Death of a butcher

A couple of days ago we failed to find anything to watch in the foothills of Freeview, that is to say up to about channel 50, and decided to push on. On this occasion we were lucky, turning up a Rupert Davies Maigret story somewhere around channel 82. Which we thought would do fine, having watched a couple of them before, back in August 2020.

Oddly, I can find no documentary trace of those watchings, beyond a something in an email about how the Gambon version seemed to have been built on the Davies version. Plus just the one mention of Rupert Davies in an annex to something not presently relevant. I would have thought that I would have made more of them. Perhaps I meant to and never got around to it.

Also oddly, although I have read the whole of the Maigret oeuvre at least twice, this watching failed to revive any memory of the story. Working through the titles on the spines on the shelf didn’t help either and I was reduced to asking Bing who turned up the IMDB page at reference 2, from where I got to reference 3. And then to reference 4 which demonstrated that in October 2017 I still remembered the original story.

Which, in sum, is about a very important and very unpleasant wholesale butcher based in Paris – say Dewhurst and the rest – who fears for his life, goes to the police but gets killed anyway, shot down in his own house. A chap Maigret had known as an unpleasant child from an unpleasant family, back in his native village, near Moulins. Maigret and his team run around for a bit, eventually he has the ‘aha’ moment and tracks the killer down to his hideout in the woods, that is to say, Maigret’s natal woods.

There is counterpoint in the form of a minor story line about an older lady from Kilburn Lane disappearing from a package holiday to Paris, a disappearance which attracts plenty of coverage in the French press. And comment from the UK press about the useless French police.

I puzzled about the original running time of 50 min, which seems a rather odd number for the BBC, which did not need to make space for advertisements. With the channel 82 version running, I think, to 65 minutes with advertisements. Perhaps, even all those years ago, BBC had the commercial market in mind?

Notwithstanding all of which, we rather liked it and I stick with my line that the Gambon version was built on the Davies version. Next stop, the original text, something under 140 pages of it, roughly three pages to the minute. I forget the sort of rates that one gets with Agatha adaptations. In any event, now read again.

The television version had certainly simplified things a bit. We got much less, for example, of all the tittle tattle from the half dozen servants – who sleep above what used to be the stables of the big butcher’s fancy house opposite the Parc Monceau. How the big butcher treats both his staff and employees very badly. He enjoys humiliating them. His private secretary, for instance, is brigaded with the domestic servants. While they, in return, are mostly stealing from him, in one way or another. How he treats his competitors even more badly. How he is a rapacious, self-made man of business, stealing, more or less, on a far grander scale. Morally responsible for at least two deaths, probably more.

In the written version also, we have a thinly veiled bit of anti-Semitism in the form of the butcher’s shady man of business, one Joseph Goldman, who lives at the top of house and who is able, inter alia, to draw a veil of legality over his less wholesome dealings. Being a post-war story, slightly more veiled than similar characters in pre-war stories.

But the television version has changed the shape of the thing. In the television version, we have just another crime that Maigret solves in his usual inimitable way. In the written version, the point is that Maigret doesn’t stop the killing and doesn’t even solve the murder in time to stop the killer fleeing the country. Maigret worries that he has let his dislike of the man get in the way of doing the job. And the killer only turns up by chance, years later, dying of some tropical disease in the prison hospital before he can be brought to trial. While the lady also turns up, again quite by chance, alive and well in Australia. Two of Maigret’s few recorded failures.

Some odds and ends

On more or less the first page, we have a dreary mid morning in March being described as being like that of an execution at first light: ‘une aube d’execution capitale’. Not sure about this, but none of my usual sources are helping on this one.

Simenon has done some of his homework. Kilburn Lane is entirely plausible in the context, a stretch of the B413 running just south of the railway line running between Queen's Park and Kensal Green. West Kilburn in North London. 

While the butcher’s address given near the Parc Monceau, that is to 58bis, Boulevard de Courcelles, is plausible enough, the details given do not compute in Street View, not for me anyway. There has been a bit of artistic license or a bit of redevelopment. Or both. But at least I am a bit clearer about this use of ‘bis’ in house numbers.

The butcher’s safe is an important element of the end of the story. A safe which appears to have both a key and a combination. No reason why it shouldn’t, but it just niggles that the few safes that I have known had either key or combination, but not both.

Another important element is Maigret’s dream, in which he dreams that he has found the key to the mystery. Except that when he wakes up, the key in missing, he is just left with the certainty that he had had it. But he does edge forward, and all of sudden, minutes too late, the key comes back to him. I believe that Simenon read widely in medicine and psychology and was quite possibly familiar with Freud on dreams. Perhaps these few pages were his take on the subject?

