Another tie, after all those months without!
DEO appeared on my original shortlist just before I pruned it to a reasonable size, so he gets my vote. The fact this gives me a chance for revenge -- I've tie-breaked with both DEO and mosaix in the past, but DEO had the grace to tie with me in the tie-break itself, but mosaix beat me into smithereens -- is simply fortuitous. Honest.
(And it's back to a tie in the tie-break with my vote!)
Ooh, more mentions/shortlistings, for which many lobster bisque thanks (we're all out of consomme) TDZ, LittleStar and Ursa. And double ooh, I got another sneak vote -- truffle-stuffed roast beast/bird/vegetable of your choice, farntfar!
... despite TJ's best effort at subliminal zebra-vote-getting with her title.
Ha! I thought you'd get it! For those who didn't get the reference, the title of my piece "What a piece of work..." is actually a quote from Hamlet:
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!
The irony of using it for a man who deliberately engineers his master's failure and execution in order to step into his job, which itself involves murdering guests of the Emperor, rather appealed to me, as did the fact that in common parlance "What a piece of work" is now used for exactly such reprehensible people.
