One of our tutors--Hercule Poirot :-)

[Tadeusz Lemańczyk]

You remember the description of our group The eEurope ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yahoo-cls-europeaninformationsociety/ ), don't you? I'm also sure you remember my comment about comprehensively instructive holiday entertainment [ http://fedcba.ning.com/profiles/blogs/nie-samym-surveillance (June 21, 2009 at 2:33pm)]. Therefore, my wife [an ardent Chief Inspector James Japp (Philip Jackson), Hercule Poirot (David Suchet), Captain Arthur Hastings (Hugh Fraser), and Miss Felicity Lemon (Pauline Moran) fan]

(here are all four of them from the left to the right)

and I would like to welcome those three categories of students [from both Poznan University of Technology ( http://triton.cs.put.poznan.pl/platon/studia/planyStudiow/kierunek/... ) and from European Career College ( http://www.kde.edu.pl/page.php/1/0/show/915 and http://www.kde.poznan.pl/page.php/1/0/show/640 )] for discussing together those three aspects of that valuable TV series ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094525/ ), namely security matters, European matters, and linguistic matters. Naturally other fans are welcome too. :-)

[Tadeusz Lemańczyk]

Hercule Poirot academically exalted
I'm not able to overcome the temptation to begin with Hercule Poirot's instruction "there are just too many coincidences here for it to be a mere coincidence" used very wittily by Yair Mintzker on page 509 of the article "A Word Newly Introduced into Language": The Appearance and Spread of "Social" in French Enlightened Thought, 1745–1765 [History of European Ideas, 34 (4), p.500-513, Dec 2008]. Will those students ( http://www.kde.edu.pl/page.php/1/0/show/915 ), after learning especially two courses: The history of European legal culture and Social history of Europe ( http://www.kde.poznan.pl/page.php/1/0/show/929/ ), agree with me?

By the way, what do those students ( http://triton.cs.put.poznan.pl/platon/studia/planyStudiow/kierunek/... ), who have familiarized themselves with those two messages ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yahoo-cls-europeaninformationsociety/... and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yahoo-cls-europeaninformationsociety/... ), think about the course Crisis management ( http://www.kde.poznan.pl/page.php/1/0/show/929/ )? Will both groups of students meet at http://fedcba.ning.com/group/oifsb ? I'm really looking forward to it. :-)

[Tadeusz Lemańczyk]

I've met Euroskeptics on my way many times: hence I've read Jeremy Black's article Euroskepticism: Pathology or Reason? [Orbis, 52 (3), p.480-493, Jan 2008] with great interest. It begins with the words "I tell you, Poirot, nothing’s more difficult nowadays than the question of allies. They can change overnight" expressed by Sir Roderick Horsefield, one of the characters in Agatha Christie's Third Girl. I'm afraid Sir Roderick isn't right--allies cannot change overnight. Especially the United Kingdom for a long time couldn't get used to its allies in the European Union [Politicians and politics; Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:03 pm; TadFromPoland ( http://forums.ec.europa.eu/debateeurope/viewtopic.php?p=7760&hi... )]. However, the world is inevitably changing and also the British Euroskepticism is doomed to failure.

[Tadeusz Lemańczyk]

I wish Carron Stewart Fillingim ( http://www2.selu.edu/NewsEvents/PublicInfoOffice/phikappaphi-f02.html ),

the author of REVELATIONS FROM "CHEESECAKE MANOR": AGATHA CHRISTIE, DETECTIVE FICTION, AND INTERWAR ENGLAND ( http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-06032007-204040/unrestricted/... ), were a member of our social network on Ning.

[Tadeusz Lemańczyk]

Prof. Anat Achiron, the Director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center ( http://eng.sheba.co.il/Sheba_Hospitals/Rehabilitation/Multiple_Scle... ), citing in the editorial The multiple sclerosis labyrinth—Poirot's solution (Autoimmunity Reviews, Volume 5, Issue 8, October 2006, Pages 509-510) Agatha Christie's Death in the Clouds, including Hercule Poirot's words "I do not employ the little gray cells of the brain in an orderly and methodical way. No, I leap to conclusions. I think, perhaps, what I am meant to think", emphasized the word "meant" and added as follows.

In MS research, in order to solve the complexity of its labyrinth, it is necessary to avoid logical fixation, be open to new technologies and diagnostic approaches and look also at places where the sun is not shining. In Greek mythology, Daedalus the designer of the first labyrinth, was himself trapped within the labyrinth he constructed. Daedalus proved creative and made wax wings so he and his son Icarus could fly out of the maze. In order to find the logical course of events leading to the development of MS and be able to prevent it, we need to fly differently.

What Anat Achiron wishes to serve as a catalyst in Multiple Sclerosis research, we wish to serve as a catalyst especially in Security & Safety Engineering research, don't we?

