RosieBell

Sunday Night Ordeal

I have been busy on other things and neglecting this blog. But I do want to write about non-cycling matters and the telly version of Ordeal by Innocence, which was on back in April, and the irritation it caused is still with me, like incurable thrush.

The original book was later period Christie, and at least the adaptors hadn’t parachuted in Miss Marple to do the detecting, as they did in a recent travesty of Endless Night.

Like Endless Night, this novel has a post-war feeling. The grown up children are evacuees adopted by the barren Rachel Argyle and her scholarly husband; there’s a coloured girl, Tina, a librarian who drives a bubble car; Waiting for Godot is on at the local theatre. The cast are quite a remove from the pre-war gang of country house dwellers. The house where it is set is an upper-middle-class house with daily help instead of the 1930s butlers and maids.

Christie’s set up is a grabber. Jacko Argyle has been found guilty of the murder of his mother, Rachel Argyle, and has died in prison. Then his alibi, Dr Calgary, turns up to prove he was innocent. The family are under suspicion and police investigation again, and they start breaking under the strain One more dead body, one wounded body, and voila, the explanation in the library with a couple of marriages at the end.

The red herring is that Rachel Argyle’s damaged children and her own lack of imagination towards them are thought to be the motive behind the murder. The plot twist is that that view is mistaken and the motive is quite simple – money. What did the adaptor (Sarah Phelps) do? Turned Rachel Argyle from a well-meaning if unempathetic woman desperate for children, to a raving Mommie Dearest. Turned Jacko Argyle from a greedy ruthless crook into a damaged case. Turned the kindly husband Leo Argyle into a psychopath. Turned the loving secretary Gwenda into a crude vamp. Turned the motive into reasonable revenge instead of straightforward unscrupulous avarice. Changed the identity of the murderer. Inflicted on the murderer a particularly sadistic punishment. Lost the over-arching theme, that it is the innocent who suffer undeservedly.

In short, turned a clever story in more or less humdrum surroundings into a high-coloured, vulgar, Gothic psychological drama of stock type set in a Scottish castle in a forest. Added a Chief Constable cover up, Dr Calgary turned into a physicist driven mad by the atom bomb and it was yet another piece about a colluding and corrupt establishment. Also the rude brutality by the son-in-law – I don’t think 50s and 60s families of the Argyle class would have been quite so free with the fuck yous at the dinner table. A forced atmosphere of thunder and lightning instead of the drizzling corrosiveness of the original.

One Guardian reader had it well summed up:-

“We do indeed get the “Agatha Christie we deserve” – or rather, we get the TV adaptations we deserve, if by this we mean screenplays that mistake bleakness for profundity and cliche for character – and that reveal an innate misogyny that has little to do with Christie’s often complex, courageous, unexpected female characters.

Take Mrs Argyle. In the book, she’s conflicted, a social reformer (probably a Guardian reader!) whose painful longing for children and blindly possessive attitude to those she adopts is at the heart of the story. But here, she’s a cruel, racist abuser who even in Lucy Mangan’s review pretty much deserves to die. Well hello there, bad (adoptive) mother stereotype! And what about Gwenda, the secretary? In the book she’s a complex, compassionate woman in her late 30s. In the screenplay she’s a walking, or rather tottering, youthful cliche who, with her high heels and low-cut dresses, bitchy remarks and gold-digging instincts, fulfils yet more misogynistic stereotypes.

These representations of women are, like the whole screenplay, far more old-fashioned than Agatha Christie ever was. This kind of writing hides its own dark secrets of misplaced nostalgia and misogyny. Agatha Christie may not be everyone’s favourite. But her varied representations of women have provided me with many more role models than these “dark” TV screenplays.

Emily Richards
Salisbury, Wiltshire

Christie did produce varied women – spinsters with fulfilled lives, a Lesbian menage viewed sympathetically, plucky, heroic girls. As Emily Richards says, it’s infuriating to see her (woman) adaptor fall back onto lazy old-fashioned views of women.

Stands Scotland where it did?

As I'm sick of, and sickened by, Scottish nationalism Tom Gallagher's Scotland Now: A Warning to the World,  wasn't the jolliest holiday reading. I relived the independence referendum which was the worst political time of my life – the flags, the bad history, the bad economics, the endless flattery of the Scots, forming a wave that half drowned the spluttering Unionist campaign. As his account of that time chimes in with my own dark memories, I trust his version of the history of the SNP and his description of the broader political setting. I also found it useful to get what was a heap of fragments in my own head pulled together into a coherent whole. So I'll be using this book for reference in the future.

