Throughout the Lockdown and the Permanent Abnormal that followed, the lights stayed on at SteynOnline, even as they flickered and dimmed elsewhere. On the eve of The Mark Steyn Club's seventh birthday, we're very proud that this website now offers more free content than at any time in our twenty-two-year history. But we also provide some premium extras especially for our Steyn Club members, such as these nightly serialisations of classic fiction and our new weekly audio show.
Today we thank especially those who were with us on May 6th 2017 and have decided to re-up for an eighth year. Paul Harmon, a First Hour Founding Member from Oregon, writes:
Here's a first day member who's delighted to still be with you Mark. Perhaps because I never took the jab...
Great to have you for another year, Paul. Ken Farrish in British Columbia was sufficiently resistant to hold off until the second day, but six years and three-hundred-and-sixty-four days later he's still with us:
Keep up the good work. Y'all rock!
Do British Columbians say "Y'all, Ken? Or is that cultural appropriation?
Alison Castellina writes from the English Home Counties:
All the articles and the club conversations are top class and worth paying for (also Tales for our Time).
Thank you for that last, Alison - which brings us to our current tale, an Agatha Christie adventure set against the turbulent politics of the aftermath of the Great War. In tonight's episode of The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie, Tommy is roughly interrogated by his captors:
Suddenly Boris stepped forward, and shook his fist in Tommy's face.
"Speak, you swine of an Englishman—speak!"
"Don't get so excited, my good fellow," said Tommy calmly. "That's the worst of you foreigners. You can't keep calm. Now, I ask you, do I look as though I thought there were the least chance of your killing me?"
He looked confidently round, and was glad they could not hear the persistent beating of his heart which gave the lie to his words.
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read Part Seventeen of The Secret Adversary simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
If you enjoy me in audio, you might like to check out either the first Serenade Radio episode of On the Town or, for those of a poppier persuasion, our seventh-birthday expanded edition of Non-Stop Number Ones.
Membership in The Mark Steyn Club is not for everyone, but, if you've a pal who enjoys classic fiction, we'd love to welcome him or her to our ranks via the birthday present that lasts all year: A gift membership in the Steyn Club, which comes with access to our entire archive of Tales for Our Time, including Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Time Machine and many more. For more details on our special Gift Membership, see here. And please join me tomorrow evening for Part Eighteen of The Secret Adversary.
