This blog is not about a bus with a gas-bag on the roof

We’ve all met gas-bags on the top of buses. The woman who won’t stop talking, the man on his mobile phone… Here’s a picture of one in real life

I’ve put the picture in because my pal, Jane Finnis, was astounded that such things could be, and it does look a bit odd, I must say.  It should really have gone with the last blog but better late than never, as they say.  Jane voices her incredulity in the comments.  Mind you, Jane’s last post on her blog, (have a look at it on http://janefinnisblog.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/beware-the-ides-of-march/) left me scratching my head a bit.

It’s about how the Romans dated things.  You know, as in, “Shall we meet up on the 19^th?” “No, make it the twentieth, instead.”  You couldn’t have this conversation in Ancient Rome.  They had a peculiar system, involving counting backwards and forwards and probably turning round three times, crossing your fingers and making a wish.   Considering how we’ve all been told that the Romans were a red-hot superpower, with efficiency as their middle name, the truly bizarre way they worked out their calendar does make you think a bit.  Jane and myself once did a talk at the library together which more or less turned into a debate on which of us had the best historical period to work with.  Jane loves her Romans dearly and was a persuasive speaker, but I think I’ll stick to my Agatha Christie-like 1920’s.  At least you can get the date right to actually turn up at the talk without mental gymnastics and possible recourse to black magic.

Talking about Agatha Christie-ish stuff, there’s been a dickens of a fuss this week caused by the remarks of Brian True-May, the executive producer of Midsomer Murders. Mr True-May said that the success of the programme is down to – get this -  “The lack of black and Asian faces.” He told the Radio Times, the official magazine of the BBC, “that the programme “wouldn’t work” if there was any racial diversity in the village life.
“We are,” said Mr True-May, “the last bastion of Englishness and I want to keep it like that.”

I loved the response of David Edwards, a café manager in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, the real-life setting of the fictional Midsomer.  Mr Edwards is black, and he reckons that Midsomer is the safest place in Britain to be black, granted that every one of the victims of the 272 murders to date have been white.

True-May’s comments, apart from being offensive, are nonsense, of course.  The murderous English village, in all its fascinating glory, is associated indelibly with Agatha Christie, and her villages are very diverse indeed.

Mysterious foreigners?  They turn up by the bucketload.   Not black or Asians, particularly – this is pre-War Britain, after all – but Greeks, Italians, French, Eastern Europeans etc., etc.  Poirot himself is Belgian, of course, and often travels to fairly exotic locations.  “Englishness” is a subject which often comes up.  Take this, for example, from Murder On The Orient Express. The very English Colonel Arbuthnot comes to the defence of the very English Mary Debenham.

“About Miss Debenham,” he   said rather awkwardly. “You can take it from me that she’s all right. She’s a pukka sahib.”

Flushing a little, he withdrew.

“What,” said Dr. Constantine with interest, “does a pukka sahib mean?” (He’s Greek, you’ll notice.)

“It means,” said Poirot, “that Miss Debenham’s father and brothers were at the same kind of school as Colonel Arbuthnot.”

Time and again Agatha Christie punctures that pompous idea of “Englishness” with that most English weapon, humour.  Dave Edwards, the café manager, was pictured grinning his head off.  So who’s got the last laugh now?