I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas (I love the idea of a merry Christmas - it resounds with wassailing and carols and yule logs; the very word sounds rich and feast-laden). I played the guitar in church on Christmas Eve and, thanks to some serious practice, lasted the course without my fingers dropping off. My daughter Lucy (this is a proud mother moment!) played the flute beautifully without a single bum note. One of my husband, Peter's, relatives from Waaaay Back When, George Whitfield, co-wrote Hark The Herald Angels Sing, so, what with one thing and another, is was a real family celebration.
And, of course,I hope you have a Happy New Year, too. We're off to a party at the local tennis club, armed with friends, relatives and Abba Singastar for the Karioke machine.
I had a nice and unexpected Christmas present when I looked on the Crime Thru Time website. Kim Malo, the Webmaster, had posted a terrific review of and interview I did with Robin Agnew of the Huge Aunt Agatha's Bookstore. It's at
http://auntagathas.com/interview.html If you click on the link to
Historical to the left you can also read Robin's review of As If By Magic. I've posted it all on the Read The Reviews section of this website too. Click on the "Magic" button and it's at the end.
Auld Lang Syne, everyone!
Monday, December 28, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Forget the cut potaotes
So it’s nearly Christmas! Once upon a time (er der years ago) I used to make my own mincemeat. Then I slacked off and merely made my own mince-pies. A couple of years ago I thought words to the effect of “blow this for a game of soldiers,” and put some business Tesco’s way. The Other Half reckoned the great day dawned when I realised you could buy ready-made Yorkshire Puds. I’d been got at, you see, by all those books and TV programmes detailing 101 things to do with Brussels sprouts, to say nothing of the wilder shores of Buggering About such as making your own Christmas wrapping paper out of ordinary brown paper (like, do you know how expensive brown paper is??? And Christmas paper in the Pound Shop is 99p for 10 meters?) and then, taking a potato, carve reindeer and Santa prints onto the cut side of the aforesaid potato and print pictures onto the brown paper.
Someone, somewhere, is having a laugh. Ignore it all, I say. Forget cut potatoes and get on with the things real people do such as writing the cards, doing the shopping, seeing the relatives, planning the meals, decorating the house, making costumes for the nativity play, steering your mother away from the brandy and, in my case, practicing the music for church. There’s some serious guitar work happening on Christmas Eve, and if I don’t practice, my fingers are liable to fall off! I really feel I’ve earned Santa’s sherry after that. (Santa gets a mince-pie (Tesco’s) a glass of dry sherry and a carrot for Rudolph when he comes down our chimney.) Peter reckons that he’d really like a glass of malt whisky, but something tells me Santa is a dry sherry man. Oh, and the carrot is bitten into as well; for a long time that was taken as proof positive by the junior Gordon-Smiths that Rudolph had called. And, if you look up on Christmas night, you can see Rudolph’s nose shining brightly. (Don’t mention the distant sound of a jet engine; that’s Rudolph’s nose, right?) I’ve impressed a whole generation of Young with that one.
So Merry Christmas everyone! Ho, ho, ho.
Someone, somewhere, is having a laugh. Ignore it all, I say. Forget cut potatoes and get on with the things real people do such as writing the cards, doing the shopping, seeing the relatives, planning the meals, decorating the house, making costumes for the nativity play, steering your mother away from the brandy and, in my case, practicing the music for church. There’s some serious guitar work happening on Christmas Eve, and if I don’t practice, my fingers are liable to fall off! I really feel I’ve earned Santa’s sherry after that. (Santa gets a mince-pie (Tesco’s) a glass of dry sherry and a carrot for Rudolph when he comes down our chimney.) Peter reckons that he’d really like a glass of malt whisky, but something tells me Santa is a dry sherry man. Oh, and the carrot is bitten into as well; for a long time that was taken as proof positive by the junior Gordon-Smiths that Rudolph had called. And, if you look up on Christmas night, you can see Rudolph’s nose shining brightly. (Don’t mention the distant sound of a jet engine; that’s Rudolph’s nose, right?) I’ve impressed a whole generation of Young with that one.
So Merry Christmas everyone! Ho, ho, ho.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
The Cat Crept In
There was a rum sort of smell in the bedroom. Now, my dearly beloved has, from time to time, a foot problem. Not to put too fine a point on it, they don’t half niff on occasion. Now, pongy socks are part and parcel of married life, so I’m not complaining (much) but this was getting really rank. So much so, that lying in bed last Saturday morning, I ventured to broach the subject.
I was met with Stout Denial. There’s nothing wrong with my feet, said the partner of my joys and sorrows indignantly, going so far as proposing to wave a foot under my nose to prove it. I declined this gracious offer – even a non-pongy foot is something that I don’t want to dwell on overmuch, especially before breakfast – but it led on to some keen detective work.
Problem: If it’s not feet that are causing the smell, what is it?
Answer: I dunno.
I mean, it’s not an academic problem, is it? It’s not like the Causes of the First World War, the Apostolic Succession or the Theory of Relativity which you can work out by lying in bed. It needs action.
At this point there was a little tinkling noise and Minou, (cute, furry, small and the latest kitten to grace the Gordon-Smith household) came out from under the bed. The tinkling noise was made by the bell she wears on her very smart red collar.
She leapt on the bed and started to play running up and down Mount Knee. (That’s the game where a knee under the duvet turns into Mount St Helens by moving unexpectedly.) It might be a small triumph, but I can fool a kitten!
And the smell grew worse.
A suspicion started to filter through our minds. Could the little Tinkler of a kitten be doing er… Little Tinkles under the bed?
“I’ll see you downstairs,” said the other half, hastily deserting wife and livestock on the spot. “The lawn needs cutting.”
The lawn? It’s December, for pete’s sake.
Alone, I washed and dressed in a thoughtful sort of way and then – there was nothing else for it – took the mattress off the bed.
Lumps. Great lumps of – well, you can imagine. It hadn’t hit the fan, but it had hit Ground Zero under our bed.
Now, these cats are loved. They are cherished and cared for. They’re provided with constant attention, fluffy toys, a couple of dogs to be snooty to, regular meals and treats of tuna and chicken. More to the point, they’re provided with a litter tray, for heaven’s sake, which I clean it regularly. (I did ask a junior Gordon-Smith to do this; she described it as “minging” and affected to believe I was joking.)
One bulging plastic bag was put in the bin and an hour later I was in the pet shop, describing our little problem. What I needed, apparently, was something called Repel All. The smell it says on the back on the bottle, is naturally very unpleasant to animals and they quickly learn to avoid it.
Dear God, you can count me in the animal kingdom! It was like a gas attack. I’d just finished spraying the carpet and counting the seconds until I could get out of the room, when Snooker, Most Senior Animal, walked in. She made for under the bed and then, like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon, reeled back. Snooker? Had she… Yes, she damn well had. And so had Arthur, the third of the wretched creatures.
Still, something attempted, something done. The bedroom might niff like a swimming-baths but at least it was clean and, although fairly repellent to me, I had the evidence of my own eyes that it was repellent to cats too.
Then the eldest came in. “Mum,” she said, “there’s an awful smell in my bedroom. It’s like old socks….”
I was met with Stout Denial. There’s nothing wrong with my feet, said the partner of my joys and sorrows indignantly, going so far as proposing to wave a foot under my nose to prove it. I declined this gracious offer – even a non-pongy foot is something that I don’t want to dwell on overmuch, especially before breakfast – but it led on to some keen detective work.
Problem: If it’s not feet that are causing the smell, what is it?
Answer: I dunno.
I mean, it’s not an academic problem, is it? It’s not like the Causes of the First World War, the Apostolic Succession or the Theory of Relativity which you can work out by lying in bed. It needs action.
At this point there was a little tinkling noise and Minou, (cute, furry, small and the latest kitten to grace the Gordon-Smith household) came out from under the bed. The tinkling noise was made by the bell she wears on her very smart red collar.
She leapt on the bed and started to play running up and down Mount Knee. (That’s the game where a knee under the duvet turns into Mount St Helens by moving unexpectedly.) It might be a small triumph, but I can fool a kitten!
And the smell grew worse.
A suspicion started to filter through our minds. Could the little Tinkler of a kitten be doing er… Little Tinkles under the bed?
“I’ll see you downstairs,” said the other half, hastily deserting wife and livestock on the spot. “The lawn needs cutting.”
The lawn? It’s December, for pete’s sake.
Alone, I washed and dressed in a thoughtful sort of way and then – there was nothing else for it – took the mattress off the bed.
Lumps. Great lumps of – well, you can imagine. It hadn’t hit the fan, but it had hit Ground Zero under our bed.
Now, these cats are loved. They are cherished and cared for. They’re provided with constant attention, fluffy toys, a couple of dogs to be snooty to, regular meals and treats of tuna and chicken. More to the point, they’re provided with a litter tray, for heaven’s sake, which I clean it regularly. (I did ask a junior Gordon-Smith to do this; she described it as “minging” and affected to believe I was joking.)
One bulging plastic bag was put in the bin and an hour later I was in the pet shop, describing our little problem. What I needed, apparently, was something called Repel All. The smell it says on the back on the bottle, is naturally very unpleasant to animals and they quickly learn to avoid it.
Dear God, you can count me in the animal kingdom! It was like a gas attack. I’d just finished spraying the carpet and counting the seconds until I could get out of the room, when Snooker, Most Senior Animal, walked in. She made for under the bed and then, like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon, reeled back. Snooker? Had she… Yes, she damn well had. And so had Arthur, the third of the wretched creatures.
Still, something attempted, something done. The bedroom might niff like a swimming-baths but at least it was clean and, although fairly repellent to me, I had the evidence of my own eyes that it was repellent to cats too.
Then the eldest came in. “Mum,” she said, “there’s an awful smell in my bedroom. It’s like old socks….”
Sunday, December 6, 2009
New publishers and the Christmas Fair
I've got a new publisher! Serven House, bless their hearts, are publishing the next Jack book, A HUNDRED THOUSAND DRAGONS, (and beat that for a title!) in May. Poor old Jack gets put through it a bit in this one, but it all ends happily with the good guys on the right side of the ledger. So stand by your cheque books, everyone, because it's on it's way. May the (insert date here) be with you!
Talking of cheque-books, it was the Christmas Fair yesterday. The Fair (not a Fayre, thank God!) takes place in the primary school, is in aid of the church and is run by the parish. The fair has been going for years and only recently dropped its previous name of a Sale Of Work. One phrase and we’re in Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse land. At one function you’re a consumer – a happy, charitably inclined consumer and the other you’re a creator. Sales Of Work, I remember from my youth, are where people sold tea-cosies, scarves, gloves and anything else that could be knitted or sown. There’s still a fair amount of handicraft, what with cakes and ingeniously made turned wood, but there’s bought in handbags and jewellery, even if (being a church function) the emphasis is on charity. I admired an ethnic-looking jersey and was told it was made by “Abandoned women in Peru.”
The image this conjured up is not, perhaps, what Shelia behind the counter intended!
I love these local functions, though. There’s an awful lot of public whittling now about community building and an awful lot of agonising about money. The Christmas Fair is a perfect example of doing both.
It takes a lot of work to organise and there’s nothing like working alongside someone to get to know them. And money comes in, through buying Christmas the Guides have made, having a go on the tombola, the whisky raffle, the cake raffle , to say nothing of actually buying the books, CD’s, DVD’s and tea-cosies, and a visit to Santa in his grotto which is the ice-palace created with paper and tinsel out of the computer room. I've always had a very soft spot for this particular incarnation of Santa, as I visited him in my Youth and, in rather later Youth, was a Christmas elf and handed out presents to the round-eyed children after Santa asked them what they wanted for Christmas. The spirit of Christmas? It’s alive and well and living at a Christmas Fair near you. Yo ho ho.
Talking of cheque-books, it was the Christmas Fair yesterday. The Fair (not a Fayre, thank God!) takes place in the primary school, is in aid of the church and is run by the parish. The fair has been going for years and only recently dropped its previous name of a Sale Of Work. One phrase and we’re in Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse land. At one function you’re a consumer – a happy, charitably inclined consumer and the other you’re a creator. Sales Of Work, I remember from my youth, are where people sold tea-cosies, scarves, gloves and anything else that could be knitted or sown. There’s still a fair amount of handicraft, what with cakes and ingeniously made turned wood, but there’s bought in handbags and jewellery, even if (being a church function) the emphasis is on charity. I admired an ethnic-looking jersey and was told it was made by “Abandoned women in Peru.”
The image this conjured up is not, perhaps, what Shelia behind the counter intended!
I love these local functions, though. There’s an awful lot of public whittling now about community building and an awful lot of agonising about money. The Christmas Fair is a perfect example of doing both.
It takes a lot of work to organise and there’s nothing like working alongside someone to get to know them. And money comes in, through buying Christmas the Guides have made, having a go on the tombola, the whisky raffle, the cake raffle , to say nothing of actually buying the books, CD’s, DVD’s and tea-cosies, and a visit to Santa in his grotto which is the ice-palace created with paper and tinsel out of the computer room. I've always had a very soft spot for this particular incarnation of Santa, as I visited him in my Youth and, in rather later Youth, was a Christmas elf and handed out presents to the round-eyed children after Santa asked them what they wanted for Christmas. The spirit of Christmas? It’s alive and well and living at a Christmas Fair near you. Yo ho ho.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Lucy and Jenny's bedroom is completed and the teddy bears are (sniff) no more. It's now a sophisticated sage green and cream (the actual colours, according to the tin are Flagon (uh?) and Parchment. Anyone who wants to know the exact shade can have look at my fingernails; I'm like a walking colour chart! And, quite honestly, why they were that bothered about the paintwork beats me; a week from now and you won't be able to see the wall for pictures of Johnny Depp, Harry Potter and the more ornamental components of the Sale Sharks Rugby Union football team.
Here's the second part of the Arthur Hastings article. (And, by the way, I can't be the only one to find Hugh Frazier rather nice; a bit like Kevin McCloud but with less architecture.)
Captain Arthur Hastings, OBE
Life after the Styles case improved for the aimless young Captain; after the recruiting job he became private secretary to an M.P. and he went from having "no near relations or friends," (perhaps he was using the word "near" in a geographical sense) to having "many friends and acquaintances" by the time they looked in to the Foscatini murder. His association with Poirot gave him the adventures he craved and Poirot, in return, gained an old friend and a biographer. That Poirot was a close friend can be in no doubt; on seeing Hastings outside Styles Post Office he cries "Mon ami Hastings!" and, true son of Gaul as he was, clasps him in his arms and kisses him. Hastings, with more cosmopolitan panache than one would readily give him credit for, doesn't turn a hair.
Poirot grew to have a rich enjoyment of his friend's foibles. He let him indulge himself in detection, with predictably disastrous, if hilarious, results as in the affair of Miss Mary Marvell, and was happy to let him carry a gun, although he never seems to have used it. "You must join me in my all-night vigil... armed with that excellent revolver of yours." "Rather!" I cried with enthusiasm," is the conversation when they were hunting Naval Plans stolen from the Americans, and Poirot frequently teased him about his preference for girls with auburn hair. He doesn't tease Hastings for his occasional foray in to speculation. Unlike Sherlock Holmes, who kept Dr Watson's cheque book locked up in his desk so he couldn't blow his money on horse-racing, Poirot is more than happy when Hastings is put on to a good thing in the City by a friend and, having "money to burn" takes Poirot off for a weekend at the Grand Metropolitan.
The fact that Poirot, a perfectionist, allowed Hastings to publish the first accounts of his adventures in England argues that he respected Hasting's talents as a writer. And really, he is excellent. Modest and unassuming, he is content to let his brilliant friend shine and present his own efforts and ruffled feathers as comic relief. It is likely that Hastings, as an author, occasionally felt dissatisfied with having to present everything in the first person; by the time he comes to write up the ABC murders, he gives large slices of the narrative in the third person, a technique he was to return to in writing up the investigation surrounding the murder of Emily Arundell. The reason for this dissatisfaction is clear; "It's not all jam," wrote P.G. Wodehouse, of his Jeeves stories, "writing a story in the first person. The reader can know nothing except what Bertie tells him and Bertie can only know a limited amount himself." However, for immediacy and directness, the "I" form is unbeatable. It also has the advantage of pinning down the point of view, which in apprentice authors tends to float like a butterfly, and Hastings was wise to stick to it for his first books. And, after all, how many writers have the chance to share in the escapades of one of the greatest (Poirot would have said the greatest) detectives of the century?
