Even the defenders of The Mousetrap, which has been filling a London theatre for 52 years, admit that its artistic merits, if any, have long been eclipsed by its status as an institution. It will continue, perhaps even should its audience mutate into another species, but can Agatha Christie survive as a writer who still have something to say to the modern world?

Her fiercely protective estate had put a moratorium on theatre productions of her work, in an attempt to “freshen them up”, so when And Then There Were None, in a new adaptation by Kevin Elyot, opened at the Gielgud it was not just this production, but the whole theatrical future of Christie, that was at stake.

The play is still reasonably true to the original tale of a party of ten people, who are morally if not legally murderers, summoned to an isolated island to meet their just desserts – well except of course that the old title, Ten Little Niggers has long been sentenced to death. Rogers, the butler, keeps a lower-class stiff upper lip as he continues to minister to 10 guests invited to the house party by the mysteriously absent hosts, within minutes of learning of the death of his wife, and the stage is filled with crusty military types, proper spinster ladies and all of the other inhabitants of an ideal English village circa 1920. READ MORE

How to win the pub quiz, or set the unanswerable one. When did the last steam train run on the London Underground?

Astonishingly, the answer is June 1967 – they were used for transporting night-time maintenance crews. No wonder the native mice are soot-coloured.

And with the new Wembley Stadium apparently in trouble, it seems the site has a problematic history. Sir Edward Watkins, the chairman of the Metropolitan line, set out to build a tower higher than the Eiffel that was supposed to attract customers. It was not a success, and was never completed.

The Northern Line, as it is today, started out badly, as it was to continue. The carriages were called “padded cells”, because there were no windows – the theory being there was nothing to look at.

From: Underground London: Travels Beneath the City Streets Stephen Smith, Little, Brown, 2004.

It is an old adage, but one scientists seem to never learn. If you ramp up biological productivity, by breeding cows to be mere milk-producing machines, by using huge quantities of fertilisers, or by dumping shit in fish ponds, you might get more output, but you’ll also get environmental and other side-effects. The latest, quite possibly the spread of bird flu:

Bird flu may be spread by using chicken dung as food in fish farms, a practice now routine in Asia, according to the world’s leading bird conservation organisation.
Fertilising fish ponds with poultry faeces, which can dramatically improve fish growth, may set up major new reservoirs of avian influenza infection if the chickens providing the manure are infected themselves, according to BirdLife International, the Cambridge-based umbrella body for bird protection groups in 100 countries.
The suggestion, which has echoes of the BSE outbreak in Britain – when cattle were infected by their food – puts a question mark over a technique firmly backed by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as a primary means of providing protein for mushrooming populations in developing countries.
Known as integrated livestock-fish farming, the technique involves transferring the wastes from raising pigs, ducks or chickens directly to fish farms. At the right dosage, the nutrients in the manure give an enormous boost to the growth of plankton in the ponds, which are the main food of fish such as carp and tilapia.

(I’ve quoted quite a bit of that because it will disappear behind a paywall in a few days.)

But in an early bid for an IgNobel prize, a scientist has calculated Earth could hold a population of 1.3 million billion. That is on the basis of their heat production alone not overheating the planet. Which means?

Assuming that every person emits 120 watts of heat and that it would be uncomfortable if the average temperature at the Earth’s surface rose too much, the researchers declared the Earth could sustain 1.3 million billion people without overheating.
Writing in the journal, the researchers acknowledge the Earth’s resources could be put under severe strain long before the theoretical population peak is reached. “Constraints like food availability or physiological necessities may become critical in the relatively near future. But they are subjected to a continuous change as a result of the development of human civilisation and technology,” Dr Badescu said.

It seems some parts of science have still to recognise the dangers of their own arrogance.

I had cause to cross Oxford Street a couple of times today (a great exhibition at the National Gallery was one of the causes, but more on that tomorrow). It was heaving, swarming, overflowing – it is hard to think of an adequate adjective – with sale shoppers. The radio also carried the usual reports of traffic chaos around the big shopping centres; the hunters were out after so-called “bargains”.

No, I wasn’t joining them, at least not directly. I do most of my shopping these days on eBay (or on La Redoute for staples like white T-shirts). I don’t go into an actual physical shop unless I can’t possibly avoid it.

But I do eventually expect to be a beneficiary of the sales; lots of the items I buy on eBay, usually “BNWT” (Brand New With Tags) have sale markings on them. For example I’ve got a pair of bone-coloured leather boots that I bought, unworn, on eBay for £20. The woman who sold them to me explained they “didn’t quite match the colour of her outfit”. She’d paid £50, marked down from £150.

She no doubt thought she was getting a bargain, but it is hardly a bargain if you never wear the item concerned.

I suspect that will be the fate of many of the sale items bought today – buying something “because it is cheap” can be terribly tempting.

China is strengthening penalties for those involved in the abortion of female foetuses. With the ratio of males to females 119-100, it seems to me this won’t be enough. More needs to be done about ensuring girls are valued, although I suppose eventually the value of shortage will take care of that.

Taking the Pill may greatly reduce the risk of MS. There are undoubtedly both health advantages and disadvantages about the Pill. I’m suspicious of those who make great fuss about disadvantages, as there’s often some moralistic agenda behind it: women controlling their own bodies – terrible, unnatural!

I was sold some years ago on the theory that to have 12 periods a year, year after year, is entirely “unnatural”, so changing that, by taking Pill packets three at a time, is actually taking your body back closer to what countless generations have experienced before us. Also has the great virtue of convenience!

Finally, surprise surprise “Make Poverty History” has done nothing of the sort. You’ll see in the sidebar one of the charities that I support – Ethiopiaid and particularly its Fistula Hospital – and I wanted to note that Tim Worstall is using “Mr Google” to raise money for it.

The next carnival will be on Reappropriate. Submissions are due by January 3, by email to jenn AT reappropriate DOT com. Or there’s a nifty Technorati tag submission method.

Jenn is asking particularly for posts about “feminism of colour, and the intersection between race and gender”. But all other subjects are welcome. And don’t forget, you can nominate yourself!