Sighing after swallows flown

La Rue, Saltaire, posh takeaway

Lockdown 2.0

Another week, another jigsaw. This time, a birthday jigsaw featuring “The Harry Potter Film Club” named because we started the club to watch the Harry Potter films one after the other and have since graduated to Oscar-winners, foreign language films, strange comedies, cheesy romances, macabre crime movies and everything in between. The week has also seen the successful ordering and whole-stomached consuming of a posh takeaway from local British/French bistro La Rue – a new way for businesses to try and keep afloat in these challenging times. I’m assuming the UK Prime Minister has an excellent plan for dealing with the 2020 pandemic; I can only hope that upwards of a million infections and over 50,000 deaths were part of his vision. Otherwise, why would he keep trying to tell me it was all looking promising (me, with the rose-tinted spectacles)? To be honest, I wouldn’t want to be a member of the cabinet at the moment; though next week might feel better without Dominic Cummings who many government insiders describe as malignant and mendacious. Just saying.

Sever from my lot your lot

I can usually conjure something from Shakespeare or poetry to fit the times and Lockdown 2.0 brought to mind the Autumnal poem below. It is by one of my top ten poets: Christina Rossetti, author of the soulful In the Bleak Midwinter and the wild Goblin Market. The voice of the poem “live(s) alone, (and) look(s) to die alone” having ordered all her friends to stay away and “sever” themselves from her. “I have hedged me with a thorny hedge.” There are many interpretations of the identity of the character inside this Petrarchan sonnet, and why exactly she is in her own personal lockdown. But, in November 2020, the last four lines catch my mood during the latest Covid-19 national restrictions. (Incidentally that mysterious last line is a gift for teachers trying to demonstrate the technique and effects of assonance (on the “u”) and alliteration (on the “s” and the “t”….) God and Gaia bless you, Christina Rossetti. I thank you for your gifts.

Hirst Wood, La Rue Puddings, My homemade Chicken&Mushroom Pie, Christina Rossetti - all good things....

From Sunset to Star Rise

By Christina Rossetti

Go from me, summer friends, and tarry not:
I am no summer friend, but wintry cold,
A silly sheep benighted from the fold,
A sluggard with a thorn-choked garden plot.
Take counsel, sever from my lot your lot,
Dwell in your pleasant places, hoard your gold;
Lest you with me should shiver on the wold,
Athirst and hungering on a barren spot.
For I have hedged me with a thorny hedge,
I live alone, I look to die alone:
Yet sometimes, when a wind sighs through the sedge,
Ghosts of my buried years, and friends come back,
My heart goes sighing after swallows flown
On sometime summer’s unreturning track.

From Sunset to Star Rise

Diamond Birthday

Waterside Restaurant in Shipley, some birthdays past and Sally's caramel cake

Older and wiser?

I remember, aged about 8, praying in the toilet (where else?) to St Bernadette (who else?) to grant me such a long life that I would live to the age of 48. I can’t remember why I thought 48 was such a marvellous age to reach, but I do remember the number. I also remember aged 18 thinking “thank goodness I’m now an adult and I finally understand what’s what.” And then thinking the same at 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24…. Every year I thought “blimey, I was so immature last year, it’s such a relief to get to this new age of enlightenment. NOW I’m finally grown-up.” And at some point, in my late 20s, it dawned on me that there was NO SUCH THING as being “FINALLY grown-up” – just another year, month, week, day, hour, minute of…. change. Everything changes. And as each year goes by it becomes obvious how much is still left to learn, how understanding Life As We Know And Imagine It is an infinite process.