Hastings was, perhaps, mildly irritated by Poirot's insistence that all the girls he fell for had auburn hair. For once, Poirot got it wrong. Cynthia Murdoch, to whom he chivalrously proposes (to her great amusement) certainly had auburn hair, but Dulcie Duveen, who he eventually marries, has dark curls. Thora Grey, who attracts his wandering eye (and that alone - he was a Good Man) in the ABC affair was a Scandinavian blonde. Hastings in the grip of the divine fire is rather interesting. Kneeling on the floor of the sitting room of a Coventry hotel, holding the girl in his arms, he manages to mix molten passion with an accusation of murder. Fortunately Cinderella, who loves her Arthur deeply, refrains from ticking him off for being so bone-headed and kisses him "with a sweetness and fire beyond belief." Which settles the matter. When Poirot intervenes (one of his more tactless moments) Hastings bounds across the room and hold his old friend "in a grip of iron" so that the future Mrs Hastings can escape. All ends well. Poirot knows that Cinderella, as Hastings calls his wife to be, is innocent and, what's more, can prove it. It is partly due to Cinderella's acrobatic skills that all ends as happily as it does. Hastings was not the only detective to mix up love and murder, but the usual procedure was to be convinced of the beloved's innocence and clear her name (as Philip Trent and Lord Peter Wimsey do in "Trent's Last Case" and "Strong Poison") then propose. Hastings is, as far as I know, the only one to be convinced of his girl's guilt whilst offering marriage. The Renauld business ends with talk of the Hastings going out to join Cinderella's sister and her newly-acquired husband, Jack Renauld "on a ranch across the seas" and this is what happened.
Poirot missed his friend badly. At one point he thought he had found another Hastings when, after nearly beaning his next-door neighbour with a vegetable marrow, he makes the acquaintance of Dr. James Sheppard. Poirot sums up his feelings about Hastings to Sheppard very neatly: "I had a friend who for many years never left my side. Occasionally of an imbecility to make one afraid, nevertheless he was very dear to me. Figure to yourself that I miss even his stupidity. His naiveté, his honest outlook, the pleasure of delighting and surprising him by my superior gifts - all these I miss more than I can tell you."
Dr Sheppard, as we know, proved to be a wash-out in his role of substitute Best Friend. "Je ne peux pas obtenir l'assistance dont j'ai besoin," we feel Poirot may have sighed as him returned him to store, or, as we would say in English, "You can't get the staff."
After reading that crack about his imbecility, Hastings may have allowed himself a feeling of righteous pleasure as to how the Roger Ackroyd case turned out.
It was a year and a half later that he came back to England. Perhaps in the episode that followed, he could have wished he'd stayed in the Argentine. His wife could certainly be forgiven for doing so. Tracking down the Big Four (one of his fruitier adventures) took her husband nearly a year and for a large part of that he was being drugged, tricked, made to assume uncomfortable disguises (he wore cheek pads for three weeks without a murmur) and blown up by nasty Chinamen. If that wasn't enough, Cinderella Hastings had to spend most of the year in hiding in a secret locale arranged by Poirot. After this, it will raise no eyebrows for anyone to learn that it was five years before she would let him return to England. Having said that, he seems to spend the time in mere pleasure-seeking at St. Looe in Cornwall. This time his life remained unimperilled. A burst of malaria was nothing compared to be thrown to his death in the river Thames by the servant of Li Chang Yen. Reassured, perhaps, Mrs Hastings allows Arthur to come back the following year, which he spends junketing at the Savoy and going to theatres in London, with only the occasional corpse to mar the even tenor of his days. From then until the ABC business is a matter of three years. When he reaches England this time, Hastings is a sobered character. He has been awarded the O.B.E. (what for?) but it is in no happy mood he looks in on Hercule Poirot. Cinderella is, as usual, back home on the ranch and, oddly enough, it is the ranch that occupies his thoughts. "It had been a difficult time for us out there... we had suffered from the world depression." Fortunately, a series of juicy murders occurred to cheer him up, but there is also the figure of Thora Grey.
Now, Cinderella must have read his books. Although the Renauld millions must have come in handy round the ranch, and Arthur's earnings may have seemed small in comparison, she must have been proud of both his literary fame and the money they brought. Reading the account, she wouldn't have been human if she hadn't suffered a twinge of jealousy. And this is a woman, remember, whom Hastings had thought quite capable of knifing an erring lover. Women in those days, doughty creatures, could put up with a lot. Phyllis Drummond, wife of Bulldog, suffered years of being kidnapped, threatened, and of having mysterious lascars, Chinaman and Nameless Things invade her privacy. But - and it's a big but - Hugh (Bulldog) Drummond never looked at another girl. Although Cinderella must have known she could trust her husband, the ABC case must have caused her some concern. Hastings was back on his native shores the following year, and this time he had his nose to the grindstone right away, looking in to the murder of Emily Arundell. Am I the only one to think that his aversion to the elegant Theresa Arundell (despite being "like an exaggerated drawing in black and white" he also mentions her "exquisite figure") slightly overdone? In any event, when Arthur returns home this time, complete with Bob, the wire-haired terrier, he stays at home. There are no more adventures from his pen. Cinderella Hastings, the most unsung heroine in modern fiction, had finally had enough.
Poirot's cases as written up by Captain Hastings consist of nine books which are:
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) The Big Four (1927)
Poirot's Early Cases (1923) Peril at End House (1932)
Murder on the Links (1923) Lord Edgware Dies (1933)
Poirot Investigates (1924) The ABC Murders (1936)
Dumb Witness (1937)
There is also, apparently, another book called "Curtain" in which Hastings kills off Poirot. As I hate books where the hero dies, I prefer to think of it as a complete fabrication. And, as Poirot was alive and kicking long after this was written in the 1940's, who’s to say I’m not right? Maybe Hastings was getting his own back for all those cracks about how cloth-headed he was!
Here's the second part of the Arthur Hastings article. (And, by the way, I can't be the only one to find Hugh Frazier rather nice; a bit like Kevin McCloud but with less architecture.)
Captain Arthur Hastings, OBE
Life after the Styles case improved for the aimless young Captain; after the recruiting job he became private secretary to an M.P. and he went from having "no near relations or friends," (perhaps he was using the word "near" in a geographical sense) to having "many friends and acquaintances" by the time they looked in to the Foscatini murder. His association with Poirot gave him the adventures he craved and Poirot, in return, gained an old friend and a biographer. That Poirot was a close friend can be in no doubt; on seeing Hastings outside Styles Post Office he cries "Mon ami Hastings!" and, true son of Gaul as he was, clasps him in his arms and kisses him. Hastings, with more cosmopolitan panache than one would readily give him credit for, doesn't turn a hair.
Poirot grew to have a rich enjoyment of his friend's foibles. He let him indulge himself in detection, with predictably disastrous, if hilarious, results as in the affair of Miss Mary Marvell, and was happy to let him carry a gun, although he never seems to have used it. "You must join me in my all-night vigil... armed with that excellent revolver of yours." "Rather!" I cried with enthusiasm," is the conversation when they were hunting Naval Plans stolen from the Americans, and Poirot frequently teased him about his preference for girls with auburn hair. He doesn't tease Hastings for his occasional foray in to speculation. Unlike Sherlock Holmes, who kept Dr Watson's cheque book locked up in his desk so he couldn't blow his money on horse-racing, Poirot is more than happy when Hastings is put on to a good thing in the City by a friend and, having "money to burn" takes Poirot off for a weekend at the Grand Metropolitan.
The fact that Poirot, a perfectionist, allowed Hastings to publish the first accounts of his adventures in England argues that he respected Hasting's talents as a writer. And really, he is excellent. Modest and unassuming, he is content to let his brilliant friend shine and present his own efforts and ruffled feathers as comic relief. It is likely that Hastings, as an author, occasionally felt dissatisfied with having to present everything in the first person; by the time he comes to write up the ABC murders, he gives large slices of the narrative in the third person, a technique he was to return to in writing up the investigation surrounding the murder of Emily Arundell. The reason for this dissatisfaction is clear; "It's not all jam," wrote P.G. Wodehouse, of his Jeeves stories, "writing a story in the first person. The reader can know nothing except what Bertie tells him and Bertie can only know a limited amount himself." However, for immediacy and directness, the "I" form is unbeatable. It also has the advantage of pinning down the point of view, which in apprentice authors tends to float like a butterfly, and Hastings was wise to stick to it for his first books. And, after all, how many writers have the chance to share in the escapades of one of the greatest (Poirot would have said the greatest) detectives of the century?
Hastings was, perhaps, mildly irritated by Poirot's insistence that all the girls he fell for had auburn hair. For once, Poirot got it wrong. Cynthia Murdoch, to whom he chivalrously proposes (to her great amusement) certainly had auburn hair, but Dulcie Duveen, who he eventually marries, has dark curls. Thora Grey, who attracts his wandering eye (and that alone - he was a Good Man) in the ABC affair was a Scandinavian blonde. Hastings in the grip of the divine fire is rather interesting. Kneeling on the floor of the sitting room of a Coventry hotel, holding the girl in his arms, he manages to mix molten passion with an accusation of murder. Fortunately Cinderella, who loves her Arthur deeply, refrains from ticking him off for being so bone-headed and kisses him "with a sweetness and fire beyond belief." Which settles the matter. When Poirot intervenes (one of his more tactless moments) Hastings bounds across the room and hold his old friend "in a grip of iron" so that the future Mrs Hastings can escape. All ends well. Poirot knows that Cinderella, as Hastings calls his wife to be, is innocent and, what's more, can prove it. It is partly due to Cinderella's acrobatic skills that all ends as happily as it does. Hastings was not the only detective to mix up love and murder, but the usual procedure was to be convinced of the beloved's innocence and clear her name (as Philip Trent and Lord Peter Wimsey do in "Trent's Last Case" and "Strong Poison") then propose. Hastings is, as far as I know, the only one to be convinced of his girl's guilt whilst offering marriage. The Renauld business ends with talk of the Hastings going out to join Cinderella's sister and her newly-acquired husband, Jack Renauld "on a ranch across the seas" and this is what happened.
Poirot missed his friend badly. At one point he thought he had found another Hastings when, after nearly beaning his next-door neighbour with a vegetable marrow, he makes the acquaintance of Dr. James Sheppard. Poirot sums up his feelings about Hastings to Sheppard very neatly: "I had a friend who for many years never left my side. Occasionally of an imbecility to make one afraid, nevertheless he was very dear to me. Figure to yourself that I miss even his stupidity. His naiveté, his honest outlook, the pleasure of delighting and surprising him by my superior gifts - all these I miss more than I can tell you."
Dr Sheppard, as we know, proved to be a wash-out in his role of substitute Best Friend. "Je ne peux pas obtenir l'assistance dont j'ai besoin," we feel Poirot may have sighed as him returned him to store, or, as we would say in English, "You can't get the staff."
After reading that crack about his imbecility, Hastings may have allowed himself a feeling of righteous pleasure as to how the Roger Ackroyd case turned out.
It was a year and a half later that he came back to England. Perhaps in the episode that followed, he could have wished he'd stayed in the Argentine. His wife could certainly be forgiven for doing so. Tracking down the Big Four (one of his fruitier adventures) took her husband nearly a year and for a large part of that he was being drugged, tricked, made to assume uncomfortable disguises (he wore cheek pads for three weeks without a murmur) and blown up by nasty Chinamen. If that wasn't enough, Cinderella Hastings had to spend most of the year in hiding in a secret locale arranged by Poirot. After this, it will raise no eyebrows for anyone to learn that it was five years before she would let him return to England. Having said that, he seems to spend the time in mere pleasure-seeking at St. Looe in Cornwall. This time his life remained unimperilled. A burst of malaria was nothing compared to be thrown to his death in the river Thames by the servant of Li Chang Yen. Reassured, perhaps, Mrs Hastings allows Arthur to come back the following year, which he spends junketing at the Savoy and going to theatres in London, with only the occasional corpse to mar the even tenor of his days. From then until the ABC business is a matter of three years. When he reaches England this time, Hastings is a sobered character. He has been awarded the O.B.E. (what for?) but it is in no happy mood he looks in on Hercule Poirot. Cinderella is, as usual, back home on the ranch and, oddly enough, it is the ranch that occupies his thoughts. "It had been a difficult time for us out there... we had suffered from the world depression." Fortunately, a series of juicy murders occurred to cheer him up, but there is also the figure of Thora Grey.
Now, Cinderella must have read his books. Although the Renauld millions must have come in handy round the ranch, and Arthur's earnings may have seemed small in comparison, she must have been proud of both his literary fame and the money they brought. Reading the account, she wouldn't have been human if she hadn't suffered a twinge of jealousy. And this is a woman, remember, whom Hastings had thought quite capable of knifing an erring lover. Women in those days, doughty creatures, could put up with a lot. Phyllis Drummond, wife of Bulldog, suffered years of being kidnapped, threatened, and of having mysterious lascars, Chinaman and Nameless Things invade her privacy. But - and it's a big but - Hugh (Bulldog) Drummond never looked at another girl. Although Cinderella must have known she could trust her husband, the ABC case must have caused her some concern. Hastings was back on his native shores the following year, and this time he had his nose to the grindstone right away, looking in to the murder of Emily Arundell. Am I the only one to think that his aversion to the elegant Theresa Arundell (despite being "like an exaggerated drawing in black and white" he also mentions her "exquisite figure") slightly overdone? In any event, when Arthur returns home this time, complete with Bob, the wire-haired terrier, he stays at home. There are no more adventures from his pen. Cinderella Hastings, the most unsung heroine in modern fiction, had finally had enough.
Poirot's cases as written up by Captain Hastings consist of nine books which are:
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) The Big Four (1927)
Poirot's Early Cases (1923) Peril at End House (1932)
Murder on the Links (1923) Lord Edgware Dies (1933)
Poirot Investigates (1924) The ABC Murders (1936)
Dumb Witness (1937)
There is also, apparently, another book called "Curtain" in which Hastings kills off Poirot. As I hate books where the hero dies, I prefer to think of it as a complete fabrication. And, as Poirot was alive and kicking long after this was written in the 1940's, who’s to say I’m not right? Maybe Hastings was getting his own back for all those cracks about how cloth-headed he was!
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Captain Arthur Hastings OBE
I've been stuck up a stepladder painting Lucy and Jenny's bedroom this week as they've decided that they're Too Old for teddy-bear wallpaper. Well, I suppose at 15 and 17 they are a bit. And, my constant companion in these hours of toil has been my beloved collection of Agatha Christie tapes.
They set me thinking - as you do - about the role of best friends in detective fiction. The archtype is, of course, Watson, but Agatha Christie's Hastings is an aimiable example of the Best Friend too. Here's the first part of an article I wrote about Hastings. The second part's next week. I might have finished the bedroom ceiling by then!
Captain Arthur Hastings, O.B.E.
"I've a feeling," said Tupppence, "that this particular adventure will be call 'the triumph of Hastings."
"Never," said Tommy. "It isn't done. Once the idiot friend, always the idiot friend."
"Partners in Crime" 1929
The affair at Styles takes place in the summer of 1917. Arthur Hastings had been "invalided home from the front" or, as he says in the run-up to the Renauld murder, "after the Somme they invalided me out altogether." Amiens, where there was a big base hospital, obviously stirred up some sombre memories for Hastings for it is on his train journey through it that he recalls for the only time that he was wounded on two separate occasions. He, brave man, says little about his injuries. Unlike Dr Watson, whose wound seemed to shift from his leg to his arm and back again, we don't even know where Hastings was hurt. That it was severe, we can be in no doubt. The battle (or rather campaign) of the Somme lasted from 1st July to 18th November 1916. For him to have "spent some months in a depressing Convalescent Home," and to be given a month's sick leave and still be at a loose end the following summer argues a considerable injury. We know, too, that he was never again passed as fit for Active Service. Instead, as he says in his account of the kidnapping of David MacAdam, he was given a recruiting job. For a trained soldier, especially one whose rank put him in what has been called the "flower of the British Army" - i.e. the junior officers, whose casualty figures far exceeded any other ranks - not to be returned to the Front means that he must have been seriously hurt.
He was born in 1887 (he was thirty when the Styles affair started) and we can infer that he came from Essex. He had an unspecified number of sisters, seemingly no brothers, and a female cousin who nursed during the war. His parents are, of course, an a priori assumption, but from the fact that he never mentions them we can presume that they are dead.
The young Arthur was sent to Eton, where, together with attaining an Old School Tie, (which Poirot recognizes on the Nile steamer Karnack) he attained what might be called the best of the Old School Manner. Always correct in his behaviour, he is punctilious in his knowledge of what One May and May Not do. Poirot derives considerable, if affectionate amusement from this trait on many occasions, such as when, for purposes of detection, he has to search Nick Buckley's bedroom, and Hastings, blushing hotly, protests against looking at a lady's underclothes. After leaving school he might have gone to University but never mentions any friends from that era. Perhaps he went, instead, straight in to Lloyds, where his occupancy of an office stool brought him in to contact with Hercule Poirot.
