Oliver’s Travels

Question: What does a lover of books and word games do when she's stuck on the crossword and too tired to read? Answer: Watch an episode of Oliver's Travels , available on DVD.

After being made redundant from his job as a university lecturer, Oliver, a man obsessed by trivia, jokes and the mighty anagram, and a two-time question setter for Mastermind, decides to go on a journey to meet his favourite cryptic crossword compiler, Aristotle, with whom he has corresponded for years.

Soon after setting out, he encounters an intelligent and feisty policewoman, WPC Diane Priest. She does him a favour, and in return he offers to solve any outstanding local mysteries. She suggests that of the farmer found floating face down in the river. Oliver, a great lateral thinker, comes up with a plausible if outrageous explanation, and he and Diane stumble into a web of murder and corruption, aided by the clues they find planted in newspaper crossword puzzles.

As their joint quests – solving the mystery and finding Aristotle – take them north, they pass through a stunning landscape and meet a host of fascinating characters: an insecure and officious university chancellor and his 'wife Norma' (anagram: Fire Woman); an oracular maintenance man; a tramp who claims to remember the Restoration dramatist, George Farquhar, 'in his little coracle'; the jazz-loving 13^th Baron ('Dizzy blew in here!') Kite and his insignificant other, Sara ('but I'm his bimbo, really'); a stonemason who fondly remembers Jimmy James, Hutton Conyers and Bretton Woods; a knock kneed pigeon toed geologist; an elfin computer hacker; a motel owner who talks with his ghosts; and, of course, the sinister Mr Baxter who follows them wherever they go.

Like all good journeys, the joy is in the travel: the people they meet, the stories they share, the jokes they tell. Oliver's favourite joke is about frogs; his second favourite, about the horse that liked to sit on eggs; and his third, about a man walking in the forest, naked except for a bowler hat. He tells the latter when posing as a lay preacher to a small evangelical Scottish sect.

Absolutely incorrigible and utterly defensive, Oliver uses his quick wit to keep people away. Diane, his chosen and predestined companion (thanks to an anagram of 'Diane not Priest'), sneaks in through the chinks to become an energetic, passionate and grounding counterpart.

For all the jokes, overt and otherwise, the series is bittersweet. It is tinged with the sadness that often accompanies middle age. Oliver and Diane are both affected by marriage breakdown; minor characters have experienced grief, failure, and other losses. While the characters reflect on religion, class and inheritance, the series as a whole is about paying homage: to the past, to one's family, to one's gods (in Oliver's case, Beethoven, Lester Young, George Farquhar and Aristotle), and to each other.

This is television by, for and about intelligent, mature, good-humoured people. Like a good joke, it can be relished again and again. This particular intelligent, mature, good-humoured person likes to watch it late in the evening with a cup of tea, and the thought of some Chocolate Digestives.

(Oliver's Travels was written by Alan Plater. It features Alan Bates as Oliver, Sinéad Cusack as Diane, Bill Paterson as Mr Baxter, and a host of wonderful supporting actors too numerous to mention.)

Dead Man’s Chest

The kids are asleep, and my husband's out at a work function. In the supreme effort of getting three tired kids, two who have been sick, into bed on time by myself for the second night in a row I skipped the enforced clean up, and now dozens of tiny slips of cut up paper litter the back room rug; the lounge room floor is dotted with pieces of a marble run, a dolly pram and a heap of blocks. Books are stacked in a teetering pile next to the Big Green Chair, and the kitchen table – my writing desk – has a jungle jigsaw and a kid's code book at the other end. As for the mysterious fever which affected my daughters last night and today, well, it broke; but now I ain't feeling too hot. So I'm sitting here in trackie dacks and singlet, mysterious viral aches in my elbows and backbone, fingers pruny from the washing up: not exactly the height of glamour.

It could be depressing. Actually, it is a little depressing. Fortunately, there are means of escape. Tonight I am playing old jazz, sipping a glass of port and reflecting on Kerry Greenwood's most recent offering, Dead Man's Chest. It's the latest in a series of novels set in the roaring twenties in and around Melbourne. Her heroine is the racy Phryne (rhymes with shiny) Fisher: ferociously intelligent, terribly glamorous, deliciously sensual, fabulously wealthy, and drop dead gorgeous.

Phryne is a Lady Detective with a pearl handled gun and a penchant for danger. This time, the story begins as Phryne, her maid Dot and her adoptive daughters Jane and Ruth decamp to the seaside town of Queenscliff for a holiday. They arrive at their accommodation to find the housekeepers missing and the house mysteriously empty. Meanwhile a pigtail snipper is terrorizing the young women of the town; a fisher boy needs a household and a purpose; and three spoiled toffs must be sorted out. Phryne gets to the heart of everything, unravelling mystery upon mystery, with her usual aplomb.