There seem to be quite a lot of very forceful, more or less unpleasant, self made men scattered across the Maigret oeuvre. Is Simeon, in this way, in Freudian fashion, unloading unpleasant parts of himself?

Conclusions

Both versions of the story worked and my appetite for Davies has been whetted again. 

I find also that the complete set has now been released on DVD, with ebay asking between £50 and £100 for it. A bit too much – but we shall see. Maybe prices will fall or I will weaken.

References

Reference 1: Death of a butcher – Rupert Davies, BBC – 1961. Season 2, Episode 3.

Reference 2 : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0853878/. 

Reference 3: Un Échec de Maigret – Simenon – 1956. Volume XIX of the collected works.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/10/more-irritation.html. 

Signé Picpus

Yesterday evening we happened to watch Rupert Davies in the ancient BBC version of Signé Picpus, a Maigret story which references 2 and 3 suggest that I have read at least twice before. I may have nodded off a bit, but we got to the end and I had not got much of a clue about what I had just seen. I was able to reconstruct the beginning and the end, but there seemed to be a large hole in the middle. So I turned up the hard copy to try and fill some of the gaps.

In the meantime, the story remains that I rather like these old adaptations, made at a time when Simenon was still around - and while the producers like to slap on the Parisian colour, the stories had not yet become the costume dramas they have become since. Just an hour long, which suits quite well these days, two hours being quite a chunk out of an evening. Someone has got around to issuing the whole lot on DVD, but at £60 or so, I have not yet fallen - although a £1 an episode, £1 for an hour's entertainment is not that bad. Less than I often pay. However, with a new smart telly on the horizon, we shall wait and see whether Britbox can do the business.

Puzzle 1. One bit they seemed to have got wrong was translating 'tanche' as roach, which I understood to be a small fish which you might catch in a  net and fry like whitebait. Whereas Collins is quite clear that a tanche is a tench, a fish which can grow to more than half a metre in length, which likes still, turbid water and which can be eaten - although is not much eaten these days. People not hungry enough. Which does not seem quite right, so checking further, I find that I was wrong about roach, which turn out to be a common river fish, ranging in size up to around half a metre, smaller than the tench but presumably quite eatable. Perhaps the BBC translator thought that tench was a mistake, that for once Simenon had been a bit careless about his river facts, and settled for roach instead.

The French for this sort of roach being a 'gardon', with Littré describing it as a small freshwater fish.

And maybe I will get to the pike of references 2 and 3 in due course.

Puzzle 2. Simeon makes quite a lot of the recreational scene on the rivers to the east of Paris, particularly the Seine and the Marne. Lots of riverside bars, al fresco dancings, restaurants, villas and hotels. The weekend scene for lots of Parisians through the middle part of the year. Lots of bridge and goings on. And this BBC adaptation evokes the sort of thing that comes to my mind rather well.

However, when I ask Bing about 'riverside hotels marne isle de france', all he seems to be able to manage is a whole load of hotel booking sites. No real attempt to parse the query, to do what I asked for at all - something that irritates me when I am looking for a hotel in this country. Google does slightly better and turns up references 4 and 5, a bit grander than the sort of thing that I had in mind, but at least the hotel is on the river, even if the river is a tributary of the Marne rather than the Marne proper. While the snap above is the right river and there are what might be weekend homes on the other side, but not much in the way of hotels and restaurants. Maybe Parisians don't do that any more.

But the puzzle is, why don't we do the river scene much at all? I suppose there is a bit out Henley way, but that is for toffs and bankers. All a bit fancy, rather than ordinary Londoners out on a beano. Maybe Hampton Court was a bit nearer the mark fifty years ago.

Is the answer all to do with the fact that we are much cooler and that we are a small island? So we tend to do seaside, with Londoners of old flocking to places like Southend, Margate and Brighton. Seaside hotels, gin palaces and piers. Met the same need, but met it in a proper English way. None of this French nonsense.

PS: while I was posting this, an email turned up from the ancient tree people at reference 6. People in whom I might take a serious interest if I lived a bit nearer. Today, inter alia, they advertise the work of a photographer called Beth Moon, also into ancient trees. But she seems to have protected her copyright very carefully, with very little in the way of good quality reproductions of her photographs having leaked out to the free part of the Internet. Not like people of her sort in this country at all, who mostly let out a good number of tasters. I think the snap above was taken from the foot of a very old Wellingtonia, or giant redwood as they have it in the US.

