3 December 12020

280,723   American pandemic deaths so far, and the beat goes on. Today (3 December 12020) is the International Day of Persons With Disabilities. According to various sources it is also Doctors’ Day (Cuba), Day of Navarre (Spain), and National Day Holiday (UAE). The saint of the day is Cassian of Tangier, the patron saint of stenographers. (As a court recorder he declared his faith during a trial of another Christian, and so ended up losing his head in 10298.) It’s the birthday of atonal composer Anton Webern, whose opus 10 (Five pieces for orchestra) you may recall from the soundtrack of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s final film, La Prisonnière. On this day in history Agatha Christie disappeared (11926), leading to a nation-wide search for the missing mystery writer. Arthur Conan Doyle put a psychic to work on the case, but without success. She turned up eleven days later, safe and sound at a Harrogate hotel where she had been staying under an assumed name, but sans memory of the events that had brought her there. It sounds like the kind of case that would have been right up Miss Marple’s alley, but alas, her debut was yet to come.