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Napoleon PBS Documentary 1 Of 4
Blackbeard's Lost Ship: Queen Anne's Revenge | PBS Documentary
PBS Nova   S25E02   Faster Than Sound
Will 3D Printing Change the World? | Off Book | PBS Digital Studios
The Buddha - PBS Documentary (1/2)
PBS.Nature.S30E01.Radioactive.Wolves.2011.HDTV.720p.x264-ORENJI.avi
PBS NOVA Ice Age Death Trap HDTV x264 AAC MVGroup
PBS Nova   S34E07   Underwater Dream Machine
Islam: Empire of Faith. Part 1: Prophet Muhammad and rise of Islam (full; PBS Documentary)
Are the Titans from Attack on Titan Evil? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios
NewsHour Interview with Obama: No Decision on Syria, Taking Action on Voting Rights
MASTERPIECE MYSTERY! | Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot:

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Napoleon PBS Documentary 1 Of 4
  • Order:
  • Duration: 45:08
  • Updated: 19 Aug 2013

Napoleon PBS Documentary 1 Of 4

This Part 1 of a Documentary detailing the life and events of Napoleon Bonaparte !! SUBSCRIBE, COMMENT, LIKE, FAV, SHARE !!!!
http://web.archive.org./web/20131029222213/http://wn.com/Napoleon PBS Documentary 1 Of 4
Blackbeard's Lost Ship: Queen Anne's Revenge | PBS Documentary
  • Order:
  • Duration: 51:08
  • Updated: 19 Aug 2013

Blackbeard's Lost Ship: Queen Anne's Revenge | PBS Documentary

The 300-ton vessel, originally named Concord, was a frigate built in England in 1710. She was captured by the French one year later. The ship was modified to...
http://web.archive.org./web/20131029222213/http://wn.com/Blackbeard's Lost Ship: Queen Anne's Revenge | PBS Documentary
PBS Nova   S25E02   Faster Than Sound
  • Order:
  • Duration: 56:20
  • Updated: 01 Aug 2013

PBS Nova S25E02 Faster Than Sound


http://web.archive.org./web/20131029222213/http://wn.com/PBS Nova S25E02 Faster Than Sound
Will 3D Printing Change the World? | Off Book | PBS Digital Studios
  • Order:
  • Duration: 7:23
  • Updated: 19 Aug 2013

Will 3D Printing Change the World? | Off Book | PBS Digital Studios

Much attention has been paid to 3D Printing lately, with new companies developing cheaper and more efficient consumer models that have wowed the tech communi...
  • published: 28 Feb 2013
  • views: 428306
  • author: PBSoffbook
http://web.archive.org./web/20131029222213/http://wn.com/Will 3D Printing Change the World? | Off Book | PBS Digital Studios
The Buddha - PBS Documentary (1/2)
  • Order:
  • Duration: 55:38
  • Updated: 16 Aug 2013

The Buddha - PBS Documentary (1/2)

This is a PBS Documentary about the life of Siddhartha Gautama. Writen and Directed by David Grubin. http://video.pbs.org/video/1461557530/ http://www.amazon...
http://web.archive.org./web/20131029222213/http://wn.com/The Buddha - PBS Documentary (1/2)
PBS.Nature.S30E01.Radioactive.Wolves.2011.HDTV.720p.x264-ORENJI.avi
  • Order:
  • Duration: 52:57
  • Updated: 18 Aug 2013

PBS.Nature.S30E01.Radioactive.Wolves.2011.HDTV.720p.x264-ORENJI.avi


http://web.archive.org./web/20131029222213/http://wn.com/PBS.Nature.S30E01.Radioactive.Wolves.2011.HDTV.720p.x264-ORENJI.avi
PBS NOVA Ice Age Death Trap HDTV x264 AAC MVGroup
  • Order:
  • Duration: 55:06
  • Updated: 18 Aug 2013

PBS NOVA Ice Age Death Trap HDTV x264 AAC MVGroup


http://web.archive.org./web/20131029222213/http://wn.com/PBS NOVA Ice Age Death Trap HDTV x264 AAC MVGroup
PBS Nova   S34E07   Underwater Dream Machine
  • Order:
  • Duration: 53:53
  • Updated: 21 Jul 2013

PBS Nova S34E07 Underwater Dream Machine


http://web.archive.org./web/20131029222213/http://wn.com/PBS Nova S34E07 Underwater Dream Machine
Islam: Empire of Faith. Part 1: Prophet Muhammad and rise of Islam (full; PBS Documentary)
  • Order:
  • Duration: 53:55
  • Updated: 16 Oct 2009

Islam: Empire of Faith. Part 1: Prophet Muhammad and rise of Islam (full; PBS Documentary)

Part 1 of the famous PBS Documentary "Islam: Empire of faith" produced in 2000. http://www.pbs.org/empires/islam/film.html This part is about the Rasool Muhammad SAW and the rise of Islam after its early turbulent history. -Uploaded by Nahda Media-
  • published: 16 Oct 2009
  • views: 1742731
http://web.archive.org./web/20131029222213/http://wn.com/Islam: Empire of Faith. Part 1: Prophet Muhammad and rise of Islam (full; PBS Documentary)
Are the Titans from Attack on Titan Evil? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios
  • Order:
  • Duration: 8:50
  • Updated: 18 Sep 2013

Are the Titans from Attack on Titan Evil? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios

The titans, from the anime series Attack on Titan, are most definitely the bad guys. But can we call them EVIL? If you're unfamiliar, the titans are huge beings that devour humans, but their motivation is a little unclear. Is it just hunger? Do they hate humans? Are they just dumb? And with all this doubt, what's the use in the label of EVIL anyway? Nietzsche, Kant, and Jung all weigh in, but you should probably watch the episode and find out! If you'd like to learn more and watch Attack on Titan go here: http://www.funimation.com/attack-on-titan Music: "Europe" by Roglok (http://www.roglok.net) "Carry on Carillon" by Roglok (http://www.roglok.net) "Bouncy Castle" by Roglok (http://www.roglok.net) ":P" by Roglok (http://www.roglok.net) "Squarehead" by Roglok (http://www.roglok.net) Binarpilot http://bit.ly/10N0UBf EatMe http://bit.ly/17ludvN Chiptune - Kenzalol http://bit.ly/15vKwpN ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tweet of the Week: http://bit.ly/1eRq36k ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Come hang out in the Idea Channel IRC! http://bit.ly/138EHBh Let us know what sorts of crazy ideas you have, about this episode and otherwise: Tweet at us! @pbsideachannel (yes, the longest twitter username ever) Email us! pbsideachannel [at] gmail [dot] com Idea Channel Facebook! http://Facebook.com/pbsideachannel Hosted by Mike Rugnetta (@mikerugnetta) Made by Kornhaber Brown (http://www.kornhaberbrown.com) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Want some more Idea Channel? Here's Last Week's episode: "Are There TWO Nikola Teslas?" http://youtu.be/nUUysWuPdAM Want another one? Here ya go: "Is Google Knowledge?" http://youtu.be/aCwLQrJz4Bo Here's Some More :"Is the Internet Cats?" http://youtu.be/NJ_6aRjYR0w
  • published: 18 Sep 2013
  • views: 93333
http://web.archive.org./web/20131029222213/http://wn.com/Are the Titans from Attack on Titan Evil? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios
NewsHour Interview with Obama: No Decision on Syria, Taking Action on Voting Rights
  • Order:
  • Duration: 27:03
  • Updated: 29 Aug 2013

NewsHour Interview with Obama: No Decision on Syria, Taking Action on Voting Rights

President Barack Obama said he had not yet made his decision regarding a U.S. strike on Syria during an interview with PBS NewsHour senior correspondents Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill. The president said that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's regime alleged use of chemical weapons would factor into his calculation and he warned that the Assad should be held accountable. Mr. Obama spoke to the NewsHour on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech where he reflected on the challenges Americans still face today in the form of jobs, health care and education. He also vowed to take steps to ensure voting rights for all Americans.
  • published: 29 Aug 2013
  • views: 41420
http://web.archive.org./web/20131029222213/http://wn.com/NewsHour Interview with Obama: No Decision on Syria, Taking Action on Voting Rights
MASTERPIECE MYSTERY! | Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot:
  • Order:
  • Duration: 0:31
  • Updated: 14 Aug 2013

MASTERPIECE MYSTERY! | Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot: "Three Act Tragedy" | PBS

http://www.pbs.org/masterpiece/mystery Sunday, June 19, 2011 at 9pm ET on PBS Poirot (David Suchet) visits his friend Sir Charles Cartwright (Martin Shaw, Cr...
  • published: 16 Jun 2011
  • views: 19343
  • author: PBS
http://web.archive.org./web/20131029222213/http://wn.com/MASTERPIECE MYSTERY! | Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot: "Three Act Tragedy" | PBS
Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood | Daniel's Birthday | PBS KIDS
  • Order:
  • Duration: 3:42
  • Updated: 19 Aug 2013

Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood | Daniel's Birthday | PBS KIDS

It's Daniel Tiger's birthday! Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is a new, beautifully-textured animated series from PBS KIDS for preschoolers aged 2-4, based on th...
  • published: 07 May 2012
  • views: 721742
  • author: PBS
http://web.archive.org./web/20131029222213/http://wn.com/Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood | Daniel's Birthday | PBS KIDS
Order from Chaos
  • Order:
  • Duration: 54:17
  • Updated: 18 Aug 2013

Order from Chaos

http://www.pbs.org/empires/ - Rome rises under Caesar Augustus' compassion and violence.
  • published: 30 Mar 2009
  • views: 334094
  • author: PBS
http://web.archive.org./web/20131029222213/http://wn.com/Order from Chaos
  • Napoleon PBS Documentary 1 Of 4
    45:08
    Napoleon PBS Documentary 1 Of 4
  • Blackbeard's Lost Ship: Queen Anne's Revenge | PBS Documentary
    51:08
    Blackbeard's Lost Ship: Queen Anne's Revenge | PBS Documentary
  • PBS Nova   S25E02   Faster Than Sound
    56:20
    PBS Nova S25E02 Faster Than Sound
  • Will 3D Printing Change the World? | Off Book | PBS Digital Studios
    7:23
    Will 3D Printing Change the World? | Off Book | PBS Digital Studios
  • The Buddha - PBS Documentary (1/2)
    55:38
    The Buddha - PBS Documentary (1/2)
  • PBS.Nature.S30E01.Radioactive.Wolves.2011.HDTV.720p.x264-ORENJI.avi
    52:57
    PBS.Nature.S30E01.Radioactive.Wolves.2011.HDTV.720p.x264-ORENJI.avi
  • PBS NOVA Ice Age Death Trap HDTV x264 AAC MVGroup
    55:06
    PBS NOVA Ice Age Death Trap HDTV x264 AAC MVGroup
  • PBS Nova   S34E07   Underwater Dream Machine
    53:53
    PBS Nova S34E07 Underwater Dream Machine
  • Islam: Empire of Faith. Part 1: Prophet Muhammad and rise of Islam (full; PBS Documentary)
    53:55
    Islam: Empire of Faith. Part 1: Prophet Muhammad and rise of Islam (full; PBS Documentary)
  • Are the Titans from Attack on Titan Evil? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios
    8:50
    Are the Titans from Attack on Titan Evil? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios
  • NewsHour Interview with Obama: No Decision on Syria, Taking Action on Voting Rights
    27:03
    NewsHour Interview with Obama: No Decision on Syria, Taking Action on Voting Rights
  • MASTERPIECE MYSTERY! | Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot:
    0:31
    MASTERPIECE MYSTERY! | Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot: "Three Act Tragedy" | PBS
  • Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood | Daniel's Birthday | PBS KIDS
    3:42
    Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood | Daniel's Birthday | PBS KIDS
  • Order from Chaos
    54:17
    Order from Chaos

Napoleon PBS Documentary 1 Of 4

This Part 1 of a Documentary detailing the life and events of Napoleon Bonaparte !! SUBSCRIBE, COMMENT, LIKE, FAV, SHARE !!!!

45:08
Napoleon PBS Doc­u­men­tary 1 Of 4
This Part 1 of a Doc­u­men­tary de­tail­ing the life and events of Napoleon Bona­parte !! SUB­SCR...
pub­lished: 20 Sep 2012
51:08
Black­beard's Lost Ship: Queen Anne's Re­venge | PBS Doc­u­men­tary
The 300-ton ves­sel, orig­i­nal­ly named Con­cord, was a frigate built in Eng­land in 1710. She ...
pub­lished: 20 Jun 2013
56:20
PBS Nova S25E02 Faster Than Sound
...
pub­lished: 20 Jul 2013
au­thor: solomon kane
7:23
Will 3D Print­ing Change the World? | Off Book | PBS Dig­i­tal Stu­dios
Much at­ten­tion has been paid to 3D Print­ing late­ly, with new com­pa­nies de­vel­op­ing cheap­er ...
pub­lished: 28 Feb 2013
au­thor: PB­Soff­book
55:38
The Bud­dha - PBS Doc­u­men­tary (1/2)
This is a PBS Doc­u­men­tary about the life of Sid­dhartha Gau­ta­ma. Writen and Di­rect­ed by Dav...
pub­lished: 10 Sep 2012
52:57
PBS.​Nature.​S30E01.​Radioactive.​Wolves.​2011.​HDTV.​720p.​x264-ORENJI.​avi
...
pub­lished: 21 Feb 2012
55:06
PBS NOVA Ice Age Death Trap HDTV x264 AAC MV­Group
...
pub­lished: 10 Jun 2013
au­thor: solomon kane
53:53
PBS Nova S34E07 Un­der­wa­ter Dream Ma­chine
...
pub­lished: 27 Jun 2013
au­thor: Solomon Kane
53:55
Islam: Em­pire of Faith. Part 1: Prophet Muham­mad and rise of Islam (full; PBS Doc­u­men­tary)
Part 1 of the fa­mous PBS Doc­u­men­tary "Islam: Em­pire of faith" pro­duced in 2000. http://...
pub­lished: 16 Oct 2009
8:50
Are the Ti­tans from At­tack on Titan Evil? | Idea Chan­nel | PBS Dig­i­tal Stu­dios
The ti­tans, from the anime se­ries At­tack on Titan, are most def­i­nite­ly the bad guys. But c...
pub­lished: 18 Sep 2013
27:03
New­sHour In­ter­view with Obama: No De­ci­sion on Syria, Tak­ing Ac­tion on Vot­ing Rights
Pres­i­dent Barack Obama said he had not yet made his de­ci­sion re­gard­ing a U.S. strike on Sy...
pub­lished: 29 Aug 2013
0:31
MAS­TER­PIECE MYS­TERY! | Agatha Christie's Her­cule Poirot: "Three Act Tragedy" | PBS
http://​www.​pbs.​org/​masterpiece/​mystery Sun­day, June 19, 2011 at 9pm ET on PBS Poirot (Davi...
pub­lished: 16 Jun 2011
au­thor: PBS
3:42
Daniel Tiger's Neigh­bor­hood | Daniel's Birth­day | PBS KIDS
It's Daniel Tiger's birth­day! Daniel Tiger's Neigh­bor­hood is a new, beau­ti­ful­ly-tex­tured a...
pub­lished: 07 May 2012
au­thor: PBS
54:17
Order from Chaos
http://​www.​pbs.​org/​empires/​ - Rome rises under Cae­sar Au­gus­tus' com­pas­sion and vi­o­lence....
pub­lished: 30 Mar 2009
au­thor: PBS
Vimeo results:
4:15
Mag­net­ic Putty Magic (Ex­tend­ed Cut) | Shanks FX | PBS Dig­i­tal Stu­dios
In this episode of SHANKS FX we have some fun with the won­der­ful weird­ness of "Mag­net­ic Pu...
pub­lished: 10 Apr 2013
au­thor: Joey Shanks
4:48
Wyoming Wild­scapes
My first time­lapse mon­tage and video edit, ever, so please bare with me. Any feed­back is a...
pub­lished: 04 Oct 2012
5:42
Pho­tog­ra­pher John Moore on 'Epic' Libya Bat­tles, Arab World Rev­o­lu­tions
Read the pro­file: http://​to.​pbs.​org/​fudCZe Pho­tog­ra­pher John Moore is no stranger to comb...
pub­lished: 22 Mar 2011
au­thor: Mike Fritz
3:21
PB's Back­yard
Went out and shot a lit­tle dirt jump­ing with Paul Basagoitia at his prop­er­ty, day and a ha...
pub­lished: 03 Jun 2010
au­thor: Trent Palmer