References

Reference 1: Signé Picpus - Simenon - 1941. Volume XI of the collected works.

Reference 2: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/11/pike.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/02/picpus.html.

Reference 4: https://www.le-moulin-de-pommeuse.com/.

Reference 5: https://www.le-moulin-de-pommeuse.com/le-parc/. The pictures.

Reference 6: https://www.ancienttreearchive.org/.

A Midsummer's Night Dream

A dream set in and about the Barbican Theatre in London, and a performance of  'A Midsummer's Night Dream'. The dream started with some work flavoured scenes, of which all I can now remember is that they were not much to do with any work that I have ever actually done.

My ticket had been carried over from the previous year, was more or less incomprehensible, so I knew neither start time nor seat number, and was jammed in with a whole lot of bits and pieces of paper in the inside breast pocket of my jacket.

I don't seem to know the area very well, managing to get rather lost. But getting warm and thinking I have plenty of time, I stop in a fashionable city bar to take refreshment. I am rather put out that a large glass of white wine costs me £25, but it turns out to be very good wine, most unusually so for a public house. And thinking about it now, not such an unreasonable price for a third of a bottle by restaurant standards, where the markup on wine is huge.

Eventually find my way to the corridors of the busy theatre. I keep bumping into ladies that I know slightly. Waking, not actual ladies, nor ladies that I actually know, from previous dreams or otherwise, although I do associate to the sort of people who used to work for the Government Social Survey in the 1970's. People who were apt to talk a lot, to read the Guardian and to live in Clerkenwell or Islington. But still in a muddle about start time and seat number.

The show starts and I seem to be in the corridor running down the outside of the wrong side of the Greek-style, raked auditorium. I persuade a doorman to let me in anyway, to find the aisles inside full of people milling around and people sitting around, not paying much if any attention to the proceedings. A large auditorium, about the same size and shape as that of the theatre at the Barbican, but very different in detail.

Proceedings which take the form of a series of musical numbers, with long gaps between the numbers. More milling around.

Eventually, in one of the gaps, I make my way to my seat, a very good seat quite near the front, but on the other side.

My seat is empty but occupied (as it were), so on the suggestion of the gentleman in the row behind, I sit down in the one next to it. Very fancy seats, a bit like those in an aeroplane or, for that matter, the Epsom Odeon deluxe seats, installed a few years ago. The lady returns and seems to know me. Very talkative anyway.

Much action up front, but nobody is paying much attention. Much clowning around, on and off stage.

I find my trousers covered with jets of brightly coloured sticky stuff; the sort of thing you might squirt on a child's birthday cake from an icing bag - or from a large tube of toothpaste for teeth or paint for an artist. The lady adds some more for good measure. All very tiresome as I am due back at the office later.

At which point I wake up.

References

Reference 1: https://www.blogtorwho.com/the-dream-qa-highlights/. The source of the snap above. 'Earlier this month [in 2016] BAFTA Cyrmu held a screening of BBC’s newest version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Russell T Davies reunited with BBC Cymru Wales to deliver a modern, magical take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one that is likely to delight and challenge all who love the work of William Shakespeare'. A show that we managed to miss.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/06/a-dream-for-third-millennium.html. The last performance of the play that we went to. I don't think we have ever seen it at the Barbican and I can't find any trace of the circus version from Iceland that we saw at the Young Vic. From which, inter alia, I remember an acrobatic lady with a hole in her black tights. While all that Bing wants to tell me about is a modern dress version in mud from 2017. Quite different.

Post festal

The first post-festal meal involved both red wine and leg of lamb. A gift from Argentina, a purchase from Costcutter and one of three reds from mixed from the mixed bag from Guildford. The one from Costcutter had been taken before, and that from Guildford was not finished at close of play. Not quite the tally we might have managed in the olden days.

The wine from Guildford is visible on the Internet on the key 'domaine les amandiers cabernet franc sainte verge anjou' and I learn that '100% Cabernet Franc from Anjou, Loire Valley, France, made by cult vigneron Nicolas Reau. Bursting with bright purple-black spectrum fruits, this is a hallmark Loire Cab Franc with density and true flavour. Blackberry, black pepper, graphite, and plush, softened tannins. This wine is a class act'. But, for once, I fail to track down the terroir. I wonder in passing, whether the French like to poke fun at the church, given that 'sainte verge' has both a coarse and a religious translation.

More luck with Argentina, and at reference 1 I was amused by the way that they give little pictures of the flavours to help those having trouble with their reading for one reason or another.

