Nicci French Blog

Fungal Roulette

Nicci: A couple of years ago, Nicholas Evans, author of The Horse Whisperer, ate some chanterelles in the Highlands that turned out not to be chanterelles; he is lucky to be alive today, since the mushrooms turned his organs to paté and destroyed his kidney entirely. He's been on dialysis ever since. We read a few days ago that he can no longer pee - why is this thought so wincingly horrible? You would have thought that his example would make us - both seasoned mushroom pickers since our childhoods, and fanatical hunters for cep and chanterelles in the forests of Sweden each summer - more cautious. But no.

A few days ago, Sean picked some mushoroms that were sprouting in slimy layered clumps from the base of a dead tree stump. These - he insisted - were honey fungus, deadly to shrubs and trees (hence this dead tree stump) but delicious to eat. They were pale-ish brown, flat topped, spindly-stemmed, slippery and smelling of the earth. We agreed that only Sean would eat them at first - the children need at least one parent. After 24 hours, he was fine, not even a twinge of cramp, so clearly the identification was correct.

Then, a few days we went for a walk in a nearby wood, where nightingales are supposed to sing in May, though we've never managed to hear them - perhaps because we don't really know what a nightingale sounds like. There we found some hedgehog mushrooms (we're sure this is what they were: they live up to their name) and took them home to cook and serve to friends. Again, no ill consequences.

And now, even closer to home, we've found some mushrooms in the garden. They are white-capped and bulbous when young, with pale creamy gills; as they grow older the caps open out and the gills turn browner. They have a faint smell of aniseed. So we've looked them up in our mushroom Bible (by Roger Philips) and identified them as either Agaricus excellens or Agaricus macrosporus. If anyone, looking at the photo here, thinks that they are actually Agaricus pilatianus (poisonous), they should know that we ate them for lunch today, so it's too late to warn us.

when is a stabbing not a murder?

When it's committed by a husband who's wife has nagged him. In today's Guardian, on pages 4-5, there's a double page spread on the terrible case of Mark Saunders, the barrister who, drunk and distressed and vulnerable, was shot dead by the police after a five-hour siege during which he fired his gun out of the window. The inquest jury ruled that he was lawfully killed, though it criticised the Met for their handling of the siege. 

OK, then on page 8, in the 'Courts' column there's an approximately 100-word PA report on the man who stabbed his partner of 30 years to death (once in the arm and twice in the chest). He was jailed for four years and eight months. It seems a very short sentence - but that's because it wasn't murder, but manslaughter. And why? Because he was provoked. His partner 'nagged' him. My outrage on reading this was somewhat undermined when I read that she had also broken his thumb and on several occasions laid into him with an ornamental poker, but nevertheless it seems to me that this case has too many echoes with numerous other cases. Husbands who are 'nagged' (that is always the word) can kill their wives. On the other hand, if wives are mistreated by their husbands, they can't get away with in the same way. Usually, men are stronger than women. If a woman wants to kill someone then they have to be premeditated about it. There are several accounts of severely abused women - like Sarah Thornfield in 1990 - who are convicted for murder, not manslaughter, precisely because their vulnerability means they have to be strategic and not simply lash out. 

And further, I'd like to know why the word 'nag' is never applied to men. We don't read about nagging husbands, Is it only women who nag? (Only reply to that if your answer's NO.)