It should have come with a trigger warning for the alliterative b Salmond - bombastic, belligerent, braggart, blustering, blowhard. It's painful to recall Salmond's destructive boasting about “writing Labour's budget” during the general election and the Yessers weeping at his resigning from leader of the SNP as the loss of a true statesman. Also cringe-making were his attempts to pull foreign governments on-side for Scottish independence which even China views with dismay.

Alex Salmond .. a bumptious squire forever dragging his rather plain daughter around the royal courts of Europe in search of a husband who would transform the family status: For 18^th-centruy Vienna, Hanover or Naples substitute Qatar, Beijing and any Scandinavian capital you care to name: Alex is banging at the door proclaiming that no more in fair Scotland to be viewed as a mere province but as a proud nation about to enter into its inheritance.

Tom Gallagher (I know him so I'm not going to call him “Gallagher) has various explanations for this earthquake of nationalism in an island state known for its political stability.

The SNP has surged thanks to an upsurge in anti-elitism at grassroots level in Scotland even though it has been in charge of most aspects of Scottish policy-making for eight years. Many Scots yearn for an opposition to lead them against a British state which they believe is colluding against their best interest in numerous ways. It has become a bogeyman like the Pope of Rome used to be for militant Ulster Protestants...

He sees it in the context of a breakdown of traditional class interest parties generally and the rise of identity politics:-

Far from being an anachronism in a globalising age, the SNP is a very contemporary political force. Parties which represent the class, occupational, religious or secular interest and outlooks of their voting base are on the defensive and increasingly in retreat. Society has become more fragmented and fluid. It is identity politics which increasingly motivate voters in an age of anxiety over immigration, corporate global power or other forms of remote control felt to marginalise and dis-empower citizens. Parties able to offer seemingly fresh narratives based around mobilising identity are very much in vogue. ….

Also the Me Performing on Social Media decade:-

Privatised existences, exemplified by addiction to online technology, have made people increasingly self-absorbed. Their own feelings often count for more than group loyalties stemming from locality, family, workplace or faith community. The genius of the SNP.. is to give such passive and unfulfilled individualism a collective outlet. The SNP has successfully emerged as a surrogate family at the national level.

Nicola Sturgeon is now the “mother of the nation” and SNP members take criticism of their party as a personal insult. 

But its message is not one of solidarity, restraint, and long-term co-operation to build a better Scotland. Very often it is rather bellicose, emphasising partisanship, sometimes along territorial lines. In Glasgow, social conflict in some poorer areas once involved gangs feuding over territory. The SNP has shown particular flair in harnessing social tensions in this unruly city which used to play out in religious strife and neighbourhood factionalism, channelling them instead into politics.

So the SNP is currently in a position much-coveted by populist parties. It has become a conduit for emotions that are often negative ones but which place few demands on the leadership to work hard to deliver effective policies. ….Nationalists can be more self-indulgent and wayward than other politicians because nationalism so often manages to persuade lots of voters to suspend their critical faculties…

Also to mass individualism, reinforced by social networking, which played a large part in galvinising the Yes vote:-

Much of society has become more hedonistic and excitable as absorption in civic and community endeavours faded. The rise of the dissatisfied and egotistical citizen ready to endorse a political party whose leaders also have a self-absorbed and basically populist profile has been predicted by the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset in the 1920s. In The Revolt of the Masses published in 1929, he warned that society's vital energies would be sapped thanks to dumbed down citizens surrendering their fate to an interventionist state where populists held sway.

That is not really fair on many pro Yes activists from the Green and the Left who do ardently believe that an indy Scotland will be greener/more socialist. They are mistaken – the SNP would be in charge for decades and is neither - but many of them worked very hard for ends that were altruistic, as well as highly statist.

However Scotland is now stuck with politics being nationalist vs unionist for a long time to come. Criticism of the Scottish government's policies on eg transport are met with the jeer #SNPbad (including from MSPs and MPs – along with other grimnesses of Scottish political life are the name-calling twitter threads of some serving politicians).