One of Hasting's more unsung talents is his fluent command of French. When the maid, Célestine, is accused of pinching Mrs Opalsen's pearls at the Grand Metropolitan, he has no trouble in following her stream of "rapid and virulent French". At the Cavendish's dinner table he confesses to a "secret hankering to be a detective," because he "came across a little man in Belgium once, a very famous detective, and he quite inflamed me." It was while he was standing by the Pyramids with Poirot, trying vainly to reconcile him to the "cursed sand" that he remembered a holiday in Knocke-sur-mer with its "dunes impeccables". It doesn't seem too much to suppose that the young, linguistically gifted Hastings should have been sent to Belgium to investigate an insurance fraud. As it involved the then head of the Belgium Police, it must have been a fairly major affair. It's a great shame Hastings never saw fit to write the case up. Poirot triumphed ("his flair had been extraordinary") and Hastings obviously fell in to the role of amiable helper that was to be his lot in his relationship with Poirot.
They set me thinking - as you do - about the role of best friends in detective fiction. The archtype is, of course, Watson, but Agatha Christie's Hastings is an aimiable example of the Best Friend too. Here's the first part of an article I wrote about Hastings. The second part's next week. I might have finished the bedroom ceiling by then!
Captain Arthur Hastings, O.B.E.
"I've a feeling," said Tupppence, "that this particular adventure will be call 'the triumph of Hastings."
"Never," said Tommy. "It isn't done. Once the idiot friend, always the idiot friend."
"Partners in Crime" 1929
The affair at Styles takes place in the summer of 1917. Arthur Hastings had been "invalided home from the front" or, as he says in the run-up to the Renauld murder, "after the Somme they invalided me out altogether." Amiens, where there was a big base hospital, obviously stirred up some sombre memories for Hastings for it is on his train journey through it that he recalls for the only time that he was wounded on two separate occasions. He, brave man, says little about his injuries. Unlike Dr Watson, whose wound seemed to shift from his leg to his arm and back again, we don't even know where Hastings was hurt. That it was severe, we can be in no doubt. The battle (or rather campaign) of the Somme lasted from 1st July to 18th November 1916. For him to have "spent some months in a depressing Convalescent Home," and to be given a month's sick leave and still be at a loose end the following summer argues a considerable injury. We know, too, that he was never again passed as fit for Active Service. Instead, as he says in his account of the kidnapping of David MacAdam, he was given a recruiting job. For a trained soldier, especially one whose rank put him in what has been called the "flower of the British Army" - i.e. the junior officers, whose casualty figures far exceeded any other ranks - not to be returned to the Front means that he must have been seriously hurt.
He was born in 1887 (he was thirty when the Styles affair started) and we can infer that he came from Essex. He had an unspecified number of sisters, seemingly no brothers, and a female cousin who nursed during the war. His parents are, of course, an a priori assumption, but from the fact that he never mentions them we can presume that they are dead.
The young Arthur was sent to Eton, where, together with attaining an Old School Tie, (which Poirot recognizes on the Nile steamer Karnack) he attained what might be called the best of the Old School Manner. Always correct in his behaviour, he is punctilious in his knowledge of what One May and May Not do. Poirot derives considerable, if affectionate amusement from this trait on many occasions, such as when, for purposes of detection, he has to search Nick Buckley's bedroom, and Hastings, blushing hotly, protests against looking at a lady's underclothes. After leaving school he might have gone to University but never mentions any friends from that era. Perhaps he went, instead, straight in to Lloyds, where his occupancy of an office stool brought him in to contact with Hercule Poirot.
One of Hasting's more unsung talents is his fluent command of French. When the maid, Célestine, is accused of pinching Mrs Opalsen's pearls at the Grand Metropolitan, he has no trouble in following her stream of "rapid and virulent French". At the Cavendish's dinner table he confesses to a "secret hankering to be a detective," because he "came across a little man in Belgium once, a very famous detective, and he quite inflamed me." It was while he was standing by the Pyramids with Poirot, trying vainly to reconcile him to the "cursed sand" that he remembered a holiday in Knocke-sur-mer with its "dunes impeccables". It doesn't seem too much to suppose that the young, linguistically gifted Hastings should have been sent to Belgium to investigate an insurance fraud. As it involved the then head of the Belgium Police, it must have been a fairly major affair. It's a great shame Hastings never saw fit to write the case up. Poirot triumphed ("his flair had been extraordinary") and Hastings obviously fell in to the role of amiable helper that was to be his lot in his relationship with Poirot.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Reasons To Be Cheerful
It was prize-giving night at school this week. It’s a lovely occasion, a chance for everyone to celebrate the hard work that goes into GCSE’s and A levels, a chance to cheer for all the kids who’ve done really well. If you’ve read the wonderful description of Gussie Fink-Nottle presenting the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School in PG Wodehouse’s Right-Ho, Jeeves! you’ll know the sort of thing I mean. No, no-one got plastered and yes, everything went fine, but the incidental details that PG puts in are spot on; details such as the well-scrubbed air everyone has and the gentle sound of a lot of people being quietly, benevolently, indulgently bored. Bored, that is, until the Main Event, which is Your Child getting their certificate. That’s not boring. That’s the best bit ever.
Actually, the whole thing was pretty good. If you only read the papers or watched TV, it’d never occur to you that any teenager is hardworking, conscientious and a nice person who’s fun to be with. Like a normal human being, in fact. Oh yes, and not some sort of mobile list of Problems. So it was good to sit in the school hall (an ordinary comprehensive school, at that) and listen to achievements being celebrated.
Celebration is something we could probably all do more of. I’ve not talking about acting like some sort of Kellog’s Cereal family, all bright smiles all the time (Please; shush; it’s breakfast, OK? Just let me go and chill out somewhere) or whooping with joy as the contestants do on America’s Next Top Model almost constantly. This would be trying. However, celebration doesn't usually just happen, it needs to be made to happen.
My friend, Angela Churm, had a TV play broadcast this week. It was an episode of Doctors, the BBC’s mid-day soap and she wrote it. Yo! Naturally enough, we celebrated; watched the episode, broke out the champagne, sang Happy Television Episode To You! and had a nice meal. Because, you see, if we hadn’t done, it would have all felt a bit flat. The BBC (a bit remiss, this) don’t send flowers and congratulations cards to their writers. But it was a real red-letter day. (Red letter days are called that because of the old custom of marking Saints’ or Holy Days (aka Holidays) in red on the Church calendar.)
So well done to all the kids with their certificates. And Angela. And thanks for the champagne!
Actually, the whole thing was pretty good. If you only read the papers or watched TV, it’d never occur to you that any teenager is hardworking, conscientious and a nice person who’s fun to be with. Like a normal human being, in fact. Oh yes, and not some sort of mobile list of Problems. So it was good to sit in the school hall (an ordinary comprehensive school, at that) and listen to achievements being celebrated.
Celebration is something we could probably all do more of. I’ve not talking about acting like some sort of Kellog’s Cereal family, all bright smiles all the time (Please; shush; it’s breakfast, OK? Just let me go and chill out somewhere) or whooping with joy as the contestants do on America’s Next Top Model almost constantly. This would be trying. However, celebration doesn't usually just happen, it needs to be made to happen.
My friend, Angela Churm, had a TV play broadcast this week. It was an episode of Doctors, the BBC’s mid-day soap and she wrote it. Yo! Naturally enough, we celebrated; watched the episode, broke out the champagne, sang Happy Television Episode To You! and had a nice meal. Because, you see, if we hadn’t done, it would have all felt a bit flat. The BBC (a bit remiss, this) don’t send flowers and congratulations cards to their writers. But it was a real red-letter day. (Red letter days are called that because of the old custom of marking Saints’ or Holy Days (aka Holidays) in red on the Church calendar.)
So well done to all the kids with their certificates. And Angela. And thanks for the champagne!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
When I got married, oh, quite a few years ago now, we went to Belgium for our honeymoon.
Yeah, right, I know Belgium isn’t perhaps the most romantic spot in the world – Greek islands or the south of France do perhaps win out there – but in those far-off days, with a limited budget, Greek islands seemed about as get-at-able as the dark side of the moon and Belgium was Abroad. There was different money, different-but-the-same food (Belgium chips are served with tartare sauce which was an absolute revelation; we even had garlic!!! Wow, this was really going it!) people talked in Foreign and, perhaps nicest of all, were the cafes.
The main square in Bruges has a choice of cafes which are an agreeable cross between an English pub and a French café terrace. You can eat and drink outside but, because the Belgium climate is as interesting as Britain’s, all the cafes have a big, quietish room in which blue-overalled whiskery-chinned blokes sip their beer or coffee, small children act like members of the human race and families relax. The décor runs to dark wood, brass and comfortable chairs and all in all, exudes an atmosphere of contented well-being.
And on the bar was a tray of poppies and a collecting tin. Now, in those fledgling days, I was surprised to see them. Remembrance Day poppies were British, surely? It was mid-October and these were the first poppies we’d seen that year. The lady behind the bar beamed as we picked up a poppy from the tray and beamed even more as she heard our accents.
Ingerlish?
Well, yes.
More beams and then, without any self-consciousness at all, she declaimed, word perfect and in a carrying voice, In Flander’s fields the poppies grow, between the crosses, row on row…
The whiskery blue-overalled stopped drinking and rustling their newspapers and nodded in grave approval. Children gazed in polite admiration and their parents listened attentively. I can’t imagine what would happen if the bar-maid in an English pub got overtaken by poetry but it wouldn’t be this reverent silence.
Belgium? Bruges? In Flanders’ fields…? Damnit, that’s where we were. If not in the fields, exactly, certainly in Flanders. Flanders. That’s why (uh, duh!) the Foreign being spoken wasn’t French but Flemish. This was where my granddad (and yours too, most probably) had fought the Great War. And the Belgiums hadn’t forgotten. It was one of those moments when history catches up with you in a rush.
Since then I’ve been back to Flanders’ Fields and realised just how much the poppy means to the Belgiums. I’ve been to the dressing station (a first port of call for the wounded) beside the Canal de l'Yser where Major John McCrea, a Canadian doctor, anguished by the death of his friend, wrote In Flander’s fields. The dressing-station looks for all the world like a set of old garages with the doors off. It’s not been spruced up and is more real, somehow, because of it.
A few hundred yards away, at the Menin gate in Ypres, the Last Post is played every night at eight o’clock. Every night, and the traffic stops and wreaths are laid and it all seems as if it could only happen once a year but no, it’s every night. The Ypres Fire Service have played the Last Post each evening from about 1920 or so. When the Nazis marched into Ypres in the Second World War, the ceremony was stopped. On the day the Nazis left, the Fire Service returned.
With all that in my head, I was disappointed this Sunday, when, at the local Remembrance Day ceremony at the War Memorial, we prayed that, We should commit ourselves to responsible living and faithful service, and to Work for a just future for all humanity and other laudable sentiments but we didn’t say the Poppy poem. I mean, you can’t disagree with the ideas, but I can’t see anyone, not even a Belgium barmaid, quoting them.
So here is Major McCrea’s poem. Perhaps you could drop a coin into a Poppy tin. It’s a very small way of keeping the faith McCrea talks about – and of helping the living, too.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Yeah, right, I know Belgium isn’t perhaps the most romantic spot in the world – Greek islands or the south of France do perhaps win out there – but in those far-off days, with a limited budget, Greek islands seemed about as get-at-able as the dark side of the moon and Belgium was Abroad. There was different money, different-but-the-same food (Belgium chips are served with tartare sauce which was an absolute revelation; we even had garlic!!! Wow, this was really going it!) people talked in Foreign and, perhaps nicest of all, were the cafes.
The main square in Bruges has a choice of cafes which are an agreeable cross between an English pub and a French café terrace. You can eat and drink outside but, because the Belgium climate is as interesting as Britain’s, all the cafes have a big, quietish room in which blue-overalled whiskery-chinned blokes sip their beer or coffee, small children act like members of the human race and families relax. The décor runs to dark wood, brass and comfortable chairs and all in all, exudes an atmosphere of contented well-being.
And on the bar was a tray of poppies and a collecting tin. Now, in those fledgling days, I was surprised to see them. Remembrance Day poppies were British, surely? It was mid-October and these were the first poppies we’d seen that year. The lady behind the bar beamed as we picked up a poppy from the tray and beamed even more as she heard our accents.
Ingerlish?
Well, yes.
More beams and then, without any self-consciousness at all, she declaimed, word perfect and in a carrying voice, In Flander’s fields the poppies grow, between the crosses, row on row…
The whiskery blue-overalled stopped drinking and rustling their newspapers and nodded in grave approval. Children gazed in polite admiration and their parents listened attentively. I can’t imagine what would happen if the bar-maid in an English pub got overtaken by poetry but it wouldn’t be this reverent silence.
Belgium? Bruges? In Flanders’ fields…? Damnit, that’s where we were. If not in the fields, exactly, certainly in Flanders. Flanders. That’s why (uh, duh!) the Foreign being spoken wasn’t French but Flemish. This was where my granddad (and yours too, most probably) had fought the Great War. And the Belgiums hadn’t forgotten. It was one of those moments when history catches up with you in a rush.
Since then I’ve been back to Flanders’ Fields and realised just how much the poppy means to the Belgiums. I’ve been to the dressing station (a first port of call for the wounded) beside the Canal de l'Yser where Major John McCrea, a Canadian doctor, anguished by the death of his friend, wrote In Flander’s fields. The dressing-station looks for all the world like a set of old garages with the doors off. It’s not been spruced up and is more real, somehow, because of it.
A few hundred yards away, at the Menin gate in Ypres, the Last Post is played every night at eight o’clock. Every night, and the traffic stops and wreaths are laid and it all seems as if it could only happen once a year but no, it’s every night. The Ypres Fire Service have played the Last Post each evening from about 1920 or so. When the Nazis marched into Ypres in the Second World War, the ceremony was stopped. On the day the Nazis left, the Fire Service returned.
With all that in my head, I was disappointed this Sunday, when, at the local Remembrance Day ceremony at the War Memorial, we prayed that, We should commit ourselves to responsible living and faithful service, and to Work for a just future for all humanity and other laudable sentiments but we didn’t say the Poppy poem. I mean, you can’t disagree with the ideas, but I can’t see anyone, not even a Belgium barmaid, quoting them.
So here is Major McCrea’s poem. Perhaps you could drop a coin into a Poppy tin. It’s a very small way of keeping the faith McCrea talks about – and of helping the living, too.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Monday, November 2, 2009
TheHeir's loom and Agatha Christie
Do you know where the word “Heirloom” comes from? I didn’t until last week. It was half-term and, like many another parent, I was faced with a family who wanted Something To Do. Now, by and large, the aforesaid family are fairly self-sufficient in the Something To Do department. One of the better aspects of everyone getting that much older, is that – by and large – all they really need is transport and money. Sometimes they even provide that for themselves. However, the ditact went out: we had to do something together.
That’s why we ended up at Quarry Bank Mill, Styal, Cheshire. It’s a cotton mill, one of the oldest in the country and is in a very picturesque part of the countryside because it was originally powered by water. When steam power came in, it made more sense for the factories to be huddled together in towns, but for a long period of time, a cotton mill had to be situated next to a river. The water wheel itself is massive and it’s a terrific sight to see it turning on its ponderous way.
The mill not only houses all the old machinery, it also acts as an exhibition centre for the story of cotton. A lady dressed in vaguely Eighteenth century peasant gear took us through the process on cotton manufacture as it used to be conducted at home from fluffy bits from plants to yards of cloth. The loom is a whacking great thing – about eight feet across by six foot high - housed in a wooden frame. A loom represented a serious investment on the part of a family and were passed down from generation to generation becoming, in fact, the Heir’s Loom. As cotton manufacture moved into factories, machines got bigger and much more powerful, but the essential process remained the same.
There’s an interesting Agatha Christie connection with this part of Cheshire. Agatha’s sister married a Manchester manufacturer, James Watts. (The enormous Watts' Warehouse in the centre of Manchester is now a hotel). Agatha spent a lot of time at the Watts' house, Abney Hall. Abney Hall is about five miles from Quarry Bank. She used the solidly Victorian Abney Hall as the blueprint for the aristocratic Chimneys in The Secret of Chimneys and a whole raft of other country houses and paid a delightful homage to the hall in the introduction to The Adventure of The Christmas Pudding. However, perhaps the most striking “borrowing” is the name of Styal village for the house at the heart of her first book, The Mysterious Affair At Styles. (I’m not sure if the change of spelling is deliberate, by the way; like many another outstanding writer, Agatha Christie’s spelling was lousy.)
One lovely feature of Quarry Bank Mill is the millowner’s garden. It's bounded by a large cliff of Old Red or Devonian Sandstone. The rock, which was laid down when the land which is now Britain was at the centre of a desert continent. As the name “Devonian” implies, it's common in Devon – the cliffs of Torquay, Agatha Christie’s home town are made of Devonian sandstone – and must have struck a chord with the young Agatha. The garden has only recently been opened to the public and still has a secret air about it. I'm willing to bet this was the garden she had in mind when she wrote about the very sinister Quarry Garden in the late novel, Halloween Party.
