The Labours For Poirot

Now we are admittedly big into Agatha Christie, and thankfully our school library had quite a number of her books for us to go through. Like many others we love Hercule Poirot and Ms Marple! It was sometime then too when we caught an episode of Poirot on TV3 one Saturday afternoon, but it didn't hit us then that we were actually watching a Hercule Poirot tv adaptation, even when David Suchet was the most accurate adaptation of Poirot!

Took us a while after that episode (since we happened onto that episode halfway through) when it all registered in. Moustache. French portly feller. Murder mystery.

Only...either we weren't free on Saturdays to watch it, or TV3 finished its run. Never did get to watch it entirely. Sigh.

Of course, we've been hunting about for the DVDs everytime we're shopping (even if we never do buy anything) and we've even seen the series selling at La Ramblas in Barcelona last year. Unfortunately the price tag of 30 Euros per season stopped us from making an impulse buy of all seasons we could get our grubby hands on (because we know, we just know that we won't stop at the Poirots but snag ever Ms Marple series we could find too!) and four seasons of both Poirot and Ms Marple would set us back an estimate 240 Euros.

We're not rich enough to do that. Plus it was likely to be bootlegs so we didn't dare trust the quality unless we happen to be going back there pretty soon.

...Come to think of it, we keep forgetting to check HMV when at Sporeland. But even then a price tag of SGD100 would mean we need to exercise control when buying.

But in any case, we've been checking out the, ah, local DVD entrepreneurs should they happen to stock them, seeing how they can keep all sorts from BBC documentaries to National Geographic specials. Yes we totally bypassed Speedy and the likes because they be pricey and Poirot doesn't seem like a title easily available (not to mention all the store assistants, even the entrepreneurs, would give us a puzzled look when we mention the name Poirot).

So came a time early this year when we were checking out titles at the DVD entrepreneur near our place, when we came across a DVD of Poirot! Can't remember which season but we were surprised to find that yes, we could find Poirot here!

Thing was, we already getting some other DVDs (can't recall, was it Battlestar Galactica?) so we decided to put the Poirot on hold till another day. The Chief was with us, and knowing how we were interested, helped by hiding the DVD somewhere at the back of the stack where we found it so we could grab it another day without having to hunt for it. Only when we got back to the store another time the DVD was gone. Searched through all the stacks to no avail and even the fler manning the store told us that stuff in those stacks, if you see them you better grab them, gone means gone.

'Course, we were plenty disappointed. Also resolved to just grab it next time we saw it. And that's how we ended up snagging both Season 1 and 2 when we saw it in another store today!

Pure happiness. And to top it, while still browsing the store we overheard some girls saying, "The Colour Of Magic," and we gravitated straight to them to find Sky's take on Terry Pratchett's The Colour Of Magic! We thought the movie was still in the works! We were looking more for Hogfather rather than Colour Of Magic, even though we're quite apprehensive of how Hogfather will turn out based on how reviews tag it as a 'love it or hate it' show (the Illustrated Screenplay doesn't calm our fears either).

Admittedly a closer look on the cover it says 'Terry Pratchett's The Colour Of Magic Part 1' but since we're on a roll why stop...and the first 10 minutes of the show gives us the impression that it's gonna be something like the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy movie - slightly different but still humourous.

So now we have a telly series to continue now that Battlestar Galactica's done with. Gossip Girls, get to the back seat.