MEDITATION 115:

COSY CRIME

As I sit here in my armchair beside my candle with its flame’s warm glow I am in quite a cosy atmosphere. A summer storm rages outside with thunder and heavy rain and it is quite dark even though it is only early evening. It might as well be winter or at least November. I am tempted to put myself a glass of heavy red wine and write a few Christmas cards!

The word ‘cosy’ has been on my mind recently or rather the phrase ‘cosy crime’. A little while ago, my dear sister Maria, suggested I ought to write a cosy crime novel. If I did writer a crime novel, it would indeed be in the style of that sub-genre. Somehow I do not see myself writing a gritty crime thriller set in violent city streets complete with an accurate depiction of police procedurals. Cosy crime novels also have their fair share of violence too, of course, but the violence is in stark contrast to the sleepy, mellow setting of a village or small town, generally in a rural setting. They are quite often set decades ago in the 1950’s for example, when life, especially rural life, was meant to be simpler and quieter.

My sister’s suggestion came back into my mind while I was listening to Dame Mary Beard’s lecture in Oxford’s Bodleian library a few weeks ago. You may remember from my last meditation, that she stated that more murders in works of fiction take place in libraries than in museums or supermarkets for example. Her observation came to my mind again last week. BBC4 are repeating the old series of Miss Marple crime mysteries, adapted from Agatha Christie’s novels. The title of the first episode was ‘The Body in The Library’!

The library in question was not an academic one like the Bodleian or even a public library but a library in a large country house. Where else but there in an Agatha Christie story. Many of her works are centres on a large country house. However, this one did have another main setting: a high class seaside hotel. And of course the local village down the road from the mansion figured as well fleetingly.

The series is immaculately made: well scripted, beautifully photographed and with scrupulous attention to 1950’s detail. At the centre of the series is the exemplary performance of the late Joan Hickson as Miss Marple, the quiet, unobtrusive yet authoritative amateur sleuth. Taking on the series in her 70’s, this was the Indian summer of her long and comprehensive career. Any student of acting at whatever level should study her listening skills and her subtle reactions – they are a masterclass.

It is remarkable to think that the series is now between 30 and 40 years old. It still holds up well, perhaps because it was filmed on location in the main. Many of the actors who feature in the series had lived through the 1950’s and were perhaps performing then too. So they were at home and relaxed in the period so to speak, giving the series another layer of authenticity aside from the period detail. And I have always loved the opening theme music. It always leads me entranced into the opening scene. I have remembered the theme since the series first appeared on TV.

After watching ‘The Body in the Library’ I realised that Agatha Christie’s solutions to the murders are always plausible and well-plotted but in the cold light of day, preposterous. There is always some information which she holds back from the reader (or viewer) which they cannot possibly work out for themselves. Although this can be hinted at in the performances and scripts in a TV or film version. Also she is generally dealing with people of the upper classes or those who want to climb up the social ladder by hook or by crook. Her characters may possibly have money problems but they tend to be of the upper class kind (to do with wealth inheritance or crooked high finance deals). Her characters are not living a hand to mouth existence or almost living on the streets as they might be in a gritty crime thriller.

I have also recently watched a more recent cosy crime drama or rather a comic variation on the sub-genre set in our own times. In the Netflix series ‘The Residence’ the body of the murder victim is discovered not in the library but in the games room – of the White House no less. The victim is the loyal, long standing head usher of the White House and the murder is discovered during a grand Presidential banquet for the Australian Prime Minister and entourage, including the singer and actress Kylie Minogue, playing herself, who becomes a suspect at one point.

The setting gives the mystery an added frisson and opportunities for political satire which the series writer, Paul William Davies, takes full advantage of. For example the President is gay and has a First Gentleman rather than a First Lady, not to mention a slob of a brother and wisecracking, vodka-slurping mother also in residence. The setting also provides the opportunity for a plethora of suspects both upstairs and downstairs as the Head Usher, A.B. Wynter, frequented both worlds because of his position.

Like the Miss Marple series, ‘The Residence’ demonstrates scrupulous attention to detail and the rooms of the White House are meticulously recreated, providing the viewer with a private view of the famous residence. Also as the White House is on a larger scale than Agatha Christie’s country house, the numerous rooms and those who appear and disappear in them give rise to more twists and turns in the plot.

