Well, no one got it. Or was it just that I offered no certainty of a prize? The room arrowed in another image of this hotel - the Old Cataract at Aswan on the Nile - was, or so I am assured, taken by Agatha Christie to inspire her during her writing of Death on the Nile
But Egypt, my Egypt for a memorable nine-day winter break, was about much more than that. It was even about more than the incessant begging, and hassle from street vendors with merchandise that you'd never wish to possess, that dogged us from Cairo airport to the Valley of the Kings to the Aswan Dam and the Pyramids and back to Cairo airport.
Our first guide, Ibrahim, had a great answer to the problem. Just feign deafness, he said; do not on any account engage in conversation, even to say: "No thank you."
It saved us from destitution and handed me a half-decent headline for my midweek column at The National. You can read Deaf on the Nile by clicking here.
About Memphis, I have a little story to pass on. Long distance information, you might say, informs me that many years ago, the excellent folk-rock band Fotheringay were playing a concert in Manchester.
Their first album had included a traditional song, Banks of the Nile. Throughout the concert, a group of fans kept yelling for it. Sandy Denny and the boys clearly didn't want to do it.
Come the encores, Sandy shouted: "Do you want Banks of the Nile?"
"Yeah!" the audience called back. And the band launched into Memphis, Tennessee. Someone suggested at Salut! Live that the band must have known that the city of Chuck Berry's song took its name from Memphis on the Nile, Egypt's first capital. Oh no they didn't, came the reply from Jerry Donahue, who was the band's guitarist. It was just a coincidence.
M and Mme Salut! are not cruise people. They had never been on one, or even thought seriously of going on one.
They have changed their minds. Sailing down the Nile - does the fact that the river flows from south to north make it "down the Nile" when you go from Luxor to Aswan? - was as relaxing an experience as I can remember (the fjords of Musandam, only last month, were certainly soothing, but I knew then that a five-hour drive awaited me at the end of the day's cruise).
There was even a cruise within a cruise. For a small sum, we took a small boat on to the river while berthed in Aswan to get some terrific views from the water of Agatha Christie's hotel, a glimpse of the river birdlife and some stunning locations on the island opposite the port.
The boat was even called Relax. I did, even though the two-man crew encouraged me to take lengthy turns on the tiller, which I rather enjoyed (while suspecting their sanity in entrusting me with such a task).
The Nile cuts through a beautiful corridor of the country. Any visit to the Valley of the Kings, Abu Simbel and the Pyramids is likely to leave a profound impression.
But I have one question, suggested by Billy Bob Z Redneck III and his wife Cindy Lou........
Just why did they go and build the Pyramids next to that electricity pylon?
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