Pandemics and presents

In the weird year of 2020, it’s been fascinating to read about the pandemics that reached England in 664, 1346, 1485, 1510, 1563, 1592, 1603, 1637, 1665, 1775, 1847, 1918, 1957 and 1981, not to mention the outbreaks of, for example, influenza, cholera, smallpox and encephalitis that have swept through populations periodically. Did Covid-19 take the shine off my 60th birthday celebrations? It did and it didn’t. On the one hand (in one of the Libran pans of justice) I couldn’t see groups of people in places (theatre, cinema, restaurant) I often choose. But on the other hand (in the other pan of justice) it meant that everything that happened (socially distanced in the open air) and every message I received and every book, sock, toiletry, chocolate, bottle of wine, fat rascal, jigsaw – everything that came my way felt Valuable Beyond Measure. It felt like Birthday Blessings fit for a Diamond Occasion – rare, precious, glistening.

Thanks, Mademoiselle Soubirous

A tasting meal and wine flight for two at Shipley’s Waterside Restaurant, a homemade caramel cake (with crushed Crunchie on top), a walk across the local moor, surprise visitors, surprise presents. It felt like a “0” birthday. It was unusual, thanks to Covid-19. Merci, St Bernadette, for giving me 12 years more than I prayed for…. How about another 12? My rose-tinted glasses imagine a future birthday without social distancing….

The bridge from Strasbourg to Kehl

Rainbows, bridges of dreams.... they get everywhere.... a perfect synthesis of science and imagination....

John Hume, Peace Negotiator
I regularly get drawn into an absorbing project, abandoning myself in the merciless whirlpool of the siren call of knowledge and thought…. Last week I reproduced a shortened version of John Hume’s thoughts about DIFFERENCE being “an accident of birth.” During the week I’ve read as much as I could find about the man and reproduce at the bottom of this post a longer extract from his Nobel Prize acceptance speech (which explains the title of this week’s blog and connects the personal to the political.) But I’ll get there via the words of another historical figure who said some stuff that is still, 2000 years later, as radical as they come.
An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind
The saying in the subheading above (An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind) was a favourite quotation of the late John Hume which he attributed to Dr Martin Luther King Jr, though many have suggested it was a Gandhi quotation.  My research reveals that Louis Fischer, the American journalist and author, used the phrase twice in books mentioning Gandhi but never claimed the peace protestor said them. The origin of the phrase is first recorded in Jewish scripture and it concerned legal arguments, but it became more well-known via the Old Testament’s An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth in the books of both Exodus and Leviticus.  Jesus, however, knocked the Old Covenant’s concept for six in the Gospel of Matthew (chapter 5), with a typically challenging and subversive set of suggestions:

Turn the other cheek
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Love your Enemies
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Standing on the bridge…. (John Hume Nobel Prize Speech)
In my own work for peace, I was very strongly inspired by my European experience. I always tell this story, and I do so because it is so simple yet so profound and so applicable to conflict resolution anywhere in the world. On my first visit to Strasbourg in 1979 as a member of the European Parliament, I went for a walk across the bridge from Strasbourg to Kehl. Strasbourg is in France. Kehl is in Germany. They are very close.

I stopped in the middle of the bridge and I meditated. There is Germany. There is France.

If I had stood on this bridge 30 years ago after the end of the second world war when 25 million people lay dead across our continent for the second time in this century and if I had said: “Don't worry. In 30 years’ time we will all be together in a new Europe, our conflicts and wars will be ended and we will be working together in our common interests”, I would have been sent to a psychiatrist.

But it has happened and it is now clear that European Union is the best example in the history of the world of conflict resolution and it is the duty of everyone, particularly those who live in areas of conflict to study how it was done and to apply its principles to their own conflict resolution.

All conflict is about difference, whether the difference is race, religion or nationality. The European visionaries decided that difference is not a threat, difference is natural. Difference is of the essence of humanity. Difference is an accident of birth and it should therefore never be the source of hatred or conflict. The answer to difference is to respect it. Therein lies a most fundamental principle of peace – respect for diversity.

