63. Foyle, Sypowicz, Arthur, Bucket, Potter & Those ***king Politicians

FOYLE'S WAR. (ITV 1)

He was back again at the weekend. The excellent Michael Kitchen playing DCS Christopher Foyle. He was accompanied as usual by posh driver Sam Stewart, played by Honeysuckle Weeks (I do so love that name), his "lorst-a-leg-in- action-and-a-wife-when-'e-got-'ome" sergeant, the unfortunate Paul Milner (Anthony Howell) and a reliable cast of wartime appearance actors which included Liz Fraser to remind us that there can be life after Carry On. He was also assisted by his acting trilby, the blue one, just to show that he meant business.
This time poor old Milner was prime suspect in the eyes of everybody...well, everybody but Foyle, Sam, the entire Hastings police station and us... when his absentee wife returned and promptly got done in. Any mockery on my part is gentle.
The acting, the sets, the authentic 39 - 45 feel of it all takes me right back to those magical b/w days of Green For Danger ( Alistair Sim), Went The Day Well? (Leslie Banks) and Cottage To Let (Leslie Banks, Alistair Sim, John Mills and a little boy named George Cole).
Foyle's War rates extremely well, especially alongside the latter two which were simply propaganda films.
A new series soon, please, ITV.

NYPD Blue. Series 12 (More4)

I guess that's it then. Sgt. Sypowicz was seconded to Detectives as predicted in my post before last. It didn't take an egghead to work it out. He was then made boss of the department and succeeded in pissing off the Chief right away by doing that most unacceptable of all things - being right. That figured, too.
He was making a start on the paperwork at the end.
My thanks for some splendid viewing go to Dennis Franz and Co.
Come back soon.

CURRENT READING.

I am reading The Once And Future King the complete edition of T.H. White's Arthurian fantasy (HarperCollins) and am currently close to the end of Book 1, The Sword In The Stone. Terence Hanbury White is required reading.
Born in 1906 and educated at Cheltenham and Cambridge he had written poems, books on sports and some detective stories before finding fame with this first King Arthur tale in 1939. The second book, The Witch In The Wood was published in 1940, the same year that the final volume, The Candle In The Wind was written. Ill-Made Knight and The Book Of Merlyn were produced in 1941.
These are wonderfully imaginative, meticulously researched, beautifully written books by a master of his craft. They will keep me company, along with Keeping Up Appearances, Hyacinth Bucket's unashamedly pretentious Book Of Etiquette for the Socially Less Fortunate (BBC Books) until I re-read Harry Potter And (as I usually refer to him) The Half Cut Prince. That will be just before July 21 this year when Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows brings the series to an end.
I hear that J.K. Rowling has already finished it.
Well, whether she has or she has not:
"Keep writing, J.K., keep writing!"

THOSE GREEDY ***KING POLITICIANS AGAIN.

I hear today that those greedy ***king politicians in London have put up their "grab the motorist's money and sod'im" payment to £8 and extended the boundary further west. I think they call it "congestion tax."
It is actually highway robbery. How much further west do they intend to go?
Reading?
Bristol?
And how long before all the other little local money grabbers follow suit?
Maybe one day millions of we motorists will do what should have done years ago and say: "Get stuffed! We're not paying!"
Well the Tossers in Power would have a job labelling all of us as terrorists, and they surely have neither enough remote MoD airfields nor enough hard-faced American 'friends' to secretly shuffle that many people off to Guantamano Bay.
Have they?

62. Browsing the Box

FIVE DAYS (BBC1)
We enjoyed this thriller by Gwyneth Hughes as much as we
thought we would and our expectations were quite high.
Jack Shepherd's Wycliffe and Michael Kitchen's Foyle apart,
DSI Iain Barclay (Hugh Bonneville) was more restrained than
has been any boss of a television police department since
the monstrous DS Charlie Barlow, played by Stratford Johns,
shouted his way into our living rooms back in the dim and
distant days of Z Cars.
Currently we are suffering the manic DS Peter Boyd
(Trevor Eve) in Waking the Dead (BBC1) and the
bellowing DCS Michael Walker (David Hayman) in
Trial and Retribution (ITV1).
DSI (whatever that may stand for) Barclay was a change
for the better.
Met too many of the likes of Boyd and Walker in my army
days.
They were pricks, too.

YOU DON'T KNOW YOU'RE BORN.

Despite an obvious rip-off from the earlier (BBC) genealogy
series, Who Do You Think You Are? (Moira Stuart, Ian Hislop
etc.) this short ITV1 series turned out to be a steal with a
neat twist.
It invited celebrity participants to find out about their
ancestors and, as they did so, to try their hands at some of
the jobs done by them.
This week it was the charismatic Ken Stott.
He found a Scottish past in baking and tailoring and, on his
Italian side, one in both fish selling and the priesthood.
His attempts as baker, tailor and fisherman were good
natured and (as could be expected) immensely watchable.
At times, despite his best efforts, his depth of feeling was
palpable.
Everywhere he went he was clearly liked and respected.
No surprise there.
My Leader likes him: my daughters like him: even our
bloody cat likes him.
And he still manages to keep his private life private.
I'd like him if only for that.