Paul William Davies succeeds in maintaining the tortuous plot over eight episodes which is a major achievement in itself when you consider that the Miss Marple stories are only spread over two or three. He achieves this by adding in new suspects as the plot unfolds as well as flashbacks to the events of the night and by developing the intricate and shifting relationships between the residents/staff/suspects The story also moves out of the White House to relate suspects’ backstories and to a Congressional Hearing about the investigation.

At the centre of events is a modern version of Miss Marple, Cornelia Crupp, who is brought in as consultant to the Metropolitan Police Force. She is also a avid ornithologist and sometimes leaves her investigations to listen to the night birds on the Presidential lawn. In Cornelia Crupp, Mr Davis has created as memorable a character as Miss Marple herself. Like Miss Marple, she is solitary and keeps her findings and thoughts to herself and is moreover given a quirky and entertaining portrayal by Uzo Aduba.

The final episode is 87 mins long, the length of a feature film, and mainly focuses on the unmasking of the murderer in front of the suspects gathered in one room. This, as we know, is a favourite scene in crime fiction, especially in Christie. Mr Davis creates a fantasia on this trope so that in the highly amusing finale, the unravelling of the puzzle becomes more and more preposterous, accompanied by more flashbacks to the eventful evening. In the episode Uzo Aduba gives a masterclass herself in delivering the tortuous unravelling of the plot with total conviction.

All in all this is a highly sophisticated, witty and entertaining series and beautifully crafted. Except that it is let down by one thing: an over-saturation of bad language at times. Enough to make Miss Marple raise an eyebrow and drop her knitting. Two of my friends switched off after episode 3 as a result of this -and they are much younger than I am. Although such language is in character for the President’s brother, Tripp and his Personal Advisor, Harry Hollinger, their barrage of expletives becomes tiresome in the least. Less is more, after all, and both characters would have been funnier with less expletives. Especially that elsewhere in the series the dialogue sparkles with wit. Some may argue that dialogue with continual swearing is more realistic. But then Drama is not totally realistic. It is a shaping of reality. And that shaping involves the dialogue too. Nevertheless the series is worth watching – especially if you like your crime cosy.

As I write, the word ‘cosy’ still hovers in my mind. Many years ago, I took an evening course in Educational Drama with around 20 other local teachers. The course was based in Kingston and I remember we had a final meal with our tutors at a restaurant by the river. After the meal, we played a game. Each person was given the name of another person on a piece of paper. We had to answer the question, ‘If this person was a car, what model would they be?’ Each of us then read out their answer and we had to guess who the person was. I turned out to be a Morris Minor! Because I am old fashioned, comfortable and – cosy! I was quite affronted. I imagined myself as a Rolls Royce! It is interesting to speculate how other people see us, isn’t it? My colleagues had been with me on the course one evening a week for around 8 months. So the choice of car wasn’t an initial impression. Nevertheless, as I am live in my own universe, it was quite a shock!

Yes, perhaps I might take my sister’s advice and write a cosy crime novel. And perhaps a Morris Minor could figure in it. I wonder if the boot of a Morris Minor is large enough to hold a dead body…….

Ave atque Vale,

Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 111

I am sitting here by my candle as always and gathering my thoughts. Or rather my memories. Memories of Hollywood. I never worked there of course. I do not think I would have been a good film director except maybe as a ‘dialogue coach’ on individual scenes. However, I imagine I might have been a good character actor in the Golden Age of Hollywood, as it is termed, when the big studios reigned. I could see myself working in a major studio in a variety of roles in a plethora of movies. As a youth, I would have liked to pursue a career as a character actor. I had no ambitions to be a leading man.

I could see myself as a screenwriter too, knocking out scenes for whatever assignment a studio handed me. Writing for school was like that, when I was a Drama teacher. I would knock out a scene or two quickly ready for the next rehearsal. I have been writing a script for school again recently or rather re-writing it (in a more gentle manner than mentioned in the last sentence!). It is my play ‘Will and Juliet’ (first performed in 2017). It is about the boy apprentices who were in Shakespeare’s acting company. It is also an attempt to answer the question ‘Who was the first boy to play Juliet in ‘Romeo and Juliet?’ I have re-written the script for younger students and I am directing the play myself. Rehearsals have just begun and it is interesting working with students whom I do not know at all.