S’interesting what you can learn on a day out, isn’t it?
That’s why we ended up at Quarry Bank Mill, Styal, Cheshire. It’s a cotton mill, one of the oldest in the country and is in a very picturesque part of the countryside because it was originally powered by water. When steam power came in, it made more sense for the factories to be huddled together in towns, but for a long period of time, a cotton mill had to be situated next to a river. The water wheel itself is massive and it’s a terrific sight to see it turning on its ponderous way.
The mill not only houses all the old machinery, it also acts as an exhibition centre for the story of cotton. A lady dressed in vaguely Eighteenth century peasant gear took us through the process on cotton manufacture as it used to be conducted at home from fluffy bits from plants to yards of cloth. The loom is a whacking great thing – about eight feet across by six foot high - housed in a wooden frame. A loom represented a serious investment on the part of a family and were passed down from generation to generation becoming, in fact, the Heir’s Loom. As cotton manufacture moved into factories, machines got bigger and much more powerful, but the essential process remained the same.
There’s an interesting Agatha Christie connection with this part of Cheshire. Agatha’s sister married a Manchester manufacturer, James Watts. (The enormous Watts' Warehouse in the centre of Manchester is now a hotel). Agatha spent a lot of time at the Watts' house, Abney Hall. Abney Hall is about five miles from Quarry Bank. She used the solidly Victorian Abney Hall as the blueprint for the aristocratic Chimneys in The Secret of Chimneys and a whole raft of other country houses and paid a delightful homage to the hall in the introduction to The Adventure of The Christmas Pudding. However, perhaps the most striking “borrowing” is the name of Styal village for the house at the heart of her first book, The Mysterious Affair At Styles. (I’m not sure if the change of spelling is deliberate, by the way; like many another outstanding writer, Agatha Christie’s spelling was lousy.)
One lovely feature of Quarry Bank Mill is the millowner’s garden. It's bounded by a large cliff of Old Red or Devonian Sandstone. The rock, which was laid down when the land which is now Britain was at the centre of a desert continent. As the name “Devonian” implies, it's common in Devon – the cliffs of Torquay, Agatha Christie’s home town are made of Devonian sandstone – and must have struck a chord with the young Agatha. The garden has only recently been opened to the public and still has a secret air about it. I'm willing to bet this was the garden she had in mind when she wrote about the very sinister Quarry Garden in the late novel, Halloween Party.
S’interesting what you can learn on a day out, isn’t it?
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Webcon - Virtually There
In answer to the email that poured in after my blog next week, (cheers, Carol!) Snooker the cat is fully returned to health and has taken up her position as Most Senior Animal once more. She’s snubbed Arthur, wound up the kitten, Minou, and resumed being snooty to canine branch of the Gordon-Smith household. I was discussing Snooker’s internet presence (cats love computers; after all, there’s a mouse involved!) when she removed herself from her sofa, walked across the room and plonked herself firmly on my knee in a warm gesture of approval. That cat loves being a star!
It was Poisoned Pen’s virtual Crime-writing conference yesterday. If you want to have a look at the sort of ground covered, go to http://www.ppwebcon.com
It was a really good idea. From your own computer screen you could log in and listen to live interviews, text other guests in the virtual coffee shop (and my daughter Jenny actually brought me a cup of coffee while I was doing it, which added to the ambiance) watch book trailers, take part in panels etc., etc. It’s weird how, although you know the other participants are all actually in their own homes, when in conversation with them it feels as if they’re all in one place. This struck me particularly in the evening session I took part in with Aileen Baron, broadcast on Blogtalk Radio. One of the other guests on the show was Jane Finnis. Jane’s contributions are always worth listening to, as she thinks very quickly and always has something to say worth listening to. Jane’s Roman mysteries are published by Poisoned Pen (USA) but she actually lives in Yorkshire, a matter of 80 miles or so from where I am in Manchester.
After having kicked the topic round thoroughly for half an hour or so, we signed off. It was really odd afterwards to ring Jane and do the telephone equivalent of going for a drink in the bar. It was hard to believe that somehow or other she hadn’t been in America. After all, her voice had been coming from America for the last half-hour. I’m sure there’s a good juicy Mystery Clue there somewhere. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure Dorothy L Sayers used the same notion in a short story. Damn.
The topic was Cozy Thrillers, as in should there be a new genre, called a Cozy Thriller. As assiduous readers will know, I’m not a huge fan (!) of the word “Cozy” applied to mystery/crime stories. It’s commercial death in the UK, but the Americans have a much more relaxed approach to the concept. What Aileen Baron was actually arguing for was intelligence in Thrillers, something we could all do with a bit more of. As far as I could tell, the conversation went really well – but I still don’t like the word “Cozy”!
It was Poisoned Pen’s virtual Crime-writing conference yesterday. If you want to have a look at the sort of ground covered, go to http://www.ppwebcon.com
It was a really good idea. From your own computer screen you could log in and listen to live interviews, text other guests in the virtual coffee shop (and my daughter Jenny actually brought me a cup of coffee while I was doing it, which added to the ambiance) watch book trailers, take part in panels etc., etc. It’s weird how, although you know the other participants are all actually in their own homes, when in conversation with them it feels as if they’re all in one place. This struck me particularly in the evening session I took part in with Aileen Baron, broadcast on Blogtalk Radio. One of the other guests on the show was Jane Finnis. Jane’s contributions are always worth listening to, as she thinks very quickly and always has something to say worth listening to. Jane’s Roman mysteries are published by Poisoned Pen (USA) but she actually lives in Yorkshire, a matter of 80 miles or so from where I am in Manchester.
After having kicked the topic round thoroughly for half an hour or so, we signed off. It was really odd afterwards to ring Jane and do the telephone equivalent of going for a drink in the bar. It was hard to believe that somehow or other she hadn’t been in America. After all, her voice had been coming from America for the last half-hour. I’m sure there’s a good juicy Mystery Clue there somewhere. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure Dorothy L Sayers used the same notion in a short story. Damn.
The topic was Cozy Thrillers, as in should there be a new genre, called a Cozy Thriller. As assiduous readers will know, I’m not a huge fan (!) of the word “Cozy” applied to mystery/crime stories. It’s commercial death in the UK, but the Americans have a much more relaxed approach to the concept. What Aileen Baron was actually arguing for was intelligence in Thrillers, something we could all do with a bit more of. As far as I could tell, the conversation went really well – but I still don’t like the word “Cozy”!
Monday, October 19, 2009
The case of the Circular Cat
Snooker the cat gave us a scare on Saturday morning. I was lying, deep in the dreamless, when my beloved husband appeared by the bed, not with the Saturday morning tea and toast (Marmite and marmalade – noooo, not all mixed up, separately of course!) but with the injunction to Get Up! The Cat’s Acting Strangely.
Poor old Snooker was indeed acting strangely. She was walking round in a circle, for all the world as if someone had nailed her right-hand paw to the floor, with her neck all twisted. Hum. So it was off to the vets and an anxious wait. Now partly the anxiety was caused by the idea of old fur-face having injured herself and – I must admit – partly from the idea of the Vet’s bill. These animals can’t half cost, you know, and Snooker, who turned up as a stray, cost a few hundred quid in the first month or so. Gulp. So it was with some relief when the vet said there was nothing to worry about. Really? I asked, looking at our circular cat. Yep, nothing much. It’s a balance problem. It happens in older animals. Like a stroke? Nothing so dramatic. It’s a Latin name known to vets which means your cat’s gone wobbly and is going round in circles. Gosh. I’ll just give her this anti-inflammatory injection and you should see an improvement. And he did (brave man) and it worked. A day’s dozing, followed by being tempted to eat (tuna and chicken) and one cat, right as rain, able to walk in a straight line, emerged once more.
Now, apart from the brief moment of grief at the sight of the Gordon-Smith finances being dipped into by yet another ruddy animal, what’s the point of the story? Nothing much, unless your cat gets a fit of the circles, you might find it reassuring. It just happened, that’s all. And that’s the difference between fiction and real life.
In real life, stuff comes along, starts, muddles, finishes and doesn’t really amount to much. A story, although it can seem like real life, isn’t like this. If a Poor Old Woman in the middle of the woods scams lunch off the Seventh Son, it’s not because she’s hungry and there’s not a MacDonalds for miles, it’s because she’s testing his fitness to rescue a Princess or recover a Great Jewel or a Magic Lamp or what-have-you. If Hercule Poirot announces a case is the most baffling of his career, we know it’s a wind-up. Hastings might not get it but Hercule will. If Frodo’s asked to drop a magic ring into Mount Doom, somehow or other Frodo will do it.
The stuff on the way’s important too. In A Fete Worse Than Death Jack comes across an old friend, Bingo Romer-Stuart. I needed a way for Jack to get hold of records at the War Office and so I dreamed up Bingo, a Brigadier, who works at the War Office, threw him enough back-story (about two lines, I think) to make him a credible old friend, and there we were. Bingo, in fact. I could have added a page or so about Bingo – he was quite clear in my mind – but the reader would have signed off out of sheer boredom long before I’d finished. Everything in the story has to add to the story.
Oh, and the cat’s fine too.
Poor old Snooker was indeed acting strangely. She was walking round in a circle, for all the world as if someone had nailed her right-hand paw to the floor, with her neck all twisted. Hum. So it was off to the vets and an anxious wait. Now partly the anxiety was caused by the idea of old fur-face having injured herself and – I must admit – partly from the idea of the Vet’s bill. These animals can’t half cost, you know, and Snooker, who turned up as a stray, cost a few hundred quid in the first month or so. Gulp. So it was with some relief when the vet said there was nothing to worry about. Really? I asked, looking at our circular cat. Yep, nothing much. It’s a balance problem. It happens in older animals. Like a stroke? Nothing so dramatic. It’s a Latin name known to vets which means your cat’s gone wobbly and is going round in circles. Gosh. I’ll just give her this anti-inflammatory injection and you should see an improvement. And he did (brave man) and it worked. A day’s dozing, followed by being tempted to eat (tuna and chicken) and one cat, right as rain, able to walk in a straight line, emerged once more.
Now, apart from the brief moment of grief at the sight of the Gordon-Smith finances being dipped into by yet another ruddy animal, what’s the point of the story? Nothing much, unless your cat gets a fit of the circles, you might find it reassuring. It just happened, that’s all. And that’s the difference between fiction and real life.
In real life, stuff comes along, starts, muddles, finishes and doesn’t really amount to much. A story, although it can seem like real life, isn’t like this. If a Poor Old Woman in the middle of the woods scams lunch off the Seventh Son, it’s not because she’s hungry and there’s not a MacDonalds for miles, it’s because she’s testing his fitness to rescue a Princess or recover a Great Jewel or a Magic Lamp or what-have-you. If Hercule Poirot announces a case is the most baffling of his career, we know it’s a wind-up. Hastings might not get it but Hercule will. If Frodo’s asked to drop a magic ring into Mount Doom, somehow or other Frodo will do it.
The stuff on the way’s important too. In A Fete Worse Than Death Jack comes across an old friend, Bingo Romer-Stuart. I needed a way for Jack to get hold of records at the War Office and so I dreamed up Bingo, a Brigadier, who works at the War Office, threw him enough back-story (about two lines, I think) to make him a credible old friend, and there we were. Bingo, in fact. I could have added a page or so about Bingo – he was quite clear in my mind – but the reader would have signed off out of sheer boredom long before I’d finished. Everything in the story has to add to the story.
Oh, and the cat’s fine too.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Food, Glorious Food
There’s been a lot of discussion about food this week on the DorothyL American crime and detective story website. Rather to my surprise, there’s a whole lot of Americans who feel warm and fluffy inside at the thought of Treacle Pud, Bisto gravy (yes, honestly!) Clotted Cream, Scones, Jam, Yorkshire Pudding, etc, etc. And I haven’t even mentioned Toad In The Hole! You might have noticed something about the above dishes; they’re all very definitely comfort food, childhood favourites that bring warm feelings of love and care with them, in a way that lettuce just doesn’t.
Unless you’re a Flopsy Bunny, of course.
It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is ‘soporific’. I have never felt sleepy after eating lettuces; but then, I am not a rabbit.
As well as being familiar and comforting, food can also be a great shortcut to finding out about another place. Considering all food is either Meat, Fish or Veg., it’s astonishing how different food is different various countries. I like spinach and cheese, for example, but I’d never thought of putting them in a pie until I bought one on a Berlin railway station caff. (Train stations in Germany are great – full of food!) Curried sausage, again in Berlin, was weirdly nice and my local railway station does black peas and liver, onions and mash to a turn.
Just as food is a shortcut to another country, food in books can tell you a lot about character and place. When Death in Terry Prachett’s Discworld tells us he could murder a curry – sorry, that should be, “I COULD MURDER A CURRY,” – we know that Death may come to everyone but he isn’t out to get you. When Mrs Lacey in Agatha Christie’s The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding starts detailing the menu, we know that’s she essentially a nice, kindly woman with a large guest list. OK, we could probably get to know that anyway, but it’s an economical way of getting the information across:
“…the oyster soup and the turkey – two turkey, one boiled and one roast – and the plum pudding with the ring and the bachelor’s button…. All the old desserts, the Elvas plums and Carlsbad fruits and almonds and raisins and crystallised fruit and ginger.” As we’ve previously seen Hercule get to grips with the calories, we’re not surprised when he says, “You arouse my gastronomic juices, Madame!” Later, in the same story, when he goes to interview the cook, yes he’s detecting, but his heartfelt praise of Mrs Ross’s cooking touches on lyrical. “Above all puddings,” continued Poirot, well launched now on a kind of rhapsody, “is the Christmas plum pudding such as we have eaten today.”
One of my favourite books of all time, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, uses food a lot, from Edmund’s acceptance of The White Witch’s Turkish Delight (incidentally, Lord Peter Wimsey traps a villain with Turkish Delight in Strong Poison) to the fish supper the Pevensey children share with the beavers in Narnia (…There’s nothing to beat good freshwater fish if you eat it when it has been alive half an hour ago and has come out of the pan half a minute ago. And when they had finished the fish, Mrs Beaver brought unexpectedly out of the oven a great and gloriously sticky marmalade roll…”) to the sadness evoked by picture Lewis paints of the happy tea-party with Fox and Squirrel and the other animals destroyed by the White Witch.
A hugely enjoyable bit (and a deeply Roman bit) of Jane Finnis’s excellent A Bitter Chill is her description of the Saturnalia feast enjoyed in Ancient Brit Land. “…Roast piglets, which they arranged around the sow, and platters decorated like birds’ nest containing chickens, ducks, geese and doves…. There were rich custards…and fruits to go with them, peaches and cherries in wine. Hazelnuts and walnuts, already shelled, were brought round on silver trays, and I counted nine kinds of cheese, offered with fresh warm bread.”
It’s good, isn’t it? I was right there, reading that description. When Matthew, in Anne of Green Gables buys Anne some little chocolate sweeties, we’re as touched as Anne and – as we’re talking about Canadian authors – I can’t think of Louis Penny’s Three Pines without my mouth automatically watering, so loving and lavish is the description of the food. It’s no wonder houses don’t come up for sale very often in Three Pines; you’d have to move me out with a crowbar, the food’s so good.
A good few subscribers to DorothyL were interested in a recipe I mentioned for Steamed Syrup Pudding done in the microwave. Here it is. Happy eating – and reading!
Steamed Sponge Pud (microwave)
You need a 1 ½ pint or 900 ml pudding bowl that can go in the microwave. Plastic is great.
Some cling film (food wrap?) That clingy plastic film for food, anyway, OR a microwave plate cover.
4 ounces/100grams of self-raising flour
2 ounces/50 grams of suet.*
2 ounces/50 grams of sugar, dark soft brown for preference
1 teaspoon of baking powder (about 2 pinches)
3 fluid ounces/75 ml milk
1 beaten egg
1 teaspoonful (about the lid of the bottle full) of vanilla essence
*The recipe calls for suet. I don’t know if you have suet, but if not, melt butter or margarine and use that. The point is to get the fat distributed throughout the pud.
Lightly grease the pud bowl
Put about 3 tablespoons of syrup in the base. Give it a nice good dollop. Golden syrup or Maple syrup (is Corn syrup sweet and golden? If so, then I bet that would work fine too.) Then give it 30 seconds or so in the microwave to make it more liquid.
Mix all the ingredients together and put them in the bowl
Cover with film or the plate cover
Cook at ¾ power (Power Level 6 or so) for 4 minutes, then at full power for 1 minute.
As microwaves vary, just have a look and see if it looks cooked but it doesn’t take long.
Take out of the oven, leave to stand for about two minutes, then turn upside down onto a plate and remove the pud basin. All the yummy syrup comes down the side of the pud.
This lovely served with cream, custard (if available!) or vanilla ice-cream.
