HOME.
Poetry time again.
The cat Shadow appeared as he does and, to my surprise, did not demand food.
"Something wrong?" I asked.
"Not at all," he said. "The Boot-Kicking Scot's team got beaten in the Champion's League Final and the departed Portuguese-in-the-posh-overcoat's team won the F.A. Cup. There is a God."
"I know you're not a Ferguson fan, but since when did you support Chelsea?" I demanded.
"I don't," he said. "But it does y'good to see them win something in the wake of Mourinho."
"Oh, does it?" I said.
"It does," he said, "but that's not why I'm here."
I was intrigued. "All right then, why are you here?"
"Because it's poetry week or month or something, mate, " he declared triunphantly, "and I have a poem for you."
I eyed him with customary suspicion: "Go on then."
He struck his poetic pose and announced:
"A Stroll With A Musing Moggy."
Along this wall and that flat roof
I'm seeking nightly for the truth
Of what I am: of who I be
A muse while scratching for a flea
And marking off my boundary
By spraying up the same old tree.
Foursquare, fourscore, foreshore, forsooth,
I'm getting longer in the tooth
No more accepting I'm perverse
For bandying with nonsense verse
Nor heeding those who cannot see
The innate graciousness in me.
Humans allergic to my touch
Them as just can't bear me much
Worried gal and aggressive chap
Who'd like to see me off the map
Onto their lap I'll surely pitch
And stay until they've got the itch.
Goodbye, auf Wiedersehen, farewell
The curfew tolls the flippin' knell
Of any climbing, rhyming cat
Who aspires to Poet Laureate
The post has gone to Carol Anne Duffy
Feminine if not female fluffy.
So atop this wall and that flat roof
Seeking nightly for the truth
Hiding under hedge and van
A Jehovah Witness in the Vatican
I know, too, I shall never be
The Oxford Professor of Poetry.
Let's face it, I'm too cool a cooky
To draw attention to another's nooky
Honi soit qui mal y pense
Ruth Padel should have more sense.
You're not forgiven when you win a fight
Not when you are the one who's right!
He had a quick wash and eyed me expectantly.
"Did the guys on the roof help you with that?" I queried.
"Not this time," he said proudly.
"It shows," I said.
"How kind of you," he said.
I chose not to correct him.
TELEVISION.
CSI NY (Five).
A short time ago I saw an interview in which Gary Sinise, who plays Mac Taylor in CSI NY, talked about the early days of the show.
Seems the regularly featured players were encouraged to personalize their characters and this somewhat inhibited expression until they had finally developed the role.
Back then I joked that he had but two acting expressions.
Apologies being all the rage, I shan't apologize.
He is certainly much more expressive now.
Even his eyebrows sometimes get in on the act.
Truth to tell, one of my favourite acting moments came in a CSI NY episode.
Stella Bonasera, who had been cut by a piece of glass removed from an HIV positive victim, gave life-saving CPR to Dr. Sid Hammerback: she later had to convey to the doctor her fear that she could have infected him with AIDS.
Massively contrived though it may have been, the scene where Stella (Melina Kanakaredes) broke the brittle news to a wonderfully fatalistic Sid (Robert Joy) was mesmerising.
Gok's Fashion Fix (C4).
In Post 109 I was a trifle sniffy about fancily priced fashion and I now regret that.
Bleating on blogs will not save the third world.
Acceptance that vast riches will attract, (and succumb to) vastly inflated prices is just common sense.
Gok is close to the end of another series and it has been great fun.
Weekly he re-outfits a fashion misfit, re-garbs a star, tests items of female apparel on a heavyweight group of lasses from Rotherham and dresses his fashion models in High Street clothes to compete on a catwalk with costly designer outfits chosen by Brix Smith-Start.
In the latter he has to date emerged the joyful winner five times and the generous loser twice.
My Leader and I watch and wonder and laugh.
It's hard not to like Gok Wan.
Eurovision Song Contest (BBC1).
There was a bit more Brit interest this year following the departure of ol' Tel Wogan and the introduction of a Lloyd Webber song entitled (over optimistically) It's My Time.
