The greatest fictional detective...

[never/ever]

I suppose Van der Valk isn't really Dutch

Cringeworthy.
Poms doing Dutch drama. What were they thinking?

[GoogaMooga]

We also got Van der Valk in Denmark, but I only remember the canal scenes and of course, the brilliant theme music by Tony Hatch, the guy who did "Downtown" for Pet Clark.

[Fonz]

I suppose Van der Valk isn't really Dutch

Cringeworthy.
Poms doing Dutch drama. What were they thinking?

I still think it’s a great tv tec show, especially the early ones. There’s something about seeing the city in a fairly shabby state, with an emphasis on the prosaic and mundane, rather than relying on ‘spectacle’.

[Positive Passion]

We also got Van der Valk in Denmark, but I only remember the canal scenes and of course, the brilliant theme music by Tony Hatch, the guy who did "Downtown" for Pet Clark.

In the UK the theme music was Eye Level, which as it happens was written by a Dutch guy. A recording of it went to number 1.

[GoogaMooga]

We also got Van der Valk in Denmark, but I only remember the canal scenes and of course, the brilliant theme music by Tony Hatch, the guy who did "Downtown" for Pet Clark.

In the UK the theme music was Eye Level, which as it happens was written by a Dutch guy. A recording of it went to number 1.

Then my Tony Hatch recording is just a cover.

[C]

The other thing that made Columbo so special for me were the guest stars the 'murderers':

Honor Blackman, Robert Culp, Anne Baxter, Leonard Nimoy, Janet Leigh, Tyne Daly, Faye Dunaway, William Shatner, Patrick McGoohan, Jack Cassidy, Roddy McDowall, Donald Pleasence, Johnny Cash and Billy Connolly come immediately to mind.

Great stuff!

..and Ray Milland!

Lee Grant, Ruth Gordon, John Cassavetes, Laurence Harvey, Theodore Bikel, Louis Jourdan, George Wendt...

Indeed Chas

What I really fancy is a decent replica of Columbo's car number plate

There were two: The original number plate at NBC was 044-APD. But after the move to ABC, his plate number has been 448-DBZ. Clear shots of it are infrequent, but can be seen on Murder, Smoke and Shadows

I bought a replica in this country but it was rubbish so I threw it away.

So, Chas - if there is anywhere in the USofA please send me the link

Thanks





.

[Flower]

C -

This might be a good place to start ... https://www.rebelcar.fr/license-plate-c ... riolet.htm

There is also one on eBay .. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Columbo-Peter- ... 0521952167

Good luck ..

[C]

C -

This might be a good place to start ... https://www.rebelcar.fr/license-plate-c ... riolet.htm

There is also one on eBay .. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Columbo-Peter- ... 0521952167

Good luck ..

Thanks Flower

The second one was the one I bought. The postage was as much as the plate. It’s tacky and wasn’t realistic

Silly buying it really but hey - binned

The top link is more promising it’s closer to the real colour and the figures are embossed.

The trouble is with postage it’s 70 euros which is a bit of a risk if I buy that too and it disappoints.

It does talk about contacting them re: any requirements. Probably it being a bit distressed would look better - plus the tax disc(?) that goes in the indentation rectangles.

It seems to me that somebody who did it right could make some decent money here. It can’t be hard to do a ‘better’ job

Thanks again for the links- I’m looking for that third one.....



.

[yomptepi]

Maigret for me. Currently working my way through the lot.

Same here. I have been collecting original Penguin " green cover " copies of these books for the past year or so. I just love them. At the moment I am halfway through Maigret and the 100 gibets. Which is wonderful.

[Minnie the Minx]

Yomp, I only glanced at your post and thought it said you were working your way through Maigret and 100 giblets, which sounded quite dreadful!

[Belle Lettre]

Only a maigre repast.

[Darkness_Fish]

Got to be Rebus for me, but not on TV. Solves crimes by hanging around Edinburgh bars, drinking with unsavoury types. Sounds like the perfect job.

I haven't read any of the novels but Rebus is a big favourite of mine too although not John Hannah's Rebus but Ken Stott. I think he's incredibly attractive, particularly his accent.

When John Hannah originally played him, I thought, "what were they thinking, they should have gone straight for Ken Stott". When Ken Stott played him, I thought there was still something missing, it just didn't work for me. Not crumpled enough, and not hard-bitten enough underneath. So I stuck to the books.

[Flower]

C -

This might be a good place to start ... https://www.rebelcar.fr/license-plate-c ... riolet.htm

There is also one on eBay .. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Columbo-Peter- ... 0521952167

Good luck ..

Thanks Flower

The second one was the one I bought. The postage was as much as the plate. It’s tacky and wasn’t realistic

Silly buying it really but hey - binned

The top link is more promising it’s closer to the real colour and the figures are embossed.

The trouble is with postage it’s 70 euros which is a bit of a risk if I buy that too and it disappoints.

It does talk about contacting them re: any requirements. Probably it being a bit distressed would look better - plus the tax disc(?) that goes in the indentation rectangles.