The peoples of Europe then created institutions which respected their diversity – a Council of Ministers, the European Commission and the European Parliament – but allowed them to work together in their common and substantial economic interest. They spilt their sweat and not their blood and by doing so broke down the barriers of distrust of centuries and the new Europe has evolved and is still evolving, based on agreement and respect for difference.

The UK is about to be a former member of, in the words of John Hume, "the best example in the history of the world of conflict resolution." Time will tell if it's a price worth paying....

Stand by me

2020 (top two) and times gone by (bottom three)

Baby Harriet Rose
And so, in the middle of a gradually-relaxing Pandemic Lockdown, it was time to celebrate the birthday of the adult daughter formerly known as Baby Harriet. And there is much to celebrate in this unsettling period of history. For a start, we’re all alive. So what to do to celebrate a birthday in June 2020?

Tramping in Wharfedale
Less industrial than Airedale, not as dramatic as Malhamdale, Wharfedale is a lovely place to walk. And so we did. The dale was formed in the last ice age, and named from the Old Norse Hverf that became the Old English Weorf, both meaning winding river. Small settlements date back to Neolithic times, working farms have been established for generations and local people and tourists alike have tramped meandering paths across the moorland countryside. Above Burley in Wharfedale we climbed up the side of the valley to enjoy cows, sheep, fields, meadows, scrubby bushes, wild foxgloves, streams, rivulets, stiles and views…. Oh, the views.

5,000 miles
We managed around 6 miles up and down, along and beyond. The 5,000 miles in the sub-heading refers to the estimated length of all the dry stone walls in Yorkshire. You can’t beat the sight of a dry stone wall: such a familiar sight, so welcome and reassuring when returning from elsewhere in the world to "God’s Own County."

Birthday 2020 and "at home" at Versailles

Picnic and Prashad
Sitting on big rocks somewhere high we revelled in a picnic with fizz (is there anything better than eating and drinking in the open air?) And later, socially distancing in the garden, we had a Gujerati Indian takeaway from the excellent Prashad in Drighlington. The main glory was being together, being healthy, reminiscing, looking forward, blowing away the cobwebs during the day and putting the world to rights as the sun set.

2020 feast from Prashad and snapshots from America, France and Italy

Stand by me
Songwriters: Jerry Lieber, Mike Stoller, Ben King
When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we'll see
No I won't be afraid
Oh, I won't be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me
So darling, darling
Stand by me, oh stand by me
Oh stand, stand by me
Stand by me
If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
Or the mountain should crumble to the sea
I won't cry, I won't cry
No, I won't shed a tear
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

Lockdown Desert Island Discs

Choosing, listening, sharing
Music is a remarkable art form. It can establish moods and evoke memories. It can soothe, enliven, delight, excite, seduce, motivate, frighten, impress, shock, arouse. Music can calm you, disturb you and bring you comfort. Music has been enjoyed since recorded history and has mysterious properties that tap into the brain’s wiring in surprising ways. Musicians in Japan, for example, process music with different brain impulses than musicians in the West. Although the brain’s right (creative) side shows more activity when playing or listening to music, the left (logical) side also shows significant activity. Brain imaging research suggests that few parts of the brain are unaffected by whatever it is that music does to humans. A recent Desert Island Discs broadcast challenged non-celebrities to send in their “lockdown tracks” and thousands responded resulting in a very moving edition of the programme. Friend Michael sent out the call on Facebook and Sally and I and Sally’s sister, Julie, and many of Michael’s friends had an enjoyable 8 lockdown days of choosing, listening to and sharing music.

Julie's spontaneous choices for lockdown, exuberantly unable to narrow down to Eight choices!