The book is packed with interesting characters: Irish fisherfolk, surrealists, nasty crooks, a film crew and a delightfully awful genteel neighbour, Mrs Mason. Phryne observes all with her insouciant eye.

As we can expect from Greenwood, Dead Man's Chest is a deliciously light confection, packed with loyal servants, good cooking, designer dresses, dangerous episodes, terrific metaphors and even, this time, buried treasure. It's escape, pure and simple... hallelujah!

You can read more about the Phryne Fisher novels here.

It may prove amusing, after all

When I think of places, I think of detectives. Venice: Brunetti. Paris: Maigret. Sicily: Montalbano. Boston: Homer Kelly. Hong Kong: CF Wong. Moscow: Fandorin. Botswana: Precious Ramotswe. Italy: Zen. And each of these characters, these collections of stories, sound so much more interesting than the people I know in the place I live: Melbourne, a pimple at the ass-end of the world. What's to love about Melbourne, a city choked by traffic and smog, a people gripped with passion for nothing more than the latest plasma television or footy score?

So it was with real gratitude that I discovered Kerry Greenwood's love song to this city. She is the author of a series of mysteries set in the Jazz Age featuring the elegant and opulent Phryne Fisher. Phryne, who is slender of ankle, careless of opinion and quick of wit, has a passion for slinky dresses, fast cars and interesting young men. When she is not indulging these passions, she solves mysteries. On the way she collects eclectic people: a stouthearted maid, Dot; some raving Communist taxi drivers, Bert and Cec; a hearty female doctor, Dr MacMillan; and her exotic lover, Lin Chung.

With her cool head, her allies and her pearl handled gun, she is more than a match for the most vicious of crims walking the city streets - or drinking tea in the leafier suburbs.

Her first novel, Cocaine Blues, sees Phryne returning to Melbourne after years in England. Suffering from ennui, she decides to try being a Lady Detective. 'It may prove amusing, after all,' she reflects. She moves into the Windsor Hotel, and from there begins to investigate whether a young English woman is being poisoned by her Australian husband. In so doing, she also unravels an abortion racket and a cocaine ring, and becomes erotically involved with an aristocratic Russian dancer. This novel is based in the CBD, and as Phryne strolls down Collins Street, shops in the Block Arcade, and steals through the very seedy Lonsdale Street, I fall in love with Melbourne all over again.

The Phryne novels are written with a deft hand by an author who clearly relishes gorgeous dresses and fine dining - and Melbourne - and wants us to relish them too. And she uses some lovely imagery. A cab driver says that a formidable hostess is 'as mean as a dunny rat'. Phryne muses to herself, 'One cannot take much except intelligence and religious convictions into a Turkish bath'. Her lounging robe is an oriental gold and green pattern, 'not to be sprung suddenly on invalids or those of nervous tendencies'. And Phryne drives like a demon. 'She set the car at Spencer Street as she would set a hunting hack at a hedge, and roared out, scattering pedestrians.'

Never pedestrian, always glamorous, these books are a delight.

> Kerry Greenwood Cocaine Blues (first in a series) (Melbourne: Allen & Unwin, 2005) (originally published by McPhee Gribble, 1989).

Living in America

When I was 14, my family moved to Washington, DC. Boy, was that a strange time of my life. I'd always been a bookish introvert in Australia; in the milieu of a typical American high school, I was now bookish, weird and AUSTRALIAN!!! Being invisible was not an option. Witty teenagers would bounce towards me like kangaroos, quoting Crocodile Dundee. Other kids wanted to know whether I had a pet koala, or did I ride a kangaroo to school. Seemingly intelligent adults would tell me how much they loved my country - ever since they saw The Sound of Music. I became so sick of it that I made up a pack of lies about my home; I even managed to convince one kid that I'd never seen a light bulb before.

So it was with a sense of painful recognition that I read Special Topics in Calamity Physics. In this novel, Blue moves to a new school and finds herself completely adrift. Although she pretends to be happy enough spending much of her time alone, Hannah, a teacher, takes Blue under her wing and inserts her into her group of proteges, who are most unwilling to accept her. When Hannah is found hanged, the group falls apart. The story begins with the hanging, then backtracks over the previous year to tell the story leading up to it.

While my experience did not involve death, the novel unfolds a familiar story of adolescent awkwardness, disconnection and cruelty. The adolescent is so often an observer, analysing the actions of themselves and others. This is captured in the novel: we see the story through Blue's eyes, and, like her, we are never quite sure what is going on and even what is real. This gives the novel an authentic voice; like Blue, when I moved countries I was never quite sure whether people were teasing me, or were just ignorant; whether they liked me, and whether I wanted them to; whether I should take on a superior persona, or whether I should grovel to be accepted. Blue goes through all these shifts, and my heart aches for her.

