Burke: Nothing beats a mystery for waiting out election results

By Tom Burke / Herald Columnist

And the winner is …

I have no earthly idea. But you will soon, at least for most races.

My deadline for this column was Monday, so the winners, up and down the ballot, are unknown to me at the time of this writing; but the names of the victors and defeated are being blasted from every media outlet, social channel, and podcast god ever created.

And I’m sure we’re being inundated by countless pundits “explaining” the meaning of all this; swamped by the legal experts telling us who’s suing who; and we’re graciously being thanked by those to whom we donated time, money and emotion. (OK, the good ones are relaying thanks, the others counting to see how much money is left over for legal fees).

So instead of writing about politics and the future of the democracy, I’m taking a little plunge into non-news television to distract myself from the uncertainty of who is going to win.

Now I have long admitted to being an unrepentant news junkie reading four or six different daily newspapers; watching three different cable news channels, monitoring Twitter (OK, X) and various and sundry web sites and magazines.

But as relief, I read a bunch, write some (I’ve been working on a mystery set in 1901 in the north logging-woods of New Hampshire), and watch TV at night with my wife.

We’ve kinda gotten hooked on British mysteries; from the iconic, if somewhat tongue-in-cheek “Midsomer Murders,” to a long list of others.

They range from the slyly, semi-over-the-top-type ala “New Tricks,” “Father Brown” “Miss Fisher” (OK, that’s an Aussie production), “Brokenwood” (filmed in New Zealand) and “Death in Paradise” (a Brit transported to the Caribbean); to period pieces such as “Foyle’s War” and Agatha Christie’s “Poirot” (and it’s a tie for the best Poirot – between the TV series David Suchet and Albert Finney from the 1974 movie); and to the harder-core-with-more-than-a-touch-of-morality of “Vera,” Shetland” (and if watching that show doesn’t put the Shetland Islands on your travel bucket list, nothing will), “Inspector Morse” (and his classic 1959 Jaguar Mark II), “A Touch of Frost,” and the “Chelsea Detective” (who wouldn’t want to live on a $160,000-a-year rental houseboat in the heart of London on a policeman’s salary?).

And then there’s our latest binge: “Slow Horses.” Which is complicated, engrossing, excellently cast, and about the grittiest crime/spy drama since Richard Burton’s 1965 “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.”

It stars Gary Oldman, an amazing actor who’s played everything from Sirius Black in the Harry Potter movies to Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hours;” as well “being” George Smiley in John Le Carre’s spy thriller “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy;” Harry Truman in “Oppenheimer;” and Dracula, Sid Vicious, and Batman’s Commissioner Gordon!

Here, he’s a world-weary, slovenly, ill-mannered, chain-smoking, flatulent, semi-alcoholic, dissolute, put-out-to-pasture spy (just who I want defending the country against the bad guys?); in charge of a bunch of British MI5 (the United Kingdom’s domestic intelligence and security agency) failures; and is smarter, craftier, and more-ruthless than his bosses or the other spies he left behind at The Park, the U.K.’s spy central.

The series is a combination of hard-core mystery, dark humor, intrigue, double-dealing, and death (some of the principle characters get knocked off) and a social commentary on the state of the United Kingdom and its plunge from the reign of the British Raj and “The Sun Never Setting on the Empire” to its current muddled condition.

It’s one of those shows you need to pay real attention to, as the plots don’t come together ‘till the last episode; but it’s worth the time and effort. (And expense. It’s on Apple+ so it adds a few quid – errr … dollars? – to your streaming bill.)

‘Fess up time: This week’s column could have been a status update on the war in the Ukraine; how lonely I’m going to be without the constant stream of text messages from aspiring electeds and an email in-box overflowing with pleas for $1 or $5 or $25 to help a candidate in Montana, Texas, or Maryland; or the avalanche of “Sign Up Now” notes during “Open Season” for health plans. I could have even written a piece describing the outstanding service I got for the simple problem the folks at the Les Schwab in Kenmore fixed in a jiffy, for free!, and how such great customer service seems so rare these days.

But, in addition to my red-zone level of anxiety re the vote yesterday, writing about those things (OK, Les Schwab excepted) is so dependent on the winner it seemed pointless to opine about them.

Now, I’d like to think the vote was so overwhelming there’s no doubt who won. But I fear, on this Monday afternoon, we’re going to be sinking into a morass of legal filings and another month or three of scary headlines about who’s up, who’s down, and if the National Guard is being called out.

So for now, until I get to read Wednesday’s Herald and find out “who won,” all I can do is tune in the last series of “Slow Horses;” focus my “leeetle grey cells” (ala Poirot) on staying calm; monitor Monday Night Football (rooting for the Chiefs, as, alas, my “Go Hawks” is slowly fading); and finish off the huge pot of vegetable soup made, exactingly, to my mother’s 80-year-old recipe.

And hope, when they play “Hail to the Chief” and fire the 21-gun fusillade on Jan. 20, 2025, it’s our first woman president who takes the salute.

Slava Ukraini.

Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.