These politics are here for a decade or two or three. Tom Gallagher compares the situation with Quebec:-

Quebec had become stuck with a nationalism possessing no positive vision for society. Instead there is a readiness to generate low-level conflict to enable the political machine to benefit materially from office. Scotland doesn't have a language question but the SNP's direction of travel is much the same – towards a constant absorption with constitutional arrangements and identity politics and where contrasts with the rest of the United Kingdom are deliberately underscored and celebrated.

Tom Gallagher has had twelve books published by the academic press. This one has been self-published. The layout could do with some cleaning up and the text needs some editing for repetitions. Also“disinterested” does not mean “uninterested” (though it's probably too late to save). It's very readable and there's plenty of food for thought in it and I would like to see a sober Nationalist* giving it an intelligent review.+

*As distinct from the boycotters of Tunnocks tea cakes
+Not the one line Amazon reviews saying "bitter wee man"

Their own agenda

At such times as these I'm glad I don't have to make a decision about military intervention in Syria.  It is a serious business, and one that should overshadow all smaller concerns. Not that stops some people of course:-

And my favourite from Carlton Reid, who I admire as a cycling advocate and for writing an excellent book. But sometimes you really have to forget your main pre-occupation in life.

We buried him in full camera glare

I'm not a republican. Constitutional monarchies work fine as a system of government, even though on paper they don't make sense.

Like Christopher Hitchens, I thoroughly enjoy Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time, a novel where a detective examines the case against Richard III and decides that the duplicitous evil king was a creation of the Tudor spin doctor, Thomas More. His version was later popularised by the brilliant propagandist and jingoist, William Shakespeare. Hitchens called The Daughter of Time a “minor classic” and indeed it is a morality tale of not carelessly accepting the received version of an historical event.

Last night I watched a documentary about the Richard III Society raising the money and employing the archaeological department of Leicester University to dig up a car park in Leicester and – shiveringly for the superstitious – on the first day of the dig they uncovered a skeleton with a curved spine. I am delighted when people who our shallow society dubs “anoraks” or “eccentrics” i.e. people with a private passion for something of no obvious profit, are rewarded, whether it's a couple who stick paua shells on the walls of their house which later turns into a tourist attraction, or a group dedicated to rehabilitating a king who died over five hundred years ago finding his body. It's a mixed triumph for the Society since it contradicts their theory that Richard's misshapen body was a lie of Thomas More's.

But – a service in Leicester Cathedral. Headline news. Trailers on radio and television about live coverage of the burial. Cortege through the city. Heralds and banners and flags. As if this was an event of national importance. I like a good ceremony and will turn up for a Sealed Knot performance but is anyone else going WTRuritanianF about this? 

 

You can follow the mixture of solemnity and  derision on #richardreburied.

Favourite tweets:-

James O'Malley ‏@Psythor 2h2 hours ago

 

Disgusted that Channel 4 hasn’t got a Tudor on for balance. Typical Pro-Plantagenet bias. #richardreburied

  

Julian Dutton ‏@JulianDutton1 8h8 hours ago

A hearse a hearse my kingdom for a hearse. #richardreburied

Support Technicians

I set up a router and wireless on Saturday so can now sit anywhere in my flat and access the internet on my new laptop.  This is marvellously luxurious.  I have to offer thanks and apologies to those support technicians who put up with my brusqueness, rudeness, impatience and ignorance while I snarled at them “why isn’t this thing working - it‘s only three inches away from the computer” or “the mail was working before I tried putting on this router” and “where can I send it back to” while they answered with unfazed politeness.  Some of them sounded foreign though one said he was from Glasgow (if I’d heard a Glasgow accent my immediate reaction would have been to be very unprovoking).  Sorry, guys - it was my fault, not yours. You tried your best to be nice, and I was nasty back. 

I worked as a support technician at one time.  You are dealing with stressed out, impatient, angry, frustrated people down a telephone.  I swore I’d  always be patient and polite to support technicians doing this unpleasant job. I behaved badly and I hope you were rolling your eyes and making rude hand gestures at your colleagues about me.

The Englishman Abroad

The train from Antwerp to Amsterdam was busy.  I asked a selfish lout to move his bag from the seat next to him so I could sit down. 

Lout looking out the window and talking on his moby in a strong Saahf Laahndan accent, sounding aggrieved:-

“I’m on the train. Don’t know where I am.   Faahkin graffiti everywhere.  Faahkin mosque.  Blow it up.  I’ll be ready for some puff when I get there.”

Oh, shaaht it, you ignorant Saahf Laahndan lout, most of them on this train speak English better than you do.