It’s dead easy to do a chocolate version of this by putting cocoa (chocolate powder) to the mixture and replacing the syrup with melted chocolate. A fruit version is nice, too, with pineapple or whatever added to the syrup
Unless you’re a Flopsy Bunny, of course.
It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is ‘soporific’. I have never felt sleepy after eating lettuces; but then, I am not a rabbit.
As well as being familiar and comforting, food can also be a great shortcut to finding out about another place. Considering all food is either Meat, Fish or Veg., it’s astonishing how different food is different various countries. I like spinach and cheese, for example, but I’d never thought of putting them in a pie until I bought one on a Berlin railway station caff. (Train stations in Germany are great – full of food!) Curried sausage, again in Berlin, was weirdly nice and my local railway station does black peas and liver, onions and mash to a turn.
Just as food is a shortcut to another country, food in books can tell you a lot about character and place. When Death in Terry Prachett’s Discworld tells us he could murder a curry – sorry, that should be, “I COULD MURDER A CURRY,” – we know that Death may come to everyone but he isn’t out to get you. When Mrs Lacey in Agatha Christie’s The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding starts detailing the menu, we know that’s she essentially a nice, kindly woman with a large guest list. OK, we could probably get to know that anyway, but it’s an economical way of getting the information across:
“…the oyster soup and the turkey – two turkey, one boiled and one roast – and the plum pudding with the ring and the bachelor’s button…. All the old desserts, the Elvas plums and Carlsbad fruits and almonds and raisins and crystallised fruit and ginger.” As we’ve previously seen Hercule get to grips with the calories, we’re not surprised when he says, “You arouse my gastronomic juices, Madame!” Later, in the same story, when he goes to interview the cook, yes he’s detecting, but his heartfelt praise of Mrs Ross’s cooking touches on lyrical. “Above all puddings,” continued Poirot, well launched now on a kind of rhapsody, “is the Christmas plum pudding such as we have eaten today.”
One of my favourite books of all time, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, uses food a lot, from Edmund’s acceptance of The White Witch’s Turkish Delight (incidentally, Lord Peter Wimsey traps a villain with Turkish Delight in Strong Poison) to the fish supper the Pevensey children share with the beavers in Narnia (…There’s nothing to beat good freshwater fish if you eat it when it has been alive half an hour ago and has come out of the pan half a minute ago. And when they had finished the fish, Mrs Beaver brought unexpectedly out of the oven a great and gloriously sticky marmalade roll…”) to the sadness evoked by picture Lewis paints of the happy tea-party with Fox and Squirrel and the other animals destroyed by the White Witch.
A hugely enjoyable bit (and a deeply Roman bit) of Jane Finnis’s excellent A Bitter Chill is her description of the Saturnalia feast enjoyed in Ancient Brit Land. “…Roast piglets, which they arranged around the sow, and platters decorated like birds’ nest containing chickens, ducks, geese and doves…. There were rich custards…and fruits to go with them, peaches and cherries in wine. Hazelnuts and walnuts, already shelled, were brought round on silver trays, and I counted nine kinds of cheese, offered with fresh warm bread.”
It’s good, isn’t it? I was right there, reading that description. When Matthew, in Anne of Green Gables buys Anne some little chocolate sweeties, we’re as touched as Anne and – as we’re talking about Canadian authors – I can’t think of Louis Penny’s Three Pines without my mouth automatically watering, so loving and lavish is the description of the food. It’s no wonder houses don’t come up for sale very often in Three Pines; you’d have to move me out with a crowbar, the food’s so good.
A good few subscribers to DorothyL were interested in a recipe I mentioned for Steamed Syrup Pudding done in the microwave. Here it is. Happy eating – and reading!
Steamed Sponge Pud (microwave)
You need a 1 ½ pint or 900 ml pudding bowl that can go in the microwave. Plastic is great.
Some cling film (food wrap?) That clingy plastic film for food, anyway, OR a microwave plate cover.
4 ounces/100grams of self-raising flour
2 ounces/50 grams of suet.*
2 ounces/50 grams of sugar, dark soft brown for preference
1 teaspoon of baking powder (about 2 pinches)
3 fluid ounces/75 ml milk
1 beaten egg
1 teaspoonful (about the lid of the bottle full) of vanilla essence
*The recipe calls for suet. I don’t know if you have suet, but if not, melt butter or margarine and use that. The point is to get the fat distributed throughout the pud.
Lightly grease the pud bowl
Put about 3 tablespoons of syrup in the base. Give it a nice good dollop. Golden syrup or Maple syrup (is Corn syrup sweet and golden? If so, then I bet that would work fine too.) Then give it 30 seconds or so in the microwave to make it more liquid.
Mix all the ingredients together and put them in the bowl
Cover with film or the plate cover
Cook at ¾ power (Power Level 6 or so) for 4 minutes, then at full power for 1 minute.
As microwaves vary, just have a look and see if it looks cooked but it doesn’t take long.
Take out of the oven, leave to stand for about two minutes, then turn upside down onto a plate and remove the pud basin. All the yummy syrup comes down the side of the pud.
This lovely served with cream, custard (if available!) or vanilla ice-cream.
It’s dead easy to do a chocolate version of this by putting cocoa (chocolate powder) to the mixture and replacing the syrup with melted chocolate. A fruit version is nice, too, with pineapple or whatever added to the syrup
Sunday, October 4, 2009
I’ve been off air, so to speak, for the last few weeks. There hasn’t been a crisis – well, only the usual sort of stuff – or any dramas or even any mild alarms but the internet decided to curl up and die. Not so long ago we decided to swap service providers to Sky and, while we were about it, get Sky TV for my Rugby-mad husband and daughter. (I have five daughters but only one follows in her father’s footsteps.) (They sit at the far end of Edgley Park stadium, Stockport, on a Friday night watching Sale Sharks; say hi if you see them or wave at the TV.) The actual event that swayed it was The Ashes. Now, yes, I know, Ashes are cricket but it took daughter about half a nano second to work out that watching the cricket meant we could also watch the rugby. And she does. Gosh, she so does.
It took the rest of the off-spring about a whole nano-second to work out that satellite TV meant not just sport but America’s Next Top Model and a zillion other goodies such as new Simpsons, endless Futurama and a whole raft of shows where someone goes and decorates somebody else’s house. (I don’t know who these people are who zap in, decorate, zap out again and never seem to stop for a cup of tea. I wish I did. The bathroom could do with a once-over and a new kitchen would be nice.)
Anyway, while we were about it, we swapped the broadband to Sky and, as always when asked to change its ways, the computer sat in a corner and sulked. When asked (very politely) to recognize the new provider, it reacted with all the subtle charm of a six-year old boy asked to kiss Great Aunt Sarah With A Hairy Chin and say Thank You for the lovely socks. It took two new routers and some serious enticement from the local Rent-A-Geek computer shop before it reluctantly scuffed its feet and came out to play once more.
S’weird how cut off you feel without the internet, isn’t it?
Talking about being cut off, I’m totally deaf in one ear. I’ve had a perfectly foul cold and one ear has signed off completely. I suppose, as human beings can get used to anything, more or less, that I’d get used to it if I was permanently one ear cemented shut, but I’m hoping that the doctor will be able to give me something to shift it. Mind you, the member of the G-S household who probably feels more cut-off than most is the newest member, the kitten Minou. She’s been taken for The Op and has to wear a plastic bucket arrangement so she won’t chew the stitches. Here’s a picture of her looking puzzled.
And, if you can stand some serious cuteness, here’s another picture of her curled up with Lucky, the (three-legged) dog, who will stand a lot of kitten as long as he’s allowed to sprawl in front of the fire.
It took the rest of the off-spring about a whole nano-second to work out that satellite TV meant not just sport but America’s Next Top Model and a zillion other goodies such as new Simpsons, endless Futurama and a whole raft of shows where someone goes and decorates somebody else’s house. (I don’t know who these people are who zap in, decorate, zap out again and never seem to stop for a cup of tea. I wish I did. The bathroom could do with a once-over and a new kitchen would be nice.)
Anyway, while we were about it, we swapped the broadband to Sky and, as always when asked to change its ways, the computer sat in a corner and sulked. When asked (very politely) to recognize the new provider, it reacted with all the subtle charm of a six-year old boy asked to kiss Great Aunt Sarah With A Hairy Chin and say Thank You for the lovely socks. It took two new routers and some serious enticement from the local Rent-A-Geek computer shop before it reluctantly scuffed its feet and came out to play once more.
S’weird how cut off you feel without the internet, isn’t it?
Talking about being cut off, I’m totally deaf in one ear. I’ve had a perfectly foul cold and one ear has signed off completely. I suppose, as human beings can get used to anything, more or less, that I’d get used to it if I was permanently one ear cemented shut, but I’m hoping that the doctor will be able to give me something to shift it. Mind you, the member of the G-S household who probably feels more cut-off than most is the newest member, the kitten Minou. She’s been taken for The Op and has to wear a plastic bucket arrangement so she won’t chew the stitches. Here’s a picture of her looking puzzled.
And, if you can stand some serious cuteness, here’s another picture of her curled up with Lucky, the (three-legged) dog, who will stand a lot of kitten as long as he’s allowed to sprawl in front of the fire.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Zen and the Thirty-Nine Steps
As I mentioned in the last blog, I was at St. Hilda’s mystery conference where – amongst other goodies – Natasha Cooper talked about John Buchan. She made the interesting comment that Buchan’s work always contains a quest for identity and, like all good critical comments, that was really illuminating. I love JB and whole passages in his books came to life again as I mentally reviewed them in the light of what Natasha said.
Take The 39 Steps for instance. This book suffers, like other very well-known books, from people sure they’ve read the book whereas they’ve actually seen the Hitchcock film. There’s no problem with the Hitchcock film against which all other film adaptations are measured (Buchan himself enjoyed it very much) but it isn’t the book.
Now, the quest for identity in The 39 Steps can result in hilarity. Richard Hannay has an uncanny ability in the matter of disguises. Disguise, of course, was de rigueur for any detective or thriller hero of the time, more or less by public demand. Sherlock Holmes never felt happier than fooling Dr Watson whilst disguised as a tramp, a Lascar seaman, an out-of-work groom or whatever, and where Sherlock trod, fictional heroes for the next thirty or forty years or so more or less either reacted to or from this Canonical pattern, and Hannay faithfully followed suite.
He meets his match, of course, in the sinister chief of the Black Stone gang, who’s even better at disguise than Hannay. (The chief of the Black Stone, Graf von Schwabing, was such a useful villian, by the way, that Hannay has to defeat him all over again in Mr Standfast and this time, unlike a Fu Manchu, for instance, the elusive Big Black Spider of German Intelligence stayed dead.)
Now, so far, so jolly. However, the beginning of The 39 Steps does hint at something a little deeper. Hannay, in that hot summer on the eve of War, has recently arrived from South Africa, a mining engineer of Scottish descent who has made his money. Like many another Buchan hero, he’s achieved success and, having got it, doesn’t know what to do with himself. He doesn’t, in fact, know quite who he is. Fortunately for Hannay, the unfortunate Scudder, to whom he’s given houseroom, ends up pinned to the floor of the flat with a long dagger and Hannay, immediately suspected by the police, disguises himself as a milkman and – for no very clear reason – runs off to Scotland.
Hannay spends the rest of the book in a bewildering series of disguises and – follow me closely – it’s only when he’s pretending to be someone else that he feels he’s recovered the truth of who he really is. Not only that, but Hannay, being Hannay, and not Sherlock Holmes, feels he has to explain his facility with disguise. He does it by citing his old fried, Peter Pindaar, the Boer hunter, who has told Hannay that if he wants to disguise himself properly – this obviously being a prime need in South Africa – he has to do more than put on another man’s clothes, he has to be the other man; he has to take on his thoughts, his feelings and his identity. It’s significant, isn’t it?
I’ve talked about The 39 Steps because it’s Buchan’s best-known book. Immensely readable, it hurtles along and is the book that has ensured the rest of the Buchan thrillers are continuously in print. However, in the rest of Buchan, the same themes crop up over and over again; success is greatly prized – and Buchan was a Border Scot with a proper appreciation of success – but it always leaves a “what now?” feeling. Buchan’s books usually start with a feeling of ennui. Then the hero has to lose himself; a process is that always physically demanding, usually calling for him to live on the edge of whatever society he’s in and almost always involves disguise.
I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to see this as having it’s roots in Buchan’s abiding uncertainty about his world. A poor boy, he had taken virtually every prize the world had to offer. He was a famous author, yes, but also figured prominently in politics. An enthusiastic hunter, fisherman, walker and mountaineer, he was forced by wretched ill-health to spend long periods as an invalid. He ended up as the greatly-loved Governor-General of Canada and even achieved, with a blissfully happy marriage, a successful home-life. (So does Hannay; one feels Hannay’s home-life is a reflection of Buchan’s but with fewer megalomaniacs plotting to take over the world.) Was it enough? Perhaps not.
It’s very touching that in Sick Heart River, his most introspective book and the one he completed a few days before his own death, Edward Leithen, the dying hero, is seen to be more, far more, than the English gentleman and Decent Chap that his companions thought him. At long last, he finds peace. It reads like an epitaph for his author.
Take The 39 Steps for instance. This book suffers, like other very well-known books, from people sure they’ve read the book whereas they’ve actually seen the Hitchcock film. There’s no problem with the Hitchcock film against which all other film adaptations are measured (Buchan himself enjoyed it very much) but it isn’t the book.
Now, the quest for identity in The 39 Steps can result in hilarity. Richard Hannay has an uncanny ability in the matter of disguises. Disguise, of course, was de rigueur for any detective or thriller hero of the time, more or less by public demand. Sherlock Holmes never felt happier than fooling Dr Watson whilst disguised as a tramp, a Lascar seaman, an out-of-work groom or whatever, and where Sherlock trod, fictional heroes for the next thirty or forty years or so more or less either reacted to or from this Canonical pattern, and Hannay faithfully followed suite.
He meets his match, of course, in the sinister chief of the Black Stone gang, who’s even better at disguise than Hannay. (The chief of the Black Stone, Graf von Schwabing, was such a useful villian, by the way, that Hannay has to defeat him all over again in Mr Standfast and this time, unlike a Fu Manchu, for instance, the elusive Big Black Spider of German Intelligence stayed dead.)
Now, so far, so jolly. However, the beginning of The 39 Steps does hint at something a little deeper. Hannay, in that hot summer on the eve of War, has recently arrived from South Africa, a mining engineer of Scottish descent who has made his money. Like many another Buchan hero, he’s achieved success and, having got it, doesn’t know what to do with himself. He doesn’t, in fact, know quite who he is. Fortunately for Hannay, the unfortunate Scudder, to whom he’s given houseroom, ends up pinned to the floor of the flat with a long dagger and Hannay, immediately suspected by the police, disguises himself as a milkman and – for no very clear reason – runs off to Scotland.
Hannay spends the rest of the book in a bewildering series of disguises and – follow me closely – it’s only when he’s pretending to be someone else that he feels he’s recovered the truth of who he really is. Not only that, but Hannay, being Hannay, and not Sherlock Holmes, feels he has to explain his facility with disguise. He does it by citing his old fried, Peter Pindaar, the Boer hunter, who has told Hannay that if he wants to disguise himself properly – this obviously being a prime need in South Africa – he has to do more than put on another man’s clothes, he has to be the other man; he has to take on his thoughts, his feelings and his identity. It’s significant, isn’t it?
I’ve talked about The 39 Steps because it’s Buchan’s best-known book. Immensely readable, it hurtles along and is the book that has ensured the rest of the Buchan thrillers are continuously in print. However, in the rest of Buchan, the same themes crop up over and over again; success is greatly prized – and Buchan was a Border Scot with a proper appreciation of success – but it always leaves a “what now?” feeling. Buchan’s books usually start with a feeling of ennui. Then the hero has to lose himself; a process is that always physically demanding, usually calling for him to live on the edge of whatever society he’s in and almost always involves disguise.
I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to see this as having it’s roots in Buchan’s abiding uncertainty about his world. A poor boy, he had taken virtually every prize the world had to offer. He was a famous author, yes, but also figured prominently in politics. An enthusiastic hunter, fisherman, walker and mountaineer, he was forced by wretched ill-health to spend long periods as an invalid. He ended up as the greatly-loved Governor-General of Canada and even achieved, with a blissfully happy marriage, a successful home-life. (So does Hannay; one feels Hannay’s home-life is a reflection of Buchan’s but with fewer megalomaniacs plotting to take over the world.) Was it enough? Perhaps not.
It’s very touching that in Sick Heart River, his most introspective book and the one he completed a few days before his own death, Edward Leithen, the dying hero, is seen to be more, far more, than the English gentleman and Decent Chap that his companions thought him. At long last, he finds peace. It reads like an epitaph for his author.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
St Hilda's, August 2009
It was the Mystery and Crime conference at St Hilda’s, Oxford last weekend (21st-23rd August) and, as last year people seemed to be queuing round the block to say, “Are you coming to St Hilda’s?” Yours Truly put in an appearance.
