And Then There Were None

All photos are of the Farne Islands (not racist)

Ooh, this was good. Really, really good. Dark and nuanced and taut and fun.

We recently read And Then There Were None in our mummies book group. Thankfully, knowing the culprit in advance didn't diminish my enjoyment of this Boxing Day television adaptation. Although I would like to know how much of a genuine shock it was at the end to those not in the know. In the book, you only find out the murderer via a message in a bottle tossed out to sea and washed ashore a while later. In the television adaption, the villain walked into the room for a chat with the final victim as she choked in a noose. The murderer then went calmly to his room and committed suicide. Some interaction between the murderer and the final victim (who hangs herself) is alluded to in the book, as a crucial chair gets moved back against the wall, but it could also be assumed that this happened post-death.

Seal island

So the story is as follows. Ten seemingly unconnected people are lured to an island off the Devon coast by someone with the initials UN Owen. (Unknown, geddit?) The island originally had a racist name, then another racist name, but now the more acceptable "Soldier Island" seems to have stuck. (However, anti-Semitic remarks in the opening few pages of the novel have thus far been glossed over and are still to be edited out.) Some of the ten think they are going to the island to work, others for a break, others for a bit of a laugh. But a few more background checks may not have gone amiss, for they couldn't be more wrong. On the first evening, a gramophone record shrieks out their crimes. They have all in some way been responsible for the death of someone else, and for this they must pay. They are then bumped off one by one by persons - well, UN Owen. Except that there is only them on the island, it's too stormy for anyone else to land (or anyone to leave), so it's got to be one of them. Each murder takes the pattern of a line of the rhyme "Ten Little Soldier Boys" (or earlier racist versions thereof). On the telly, the murders were a lot more gory than implicated by Agatha Christie's clinical, succinct prose. There was a lot of blood.

The book has a rather "stiff upper lip" approach to the whole business. So I loved the darkness of the television adaptation, the portrayal of the psychological stress of watching people being killed and knowing the inevitable was coming. The suspicion of everybody. The lack of escape options, with no chance of rescue thanks to the aforementioned timely storm (not yet named). The meticulous planning of the whole thing is so sinister, so spooky. The television characters had few redeeming features.  Their past crimes were more clear-cut, premeditated and evil than in the book. The book led you to believe some of the people's wrongdoings may have been accidents, but no chance of that on the television. Some characters exhibit no remorse whatsoever. Others were clearly tormented by the past, but perhaps only now that it was coming back to torment them. Big time.

Now, I have never received a letter out of the blue, accepted its invitation to put myself on a train and gone off for a few days to an island to watch people get murdered. I write this post merely as a little shout-out of love for my book group, who "literally" (boom-boom) saved my life when it was set up four years ago. They are a group of the loveliest ladies in the world. (You know who you are.) Our monthly meet-ups are the highlight of my month. (They are often the only night out of my month.) We take it in turns to pick a book and to host. The books are usually short and not too complicated for mums with not enough time to read. (Though someone once chose Possession, and we forgave her.) There is always wine, crisps and cake, and plenty of good cheer and comfort in girl power. And we always do make a reasonable attempt to talk about the book before sliding into the inevitable chat. Outside of book group, our children have play dates. Some of us have celebrated Christmas and New Year together. Mummies need each other. And there is solidarity in good writing and good company.

Distant rainbow

Walking The Nile

I've written about the River Nile before, when Simon Reeve chose it as the first of his Sacred Rivers. But this programme wasn't just selected highlights of the river, it was someone walking its entire length. All 4,250 miles of it. And while Simon Reeve chose the Blue Nile to explore, Levison Wood chose the White, presumably because it gave him further to go in more hostile terrain.

I say no selected highlights, but they did have condense several months of monotonous walking (and seven million steps) into three hours of television. And I only watched the last of them, when Lev (as he introduces himself to his friends) reaches Egypt after crossing the entire Sahara desert on foot. Lev is either a little bit mad, or an incredibly strong-willed human being. He is certainly a teensy bit full of himself.

What is amazing to me when he reaches Aswan is how empty it is. When we docked our ship there at the end of our cruise down the Nile, to reach the quay we had to walk through at least ten other massive boats moored alongside ours. The water was higgledy-piggledy with feluccas and the bazaar teeming with people. The famous Old Cataract Hotel (where Agatha Christie wrote Death On The Nile and - I hasten to add - not where we were staying) was booked up for months. Today, the river is deserted. Lev is the only guest at the Old Cataract. The fragile political situation in Egypt really has made people stay away in droves.