The Ones I Left Behind
Choosing only 8 tracks proved trickier than I thought. On the BBC Radio 4 programme, over the years, choices seem to come in three categories:

• Discs that connect emotionally to a specific memory
• Discs that the guest loves right now
• Discs to impress the listening public

Trying to reconcile the competing motivations of the first two bullet points meant that Lesley Gore’s It’s My Party (the first record I remember from the radio) and the O’Jay’s Love Train (the first record I purchased with my own money) were in prime position until I realised that eight discs is such a meagre choice. Which Elton John should I choose? Which Beatles track?  Would there be room for David Bowie, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Marc Bolan, Rod Stewart, Bay City Rollers, The Jam, Mud, The Three Degrees, Aretha Franklin, Carly Simon, Dionne Warwick, Ella Fitzgerald, Joan Armatrading, Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Tracey Chapman – artists who have provided the sound track of my formative years? Which film soundtrack? Which song from a musical? Which classical composer? Do I include Ray Charles’s Born To Lose or Jim Reeves’s Welcome to My World or I Love You Because as they were favourites of my Mum? Or my Dad’s favourite serenading song: I’ll take you home again, Kathleen ? Choices…. choices….

My Eight lockdown choices

Tony’s Lockdown Desert Island Discs

• The Drifters: Kissing in the Back Row of the Movies (school discos, coach journeys, defying parents, delayed gratification – you can’t have too much fun/till all your homework’s done)
• Kate Bush: Cloudbusting (could have been many of Kate Bush’s tracks but this one has Donald Sutherland in the official video and is about fathers and daughters)
• Johnny Flynn: Detectorists theme song (a poetic lyric, a gorgeous melody and arrangement and memories of a truly great BBC TV series)
• Grieg: Peer Gynt (my Uncle Bill introduced me to Grieg, I’ve loved visiting Norway, Ibsen is a hero for me, I used the music in productions of Ghosts at university and Peer Gynt in my teaching career)
• The Beatles (George Harrison’s): Here Comes The Sun (fell in love with the track when it was first released and have returned to it time and again in times of need; it also contains one of my meta-obsessions – if Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?)
• Elton John; Empty Garden (another poetic lyric by the miraculous Bernie Taupin, the connection with John Lennon, the terrific melody, the symbolism – there were many other potential Elton John songs – The Greatest Discovery probably leading the pack – but I settled on this one)
• Annie Lennox and The Eurhythmics: Heaven must be missing an angel (personal memories of a time and place…. Leek, the year before and the year after getting married….)
• Dire Straits: Romeo and Juliet (a story song, a great band, Shakespeare, set in Northumbria)

Save from the waves: Heaven must be missing an angel
Book: TH White’s The Once and Future King (all five volumes)
Luxury: Reams of paper and a fountain pen (with unlimited ink)

Sally's Eight lockdown choices

Sally’s Lockdown Desert Island Discs

• Simon Dupree and the Big Sound: Kites (I will fly a yellow paper sun in your sky / when the wind is high / I will float a silver solid moon through your window / If your night is dark….)
• The Osmonds: Love Me For A Reason (Where other teenage girls went for David Cassidy in the 1970s, Sally had a Donny poster. They certainly rocked white suits and could synchronise their groovy dance moves.)
• The Carpenters: We’ve Only Just Begun chosen mainly to savour Karen’s rich, fragile, effortless, secure voice
• Grieg: Wedding Day at Troldhaugen – a memory of Sally’s mum’s piano playing
• Irving Berlin – Sisters (All kinds of weather / We stick together / The same in the sun or shine) and a part of the annual Christmas celebrations in the Allard-Johnson household
• Earth, Wind and Fire: Boogie Wonderland – evoking Sally’s teenage disco days and a scene-stealing routine in (a favourite) 2011 French film Intouchables where Omar Sy energises a birthday party
• Holst: Jupiter, the bringer of jollity from The Planets Suite including the beautiful melody of the hymn I vow to thee my country but, more pertinently, a favourite piece of classical music for Sally’s dad
• Stevie Wonder: For Once In My Life for the happiness it brings

Save from the waves: Jupiter, the bringer of jollity
Book: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
Luxury: A comfy bed with magically changing linen