Youtube results:
57:01
The Sci­ence of Mar­i­jua­na - PBS Doc­u­men­tary
Thank you for watch­ing this doc­u­men­tary. If there is a spe­cif­ic doc­u­men­tary that you would...
pub­lished: 07 Apr 2013
55:01
PBS SEE­ING IN THE DARK 2007
ALL RIGHTS GO TO PBS....
pub­lished: 02 May 2013
54:58
PBS Nova Sub­marines, Se­crets and Spies 1999 VH­Srip
...
pub­lished: 27 Feb 2013
au­thor: Solomon Kane
9:43
Obama Says Diplo­mat­ic So­lu­tion to Syria 'Over­whelm­ing­ly My Pref­er­ence'
Pres­i­dent Barack Obama told PBS New­sHour's Gwen Ifill today that he fa­vors diplo­ma­cy to a ...
pub­lished: 09 Sep 2013
×
photo: AP / Lee Jin-man
The United Arab Emirates Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum salutes upon his arrival at the Seoul Military Airport in Seoul
Edit The Siasat Daily
28 Oct 2013
Sydney, October 28.. The Gulf emirate of Dubai unveiled passenger operations at its Al-Maktoum International airport, which is touted to be the world’s largest airport once completed. Al-Maktoum is built next to Dubai Jebel Ali Free Zone and its port in Dubai World Central, an economic zone the government hopes to turn into what it calls an ‘aerotropolis’ ... (ANI). Recommend Twitter. Comments(0). next>>  . Latest News....(size: 2.7Kb)




Edit Huffington Post
29 Oct 2013
Tonight on PBS, I sit down with award-winning director, producer and screenwriter William Friedkin ... For more of our conversation, be sure to tune in to "Tavis Smiley" tonight on PBS....(size: 1.3Kb)
Edit The Examiner
29 Oct 2013
(ET) on PBS. Narrated by George Clooney, the documentary is part of a series of PBS primetime special programs airing November 11-13 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the President’s death ... The film is airing as part of a week of special programming on PBS, November 11-13, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy....(size: 3.7Kb)
Edit The Hollywood Reporter
29 Oct 2013
PBS to Air Hollywood Reporter Roundtables as Holiday Event Series ... She returned to Boston a year later and took a job at WGBH, the Boston affiliate of what is now known as PBS, and was soon producing public access programs and documentaries for the station.  ... 25 Years Behind the Scenes at Masterpiece Theatre and Mystery! on PBS by Rebecca Eaton (Viking, 300 pages, $29.95)....(size: 10.7Kb)
Edit Baltimore Sun
29 Oct 2013
Eight years ago this month, I did an interview with anchor Jim Lehrer in connection with the 30th anniversary of the "PBS NewsHour."....(size: 0.7Kb)
Edit Lexington Herald-Leader
29 Oct 2013
Q. Is it true this is the last year for "Castle?" We have really enjoyed the series and hoped it would continue. A ... The show is quite popular ... Which doesn't mean everything is rosy on the show ... Q ... A ... Q ... A ... Did PBS cancel "Call the Midwife"? If not, can you tell me when it is scheduled to resume? ... The PBS period drama will be back for its third season in spring 2014 ... (You may want to double-check in your local listings.) PBS says of the special....(size: 3.8Kb)
Edit Denver Post
29 Oct 2013
Upwards of a million people, [were] convinced, if only briefly, that the United States was being laid waste by alien invaders,” narrator Oliver Platt informs us in the new PBS documentary commemorating the program ... Despite repeated assertions to the contrary in the PBS and NPR programs, almost nobody was fooled by Welles' broadcast....(size: 15.5Kb)
Edit Syracuse
29 Oct 2013
State, county and city elected officials, community leaders and PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger are expected at the opening ceremony at 2 p.m ... Daino organized Centralcast, a collaborative of nine New York state PBS stations, including WCNY ... He founded Joint Master Control (JMCO), a WCNY subsidiary, to handle the streaming of content to these affiliates and two New Jersey PBS stations....(size: 8.8Kb)
Edit Entertainment Weekly
29 Oct 2013
Just two days ago, Entourage creator Doug Ellin seemed pessimistic about the future of HBO and Warner Bros.’s Entourage movie — which was greenlit back in January, then delayed, allegedly because all its stars wanted to be paid as much as Jeremy Piven ... (Presumably, hugging it out played a role.) ... Jerry Ferrara (@jerrycferrara) October 29, 2013 ... Selfridge, his ITV/PBS series ... Related ... Jeremy Piven, star of PBS' 'Mr ... ....(size: 2.9Kb)
Edit The Washington Post
29 Oct 2013
The years 1800 to 1860 are covered in the newest installment of “The African Americans. Many Rivers to Cross” (PBS at 8 p.m.) ... The stories of Harriet Tubman, Richard Allen and Frederick Douglass are recalled ... Gallery ... Michael J ... Gallery ... area D.C ... In honor of its 75th anniversary, the original broadcast that sent radio listeners into a full-blown panic will be the focus of the special, “War of the Worlds” (PBS at 9)....(size: 4.4Kb)
Edit The Daily Beast
29 Oct 2013
After almost three decades of introducing British ......(size: 0.3Kb)
Edit STL Today
29 Oct 2013
SPOTLIGHT. ‘War of the Worlds’. 9 p.m. on PBS. A special marks the 75th anniversary of a national panic, started on Halloween Eve 1938 when a radio broadcast warned that Martians had landed. Spoiler alert. The broadcast was actually H.G ... NEW TONIGHT. ‘NCIS’. 7 p.m. on CBS ... ....(size: 1.3Kb)
Edit IMDb
29 Oct 2013
Having ruined the reputations of Itvs and PBS, “Citizen Koch,” a doleful review of the state of the union, reappears on the scene after a tumultuous struggle with funding ......(size: 1.0Kb)
Edit IMDb
29 Oct 2013
Oct ... Wells science-fiction novel. The 75th anniversary of the program, and its effect on untold numbers of terrified listeners, is marked by a new episode of PBS' "American Experience" Tuesday, Oct ... ....(size: 1.1Kb)

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Dame
Agatha Christie
DBE
Born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller
(1890-09-15)15 September 1890
Torquay, Devon, England
Died 12 January 1976(1976-01-12) (aged 85)
Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England
Pen name Mary Westmacott
Occupation Novelist/Short story writer/Playwright/Poet
Nationality British
Genres Murder mystery, Thriller, Crime fiction, Detective, Romances
Literary movement Golden Age of Detective Fiction
Spouse(s) Archibald Christie (1914–1928)
Max Mallowan (1930–1976; her death)
Children Rosalind Hicks (1919–2004)


Signature

www.agathachristie.com

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and more than 15 short story collections (especially those featuring Hercule Poirot or Miss Jane Marple), and her successful West End plays.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly four billion copies, and her estate claims that her works rank third, after those of William Shakespeare and the Bible, as the most widely published books.[1] According to Index Translationum, Christie is the most translated individual author, with only the collective corporate works of Walt Disney Productions surpassing her.[2] Her books have been translated into at least 103 languages.[3]

Agatha Christie published two autobiographies: a posthumous one covering childhood to old age; and another chronicling several seasons of archaeological excavation in Syria and Iraq with her second husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan. The latter was published in 1946 with the title, Come, Tell Me How You Live.

Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds the record for the longest initial run: it opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London on 25 November 1952 and as of 2012 is still running after more than 24,600 performances.[4] In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award, and in the same year Witness for the Prosecution was given an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play. Many of her books and short stories have been filmed, some more than once (Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and 4.50 from Paddington for instance), and many have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics.

In 1968, Booker Books, a subsidiary of the agri-industrial conglomerate Booker-McConnell, bought a 51 percent stake in Agatha Christie Limited, the private company that Christie had set up for tax purposes. Booker later increased its stake to 64 percent. In 1998, Booker sold its shares to Chorion, a company whose portfolio also includes the literary estates of Enid Blyton and Dennis Wheatley.[5]

In 2004, a 5,000-word story entitled The Incident of the Dog's Ball was found in the attic of the author's daughter. This story was the original version of the novel Dumb Witness. It was published in Britain in September 2009 in John Curran's Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years Of Mysteries, alongside another newly discovered Poirot story called The Capture of Cerberus (a story with the same title, but a different plot, to that published in The Labours Of Hercules).[6] On 10 November 2009, Reuters announced that The Incident of the Dog's Ball will be published by The Strand Magazine.[7]

Contents

Life and career[link]

Early life and first marriage[link]

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in Torquay, Devon, England, UK. Her mother, Clarissa Margaret Boehmer (called Clara),[citation needed] was the daughter of a British Army captain[8] but had been sent as a child to live with her mother's sister, who was the second wife of a wealthy American. Eventually Clara married her stepfather's son from his first marriage, Frederick Alvah Miller, an American stockbroker. Thus, the two women Agatha called "Grannie" were sisters. Despite her father's nationality as a "New Yorker" and her aunt's relation to the Pierpont Morgans, Agatha never claimed United States citizenship or connection.[9]

Agatha was the youngest of three. The Millers had two other children: Margaret Frary Miller (1879–1950), called Madge, who was 11 years Agatha's senior, and Louis Montant Miller (1880–1929), called Monty, 10 years older than Agatha. Later, in her autobiography, Agatha would refer to her brother as "an amiable scapegrace of a brother".[10]

Agatha described herself as having had a very happy childhood. While she never received any formal schooling, she did not lack an education. Her mother believed children should not learn to read until they were eight, but Agatha taught herself to read at four. Her father taught her mathematics via story problems, and the family played question-and-answer games much like today's Trivial Pursuit. She had piano lessons, which she liked, and dance lessons, which she did not. When she could not learn French through formal instruction, the family hired a young woman who spoke nothing but French to be her nanny and companion. Agatha made up stories from a very early age and invented a number of imaginary friends and paracosms. One of them, "The School", with a dozen or so imaginary young women of widely varying temperaments, lasted well into her adult years.[11]

During the First World War, she was part of the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) who provided nursing services. She worked at a hospital in Torquay as a nurse; she liked the profession, calling it "one of the most rewarding professions that anyone can follow".[12] Also as part of the VAD, she later worked at a hospital pharmacy, a job that influenced her work, as many of the murders in her books are carried out with poison.

Despite a turbulent courtship, on Christmas Eve 1914 Agatha married Archibald Christie, an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps.[13] The couple had one daughter, Rosalind Hicks. Agatha's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published in 1920. When Archie was offered a job organising a world tour to promote the British Empire Exhibition the couple left their daughter with Agatha's mother and sister and travelled to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii.[14] The couple learnt to surf prone in South Africa and in Waikiki became some of the first Britons to surf standing up.[15]

Disappearance[link]

In late 1926, Agatha's husband, Archie, revealed that he was in love with another woman, Nancy Neele, and wanted a divorce. On 8 December 1926 the couple quarrelled, and Archie Christie left their house Styles in Sunningdale, Berkshire, to spend the weekend with his mistress at Godalming, Surrey. That same evening Agatha disappeared from her home, leaving behind a letter for her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire. Her disappearance caused an outcry from the public, many of whom were admirers of her novels. Despite a massive manhunt, she was not found for 11 days.[16]

On 19 December 1926 Agatha was identified as a guest at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel (now the Old Swan Hotel[17]) in Harrogate, Yorkshire, where she was registered as 'Mrs Teresa Neele' from Cape Town. Agatha gave no account of her disappearance. Although two doctors had diagnosed her as suffering from psychogenic fugue, opinion remains divided as to the reasons for her disappearance. One suggestion is that she had suffered a nervous breakdown brought about by a natural propensity for depression, exacerbated by her mother's death earlier that year and the discovery of her husband's infidelity. Public reaction at the time was largely negative, with many believing it a publicity stunt while others speculated she was trying to make the police believe her husband had killed her.[18]

Author Jared Cade interviewed numerous witnesses and relatives for his sympathetic biography, Agatha Christie and the Missing Eleven Days, and provided a substantial amount of evidence to suggest that Christie planned the entire disappearance to embarrass her husband, never thinking it would escalate into the melodrama it became.[19]

The Christies divorced in 1928. During their marriage, Agatha published six novels, a collection of short stories, and a number of short stories in magazines.

Second marriage and later life[link]

Agatha Christie's room at the Pera Palace Hotel, where she wrote Murder on the Orient Express.
Agatha Christie blue plaque. No. 58 Sheffield Terrace, Kensington & Chelsea, London

In 1930, Christie married archaeologist Max Mallowan (Sir Max from 1968) after joining him in an archaeological dig. Their marriage was especially happy in the early years and remained so until Christie's death in 1976.[20] Max introduced her to various wines (“But you never drink ... Heaven knows, I’ve tried hard enough with you”), but acknowledged defeat, and had the battle of obtaining water for her in restaurants. She also tried unsuccessfully to make herself like cigarettes by smoking one after lunch and one after dinner every day for six months.[21]

Christie frequently used settings which were familiar to her for her stories. Christie's travels with Mallowan contributed background to several of her novels set in the Middle East. Other novels (such as And Then There Were None) were set in and around Torquay, where she was born. Christie's 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express was written in the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, the southern terminus of the railway. The hotel maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the author.[22] The Greenway Estate in Devon, acquired by the couple as a summer residence in 1938, is now in the care of the National Trust.

Christie often stayed at Abney Hall in Cheshire, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts. She based at least two of her stories on the hall: the short story The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, which is in the story collection of the same name, and the novel After the Funeral. "Abney became Agatha's greatest inspiration for country-house life, with all the servants and grandeur which have been woven into her plots. The descriptions of the fictional Chimneys, Stoneygates, and other houses in her stories are mostly Abney in various forms."[23]

During the Second World War, Christie worked in the pharmacy at University College Hospital, London, where she acquired a knowledge of poisons that she put to good use in her post-war crime novels. For example, the use of thallium as a poison was suggested to her by UCH Chief Pharmacist Harold Davis (later appointed Chief Pharmacist at the UK Ministry of Health), and in The Pale Horse, published in 1961, she employed it to dispatch a series of victims, the first clue to the murder method coming from the victims' loss of hair. So accurate was her description of thallium poisoning that on at least one occasion it helped solve a case that was baffling doctors.[24]

To honour her many literary works, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1956 New Year Honours.[25] The next year, she became the President of the Detection Club.[26] In the 1971 New Year Honours she was promoted Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire,[27] three years after her husband had been knighted for his archaeological work in 1968.[28] They were one of the few married couples where both partners were honoured in their own right. From 1968, due to her husband's knighthood, Christie could also be styled as Lady Mallowan.

Agatha Christie's gravestone in Cholsey.

From 1971 to 1974, Christie's health began to fail, although she continued to write. In 1975, sensing her increasing weakness, Christie signed over the rights of her most successful play, The Mousetrap, to her grandson.[20] Recently, using experimental textual tools of analysis, Canadian researchers have suggested that Christie may have begun to suffer from Alzheimer's disease or other dementia.[29][30][31][32]

Agatha Christie died on 12 January 1976 at age 85 from natural causes at her Winterbrook House in the north of Cholsey parish, adjoining Wallingford in Oxfordshire (formerly part of Berkshire). She is buried in the nearby churchyard of St Mary's, Cholsey.

Christie's only child, Rosalind Margaret Hicks, died, also aged 85, on 28 October 2004 from natural causes in Torbay, Devon.[33] Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard, was heir to the copyright to some of his grandmother's literary work (including The Mousetrap) and is still associated with Agatha Christie Limited.

Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple[link]

Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 and introduced the long-running character detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 of Christie's novels and 54 short stories.