Andrew L.W. and singer Jade Ewen were reported to have blitzed Europe trying to sell the song in advance, so nobody could accuse them of not taking a crap competition seriously.
Graham Norton, an arch version of his predecessor, came across as equally unimpressed by it all.
Gawd bless 'im for that.
Divided (ITV1)
Talking of crap, we have here a quiz produced by sadistic shits hellbent on proving that it is not only Members of Parliament who are avaricious arseholes.
I have watched it a couple of times and on both occasions, sadly, the producers' case has been proven.
It is presented by Andrew Castle and to any nice person going to become a contestant I would offer the following advice: in the unlikely event that you look like winning, take a note with you to read out when you are asked to say what your share of the prize money should be; have it go along the lines of: I shall accept Share A but only on the clear understanding that I require the Share A prize money to be divided into three equal parts - one part to go to me and one part to each of my fellow contestants - and that my two fellow contestants (being Share B - pointing to one of them - you: and Share C - pointing to the other - you) agree to their shares also being divided equally between the three of us.
Let Andrew Castle, the studio crew and the entire viewing public take note that we three contestants have agreed to take equal shares of the total prize money we have won on Divided today.'
Then gently point out to the other contestants that they can either do it your way or get nothing because you will veto anything else until the kitty runs dry.
I don't know if it will work and I don't really care.
It is something else I shall not be watching again.
The Classical Brit Awards (ITV1).
Watched this: did you? Classic mutual admiration. I think Classic FM has got a lot to answer for.
Britain's Got Talent (ITV1).
Watched this: didn't everyone? I think Diversity, Susan Boyle and Julian Smith were the right choices in the right order, even if the news of their success was marred by the usual stupid...agonizing... long...drawn...out...wait...which the daft bastards who run these programmes think adds to the excitement.
The final was good old-fashioned music hall.
Don't know about the preliminaries.
Didn't watch them.
RHS Chelsea Flower Show (BBC).
Watched this on and off. This year there seemed to be less of the exhibits than there was of Alan Titchmarsh who has started to dress as though he's expecting a knighthood.
Who knows?
I may even yet refer to him as Sir Titchy.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
125. Here's a bit of scandal
IN THE NEWS.
The Gurkhas. What a furore about whether or not Gurkhas should become permanent residents here.
The little blokes have fought in countless wars on our side and I'd rather they were for us than against.
So what is all the fuss about?
Are the Powers-That-Be worried lest, a generation or two on, Gurkha soldiers living here will become civilians uninterested in going to war? Do they think martial Nepalese may that quickly transform into pacifist Brits?
Would it matter if they did?
Joanna Lumley's Joan of Arc presence on their behalf has served to further her iconic status, remind us again that she is a consummate actress (many times during her M.P. belittling campaign she gave us her Margaret Thatcher browbeating the boys audition piece) and has provided a tasty hors d'oeuvre to the prize scandal of the week...
MPs Expenses. "What I did was within the rules" will surely go down as the poorest excuse for mishandling public money that has ever been trotted out by elected representatives to a suddenly aware electorate.
The fact that they and their benighted advisers compiled dodgy rules to legalize their actions screams of sharp practice.
If you or I had been discovered doing anything of the kind, whatever our employment, we would have been taken to court, fined and sacked.
So far as their reaction to being caught with their hands in the till is concerned, the apologies of party leaders have been more acceptable than the defiant bluster of the jumped up little Speaker of the House, but only just!
We are surrounded by acquisitive scoundrels and, as usual, the honourable few (that's very few) will suffer for their rascally associates.
Football. Surprisingly, when it comes to the honourable, a football manager has just shown the way.
Steve Coppell, faced with the realization that his Reading side, beaten by Burnley, would not gain the promotion he sought, has resigned.
Somebody badly needs him.
Pompey? The Saints? The House of Commons?
TELEVISION.
Kirstie's Home-Made Home (C4). This little series was a gem. Kirstie Allsopp ('er who's always after knockin' down walls on Location Location) showed MPs how to make money out of second home renovations without bending any rules.
You just film the whole bang shoot and flog it to commercial television.
It was a five parter which finished last night and if she decides she can make a few quid more by bringing it out on DVD we will buy it.