On another note, Blue is the daughter of an academic. The novel is set up as a collegiate reading guide; each chapter is named after and refers to a work of literature, and she peppers her story with allusions and references to other works as well. It makes for interesting reading; and one day I plan to read all the books in her reading guide that I have so far missed.

Another book which takes me back to my adolescence is Sarah Vowell's collection of essays, Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World. Vowell writes for This American Life, and many of these essays appeared first on radio. The subjects are varied: growing up fundamentalist; living around guns; being part Cherokee; loving Frank Sinatra; learning to drive; making mix tapes; going to Disneyland; drinking coffee. Her writing is hilarious and self-deprecating - her essay on fighting insomnia, wherein she moves all her furniture, gives up caffeine and watches a very soporific Jay Leno, is cheerfully ridiculous. And the essay 'Music Lessons' strongly reminds me of my sister's school band. In it, Vowell writes about all the things she inadvertently learned through high school music: Marxism, transvesticism, biology, popularity, carrying heavy instruments, and how to do what you like; in doing so, she evokes the whole high school experience, nemesis and all.

Living in the States wasn't just about high school. We belonged to a large inner city church, radically different to any church I had attended previously. The sanctuary was built on Gothic lines, with vast stone columns, ornate carvings and slippery slate floors. Robe-wearing acolytes, musicians and preachers processed down the centre aisle. The church ran an adults' choir, a children's choir, and a handbell choir, and we were expected to participate in at least one of them. The organ was magnificent, and I can still remember the thrill of hearing the organist blast glory to the skies. Every year or two, the church would perform Handel's Messiah or similar, and choirs and musicians from around the city would descend on the church for hours of rehearsal. Choir directors would wave their hands in the air, shepherding lost sopranos, and music filled the space.

The church was more than formal worship and music. Homeless men slept on the steps and participated in church life. The church buildings were multi-story, and, as well as the church offices, housed an elementary school, a child care centre and a small library. Security guards and cleaning staff were ever present; and the buildings even had their own engineer. Church members were forever ducking in for projects, meetings, or to wrangle. As might be expected in a political city, church politics were a complex and constant part of life.

Jane Langton's Divine Inspiration, based in a similar church in Boston, could have been written about our church. This murder mystery, featuring Homer Kelly, stars church organists and building engineers; hopeless secretaries and hen-pecked ministers; a choir and musicians preparing to perform Bach's Magnificat; a child care centre, wealthy benefactors, and church politics galore. And it is also about the city of Boston, which, like Washington, has extreme wealth and dire poverty forever rubbing shoulders. It begins when the protaganist, Alan Starr, finds a young boy crawling up the church steps. The boy's mother is missing, and it is up to Alan and Homer Kelly to find her.

Like all Langton's Homer Kelly mysteries, and Pessl's Special Topics, Divine Inspiration draws from particular themes. Each section begins with a piece from Bach's Magnificat, and each chapter with a quote from Martin Luther. It adds to the richness and dimensions of the novel. Overall, it's great fun, a wonderful book to read in a few big gulps.

Thinking about my DC church recalls the members of the church. To a young Australian teenager, having grown up in a suburb of plumbers and builders and nurses, many of them were very exotic indeed. Members included an African ambassador whose government had been deposed and who was now stranded in the States; a man who was instrumental in introducing those yellow school buses across America; the most senior journalist at the White House; a paymaster at the CIA; an engineer at NASA; an advisor to the President; members of the Cosmos Club; people who wrote books; people who had maids, and lived in five storey houses, and went away to the mountains every summer; people who worked in New York and lived in Washington; and of course the homeless guys.

And, quietly mingling, were various intelligence agents. One man would disappear periodically, then reappear some months later. We'd ask him where he'd been. I can't tell you, he'd say, then he'd quickly change the subject. This same man would regularly stop his car to make calls from public phone boxes (he'd say his mobile phone didn't work), and would drop in on colonels in forts around Washington when he was taking us out to lunch. Questions were cut short, and it was all very odd.

Reading Cobweb, by Neal Stephenson and Frederick George (originally published under the pen name of Stephen Bury), takes me right back. It's a prescient thriller set alternately in the Midwest and in Washington. The premise of the story is that terrorists use American training and equipment to plan an attack on American soil - this was written in 1997, well before 9/11. A local deputy sheriff, Clyde Banks, picks up on what might, or might not, be happening, even as DC-based policy makers are trying to close down any investigation. On the one hand, the book is a real nail biter as Clyde tries to work out what is going on. On the other, it's a fascinating satire on American intelligence agencies as low level operatives are controlled and muffled by policy makers on high. Throw in some high grade wrestling, a young mother serving in Iraq, gloriously drunken Russian smugglers, a young Mormon CIA analyst, and a few murders, and you have a highly entertaining read.

> Marisha Pessl Special Topics in Calamity Physics; Sarah Vowell Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World; Jane Langton Divine Inspiration; Neal Stephenson & Frederick George Cobweb.