Michael's Eight lockdown choices

Michael’s Lockdown Desert Island Discs

• Joni Mitchell: For Free (specifically the version from the 1970 Ladies of the Canyon album)
• Paul Simon: Rene and Georgette Magritte with their dog after the war (one of Michael's favourite artists, this song is based on a photograph Paul Simon saw in Joan Baez's house imagining artists in exile in America)
• Van Morrison: Days like this (a life-affirming song from a grumpy old git with a mean solo saxophone)
• Bruce Springsteen: Thunder Road (a poetic lyric, the live acoustic version from the Roxy Theatre)
• Bryan Ferry: Let’s stick together (excellent for bopping around the kitchen)
• Joan Armatrading : Baby I (Michael almost picked Willow or Love and Affection or Merchant of Love and I empathise because Joan Armatrading was close to making my final 8 choices)
• Tim Minchin: White wine in the sun (in tribute to the Australian branch of the Thompson-Snailham clan and in honour of a witty songwriter)
• Tom Waits: Picture in a frame (an acquired taste but a bona fide genius)
• In his FB posts, Michael explained: “The Rolling Stones Hand of Fate just missed the cut today…  no Elvis Costello, no Steely Dan, no Pretenders, all of whom could have staked a claim. Kate Bush could have been in there....”

Save from the waves: Thunder Road
Book: Nick Butterworth: The Complete Percy the Park Keeper
Luxury: Jura coffee machine with big sack of good, strong beans

BBC Radio Desert Island Discs: Roy Plomley, Sue Lawley, MIchael Parkinson, Kirsty Young, Lauren Laverne and a guest or two....

Loving Vincent

What is done in love

It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done. (Vincent Van Gogh)

York St Mary’s

The life, letters and artworks of Vincent Van Gogh were the subject of an “Immersive Experience” at York St Mary’s Church not far from the Jorkvik Centre. The exhibition arrived in York on its world tour from Naples and Brussels and will next touch down in Leicester. As well as digital projections, animations, lights, displays and audio components, there was a Virtual Reality experience which gave an impression of walking through the streets of Arles seeing inspirations for paintings: the wheat fields, the meadow, the forest, the village, Vincent’s room and a starry night over the Rhône River.

Seeing the stars

I don't know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream. (Vincent Van Gogh)

Life in brief

Van Gogh was born in March 1853 in the Dutch village of Groot-Zundert and worked as an art dealer before taking up painting in his twenties. He produced over 2,000 artworks including around 850 oil paintings. He died in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise in July 1890, two days after receiving a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

Death may not be the most difficult thing

In the life of the painter, death may perhaps not be the most difficult thing. For myself, I declare I don't know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream. Why I say to myself should those spots of light in the firmament be inaccessible to us? (Vincent Van Gogh)

Letter writer and artistic philosopher

An exploration of Van Gogh is enriched by reading the letters he wrote, many to his younger brother, Theo. In the letters he often commented on his own work, his ideas about colour and materials, art in general, his personal situation and his own life.

Life’s treasures

Close friends are truly life's treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone. (Vincent Van Gogh)

Nature’s resistance

Nature always begins by resisting the artist, but he who takes it seriously will not be put off by that opposition. (Vincent Van Gogh)

The language of colour

Colour itself speaks its own language, you cannot live without it. (Vincent Van Gogh)

Pure harmony and music

What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum. (Vincent Van Gogh)

Loving Vincent

In 2017, the world’s first fully painted animated feature, Loving Vincent, gave a fictionalised account of a conflicting story about the death of Van Gogh in July 1890. He certainly died of a gunshot wound but why the wound was not treated in a hospital and whether or not it was self-inflicted, or a grotesque accident, are mysteries that are unlikely to ever be solved and which the film explores using words of all the main protagonists. 

