Kino-horoscope

YouTube just bestowed upon me a recording of the poem by Venjiamin Smekhov (who played Athos)...

( Source of the clip revealed )

However, what the longer context *does* provide is an explanation for the more obscure references in the poem: Smekhov mentions that he wrote it because they were filming in Lvov (now renamed 'Lviv' to reflect the tight Ukrainian accent, which still strikes me as akin to relabelling Glasgow as "Glasgae" ;-p) in August at the time of his birthday. It's a 'kino-horoscope': Lvov, the City of Lions (as in Lev Tolstoy, sometimes Anglicised to Leo) under the European astrological sign of Leo in the Chinese astrological Year of the Horse 1978.

"Five Red Herrings" (Audio), Dorothy L. Sayers

This is one of the few cases where a condensed adaptation works better than the original novel -- "Five Red Herrings" has always been one of Sayers' most tedious detective stories, and I found this dramatization a lot more successful than my last read of the novel. (I note that they do exactly as I suggested in my original review and simply don't attempt to hide the clue about the white paint; this really doesn't give away anything about the case (Wimsey contrives to watch all the suspects painting, but doesn't mention why until his exposition at the end), while making the plot device a lot less annoying!) Even the infamous string of rival theories at the end becomes magically non-boring once you've got actual people delivering them and enthusing over them.

I did miss the scene where Gowan is revealed to be completely ridiculous in appearance without his grandiose beard (Wimsey alludes to his potentially 'looking like a skinned rabbit' after being shaved, but the dramatisation doesn't mention that this isn't a mere allusion to the lack of hair, but to his unfortunate facial features). I wasn't aware of any other missing elements, and the audio background of cars, trains, wind etc. does a good job of setting the scene. I also enjoyed the selection of period tunes on the soundtrack, many of which I recognised!