Her other well known character, Miss Marple, was introduced in The Tuesday Night Club in 1927 (short story) and was based on women like Christie's grandmother and her "cronies".[34]

During the Second World War, Christie wrote two novels, Curtain, and Sleeping Murder, intended as the last cases of these two great detectives, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple. Both books were sealed in a bank vault for over thirty years and were released for publication by Christie only at the end of her life, when she realised that she could not write any more novels. These publications came on the heels of the success of the film version of Murder on the Orient Express in 1974.

Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, Christie was to become increasingly tired of her detective Poirot. In fact, by the end of the 1930s, Christie confided to her diary that she was finding Poirot “insufferable," and by the 1960s she felt that he was "an ego-centric creep." However, unlike Doyle, Christie resisted the temptation to kill her detective off while he was still popular. She saw herself as an entertainer whose job was to produce what the public liked, and the public liked Poirot.[35]

In contrast, Christie was fond of Miss Marple. However, it is interesting to note that the Belgian detective's titles outnumber the Marple titles more than two to one. This is largely because Christie wrote numerous Poirot novels early in her career, while The Murder at the Vicarage remained the sole Marple novel until the 1940s.

Christie never wrote a novel or short story featuring both Poirot and Miss Marple. In a recording, recently rediscovered and released in 2008, Christie revealed the reason for this: "Hercule Poirot, a complete egoist, would not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by an elderly spinster lady".[34]

Poirot is the only fictional character to have been given an obituary in The New York Times, following the publication of Curtain. It appeared on the front page of the paper on 6 August 1975.[36]

Following the great success of Curtain, Dame Agatha gave permission for the release of Sleeping Murder sometime in 1976 but died in January 1976 before the book could be released. This may explain some of the inconsistencies compared to the rest of the Marple series — for example, Colonel Arthur Bantry, husband of Miss Marple's friend Dolly, is still alive and well in Sleeping Murder despite the fact he is noted as having died in books published earlier. It may be that Christie simply did not have time to revise the manuscript before she died. Miss Marple fared better than Poirot, since after solving the mystery in Sleeping Murder she returns home to her regular life in St. Mary Mead.

On an edition of Desert Island Discs in 2007, Brian Aldiss claimed that Agatha Christie told him that she wrote her books up to the last chapter and then decided who the most unlikely suspect was. She would then go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that person.[37] The evidence of Christie's working methods, as described by successive biographers, contradicts this claim.[citation needed]

Formula and plot devices[link]

Almost all of Agatha Christie's books are whodunits, focusing on the British middle and upper classes. Usually, the detective either stumbles across the murder or is called upon by an old acquaintance, who is somehow involved. Gradually, the detective interrogates each suspect, examines the scene of the crime and makes a note of each clue, so readers can analyse it and be allowed a fair chance of solving the mystery themselves. Then, about halfway through, or sometimes even during the final act, one of the suspects usually dies, often because they have inadvertently deduced the killer's identity and need silencing. In a few of her novels, including Death Comes as the End and And Then There Were None, there are multiple victims. Finally, the detective organises a meeting of all the suspects and slowly denounces the guilty party, exposing several unrelated secrets along the way, sometimes over the course of thirty or so pages. The murders are often extremely ingenious, involving some convoluted piece of deception.

Christie's stories are also known for their taut atmosphere and strong psychological suspense, developed from the deliberately slow pace of her prose.

Seven stories are inspired by a nursery rhyme : And Then There Were None by Ten Little Indians; One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by One, Two, Buckle My Shoe; Five Little Pigs by This Little Piggy; Crooked House by There Was a Crooked Man; A Pocket Full of Rye by Sing a Song of Sixpence,;Hickory Dickory Dock by Hickory Dickory Dock, and Three Blind Mice by Three Blind Mice.

Twice, the murderer surprisingly turns out to be the unreliable narrator of the story.

In six stories, Christie allows the murderer to escape justice (and in the case of the last three, implicitly almost approves of their crimes); these are The Witness for the Prosecution, Five Little Pigs, The Man in the Brown Suit, Murder on the Orient Express, Curtain and The Unexpected Guest. (When Christie adapted Witness into a stage play, she lengthened the ending so that the murderer was also killed.) There are also numerous instances where the killer is not brought to justice in the legal sense but instead dies (death usually being presented as a more 'sympathetic' outcome), for example Death Comes as the End, And Then There Were None, Death on the Nile, Dumb Witness, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Crooked House, Appointment with Death, The Hollow, Nemesis, Cat Among the Pigeons, and The Secret Adversary. In some cases this is with the collusion of the detective involved. In some stories the question of whether formal justice will be done is left unresolved, such as Five Little Pigs, and arguably Ordeal by Innocence.

Critical reception[link]

Many critics regarded Christie's plotting abilities as considerably exceeding her literary ones. The American novelist Raymond Chandler criticised her in his essay, "The Simple Art of Murder", and the American literary critic Edmund Wilson was dismissive of Christie and the detective fiction genre generally in his New Yorker essay, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?".[38]

Others have criticised Christie on political grounds, particularly with respect to her conversations about and portrayals of Jews. Christopher Hitchens, in his autobiography, describes a dinner with Christie and her husband, Max Mallowan, that became increasingly uncomfortable as the night wore on, where "The anti-Jewish flavour of the talk was not to be ignored or overlooked, or put down to heavy humour or generational prejudice. It was vividly unpleasant..."[39]

Stereotyping[link]

Christie occasionally inserted stereotyped descriptions of characters into her work, particularly before the end of the Second World War (when such attitudes were more commonly expressed publicly), and particularly in regard to Italians, Jews, and non-Europeans. For example, in the first editions of the collection The Mysterious Mr Quin (1930), in the short story "The Soul of the Croupier," she described "Hebraic men with hook-noses wearing rather flamboyant jewellery"; in later editions the passage was edited to describe "sallow men" wearing same. To contrast with the more stereotyped descriptions, Christie often characterised the "foreigners" in such a way as to make the reader understand and sympathise with them; this is particularly true of her Jewish characters, who are seldom actually criminals. (See, for example, the character of Oliver Manders in Three Act Tragedy.)[40]

Archaeology and Agatha Christie[link]

Christie had always had an interest in archaeology.

"The lure of the past came up to grab me. To see a dagger slowly appearing, with its gold glint, through the sand was romantic. The carefulness of lifting pots and objects from the soil filled me with a longing to be an archaeologist myself."
-Christie expressing her interest in archaeology, a passage from An Autobiography (London, 1984), p. 389[41]

On a trip to the excavation site at Ur in 1948, she met her future husband, archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, a distinguished archaeologist, but her fame as an author far surpassed his fame in archaeology.[42] Prior to meeting Mallowan, Christie had not had any extensive brushes with archaeology, but once the two married they made sure to only go to sites where they could work together.

"Many years ago, when I was once saying sadly to Max it was a pity I couldn't have taken up archaeology when I was a girl, so as to be more knowledgeable on the subject, he said, 'Don't you realize that at this moment you know more about prehistoric pottery than any woman in England?"
-Christie wishing for an earlier exposure to Archaeology, a passage from An Autobiography (1984), p. 546[43]

While accompanying Mallowan on countless archaeological trips (spending up to 3–4 months at a time in Syria and Iraq at excavation sites at Ur, Ninevah, Tell Arpachiyah, Chagar Bazar, Tell Brak, and Nimrud), Christie not only wrote novels and short stories, but also contributed work to the archaeological sites, more specifically to the archaeological restoration and labeling of ancient exhibits which includes tasks such as cleaning and conserving delicate ivory pieces, reconstructing pottery, developing photos from early excavations which later led to taking photographs of the site and its findings, and taking field notes.[44]

As to not influence the funding of the archaeological excavations, Christie would always pay for her own board and lodging and her travel expenses, and she also supported the excavations as an anonymous sponsor.[45]

Archaeological influences found in her writing[link]

Many of the settings for Agatha Christie’s books were directly inspired by the many archaeological field seasons spent in the Middle East on the sites managed by her second husband Max Mallowan. Her time spent at the many locations featured in her books is very apparent by the extreme detail in which she describes them. One such site featured in her books is the temple site of Abu Simbel in her book Death on the Nile, as well as the great detail in which she describes life at the dig site in her book Murder in Mesopotamia.

Characters

Of the characters in her books, Christie has often showcased the archaeologist and experts in Middle Eastern cultures and artifacts. Most notably are the characters of Dr. Eric Leidner in Murder in Mesopotamia, Signor Richetti in Death on the Nile, and many minor characters in They Came to Baghdad were archaeologists.

More indirectly, Christie’s famous character of Hercule Poirot can be compared to an archaeologist in his detailed scrutiny of all facts both large and small. Cornelius Holtorf, an academic archaeologist, describes an archaeologist as a detective as one of the key themes of archaeology in popular culture.[46] He describes an archaeologist as a professional detective of the past who has the ability to reveal secrets for the greater of society. Holtorf’s description of the archaeologist as a detective is very similar to Christie’s Poirot who is hugely observant and is very careful to look at the small details as they often impart the most information. Many of Christie’s detective characters show some archaeological traits through their careful attention to clues and artifacts alike. Miss Marple, another of Christie’s most famous characters, shares these characteristics of careful deduction though the attention paid to the small clues.

Spiritual and Religious

Christie’s life within the archaeological world not only shaped her settings and characters for her books but also in the issues she highlights. One of the stronger influences is her love of the mystical and mysterious. Many of Christie’s books and short stories both set in the Middle East and back in England have a decidedly otherworldly influence in which religious sects, sacrifices, ceremony, and seances play a part. Such stories include “The Hound of Death” and “the Idol House of Astarte". This theme was greater strengthened by Christie’s time spent in the Middle East where she was consistently surrounded by the religious temples and spiritual history of the towns and cities they were excavating in Mallowan’s archaeological work.

Travel as Adventure

During Christie and Mallowan's time in the Middle East, along with their time spent among the many tombs, temples, and museums, there was also a large amount of time spent traveling to and from Mallowan's sites. The travelling involved in the archaeology had a large influence on Christie's writing, which is often reflected as some type of transportation playing a part in her murderer’s schemes. The large amount of travel done by Christie and Mallowan has not only made for a great writing theme, as shown in her famous novel: The Murder on the Orient Express, but also tied into the idea of archaeology as an adventure that has become so important in today’s popular culture as described by Cornelius Holtorf in his book Archaeology is a Brand.[47]

Popular novels with heavy archaeological influences[link]

Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)

Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia is the most archaeologically influenced of all her novels as it is set in the Middle East at an archaeological dig site and associated expedition house. The Main characters included an archaeologist, Dr. Eric Leidner, as well as his wife, multiple specialists, assistants and the men working the site. The novel is most noted for its careful description of the dig site and house, which showed the author had spent much of her own time in very similar situations herself. The characters in this book in particular are also based on archaeologists Christie knew from her personnel experiences on excavations sites.

Appointment with Death (1938)

Appointment with Death is set in Jerusalem and its surrounding area. The death itself occurs in at an old cave site and offers some very descriptive details of sites which Christie herself would have visited in order to write the book.

Death on the Nile (1937)

Death on the Nile takes place on a tour boat on the Nile. Many archaeological sites are visited along the way and one of the main characters is an archaeologist, Signor Richetti.

They Came to Baghdad (1951)

They Came to Baghdad was inspired by Christie's own trips to Baghdad with Mallowan, and involves an archaeologist as the heroine's love interest.

Miscellaneous[link]

From 8 November 2001 - 24 March 2002, The British Museum had an exhibit named “Agatha Christie and Archaeology: Mystery in Mesopotamia”, which presented a fascinating look at the secret life of Agatha Christie and the influences of archaeology in her life and works.[48] In 1971 Agatha Christie was made a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.[49] She and her second husband, Sir Max Mallowan, were one of the rare married couples to be titled, each in their own right.

Portrayals[link]

Christie has been portrayed on a number of occasions in film and television.

Several biographical programs have been made, such as the 2004 BBC television programme entitled Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures, in which she is portrayed by Olivia Williams, Anna Massey, and Bonnie Wright.

Christie has also been portrayed fictionally. Some of these have explored and offered accounts of Christie's disappearance in 1926, including the 1979 film Agatha (with Vanessa Redgrave, where she sneaks away to plan revenge against her husband) and the Doctor Who episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp" (with Fenella Woolgar, her disappearance being the result of her suffering a temporary breakdown due to a brief psychic link being formed between her and an alien). Others, such as 1980 Hungarian film, Kojak Budapesten (not to be confused with the 1986 comedy by the same name) create their own scenarios involving Christie's criminal skill.[50] In the 1986 TV play, Murder by the Book, Christie herself (Dame Peggy Ashcroft) murdered one of her fictional-turned-real characters, Poirot. The heroine of Liar-Soft's 2008 visual novel Shikkoku no Sharnoth: What a Beautiful Tomorrow, Mary Clarissa Christie, is based on the real-life Christie. Christie features as a character in Gaylord Larsen's Dorothy and Agatha and The London Blitz Murders' by Max Allan Collins.[51][52]

Christie has also been parodied on screen, such as in the film Murder by Indecision, which featured the character "Agatha Crispy".

Works by other authors based on Christie's works[link]

Plays adapted into novels[link]

Charles Osborne novelised three of Christie's plays:

These three novels are now available in the collection Murder In Three Stages.

Works adapted into plays[link]

Film adaptations[link]

Year Title Story based on Notes
1928 The Passing of Mr. Quinn The Coming of Mr. Quin First Christie film adaptation
1929 Die Abenteurer G.m.b.H. The Secret Adversary First Christie foreign film adaptation. German adaptation of The Secret Adversary
1931 Alibi The stage play Alibi and the novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd First Christie film adaptation to feature Hercule Poirot
1931 Black Coffee Black Coffee
1932 Le Coffret de Laque Black Coffee French adaptation of Black Coffee
1934 Lord Edgware Dies Lord Edgware Dies
1937 Love from a Stranger The stage play Love from a Stranger and the short story "Philomel Cottage" Released in the US as A Night of Terror
1945 And Then There Were None The stage play And Then There Were None and the novel And Then There Were None First Christie film adaptation of And Then There Were None
1947 Love from a Stranger The stage play Love from a Stranger and the short story "Philomel Cottage" Released in the UK as A Stranger Walked In
1957 Witness for the Prosecution The stage play Witness for the Prosecution and the short story "The Witness for the Prosecution"
1960 The Spider's Web Spider's Web
1961 Murder, She Said 4.50 from Paddington First Christie film adaptation to feature Miss Marple
1963 Murder at the Gallop After the Funeral In the film, Miss Marple replaces Hercule Poirot
1964 Murder Most Foul Mrs. McGinty's Dead The film is loosely based on the book and as a major change Miss Marple replaces Hercule Poirot
1964 Murder Ahoy! None An original film, not based on any book, although it borrows some elements of They Do It with Mirrors
1965 Gumnaam And Then There Were None Uncredited adaptation of And Then There Were None
1965 Ten Little Indians The stage play And Then There Were None and the novel And Then There Were None
1965 The Alphabet Murders The A.B.C. Murders
1972 Endless Night Endless Night
1973 Dhund The Unexpected Guest Dhund (translation: Fog) is a 1973 Hindi movie produced and directed by B. R. Chopra
1974 Murder on the Orient Express Murder on the Orient Express
1974 And Then There Were None The stage play And Then There Were None and the novel And Then There Were None Released in the US as Ten Little Indians
1978 Death on the Nile The stage play Murder on the Nile and the novel Death on the Nile
1980 The Mirror Crack'd The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
1982 Evil Under the Sun Evil Under the Sun
1985 Ordeal by Innocence Ordeal by Innocence
1987 Desyat Negrityat The stage play And Then There Were None and the novel And Then There Were None Russian film adaptation of And Then There Were None
1988 Appointment with Death The stage play Appointment with Death and the novel Appointment with Death
1989 Ten Little Indians The stage play And Then There Were None and the novel And Then There Were None
1995 Innocent Lies Towards Zero
2005 Mon petit doigt m'a dit... By the Pricking of My Thumbs French adaptation of By the Pricking of My Thumbs
2007 L'Heure zéro Towards Zero French adaptation of Towards Zero
2008 Le crime est notre affaire 4.50 from Paddington French adaptation of 4.50 from Paddington
2012 Grandmaster The A.B.C Murders Indian(Malayalam) adaptation of The A.B.C Murders

Television adaptations[link]

[edit] Agatha Christie's Poirot television series

Episodes of the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot include:

Graphic novels[link]

Euro Comics India began issuing a series of graphic novel adaptations of Christie's work in 2007.

