The Masterpiece Mystery mystery

On Saturday Mrs Walles and I took a trip to the town Williamsport.  This would have been the weekend that her family visited and we all partook of the delights of the state fair, until the rain put a stop to that (the sun, by the way, has finally made an appearance this afternoon).  Mrs Walles found a good consolation prize in the form of a book sale organised by the friends of the library in Williamsport, which I was gratified to discover was being held in a Methodist church hall.  Having attended the annual book sale in my home town - also held in a church hall - every year like clockwork until all this going-to-America business intervened, it was pleasing to see that some things are the same the world round.

This particular sale only lasts three days and we visited on the morning of the last day so I was worried things might have been picked through.  I need not have worried, though, and between us we managed to select forty seven volumes which, thanks to the rather generous pricing scheme, we managed to get for much less than a dollar apiece.

Among other things I stocked up on British mystery novels.  I've a weakness for a good mystery and apparently so do the American library-going public as there were plenty to choose from.  But then this shouldn't have been a surprise, having watched Masterpiece Mystery on public television.  They've been playing Inspector Lewis in this slot the last few weeks.  Now, where I come from something like Inspector Lewis is the televisual equivalent of the mystery novel.  You expect exotic settings, eccentric characters, a lot of bodies and even more red herrings, and for someone other than the butler to have done it in the end.  Good stuff, and well done, but not exactly on par with the roof of the Sistine Chapel or the Mona Lisa.

But I suspect that the viewers here don't see things the same way.  Each episode comes prefixed with an introduction by the actor Alan Cumming. He's best known - to me at least - as Boris from Goldeneye, but he possesses a pleasant Scottish brogue which lends gravitas to proceedings.  Cumming treats Lewis with reverence, like a lost Shakespeare play, as he explains the set up for this week's plot.  But I don't think that's his real purpose.  Here, he seems to be saying, here is the good stuff ladies and gentlemen, and let us pause a moment, bask in its radiance, and give thanks before the tape starts rolling.

Maybe I'm wrong and it's all just a bit of window dressing.  Perhaps everyone realises it's a bit silly but they keep at it because it's what they've always done.  Alan Cumming always seems to have a slight smirk as he delivers the little sermon, so I suspect he at least thinks it's a bit over the top.  Or maybe they really have been so starved of decent telly that a decent British murder mystery is like manna from heaven.

Anyway, it's really just an amusement to me and all the more tolerable because once Alan finishes his blessing the whole show runs without ads.  Perhaps New Zealand networks should treat their shows with a bit more reverence if this is the result!