Murder, She Wrote

After I survived the surgeon’s knife, I was told to put my feet up and let nature do the healing so I’ve been doing the bare minimum to keep the wheels on the bus of Jack Scott enterprises. I must admit, my lolling about on the sofa has involved a fair amount of daytime TV – a thin diet of magazine programmes, flashy quiz shows, racy gossip, silly soaps, mindless vox pop, meagre news and convoluted whodunnits. It’s all been quite soporific and great for helping me catch up on my sleep. This healing lark is so exhausting.

Occasionally though, a classic grabs my attention and holds it for the duration. Such is the 1974 film version of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express with a stellar ensemble headed by Albert Finney in the role of Hercule Poirot, Ms Christie’s fey and fussy Belgian detective. I’ve seen the movie loads of times. It’s hugely OTT and I can only assume that the cast laid down bets during the first read-through on who could ham it up the most. My vote goes to Wendy Hiller as the ageing Russian princess, all lacy widow’s weaves and truly dreadful Romanov accent. She would have given the Bolshies a run for their money. Sadly, along with Dame Wendy, most of the players are now dearly departed – Anthony Perkins, Ingrid Bergman, Rachel Roberts, Denis Quilley, Colin Blakely, John Gielgud and, of course, the fabulous Lauren Bacall who popped her clogs just last month.

It’s rumoured that Agatha Christie wrote at least some of her famous book when she stayed at the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul back in its glory days, the digs of choice for princes and presidents visiting the Ottoman capital. I’ve lodged there myself a couple of times during its more recent rundown years. Or as I put it in the new book (cue the plug):

“The Pera Palace was once the opulent end of the line for the Orient Express but had fallen on hard times, a piece of Istanbul’s neglected family silver in dire need of a good buffing.”

Chapter Eight, The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

It was Liam’s first visit to old Constantinople and we endured four seasons in three days – driving snow, bitter winds, low grey clouds and sparkling sunshine under blue skies. Our room at the Pera Palace was so cold, we were forced to share the huge antique bathtub to keep warm. It wasn’t too much of an imposition. Since then the hotel has been buffed to buggery with a multi-million lira facelift. Even the prolific and profitable Ms Christie might now baulk at the rack rate (if she were still alive, that is).

Thank You, Mitt Romney

We leapt off the train from Norwich at Stratford (the main gateway to the Olympic Games). It was busy but not uncomfortably so. There was no sign of the much anticipated transport gridlock that has dominated the news for months. We jumped on a bus to the penthouse pad overlooking the stadium and took our seats for the biggest show in town. As I had hoped, it was a mesmerising salute to British polish, quirkiness, individuality and diversity – funny, moving, creative, self-deprecating, inclusive, mildly subversive with tongue jammed firmly in cheek. The eccentric cultural cabaret was infused with subtle (and not so subtle) political messages to the great, the good and the incompetent both at home and away. It mattered little to me that much of the humour might have been lost on the globally bemused. It was worth all the money just to get the first lesbian kiss ever broadcast on Saudi TV. After much reticence, all but a few diehard cynics now seem to have risen to the occasion and finally taken the Games to their hearts. There’s a real buzz in the air, a buzz you can feel, taste and see. I think we have Mitt Romney to thank for this. His ungracious remarks about London’s readiness to stage the Games have galvanised opinion. No one likes a bad-mannered, bad-mouthing guest in their house, do they?

I give you one of the many highlights from the show – HM becomes a Bond girl. I hope our German friends weren’t too miffed by the Dambuster’s theme. Naturally, Her Maj was as inscrutable as ever.

Sweet Swedes and Wretched Russians

My faith in our distant Nordic cousins has been mercifully restored by the arrival of Joel and Mikaela, a sweet couple from the northern pinelands of Mother Svea. They own a Tepe house on the level beneath us. Joel is a tall, slim, handsome older man with silver hair and a laid-back charm. His wife Mikaela is the archetypal Aryan beauty, a blue-eyed blond bombshell. Their warm and kindly disposition is a welcome respite from the grumpy old Danes next to us. They invited us in for tea. Their grand villa is a picture of understated Scandinavian chic. We chatted away for hours, a delicious smörgåsbord of wit and wisdom.

I recalled my first visit to Stockholm when I was a hormonal adolescent. The little local grammar school I attended laid on the most incredible journeys designed to broaden horizons and expand the mind. One early morning in 1975 twenty or so sweaty boys boarded a train at Victoria Station and headed for the coast. We sailed on the morning tide to Flanders where we began our grand passage across the great North European Plain.

First stop Berlin. It was the height of the Cold War and we spent two days exploring the cruelly divided city, escorted through the wall at Checkpoint Charlie. Onwards east, our carriages were pulled by an ancient steam locomotive that choo choo’d through a flat, monotonous landscape. As we neared Poland our party was raided by a detachment of East German border guards brandishing Kalashnikovs. The mean-looking, chisel-chinned troopers in tight beige uniforms rifled through our belongings and ransacked the couchettes. Perhaps they were looking for Levi jeans. Calm was quickly restored and we continued our incredible journey. A brief stop in Warsaw precluded an excursion to the city. We continued on across the Soviet border to Smolensk where the entire train was silently raised from its bogies and placed onto a new set of wheels to fit the wider Russian railway gauge.

Second stop Moscow. Tsar Brezhnev was on the Soviet throne and we were tightly chaperoned by an over-painted woman in cheap scent. She was tailed by the KGB. Shops were empty save for Russian dolls, and strangers approached us in Gorky Park wanting the clothes off our backs. Moscow was drab but the metro was palatial. The Kremlin was magnificent and Red Square was vast and windswept. Lenin in his marble tomb looked like a Madam Tussauds’ dummy. The comrades around us looked fed up and miserable as they shuffled dutifully past the macabre exhibit.

Third stop Leningrad that was. The Venice of the North was a more visually pleasing spectacle with imposing baroque architecture painted in multi-coloured delicate pastels. The majestic enormity of the Winter Palace containing the Hermitage Museum was too vast to comprehend. As if Peter the Great’s grand imperial capital wasn’t grand enough we embarked on our fourth stop, a day trip to Novgorod, one of the most celebrated cities of medieval Rus. This ravishing city is twinned with Watford of all places.

Fifth stop Helsinki across the Gulf of Finland. This picturesque and verdant city reminded me of a mini-St Petersburg. Our whistle-stop excursion was all too brief.

Sixth stop stunning Stockholm where we expected to see a sex shop on every corner. It was the sexual repressed seventies when buttoned-up Brits were convinced that emancipated Swedes were at it morning noon and night. We were disappointed.

We steamed back to Blighty across the cold northern seas in a Ruskie rust bucket that saw service in World War Two. We shared the wreck with a party from an all-girl’s school in Scarborough. I watched the boys chase the girls and wondered what all the fuss was about. Our teachers allowed us to take a drink at the bar. Perhaps this is where my gradual but certain descent into alcohol dependency all began.

Final stop Tilbury Docks and back to earth with a bump. Three weeks for 150 quid which my parents saved for months to pay. All in all a fantastic adventure that was a little lost on a bunch of post-pubescent fourteen year olds whose main preoccupation was masturbation.