HarperCollins independently began issuing this series also in 2007.

In addition to the titles issued the following titles are also planned for release:

Video games[link]

Animation[link]

In 2004 the Japanese broadcasting company Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai turned Poirot and Marple into animated characters in the anime series Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, introducing Mabel West (daughter of Miss Marple's mystery-writer nephew Raymond West, a canonical Christie character) and her duck Oliver as new characters.

Unpublished material[link]

  • Personal Call (supernatural radio play, featuring Inspector Narracott who also appeared in The Sittaford Mystery; a recording is in the British Library Sound Archive)
  • The Woman and the Kenite (horror: an Italian translation, allegedly transcribed from an Italian magazine of the 1920s, is available on the internet: La moglie del Kenita[dead link]).
  • Butter In a Lordly Dish (horror/detective radio play, adapted from The Woman and the Kenite)
  • Being So Very Wilful (romantic)
  • Snow Upon the Desert (romantic novel)[53]
  • Stronger than Death (supernatural)[54]
  • The Green Gate (supernatural)[54]
  • The Greenshore Folly (novella featuring Hercule Poirot; the basis for Dead Man's Folly)[55]
  • The War Bride (supernatural)
  • Eugenia and Eugenics (stage play)[54]
  • Witchhazel (supernatural short story)[54]
  • Someone at the Window (play adapted from short story The Dead Harlequin)[54]
  • Miss Perry (stage play)

See also[link]

Notes[link]

  1. ^ Flemming, Michael (15 February 2000). "Agatha Christie gets a clue for filmmakers". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117776459.html?categoryid=3&cs=1. Retrieved 25 April 2010. 
  2. ^ "Statistics on whole Index Translationum database". UNESCO. Archived from the original on 26 May 2008. http://databases.unesco.org/xtrans/stat/xTransStat.a?VL1=A&top=50&lg=0. Retrieved 14 May 2008. 
  3. ^ Guinness Book of World Records (Sterling Pub. Co., 1976), 210.
  4. ^ "London Theater Journal: Comfortably Mousetrapped". New York Times. 26 January 2012. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/london-theater-journal-comfortably-mousetrapped/?src=dayp. Retrieved 26 January 2012. 
  5. ^ "Chorion". Chorion. Archived from the original on 11 February 2010. http://www.chorion.co.uk/. Retrieved 9 March 2010. 
  6. ^ Kennedy, Maev; Allen, Katie (5 June 2009). "Two unpublished Poirot short stories found". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jun/05/two-unpublished-poirot-stories-found. Retrieved 12 September 2010. 
  7. ^ Burton Frierson (10 November 2009). "Lost Agatha Christie story to be published". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE5A95OG20091110. Retrieved 11 November 2009. 
  8. ^ Morgan, Janet. Agatha Christie, A Biography. (Page 2) Collins, 1984 ISBN 0-00-216330-6
  9. ^ Wagoner, Mary S. Agatha Christie. (Page 26) Twayne Publishers, 1986 ISBN 0-8057-6936-6, 978-0-8057-6936-4
  10. ^ Brief Biography of Agatha Christie Christie Bio
  11. ^ Christie, Autobiography, first two sections.
  12. ^ Christie, p. 230
  13. ^ Christie, pp. 215, 237
  14. ^ "Agatha Christie's surfing secret revealed". The Guardian. London. 29 July 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/29/agatha-christie-hercule-poirot-surfing-secret. Retrieved 30 July 2011. 
  15. ^ "Agatha Christie 'one of Britain's first stand-up surfers'". The Daily Telegraph. London. 29 July 2011. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8670354/Agatha-Christie-one-of-Britains-first-stand-up-surfers.html. Retrieved 30 July 2011. 
  16. ^ "MRS. CHRISTIE FOUND IN A YORKSHIRE SPA; Missing Novelist, Under an Assumed Name, Was Staying at a Hotel There. CLUE A NEWSPAPER PICTURE Mystery Writer Is Victim of Loss of Memory, Her Husband Declares. MRS. CHRISTIE FOUND IN A YORKSHIRE SPA". New York Times. 15 December 1926. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60C17FE3C591B7A93C7A81789D95F428285F9&scp=4&sq=Agatha%20Christie%20Disappearance&st=cse. Retrieved 16 September 2009. 
  17. ^ The Harrogate Hydropathic hotel, nowadays the Old Swan Hotel, was also known as the Swan Hydro, because of its location on Swan Road, on the site of an earlier Old Swan Hotel. A Brief History of Harrogate
  18. ^ Adams, Cecil, Why did mystery writer Agatha Christie mysteriously disappear? The Chicago Reader, 4/2/82. [1] Accessed 19 May 2008. In her autobiography, Agatha strongly suggests that she had a nervous breakdown. When hearing another woman recount similar symptoms, she said she replied, "I think you had better be very careful; it is probably the beginning of a nervous breakdown." Christie, Autobiography, 360.
  19. ^ Agatha Christie and the Missing Eleven Days, Jared Cade, Publisher: Peter Owen Ltd, 1997, ISBN 978-0-7206-1280-6
  20. ^ a b Thompson, Laura. Agatha Christie: An English Mystery. London: Headline Review. 2008. ISBN 978-0-7553-1488-1.
  21. ^ Christie, Come Tell Me How You Live (Chapter 2, page 45-46 of 1983 edition) ISBN 0-370-30563-9
  22. ^ jbottero; "Agatha Christie's Hotel Pera Palace" http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/51232/ 5 June 2008 23:08:11
  23. ^ Agatha Christie: A Reader's Companion –Vanessa Wagstaff and Stephen Poole, Aurum Press Ltd. 2004. Page 14. ISBN 1-84513-015-4.
  24. ^ "Thallium poisoning in fact and fiction" http://www.pharmj.com/pdf/comment/pj_20061125_onlooker.pdf
  25. ^ London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 40669. p. 11. 30 December 1955. Retrieved 7 September 2009.
  26. ^ "Biography: Agatha Christie" Retrieved 22 February 2009; http://www.illiterarty.com/authors/biography-agatha-christie
  27. ^ London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 45262. p. 7. 31 December 1970. Retrieved 7 September 2009.
  28. ^ London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 44600. p. 6300. 31 May 1968. Retrieved 7 September 2009.
  29. ^ Kingston, Anne. "The ultimate whodunit", Maclean's. 2 April 2009. (Retrieved 28 August 2009.)
  30. ^ Boswell, Randy. "Study finds possible dementia for Agatha Christie", The Ottawa Citizen. 6 April 2009. (Retrieved 28 August 2009.)
  31. ^ Devlin, Kate (4 April 2009). "Agatha Christie 'had Alzheimer's disease when she wrote final novels'". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5101619/Agatha-Christie-had-Alzheimers-disease-when-she-wrote-final-novels.html. Retrieved 28 August 2009. 
  32. ^ Flood, Alison (3 April 2009). "Study claims Agatha Christie had Alzheimer's". The Guardian (London). Archived from the original on 1 August 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/03/agatha-christie-alzheimers-research. Retrieved 28 August 2009. 
  33. ^ "Deaths England and Wales 1984–2006". Findmypast.com. Archived from the original on 27 January 2010. http://www.findmypast.com/BirthsMarriagesDeaths.jsp. Retrieved 9 March 2010. [dead link]
  34. ^ a b Mills, Selina (15 September 2008). "BBC:Dusty clues to Christie unearthed". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7612000/7612534.stm. Retrieved 9 March 2010. 
  35. ^ "Agatha Christie – Her Detectives and Other Characters" Retrieved 22 February 2009 http://www.christiemystery.co.uk/detectives.html
  36. ^ http://www.poirot.us/obituary.php
  37. ^ Aldiss, Brian. "BBC Radio 4 –Factual –Desert Island Discs". bbc.com. Archived from the original on 11 February 2009. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/desertislanddiscs_20070128.shtml. Retrieved 22 February 2009. 
  38. ^ Wilson, Edmund. "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" The New Yorker. 20 January 1945.
  39. ^ Christopher Hitchens. Hitch-22. Hachette. .
  40. ^ Pendergast, Bruce (2004). Everyman's Guide to the Mysteries of Agatha Christie. Victoria, BC, Canada: Trafford. p. 399. ISBN 1-4120-2304-1. 
  41. ^ Morgan, 1984 p. 389
  42. ^ Dever, 2004, pp. 162
  43. ^ Morgan, 1984 p. 546
  44. ^ Trustees of the British Museum, accessed from http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours/middle_east/agatha_christie__archaeology/agatha_christie__archaeology.aspx
  45. ^ Trustees of the British Museum, British Museum, http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours/middle_east/agatha_christie__archaeology/pottery_palace_ware_jar.aspx
  46. ^ Holtorf, 2007. p. 75
  47. ^ http://web.comhem.se/cornelius/brand.html
  48. ^ Trustees of the British Museum, 2012, accessed from http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours/middle_east/agatha_christie__archaeology/agatha_christie__archaeology.aspx
  49. ^ http://www.famousauthors.org/agatha-christie
  50. ^ "Kojak Budapesten" 1990. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081006/plotsummary
  51. ^ http://www.amazon.com/Dorothy-Agatha-Mystery-Gaylord-Larsen/dp/052524865X
  52. ^ http://www.amazon.com/London-Blitz-Murders-Allan-Collins/dp/0425198057
  53. ^ Thompson, Laura. "Agatha Christie: How should a biographer set about unravelling the mystery?" The Independent. 9 September 2007. Retrieved 14 November 2010.
  54. ^ a b c d e [2][dead link]
  55. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=rzNSyfG3QrAC&pg=PA122#v=onepage&q&f=false Macaskill, Hilary and Mathew Prichard. Agatha Christie at Home. London: Frances Lincoln Ltd., 2009. ISBN 978-0-7112-3029-3.

Bibliography[link]

See Agatha Christie bibliography

  • Agatha Christie Limited
  • Dever, Norma. (2004) "They Also Dug! Archaeologist’s Wives and Their Stories." Near Eastern Archaeology. Boston: The American Schools of Oriental Research. Vol. 67,No. 3, pp. 162–173
  • Holtorf, Cornelius. (2007) Archaeology is a Brand! The meaning of archaeology in contemporary popular culture. Oxford, England: Archaeopress.
  • Morgan, Janet P. (1984) Agatha Christie: a biography. London: Collins.
  • Roaf, Michael and Robert Killick. (1987) "A Mysterious Affair of Styles: The Ninevite 5 Pottery of Northern Mesopotamia." Iraq. Vol.49, pp. 199–230

Further reading[link]

Articles[link]

Books[link]

  • Barnard, Robert (1980). A Talent to Deceive –An Appreciation of Agatha Christie. London: Collins. ISBN 0-00-216190-7.  Reprinted as New York: Mysterious Press, 1987.
  • Osborne, Charles (1982). The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie. London: Collins. 
  • Thompson, Laura (2007). Agatha Christie : An English Mystery. London: Headline Review. ISBN 0-7553-1487-5. 

External links[link]

http://wn.com/Agatha_Christie




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Hercule Poirot
300px
David Suchet as Hercule Poirot
First appearance The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Last appearance Curtain
Created by Agatha Christie
Portrayed by David Suchet
Peter Ustinov
Albert Finney
See below
Information
Gender Male
Occupation

Private detective

 · Retired Detective
 · Former Police officer
Religion Roman Catholic
Nationality Belgian

Hercule Poirot (play /ɜrˈkjuːl pwɑrˈ/; French pronunciation: [ɛʁkyl pwaʁo]) is a fictional Belgian detective, created by Agatha Christie. Along with Miss Marple, Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters, appearing in 33 novels and 51 short stories published between 1920 and 1975 and set in the same era.

Poirot has been portrayed on radio, on screen, for films and television, by various actors, including John Moffatt, Albert Finney, Sir Peter Ustinov, Sir Ian Holm, Tony Randall, Alfred Molina and David Suchet.

Contents

Overview[link]

Influences[link]

His name was derived from two other fictional detectives of the time: Marie Belloc Lowndes' Hercule Popeau and Frank Howel Evans' Monsieur Poirot, a retired Belgian police officer living in London.[1] Hercule Poirot's initials replicate that of the sauce which he happens to like, HP Brown Sauce, as he comments in Elephants Can Remember: "Ah yes, that is correct my initials do appear to be the same as such a fine delicacy, a good English creation". A more obvious influence on the early Poirot stories is that of Arthur Conan Doyle. In An Autobiography Christie admits, "I was still writing in the Sherlock Holmes tradition – eccentric detective, stooge assistant, with a Lestrade-type Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Japp".[2] For his part Conan Doyle acknowledged basing his detective stories on the model of Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin, and his anonymous narrator, and basing his character Sherlock Holmes on Joseph Bell, who in his use of "ratiocination" prefigured Poirot's reliance on his "little grey cells".[3]

Poirot also bears a striking resemblance to A. E. W. Mason's fictional detective—Inspector Hanaud of the French Sûreté—who, first appearing in the 1910 novel At the Villa Rose, predates the writing of the first Poirot novel by six years. In chapter four of the second Inspector Hanaud novel, The House of the Arrow (1924), Hanaud declares sanctimoniously to the heroine, "You are wise, Mademoiselle…For, after all, I am Hanaud. There is only one."

Christie's Poirot was a francophone Belgian. Unlike the models mentioned above, Christie's Poirot was clearly the result of her early development of the detective in her first book, written in 1916 but not published until 1920. Not only was his Belgian nationality interesting because of Belgium's occupation by Germany (which provided a valid explanation of why such a skilled detective would be out of work and available to solve mysteries at an English country house[4]), but also at the time of Christie's writing, it was considered patriotic to express sympathy with the Belgians,[5] since the invasion of their country had constituted Britain's casus belli for entering World War I, and British wartime propaganda emphasized the "Rape of Belgium".

Popularity[link]

Poirot's first appearance was in The Mysterious Affair at Styles (published 1920) and his last in Curtain (published 1975, the year before Christie died). On publication of the latter, Poirot was the only fictional character to be given an obituary in the New York Times; 6 August 1975 "Hercule Poirot is Dead; Famed Belgian Detective".[6]

By 1930, Agatha Christie found Poirot "insufferable", and by 1960 she felt that he was a "detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep". Yet the public loved him, and Christie refused to kill him off, claiming that it was her duty to produce what the public liked, and what the public liked was Poirot.[7]

Appearance and personal attributes[link]

Here is how Captain Arthur Hastings first describes Poirot:

"He was hardly more than five feet four inches but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. Even if everything on his face was covered, the tips of moustache and the pink-tipped nose would be visible.
The neatness of his attire was almost incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandified little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police."[4]

This is how Agatha Christie describes Poirot in The Murder on the Orient Express in the initial pages:

"By the step leading up into the sleeping-car stood a young Belgian lieutenant, resplendent in uniform, conversing with a small man (Hercule Poirot) muffled up to the ears of whom nothing was visible but a pink-tipped nose and the two points of an upward-curled moustache."

In the later books, the limp is not mentioned, which suggests it may have been a temporary wartime injury. Poirot has dark hair, which he dyes later in life[8] (though many of his screen incarnations are portrayed as bald or balding), and green eyes that are repeatedly described as shining "like a cat's" when he is struck by a clever idea.[9] Frequent mention is made of his patent-leather shoes, damage to which is frequently a subject of (for the reader, comical) misery on his part.[10] Poirot's appearance, regarded as fastidious during his early career, is hopelessly out of fashion later in his career.[11]

Among Poirot's most significant personal attributes is the sensitivity of his stomach:

"The plane dropped slightly. "Mon estomac," thought Hercule Poirot, and closed his eyes determinedly."[12]

He suffers from sea sickness,[13] and in Death in the Clouds believes that his air sickness prevents him from being more alert at the time of the murder. Later in his life, we are told:

"Always a man who had taken his stomach seriously, he was reaping his reward in old age. Eating was not only a physical pleasure, it was also an intellectual research."[14]

Poirot is extremely punctual and carries a turnip pocket watch almost to the end of his career.[15] He is also fastidious about his personal finances, preferring to keep a bank balance of 444 pounds, 4 shillings, and 4 pence.[16]

Poirot, as mentioned in Curtain and The Clocks, is extremely fond on classical music, particularly Mozart and Bach He also wears pince-nez reading glasses.