Courage

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? (Vincent Van Gogh)

Painting dreams

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream. (Vincent Van Gogh)

The Last Post

2019 Remembrance

Today is 11.11.19 – and exactly 100 years since the very first Remembrance Sunday in 1919. At the weekend, the great and the good (in particular the surviving veterans – very few now from The Great War, The War To End All Wars) laid wreaths at the Cenotaph in London and remembered “The Glorious Dead.” In addition to the current (imo unworthy) office holder, five former prime ministers attended – Sir John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May – and, overlooking the ceremony from a balcony the one queen who has presided over 15 prime ministers (and grown up under a further six.)

No brainer

For me, I respect the concept of Remembrance. Apart from anything else, I believe the Royal British Legion to be a fantastically effective charity. Its campaigning and support – practical, financial, and emotional – are all essential, especially given the way successive governments have treated and continue to treat veterans and their families. All wars produce great art, and the poetry of the First World War is rightly lauded. In 2009, to commemorate the deaths of Henry Allingham and Harry Patch, two of the last few combatants surviving, Carol Ann Duffy used an extract from Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est to produce a poignant and cinematic rewinding riff on remembrance – if we could only wind back time and the dead could “lean against a wall.”

Last Post

by Carol Ann Duffy

'In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.'

If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin

that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud…

but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood

run upwards from the slime into its wounds;

see lines and lines of British boys rewind

back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home –

mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers

not entering the story now

to die and die and die.

Dulce – No – Decorum – No – Pro patria mori.

You walk away.

You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)

like all your mates do too –

Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert –

and light a cigarette.

There's coffee in the square,

warm French bread

and all those thousands dead

are shaking dried mud from their hair

and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,

a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released

from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.

You lean against a wall,

your several million lives still possible

and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.

You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.

If poetry could truly tell it backwards,

then it would.

The Brie, The Bullet and The Black Cat

As Time Goes By
The year is 1942, the town is Casablanca. The final few days of Vichy France. Of all the joints in all the world, Monsieur Huges Le Grandbutte, the Deputy Mayor of Casablanca invites his guests to the Official Residence to meet France’s greatest living mime artist.

Fundamental Things Apply
Mon Dieu! Bonne Douleur! France’s greatest living mime artist, The Black Cat, cannot attend. He is dead, he is no more, he is deceased. Il est mort. Qui a tué Le Chat Noir? (Who killed The Black Cat?)

Bienvenue aux femmes

• EDITH LE GRANDBUTTE - the mayor's wife, a former dancer
• NICOLE LE GRANDBUTTE - Edith and Hughes' daughter, an idealist
• COUNTESS BOGOV - an exiled, glamorous Russian aristocrat
• CHERIE BOOT - a husky-voiced French cabaret singer
• INGRID PITH - a flirtatious Danish art dealer

Bienvenue aux hommes

• HUGHES LE GRANDBUTTE - Deputy Mayor of Casablanca, a bureaucrat
• KIRK RANSOM III - an American who runs Kirk's Cafe in downtown Casablanca, a doomed romantic
• MONSIEUR OU MADAME OILY-CARTE – an ambiguous booking agent for the Moulin Bleu in Paris
• PIERRE PAYANSKI - a 24 year old half-Russian rather-leftish poet, Nicole’s lover

Suspect suspicious suspects
Is Huges as respectable as he seems? Does Edith yearn for her earlier days as a dancer? Will Nicole finally lose patience with her German-appeasing father? Why is Kirk nursing a broken heart? What happened in Countess Bogov’s past? What plans did Monsieur (ou Madame) Oily-Cart have for The (late) Black Cat. How did Pierre get his wooden leg? Does Cherie always sing for her supper or does she have another source of income? What priceless paintings are being pursued by Ingrid across wartorn Europe and Northern Africa. Which of them knew The Black Cat personally? Who has the strongest motive for wanting him dead?

Previous Murder Mystery Game Nights:
Murder on a Train
The Champagne Murders
Monte Carlo Murders
Death by Chocolate
Stiffed at the Speakeasy
The Red Rose Murders