Combating the Lockdown/Poirot

I am no admirer of Boris Johnson but I will concede that – in having to deal with three seemingly contradictory Covid issues, namely the risk to physical health, its economic consequences and the mental consequences of locking the population up – he was on new ground for a Prime Minister.

I imagine that his vision of being PM was of a long Sunday lunch at Chequers in which he could entertain the gathering with his bons mots.

To make matters worse he nearly died of Covid and had personal financial worries.

Of the three, the mental element was least addressed.

However, now in the lifestyle media sections, we increasingly read of lockdown depression and alcoholism.

Forewarned by Bob Tickler’s friend Grania of Long Covid before ‘the science’, I stayed indoors with a régime which worked for me: Poirot from 5-7 pm flowed by a tin of caviar served with a hard boiled egg and a shot of ice cold vodka.

Recently on “catch up” I saw a series of Poirot which I had missed.

Notwithstanding that I had indubitably seen it before and knew the Agatha Christie story on which it is based I enjoyed these thoroughly.

David Suchet is the definitive Poirot, although Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov, Kenneth Branagh and John Malkovich have taken the rôle with varying degrees of success.

The locations are terrific – attention to period detail admirable – and, although there is usually a final scene in which Poirot reveals all before the assembled cast thankfully devoid of diversity, they avoid become formulaic.

Some of the directors, notably Anthony Horowitz, went on to become acclaimed writers.

Some of these episodes are now 25 years old but certainly have borne the test of time. Sadly, too, they reflect how popular TV drama has declined.