Methods[link]

In The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Poirot operates as a fairly conventional, clue-based detective, depending on logic, which is represented in his vocabulary by two common phrases: his use of "the little grey cells" and "order and method". Irritating to Hastings is the fact that Poirot will sometimes conceal from him important details of his plans, as in The Big Four where Hastings is kept in the dark throughout the climax. This aspect of Poirot is less evident in the later novels, partly because there is rarely a narrator so there is no one for Poirot to mislead.

As early as Murder on the Links, where he still largely depends on clues, Poirot mocks a rival "bloodhound" detective who focuses on the traditional trail of clues that had been established in detective fiction by the example of Sherlock Holmes: footprints, fingerprints and cigar ash. From this point on he establishes himself as a psychological detective who proceeds not by a painstaking examination of the crime scene, but by enquiring either into the nature of the victim or the psychology of the murderer. Central to his behaviour in the later novels is the underlying assumption that particular crimes are only committed by particular types of people.

Poirot's methods focus on getting people to talk. Early in the novels, he frequently casts himself in the role of "Papa Poirot", a benign confessor, especially to young women. Later he lies freely in order to gain the confidences of other characters, either inventing his own reason for being interested in the case[17] or a family excuse[18] for pursuing a line of questioning.

"To this day Harold is not quite sure what made him suddenly pour out the whole story to a little man to whom he had only spoken a few minutes before."[19]

Poirot is also willing to appear more foreign or vain than he really is in an effort to make people underestimate him. He admits as much:

"It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say – a foreigner – he can't even speak English properly. […] Also I boast! An Englishman he says often, "A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much. […] And so, you see, I put people off their guard."[20]

In the later novels Christie often uses the word mountebank when Poirot is being assessed by other characters, showing that he has successfully passed himself off as a charlatan or fraud.

All these techniques help Poirot attain his principal target: "For in the long run, either through a lie, or through truth, people were bound to give themselves away …"[21]

After solving a case Poirot has the habit of collecting all people involved into a single room and explaining them the reasoning that led him to the solution, and revealing that the murderer is one of them.

Hercule Poirot's life[link]

"I suppose you know pretty well everything there is to know about Poirot's family by this time".[22] Christie made a point of having Poirot supply false or misleading information about himself or his background in order to assist him in obtaining information relevant to a particular case. In chapter 21 of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, for example, Poirot talks about a mentally disabled nephew: this proves to be a ruse so that he can find out about homes for the mentally unfit, and in Dumb Witness, Poirot tells of an elderly invalid mother as a pretence to investigate the local nurses.

The character was in the Brussels police force by 1893.[23] A brief passage in The Big Four furnishes possible information about Poirot's birth or at least childhood in or near the town of Spa, Belgium: "But we did not go into Spa itself. We left the main road and wound into the leafy fastnesses of the hills, till we reached a little hamlet and an isolated white villa high on the hillside."[24] Christie strongly implies that this "quiet retreat in the Ardennes"[25] near Spa is the Poirot family home. Christie is purposefully vague, as Poirot is thought to be elderly even in the early Poirot novels, and in An Autobiography she admitted that she already imagined him to be an old man in 1920. At the time, of course, she had no idea she would be going on writing Poirot books for many decades to come.

Christie wrote that Poirot is a Roman Catholic,[26] and gave her character a strong sense of Catholic morality later in works.[27] Christie wrote little of Poirot’s childhood though in Three Act Tragedy she writes that he comes from a large family with little wealth.

Poirot’s police years[link]

"Gustave […] was not a policeman. I have dealt with policemen all my life and I know. He could pass as a detective to an outsider but not to a man who was a policeman himself." — Hercule Poirot in "The Erymanthian Boar" (1940).

As an adult, Poirot joined the Belgian police force. Very little mention is made in Christie's work about this part of his life, but in "The Nemean Lion" (1939) Poirot himself refers to a Belgian case of his in which "a wealthy soap manufacturer […] poisoned his wife in order to be free to marry his secretary". We do not know whether this case resulted in a successful prosecution or not; moreover, Poirot is not above lying in order to produce a particular effect in the person to whom he is speaking, so this evidence is not reliable.

Inspector Japp gives some insight into Poirot's career with the Belgian police when introducing him to a colleague:

"You've heard me speak of Mr Poirot? It was in 1904 he and I worked together – the Abercrombie forgery case – you remember he was run down in Brussels. Ah, those were the days Moosier. Then, do you remember "Baron" Altara? There was a pretty rogue for you! He eluded the clutches of half the police in Europe. But we nailed him in Antwerp – thanks to Mr. Poirot here."[28]

Perhaps this is enough evidence to suggest that Poirot's police career was a successful one.

In the short story The Chocolate Box (1923) Poirot provides Captain Arthur Hastings with an account of what he considers to be his only failure. Poirot admits that he has failed to solve a crime "innumerable" times:

"I have been called in too late. Very often another, working towards the same goal, has arrived there first. Twice I have been struck down with illness just as I was on the point of success."

Nevertheless, he regards the case in "The Chocolate Box", which took place in 1893,[29] as his only actual failure of detection. Again, Poirot is not reliable as a narrator of his personal history and there is no evidence that Christie sketched it out in any depth.

It was also in this period that Poirot shot a man who was firing from a roof onto the public below.[30]

Poirot had retired from the Belgian police force by the time he met Hastings in 1916 on the case retold in The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

In The Double Clue Poirot mentions that he was Chief of Police of Brussels, until "the Great War" (WWI) forced him to leave for England.

Career as a private detective[link]

"I had called in at my friend Poirot's rooms to find him sadly overworked. So much had he become the rage that every rich woman who had mislaid a bracelet or lost a pet kitten rushed to secure the services of the great Hercule Poirot."[31]

During World War I, Poirot left Belgium for Britain as a refugee. It was here, on 16 July 1916, that he again met his lifelong friend, Captain Arthur Hastings, and solved the first of his cases to be published: The Mysterious Affair at Styles.[32] After that case Poirot apparently came to the attention of the British secret service, and undertook cases for the British government, including foiling the attempted abduction of the Prime Minister.[33] Readers were told that the British authority learned about Poirot's keen investigative ability from certain Belgian royals.

After the war Poirot became a free agent and began undertaking civilian cases. He moved into what became both his home and work address, 56B Whitehaven Mansions, Charterhouse Square, Smithfield, London W1.[34] It was chosen by Poirot for its symmetry. (This building was in fact built in 1936, decades later than Poirot fictionally moved in.) His first case was "The Affair at the Victory Ball", which saw Poirot enter the high society and begin his career as a private detective.

Between the world wars, Poirot travelled all over Europe and the Middle East investigating crimes and murders. Most of his cases happened during this period and he was at the height of his powers at this point in his life. The Murder On the Links saw the Belgian pit his grey cells against a French murderer. In the Middle East he solved the cases of Death on the Nile, and Murder in Mesopotamia with ease and even survived An Appointment with Death. As he passed through Eastern Europe on his return trip, he solved The Murder on the Orient Express. However he did not travel to the Americas or Australia, probably due to his sea sickness.

"It is this villainous sea that troubles me! The mal de mer – it is horrible suffering!"[35]

It was during this time he met the Countess Vera Rossakoff, a glamorous jewel thief. The history of the Countess is, like Poirot's, steeped in mystery. She claims to have been a member of the Russian aristocracy before the Russian Revolution and suffered greatly as a result, but how much of that story is true is an open question. Even Poirot acknowledges that Rossakoff has told several wildly varying accounts of her early life. Poirot later became smitten with the woman and allowed her to escape justice.

"It is the misfortune of small, precise men always to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination that the Countess held for him."[36]

Although letting the Countess escape is morally questionable, that impulse to take the law into his own hands was far from unique. In The Nemean Lion, he sided with the criminal, Miss Amy Carnaby, and saved her from having to face justice by blackmailing his client Sir Joseph Hoggins, who himself was plotting murder and was unwise enough to let Poirot discover this. Poirot even sent Miss Carnaby two hundred pounds as a final payoff before her dog kidnapping campaign came to an end. In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd he allowed the murderer to escape justice through suicide and then ensured the truth was never known to spare the feelings of the murderer's relatives. In The Augean Stables he helped the government to cover up vast corruption.

It could be suggested that in Murder on the Orient Express Poirot allows the murderers to escape justice as well, after he discovers that twelve different people stabbed the victim – Mr. Ratchett – in his sleep. This is because they were only carrying out the sentence of death that he would have faced had he not been acquitted on a technicality. It may also be because, since 12 people stabbed the victim, none was certain who delivered the killing blow. Ultimately a falsehood is made up to tell the police and the 12 perpetrators are allowed to go free.

After his cases in the Middle East, Poirot returned to Britain. Apart from some of the so-called "Labours of Hercules" (see next section) he very rarely travelled abroad during his later career.

Retirement[link]

"That’s the way of it. Just a case or two, just one case more – the Prima Donna’s farewell performance won’t be in it with yours, Poirot."[37]

There is a great deal of confusion about Poirot's retirement. Most of the cases covered by Poirot's private detective agency take place before his retirement to grow marrows, at which time he solves The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It has been said that twelve cases related in The Labours of Hercules (1947) must refer to a different retirement, but the fact that Poirot specifically says that he intends to grow marrows indicates that these stories also take place before Roger Ackroyd, and presumably Poirot closed his agency once he had completed them. There is specific mention in "The Capture of Cerberus" to the fact that there has been a gap of twenty years between Poirot's previous meeting with Countess Rossakoff and this one. If the Labours precede the events in Roger Ackroyd, then the Roger Ackroyd case must have taken place around twenty years later than it was published, and so must any of the cases that refer to it. One alternative would be that having failed to grow marrows once, Poirot is determined to have another go, but this is specifically denied by Poirot himself.[38] Also, in "The Erymanthian Boar", a character is said to have been turned out of Austria by the Nazis, implying that the events of The Labours of Hercules took place after 1937. Another alternative would be to suggest that the Preface to the Labours takes place at one date but that the labours are completed over a matter of twenty years. None of the explanations is especially attractive.

In terms of a rudimentary chronology, Poirot speaks of retiring to grow marrows in Chapter 18 of The Big Four (1927), which places that novel out of published order before Roger Ackroyd. He declines to solve a case for the Home Secretary because he is retired in Chapter One of Peril at End House (1932). He is certainly retired at the time of Three Act Tragedy (1935) but he does not enjoy his retirement and comes repeatedly out of it thereafter when his curiosity is engaged. Nevertheless, he continues to employ his secretary, Miss Lemon, at the time of the cases retold in Hickory Dickory Dock and Dead Man's Folly, which take place in the mid-1950s. It is therefore better to assume that Christie provided no authoritative chronology for Poirot's retirement, but assumed that he could either be an active detective, a consulting detective or a retired detective as the needs of the immediate case required.

One thing that is consistent about Poirot's retirement is that his fame declines during it, so that in the later novels he is often disappointed when characters (especially younger characters) recognize neither him nor his name:

"I should, perhaps, Madame, tell you a little more about myself. I am Hercule Poirot."
The revelation left Mrs Summerhayes unmoved.
"What a lovely name," she said kindly. "Greek, isn't it?"[39]

Post World War II[link]

"He, I knew, was not likely to be far from his headquarters. The time when cases had drawn him from one end of England to the other was past."[40]

Poirot is less active during the cases that take place at the end of his career. Beginning with Three Act Tragedy (1934), Christie had perfected during the inter-war years a sub-genre of Poirot novel in which the detective himself spent much of the first third of the novel on the periphery of events. In novels such as Taken at the Flood, After the Funeral and Hickory Dickory Dock he is even less in evidence, frequently passing the duties of main interviewing detective to a subsidiary character. In Cat Among the Pigeons Poirot's entrance is so late as to be almost an afterthought. Whether this was a reflection of his age or of the fact that Christie was by now heartily sick of him it is difficult to assess. There is certainly a case for saying that Crooked House (1949) and Ordeal by Innocence (1957), which are not Poirot novels at all but so easily could have been, represent a logical endpoint of the general diminution of Poirot himself within the Poirot sequence.

Towards the end of his career it becomes clear that Poirot's retirement is no longer a convenient fiction. He assumes a genuinely inactive lifestyle during which he concerns himself with studying famous unsolved cases of the past and reading detective novels. He even writes a book about mystery fiction in which he deals sternly with Edgar Allan Poe and Wilkie Collins.[41] In the absence of a more appropriate puzzle, he solves such inconsequential domestic problems as the presence of three pieces of orange peel in his umbrella stand.[42]

Poirot (and, it is reasonable to suppose, his creator)[43] becomes increasingly bemused by the vulgarism of the up and coming generation's young people. In Hickory Dickory Dock, he investigates the strange goings on in a student hostel, while in the Third Girl he is forced into contact with the smart set of Chelsea youths. In the growing drug and pop culture of the sixties, he proves himself once again, but has become heavily reliant on other investigators (especially the private investigator, Mr. Goby) who provide him with the clues that he can no longer gather for himself.

"You're too old. Nobody told me you were so old. I really don't want to be rude but – there it is. You're too old. I'm really very sorry."[44]

Notably, during this time his physical characteristics also change dramatically, and by the time Arthur Hastings meets Poirot again in Curtain, he looks very different from his previous appearances, having become thin with age and with obviously dyed hair.

Death[link]

Poirot dies from complications of a heart condition at the end of Curtain: Poirot's Last Case. He had moved his amyl nitrite pills out of his reach, possibly because of guilt. He was forced to become the murderer in Curtain, although it was for the benefit of others. Poirot himself noted that he wanted to kill his victim shortly before his own death so that he could avoid succumbing to the arrogance of the murderer: viewing himself as entitled to kill those he deemed necessary to eliminate.

The 'murderer' he was hunting had never expressly killed anyone, but subtly and psychologically, he had manipulated others to kill for him. Poirot thus was forced to kill the man himself as otherwise he would have continued his actions and never been officially convicted. It is revealed at the end of Curtain that he fakes his need for a wheelchair so as to fool people into believing that he is suffering from arthritis, to give the impression that he is more infirm than he is. His last recorded words are "Cher ami!", spoken to Hastings as the Captain left his room. Poirot was buried at Styles, and his funeral was arranged by his best friend Hastings and Hastings' daughter Judith. Hastings reasoned, "Here was the spot where he had lived when he first came to this country. He was to lie here at the last."

While Poirot's actual death and funeral occurred in "Curtain", years after his retirement from active investigation, it was not the first time Hastings attended the funeral of his best friend. In "The Big Four" (1927) Poirot feigned his death and subsequent funeral in order to launch a surprise attack on the Big Four.

Recurring characters[link]

Arthur Hastings[link]

Hastings, a former British Army officer, first meets Poirot during Poirot's years as a police officer in Belgium and almost immediately after they both arrive in England. He becomes Poirot's lifelong friend and appears in many of the novels and stories. Poirot regards Hastings as a poor private detective, not particularly intelligent, yet helpful in his way of being fooled by the criminal or seeing things the way the average man would see them, and for his tendency to unknowingly "stumble" onto the truth.[45] Hastings marries and has four children – two sons and two daughters.

Hastings is a man who is capable of great bravery and courage, facing death unflinchingly when confronted by The Big Four and possessing unwavering loyalty towards Poirot. However, when forced to choose between Poirot and his wife in that novel, he initially chooses to betray Poirot to the Big Four so that they would not torture and kill his wife. Later, though, he tells Poirot to draw back and escape the trap.