Gosh, I can see why people like it. St Hilda’s is a lovely venue. It’s a Victorian college, founded in 1893, and the main building has a real grace and charm. The setting is perfect, with the river running close to the main door with lawns and trees. The accommodation is fine, if a bit student-y (it is a college, after all) and the Garden Building, where I was, has a complicated sort of trellis arrangement on the outside.
As a picture paints a thousand words, so to speak, here’s what it looks like from the outside:
Goodness knows what all the woodwork is for, but I can tell you, it’s great for hanging out the white jeans and white tee-shirt that I managed to slosh red wine down. I don’t know what it is about me, wine and anything coloured white but, as sure as night follows day, the three things will come together and then it’s Ho for the tube of travel wash and some impromptu laundry.
The highlight of Friday night was, without a doubt, the after-dinner speech by Priscilla Masters on the subject of Luck and her early life. Priscilla’s parents, who sound an incredibly generous and open-hearted couple, adopted Priscilla and six other children (I think it was six; I was laughing too hard to take notes) the children coming from all four corners of the globe.
The great thing about St Hilda’s is that it doesn’t loose sight of the fact it’s an academic institution. The speakers present proper papers and I knew I was going to enjoy it when the very first one was Jill Paton Walsh on Lord Peter Wimsey’s first case, the Attenbury emeralds, followed by Kate Charles on Margery Allingham. Theology, morals, psychology and motivation all got thoroughly analysed and it set the tone for the weekend. It’s great to have serious stuff like this but treated with enough humour – and there was lots of humour – to lighten the discussion. It was a bit like the best conversation in the pub who’ve ever had and set the standard of the papers to follow.
Privately, Jane Finnis and myself descended to personalities over a bottle of wine. I essayed the theory that Rudyard Kipling’s short stories were complicated (Mrs Bathhurst to you, Jane!) Jane took the opposite view and the ensuing literary discussion (complete with quotes, poetry and yet more wine) was one of the best bits of the weekend.
The only thing wrong with St Hilda’s isn’t a televisions and I didn’t have a radio. Dear Lord. This, with England’s fate hanging in the balance at the Oval (Cricket, yes, we’re talking about cricket) was a severe deprivation. Calls home filled some of the void and so did Len Tyler’s frequent trips to his car radio. (“We should be at the Oval, Dolores; Flintoff’s hitting them all over the ground.”)
It was Len (L.C.)Tyler who pondered one of the conundrums of the weekend; when is a Man a Woman?
Now, those of you who know Len, author of the excellent The Herring Seller’s Apprentice, will know that he isn’t given to such deeply philosophical sounding speculations. Not shortly after breakfast, anyway. I mean, it sounds like something almost German in its complexity. What it actually was about was the annual meeting of Mystery Women, the group set up by Lizzie Hayes. I asked if he was attending and hastened to reassure him that mere sex was no barrier. After all, Martin Edwards and Andrew Taylor are members and Andrew’s got the tee-shirt to prove it! Len duly attended and after that came the punting.
Okay, hands up, I was pants. Priscilla Masters, who was watching my attempts from the front of the boat (she was sort of lured into it) eventually took matters into her own hands, suggested I shipped the punt-pole and paddled us up the river. And back.
And, as I’d been silly enough to get in a punt wearing white jeans, it was back to the laundry again….
Gosh, I can see why people like it. St Hilda’s is a lovely venue. It’s a Victorian college, founded in 1893, and the main building has a real grace and charm. The setting is perfect, with the river running close to the main door with lawns and trees. The accommodation is fine, if a bit student-y (it is a college, after all) and the Garden Building, where I was, has a complicated sort of trellis arrangement on the outside.
As a picture paints a thousand words, so to speak, here’s what it looks like from the outside:
Goodness knows what all the woodwork is for, but I can tell you, it’s great for hanging out the white jeans and white tee-shirt that I managed to slosh red wine down. I don’t know what it is about me, wine and anything coloured white but, as sure as night follows day, the three things will come together and then it’s Ho for the tube of travel wash and some impromptu laundry.
The highlight of Friday night was, without a doubt, the after-dinner speech by Priscilla Masters on the subject of Luck and her early life. Priscilla’s parents, who sound an incredibly generous and open-hearted couple, adopted Priscilla and six other children (I think it was six; I was laughing too hard to take notes) the children coming from all four corners of the globe.
The great thing about St Hilda’s is that it doesn’t loose sight of the fact it’s an academic institution. The speakers present proper papers and I knew I was going to enjoy it when the very first one was Jill Paton Walsh on Lord Peter Wimsey’s first case, the Attenbury emeralds, followed by Kate Charles on Margery Allingham. Theology, morals, psychology and motivation all got thoroughly analysed and it set the tone for the weekend. It’s great to have serious stuff like this but treated with enough humour – and there was lots of humour – to lighten the discussion. It was a bit like the best conversation in the pub who’ve ever had and set the standard of the papers to follow.
Privately, Jane Finnis and myself descended to personalities over a bottle of wine. I essayed the theory that Rudyard Kipling’s short stories were complicated (Mrs Bathhurst to you, Jane!) Jane took the opposite view and the ensuing literary discussion (complete with quotes, poetry and yet more wine) was one of the best bits of the weekend.
The only thing wrong with St Hilda’s isn’t a televisions and I didn’t have a radio. Dear Lord. This, with England’s fate hanging in the balance at the Oval (Cricket, yes, we’re talking about cricket) was a severe deprivation. Calls home filled some of the void and so did Len Tyler’s frequent trips to his car radio. (“We should be at the Oval, Dolores; Flintoff’s hitting them all over the ground.”)
It was Len (L.C.)Tyler who pondered one of the conundrums of the weekend; when is a Man a Woman?
Now, those of you who know Len, author of the excellent The Herring Seller’s Apprentice, will know that he isn’t given to such deeply philosophical sounding speculations. Not shortly after breakfast, anyway. I mean, it sounds like something almost German in its complexity. What it actually was about was the annual meeting of Mystery Women, the group set up by Lizzie Hayes. I asked if he was attending and hastened to reassure him that mere sex was no barrier. After all, Martin Edwards and Andrew Taylor are members and Andrew’s got the tee-shirt to prove it! Len duly attended and after that came the punting.
Okay, hands up, I was pants. Priscilla Masters, who was watching my attempts from the front of the boat (she was sort of lured into it) eventually took matters into her own hands, suggested I shipped the punt-pole and paddled us up the river. And back.
And, as I’d been silly enough to get in a punt wearing white jeans, it was back to the laundry again….
Friday, August 21, 2009
All at the seaside
We had the annual family holiday last week. It wasn’t so much bucket and spade as pack-a-macs and umbrellas and keeping a stiff upper lip. Honestly, I think the Met Office’s prediction of a “Barbecue Summer” is going to be up there with Michael Fish’s famous comment before the hurricane of 1987. (“There’s a lady who phoned up to say she heard there was a hurricane on the way. Ho, ho, ho…”)
To those reading this in sunnier climes than Dear Old Blighty, you ought to know there was a time – it seems a long time ago now – when Britain had summers. This hasn’t happened for a while and this year has been no exception.
The Gordon-Smith troop gave Cornwall the once-over this year. It actually did stop raining long enough to register but there is a reason why the countryside is so beautifully lush and green. Plenty of people have written about Cornwall; here’s one of the reasons why.
Gorgeous, isn’t it? It’s Mullion Cove, near the Lizard. We stayed in Carbis Bay, near St Ives of cat fame. (“As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had seven sacks and in each sack were seven cats…” etc) The reason why there were so many cats in St Ives is that the upstairs rooms in this predominantly fishing village were used to store nets and sails and mice loved nibbling away through the ropes. It was biological warfare up there. So much so, there was – ages ago – an official cat nurturer who rejoiced in the sobriquet of “Pissy Willy”. This was your basic, Victorian-style neutering where a couple of bricks and a tom-cat with a pained expression featured. Apparently Willy also manufactured ice-cream; and was never known to wash his hands. I mean, it makes you think twice about the nut sundae, doesn’t it!
My holiday reading was Louise Penny. I had the pleasure of meeting Louise and her husband, Michael, a couple of years ago, and we got on like a house on fire. Gosh, she’s a good writer. She brings such a sense of place to her stories that I’m sure I could find my way round the fictional village of Three Pines. Gamache, her detective, is such a nice bloke to spend time with as well, that you feel, by the end of the book, that you’ve made a friend.
St Ives is, of course, known for Art. There’s lots of hobby painters - it’s so picturesque that it makes you long for a paint-brush - but real artists live/lived there too. The most famous is the sculptor, Barbara Hepworth. She had a studio in St Ives with a garden attached. The garden is fascinating. It’s fairly small but full of these amazing sculptures that are positioned against the plants and the settings she chose. I can’t honestly say I’m a huge fan of abstract art, but I fell in love with that garden. It’s interesting, too, that her sculptures are so easy to copy – many a town centre is disfigured by its pointless obligatory lump of Hepworth-style Art – but the real thing has got life and magic all of its own.
Across from Barbara Hepworth’s house is the old Palais de Dance. It’s been unused as a dance-hall for years and now, empty and silent, it’s used as a store-room for Hepworth’s sculptures. Some of the figures in the garden look like Easter Island figures and it’s odd to think of those stone giants waiting on the dancefloor. There’s a story in there somewhere; stone music to breath them into life. Maybe – in the story – they are dancing but their life runs on such a different scale than ours that we can’t see them move. Rather like the kids in the morning!
To those reading this in sunnier climes than Dear Old Blighty, you ought to know there was a time – it seems a long time ago now – when Britain had summers. This hasn’t happened for a while and this year has been no exception.
The Gordon-Smith troop gave Cornwall the once-over this year. It actually did stop raining long enough to register but there is a reason why the countryside is so beautifully lush and green. Plenty of people have written about Cornwall; here’s one of the reasons why.
Gorgeous, isn’t it? It’s Mullion Cove, near the Lizard. We stayed in Carbis Bay, near St Ives of cat fame. (“As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had seven sacks and in each sack were seven cats…” etc) The reason why there were so many cats in St Ives is that the upstairs rooms in this predominantly fishing village were used to store nets and sails and mice loved nibbling away through the ropes. It was biological warfare up there. So much so, there was – ages ago – an official cat nurturer who rejoiced in the sobriquet of “Pissy Willy”. This was your basic, Victorian-style neutering where a couple of bricks and a tom-cat with a pained expression featured. Apparently Willy also manufactured ice-cream; and was never known to wash his hands. I mean, it makes you think twice about the nut sundae, doesn’t it!
My holiday reading was Louise Penny. I had the pleasure of meeting Louise and her husband, Michael, a couple of years ago, and we got on like a house on fire. Gosh, she’s a good writer. She brings such a sense of place to her stories that I’m sure I could find my way round the fictional village of Three Pines. Gamache, her detective, is such a nice bloke to spend time with as well, that you feel, by the end of the book, that you’ve made a friend.
St Ives is, of course, known for Art. There’s lots of hobby painters - it’s so picturesque that it makes you long for a paint-brush - but real artists live/lived there too. The most famous is the sculptor, Barbara Hepworth. She had a studio in St Ives with a garden attached. The garden is fascinating. It’s fairly small but full of these amazing sculptures that are positioned against the plants and the settings she chose. I can’t honestly say I’m a huge fan of abstract art, but I fell in love with that garden. It’s interesting, too, that her sculptures are so easy to copy – many a town centre is disfigured by its pointless obligatory lump of Hepworth-style Art – but the real thing has got life and magic all of its own.
Across from Barbara Hepworth’s house is the old Palais de Dance. It’s been unused as a dance-hall for years and now, empty and silent, it’s used as a store-room for Hepworth’s sculptures. Some of the figures in the garden look like Easter Island figures and it’s odd to think of those stone giants waiting on the dancefloor. There’s a story in there somewhere; stone music to breath them into life. Maybe – in the story – they are dancing but their life runs on such a different scale than ours that we can’t see them move. Rather like the kids in the morning!
Sunday, August 2, 2009
The keen observer (as all the readers of this piece naturally are) will notice that I’ve written anything for the last couple of weeks. This isn’t idleness (well, not entirely, anyway) but computer gliches. It’s still not entirely sorted out, but it’s getting there – I hope. I spent last week off-line altogether and it’s weird how cut-off it makes you feel. Considering that only a few years ago, computers were the stuff of science-fiction, it’s astonishing how necessary they’ve become. I sometimes feel we’re all going to end up like one of those races they used to have in Star Trek, who are just pure brains and no bodies. Mind you, I think the Youth of the future will probably have enormous thumbs, because of all the texting they do.
Talking of Youth – mine – we travelled down to Egham, Surrey, to watch Helen’s graduation.
Here’s a picture of all the graduates throwing their hats in the air after the celebration. It was a wonderful day, set in the architecturally wacky late-Victorian dream of Thomas Holloway’s Royal Holloway. Royal Holloway is now part of London University but when Thos. built it – it opened in 1886 – it was a women’s only college inspired by his wife, Jane, who reckoned it was a good use of quarter of a million or so. There’s a statue of Thomas presenting the college to Jane in the middle of the quad and he looks fairly smug about it – and with good reason, too. There’s few buildings which bear the imprint of their designer quite so blatantly. It looks like a French château run mad. It’s impressive but always makes me want to laugh, too – so result! The graduation started with sparkling wine and Haribos (you know, those squashy sweets) outside the History Department, and then, after this laid-back introduction, we moved into the very formal surroundings of the Chapel. The Chapel, as you might expect from such a sturdy individualist as Thos, is decorated without a trace of English restraint, but in an exuberant Italian-with-attitude style, glowing with colour and with lots of women saints on the walls. Here’s a bit of the roof. 
Trumpeters sounded, the graduates walked in, received their degrees and the whole thing went like clockwork. Then it was off outside, into the gigantic Quads, for more sparkling wine and nibbles (if you could get to them; graduating gives the Young a fairly hearty appetite.) It was a wonderful day; it all ran to plan and even the sun shone.
The other event worthy of note is that the cat establishment of the Gordon-Smith household is now back up to full strength. Tospy, The Ancient Of Days, handed in her chips a while ago at the grand old age of 19. Post of Most Senior Animal was then taken by Snooker (aka “Grumpy”) who is impartially bad-tempered with dog, cat and human alike. She just can’t see why any other animal is needed and knows just who to blame for disturbing the even tenor of her days. She reminds me of Maurice in Suzette Hill’s “Bones” stories. Her life didn’t get any better when we arrived home with a new kitten. Peter had naming rights and – because he’s a bit of a Francophile – chose “Minou”. Apparently every French children’s story has a cat called Minou. Perhaps we should try and find her a blue-and-white stripy collar with an onion motif. Here she is, helping The Graduate at work
. I'm off to Sunny Cornwall (fingers crossed) next week so I'll talk more when I get back.
Talking of Youth – mine – we travelled down to Egham, Surrey, to watch Helen’s graduation.
Here’s a picture of all the graduates throwing their hats in the air after the celebration. It was a wonderful day, set in the architecturally wacky late-Victorian dream of Thomas Holloway’s Royal Holloway. Royal Holloway is now part of London University but when Thos. built it – it opened in 1886 – it was a women’s only college inspired by his wife, Jane, who reckoned it was a good use of quarter of a million or so. There’s a statue of Thomas presenting the college to Jane in the middle of the quad and he looks fairly smug about it – and with good reason, too. There’s few buildings which bear the imprint of their designer quite so blatantly. It looks like a French château run mad. It’s impressive but always makes me want to laugh, too – so result! The graduation started with sparkling wine and Haribos (you know, those squashy sweets) outside the History Department, and then, after this laid-back introduction, we moved into the very formal surroundings of the Chapel. The Chapel, as you might expect from such a sturdy individualist as Thos, is decorated without a trace of English restraint, but in an exuberant Italian-with-attitude style, glowing with colour and with lots of women saints on the walls. Here’s a bit of the roof. Trumpeters sounded, the graduates walked in, received their degrees and the whole thing went like clockwork. Then it was off outside, into the gigantic Quads, for more sparkling wine and nibbles (if you could get to them; graduating gives the Young a fairly hearty appetite.) It was a wonderful day; it all ran to plan and even the sun shone. The other event worthy of note is that the cat establishment of the Gordon-Smith household is now back up to full strength. Tospy, The Ancient Of Days, handed in her chips a while ago at the grand old age of 19. Post of Most Senior Animal was then taken by Snooker (aka “Grumpy”) who is impartially bad-tempered with dog, cat and human alike. She just can’t see why any other animal is needed and knows just who to blame for disturbing the even tenor of her days. She reminds me of Maurice in Suzette Hill’s “Bones” stories. Her life didn’t get any better when we arrived home with a new kitten. Peter had naming rights and – because he’s a bit of a Francophile – chose “Minou”. Apparently every French children’s story has a cat called Minou. Perhaps we should try and find her a blue-and-white stripy collar with an onion motif. Here she is, helping The Graduate at work
. I'm off to Sunny Cornwall (fingers crossed) next week so I'll talk more when I get back.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Talking at the Portico
I gave a talk in the Portico Library, Manchester this week, together with three other crime writers. There was Kate Ellis, Cath Staincliffe and Martin Edwards and the whole thing was organized by Dr Jennifer Palmer, a “Mystery Woman”. That doesn’t means she lurks round corners with a cloak and black mask – unless there’s something she’s not telling us – but that she’s part of the Mystery Women group who publish an excellent magazine containing reviews and articles. Martin Edwards, (who’s another one who, at first glance doesn’t seem much like a Mystery Woman either) was rather nice about me on his blog. Cheers, Martin! Martin’s blog, (called “Do You Write Under Your Own Name”) says I was Lively and Entertaining. Well, you know…. I'd like to put a photo in at this point of us all in action, but for some mysterious reason, the ruddy thing won't upload. And, as the reason for that is lost somewhere inside printed circuits, I can't take a spanner to it. *Sigh* Still, Martin's got a picture on his blog (like, I'm not jealous or anything!) so you can see it there. Sniff. I wish my computer did pictures. It always has done before. Double sniff.