Those memories of Hollywood that are flickering in my thoughts like an old movie are of the three times I visited there, while staying in LA. They have resurfaced because of an exhibition on the film star Marilyn Monroe which is currently showing in London. The visit was a birthday present for a friend. It was quite an unusual experience as the tickets included both the entry to the exhibition and a cabaret with actor Suzy Kennedy playing Marilyn and it took place on a Saturday evening.

Miss Kennedy gave a vibrant impersonation, not only singing the songs from Marilyn’s films but also injecting anecdotes and biographical details about the star into her patter. It was a hugely entertaining 90 minute cabaret (I imagined it would be much shorter) and very upbeat (as all Marilyn’s songs were).

There was no mention of Marilyn’s tragic death from a presumed overdose at the age of 36 in 1962. But why should there be? It would cast a pall over the lively show. Besides, Marilyn lives on in her movies. And she is still drawing the crowds, I thought to myself, as I scanned the enthusiastic audience (of around 200 people) around me. She has not been on the screen for over 60 years and it will be her centenary next year. Yet her image is still everywhere, fixed in time as, because of her untimely death, she has never grown old.

She has become iconic. This is thanks partly to Andy Warhol’s famous picture of her. Images of her images are still as ubiquitous as when she was in her heyday as a star.

As might be expected, displayed in the exhibition were photos, film clips, newsreel extracts, magazine and news articles, original posters and costumes from her films. But of the 250 items on display there were also many of her personal effects, some of which were rather poignant. For example, some of her books (she was an avid reader), school books and sketch books as she loved drawing when she was a teenager, especially making sketches of the latest fashions. There were personal clothes and shoes. Some were from when she was a child and teenager too, which were also quite poignant and of course many items from her adult wardrobe. Her short life was displayed through the clothes she wore. There were numerous letters, postcards, film scripts and even some of her household bills, not to mention a bottle of unopened expensive champagne!

The exhibition comprised the personal collection of Ted Stamfer, and came from Marilyn Monroe’s private estate. When she died in 1962, her private effects were bequeathed to Lee Strasberg her acting coach and mentor, which he passed on to his daughter Paula. They languished in storage until they were finally auctioned in the late 90’s. Some of the auction catalogues were also on display. I remember seeing some of her personal effects in the Hollywood Museum in LA , including her fridge and a sofa and some of her famous sweaters, which made me realise that she wasn’t as tall as she appeared on film. In fact she was 5’4”. I think the museum collection may have been donated by other private collectors.

I have had an interest in old movies from quite an early age and have developed a keen interest in film history as a result. So exhibitions of film memorabilia have always attracted me. I’ve always been fascinated by costumes, props, furniture, scripts and film equipment that have survived down the years. So I was impressed by the exhibits on show at the Marilyn exhibition.

However, as I wandered around the exhibits I began asking myself why I was as fascinated by her private personal effects as everyone else there. They are a kind of biography of their own I suppose, coupled with explanatory panels beside the display cases. They are a sort of social history too. But most of all a glimpse, a tantalising glimpse, into what Marilyn may have been like as a person off screen. What it might have been like to be a guest at a dinner party at her modest Hollywood home for example. In some strange way the exhibits created an opportunity to get a little up close and personal to Marilyn. Something which the numerous biographies, documentaries and movies about her cannot provide.

I must admit that I would have liked to have met Marilyn. I think she would have been good company at dinner or fun at a party. I said so to my friend after we left the exhibition. I have a feeling she was far more intelligent than those around her understood. It was just that she had little formal education. I think she may have been eager to discuss those books she read but few people wanted to listen to her. And she was talented: as an actress (especially in comedy) and singer and dancer. Perhaps her greatest tragedy was that she had so little confidence in her own talents.

Before we sat down for the cabaret my friend and I had time to look around the exhibits a little. We looked mainly at the room which was adjacent to the cabaret space. This was the room that focused on her home and displayed photos of her modest bungalow and all sorts of household things, even examples of kitchen ware and that unopened bottle of champagne I mentioned earlier.