The two are an airtight team until Hastings meets and marries Dulcie Duveen, a beautiful music hall performer half his age. They later emigrate to Argentina, leaving Poirot behind as a "very unhappy old man." Poirot and Hastings are reunited in Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, having been earlier reunited in The ABC Murders and Dumb Witness when Hastings arrives in England for business.

Ariadne Oliver[link]

The detective novelist Ariadne Oliver is Agatha Christie's humorous self-caricature. Like Agatha Christie, she isn't overly fond of the detective she is most famous for creating – in Ariadne's case the Finnish sleuth Sven Hjerson. We never learn anything about her husband, but we do know that she hates alcohol and public appearances, and has a great fondness for apples until she is put off them by the events of Hallowe'en Party. She also has a habit of constantly changing her hairstyle, and in every appearance by her much is made of the clothes and hats she wears. She has a maid called Maria who prevents the public adoration from becoming too much of a burden on her employer, but does nothing to prevent her from becoming too much of a burden on others.

She has authored over fifty-six novels and she has a great dislike of people taking and modifying her story characters. She is also the only one in Poirot's universe to have noted that "It’s not natural for five or six people to be on the spot when B is murdered and all have a motive for killing B." She first met Poirot in the story Cards on the Table and has been bothering him ever since.

Miss Felicity Lemon[link]

Poirot's secretary, Miss Felicity Lemon, has few human weaknesses. The only mistakes she makes within the series are a typing error during the events of Hickory Dickory Dock and the mis-mailing of an electricity bill, although she was worried about strange events surrounding her sister at the time. Poirot described her as being "Unbelievably ugly and incredibly efficient. Anything that she mentioned as worth consideration usually was worth consideration." She is an expert on nearly everything and plans to create the perfect filing system. She also worked for the government agent-turned-philanthropist, Parker Pyne. Whether this was during one of Poirot’s numerous retirements or before she entered his employment is unknown.[citation needed] In The Agatha Christie Hour, she was portrayed by British actress Angela Easterling, while in Agatha Christie's Poirot, she was portrayed by Pauline Moran.

Chief Inspector Japp[link]

Japp is an Inspector from Scotland Yard and appears in many of the stories trying to solve the cases Poirot is working on. Japp is outgoing, loud and sometimes inconsiderate by nature, and his relationship with the bourgeois Belgian is one of the stranger aspects of Poirot’s world. He first met Poirot in Belgium, 1904, during the Abercrombie Forgery and later that year they joined forces again to hunt down a criminal known as Baron Altara. They also meet in England where Poirot often helps Japp solve a case and lets him take credit in return for special favours. These favours usually entail Poirot being supplied with cases that would interest him.[46] In Agatha Christie's Poirot, Japp was portrayed by Philip Jackson.In the film, Thirteen at Dinner (1985), adapted from Lord Edgware Dies, the role of Japp was taken by the actor David Suchet[[1]]later to star as Poirot in the ITV adaptations.

George[link]

George (his last name is never revealed) is a stereotypical English valet who enters Poirot’s employment in 1923 and does not leave his side until the 1970s, shortly before Poirot’s death. A competent, matter-of-fact man with an extensive knowledge of the English aristocracy with no imagination, George provides a steady contrast to Hastings. In Agatha Christie's Poirot, George is played by actor David Yelland.

Major novels[link]

The Poirot books take readers through the whole of his life in England, from the first book (The Mysterious Affair at Styles), where he is a refugee staying at Styles, to the last Poirot book (Curtain), where he visits Styles once again before his death. In between, Poirot solves cases outside England as well, including his most famous case, Murder on the Orient Express (1934).

Hercule Poirot became famous with the publication, in 1926, of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, whose surprising solution proved controversial. The novel is still among the most famous of all detective novels: Edmund Wilson alludes to it in the title of his well-known attack on detective fiction, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" Aside from Roger Ackroyd, the most critically acclaimed Poirot novels appeared from 1932 to 1942, including such acknowledged classics as Murder on the Orient Express, The ABC Murders (1935), Cards on the Table (1936), and Death on the Nile (1937). The last of these, a tale of multiple homicide upon a Nile steamer, was judged by the celebrated detective novelist John Dickson Carr to be among the ten greatest mystery novels of all time.

The 1942 novel Five Little Pigs (aka Murder in Retrospect), in which Poirot investigates a murder committed sixteen years before by analysing various accounts of the tragedy, is a Rashomon-like performance that critic and mystery novelist Robert Barnard called the best of the Christie novels.

Portrayals[link]

Stage[link]

The first actor to portray Hercule Poirot was Charles Laughton. He appeared on the West End in 1928 in the play Alibi which had been adapted by Michael Morton from the novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Film[link]

Austin Trevor[link]

Austin Trevor debuted the role of Poirot on screen in the 1931 British film Alibi. The film was based on the stage play. Trevor reprised the role of Poirot twice, in Black Coffee and Lord Edgware Dies. Trevor said once that he was probably cast as Poirot simply because he could do a French accent.[47] Leslie S. Hiscott directed the first two films, with Henry Edwards taking over for the third.

Albert Finney[link]

Albert Finney played Poirot in 1974 in the cinematic version of Murder on the Orient Express. As of 2012 Finney is the only actor to receive an Academy Award nomination for playing Poirot, though he did not win.

Peter Ustinov[link]

Peter Ustinov played Poirot a total of six times, starting with Death on the Nile (1978). He reprised the role in Evil Under the Sun (1982) and Appointment with Death (1988).

When Christie's daughter, Rosalind Hicks, observed to Ustinov that Poirot did not look like him, Ustinov quipped "He does now!"[48]

He appeared again as Poirot in three made-for-television movies: Thirteen at Dinner (1985), Dead Man's Folly (1986), and Murder in Three Acts (1986). Unlike earlier adaptations that were set during the time in which the novels were written, however, these TV movies were set in the contemporary era. The first of these was based on Lord Edgware Dies and was made by Warner Brothers. It also starred Faye Dunaway and David Suchet as Inspector Japp, just before Suchet began to play the famous detective. David Suchet highlights his performance as Japp to be "possibly the worst performance of [his] career."[49]

Television[link]

David Suchet[link]

David Suchet has starred as the eponymous detective in Agatha Christie's Poirot in the ITV series since 1989. In late 2011, ITV announced that it would be filming the remaining Poirot stories in 2012. Those films will be: Labours of Hercules; Dead Man’s Folly; The Big Four; Elephants Can Remember; and Curtain. As a result, Suchet will have filmed adaptations of every Poirot novel, and all but one Poirot short story.

Other[link]

  • Ian Holm, Murder by the Book, 1986 (TV)
  • Alfred Molina, Murder on the Orient Express, 2001 (TV)
  • Anatoli Ravikoch, Zagadka Endkhauza (End House Mystery) (1989; based on "Peril at End House")
  • Konstantin Raikin, Neudacha Puaro (Poirot's Failure) (2002; based on "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd")
  • Heini Göbel, (1954; an adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express)
  • Horst Bollmann Black Coffee (TV adaptation)
  • José Ferrer, Hercule Poirot (1961; Unaired TV Pilot, MGM; adaptation of "The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim")
  • Martin Gabel, General Electric Theater (4/1/1962; adaptation of "The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim")

Animated[link]

In 2004, NHK (a Japanese TV network) produced a 39 episode anime series titled Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, as well as a manga series under the same title released in 2005. The series, adapting several of the best-known Poirot and Marple stories, ran from 4 July 2004 through 15 May 2005, and has since been shown in repeated reruns on NHK and other networks in Japan. Poirot was voiced by Satomi Kōtarō and Miss Marple was voiced by Yachigusa Kaoru.[citation needed]

Radio[link]

There have been a number of radio adaptations of the Poirot stories, most recently twenty seven of them on BBC Radio 4 (and regularly repeated on BBC 7), starring John Moffatt (Maurice Denham and Peter Sallis have also played Poirot on BBC Radio 4, Mr. Denham in The Mystery of the Blue Train and Mr. Sallis in Hercule Poirot's Christmas). In 1939, "the Mercury Players dramatized The Murder of Roger Ackroyd on CBS's Campbell Playhouse".[50] A 1945 radio series of at least 13 original half-hour episodes (none of which apparently adapt any Christie stories) transferred Poirot from London to New York and starred character actor Harold Huber,[51] perhaps better known for his appearances as a police officer in various Charlie Chan films.[52] On 22 February 1945, "speaking from London, Agatha Christie introduced the initial broadcast of the Poirot series via shortwave."[50]

BBC4 Poirot Radio Dramas[link]

Recorded and Released (John Moffatt stars as Poirot unless otherwise indicated.)

  1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles
  2. Murder on the Links
  3. The Christmas Pudding
  4. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
  5. The Mystery of the Blue Train (* Maurice Denham)
  6. Peril at End House
  7. Lord Edgware Dies (aka Thirteen at Dinner)
  8. Murder in Mesopotamia
  9. Murder on the Orient Express
  10. Three Act Tragedy
  11. Death in the Clouds
  12. The ABC Murders
  13. Dumb Witness
  14. Cards on the Table
  15. Death on the Nile
  16. Appointment With Death
  17. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (* Peter Sallis)
  18. One, Two Buckle My Shoe
  19. Sad Cypress
  20. Evil Under the Sun
  21. Five Little Pigs
  22. Taken at the Flood
  23. Mrs McGinty’s Dead
  24. After the Funeral
  25. Dead Man’s Folly
  26. Hallowe’en Party
  27. Elephants Can Remember

Yet To Be Recorded

  • Black Coffee
  • The Big Four
  • The Hollow
  • Hickory Dickory Dock
  • Cat Among the Pigeons
  • The Clocks
  • Third Girl
  • Curtain

Parodies and references[link]

File:HPCC.jpg
Poirot, as he appeared in volume 3 of Case Closed

In Revenge of the Pink Panther, Poirot makes a cameo appearance in a mental asylum, portrayed by Andrew Sachs and claiming to be 'the greatest detective in all of France, the greatest in all the world.'

In Neil Simon's Murder By Death, James Coco plays a character named "Milo Perrier" who is a parody of Poirot. The film also features parodies of Charlie Chan, Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, and Miss Marple.

Tony Randall portrayed Poirot in The Alphabet Murders a 1965 film also known as The ABC Murders. This was more a satire of Poirot than a straightforward adaptation, and was greatly changed from the original. Much of the story, set in contemporary times, was played for comedy, with Poirot investigating the murders while evading the attempts by Hastings (Robert Morley) and the police to get him out of England and back to Belgium.

Dudley Jones played Poirot in the film The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It (1977).

In the movie Spice World, Hercule Poirot (Hugh Laurie) is about to blame a weapons-packing Emma Bunton, but after she flashes him an innocent smile, Poirot instead accuses an innocent man of the crime.

In Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, Poirot appears as a young boy on the train transporting Holmes and Watson. Holmes helps the boy in opening a puzzle-box, with Watson giving the boy advice about using his "little grey cells", giving the impression that Poirot first heard about grey cells and their uses from Dr. Watson. Poirot would go on to use the "little grey cells" line countless times throughout Agatha Christie's fiction.

The Belgian brewery Brasserie Ellezelloise makes a highly rated stout called Hercule[53] with a moustachioed caricature of Hercule Poirot on the label.

In the final host segment of Mystery Science Theater 3000's episode "The Rebel Set", Tom Servo dresses up as Poirot and impersonates him in an attempt to discover the identity of B-movie actor Merritt Stone.

Jason Alexander played Poirot in episode 108 of Muppets Tonight in a spoof called "Murder on the Disoriented Express."

Hercule Poirot is parodied twice in sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Look, where he is played by David Mitchell; one sketch sees him identifying a killer due to her use of "the evil voice"—a voice that only murderers use—admitting that he otherwise had no evidence, and a later sketch sees him meeting a ship captain who is also played by Mitchell.

Leo Bruce parodied Hercule Poirot with the character Amer Picon in his book Case For Three Detectives (1936), the other two detectives being parodies of Lord Peter Wimsey and Father Brown

See also[link]

References[link]

  1. ^ Chris Willis, London Metropolitan University. "Agatha Christie (1890–1976)". http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5054. Retrieved 6 September 2006. 
  2. ^ Reproduced as the "Introduction" to Christie, Agatha. Hercule Poirot: The complete short stories (Harper Collins, 1999) p. viii
  3. ^ See C. Auguste Dupin#Literary influence and significance.
  4. ^ a b The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Chapter 2
  5. ^ H. C. Peterson (1939). Propaganda for War: The Campaign against American Neutrality, 1914–1917. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
  6. ^ "Official Agatha Christie Website". http://uk.agathachristie.com/story-explorer/characters/poirot/. Retrieved 5 September 2006. 
  7. ^ Chris Willis, London Metropolitan University. "Agatha Christie (1890–1976)". http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5054. Retrieved 6 September 2006. 
  8. ^ as Hastings discovers in The A.B.C. Murders, Chapter 1
  9. ^ e.g. "For about ten minutes [Poirot] sat in dead silence […] and all the time his eyes grew steadily greener" The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Chapter 5
  10. ^ e.g. "Hercule Poirot looked down at the tips of his patent-leather shoes and sighed." "The Apples of the Hesperides" (1940)
  11. ^ e.g. "And now here was the man himself. Really a most impossible person – the wrong clothes – button boots! an incredible moustache! Not his – Meredith Blake's kind of fellow at all." Five Little Pigs, Chapter 7.
  12. ^ Death in the Clouds, Chapter 1.
  13. ^ "My stomach, it is not happy on the sea" Evil under the Sun, Chapter 8, iv
  14. ^ Mrs. McGinty's Dead, Chapter 1
  15. ^ "he walked up the steps to the front door and pressed the bell, glancing as he did so at the neat wrist-watch which had at last replaced an old favourite – the large turnip-faced watch of early days. Yes, it was exactly nine-thirty. As ever, Hercule Poirot was exact to the minute." "The Dream" (1937)
  16. ^ The Lost Mine
  17. ^ "It has been said of Hercule Poirot by some of his friends and associates, at moments when he has maddened them most, the he prefers lies to truth and will go out of his way to gain his ends by elaborate false statements, rather than trust to the simple truth." Five Little Pigs, Book One, Chapter 9
  18. ^ e.g. "After a careful study of the goods displayed in the window, Poirot entered and represented himself as desirous of purchasing a rucksack for a hypothetical nephew." Hickory Dickory Dock, Chapter 13
  19. ^ "The Stymphalean Birds" (first published as "The Vulture Women" in 1939)
  20. ^ Three Act Tragedy, final chapter
  21. ^ After the Funeral, Chapter 18.
  22. ^ Dr. Sheppard in Chapter 21 of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
  23. ^ as mentioned in Peril at End House, Chapter 15
  24. ^ The Big Four, Chapter 16
  25. ^ The Big Four, Chapter 17
  26. ^ "Hercule Poirot was a Catholic by birth." "The Apples of the Hesperides" (1940)
  27. ^ In Taken at the Flood, Book II, Chapter 6 Poirot goes into church to pray and happens across a suspect with whom he briefly discusses ideas of sin and confession.
  28. ^ The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Chapter 7
  29. ^ The date is given in Peril at End House, Chapter 15.
  30. ^ Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, Postscript
  31. ^ "Double Sin" (original version published in 1928)
  32. ^ It is clear that Hastings and Poirot are already friends when they meet in Chapter 2 of the novel, because Hastings tells Cynthia that he has not seen him for "some years". The date of 1916 for the case, and the fact that Hastings had met Poirot in Belgium, is given in Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, Chapter 1.
  33. ^ Recounted in "The Kidnapped Prime Minister". The events in the story are immediately connected with the First World War, and feature an "Allied Conference" at Versailles that is probably meant to be understood as the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919.
  34. ^ (Coordinates 51.520948,-0.098619) Hastings first visits the flat at Whitehaven Mansions when he returns to England in June 1935 from South America. The A.B.C. Murders, Chapter 1 (It is a plot point in the novel that the flat is at Whitehaven Mansions because a letter to Poirot is misaddressed.) In Cat Among the Pigeons, Chapter 17, III, the address is given as "228 Whitehouse Mansions". Given the similarity in the names it is not impossible that the same address was meant. In The Clocks, Chapter 14, the address is given as 203, Whitehaven Mansions.
  35. ^ Poirot, in "The Kidnapped Prime Minister" (1923)
  36. ^ "The Capture of Cerebus" (1947) The first sentence quoted is also a close paraphrase of something said to Poirot by Hastings in Chapter 18 of The Big Four.
  37. ^ Dr. Burton in the Preface to The Labours of Hercules (1947).
  38. ^ The Clocks, Chapter 13: in response to the suggestion that he might take up gardening in his retirement, Poirot answers "Once the vegetable marrows, yes – but never again"
  39. ^ Mrs. McGinty's Dead, Chapter 4
  40. ^ Hastings, in Chapter One of The Big Four
  41. ^ The Third Girl, Chapter 1
  42. ^ The Clocks, Chapter 14
  43. ^ In The Pale Horse, Chapter 1, the novel's narrator, Mark Easterbrook, disapprovingly describes a typical "Chelsea girl" in much the same terms that Poirot uses in Chapter 1 of Third Girl, suggesting that the condemnation of fashion is authorial.
  44. ^ Norma Restarick to Poirot in Third Girl, Chapter 1
  45. ^ Bunson, Matthew (2000). "Hastings, Captain Arthur, O.B.E.". The Complete Christie: An Agatha Christie Encyclopedia. New York: Pocket Books. 
  46. ^ Captain Arthur Hastings in Chapter 9 of The Big Four
  47. ^ TV & Film page at the Hercule Poirot Central website.
  48. ^ Web page at mapdig.com
  49. ^ Web page on David Suchet at strandmag.com
  50. ^ a b Cox, Jim, Radio Crime Fighters, 2002, p. 18, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, ISBN 978-0-7864-1390-4
  51. ^ "A list of episodes of the half-hour 1945 radio program". Otrsite.com. http://www.otrsite.com/logs/logh1033.htm. Retrieved 27 June 2010. 
  52. ^ IMDB listing for Charlie Chan in Monte Carlo
  53. ^ "The Brasserie Ellezelloise's Hercule". Brasserie-ellezelloise.be. http://www.brasserie-ellezelloise.be/bieres-uk.shtml#L%27Hercule. Retrieved 27 June 2010. 