There was some debate about how best to cook the lamb, despite agreement on slow and low rather than fast and high. We settled from timings taken from the BBC, putting some water in the baking tray and covering the meat with foil for most of the proceedings. On the q.t., BH had popped a stock cube into the water, which meant that we had an excellent gravy when I came to wash out the baking tray. In later life it went on to make the excellent soup noticed at reference 2. So good in fact that my assistant for the occasion was promoted principal assistant on the spot, backdated to the beginning of the week.

Christmas pudding also excellent, taken with syllabub and custard cream. The texture of this last, which I had stirred personally, was not quite right, smooth and firm, rather than slightly granular and soft. BH was convinced that I had mixed things up in the wrong order. While those of us that had taken wine came up with some quite exotic theories.

The day closed with an accident involving red wine and pale carpet. But instant action by a couple of the younger members of the party - involving, as I recall, nothing more complicated than water, kitchen paper and news paper - meant that there was not much to be seen the following morning. A good result.

We had more or less done the lamb in one sitting, leaving slightly more than enough to make the soup already mentioned.

The second meal involved a frozen chicken with black legs, the latest thing in taste the difference from Sainsbury's. Taken with stuffing which was made un-stuffed, in the now traditional way in a baking dish, with bacon providing the meat notes which might otherwise have emanated from the interior of the chicken. Bacon which probably cost a significant fraction of what the chicken cost. With the additional of a little oil, probably less than a dessert spoon full, the stuffing having been a little dry on the previous occasion.

BH reminded me that my father had once pulled her up for not removing the ends of the legs, something which, he felt, was part of respectable chicken service. Which reminds me that he sometimes did a very neat job of sewing the chicken back up after stuffing it - remarks above about stuffing above notwithstanding - sometimes going the whole hog and cracking out his surgical gear.

Something I tried to emulate subsequently with a regular darning needle and (green or black) pack thread.

On the plate. We polished off the wine started but not finished above, it having stood OK in the meanwhile, and then moved onto the Vulcaia, last noticed at reference 3.

Plus some left overs. The wine was excellent - but care was needed with the cork, which came out fat end last. It needed a serious and careful pull to get it out without damaging anything. But full marks to 'drinksbusiness' for the tip.

And I might add that while we don't do Christmas cake anymore, we don't have any trouble dealing with a full size Christmas pudding - which, to my mind - looks much more the business than a small one.

Sadly, the computer visible behind is nearing the end of its working life. It is very slow to start, fairly slow in action and Microsoft have now said that support for Windows 10 will be withdrawn in September. Upgrade to Windows 11 is not an option. All very tiresome - although to be fair, the record suggests that by then it will be more than fourteen years old.

Which reminds me that BT withdrew their cloud service last year. Also tiresome as I used it as the backup which did not involve Microsoft. All this change in one year.

Wound up with one of BH's presents, described as Belgian chocolate from Leonidas, but which for some reason were packed in the repurposed Central Market in St. Helier. No doubt something to do with tax avoidance. The chocolates, however, were excellent. Nothing too exotic or fancy, just chocolate.

PS 1: we noticed later that the Inama people who make the Vulcaia have their own bottles, with an embossed lip. Quite heavy bottles too. Something you get quite often in the worlds of spirits and champagne, not so often in the world of regular wine. Wine people are more into custom corks and closures rather than custom bottles. Maybe a letter to the editor of 'drinksbusiness' would be in order?

PS 2: the Vulcaia has now been topped up.

PS 3: would my attempted misspelling of 'drinksbusiness' as 'drunksbusiness' count as a Freudian slip, even though the two keys are adjacent?

PS 4: Saturday morning: I associate now from the taste of the Vulcaia to the taste of some fancy Chablis I was once offered at Hedonism in Davies Street, as noticed at references 6 and 7. Which is odd as the former is Sauvignon and the latter Chardonnay. Perhaps the Chablis being old and mellow made all the difference. Not tasted a Chablis like it since - much too strong for my purse.

References

Reference 1: https://donapaula.com/wine/dona-paula-single-vineyard-el-alto-malbec/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/dover-patrol-three.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/12/winterreise.html.

Reference 4: https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/.

Reference 5: Can the hospitality industry survive an outdoor heater ban - Sarah Neish, drinksbusiness - 2025. A interesting leading article at reference 4. We also get the image above. Which reminds me of Balzac writing about how the excesses of the (French) Second Empire were mitigated by the way that the money spent trickled down pretty fast to ordinary working folk.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/05/epsom-art.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/02/old-chablis-old-pix.html. The contemporary record here being rather adrift of my memory of it. But it is near ten years ago.