It seems to me that somebody who did it right could make some decent money here. It can’t be hard to do a ‘better’ job

Thanks again for the links- I’m looking for that third one.....



.

C ~ Can you get the numbers/letters that you want on a "vanity plate" for your own car?

[Jumper K]

The Continental Op, of course.

[Geezee]

I'm a fan of Columbo and Agatha Christie as well. Columbo is just so watchable. It moves along at a nice medium pace, not too slow, not too fast, not too clever, not too dumb, not too funny, not too dreary - just perfectly in the middle. And as has been mentioned the use of guest stars was brilliant and i think fairly unique for its time - the one with Johnny Cash is just immense, and there is an interesting one with Janet Leigh where she reflects back on her own movies.

And Poirot and Marple are just marvelous creations. One foreign, the other as English as scones, both perfectly weaved into the stories which are often beautifully told and infuriatingly clever. A story like Five Little Pigs is so moving and devastating, and even a story like Crooked House there is basically nothing that happens until the jaw-dropping ending that hits you like a tonne of bricks. I'm also always so interested in how she integrated world events into her stories, from well-known events like the Lindbergh child to the aftermath of the wars.

Small related anecdote here - I'll never forget when I was learning to read English, probably aged about 11, and reading Death on the Nile - and I must have read the first 2 chapters 20 times because they made no sense, in the first chapter she's engaged to one guy and in the next she is married to another - i couldn't make head or tails of it and I assumed it was my poor understanding of English that was the problem. Eventually I broke through the next chapters and it all starts to hang together, but I could probalby still quote you the entirety of those first two chapters because of the amount of times I had to read them!

[Geezee]

I think I've mentioned this in the past but i think it's a shame that the best of the "Nordic Noir" series never really became very well-known outside of Sweden (and Germany, I think), which is Beck. The Beck series predates The Killing and the rest of the Nordic Noir series - the books are from the 60s and 70s and a handful of movies from the 70s and 80s, but it's really the TV series from the mid-90s onwards that are the best, largely because of the emergence of one of the best Swedish actors of the last 30 years Mikael Persbrandt who actually plays second fiddle to Beck but chews up every scene he's in. And while the series can be quite dark and violent, there are always a handful of predictable, offbeat Columbo-like moments - mainly Beck's relationship with his eccentric neighbour - that provide necessary relief.

I would also highlight the original Wallenders as well, especially while the much-missed Johanna Sallstrom played the daughter. And a recent series called Rebecka Martinsson started very promisingly with the amazing Ida Engvoll but unfortunately she left for the second series (although not strictly a detective).

[C]

C -

This might be a good place to start ... https://www.rebelcar.fr/license-plate-c ... riolet.htm

There is also one on eBay .. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Columbo-Peter- ... 0521952167

Good luck ..

Thanks Flower

The second one was the one I bought. The postage was as much as the plate. It’s tacky and wasn’t realistic

Silly buying it really but hey - binned

The top link is more promising it’s closer to the real colour and the figures are embossed.

The trouble is with postage it’s 70 euros which is a bit of a risk if I buy that too and it disappoints.

It does talk about contacting them re: any requirements. Probably it being a bit distressed would look better - plus the tax disc(?) that goes in the indentation rectangles.

It seems to me that somebody who did it right could make some decent money here. It can’t be hard to do a ‘better’ job

Thanks again for the links- I’m looking for that third one.....



.

C ~ Can you get the numbers/letters that you want on a "vanity plate" for your own car?

Yes but the format, layout etc are different in UK plates.

For example, White or yellow as opposed to blue



.

[C]

I'm a fan of Columbo and Agatha Christie as well. Columbo is just so watchable. It moves along at a nice medium pace, not too slow, not too fast, not too clever, not too dumb, not too funny, not too dreary - just perfectly in the middle. And as has been mentioned the use of guest stars was brilliant and i think fairly unique for its time - the one with Johnny Cash is just immense, and there is an interesting one with Janet Leigh where she reflects back on her own movies.

And Poirot and Marple are just marvelous creations. One foreign, the other as English as scones, both perfectly weaved into the stories which are often beautifully told and infuriatingly clever. A story like Five Little Pigs is so moving and devastating, and even a story like Crooked House there is basically nothing that happens until the jaw-dropping ending that hits you like a tonne of bricks. I'm also always so interested in how she integrated world events into her stories, from well-known events like the Lindbergh child to the aftermath of the wars.

Small related anecdote here - I'll never forget when I was learning to read English, probably aged about 11, and reading Death on the Nile - and I must have read the first 2 chapters 20 times because they made no sense, in the first chapter she's engaged to one guy and in the next she is married to another - i couldn't make head or tails of it and I assumed it was my poor understanding of English that was the problem. Eventually I broke through the next chapters and it all starts to hang together, but I could probalby still quote you the entirety of those first two chapters because of the amount of times I had to read them!

Nice post.

Good lad






.

[Charlie O.]

[Minnie the Minx]

Only a maigre repast.