External links[link]

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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercule_Poirot

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.


Order from Chaos
Origin Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Genres Death metal
Black metal
Thrash metal
Years active 1987–1995
Labels Decapitated
Eternal Darkness
Gestapo
Ground Zero
Hexateuc Torment
Merciless
Nuclear War Now!
Osmose
Putrefaction
Shivadarshana
Wild Rags
Associated acts Angelcorpse
Ares Kingdom
Feldgrau
Revenge
Terror Organ
Vulpecula
Past members
Pete Helmkamp
Chuck Keller
Mike Miller

Order from Chaos was an extreme metal band formed in 1987 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA by Pete Helmkamp, Chuck Keller and Mike Miller. They are recognised as being an extremely influential group in the early US black metal scene, and served as a launching pad for its band members that went on to form such groups as Angelcorpse, Ares Kingdom, Revenge, Vulpecula, and Kerasphorus.

Contents

Biography[link]

Order from Chaos, a trio consisting of Pete Helmkamp (vocals/bass), Chuck Keller (guitar) and Mike Miller (drums), was formed in Kansas City, Missouri during 1987, playing a mixture of old school thrash, black and death metal, influenced by the likes of Venom, Bathory and Celtic Frost.[1] The band released a trio of demos in 1988, until a fourth (Crushed Infamy), which sold 1000 copies, attracted the attention of Putrefaction Records who released the Will to Power 7" EP, limited to 1100 copies. The band then signed a record deal with Wild Rags in 1989, who released cassette versions of the Crushed Infamy demo and Will to Power.[2][3] A final demo, Alienus Sum, was released in 1992 by the band, featuring three rough mixes from their delayed debut album and a couple of rehearsal tracks; an official cassette version of the demo was released through Chilean label Hexateuc Torment.

Despite being recorded in April/May 1991, Order from Chaos' debut album, Stillbirth Machine, was finally released in 1993 through Wild Rags, despite the label dropping the band in November 1992.[3] Around the same time, the album was also released by Greek label Decapitated Records (now Unisound Productions). This version, which differs from the Wild Rags in terms of artwork and layout and contains numerous textual errors, is apparently considered a bootleg version by the band.[3] The album was given official re-releases by Osmose Productions in 1998 (including the Crushed Infamy demo) and Nuclear War Now! in 2008 (on both black and clear yellow vinyl). The album has reviewed some critical acclaim; Terrorizer included it in their "top 40 death metal albums you must hear", at number 40. James Hoare commented, "The blasphemous babysteps of Peter Helmkamp, [...] Order from Chaos courted black metal's glass shards of spite and embittered, semi-mystical worldview in an ear when the two genres were defined by their opposition, setting down the foundations for further esoteric and impenetrable coupling.".[4]

A series of further EPs were recorded and released throughout 1994 on various labels (Jericho Trumpet on Gestapo, Live: Into Distant Fears on Eternal Darkness and Plateau of Invincibility on Shivadarshana), followed by a second full-length, Dawn Bringer, on Shivadarshana, before the band decided to call it quits in 1995.[1] After Shivardashana folded, French label Osmose picked up tracks recorded in 1995 for Order from Chaos' third and final album and released An Ending in Fire in 1998, as well as re-releasing their debut.

Pete Helmkamp went on to form death metal act Angelcorpse, as well as writing a book on occultism, entitled The Conqueror Manifesto: Capricornus Teitan.[1] Chuck Keller and Mike Miller went on to form retro black/thrash band Ares Kingdom and blackened death metal act Vulpecula. With interest in Order from Chaos still prevalent in the extreme metal underground, Merciless records released a compilation of demos, 1994 live tracks and rehearsal sessions, entitled Imperium - The Apocalyptic Visions, in July 2005.

Last known line-up[link]

Discography[link]

Demos[link]

  • Demo I (self-released, January 1988)
  • Inhumanities (self-released, July 1988)
  • Rehearsal (self-released, 1988)
  • Crushed Infamy (Wild Rags, July 1989)
  • Alienus Sum (self-released, 1992; reissued by Hexateuc Torment, 1994)

EPs[link]

  • Will to Power (EP, Putrefaction / Wild Rags, 1990)
  • Jericho Trumpet (7" EP, Gestapo, 1994)
  • Live: Into Distant Fears (7" EP, Eternal Darkness, 1994)
  • Plateau of Invincibility (10" EP, Shivadarshana, 1994)
  • Pain Lengthens Time (unreleased EP, 1994; included with the Dawnbringer CD)
  • And I Saw Eternity (EP, Ground Zero / Shivadarshana, 1996)

Full-length LPs[link]

  • Stillbirth Machine (Wild Rags, 1993; reissued by Osmose, 1998; reissued by Nuclear War Now!, 2008)
  • Dawn Bringer (Shivadarshana, 1995; reissed by Fifth Division, 2003)
  • An Ending in Fire (Osmose, 1998; reissued by Nuclear War Now!, 2008)
  • Imperium - The Apocalyptic Visions (compilation, Merciless, 2005)

References[link]

  1. ^ a b c York, William. Biography of Order from Chaos at Allmusic. Retrieved 2012-04-17.
  2. ^ Biography of Order from Chaos at Rockdetector
  3. ^ a b c Frank Stöver: ORDER FROM CHAOS.
  4. ^ Hoare, James (2010). Terrorizer's Secret History of... Death Metal, "The 40 Albums You Must Hear", page 95, March 2010.

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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_from_Chaos

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.




I wish I had a girl, a girl like you
Someone who would love, love me too
A girl like mum, I could be my son
If I was my dad
Woah -oh, oh, Woah -oh, oh, Woah -oh, oh,
I wish I had a girl like mummy, just like mummy
Woah -oh, oh, Woah -oh, oh, Woah -oh, oh,
I wish I had a girl like mummy, just like mummy
She would feed me in my chair
Wash my clothes and comb my hair
Clean the egg-stains from my chin
Make my bed and tuck me in
Like mummy, oh yeah
Just like mummy, oh yeah
Like mummy, oh yeah
I would throw away my switchblade
Appreciate the love that she gave
I would be in ecstasy

May the good Lord bless and keep you
Whether near or far away
May you find that long awaited
Golden day today
May your troubles all be small ones
And your fortune ten times ten
May the good Lord bless and keep you
'Til we meet again
May you walk with sunlight shining
And a bluebird in every tree
May there be a silver lining
Back of every cloud you see
Fill your dreams with sweet tomorrows
Never mind what might have been
May the good Lord bless and keep you
'Til we meet again
Fill your dreams with swee-eet tomorrows
Never mind what might have been
May the good Lord bless a-and keep you
'Til we meet again
May the good Lord bless a-and keep you
'Til we mee-eet

Come they told me, pa rub a dum dum
A new born King to see, pa rub a dum dum
Our finest gifts we bring, pa rub a dum dum
To lay before the King, pa rub a dum dum,
rub a dum dum, rub a dum dum,
So to honor Him, pa rub a dum dum,
When we come.
Little Baby, pa rub a dum dum
I am a poor boy too, pa rub a dum dum
I have no gift to bring, pa rub a dum dum
That's fit to give the King, pa rub a dum dum,
rub a dum dum, rub a dum dum,
Shall I play for you, pa rub a dum dum,
On my drum?
Mary nodded, pa rub a dum dum
The ox and lamb kept time, pa rub a dum dum
I played my drum for Him, pa rub a dum dum
I played my best for Him, pa rub a dum dum,
rub a dum dum, rub a dum dum,
Then He smiled at me, pa rub a dum dum

In de jungle, where de white man never go
In de jungle, we take off all de clothes
In de jungle, where de missionary sleep

I've gone and sold everything I own
The GPO wanna cut off my phone
My landlady she says I gotta go
She says I gotta leave
I'm out a work and I`m outta the dole
I've got no food and my room is cold
Wish I knew what the future holds
Will it always be...
No money...
I got no money
No money...
Money's all gone
Politicians shaking hands with the queen
Power kings with a power dream
Crawling forward on their hands and knees
For an OBE
Money men down on money street
Business men into business deals
Drive their Sunday colour limousines

When I saw you, walking down the street
You looked the kid of girl, I`d like to meet
The way you fit inside that dress
How was I to know your mind was such a mess
Monotony that`s what you are
Monotony you take it too far
You bore me, you bore me to tears
One day with you seems like years
From all accounts you`ve been that way
Since that day that you were born

He's got no eyes for any other
With gifts and flowers, you he smothers
Golly gee, what an n-u-t
The girls backstage don't get a look-in
He talks to you even when he's sleeping
Golly gee, what an s-a-p
He don't think it's funny if he spends all his money on you
What can the poor boy do?
He's got no eyes for any other
With gifts and flowers, you he smothers
Golly gee, what an n-u-t, what an s-a-p

Well I was strolling down the Rue Morgue
Walking with my French dog Andre
When I saw a pretty Fille
She was walking down the street, coming my way
Well I took that little girl by the hand
I said hey babe I`ll be your man
And she said 'je ne comprend pas'
Va te faire enculer
That`s what she told me, a dictionary please
Va te faire enculer
I think she likes me, oui
I said tell me where you stay
She said 'qu'est-ce vous direz'
I said let's go there
I said tell me what`s your nom
She said allez-vous-en
I said hi, Ali
I said I never got to learn any French
I took Technical Drawing instead

Hey, poor little rich girl
Mummy loves you, she says you`re beautiful
You`ve got a lot of nerve
When you tell me to forget my girl
Your just fifteen years old
Don`t you think that I know better
Hey, your money isn`t everything
Daddy buys you boys now you want a wedding ring
You`ve got a lot to learn
If you think that I`ll forget her
Your just a little girl
Can`t you see that I know better
No luxury`s are gonna change the way I feel for you
You gotta be kidding, you gotta be kidding
You can`t buy me

Pick me up as you stagger out the door
Pick me up as I picked you up before
So pack-in all your laughing
I'm on my way to hell
But if it's good enough for Jerry-Lee
It's certainly good enough for me
Pick me up as you stagger out the door
Pick me up as I picked you up before
Yeah, I know to old Dino and Jerry-Lee
I'm nothing but a punk
Still drinking like a baby boy, compared to what they've drunk
But one day, they'll be proud of me, if I could only get up of this floor
So pick me up, and lean me against the bar and make me drink some more
Pick me up as you stagger out the door
Pick me up as I picked you up before
Yeah, I know I've had no hard times
And I've always been a mother's boy
And the only heartache I ever knew, was whenever I broke my toy
So pack-in all your laughing
I'm on my way to hell
But if it's good enough for Jerry-Lee

People say you just can`t be too careful
A bird in the hand I`m sure you know
Don`t go lying on the bible
If you do then God will know
People can be very superstitious
Looking for the black cat on the road
Don`t go walking under ladders
Look left and right before you go
I like walking under ladders
I always break my mirror shades
My eggs are always in one basket
Nothing ventured nothing gained
People say you just can`t be too careful
Nailing horseshoes on your door
Don`t forget to cross your fingers

I'm not ready... I'm not ready
Too young to go steady
I`m not ready... I'm not ready
Too young to go steady
One girl, one night
Just once, maybe twice
No tears, no ties
Here I come... Ow!
All I wanna do is screw with you
What do you wanna do?

Through the concrete piazzas they roam
Safe in numbers they're never alone
The mutant offspring of council house schemes
The dreaded nightmare of town planners dreams
Neighbourhood brats, neighbourhood brats
Folks step aside when they pass
You blame the teachers, the troubles at home
You blame the parents, where did we go wrong
You blame the violence in films that they see
You blame the drugs, the sex on TV
Neighbourhood brats, neighbourhood brats
Church goers hide when they pass
And then he kicked me...
Blame the plastic, the concrete and glass
The carefully measured out pieces of grass
The comprehensive's concentration camp wall
The desolated community hall
The one-car garage and semi-detached
Neat little garden and yard at the back
The little boxes with nowhere to hide

Remembering the movies that we used to see
The only true cowboy in our memory
We meet every evening we drink to your name
Here`s to our hero the only John Wayne
Big John, we miss you
Big John, we miss you
From Stagecoach to Shootist, we`ve seen every one
As big as a mountain, America`s son
Big John if you`re listening, up there in the sky

I don't wanna work all day
I don't wanna dress in grey, no
I used to be keen, the brightest boy in school
Now it's all through, 'cause I'm lonely without you
I don't wanna work all day
I don't wanna dress in grey, no
I used to be keen, the brightest boy in school
Now it's all through, 'cause I'm lonely without you
It's just another
It's just another
Another lonely schoolday
It's just another
It's just another
Another lonely schoolday
I don't wanna work all day
I don't wanna make the grade, no
I used to be keen, the brightest boy in school
Now it's all through, 'cause I'm lonely without you
Yeah - yeah, yeah - yeah

Satisfaction guaranteed
Satisfaction guaranteed
Satisfaction guaranteed
Oh no Satisfaction guaranteed
Oh oh oh oh
I was looking for a good time
I saw the sign upon the door
Ten steps took me up to her room
Next day I was back for more
I never knew that it could happen
I never felt that way before
As I turned to pay my money
She held me tight and closed the door

Out of all the reindeer you know you're the mastermind
Run, run Rudolph, Randalph's not too far behind
Run, run Rudolph, Santa's got to make it to town
Randalph he can hurry, he can take the freeway down
And away went Rudolph a whizzing like a merry-go-round
Said Santa to a boy child "What have you been longing for?"
"All I want for Christmas is a Rock and Roll electric guitar"
And away went Rudolph a whizzing like a shooting star
Run, run Rudolph, Santa's got to make it to town
Can't you make him hurry, tell him he can take the freeway down
And away went Rudolph a whizzing like a merry-go-round
Said Santa to a girl child "What would you like most to get?"
"I want a little baby doll that can cry, scream and wet"
And away went Rudolph a whizzing like a Saber jet

T.C.P. it cured my acne
T.C.P. it left me pimple free...hey!
Johnny, Joey, Tommy, Dee Dee
T.C.P. will leave you pimple free...hey!
T.C.P. it cured my acne

Sunday evening, I`m outta my brain
Monday morning, you tell me your name
Wednesday, Thursday, I`m going insane
Friday evening, I call you again
Weekend, weekend, weekend
Weekend - I gotta little money to spend
Weekend - I wanna make you my weekend
Weekend - I wanna make you more than my friend
Weekend
Weekend - I gotta little money to spend
Weekend - I'm gonna make you my weekend
Weekend - I wanna make you more than my friend
Monday morning, it`s going too slow
I can`t talk to nobody I know
Wednesday, Thursday, mind going A.W.O.L.