Newsnight Review (BBC 2). I was well pleased to see the quiet assassin Tom Paulin, accompanied by Anthony Horowitz and Natalie Haynes, doing battle with popular culture again last Friday: Martha Kearney chaired impeccably.
When I looked on the website later it became apparent that Dr. Paulin was not everyone's favourite academic that night.
A "beam me up" bunch of Trekkies was ray gunning for him.
Well, he has survived bigger and better spaced-out showers than them.
Mr Horowitz was not their most popular author, either; they regarded him as a mere writer of children's fiction, presumably unable to comprehend the mind blowing complexity of pointed ears and daring to boldly go where no man has gone before.
This to the man who wrote Foyle's War, one episode of which was worth any ten roller coaster sets of tumbling Enterprise crew members.
Ah well, to each his own.
Inspector George Gently (BBC 1). At the risk of spoiling it for someone, the crimes took something of a back seat in Gently in the Night when our hero challenged his assistant, Sergeant Bacchus, to step into the boxing ring with him for charity.
Young John was full of youthful confidence, but the outcome of the bout probably rested on one word dropped at the time of the challenge.
Suggesting that his superior officer was getting on a bit for fisticuffs, the young man said: "I know you did a bit of boxing in the army..."
and received the timely correction: "For the army."
Nice touch, that.
Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra (BBC2). A combination of Peter and The Wolf, The Young Person's Guide and (never mind The Buzzcocks) some glorious music hall zaniness.
We recorded it.
We shall keep it.
BOOKS.
Bryan Forbes. I have started reading The Endless Game (published, together with A Song At Twilight, by Arrow in 1998) and am reminded that over the years Bryan Forbes has proven to be a very smart all rounder.
Not only did he act, write scripts and direct films, but he turned out a number of very decent thrillers.
And he married Nanette Newman.
Who says you can't have it all?
Kathy Reichs. Following my comments about Death Du Jour, I have acquired (courtesy of my Leader) two more Dr. Temperence Brennan stories Grave Secrets and Break No Bones.
I'll just have to speed up my reading.
Well, at my age...
FILMS.
The Bridges of Madison County. Directed by and starring Clint Eastwood and co-starring Meryl Streep.
I did not see this 1995 film when it was first released; would never have done so had it not been shown on television earlier this year and, even then, have kept it languishing on the recorder for a few months.
Need not have feared.
Mushiness is not on the cards: not with Eastwood directing.
Meryl Streep, using one of her foreign American/American foreign accents, plays an Italian war bride, Francesca Johnson, who has an affair with much travelled photographer Robert Kincaid.
I watched it last night and rather enjoyed it.
Have always liked Meryl Streep, whatever her accent, and Clint Eastwood is totally reliable.
Nice change to see him packing a camera instead of a .44 Magnum, too.
The Night Listener. By coincidence this was screened on television a short time after I wrote about Armistead Maupin's novel in my last post.
It was directed by Patrick Stettner, starred Robin Williams and Toni Collette and sadly, even with Maupin as one of the screenwriters, lacked the suspense and surprise of the book.
No fault of the actors.
Some authors, Maupin and Mary Wesley among them, are just difficult to adapt to the screen.
A FINAL WORD ON THEM.
Trouble is, we could do worse!
I have heard it said already. "Next election we'll vote them all out!"
People are seething and their mood might well be reflected at the polls.
But before we all go off half-cocked I hope common sense will kick in.
We have seen what happens here when riot police are given free rein.
Do we want a reproduction of 1933 Germany?
A National Socialist British Workers' Party, by whatever name and under whatever leadership, would be a disaster.
I think we'd be better off just kicking this lots' arses and sticking to the status quo.
Trouble is, we really could do worse!
The Gurkhas. What a furore about whether or not Gurkhas should become permanent residents here.
The little blokes have fought in countless wars on our side and I'd rather they were for us than against.
So what is all the fuss about?
Are the Powers-That-Be worried lest, a generation or two on, Gurkha soldiers living here will become civilians uninterested in going to war? Do they think martial Nepalese may that quickly transform into pacifist Brits?
Would it matter if they did?
Joanna Lumley's Joan of Arc presence on their behalf has served to further her iconic status, remind us again that she is a consummate actress (many times during her M.P. belittling campaign she gave us her Margaret Thatcher browbeating the boys audition piece) and has provided a tasty hors d'oeuvre to the prize scandal of the week...
MPs Expenses. "What I did was within the rules" will surely go down as the poorest excuse for mishandling public money that has ever been trotted out by elected representatives to a suddenly aware electorate.
The fact that they and their benighted advisers compiled dodgy rules to legalize their actions screams of sharp practice.
If you or I had been discovered doing anything of the kind, whatever our employment, we would have been taken to court, fined and sacked.
So far as their reaction to being caught with their hands in the till is concerned, the apologies of party leaders have been more acceptable than the defiant bluster of the jumped up little Speaker of the House, but only just!
We are surrounded by acquisitive scoundrels and, as usual, the honourable few (that's very few) will suffer for their rascally associates.
Football. Surprisingly, when it comes to the honourable, a football manager has just shown the way.
Steve Coppell, faced with the realization that his Reading side, beaten by Burnley, would not gain the promotion he sought, has resigned.
Somebody badly needs him.
Pompey? The Saints? The House of Commons?
TELEVISION.
Kirstie's Home-Made Home (C4). This little series was a gem. Kirstie Allsopp ('er who's always after knockin' down walls on Location Location) showed MPs how to make money out of second home renovations without bending any rules.
You just film the whole bang shoot and flog it to commercial television.
It was a five parter which finished last night and if she decides she can make a few quid more by bringing it out on DVD we will buy it.
Newsnight Review (BBC 2). I was well pleased to see the quiet assassin Tom Paulin, accompanied by Anthony Horowitz and Natalie Haynes, doing battle with popular culture again last Friday: Martha Kearney chaired impeccably.
When I looked on the website later it became apparent that Dr. Paulin was not everyone's favourite academic that night.
A "beam me up" bunch of Trekkies was ray gunning for him.
Well, he has survived bigger and better spaced-out showers than them.
Mr Horowitz was not their most popular author, either; they regarded him as a mere writer of children's fiction, presumably unable to comprehend the mind blowing complexity of pointed ears and daring to boldly go where no man has gone before.
This to the man who wrote Foyle's War, one episode of which was worth any ten roller coaster sets of tumbling Enterprise crew members.
Ah well, to each his own.
Inspector George Gently (BBC 1). At the risk of spoiling it for someone, the crimes took something of a back seat in Gently in the Night when our hero challenged his assistant, Sergeant Bacchus, to step into the boxing ring with him for charity.
Young John was full of youthful confidence, but the outcome of the bout probably rested on one word dropped at the time of the challenge.
Suggesting that his superior officer was getting on a bit for fisticuffs, the young man said: "I know you did a bit of boxing in the army..."
and received the timely correction: "For the army."
Nice touch, that.
Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra (BBC2). A combination of Peter and The Wolf, The Young Person's Guide and (never mind The Buzzcocks) some glorious music hall zaniness.
We recorded it.
We shall keep it.
BOOKS.
Bryan Forbes. I have started reading The Endless Game (published, together with A Song At Twilight, by Arrow in 1998) and am reminded that over the years Bryan Forbes has proven to be a very smart all rounder.
Not only did he act, write scripts and direct films, but he turned out a number of very decent thrillers.
And he married Nanette Newman.
Who says you can't have it all?
Kathy Reichs. Following my comments about Death Du Jour, I have acquired (courtesy of my Leader) two more Dr. Temperence Brennan stories Grave Secrets and Break No Bones.
I'll just have to speed up my reading.
Well, at my age...
FILMS.
The Bridges of Madison County. Directed by and starring Clint Eastwood and co-starring Meryl Streep.
I did not see this 1995 film when it was first released; would never have done so had it not been shown on television earlier this year and, even then, have kept it languishing on the recorder for a few months.
Need not have feared.
Mushiness is not on the cards: not with Eastwood directing.
Meryl Streep, using one of her foreign American/American foreign accents, plays an Italian war bride, Francesca Johnson, who has an affair with much travelled photographer Robert Kincaid.
I watched it last night and rather enjoyed it.
Have always liked Meryl Streep, whatever her accent, and Clint Eastwood is totally reliable.
Nice change to see him packing a camera instead of a .44 Magnum, too.
The Night Listener. By coincidence this was screened on television a short time after I wrote about Armistead Maupin's novel in my last post.
It was directed by Patrick Stettner, starred Robin Williams and Toni Collette and sadly, even with Maupin as one of the screenwriters, lacked the suspense and surprise of the book.
No fault of the actors.
Some authors, Maupin and Mary Wesley among them, are just difficult to adapt to the screen.
A FINAL WORD ON THEM.
Trouble is, we could do worse!
I have heard it said already. "Next election we'll vote them all out!"
People are seething and their mood might well be reflected at the polls.
But before we all go off half-cocked I hope common sense will kick in.
We have seen what happens here when riot police are given free rein.
Do we want a reproduction of 1933 Germany?
A National Socialist British Workers' Party, by whatever name and under whatever leadership, would be a disaster.
I think we'd be better off just kicking this lots' arses and sticking to the status quo.
Trouble is, we really could do worse!
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
124. And yet more of the usual.
BOOKS.
Kathy Reichs. I have recently finished Kathy Reichs' death du jour.
Ms. Reichs is forensic anthropologist at the Labatoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Quebec. Her heroine, Temperance Brennan, is also a forensic anthropologist.
Fact and fiction merge so well in her stories that it is difficult to see the join.
I have the utmost respect for those talented people who succeed in transforming the subject of their working lives into award winning fiction. (Scott Turow, a practicing lawyer, has the same wonderful gift, though it comes as less of a surprise that a legal man should be able to spin a yarn.)
A forensic anthropologist clearly requires physical and mental toughness, patience, dedication and one helluva brain.
Kathy Reichs is good value.
Armistead Maupin. I read The Night Listener in less than a week: something of a record for me nowadays.
It is vintage Maupin: fascinating characters, absorbing plot and the sort of page turner one would expect from the man who wrote Tales of the City.
In a world beyond my comprehension Mr. Maupin, too, is good value.
TELEVISION.
De-Lovely. (ITV1) One good thing about television programme padding is the opportunity it gives to see films you missed when they were released.
This 2004 musical biography, directed by Irwin Winkler and based on the life and work of Cole Porter, starred Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd as the composer and his wife, Linda.
My Leader and I enjoyed it immensely.
Like all good musicals it bore no relationship whatsoever to real life.
Cole Porter was a gifted tunesmith and superb lyricist who, apart from his marriage, had much in common with Noel Coward and Ivor Novello: they were talented composers and they were homosexuals.
Now they're dead.
Best remember them for their music.
Inspector George Gently (BBC1). He's back then: good old Martin Shaw in Fabian of the Yard mode, all gruff-voiced authoritarianism and unflinching rectitude.
Lee Ingleby, playing the hasty, ambitious know-all D.S. John Bacchus, is still with him.
Excellent stuff.
Primeval (ITV1). Jason Flemyng has taken over from Douglas Henshall.
It's still as daft as ever.
Robin Hood (BBC 1). Toby Stevens, playing Prince John, is replacing Keith Allen's Sheriff of Nottingham for a couple of weeks.
Never fear, it's still as daft as ever.
HOME.
Sister Doris. In between the moves into sheltered accommodation and into care of two of my wife's sisters, another sister, Doris, was admitted to hospital where she died suddenly.
She was 84 and a Jehovah's Witness.
Her funeral service, held at Portchester Crematorium, was well attended by family members - religious and irreligious - and by a good turnout of brother and sister Witnesses.
It was a Witness service.
At the customary gathering afterwards the Watch Tower tribe turned out to be a pleasant enough bunch, bless 'em.
I regard them as cranks rather less sinister than Scientologists, but I do wonder what accident they witnessed. At worst they suffer from an unquestioning belief in their religion, but there's an awful lot of that about.
I remain blissfully irreligious.
Don't care who it is, Jehovah or L. Ron Hubbard: I'd as soon believe in Harry Potter.
Council Elections. Leaflets through the letterbox: the Blair clone Cameron running around the country exhorting people to "vote for change" in the forthcoming local elections (figure it worked for President Obama do they?) and, very soon, the smiling faces of people you do not know and do not want to know, people who have neither known nor particularly wanted to know you, will invite you to vote for them.
Well, we've currently got the Tories and they're rubbish. Before them we had the Liberals and they were ditto. Labour stands not a chance here but, as experienced nationally, who would bank on them?
Whoever gets in here will continue to be manipulated by the suits they are supposed to be employing.
Costs will escalate and services will depreciate.
It has been going on for years.
Don't talk about bloody change to me.
Kathy Reichs. I have recently finished Kathy Reichs' death du jour.
Ms. Reichs is forensic anthropologist at the Labatoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Quebec. Her heroine, Temperance Brennan, is also a forensic anthropologist.
Fact and fiction merge so well in her stories that it is difficult to see the join.
I have the utmost respect for those talented people who succeed in transforming the subject of their working lives into award winning fiction. (Scott Turow, a practicing lawyer, has the same wonderful gift, though it comes as less of a surprise that a legal man should be able to spin a yarn.)
A forensic anthropologist clearly requires physical and mental toughness, patience, dedication and one helluva brain.
Kathy Reichs is good value.
Armistead Maupin. I read The Night Listener in less than a week: something of a record for me nowadays.
It is vintage Maupin: fascinating characters, absorbing plot and the sort of page turner one would expect from the man who wrote Tales of the City.
In a world beyond my comprehension Mr. Maupin, too, is good value.
TELEVISION.
De-Lovely. (ITV1) One good thing about television programme padding is the opportunity it gives to see films you missed when they were released.
This 2004 musical biography, directed by Irwin Winkler and based on the life and work of Cole Porter, starred Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd as the composer and his wife, Linda.
My Leader and I enjoyed it immensely.
Like all good musicals it bore no relationship whatsoever to real life.
Cole Porter was a gifted tunesmith and superb lyricist who, apart from his marriage, had much in common with Noel Coward and Ivor Novello: they were talented composers and they were homosexuals.
Now they're dead.
Best remember them for their music.
Inspector George Gently (BBC1). He's back then: good old Martin Shaw in Fabian of the Yard mode, all gruff-voiced authoritarianism and unflinching rectitude.
Lee Ingleby, playing the hasty, ambitious know-all D.S. John Bacchus, is still with him.
Excellent stuff.
Primeval (ITV1). Jason Flemyng has taken over from Douglas Henshall.
It's still as daft as ever.
Robin Hood (BBC 1). Toby Stevens, playing Prince John, is replacing Keith Allen's Sheriff of Nottingham for a couple of weeks.
Never fear, it's still as daft as ever.
HOME.
Sister Doris. In between the moves into sheltered accommodation and into care of two of my wife's sisters, another sister, Doris, was admitted to hospital where she died suddenly.
She was 84 and a Jehovah's Witness.
Her funeral service, held at Portchester Crematorium, was well attended by family members - religious and irreligious - and by a good turnout of brother and sister Witnesses.
It was a Witness service.
At the customary gathering afterwards the Watch Tower tribe turned out to be a pleasant enough bunch, bless 'em.
I regard them as cranks rather less sinister than Scientologists, but I do wonder what accident they witnessed. At worst they suffer from an unquestioning belief in their religion, but there's an awful lot of that about.
I remain blissfully irreligious.
Don't care who it is, Jehovah or L. Ron Hubbard: I'd as soon believe in Harry Potter.
Council Elections. Leaflets through the letterbox: the Blair clone Cameron running around the country exhorting people to "vote for change" in the forthcoming local elections (figure it worked for President Obama do they?) and, very soon, the smiling faces of people you do not know and do not want to know, people who have neither known nor particularly wanted to know you, will invite you to vote for them.
Well, we've currently got the Tories and they're rubbish. Before them we had the Liberals and they were ditto. Labour stands not a chance here but, as experienced nationally, who would bank on them?
Whoever gets in here will continue to be manipulated by the suits they are supposed to be employing.
Costs will escalate and services will depreciate.
It has been going on for years.
Don't talk about bloody change to me.
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