It was also the final room in the exhibition and included photos, newsreel extracts and newspaper coverage of Marilyn’s untimely death and of her funeral. On the three occasions I have visited Hollywood, there has always been a moment when I have experienced a sadness like a chill breeze. And just for a moment what came to my mind each time was all the unhappiness in that town, past and present. Going through that one exhibition room, that sadness, that chill breeze returned. Just for a moment. But it was there.

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Golden Age of Hollywood

Los Angeles

Marilyn Monroe London Exhibition

Film history

Lee Strasberg

Ted Stamfer

Suzy Kennedy

Hollywood Museum, L.A.

MEDITATION 79

I am seated here again beside my candle engaged in my occasional nocturnal pursuit of composing a meditation. Unlike Marcus Aurelius, whose own Meditations are the inspiration for mine, I do not present to the reader lists of philosophical maxims or observations. My own philosophical observations (if any) arise from descriptions of places I have visited, people I have met or have admired and from revisiting my memories.

The Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770- 1850) explained that poetry is inspired by ’emotions recollected in tranquillity.’ He might be describing these modest meditations. For it is only in tranquillity, in stillness, that I can be detached enough to glean some small seed of philosophy from moments in my life. If we cannot learn from our memories, from what we have lived and felt, what can we learn from?

Books, you might say, or the internet. I would consider using the internet as ‘casual learning’ as it is not so easy to assimilate information and deeply reflect upon it, at least, that is how I find it. Learning from books I find easier, perhaps because that was my method of learning since my childhood. That must be be true for most of us who are not young enough to have been exposed to the digital revolution in education. I feel I can bring my whole self to a book rather than a screen, which includes my life experiences and memories of course and hence there can be an interplay between the book and myself. The book may even bring memories to the fore in my consciousness. Although, it must be admitted that memory can be deceptive and even chaotic and confused at times. Hence the need for the cool air of detachment.

Cool air or rather the lack of it, has been on my mind these last few days, because of the high temperatures we are currently enduring. I have also been thinking about cool water lilies. I have been looking at photos I have taken last week of water lilies at Swanwick in Derbyshire while attending the annual Writers Summer School there. I spent some time stopping and looking at patches of water lilies on my walks around the lakes in time out from the week’s activities of talks and workshops.

Water lilies are among my favourite flowers. If my back garden was big enough and grand enough I would have a pond of water lilies. One of my favourite places at Kew Gardens is the water lilies hothouse where they have the largest one on record. There the lilies recline resplendent on the dark waters, colourful, exotic and expansive (like myself – well expansive anyway!).

The water lilies at Swanwick are much smaller but no less colourful: deep pink petals with white tips, enthroned on large dark green leaves. They float on top of the lake, congregating together in shady corners. Just as we delegates have been congregating together and hopefully floating ourselves, born up by new ideas and perceptions, by the deep but gentle waters of creativity.

I have mentioned the Swanwick water lilies before in one of my meditations. That was in 2019, after my second visit and now I have just completed my fourth (as 2020 was understandably a fallow year for the Summer School). It was on my first visit, in 2018, that I was encouraged to write this blog. New ideas and new directions always emerge from that place.

Swanwick has two lakes adjoining each other, but strangely no swans! It has extensive gardens and terraces and is an Edwardian house with modern extensions, housing the dining and conference rooms and a large residential block too. As I would return from my lakeside visit to the water lilies, I would see some of my fellow delegates moving around on the terraces to another talk, to their room or to tea, cake and more conversation in the lounge. Conversations with others who share our burning interests or enthusiasms are as important as the talks and presentations on offer at any conference.

As writing is a solitary activity so conversations with other writers are essential to keep going. It is why individuals join writers’ groups, not just to get feedback on their work and to learn from others and to receive hopefully support and encouragement, but to feel validated as a writer sometimes. To make being a writer seem real. The same is true of the writers’ summer school.

I do not think I have talked so much over the six days I was there. One evening I even developed a sore throat. I was giving talks myself on scriptwriting, four one hour sessions over four days, which led to more conversations from delegates so perhaps that contributed to it. It was good to be teaching again and to adults for a change who were eager to learn, unlike my former students at times! I have never felt so much at home there as this time.