You go your way
You go your way, I'll go mine
Maybe someday
Another place another time
When you find a substitute
Someone who can step in my shoes
And I`m hoping you do... I've got nothing to lose
Cos you can`t hurt a memory
Can't hurt a memory
Can't hurt a memory
You can't hurt me
Will you miss me
Miss the way I crawled for you
If you need me
Don`t call me I`ll call you
I'm strong enough to know what to do
But not enough to make it with you

Another lonely night
And I'm wondering what I'll do
How I'm gonna face
The things you put me through
Wondering if you'll call
Tell me I'm your man
It's getting to be hard
Never knowing where I am
But when you start to play the games you play
You begin to cry out, "Please don't leave me, don't ya tease me" (stay)
You can give it, but you sure can't take it
You can't take it, you can't take it
You can give it, but you sure can't take it
You can't take it, you can't take it
Friends all shake their heads
Tell me I'm a fool
To put up with your moods
When you're hot and when you're cool
Wondering if you'll call
Tell me I'm your man
It's getting to be hard

You've got a pocket full of easy money
And it talks to you
And a handful of friends who only
Wanna crawl for you
You`ve got a taste for the easy action
And it grows on you
You thought you could lick it now you can`t kick it...
And it shows on you
They say that crime doesn`t pay but you... know it do
Because you found a way to make it... work for you
Daddy doesn`t understand...
He`s never been a part of your plans
You`ve been working on the wrong arm of the law
You`ve been working on the wrong arm of the law
Well your daddy`s out selling pictures
And pulling strings for you
And your mama`s in the bedroom crying
And packing things for you
You got a pocket full of easy money
And it talks for you
But all your money ain`t gonna help you...

I don't know much about history
I don't know much about biology
I don't know much about science book
I don't know much about French I took
All I do know is that I love you
And I wonder if you love me too
What a wonderful world this would be
What a wonderful world this would be
I don't know much about geography
I don't know much about trigonometry
I don't know much about algebra
I don't know what a slide rule is for
But I do know one and one is two
And I wonder if you love me too
What a wonderful world this would be
What a wonderful world this would be
I don't claim to be an "A" student
That's what I'm trying to be
Cos by being an "A" student baby

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the treetops glisten,
and children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow
I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
With every Christmas card I write
May your days be merry and bright
And may all your Christmases be white
I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
With every Christmas card I write
May your days be merry and bright

We wish you a Merry Christmas;
We wish you a Merry Christmas;
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Good tidings we bring to you and your kin;
Good tidings for Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding;
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding;
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding and a cup of good cheer
We won't go until we get some;
We won't go until we get some;
We won't go until we get some, so bring some out here
We wish you a Merry Christmas;
We wish you a Merry Christmas;

So you're gonna save us, oh yeah
By kissing babies
You're on the TV, you bore us to death
Your by-elections are a pain in the neck
You carry cases and you sit on a bench
Just like schoolboys
Our leaders, we must be crazy
Our leaders, we're all crazy
Long holidays, oh yeah
The old schoolboys, the way you squabble everytime that you meet
The clever ones have all fallen asleep
We only see you when you're saving your seat

Hey boy what are you gonna do
Now that everybody`s looking at you?
Hurry now you ain`t got the time
Up front in the firing line
You gotta make your mind up right now
Any time any place any how
You gotta stand up to what`s in front now
Watcha gonna do
Hey boy what are you gonna do
There ain`t no future so you better make your mind up now

Well I've been working all summer and I ain't got nothing to show
I'm feeling kinda dirty, I need a shot of rock and roll
Monday, get to Friday, I feel like letting go
Well my temperature's rising and it feels like I'm ready to blow
Julie says she's busy and she acts like 50 below
Always says she love me, but she keep on telling me no
Yeah, let me walk, let me walk, let me walk, let me walk
Let me walk, let me walk, let me walk, let me walk
Let me walk, let me walk, let me walk, let me walk

I've been waiting far too long
For another girl to come along
I`ve been wasting all my time
Looking for a girl that I`d call mine
All my days and nights I spend... held in ecstasy
Waiting for that special friend to give some sympathy
Just some love and sympathy
I've been going everywhere
Looking for a love that I can share
Stop the world I'm getting old
I'll maybe miss my chance and lose that girl
All my days and nights I spend held in ecstasy
Waiting for that special friend to give some sympathy
Just some love and sympathy
We'll I'm waiting for the lady
Waiting for the lady
Waiting for the lady
Yes I'm waiting for the lady
Waiting for the lady

U... S.... I... She should have told me
U... S... I... Too young for me
U... S... I...
Stood there in her old school frock
Concealing everything she's got
Didn`t look like that when it happened
Looked at least seventeen
But that's not what the jury sees
How was I supposed to know - it was...
One! she should have told me
Two! they wanna hold me
Three! they won't parole me

People walking in the streets are turning grey
As they hurry by they fade away
Boredom everywhere in town
Boredom everywhere around
How no one older seems to care...
I'm gonna pack my bags today
Before my mind starts turning grey
Starts turning grey
The whole wide fucking world is turning grey
Every house along our street is turning grey
Flower gardens turn to stone and fade away
When the TV closes down
Lights out all around

You think I'm worried
Heartbroke and sorry
It couldn't happen to me
How 'bout a smile honey
How 'bout a kiss
How 'bout a tumble with me
Cos all the girls in the neighbourhood
All wanna tumble with me
Wake up little Susie
Stop pickin' your nose
Wake up little Susie
Cut out your high-heeled pose
Cos all the girls in the neighbourhood
All wanna tumble with me
Come on now tumble with me
Tumble with me girl
I'm gonna get you girl, just wait and see
I'll win eventually
How 'bout a smile honey
How 'bout a kiss

Well I think I'd better warn you
'Bout the kids on the corner tonight
Cos the human jungle's gonna see some rumble tonight
We'll be ripping up the seats
Runnin' wild in the streets tonight
Better start runnin' when you hear us coming tonight
Better lock away your daughters
'Cos there's gonna be a slaughter tonight
Don't care if it`s wrong
Don't care if it's right

Nobody likes me
Everybody hates me
Just because I eat worms
Short fat hairy ones
Long tall skinny ones
See how the little ones squirm
Bite all their heads off
Suck all the juice out
Throw the empty skins away
Nobody Likes me
Everybody hates me
Cos I eat worms all day
Nobody likes us
Everybody hates us
Just because we eat worms
Short fat hairy ones
Long tall skinny ones
See how the little ones squirm
Bite all their heads off
Suck all the juice out
Throw the empty skins away
Nobody Likes us
Everybody hates us

What you doing 'cos you're getting it all wrong
Where you going 'cos you know you ain't that strong
What you doing when the wait becomes too long
What you doing, what you doing when your time runs out
Do you know what you wanna become now
Do you know if they really object now
Would you know if I asked you to say how
What you doing what you doing when your time runs out
Taking all the world... ah ah
Trying to be heard... ah ah
Taking on the world... ah ah
But a who wants to know when you're two nil down
Taking on the world... ah ah
Taking on the world... ah ah
Well I'd just like to say
That I can't find a way
To say what I wanna say

Well there's a blizzard blowin' hard
And from the Alfred we've been barred
And John's so pissed that he can't hardly stand.
Listen to that drunken git
'Cause now he's being sick
But it's only a hundred yards to The Warrington!
Yes, it's only a hundred yards to The Warrington!
You can bet we're on Tom's mind
'Cause it's nearly closing time.
And pretty soon last orders will be called.
Christ, my balls feel like they're froze
And there's numbness in my toes
And it's only eighty yards to The Warrington!
Yes it's only eighty yards to The Warrington!
John, get up you drunken git
Don't just lie there in that fucking shit
I know we're pissed but we can make it if we try.
Alright, I guess it's best if we
Stop a fucking while and rest
But it's only twenty yards to The Warrington!
Yes, it's only twenty yards to The Warrington!
Late that night the storm was gone
And I found them there alone
He could've made it, but he wouldn't leave old John.
I found them froze in the street
Jack's boot down John's teeth.
They were only ten more yards from my house, that is The Warrington!

Oh no not another
Lying on his marble throne
Surrounded by his so called friends
Rag doll died alone
Terminal love
Terminal love
Oh terminal love
Terminal love
Just another mixed up junkie
Just another lonely heart
Dead and soon to be forgotten
Killed by greedy showbiz tarts
Knock knock knocking on heavens door
(Hank, James, Buddy, Eddie)
Knock knock knocking on heavens door
(Jim, Gene, Brian),
Knock knock knocking on heavens door
(Jimi, Marc, Elvis)
Knock knock knocking on heavens door

Tenement kids gonna rule the world
And all you hungry tenement girls won't convince me
Life is sweet
Only time I'm happy is when I'm on the streets
'Cos that's where...
Tenement kids... tenement kids don`t lose
And there's tenement kids upstairs downstairs too
Life's easy when you've got no drive
If life's hard, the strong survive
And maybe soon just wait and see
Maybe soon there`s gonna be fighting in the streets

Yeah yeah yeah... Met her at the evening classes
Yeah yeah yeah... Madame Lollete
Yeah yeah yeah... She started making French advances
Yeah yeah yeah
I'm a teacher's pet
I'm a teacher's pet
Me and Madame Lollete
She taught me more than French

Hey what'cha talking about
I hope you know
Something you've thought about
It doesn't show
You've got so much to say
I wonder why
Is what you're saying just
Another line?
I hear you talking
It seems to me
You ain't said nothing yet
Talk is cheap
Talking... Talking... Talking...
Talk talk talk
Some people die because
They really care
Some folks get crucified

When marimba rhythms start to play
Dance with me, make me sway
Like a lazy ocean holds the shore
Hold me close, sway me more
Like a flower bending in the breeze
Bend with me, sway with me
When you dance you have a way with me
Sway with me, sway with me
Other dancers may be on the floor
But my eyes will see no one but you
Only you have that magic technique
When we sway I go weak
I can hear the sound of violins
Long before it begin
Sway as only you know how

See the girl with cymbals on her fingers
Entering through the door
Ruby glistening from her navel
Shimmering round the floor
Bells on feet go ting-a-ling-a-linging
Going through my head
Sweat is falling just-a like-a tear drop
Running from her hair
Now she dancing, going through the movements
Swaying to and fro
Body moving, bringing back a memory
Thoughts of long ago
Blood is rushing, temperature is rising
Sweating from my brow
Like a snake, her body fascinates me
I can't look away now
Stop, stop, stop all the dancing
Give me time to breathe
Stop, stop, stop all the dancing
Or I'll have to leave
Now she's moving all around the tables
Luring all in sight
But I know that she cannot see me
Hidden by the light
Closer, closer she is getting nearer
Soon she'll be in reach
As I enter into a spotlight
She stands lost for speech
Now I hold her, people are staring
Don't know what to think
And we struggle, knocking over tables
Spilling all the drinks
Can't they understand that I want her
Happens every week
Heavy hand upon my collar

Why'd ya never, why'd ya never smile
Did they beat 'cha when you was a child
Did you ever, ever have a friend
Fair weather never came again
Come on baby come on give me a smile
You're so depressing, you`re such a serious child
Come on baby... come on baby
Come on baby... come on baby
Come on give me a smile
You were looking, you were looking through
Back pages of Sniffin' Glue
You were hoping, you were hoping to

Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute heilige Paar.
Holder Knab im lockigten Haar,
Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!
Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!
Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Hirten erst kundgemacht
Durch der Engel Alleluja,
Tönt es laut bei Ferne und Nah:
Jesus der Retter ist da!
Jesus der Retter ist da!
Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute heilige Paar.
Holder Knab im lockigten Haar,
Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!

Silver bells, silver bells
Soon it will be Christmas day
Silver bells, silver bells
Soon it will be Christmas day
City sidewalks, busy sidewalks
Dressed in holiday style
In the air
There's a feeling of Christmas
People drinking
People passing
Meeting smile after smile
And on ev'ry street corner you'll hear
Silver bells, silver bells
It's Christmas again in the city
Ring-a-ling, hear them ring
Soon it will be Christmas day
Strings of street lights
Even stop lights
Blink a bright red and green
As the shoppers rush home with their treasures
Hear the snow crunch
See the kids bunch
This is Santa's big scene
And above all this bustle
You'll hear
Silver bells, silver bells
It's Christmas time in the city
Ring-a-ling, hear them ring
Soon it will be Christmas day
Silver bells, silver bells
It's Christmas time in the city
Ring-a-ling, hear them ring

You wanna know what it's like
Condemned to live with you
It's some kind of suicide
Some phase that I'm through
I ain't sadistic, masochistic
You and me are through
I`m sick to death of everything you do
And if I'm gonna have a puke you bet yer life I'll puke on you
I'm gonna be, gonna be sick on you
I'm gonna be, gonna be sick on you
I'm gonna be, gonna be sick on you
All down your face, your dress, your legs and your shoes...
Sick on you
Give it to me babe
Give it to me babe
Give it to me babe
It's been six weeks and that`s six weeks too long
You thought we were Romeo and Juliet
You couldn't have been more wrong
So pack your rags in to your bags
Get back where you belong
I`m sure they miss you, it`s really quite a shame

The girl that you just met is an angel
And she'll make heaven, here on earth just for you
But it's because you are a friend of mine
I'll have to lay it on the line
And tell you it ain't true
Now you may find it hard to swallow
That she ain't all you thought her to be
But it's because you are a friend of mine
I'll have to lay it on the line
Somehow I've got to make you see
Your angel comes down from heaven
Every night and comes to town
She hangs around the bar rooms
And comforts any man around
Anyone who's got the money
To fill her glass once more
Oooh, oooh, she's no angel
Oooh, oooh, she's no angel

When I was looking through the hole in my pocket I found the ticket for the two-forty-five
Well I was broke and I decided to hawk it but my watch said it was quarter to five
Well my doctor`s such a useful connection so I called in just to ask for the score
He gave me coca-cola under prescription and he told me...
don`t come back for more
I'll see ya later, I'll see ya later
I'll see ya later, I'll see ya later
and that might be too soon
Well I wandered to the phone on the corner just to ask about the national health
But the man at the Department Of Rumour said they tell me that it's not very well
Well I was leaving and I reached for the handle and the receiver fell right off of the wall
A man passing said you`re a vandal and he told me...
What you need's a war
Called into the army recruitment, yeah I told them I was looking for fun
They said we haven`t got a lot at the moment but there should be one in Africa soon
It`s in the summer when the natives get restless and maybe I should call back in June
Of course we`ve always got the local in Belfast but it's our bet...

You think you`re pretty and ya, you think you`re smart
That`s two things you got wrong and that`s just the start
Where d`ya get that notion that you control my heart
Silly little scrubber silly little tart
You mean nothing to me I`m just playing around
Silly little scrubber
I give you money and I buy you things
Satin dresses and golden rings
You know what I want in return for those things
So get upstairs when your doorbell rings
I`m coming round for the thing that`s mine
And you better show me a good time
You make it so easy to be cruel
And to be greedy and not to care at all
You won`t claim no respect
So what do you expect
Now that it`s time to crawl
You only get what you deserve
And there`s plenty more in reserve
So please don`t be sad, I`m picking up the tab

Oh Lucy don't lie to me
Lucy don't lie to me
Cos I don't want excuses oh no
No I don't need excuses
Lucy, Lucy please don't cry to me
Lucy, Lucy don't cry
Oh Lucy don't cry to me
Lucy don't lie to me
Cos I don't need excuses oh no
No I don't want excuses
Lucy, Lucy
Lucy, Lucy