Sunday, January 15, 2012

Naive Avengersthon - 13. The Mauritius Penny

It's almost as if they're going all out to please me with this one - an episode revolving around the twin worlds of fascist subversion and stamp collecting.

The fascists are using a stamp shop, unbeknownst to its owner, as a depot and cover for their takeover plans. The fun starts when the owner stumbles on one of their coded messages, which refer to their leader as 'The Mauritius Penny'.

As Cathy Gale, philatelist as well as anthropologist, points out, the Mauritius penny (1847 1d red-brown, POST OFFICE not POST PAID) is indeed extremely valuable, though there are now at least 12 known to exist rather than 2.

She also explains that the Maltese twopenny blue doesn't exist: I had a good look through the catalogue for Malta and found that, not counting British stamps used in the island up to 1885, there were no 2d blue Maltese stamps until SG307, 2d blue Great Siege Commemoration issued on Sep 7 1962. This episode went into production on Oct 18 1962, so this stamp fact would probably have been true at time of writing.

From here it's variations on the theme of Steed and/or Cathy infiltrating the fascists' activities, getting captured and then rescued, either by the other or by the world's most helpful lorry driver. But I'm coming to the conclusion that you watch The Avengers for the style, not the plots.

Richard 'Slartibartfast' Vernon in a prominent role. Also David 'Upstairs Downstairs' Langton, who confused me by looking uncannily like Tony Hancock's thin, authoritarian younger brother.

Interesting that in the closing gag Cathy tries to fool Steed into thinking she's found an example of the British Guiana 4c black, not the 1c which is unique and can't be priced.

By the way, when CG attends the fascist rally and gets rumbled, I thought 'This is just like Sarah at the SRS meeting in Robot.' Then what do I see in the closing credits but 'Teleplay by Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks.'

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