Ms Fletcher and Ms Christie

Once the festivities were out of the way, I spent much of my Christmas break in the company of the most famous female crime writers; Agatha Christie and Jessica Fletcher.

There was a "Murder She Wrote" marathon consisting of four feature length episodes of the crime-solving mystery writer. The quartet had plots involving the FBI and stolen security secrets, slavery and Jessica's great aunt (Angela Lansbury in a bonnet), a convention of writers and a treasure hunt in Ireland. None were set in the murder capital Cabot Cove, but still it turned out that two of Jessica's friends were killers.

Aside from bits and pieces of Miss Marple, I watched a few episodes of Poirot with my mother. My mother has seen most episodes of Poirot already but due to lack of anything else on the television (and lack of anything else to do), she didn't mind watching them again. I had not seen these episodes before, but impressed my mother by quickly guessing the murderer, before the Belgian detective did. In the episode "Poirot at Christmas", I guessed the killer so quickly that my mother took to telling me I was wrong to throw me off the scent. I didn't quite identify how the crime was committed, but considering it involved a balloon that squealed like a pig that was hardly surprising.

Suffering from my customary inability to sleep in a strange bed, I also saw a bit of the 1978 film "Agatha" about the writer's disappearance. It starred a young Dustin Hoffman, as a journalist, not as Ms Christie!

Along with Christmas Cake and sprouts, I've had my fill of Christie and Fletcher for a while.