The Old Cataract Hotel, Aswan

Feluccas vying for trade

Busy Aswan, with cruise ships parked in the background

The risk of unrest also means Lev is closely guarded by police. One van drives in front and another behind. When Lev sees the officers throwing sticks to knock dates off a tree to serve as a somewhat meagre lunch, he makes them a pile of sandwiches, but otherwise he finds their presence intensely irritating. For one thing, they are making him walk along a Tarmac road rather than the river, which is dull, choking with traffic fumes and at times downright dangerous (at one point he has to cross a bridge balancing on its parapet). And - as he needs to cover 25 miles a day to keep to his strict schedule - it is also giving him massive blisters. Even though Lev has all the relevant permits, other police officers keep stopping him to ask what the heck he is doing. Tourists aren't generally allowed to pass through the area between Aswan and Luxor unless they are on a boat or an overnight train. There seems to be a genuine risk that Lev could be shot by insurgents, but he is having none of it. The police are only trying to protect his welfare and keep him alive. They are often just offering him a lift. But stubbornly determined to cover the whole distance on foot, he wishes they would "f**k off", which instantly rises his audience's heckles and dooms his programme to be shown after the watershed.

Luxor

Lev responds a little more graciously to the locals. One man is very keen to show him his cows. Lev attends a service at a mosque marking the end of Ramadan, only his "fixer" Turbo has to drag him away when police arrest some suspected Islamic militants and things turn ugly. He is asked to appear on Egyptian television at a government reception at the Pyramids of Giza. The town governor and a sizeable entourage accompany him on his last few metres to the Mediterranean coast at Rosetta, the estuary of one of the larger tributaries of the Nile Delta.

The backdrop to Lev's Egyptian TV appearance

He finds the view on the last leg rather disappointing, claiming he was hoping for a nice beach and some palm trees. In the background appear to be a nice beach and some palm trees. Never mind, soon he is charging into the Med wearing a Union Jack like a superhero cape. This does look a tad colonial. His parents show up to celebrate with him. Speaking as a mother, I suspect they have spent the past few months sick with worry, especially as Lev has crossed several war zones, dodged gunfire, and a journalist walking with Lev for three days in Uganda died of heatstroke. But I am not sure how much attention Lev has paid to their feelings. He certainly hasn't let them hinder his spirit for adventure. Much as I would like my daughter to grow up with a love for travel, I'd prefer it if she would stick to destinations where I, if left behind at home, can sleep at night.

Death In Paradise

I was round at a friend’s house the other day when her Tesco delivery arrived. Tucked in the bags was a box of Del Monte fruit smoothie lollies. My friend revealed that she and her husband had one each week in front of Death In Paradise to get them in the Caribbean mood. “Aha!” I thought. “So it isn’t just me who indulges in this guilty pleasure.” Not Del Monte fruit smoothie lollies, but Death In Paradise, a murder mystery series so bad it’s actually, well, quite good. Catchy tunes, nice scenery, good food, beach bars, a few running gags, a touch of sexual tension, The Cat from Red Dwarf – what’s not to like? Add in a supposedly brilliant but eccentric British detective, completely implausible plots, a murderer who is usually obvious from the opening credits (the clue being it’s the one actor you’ve heard of, someone who clearly fancied a nice all-expenses paid holiday to Guadeloupe), and a homage to Agatha Christie as the murderer is unmasked each week in front of a gathering of everyone sipping tea or cocktails in the lounge, and it’s apparently a sure-fire winner. Even if, as other reviewers have commented, it makes it seem as though fifty years of crime writing and television mystery making have never happened.

A bit of a shock horror moment came at the start of this series when Ben Miller, the original eccentric British detective, was killed off in one of the opening scenes. But not to worry, they had found a clone, in the form of Kris Marshall, star of My Family and the BT adverts, to carry on where he had left off. Except that Kris (I can’t even remember his character’s name, he’s that memorable – no, wait, it’s Humphrey! Of course. What other name could there be for a posh Brit? Even if every other surviving Humphrey in the world is at least twice this Humphrey’s age. Or a cat.) drinks something a little stiffer than tea on occasion. And he sometimes wears a tropical shirt rather than a starched and sweaty Savile Row suit. And he does pratfalls. And he did comment in his first episode that it was a little strange that everyone had to be gathered together in a lounge in order for him to arrest the murderer.

The only problem about writing about Death In Paradise is that I've never been to the Caribbean. Or anywhere close to it, for that matter. I’ve been to Notting Hill Carnival and eaten goat curry on Stroud Green Road in Finsbury Park. I’ve read a couple of Andrea Levy books. My grandparents used to own a timeshare in the Bahamas, and my grandmother’s cousin served a ministry over there. I wouldn’t say no to an invitation or an opportunity though... Though they may want to lower the murder rate a little before I go.  A bit like Morse and Lewis never quite managed to do in Oxford. In the meantime, a Del Monte fruit smoothie is definitely the way to go.