Readers/watchers/listeners … it’s not just a lack of good films … they’ll reappear again … it’s more that I wanted to get some Paul Temples up so you’d have them here each time you wish to rest your eyes awhile.

However, there are Temples and Temples so to speak and I’m afraid the inimitable IYE and I might differ on the two leads. Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury are the famed ones but long after the series ended, the Beeb attempted to recreate the series, using extant scripts or an amalgamation, with the leads Crawford Logan and Gerda Stevenson.

I know, I know … judging by remakes today, first instinct is to be wary and rightly so. Plus, my criticism of the Coke/Westbury era is largely the script’s requirement for Paul to be insufferably condescending (the Greek parachutist) to his wife and for her to have a slightly insufferably pompous voice and manner. Over time, for me alone perhaps, it becomes wearing.

In the remake, Crawford Logan has the voice right, he’s still insufferable to his wife to a point, she’s still insufferably called “Steve” as a sop to the feminists, but she’s a nicer person, more vulnerable, more triggering of his protective instincts, yet quite a little warrior when she wishes to be. You’ve gathered that I like her. Interestingly, the episode IYE provided was one of the remakes with these two.

Anyway, we now have two more accessible Temple episodes below but one more issue … I chose the audio only version, as in radio, rather than a pretty thumbnail … these are listeners rather than watchers, quite unadorned. Enjoy hopefully.

IYE commented on the series, I’ve just been listening to one of the episodes … Sullivan … in which they take a flying boat from resort to resort, eventually reaching Cairo.

Our route twenty years ago was from Cyprus by overnight ferry, not by flying boat, but it was just as exotic and we did end up at the pyramids and sphinx, plus we also had adventures. This might not read as well as fiction but if I tell you every word of the excerpt below was fact, no embellishment, I wonder just how far from disaster, a la Paul Temple, it was.

And she and I are still in touch, we could speak about this below now if we wished.

.o0o.

X

They had to make a decision between The Holy Land and The Pyramids.

The overnight boat to Egypt, the Louisa, deposited them in Sinai, where they boarded the bus for Giza, following a route parallel to but not visible from the canal.

They crossed the Nile and the bullrushes were very Moses indeed he couldn’t help but think, the outskirts of Cairo were appalling, either derelict or part of some new housing project, all in the same mud brick and he could scarcely imagine a worse way to live.

True, much of Russia was dire but at least there were new building projects underway there to clear the slums and put in new multi-storey housing.  Here there were slums upon slums, abandoned housing projects on the outskirts and a small canal with a boat being rowed along it for light relief.

At Giza, the beaming tour woman warned him, ‘Don’t go on camel. They say it free but it not, it end up cost you much money, even for photograph.’

She now took him aside and whispered conspiratorially, ‘Your girl, she very beautiful, be very careful, they take her away, you never see again.’

He glanced around and half the bus had its eyes on her – it was always the way and some were now looking at him, trying to fathom out what these two were about.

They wandered over towards the Great Pyramid and took each other’s photos, then she saw the camels. She desperately wanted a photograph on a camel and as they sauntered across there, as if on cue, the dark camel rider, white teeth gleaming, cantered up.

‘How much?’

‘Two pound.’

‘Two Egyptian or two Cyprus pounds?’

The man didn’t seem to understand the question, so Hugh gave him two Cyprus pounds and stood astride the exit path, took her photo then when the rider showed signs of not budging, demanded Anya be allowed down.

‘Meester, a little ride, yes?’ ingratiated the Egyptian.

‘No no, down, down!’

The rider pushed on the camel which now knelt down and let her slip off.

With her feet once more on solid earth, she wanted to take her own photo of him on the camel and now he made the fundamental error – he climbed up.

The instant he was in place, the rider suddenly whipped the camel into action, clomping awkwardly but swiftly along the sand beside the bitumen road parallel to the pyramid.

‘Turn around!’

‘Just a ride, meester.’

‘No, turn around now.’

Some police driving nearby saw was happening and began calling to the rider through a megaphone but then the full horror of the situation struck him. The police were on the road, yes, but the camel was on the sand and out there was the end of the built up area.

He began to slip off the camel as it clomped along but the rider’s ‘brother’ was suddenly alongside, the two of them pinning him between them, the police addressing them the whole time through the loud hailer.

The riders immediately introduced the topic of money. First, a moderate amount, then more and more. They knew he had his wallet and that there might be cards in there and yet they didn’t seem interested – they just wanted the cash. They even knew he hadn’t given them more than a portion of it and didn’t seem to want the rest.

They started trotting back, the police car keeping pace all the way.

‘Why did you go so far?  She was furious when he finally climbed down.

‘Sorry, my love, I just got carried away.’

He made a mental note not to tell anyone about that bit of stupidity, ever, and by the time they’d reached the papyrus place in the city, she’d largely forgotten about the episode – at least she didn’t refer to it.  He was very quiet the rest of the day.

.o0o.

Just thinking … not sure that such things, such adventures as the two of us had, some questionably dangerous, would be possible now, say post-2017. I’m so glad now that she pushed me into doing things … they were something ehich would never be lost.

We were what I’d say were semi-independent travellers, it was nevr an all in one inclusive. We’d get to a four star, once a five star, and look through the brochures on the bed. Regrets today? Not a bit of it. None.

Paul and Steve in the episode? Every bit that way for us, minus the guns and baddies of course … just exotic adventure (including elephants on one trip).