Martin, in addition to having a computer that blinkin' well works, goes from strength to strength. He won the CWA short story dagger last year and has two series and a stand-alone book, Dancing For The Hangman, about Crippen in print and contributes to no end of anthologies and so on. Not only that, but he’s got a full-time day job as a solicitor. I genuinely don’t know how he does it. I think he might have nicked Hermione Grainger’s time-turner.
I was in excellent company and the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly. It’s fascinating that writers who write such different books should gel together so well. My sister-in-law, Jenny, was desperately impressed that I’d been on a panel with Cath Staincliffe. Jenny’s a huge fan of Cath’s books and was really pleased when I was able to say what a nice person she was. My Dad, on the other hand, loves Kate Ellis, and it impressed him no end I was mixing in with “real” (ie – he’s heard of them) writers.
The Portico Library is somewhere I’ve always fancied going in. I used to pass it on my way to work every morning in Manchester Library. (That's the big one with the impressive dome). It’s tucked round the corner from Manchester City Art Gallery and is picked out by a blue plaque, saying it was founded in 1806 and it's not really changed much. To go inside is like travelling back in time. It’s a private library and combines the functions of a club, library and coffee-house. The books are numerous, ancient and leather-bound and the Reading Room is crying out to have a Baronet with a dagger of oriental design in his ribs lying punctured on the rug.
It’s a small building – or, at least, it seems so. It actually has Tardis-like qualities, as it expands dramatically once you get into the building proper. The Portico frequently puts on exhibitions and, if you’re in Manchester, it’s well worth taking a look. You feel as if it should be frequented by gentlemen in knee-breeches and, if you close your eyes, I’ll swear you can hear the rustle of silk from long-gone dresses whispering by. One Portico institution who’s a absolute gem is Muriel. (She doesn't wear silk dresses - at least not at work, I don't think). Muriel is 80 and does the cooking – brilliantly. The buffet was splendid. On the way out there’s a picture of a raised hand and underneath it says, “Stop! Have you paid Muriel?”
Love it.
Last week’s blog had a pleasantly surrealistic touch, as I presented a crossword without a grid. I simply couldn’t get the “grid” to upload and still can’t. I tell you, the problems I have... However, here are the answers.
1 Across and 2 Down Mrs Hudson’s famous lodger
Sherlock Holmes, of course. Wasn't Mrs Hudson a long-suffering woman?
3 Down: Where the coded detective lives
Oxford - that's "Morse" of course.
6 Across and 4 Down “- - - - -“ (2 words) American West Coast crime as seen on TV
LA Law
5 Across and 17 Down She does her detecting in Cheshire, perhaps?
Miss Marple – Agatha Christie was a frequent visitor to Marple
5 Down According to TS Eliot, he’s “The hidden paw” but he and The Great Detective slugged it out at a waterfall
Okay, so I got the first bit wrong, (whoops!) but I was working these out really fast in the intervals of making butties and covering strawberries in chocolate for the buffet that evening. “McCavity” is, of course, TS Eliot’s “Mystery cat/He’s called the Hidden Paw” and Moriaty is Sherlock’s nemesis.
7 Across and 18 Across Jack Haldean’s first adventure (1,4, 5, 4, 5 words)
A Fete Worse Than Death (Yo! Brilliant book!)
8 Down and 16 Down “I counted them!” Richard Hannay steps up to his first adventure
The Thirty-Nine Steps - and what a truly brilliant writer John Buchan is.
9 Across A misleading fish
A red herring!
10 Down How many tailors?
Nine (natch)
11 Across Get on the Orient Express and you’ll end up in this continent
Asia – although nowadays it stops in Venice.
12 Across A favourite murder weapon
Gun. You really did need the grid for this one. Sorry.
13 Across Watch it, husbands! Her indoors might slip this in your tea!
Arsenic – but try to use something more obscure. Arsenic’s for beginners.
14 Across Whimsical Christian who rocks?
Peter (Wimsey) That’s his Christian name and “Peter”, as you know if you’ve been listening in church, also means “Rock”.
15 Across Not the garden of the police
Yard
19 Down A Holmly writer’s profession
Doctor - either Watson or Conan Doyle
20 Across “Mr Holmes! They were the footprints of an enormous….”
Hound, say we all. Gosh, that's a great bit in the book.
21 Across Write with this in a shortened prison?
Pen (itentiary)
22 Down The cruise of the steamer Karnack brings death on this Egyptian river
Nile - AC's Death on the Nile.
23 Across “--- - and sound? A good place for valuables
Safe
24 Down Every Great Detective has a deadly one of these
Foe
25 Across If you hear a bomb starting to do this, run for it!
Tick
26 Across According to Dorothy L Sayers, the “tailors” were these
Bells - and blimey, it was difficult to explain to my mate, Mary, how a tailor could be a bell!
27 Across Live and let live? Not according to James Bond
Die
28 Across Become this, and you’ll be of interest to malefactors
Rich
Martin, in addition to having a computer that blinkin' well works, goes from strength to strength. He won the CWA short story dagger last year and has two series and a stand-alone book, Dancing For The Hangman, about Crippen in print and contributes to no end of anthologies and so on. Not only that, but he’s got a full-time day job as a solicitor. I genuinely don’t know how he does it. I think he might have nicked Hermione Grainger’s time-turner.
I was in excellent company and the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly. It’s fascinating that writers who write such different books should gel together so well. My sister-in-law, Jenny, was desperately impressed that I’d been on a panel with Cath Staincliffe. Jenny’s a huge fan of Cath’s books and was really pleased when I was able to say what a nice person she was. My Dad, on the other hand, loves Kate Ellis, and it impressed him no end I was mixing in with “real” (ie – he’s heard of them) writers.
The Portico Library is somewhere I’ve always fancied going in. I used to pass it on my way to work every morning in Manchester Library. (That's the big one with the impressive dome). It’s tucked round the corner from Manchester City Art Gallery and is picked out by a blue plaque, saying it was founded in 1806 and it's not really changed much. To go inside is like travelling back in time. It’s a private library and combines the functions of a club, library and coffee-house. The books are numerous, ancient and leather-bound and the Reading Room is crying out to have a Baronet with a dagger of oriental design in his ribs lying punctured on the rug.
It’s a small building – or, at least, it seems so. It actually has Tardis-like qualities, as it expands dramatically once you get into the building proper. The Portico frequently puts on exhibitions and, if you’re in Manchester, it’s well worth taking a look. You feel as if it should be frequented by gentlemen in knee-breeches and, if you close your eyes, I’ll swear you can hear the rustle of silk from long-gone dresses whispering by. One Portico institution who’s a absolute gem is Muriel. (She doesn't wear silk dresses - at least not at work, I don't think). Muriel is 80 and does the cooking – brilliantly. The buffet was splendid. On the way out there’s a picture of a raised hand and underneath it says, “Stop! Have you paid Muriel?”
Love it.
Last week’s blog had a pleasantly surrealistic touch, as I presented a crossword without a grid. I simply couldn’t get the “grid” to upload and still can’t. I tell you, the problems I have... However, here are the answers.
Clues
1 Across and 2 Down Mrs Hudson’s famous lodger
Sherlock Holmes, of course. Wasn't Mrs Hudson a long-suffering woman?
3 Down: Where the coded detective lives
Oxford - that's "Morse" of course.
6 Across and 4 Down “- - - - -“ (2 words) American West Coast crime as seen on TV
LA Law
5 Across and 17 Down She does her detecting in Cheshire, perhaps?
Miss Marple – Agatha Christie was a frequent visitor to Marple
5 Down According to TS Eliot, he’s “The hidden paw” but he and The Great Detective slugged it out at a waterfall
Okay, so I got the first bit wrong, (whoops!) but I was working these out really fast in the intervals of making butties and covering strawberries in chocolate for the buffet that evening. “McCavity” is, of course, TS Eliot’s “Mystery cat/He’s called the Hidden Paw” and Moriaty is Sherlock’s nemesis.
7 Across and 18 Across Jack Haldean’s first adventure (1,4, 5, 4, 5 words)
A Fete Worse Than Death (Yo! Brilliant book!)
8 Down and 16 Down “I counted them!” Richard Hannay steps up to his first adventure
The Thirty-Nine Steps - and what a truly brilliant writer John Buchan is.
9 Across A misleading fish
A red herring!
10 Down How many tailors?
Nine (natch)
11 Across Get on the Orient Express and you’ll end up in this continent
Asia – although nowadays it stops in Venice.
12 Across A favourite murder weapon
Gun. You really did need the grid for this one. Sorry.
13 Across Watch it, husbands! Her indoors might slip this in your tea!
Arsenic – but try to use something more obscure. Arsenic’s for beginners.
14 Across Whimsical Christian who rocks?
Peter (Wimsey) That’s his Christian name and “Peter”, as you know if you’ve been listening in church, also means “Rock”.
15 Across Not the garden of the police
Yard
19 Down A Holmly writer’s profession
Doctor - either Watson or Conan Doyle
20 Across “Mr Holmes! They were the footprints of an enormous….”
Hound, say we all. Gosh, that's a great bit in the book.
21 Across Write with this in a shortened prison?
Pen (itentiary)
22 Down The cruise of the steamer Karnack brings death on this Egyptian river
Nile - AC's Death on the Nile.
23 Across “--- - and sound? A good place for valuables
Safe
24 Down Every Great Detective has a deadly one of these
Foe
25 Across If you hear a bomb starting to do this, run for it!
Tick
26 Across According to Dorothy L Sayers, the “tailors” were these
Bells - and blimey, it was difficult to explain to my mate, Mary, how a tailor could be a bell!
27 Across Live and let live? Not according to James Bond
Die
28 Across Become this, and you’ll be of interest to malefactors
Rich
Monday, July 6, 2009
Poisioned Pen
This appeared on the Poisioned Pen blog spot
http://authorreviews.blogspot.com/2009/07/author-dolores-gordon-smith-talks-about.html
Didn't they do a nice job?
http://authorreviews.blogspot.com/2009/07/author-dolores-gordon-smith-talks-about.html
Didn't they do a nice job?
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Never a crossword
I had a party last night to celebrate the publication of As If By Magic. The book’s dedicated to my sister, Barbara, and here’s a picture of us both together. I’m the one in the grey-green top. 
Things never quite work out as expected, do they? That top is of real silk, a marvellous floaty thing with bits of gold in the dangly bits and – on the hanger – looks great. It looks great when you first put it on. In fact it lulled me into a state of trust until I was well and truly at the party and it was too late to do anything about it. It slipped. It moved. It wriggled about as if I was suffering from fleas. It also showed my underwear. (At least it did until my mate, Mary, hissed at me, “Go and take your bra off!”) The undershirt bit took on a separate life from the overbit. It fact it was a ruddy nuisance and a pain in the neck. Did I care? No, not much. It was a great evening, far too good to be spoiled by idiotic pieces of cloth, however much of a mind of their own they developed.
My friend, Angela Churm, who I’ve known for years was there. She'd driven a couple of hundred miles to be there, starting at half-five that morning. She’s great at keeping all the books in order and looking after the money. Not only that, but we sweating round Tescos in the afternoon, buying all the food and (some) drink. After that, it was all hands to the pump – thank you family! – laying it all out.
One of the things we had was a Detective Crossword.
Here's everyone hard at work, doing it. I can’t put the crossword grid on the blog for some reason, which is frustrating, but these are the clues – they’re not too hard! The “grid” is a standard scrabble board.
1 Across and 2 Down Mrs Hudson’s famous lodger
3 Down: Where the coded detective lives
6 Across and 4 Down “- - - - -“ (2 words) American West Coast crime as seen on TV
5 Across and 17 Down She does her detecting in Cheshire, perhaps?
5 Down According to TS Eliot, he’s “The hidden paw” but he and The Great Detective slugged it out at a waterfall
7 Across and 18 Across Jack Haldean’s first adventure (1,4, 5, 4, 5 words)
8 Down and 16 Down “I counted them!” Richard Hannay steps up to his first adventure
9 Across A misleading fish
10 Down How many tailors?
11 Across Get on the Orient Express and you’ll end up in this continent
12 Across A favourite murder weapon
13 Across Watch it, husbands! Her indoors might slip this in your tea!
14 Across Whimsical Christian who rocks?
15 Across Not the garden of the police
19 Down A Holmly writer’s profession
20 Across “Mr Holmes! They were the footprints of an enormous….”
21 Across Write with this in a shortened prison?
22 Down The cruise of the steamer Karnack brings death on this Egyptian river
23 Across “--- - and sound? A good place for valuables
24 Down Every Great Detective has a deadly one of these
25 Across If you hear a bomb starting to do this, run for it!
26 Across According to Dorothy L Sayers, the “tailors” were these
27 Across Live and let live? Not according to James Bond
28 Across Become this, and you’ll be of interest to malefactors
Things never quite work out as expected, do they? That top is of real silk, a marvellous floaty thing with bits of gold in the dangly bits and – on the hanger – looks great. It looks great when you first put it on. In fact it lulled me into a state of trust until I was well and truly at the party and it was too late to do anything about it. It slipped. It moved. It wriggled about as if I was suffering from fleas. It also showed my underwear. (At least it did until my mate, Mary, hissed at me, “Go and take your bra off!”) The undershirt bit took on a separate life from the overbit. It fact it was a ruddy nuisance and a pain in the neck. Did I care? No, not much. It was a great evening, far too good to be spoiled by idiotic pieces of cloth, however much of a mind of their own they developed.
My friend, Angela Churm, who I’ve known for years was there. She'd driven a couple of hundred miles to be there, starting at half-five that morning. She’s great at keeping all the books in order and looking after the money. Not only that, but we sweating round Tescos in the afternoon, buying all the food and (some) drink. After that, it was all hands to the pump – thank you family! – laying it all out.
One of the things we had was a Detective Crossword.
Here's everyone hard at work, doing it. I can’t put the crossword grid on the blog for some reason, which is frustrating, but these are the clues – they’re not too hard! The “grid” is a standard scrabble board.Clues
1 Across and 2 Down Mrs Hudson’s famous lodger
3 Down: Where the coded detective lives
6 Across and 4 Down “- - - - -“ (2 words) American West Coast crime as seen on TV
5 Across and 17 Down She does her detecting in Cheshire, perhaps?
5 Down According to TS Eliot, he’s “The hidden paw” but he and The Great Detective slugged it out at a waterfall
7 Across and 18 Across Jack Haldean’s first adventure (1,4, 5, 4, 5 words)
8 Down and 16 Down “I counted them!” Richard Hannay steps up to his first adventure
9 Across A misleading fish
10 Down How many tailors?
11 Across Get on the Orient Express and you’ll end up in this continent
12 Across A favourite murder weapon
13 Across Watch it, husbands! Her indoors might slip this in your tea!
14 Across Whimsical Christian who rocks?
15 Across Not the garden of the police
19 Down A Holmly writer’s profession
20 Across “Mr Holmes! They were the footprints of an enormous….”
21 Across Write with this in a shortened prison?
22 Down The cruise of the steamer Karnack brings death on this Egyptian river
23 Across “--- - and sound? A good place for valuables
24 Down Every Great Detective has a deadly one of these
25 Across If you hear a bomb starting to do this, run for it!
26 Across According to Dorothy L Sayers, the “tailors” were these
27 Across Live and let live? Not according to James Bond
28 Across Become this, and you’ll be of interest to malefactors
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Magic, Rain and Wimbledon
As If By Magic was published on Thursday (in Britain, this is; for some mysterious reason it’s not out in America until August.) There is, disappointingly, very little ballyhoo about publication day. Not much, anyway. This was the scene outside our house on Thursday morning
Okay, so I'm exaggerating slightly.