Because we are all together for a intense six days, over that time we become an informal community, forming an invisible bond. This is quite extraordinary when you think that every year this unofficial community fluctuates. Not everyone attends every year and there is always an influx of new people. Yet over the days we are together, amidst all the activities and chatter, that bond silently evolves. It reminds me of rehearsing and performing a play. For a short length of time the cast become a community – as at Swanwick.

I was reminded of this informal community when I arrived at Derby station in 2021. I walked over the enclosed bridge with my luggage and down in the lift as usual to wait for the coach to take delegates to the summer school. Looking over the bridge as I waited for the lift I could see some familiar faces below at the coffee bar who would be getting the coach with me. I felt quite emotional as I hadn’t seen them for two years and we had all gone through the pandemic in the meantime.

In my mind’s eye I am returning to watching those delegates ambling around the property as I wander up from the lakes. Why are they here I ask myself? To learn, to improve their writing in some way, to find out about different genres of writing, about the world of publishing perhaps or how to self-publish. They may want to spend most of the week just writing, using the summer school as precious time away from home to concentrate and create. They might be successfully published themselves, or trying to get published, writing may be their career or a sideline or they may be an enthusiastic amateur. They might be writing articles, short stories, crime novels, children’s books or poems or plays or just scribbling. They all have a passion for writing, they have to write. To make sense of the world in some way through words (as I am doing now). They all need a creative outlet otherwise, as the American Dorothea Brande (1893-1948) observes in her excellent 1934 handbook ‘Becoming a Writer’, without a creative outlet life can be ‘unhappy, thwarted and restless.’ I have felt this myself at times.

What have I learnt from my week at Swanwick, you may ask, even though I was a tutor there? Well I have learnt many things from talks and conversations. And from the adult students on my course, just as occasionally I would learn something from my young students when I was engaged in my teaching career. I feel inspired to get on with ‘Driftwood’ my collection of short stories, having had a consultation with another tutor.

Most of all, I have learnt that it’s all about the writing and not the end product. It’s not about winning a poem or short story competition or the Booker Prize for a novel or even to be published in some way, wonderful though these would be. It’s about the writing, the process.

The great Russian theatre director Konstantin Stanislavksi (1863-1938) came to same conclusion about acting: the process, the in depth research and rehearsals were as important than the final performance. In the last stage of his life he formed his own studio of young actors who concentrated on the process and performed rarely.

It is all about the writing, the process. Because I have to write.

Ave atque Vale – until the next blog.

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 76

As I sit beside my candle to begin this meditation, I am looking in the corner opposite across my lounge. This is where my cd’s are housed on shelves that are virtually full now, almost from ceiling to floor. This is my prized classical music library and there are also several shelves of film music and musicals as well. I must also mention some more cd’s neatly stacked on or below my coffee table. Beside me to my left are more shelves of DVD’s and Blu-ray’s. Behind me are my bookshelves which are also full. I appear to be quite a collector. I hasten to add that there is still space to get to the front door in case of fire! I haven’t completely submerged myself in culture yet.

However I take comfort in the fact that they have been collected over a long period of time. I have been collecting my cd’s, for example, over the last three decades, and before that I collected LP’s since being a teenager. I replaced my favourite LP’s with the cd versions in the early 90’s. Some, as with my books and movies, were gifts or bought at reduced price in a sale. Some of my music was a given to me by my old friend Brian, who passed away ten years ago. Some I purchased on my many trips to Budapest, where cd’s were cheaper than here. When I was running the Drama tours, after a week of organising and directing, I would always visit my favourite classical music stores in a moment of spare time and treat myself to an album – or two. I would do the same when I was there on holiday of course. One of the stores even gave me a discount card.

I also take comfort from a remark by my Hungarian friend, Mariann, when she visited my house quite a while ago. She looked at my bookshelves and said, ‘Books make a home.’

You may be thinking that all these books and music and movies must have been a solace to me during the pandemic or at least helped to get me through it. The answer is yes and no. My retirement finally began as the pandemic started and part of my retirement plan was to absorb myself in my reading and music and movies, now that I would have time to do so. But, as with all of us, the lockdowns left me too unsettled at times to enjoy them. I did purchase more cd’s though, some of which I still haven’t played. Then I discovered that I now had three versions of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas, as a result! I forgot to check I already had two – or did I? I think it was comfort-buying more than anything. A buffer again the storm. I am sure I will play them eventually.

