Agatha

Regular readers will know that we spend quality time with Agatha Christie, in particular with Miss. Marple. She makes a change, if nothing else, from a viewing diet too rich in Maigret.

Given that, as all good ologists know - for example anthropologists and psychologists, all good things come in sevens, one of the memory tests which I have for myself is the seven ladies of marple, with the seven ladies in question being listed at references 1 thru 7 below. The author, the lady herself, the four ladies who have portrayed her serially on our television, and an also-ran, a lady who might well have played Miss. Marple but didn't, at least to our knowledge.

A test which is real enough as when I think to test myself, which might be around once a week, one or more of them usually go missing. Curiously, it is the lady who, to my mind, is the best of the bunch, Joan Hickson, who goes missing most often. Missing for hours, or perhaps even a day or so, then popping back into mind for no apparent reason.

A supplementary test, very much work in progress, is not only to recall the names, but also to recall an image, perhaps complete with a television mannerism, something like the little hunching of the shoulders of Geraldine McEwan.

We are presently doing this last, not for the first time but newly chargeable from Prime, and these adaptations are, to my mind, rather badly overcooked. The plots stray too far from the original, are too complicated, are too noisy, both aurally and visually. and are over acted. This last in the sense that there are too many eminences and the poor old director can't keep them all in rein. A problem which can rear its head in a slightly different way when the lead actor in a long-running and successful series is there too long and starts to think that he or she is both in charge and indispensable. Think Noele Gordon and the both respectful and entertaining film about her called 'Nolly'.

PS 1: on Friday, the day of first posting, it was Anna Massey, snapped above, who went missing for several hours. I then thought to ask Gemini about lady actors with blonde bobs of a a certain again, and the power of Gemini was such that the name popped into mind just I was going to start asking him the question. And who says he is not conscious, a matter raised in a recent post?

This morning, on the clue 'I cannot presently recall the name of a British actress of moderate height and with a blonde bob who, in her later years, used to play rather severe ladies on UK television dramas. The sort of actress who might have played Miss. Marple, but did not, at least as far as I know. She died a few years ago. Can you offer a few candidate?', Gemini offered me six candidates, of which Anna Massey was the sixth. When I told him, he offered a nice little story about why I might have thought she would have done as a Miss. Marple.

Losing the terminal 's' of 'candidates' did not bother him. He seems to be quite good at dealing with typos of that sort.

On the other other, he is not reading my blog, which would have given him the answer directly, although it would in principle easy enough for him to have made the connection, both products coming from the same stable, working under the same login credentials. Or is he clever enough to know that it was a test and preferred not to cheat...

PS 2: for some reason, a great many of the images of Anna Massey turned up by Bing, were owned by Getty Images. Perhaps Microsoft have some arrangement with them. Not that I needed to pay for this, relatively low grade copy: quite good enough for present purposes.

PS 3: 09:45 Saturday: just done a YouGov survey, for once about something that I am interested in, that is to say (mostly) about the possibility of the Labour Party holding leadership election in the near future - with my own view being that they should soldier on with Starmer. He may not be that good at it, but he is what we have got and now is not a good time to be rocking the boat. All hands to the ropes, not to the lifeboats! But who paid YouGov to do the survey?

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Marple.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Rutherford.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Hickson.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_McEwan.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_McKenzie.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Massey.