Midnight Murder Special

google today...



When my friend Kuno has a birthday, he likes to celebrate it with a twist. So this year he and his girlfriend Miriam (who happens to be my best friend...) came up with 'The Midnight Murder Special'. They planned this whole elaborate quest to find the murderer of all 11 characters played by us, his friends. Every one of us got a character description with information on how and if your character was related to you. This was mine:

Sas F.
Well well, if it isn't miss charming... You started out as the good girl in school, was spotted as the design talent of the new fashion generation. When fame and fortune found you, you decided to get out of it and started to teach knitting to children with learning disabilities! And as if that doesn't take enough out of your social skills, you are also a volunteer at Amnesty International where everyone thinks you're adorable and honest and real. You love to take strolls in the woods. But are you really as cosy and snugly and warm as everybody seems to think, little Miss S.? Why did your fashion carreer end so abrupt? Was it your conscience that made you do it? Because your most important competititor tripped and fell on her own knitting needles, piercing and killing her? It stayed a mystery and it was never directly linked to you. It's that charme, isn't it; it makes you get away with murder...
Oh, and what else, you are not an idiot: you never spoke of the incident since...


I was dressed to match my character: combat meets knitwear

There was an anchor woman, an accountant, a biker, a cigar salesman, a veteran, a guitar player in a metal band (boyfriend-dear), a travelling consultant, an architect, a publisher and a shop owner. But I was the knitting teacher, the knitting teacher who might have killed 11 people. I was (and am) by far the coolest character. I'm sure you'll agree. The knitting teacher... she may kill all, maybe with her needles, maybe with sweaters soaked in poison, maybe by making people wear her first ever FO's (which should be enough to finish them off in a second). I'm the piercing assassin, I'm the knitting killer. Needles to say (...can I go there? Yes, I can!) I was totally up for the challenge and came prepared with the outfit to match. An outfit saying, I'm a combat proof knitter. I wore a knitted cardigan, my Dream Swatch Wrap, my combat hat and hiking boots with knitted legwarmers. I brought sunglasses that made me blend into the dark, I brought a light bulb just in case I needed a good idea, I brought wet naps ('cause you never know...), I brought band aids and sunscreen, toothpicks and a garbage bag. Ofcourse my SAS Survival Guide (a gift from Miriam) and my Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook. And most important of all... I brought M&M's!

I was ready to go!



strangers in the dark / / Miriam & Kuno explain the drill

We had to get in the back of a small van and drove to the woods. There we were informed of the general idea. It was 2300 hours and pitch dark. The mystery then unfolded as we went from one murder scene to another where we were told some, but not all, details of what had happened there. The guitar player was hung from a beam but the beam was tempered with, so it broke and he fell, he was left on the ground. The travelling consultant was shot while picnicking with her friend who then mysteriously disappeared. The biker crashed when his brakes didn't work and he was speared at the bottom of the hill. And so on and so on, one bloody story after another. And with each story we saw evidence in ziplockbags, strings with blood, snakes, bolts and rope and of course; yarn and needles. In between murder scenes we walked through the woods and tried to figure out the details by asking around. Some, willing to trade information, would spill. Others kept silent, as their graves...
The hardest part in finding the murderer was figuring out how deep to dig, how hard to think, how far to go. Keep it simple or add some of your own imagination? What would lead to victory? I figured to keep it simple and focus on 'who was where when' and take it from there. But halfway I started to second-guess my tactics and turned to Kim (the accountant). We decided to make a deal and work together. She'd go for the honour of winning and I would keep the prize. (typical...). Thing was, her tactic was the opposite of mine; she was going mad with alibi's and motives and all kinds off details. This wasn't going to work, it messed up my straight forward thinking... But along the way we started to combine our thoughts and came up with the same murderer three rounds in a row... When Kuno revealed, anonymously, round after round the different murderers that were mentioned by the players, we knew -since we were the only ones mentioning this one particular murderer- that we were either geniuses or way, way off...

cigars, can't do without them in a Midnight Murder Special

So lets say we were geniuses... this wasn't all there was to this bloody game. Oh no siree! In between rounds / visiting murder scenes we were asked questions. Each good answer lead to an extra point and a bonus tip. I'm pretty good at random knowledge, always have been. Don't ask me the date of Napoleon's birth or who discovered gravity, but I'll tell you the height of Jon Bon Jovi, I'll give you the effects of food allergies and I can name zillions of old TV shows. So I thought I was in, I was definately going to nail these silly questions, I was the master!

WRONG!

Name the name of the actress in Murder She Wrote, name two Agatha Christie books, name 4 British detective shows on TV, it got worse and worse... I know NOTHING about detectives, I don't like reading them, I don't watch them on TV, heck I even had a dislike for Sherlock Holmes when I was small, espécially the Disney version with the mice! Ok, so I managed to tell Miriam that the 00 in 007 stood for 'licence to kill' and because I was the one that got even close to the real answer, I got a point. And yeah, working together (cheating only a wee bit) Kim and I thought of 4 detectives on British TV. Only because she knew 3 and Miriam accepted 'The Thin Blue Line' because she felt so sorry for me. (It’s a show about a police station, has nóting to do with detectives). Luckily Miriam isn't a very strict game-leader-question-asker, and a very good friend, so she gave me (ánd the others too, don't worry) second questions to make up for our (my!!) lack of knowledge. She asked me the name of Tin Tin’s dog first... Total blackout... Ok, moving on. The next few second questions saved me though; I had to name a serial killer. Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dammer, it hardly took me a nanosecond to answer those... So now you now know this about me: I have no idea what the name of the sweat, pink, fluffy actrice that plays Jessica Fletcher is (it's Angela Lansbury, for those who are cracking their skulls now) but I can name a bunch of serial killers in a jiffy...

Guess what?
I won the game! I won the freakin' game!

The knitting teacher with no detective knowledge nailed them all! The fanatic and loud boys, the giggly and louder girls, everyone who was bluffing, everyone who was trying to get information out of me, everyone that thought I was just messing about... EAT MY DUST!! HA!! I WON!!

And yeah, of course I thanked Kim in my acceptance speech, clutching on to my new bottle of faux-champagne!



fun and games with flashlights, don't matter that we're 26 and up... Kim and me

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:

Here's how Tempting is coming along:

it blends in so nicely with the decor doesn't it? (spoken in posh English...)

it might not look like it, but it is black, dark & slimming black.

The yarn I use is Scheepjeswol / Isis / 100% gassed (?) cotton in color 804.

The cotton is shiny but not too shiny, it's really nice but I'm a bit worried about loose threads... it seems to get caught on things quickly, so I'll have to be carefull.

It's a bit boring now and I'm crossing my fingers that all goes well when the real shaping is taking place, I don't want to mess up those hours of knit, knit, purl, purl, knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl,knit, knit, purl, purl.

Ok you get it...