It feels as if you should wake up to the blare of trumpets and the roll of drums. For a mad moment I thought that had happened but all it was that one of the kids was in the shower with Radio One turned way up. I mean, nothing happens. No apes, ivories or peacocks delivered by Royal Mail’s parcel force or, indeed, any other method, no red carpet in the street, no frenzied bursts of applause as I step forth, no aeroplane sky-writing overhead. The morning consists of informing random children that if they don’t shape themselves they’ll be late for school, making sandwiches, telling Gok Wan (fashion guru, youngest daughter and hair-straightener addict) that her hair is wonderful and can we please leave, clearing up the morning’s small deposits from the animal branch of the Gordon-Smith household and wondering What To Have For Tea. Basically, Life, Jim, and just as we know it.
Except As If By Magic is published; and complete strangers, who I don’t have to cook dinner for, I’m not related to and who do not have my hand in marriage are buying it and reading it. And I know it is being sold because the Amazon figures say as much. For thirteen quid and twenty-nine pence (who decides these price points?) with free postage chucked in, it can be yours. It sounds like the bargain of the year to me, and I’m not remotely biased. Honest.
Have you been watching Wimbledon? I must say, I’ve derived a huge amount of innocent amusement from listening to the commentators virtually praying for rain. It’s the new roof, you see. Yes, I know it cost quzillions of pounds and looks like something that Thunderbird One should pop out of, but it’s still a roof, for pete’s sake, and the way John McEnroe, David Mercer and John Lloyd et al have been going on about it, it’s as if the concept has just been invented. But, what with one thing and another, I’m sort of used to roofs. We’ve had one on our house for ever such a long time now and the neighbours – ruddy copycats! – have got them too.
Everyone got very exercised about The Roof Question during Andy Murray’s match and you can’t say the weather wasn’t trying. But, however much the skies lowered and the lightning forked down over Surbiton, those few square yards of turf in London SW20 remained unrained upon. It’s a big difference from the glory days of Harry Carpenter in the 1970’s when you’d actually turn on the telly to listen to Harry rhapsodise about the rain. It was incredible what he could find to say about rain. As it pooled and grew on the green covers, Harry, truly a man for all seasons – particularly wet ones – would hit his stride. “Covers still on the outside courts. Thousands of people, waiting, hoping against hope…” The cameras would close in on rain, then draw back as a particularly extravagant splash would fountain up. “There’s a drain down both sides of the courts where the rain can escape,” Harry would explain, apparently anxious for the fate of each individual drop. Then, in a burst of philosophy worthy of Marcus Aurileus (“Doth aught befall you? Fear not; it is all part of the great web.”) Harry would assure us, in face of all the evidence, that Brighter Weather Is Expected Soon. Come on! We know what an English June can do! The weather, rather like the English themselves, has a sense of humour and, exactly like taking an umbrella to a picnic Just In Case, the fact that someone’s nicked the roof from Tracey Island means that the sun will continue to shine with unabated fervour for the next week. I hope so, anyway. I don’t think John McEnroe could stand the excitement if they had to close the thing.
However, if they do, you could always curl up with a good book. Did I mention As If By Magic was published this week?
Okay, so I'm exaggerating slightly.
It feels as if you should wake up to the blare of trumpets and the roll of drums. For a mad moment I thought that had happened but all it was that one of the kids was in the shower with Radio One turned way up. I mean, nothing happens. No apes, ivories or peacocks delivered by Royal Mail’s parcel force or, indeed, any other method, no red carpet in the street, no frenzied bursts of applause as I step forth, no aeroplane sky-writing overhead. The morning consists of informing random children that if they don’t shape themselves they’ll be late for school, making sandwiches, telling Gok Wan (fashion guru, youngest daughter and hair-straightener addict) that her hair is wonderful and can we please leave, clearing up the morning’s small deposits from the animal branch of the Gordon-Smith household and wondering What To Have For Tea. Basically, Life, Jim, and just as we know it.
Except As If By Magic is published; and complete strangers, who I don’t have to cook dinner for, I’m not related to and who do not have my hand in marriage are buying it and reading it. And I know it is being sold because the Amazon figures say as much. For thirteen quid and twenty-nine pence (who decides these price points?) with free postage chucked in, it can be yours. It sounds like the bargain of the year to me, and I’m not remotely biased. Honest.
Have you been watching Wimbledon? I must say, I’ve derived a huge amount of innocent amusement from listening to the commentators virtually praying for rain. It’s the new roof, you see. Yes, I know it cost quzillions of pounds and looks like something that Thunderbird One should pop out of, but it’s still a roof, for pete’s sake, and the way John McEnroe, David Mercer and John Lloyd et al have been going on about it, it’s as if the concept has just been invented. But, what with one thing and another, I’m sort of used to roofs. We’ve had one on our house for ever such a long time now and the neighbours – ruddy copycats! – have got them too.
Everyone got very exercised about The Roof Question during Andy Murray’s match and you can’t say the weather wasn’t trying. But, however much the skies lowered and the lightning forked down over Surbiton, those few square yards of turf in London SW20 remained unrained upon. It’s a big difference from the glory days of Harry Carpenter in the 1970’s when you’d actually turn on the telly to listen to Harry rhapsodise about the rain. It was incredible what he could find to say about rain. As it pooled and grew on the green covers, Harry, truly a man for all seasons – particularly wet ones – would hit his stride. “Covers still on the outside courts. Thousands of people, waiting, hoping against hope…” The cameras would close in on rain, then draw back as a particularly extravagant splash would fountain up. “There’s a drain down both sides of the courts where the rain can escape,” Harry would explain, apparently anxious for the fate of each individual drop. Then, in a burst of philosophy worthy of Marcus Aurileus (“Doth aught befall you? Fear not; it is all part of the great web.”) Harry would assure us, in face of all the evidence, that Brighter Weather Is Expected Soon. Come on! We know what an English June can do! The weather, rather like the English themselves, has a sense of humour and, exactly like taking an umbrella to a picnic Just In Case, the fact that someone’s nicked the roof from Tracey Island means that the sun will continue to shine with unabated fervour for the next week. I hope so, anyway. I don’t think John McEnroe could stand the excitement if they had to close the thing.
However, if they do, you could always curl up with a good book. Did I mention As If By Magic was published this week?
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Books, Castles, Champagne and Shoes
I wouldn’t be human if the main thing on my mind wasn’t the fact that my new book, As If By Magic is published on Thursday. Yes, that’s Thursday the 25th June, so
You get the idea!
Do you read John Buchan? I only ask because almost always, in Buchan’s stories, there’s a comfortable – nay, snug – castle, somewhere on the Scottish borders that various heroes retreat to in the course of the story. These little glimpses of Paradise were obviously places he knew well. I only mention it, because my nephew, Richard, got married last weekend and the reception he and his bride, Donna, was held in the most perfect John Buchan-y castle you’ve ever seen. Comlongan Castle (flag it up on Google if you want to know more) outside of Dumfries is exactly the sort of place he described. Weddings are always fun, especially if all you have to do is turn up and enjoy yourself, and this one was really special. Even the weather was perfect! Being Scotland, there were lots of hairy knees in evidence – not mine I hasten to add! – (there are limits) but from various be-kilted blokes, all of which added to the jollity of the occasion. 
The old part of the castle dates back to 14 something but the John Buchan-y part looked like an Eighteenth or early Nineteenth Century extension. We piled in through the vast oak doors with a piper playing outside into a cosy (honestly!) hall with stained glass, oak and suits of armour.
Plied with champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries, we strolled round the grounds, feeling like lottery winners. There’s always something though. While the photos were being taken, I felt myself slipping further and further backwards until it looked like I was trying to regain my balance in a hundred mile an hour wind. In a way, Teresa Chris, my agent was responsible. On a shopping trip – I’ve mentioned those before – she’d seen a pair of killer red heels and told me I had to have them. Okay, so that was a sale then. The aforesaid heels drilled themselves into the soft Scottish turf, causing me to list like a leaky tug. The only way of freeing myself was to step out of my shoes and rip them from the ground, then spend the rest of the afternoon creeping round on tip-toe so I wouldn’t sink with all hands (or all feet) once more. Peter’s cousin peered at me and announced, in that earnest Scottish way, that it was a case of pressure per square inch. I did feel that a truly tactful person wouldn’t have pointed that out!
As the soft twilight fell, there were fireworks on the lawn. It was exactly as I’d imagined the firework scene in Mad About The Boy? (Go on – buy a copy – it’s dead good) only with fewer mysteriously dead bodies, which is always a plus at any party you’re hoping will go with a bang. Live the dream!
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Match Report
I went to see the England and Argentina rugby game on Saturday. Now, when England play the Argies at football, it’s a cue for some serious crowd control, but the atmosphere on Saturday was terrific. The game was at Old Trafford and that in itself was quite an experience. The famed home of Manchester United seems to be smaller than it looks on TV, which is something I’ve noticed before. Maybe when we see something on the telly, we over-compensate in our mind’s eye and turn the little image into something huge.
Our seats (which had cost £10 each – not a lot) were in the Stretford End, about eight rows up from the pitch. It’s all-seater, of course, which I, for one, was grateful for. Old-fashinoned terraces are very chummy, but it’s nice to sit down. In 1950 something, my brother’s father-in-law (if that’s not too complicated a relationship) lost his brand-new hat by hurling it into the air in the Stretford End to celebrate United’s win. I’d always wondered about those bits in old films when you see hundreds of hats thrown up; how did you ever find the correct lid again? The answer is that you didn’t – and he was never allowed to forget it!
Goodness knows how much the seats would set you back if United were playing, because the view was marvellous. It’s odd watching this sort of thing in real life; I kept waiting for the action re-plays!
The game (which was only a friendly) wasn’t, to tell the truth, particularly inspired, as both teams decided to play aerial ping-pong, walloping the ball hopefully down the field, instead of getting down to brass tacks and running with the thing. However, simply being there made it gripping. There’s all sorts of details you don’t get on the telly. For instance, how easy it is to roar out “God Save The Queen” and how the Argentine national anthem (which sounds like a really dodgy bit of Verdi) needs an operatic soprano to even attempt it.
A very smart squad of RAF personnel marched onto the pitch before the game began, when a brass band playing and, having paraded round the field, shook out an enormous Argentine flag. That was good – after all, in 1982, the RAF were doing their level best to shoot down Argie planes and vice-versa. Mind you, Manchester rugby fans do, perhaps, have a soft spot for the Argies; the Captain of the local team, Sale Sharks, for the last few seasons has been the Argentine Captain, Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe.
The atmosphere was great. The two sets of fans mingled freely and, in a burst of old-fashioned sportsmanship, applauded each other’s good work. At the end of the game I shared some chips with a policeman who wished that every game could be like this. The only thing that really went wrong was the weather, which was a historical recreation of the D-Day Landings; miserably cold and threatening rain. The bloke behind me had just remarked how perishing it was when some stalwart ran onto the pitch and, dropping his trousers, showed us all his manly form. Like little walnuts, they were! Then he tripped over his trousers as two policemen thudded after him and he was led off to reflect on his shortcomings; as did we!
I’m off to London to sign copies of the new book, As If By Magic this week. Bring it on!
Monday, June 1, 2009
The Curse Of The Cosy
The Curse Of The Cosy.
Or, if you prefer, “Cozy”.
Once upon a time, writers wrote Detective Stories. This pleasing formula was easy to spot. The Penguin ones came in green covers with white bands, but there were plenty of other stories on the market. (This is a British experience by the way – I don’t know how American publishers packaged their books.) By and large, the title would give a clue as well; The Body In The Library; The Mysterious Affair at Styles; Unnatural Death; Death In The House; Warrant For X. (Christie, Christie, Sayers, Berkerley; MacDonald respectively.)
It started, for all practical purposes, with Sherlock Holmes, but he was only one of hundreds. Suddenly, as anyone who’s read the collection The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes will know, the world was full of keen-eyed misanthropes who lived in or near Baker Street and had to put on a dressing-gown to think. Incidentally, if anyone fancies reading a really good and very funny book, try ES Turner’s classic Boys Will Be Boys with particular reference to the chapters entitled, “Sexton Blake” and “More Detectives.”
Naturally, as hansom cabs were replaced by motor-cars, Victorian drug-takers were replaced by sassy, occasionally aristocratic, sleuths. Holmes still held sway, even in an inverted form. “No one,” says Sapper of his detective, Ronald Standish, could look less like a detective.” Which, of course begs (ie implores on bended knee!) the question, “What does a detective look like?” The keen reader might notice at this point that I’ve got my tongue firmly in my cheek; that’s the only way to read a great many of these stories, but read them I do and so do a great many other people then and now.
They were very good stories, you see. Escapist, yes – and if you were broke in the days before the Welfare State you’d probably want something to escape to. Naturally, with this enormous popularity, some very good authors turned to detective stories and, being very good authors, real people and real situations crept in. Now, real people and real situations are what novelists have always written about; the circumstances may be odd (as in Jane Eyre) or very odd indeed (as in A Handful of Dust) but they are, granted what’s gone before, believable.
And that’s what detective stories do. Make stuff believable. Plus there’s an intellectual challenge. Whodunnit? Why? And there is, thank goodness, a real end. Having a real end to things, is, as we all know because we’re all living it, isn’t Real Life.
Let’s knock this “real life” business on the head once and for all. Fiction, however grim, violent and challenging is not real life. It’s fiction; it’s made up. Real Life, that darling of publishers and television producers, is messy, inconsequential, full of coincidences and never stops. But works of fiction are works of art. Shakespeare knew that and so do the Brothers Grimm and Dickens and… Well, add your own great name here.
We want, as readers, to have a solidly convincing bit of life carved out for us from the Real Life around us and to have it Start, Muddle and End. Aristotle said as much in The Poetics (he’s someone who really would have appreciated detective stories) and you can’t say fairly than that now, can you?
And then…. George Orwell put his finger on it in his 1946 essay, The Decline Of The English Murder. This essay is so good, I’m going to quote it at length.
It is Sunday afternoon, preferably before the war. The wife is already asleep in the armchair, and the children have been sent out for a nice
long walk. You put your feet up on the sofa, settle your spectacles on your nose, and open the NEWS OF THE WORLD. Roast beef and Yorkshire, or roast pork and apple sauce, followed up by suet pudding and driven home, as it were, by a cup of mahogany-brown tea, have put you in just the right mood. Your pipe is drawing sweetly, the sofa cushions are soft underneath you, the fire is well alight, the air is warm and stagnant. In these blissful circumstances, what is it that you want to read about?
Naturally, about a murder. But what kind of murder? If one examines the murders which have given the greatest amount of pleasure to the British public, the murders whose story is known in its general outline to almost everyone and which have been made into novels and re-hashed over and over again by the Sunday papers, one finds a fairly strong family resemblance running through the greater number of them.
Orwell then names some famous cases, such as Crippen, Florence Maybrick and Joseph Smith.
In one way or another, sex is a powerful motive ….and in at least four cases respectability… (or) to get hold of a certain known sum of money such as a legacy or an insurance policy.
Agatha Christie, take a bow! Those cases are real cases but don’t they all sound like The Body In The Library ? And then Orwell picks on the current cause celebre, The Cleft Chin Murder. (Google it if you want to know more.)
…the whole meaningless story, with its atmosphere of dance-halls, movie-palaces, cheap perfume, false names and stolen cars, belongs essentially to a war period.
Perhaps it is significant that the most talked-of English murder of recent years should have been committed by an American and an English girl who had become partly Americanized. But it is difficult to believe that this case will be so long remembered as the old domestic poisoning dramas, product of a stable society where the all-prevailing hypocrisy did at least ensure that crimes as serious as murder should have strong emotions behind them.
From then on, I would submit, detective stories, with their rationality and stability, have had to compete against “meaningless” crime. Fair enough; it’s a big world with lots of books and lots of readers. Both sorts of crime are “Real” or not, depending on how you want to argue the point. No problem.
And then Anthony Boucher decided to call the Crippen sort of crime “Cosy”. Yes, I know what he was getting at – domestic setting, stable world, respectable people – so far, so George Orwell – but it sounds, to British ears at any rate, fluffy and inconsequential. You put cosies round things to keep them snug and warm; tea-pots; eggs; feet; not murders.
The word kills the whole genre by fluffy softness. Would you, for instance, rather read an intellectual challenge, something that engages your mind as well as your emotions, or would you rather read a cosy?
Does it matter? Yes it does, because although huge numbers of readers like detective stories (aka “cosies”), English publishers shy like startled pheasants at the word “cosy”. It’s not something they want to be associated with because it sounds fluffy, inconsequential etc. My agent, Teresa Chris, tells me it’s very, very hard to sell a cosy. I’m not surprised. Would you buy a bundle of fluff?
So let’s drop this horrible term and call a whole traduced genre by either of its two proper names; Mystery and Detection. At least there’s something to think about.
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