Pool wanted an exhibition of modern art, they could still have it."
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"I'm only an average size in fools, not an outsize."
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"There's such a thing as 'getting religion.' I maintain there's a similar variation from the norm when a man 'gets art.'"
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Blackwell's "unk" (a term he had recently picked up which denoted his subconscious)....
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"And he'd got a thing about his marble namesake, you know."
"I don't care if he'd got twenty things," said Michael.