Recently I have been led to reflect on why we collect things. Yes we may have a particular interest or hobby but what drives us on to collect more. Is it the innate need to possess within us or the primitive hunter/gatherer syndrome? Is it curiosity – I must hear that or see that? Is it the novelty of the new – a new artist on the block – I must hear or see him or her? Is it compulsion or obsession? The bottom line is: do we ever ask ourselves: Do I really need that?

Perhaps creating a collection is a relaxation from a stressful professional job, like my purchasing the odd cd or two in Budapest on my Drama tours. My Hungarian friend Adam is a high powered lawyer in Budapest and has a large collection of Star Wars figures and memorabilia going back to his childhood for instance. He also collects figures from TV series from his childhood. Perhaps he is harking back to his childhood when his life was less stressful, when he wasn’t so high profile. I must ask him. He also collects 1990s Honda sports cars – not models but the real thing! He currently has four, I believe, or

it it five? He scours the Internet for spare parts. I remember bringing a pair of head lamps in my luggage for him on a visit a few year ago! He has driven me around Hungary in one of them. Sitting in it, I imagined I was in some 1990’s American cop show. Although the cars are quite low to the ground and I am no longer agile enough (if ever!) to quickly get out and shout ‘Freeze!’

Another example of this is from many years ago when I was a student in Oxford. A high powered professor of Medicine at my college would occasionally invite small groups of his students for dinner and to see his elaborate train set which he kept set up in the loft. Digital collecting is so very easy isn’t it? Just a click then it is on its way. But not as satisfying or relaxing as spending time browsing in a shop. My dear friend Alan tells me he likes to listen to music while doing the family ironing. Currently he has collected 2,500 songs on Spotify and has 76 albums saved digitally too. He must have a lot of ironing to do! I should not jest as I have four complete Wagner Ring cycles and four complete versions of the nine Beethoven symphonies on disc! And all the rest. As I look at my music collection I realise that some discs reflect earlier enthusiasms which I no longer have. So perhaps I need to decide which I really want to keep and give away the rest as my dear late friend Brian did.

But where is the enjoyment – purely in possession? Sometimes I look around my shelves and think when will I have the time to absorb all this, to really enjoy it. I think back to my childhood and youth, when I would use my birthday or pocket money to buy a book and go home and immediately curl up in a chair and begin to read it. Or I would buy a record and take it home and play it over and over again and really absorb and enjoy the music. I had so few books or albums then I suppose. The ones I had were special. The connection between purchase and enjoyment was immediate then. I also used the local library to borrow books and music too, even when I moved to London and my little bedsit in Brixton. Borrowing rather than buying? Dear me! But I lived with more modest means then.

As I look around the lounge again I realise that, when you include my TV and the cable box, this little room is quite an entertainment centre. I am now a man of riches and treasures too: well, treasures to me. It appears I am wealthy man. It is good to look around our rooms with fresh eyes and take in our possessions. To realise just how wealthy we are compared with many others – and some of those others may live not very far from us. So we should be grateful for what we have and share our treasures with others if possible. And perhaps try to pay no attention to that little insidious voice encouraging us to purchase more and take that itching finger away from our phone or laptop where Amazon and other sites pedal their wares.

Some of these books and cd’s and movies are like old friends to me. Some are barely new acquaintances as I have hardly played them or read them, if at all. Some too, like true friends, have helped see me through difficult times.

But they are not really friends. Real friends cannot be bought, let alone possessed. Generally we only acquire real friends by accident, not by intention, where we find ourselves at different times on life’s journey. We shouldn’t pick them up and put them down again either like a cd or a book, let alone leave them to gather dust on the shelf. Friendships have to be kept in good repair. They are our true treasures, our true wealth.

Marcus advises us: ‘Whenever you want to cheer yourself up, think of the qualities of your fellows’, for which we could read ‘friends.’ So, instead of playing or streaming that movie or music or interminable Netflix series, or clicking on Amazon to buy something new, we could cheer ourselves up by reflecting on our friends and be thankful for them. And then give them a call.

Ave atque Vale – until the next blog.

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up.

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius