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Finally sorted.
If you look up Hogwarts on Google you will be find a couple of Hogwarts Sorting Hat quizzes designed to tell you which school house you belong to.
I tried them both and each gave me the same result :- "Gryffindor!"
Yeah, I thought it would probably say that for everybody, too: but it doesn’t.
My Leader’s result said Ravenclaw. Would you believe it?
Go on. Be daft. Have a go!
Get Sorted By The Hogwarts Sorting Hat!
That wedding.
Were you carried along on the flood of publicity for the Kate and Wills nuptials? I may not have been, but there was no denying my Leader.
“It’s a woman’s thing,” she explained gently. “No woman can resist a good wedding.”
Well, I thought, it would be churlish and probably sexist to turn my back on it then. So I watched with her.
Good, wasn’t it?
Oh, I can understand if you are one of those who saw it only as a royal publicity stunt, a costly exercise in public manipulation at a time when thousands…millions even…of youngsters have a snowballs chance in hell of affording any sort of wedding, let alone the deposit on a small house. But, no matter how understandable your disenchantment, when it comes to the Kate and Wills wingding you will find yourself much in the minority.
Thing is, this country does pageantry better than any other country in the world. Nowadays, come to think of it, pageantry is probably the only bloody thing this country does do better than any other country in the world.
As a devout non-believer (in just about everything), to my surprise I quite enjoyed the wedding service, approved of the hymns and found myself solemnly agreeing with the Bishop of London’s homily.
They came across as a nice young couple and no matter how undesirable the idea of another hereditary king may be, the contention that the post would better be filled by some power-mad …king politician is just a nonsense.
Anyway, all the horses and carriages and smiling and waving and kisses on the balcony and mass adulation whilst a dear little girl held her hands over her ears was magically awful.
Christ knows what it has cost, but there is certainly no shortage of people wishing the pair all the best.
We’re among ‘em.
AWAY
Hogwarts and beyond.
A couple of weekends back the young family went on holiday to Florida for a fortnight to visit Disneyland and the world of Harry Potter. They returned just a few days ago. Enjoyed every moment of it. Didn’t want to come back. They plan to return in a couple of years when Boo is eight and big enough to go on all the rides.
My Leader and I enjoyed their enjoyment via phone calls, texts etc. Neither of us was keen to discover Disney, but I would quite like to have seen Hogwarts. Bit long in the tooth for all the traipsing around now, though, and the sight of a moving staircase would make me queasy.
Anyway, we quite enjoyed a selfish fortnight to ourselves.
More 254.
By way of a short break, on the day the young family went to America we returned to Botleigh Grange Hotel, Hedge End, Hants, for this year’s get-together of 254 OBA Southern Chapter (Posts 135 and 143 refer).
We travelled across on the Friday. this time the weather favoured us and our experience of last year made the trip that much easier. Indeed, the following day we motored around Hampshire finishing up at Alton - what a super little town - and drove back via the area where we lived when we were first married. Lord, in nearly fifty years how everything has changed!
Once again the service at Botleigh Grange Hotel was excellent and the accommodation first class.
Our thanks to Pat and Maureen Soward for the understated time and effort they always put into organizing the event and to all the OBA members, spouses and guests whose mutual affability is the making of it.
ABROAD
Death of Osama Bin Laden.
After nearly a decade, the alleged mastermind behind 9/11 has been killed by U.S. troops in Pakistan. The news was announced by President Barack Obama on 2nd May.
Given the American propensity for death by friendly fire, my first reaction was one of relief that Lawrence of Arabia died in a motor cycle accident in 1935.
TELEVISION.
Doctor Who. (BBC1)
I don’t quite know what this new series is all about. In the first two-part story President Richard Nixon figured prominently and that was enough to curdle my yoghurt.
River, played by Alex Kingston, cheered things up a bit, but the producers are apparently going for a darker approach this time. Could be good. We might even finish up in Copenhagen with DI Sarah Lund.
The second story took place in pirate land. Hugh Bonneville and Lily Cole were the guest stars and it all took place in a single episode which wickedly incorporated every cliché in the book (except Long John Silver’s parrot). Funnily enough, the one episode formula was more understandable. Perhaps condensing it simplified the plot.
Exile. (BBC1)
This was a three parter with a sterling cast which included Jim Broadbent, Olivia Colman, Shaun Dooley, Claire Goose, John Simm and Timothy West.
Tom Ronstadt, a drug-riddled journalist, returns to Lancashire determined to discover why his father, Sam, former deputy editor of the local newspaper and now an Alzheimer’s sufferer, had once beaten him so badly that he had left home intending never to return.
Tom’s investigation uncovers a Haut de la Garenne style scandal and a brutal truth about his background.
The story could as easily have been told in two parts, but the acting well compensated for any feeling that it took its time and, as is often the way with a good drama, there was the occasional line of dialogue that particularly appealed to me.
Tom’s father - in a rare lucid moment - said of a former boss:
“He couldn’t write fuck on a dusty blind.”
God bless cantankerous old journalists!
Vera. (ITV1)
Shades of Sarah Lund, the goggle-eyed crime fiction fan cannot help but feel a sense of déjà vu whenever a new British cop show is aired.
DCI Vera Stanhope, played by Brenda Blethyn as a cranky, menopausal matriarch, is another addition to the let’s-doff-our-hats-to-Denmark school.
I have been a Brenda Blethyn admirer since the days of Chance in a Million and Outside Edge, so feel sorry that I cannot see Vera as the next Jack Frost.
Not that I’m an expert: when I first saw Frost I thought David Jason was miscast and way too small for a copper.
Didn’t take into account the size of the talent, did I?
Case Sensitive. (ITV1)
Detective Sergeant Charlie Zailer (Olivia Williams), the second female sleuth to appear on ITV in as many days, turned out to be a personal life disaster in charge of a complicated murder enquiry. Her problems were compounded by a slim DC sidekick who was probably in love with her and a fat overbearing boss who definitely was not.
She and her sidekick solved the case and, in so doing, doubtless saved the fat boss from a quick walk into early retirement. Well, unless he was looking to end his career, no head of a police department would put a lowly sergeant in charge of a high profile murder investigation. Not bloody likely.
Poetic licence?
Do come on.
United. (BBC2)
The Busby Babes and the Munich air tragedy.
We watched, close to tears, as David Tennant (playing coach Jimmy Murphy) and the remainder of an excellent cast, took us back to the BEA Elizabethan plane crash that resulted in the dreadful depletion of Matt Busby’s brilliant young Manchester United football team in February 1958.
United is back at the top again this year.
Whatever you may think, it belongs there.
The Wright Stuff. (C5)
When I have nothing else to do, which is seldom, I look in on Matthew Wright, an ex Mirror journalist (Piers Morgan was his editor. Cassandra must have been spinning at the speed of light!) who has a weekday morning show where he tolerates a small studio audience and accepts a few phone-ins from people prepared to chance his mood of the moment.
To like the show you have to like Matthew Wright; or simply thank God he’s not Jeremy Kyle. I fall into the latter category.
It helps, too, if you like the (mostly media) people invited along as guests for the week. I usually do.
Last week Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Neil Stuke were the permanent guests and Claire Goose turned up one morning to talk about her part in Exile. It was a change to see Mrs. A-B without the unwell-wishers who seem to dog her every public appearance and the panellista were generally lively and candid without being unnecessarily aggressive.
This week Mark Little is on the panel: another excellent contributor. The host, though, will be away undergoing an operation on his lower back.
I wish him good luck and hope he will be back soon (cue for song).
Well, The Wright Stuff without Wright would never run on like Taggart has.
READING.
Graham Hurley.
In No Lovelier Death (Orion) a teenage party at a judge’s house in the posh Southsea district of Craneswater is advertised on Facebook, attracts scores of kids from contrasting backgrounds, and culminates in riot and murder.
There are two corpses alongside the swimming pool of the holidaying judge’s next door neighbour and one of them is the party giver, Rachel, the judge’s daughter.
To add to DI Faraday's problems, he and his colleagues are not alone in their pursuit of the murderer. The judge’s next door neighbour is Baz Mackenzie, a former drug baron and semi-reformed hard case who had promised to keep an eye on things while the judge was away. Baz feels he has a personal score to settle…
This is Graham Hurley on top form.
THEATRE.
Barry Cryer.
We enjoyed a rare evening out recently when Pauline and Neil (the Ventnor Barndens) asked us if we would like to see Barry Cryer at Shanklin Theatre with them and a bunch of friends. We would and we did.
Ol’ Baz, accompanied by I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue pianist Colin Sell, coasted through the evening like a cyclist on a long downhill run.
Using the alphabet method to introduce his topics he cruised through just about every email joke doing the rounds in the past five years (he probably wrote most of them), performed a couple of songs, indulged in a little Flanders and Swann banter with pianist Colin, dropped a few famous names without making us cringe and concluded his act (with an encore) to warm applause.
Well you have to admire a man who not only can remember all those email jokes at the age of 76, but is brave enough to wear a bright red waistcoat.
Lovely evening, Mr. Cryer.
Thanks again, Paul and S.J.
Finally sorted.
If you look up Hogwarts on Google you will be find a couple of Hogwarts Sorting Hat quizzes designed to tell you which school house you belong to.
I tried them both and each gave me the same result :- "Gryffindor!"
Yeah, I thought it would probably say that for everybody, too: but it doesn’t.
My Leader’s result said Ravenclaw. Would you believe it?
Go on. Be daft. Have a go!
Get Sorted By The Hogwarts Sorting Hat!
That wedding.
Were you carried along on the flood of publicity for the Kate and Wills nuptials? I may not have been, but there was no denying my Leader.
“It’s a woman’s thing,” she explained gently. “No woman can resist a good wedding.”
Well, I thought, it would be churlish and probably sexist to turn my back on it then. So I watched with her.
Good, wasn’t it?
Oh, I can understand if you are one of those who saw it only as a royal publicity stunt, a costly exercise in public manipulation at a time when thousands…millions even…of youngsters have a snowballs chance in hell of affording any sort of wedding, let alone the deposit on a small house. But, no matter how understandable your disenchantment, when it comes to the Kate and Wills wingding you will find yourself much in the minority.
Thing is, this country does pageantry better than any other country in the world. Nowadays, come to think of it, pageantry is probably the only bloody thing this country does do better than any other country in the world.
As a devout non-believer (in just about everything), to my surprise I quite enjoyed the wedding service, approved of the hymns and found myself solemnly agreeing with the Bishop of London’s homily.
They came across as a nice young couple and no matter how undesirable the idea of another hereditary king may be, the contention that the post would better be filled by some power-mad …king politician is just a nonsense.
Anyway, all the horses and carriages and smiling and waving and kisses on the balcony and mass adulation whilst a dear little girl held her hands over her ears was magically awful.
Christ knows what it has cost, but there is certainly no shortage of people wishing the pair all the best.
We’re among ‘em.
AWAY
Hogwarts and beyond.
A couple of weekends back the young family went on holiday to Florida for a fortnight to visit Disneyland and the world of Harry Potter. They returned just a few days ago. Enjoyed every moment of it. Didn’t want to come back. They plan to return in a couple of years when Boo is eight and big enough to go on all the rides.
My Leader and I enjoyed their enjoyment via phone calls, texts etc. Neither of us was keen to discover Disney, but I would quite like to have seen Hogwarts. Bit long in the tooth for all the traipsing around now, though, and the sight of a moving staircase would make me queasy.
Anyway, we quite enjoyed a selfish fortnight to ourselves.
More 254.
By way of a short break, on the day the young family went to America we returned to Botleigh Grange Hotel, Hedge End, Hants, for this year’s get-together of 254 OBA Southern Chapter (Posts 135 and 143 refer).
We travelled across on the Friday. this time the weather favoured us and our experience of last year made the trip that much easier. Indeed, the following day we motored around Hampshire finishing up at Alton - what a super little town - and drove back via the area where we lived when we were first married. Lord, in nearly fifty years how everything has changed!
Once again the service at Botleigh Grange Hotel was excellent and the accommodation first class.
Our thanks to Pat and Maureen Soward for the understated time and effort they always put into organizing the event and to all the OBA members, spouses and guests whose mutual affability is the making of it.
ABROAD
Death of Osama Bin Laden.
After nearly a decade, the alleged mastermind behind 9/11 has been killed by U.S. troops in Pakistan. The news was announced by President Barack Obama on 2nd May.
Given the American propensity for death by friendly fire, my first reaction was one of relief that Lawrence of Arabia died in a motor cycle accident in 1935.
TELEVISION.
Doctor Who. (BBC1)
I don’t quite know what this new series is all about. In the first two-part story President Richard Nixon figured prominently and that was enough to curdle my yoghurt.
River, played by Alex Kingston, cheered things up a bit, but the producers are apparently going for a darker approach this time. Could be good. We might even finish up in Copenhagen with DI Sarah Lund.
The second story took place in pirate land. Hugh Bonneville and Lily Cole were the guest stars and it all took place in a single episode which wickedly incorporated every cliché in the book (except Long John Silver’s parrot). Funnily enough, the one episode formula was more understandable. Perhaps condensing it simplified the plot.
Exile. (BBC1)
This was a three parter with a sterling cast which included Jim Broadbent, Olivia Colman, Shaun Dooley, Claire Goose, John Simm and Timothy West.
Tom Ronstadt, a drug-riddled journalist, returns to Lancashire determined to discover why his father, Sam, former deputy editor of the local newspaper and now an Alzheimer’s sufferer, had once beaten him so badly that he had left home intending never to return.
Tom’s investigation uncovers a Haut de la Garenne style scandal and a brutal truth about his background.
The story could as easily have been told in two parts, but the acting well compensated for any feeling that it took its time and, as is often the way with a good drama, there was the occasional line of dialogue that particularly appealed to me.
Tom’s father - in a rare lucid moment - said of a former boss:
“He couldn’t write fuck on a dusty blind.”
God bless cantankerous old journalists!
Vera. (ITV1)
Shades of Sarah Lund, the goggle-eyed crime fiction fan cannot help but feel a sense of déjà vu whenever a new British cop show is aired.
DCI Vera Stanhope, played by Brenda Blethyn as a cranky, menopausal matriarch, is another addition to the let’s-doff-our-hats-to-Denmark school.
I have been a Brenda Blethyn admirer since the days of Chance in a Million and Outside Edge, so feel sorry that I cannot see Vera as the next Jack Frost.
Not that I’m an expert: when I first saw Frost I thought David Jason was miscast and way too small for a copper.
Didn’t take into account the size of the talent, did I?
Case Sensitive. (ITV1)
Detective Sergeant Charlie Zailer (Olivia Williams), the second female sleuth to appear on ITV in as many days, turned out to be a personal life disaster in charge of a complicated murder enquiry. Her problems were compounded by a slim DC sidekick who was probably in love with her and a fat overbearing boss who definitely was not.
She and her sidekick solved the case and, in so doing, doubtless saved the fat boss from a quick walk into early retirement. Well, unless he was looking to end his career, no head of a police department would put a lowly sergeant in charge of a high profile murder investigation. Not bloody likely.
Poetic licence?
Do come on.
United. (BBC2)
The Busby Babes and the Munich air tragedy.
We watched, close to tears, as David Tennant (playing coach Jimmy Murphy) and the remainder of an excellent cast, took us back to the BEA Elizabethan plane crash that resulted in the dreadful depletion of Matt Busby’s brilliant young Manchester United football team in February 1958.
United is back at the top again this year.
Whatever you may think, it belongs there.
The Wright Stuff. (C5)
When I have nothing else to do, which is seldom, I look in on Matthew Wright, an ex Mirror journalist (Piers Morgan was his editor. Cassandra must have been spinning at the speed of light!) who has a weekday morning show where he tolerates a small studio audience and accepts a few phone-ins from people prepared to chance his mood of the moment.
To like the show you have to like Matthew Wright; or simply thank God he’s not Jeremy Kyle. I fall into the latter category.
It helps, too, if you like the (mostly media) people invited along as guests for the week. I usually do.
Last week Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Neil Stuke were the permanent guests and Claire Goose turned up one morning to talk about her part in Exile. It was a change to see Mrs. A-B without the unwell-wishers who seem to dog her every public appearance and the panellista were generally lively and candid without being unnecessarily aggressive.
This week Mark Little is on the panel: another excellent contributor. The host, though, will be away undergoing an operation on his lower back.
I wish him good luck and hope he will be back soon (cue for song).
Well, The Wright Stuff without Wright would never run on like Taggart has.
READING.
Graham Hurley.
In No Lovelier Death (Orion) a teenage party at a judge’s house in the posh Southsea district of Craneswater is advertised on Facebook, attracts scores of kids from contrasting backgrounds, and culminates in riot and murder.
There are two corpses alongside the swimming pool of the holidaying judge’s next door neighbour and one of them is the party giver, Rachel, the judge’s daughter.
To add to DI Faraday's problems, he and his colleagues are not alone in their pursuit of the murderer. The judge’s next door neighbour is Baz Mackenzie, a former drug baron and semi-reformed hard case who had promised to keep an eye on things while the judge was away. Baz feels he has a personal score to settle…
This is Graham Hurley on top form.
THEATRE.
Barry Cryer.
We enjoyed a rare evening out recently when Pauline and Neil (the Ventnor Barndens) asked us if we would like to see Barry Cryer at Shanklin Theatre with them and a bunch of friends. We would and we did.
Ol’ Baz, accompanied by I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue pianist Colin Sell, coasted through the evening like a cyclist on a long downhill run.
Using the alphabet method to introduce his topics he cruised through just about every email joke doing the rounds in the past five years (he probably wrote most of them), performed a couple of songs, indulged in a little Flanders and Swann banter with pianist Colin, dropped a few famous names without making us cringe and concluded his act (with an encore) to warm applause.
Well you have to admire a man who not only can remember all those email jokes at the age of 76, but is brave enough to wear a bright red waistcoat.
Lovely evening, Mr. Cryer.
Thanks again, Paul and S.J.
