Port and literature

[Alex Bridgeman]

... I'd have murdered the lot of them, starting with Harriet.

Rather a harsh critique on poor Harriet Walters' efforts in the 1987 TV adaptation. Personally I thought she was rather good and played off Edward Petherbridge's foppish twit better than most would have been able to.

[djewesbury]

... I'd have murdered the lot of them, starting with Harriet.

Rather a harsh critique on poor Harriet Walters' efforts in the 1987 TV adaptation. Personally I thought she was rather good and played off Edward Petherbridge's foppish twit better than most would have been able to.

Ian Carmichael was better. On the wireless.Those TV adaptations look horribly dated now.

[Alex Bridgeman]

... I'd have murdered the lot of them, starting with Harriet.

Rather a harsh critique on poor Harriet Walters' efforts in the 1987 TV adaptation. Personally I thought she was rather good and played off Edward Petherbridge's foppish twit better than most would have been able to.

Ian Carmichael was better. On the wireless.Those TV adaptations look horribly dated now.

I agree with the view that wireless is more timeless than TV. Which leads me to wonder whether Paul Temple ever indulged in decent Port. I do recall he and Steve fumbling around in a lightless cellar in one story and discovering by touch some Champagne, which they opened and which he recognised by taste and smell.

I'll need to listen to the stories again to see whether Port is mentioned.

[LGTrotter]

... I'd have murdered the lot of them, starting with Harriet.

Rather a harsh critique on poor Harriet Walters' efforts in the 1987 TV adaptation. Personally I thought she was rather good and played off Edward Petherbridge's foppish twit better than most would have been able to.

I am with Daniel on this one, assuming he means Harriet Vane, rather than Walters. I think one of the main problems with "Busman's Honeymoon" was that it was written as a stage play and then converted into a novel. If Daniel means Harriet Walters then I am with Alex. Either way Ian Carmichael is the man for me.

[PhilW]

Having just watched the film "Remains of the day", I noted the butler removed a bottle of Dow 1913 from the cellar. Fortunately I was able to check in "Port Vintages" to confirm that no such vintage appears to exist. Does anyone know whether the bottle is mentioned in the original book?

[PopulusTremula]

In Our Game by Le Carré:

I remember thinking, as the thousand-voiced choir of angels struck up inside my head, that if you're celebrating your emergence from the black light, a bottle of '55 Cheval Blanc and a large dose of Graham's '27 port make an appropriately celestial accompaniment.

Great author, wonderful command of English. And the yarns aren't half bad either.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Dorothy Sayers again (she clearly liked her Port). In the Lord Peter Wimsey story The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club he is interrupted by Murbles while drinking Cockburn 1886 and they share several glasses together.

Daniel did make a passing reference to this fact but didn’t include it in this thread.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Another reference from Dorothy Sayers. In her first book featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, Whose Body, Lord Peter’s valet, Bunter, is required to obtain some information from the manservant of the chief suspect. He does this by raiding Lord Peter’s Port cellar and drinks a bottle of “the old Port”, which he later identifies as Cockburn 1868. The book also clearly puts the events in the year 1920, so being roughly the same as drinking Fonseca 1966 or Noval 1967 today.

[jdaw1]

Another reference from Dorothy Sayers. In her first book featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, Whose Body, Lord Peter’s valet, Bunter, is required to obtain some information from the manservant of the chief suspect. He does this by raiding Lord Peter’s Port cellar and drinks a bottle of “the old Port”, which he later identifies as Cockburn 1868. The book also clearly puts the events in the year 1920, so being roughly the same as drinking Fonseca 1966 or Noval 1967 today.

No: ’66 is a superior vintage to ’68.