[Tadeusz Lemańczyk]

Adventure Of The Clapham Cook
My wife and I have enjoyed that first episode of the first season ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094525/episodes#season-1 ) three times or so already. It introduces viewers to the whole TV series quite beautifully. The moral of not only this episode is expressed just by Hercule Poirot: "It is to me, Hastings, a little reminder never to despise the trivial, hein, but the undignified. A disappearing domestic at one end, a cold-blooded murder at the other" ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0483459/quotes and http://fedcba.ning.com/video/the-adventure-of-the-clapham ).

[Tadeusz Lemańczyk]

Murder In The Mews
All security services, including the National Labour Inspectorate in Poland ( http://www.pip.gov.pl/html/en/html/index.htm ), have to gather information. However, it's absolutely no picnic having to interrogate that kind of eyewitnesses ( http://fedcba.ning.com/video/murder-in-the-mews ), you know! ;-)

[Tadeusz Lemańczyk]

The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly
Some characters and skills are more important for all three groups of students active here than other characters and skills. Taking now only one of these three groups of students into account, who would be able to describe these characters and skills for Security & Safety Engineering students better than Chief Inspector Japp describing Poirot's (and to some degree also Hastings's) lack of qualifications for bodyguard job ( http://fedcba.ning.com/video/the-adventure-of-johnnie )? :-)

[Tadeusz Lemańczyk]

Four and Twenty Blackbirds
Has humor been always one of the most obvious characteristics which have connected generations of Europeans? Are you not sure? Try therefore to analyze all together words of Dulcie Lang, the model of the painter Henry Gascoigne ("As you've already seen for yourselves I have nothing to hide"), Hastings words ("No, no, we were up in the gallery") and Poirot's gesture ( http://fedcba.ning.com/video/four-and-twenty-blackbirds_1 ). Are you still dubious about the meaning of her declaration "I have nothing to hide"? You probably haven't already watched that fourth episode of the first season ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094525/episodes#season-1 ): hence enjoy at least this fragment of it ( http://fedcba.ning.com/video/four-and-twenty-blackbirds_2 ). :-)

[Tadeusz Lemańczyk]

The Third Floor Flat
Have Donovan and Jimmy proved conclusively that a coal-lift, usually absent in houses of today but present at that time in the residential building Whitehaven Mansions ( http://fedcba.ning.com/video/the-third-floor-flat ), has posed a grave threat to safety of the occupants living in all its apartments? I'm looking forward to meeting this problem in the discussion at http://fedcba.ning.com/group/oifsb/forum/topics/zakres-pojeciowy-sy... . Are you, Weronika ( http://fedcba.ning.com/profile/WeronikaOwczarek ), looking forward to it, too? :-)

[Tadeusz Lemańczyk]

Triangle at Rhodes
How nice after hearing that controversial explanation of Douglas Gold's aversion to divorce ( http://fedcba.ning.com/video/triangle-at-rhodes_1 and http://fedcba.ning.com/video/triangle-at-rhodes_2 ) not to find in Agatha Christie's Triangle at Rhodes even a single word "Catholic"--such a word doesn’t appear in connection with Douglas Gold, as a matter of fact it doesn’t appear in that story at all. There appear the following words instead.

"Douglas Gold is a very stupid young man. Incredibly stupid!"
Triangle at Rhodes. By Agatha Christie. In: Murder in the Mews (four stories)-- http://www.esnips.com/doc/8435e10c-5fcc-477b-950d-d868c26425b4/Murd...

[Tadeusz Lemańczyk]

Problem at Sea
I bet that not only English members of our social network Multilingual Studies at a Distance can easily connect the following statement of Hercule Poirot

"Mesdames, Messieurs. What I am about to do may surprise you a little. It may occur to you that I am eccentric - perhaps mad. Ah! You may say, the little Belgian detective is taking leave of his rocker, hein. But I can assure you, behind my madness is, as you English say... method" ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0676186/quotes and http://fedcba.ning.com/video/problem-at-sea )

with the following words of William Shakespeare

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't."
http://www.shakespeare-literature.com/Hamlet/7.html

The Polish know Lord Polinius's words also translated into "Chociaż to wariacja, nie jest jednakże bez metody." ( http://hamlet.klp.pl/a-6489-9.html ), don't they?

[Tadeusz Lemańczyk]

The Incredible Theft
The eighth episode of the first season ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094525/episodes#season-1 ) is a real gem for students who study the blended course Information security ( http://triton.cs.put.poznan.pl/platon/files/opisyPrzedmiotow/ib_dzi... ). These three fragments of that episode ( http://fedcba.ning.com/video/the-incredible-theft_1 , http://fedcba.ning.com/video/the-incredible-theft_2 , and http://fedcba.ning.com/video/the-incredible-theft_3 ) will suffice you to accept the nuisance of security vetting procedures, won't they?