70. Let's hear it for technology!

ON A PERSONAL NOTE.

At the outset I regarded this blog lark as a bit of Lone Ranger thing. Took it for granted that you just knocked out a few lines, clicked publish and committed the lot to the ether to go unnoticed by one half of the blogging world and ignored by the other. So I was no little surprised to hear last week from a friend with whom we lost touch all of twenty years ago. Helmut is Austrian and lives in Vienna. Seems he caught sight of me on the blog - surely a startling sight for somebody not prepared for it - and, once he had recovered his equilibrium, took the opportunity to e-mail. It was nice to hear from him after such a long time and it looks like I may even have another reader now. Including my Leader that will make around half a dozen that I know of. Hooray!

MORE THOUGHTS FROM A TOO CLEVER CAT.

"You're too clever by half," I said to the cat Shadow when he magically appeared as I was filling his food dish.
"It's a cat's senses thing," he replied airily.
"And was the Man. United - Roma result a cat's senses thing, too?" I asked. "You said you hoped United would get a load of goals in that Champions League return and they didn't disappoint. 7 - 1? Blimey!"
"Oh, according to the word up on the roof it was predictable," he said. "Let slip the dogs of war, didn't they."
"Now you're showing off," I said. "So I guess the win against Watford had to be a foregone conclusion, too."
He shrugged and I blinked foolishly. I can never keep up with his infuriating ability to convey a wordless reprimand for a pointless remark.
I put his food dish down.
"Here you are," I said ungraciously. "Looks like the Red Devils are well on their way in all the competitions, anyway."
He waited in front of his dish, as he always does, until I had stroked his back and murmured the customary: "There you go then."
"They didn't beat Portsmouth, though, did they," he said. "Out of their last four games at Fratton Park, Pompey have won three. Old Harry Redknapp can make a team out of anything. Well, he has to, he can't afford the boot-kicking Scot's sort of signings."
I left him contentedly filling his face with expensive catfood.
It took will-power but I resisted kicking his too clever backside.

NOW THE TECHNOLOGY BIT.

Son Neil has sent us a film of a mouse and a bird simultaneously attacking a food container in their Cornish garden. He has named this little masterpiece Tit Mouse! and the following link may enable you to watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPciedliT5s

Let's hear it for technology!

69. New stuff on the box - good and bad!

GEORGE GENTLY (BBC1, Easter Day 2007)

After Foyle's War and Life On Mars we have George Gently, an early sixties crime buster played by the former randy Judge John Deed, Martin Shaw. This was a one-off, which is probably just another word for pilot. It certainly looked good to become a series.
Martin Shaw always impresses. He has televisual looks and enough acting ability to be comfortable in any company. His gruff "Fabian of the Yard" character in this decent detective drama was incorruptible and believable. It is not always easy to convince as both but he did. He was splendidly supported by Phil ("Shake me up, Judy") Davis as Joe Webster, the sort of villain everybody has read about in the Sunday papers and prays will not move into their manor. He was also given the ambitious, well-connected, smart-arse of a juvenile lead Bacchus (Lee Ingleby) as his assistant.
This was a promising first adaptation of a book by Alan Hunter and a quite neat attempt to find a replacement for the late lamented John Thaw's late lamented Endeavour Morse. I just hope that it will not be used (as it rather tended to be with Philip Glenister's DCI Gene Hunt in Life On Mars) as a back door means of absolving the politically incorrect. Any device used to perpetuate values since discarded as valueless has to be viewed with suspicion.

IGNORING BIGOTRY.

I was brought up in the thirties. As a boy, the only black people I ever saw were in films. They threw spears at Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller) or carried parcels on their heads for actors like Leslie Banks (Sanders of the River. 1935) and Sir C. Aubrey Smith (Tarzan The Ape Man. 1932) The only P.C. in our upbringing was a fat old copper on a bike: nobody liked him. East was east and west was west (Kipling, I believe, but no matter). Our schooling allowed for no awkward questions and was strong on the principle that everything coloured pink on the globe was ruled by us.
We have ruled nobody for almost as long as I have been alive, of course, but there are still many people who would like to believe that we do; that we are still a nation to be reckoned with. Pro rata we have as many bigots in this country as there are in America and that says something.
Nowadays I try to avoid all the jingoistic crap, the blatant sex discrimination and the puerile political (let alone religious) beliefs still popular with many of my fellow countrymen.
That having been said, I find, to my shame, that I offer no word of reproval when an old friend and contemporary tells me that he has stopped supporting his local football team because if he wanted to watch Kenya play he'd go to bloody Africa.
I may even have laughed.
It is as well that Yasmin Alibhai-Brown of The Independent does not read stuff like this. I would not want to add to her despair at the state of the national psyche. But there you are, concerned lady, an awful lot of old buckets will have to be kicked before this country becomes a haven for any but the likes of Al Murray's Pub Landlord or, more insidiously, those like me who sadly can condone bigotry by ignoring it.

RUDDY HELL! IT'S HARRY & PAUL. (BBC1, Friday 13th April)

Bloody hell! It's absolute crap.

68. One aged failure and two old favourites.

THROUGH THE KEYHOLE. (BBC 2)

Yes, David Frost is back again with the show where, according to the Radio Times: "Celebrity panellists put their heads together to identify the homes of the rich and famous."
Trouble is, the 'celebrity panellists' mostly only meet the modern reality game show definition of celebrity (unknown but confident) and the 'rich and famous' are far more the former than the latter.
The programme has now been extended to three quarters of an hour, which allows time for the lovely Stefanie Powers to look over the house of a (probably 'resting') showbiz person in America - a process carried out giving every clue imaginable as to the resident's identity short of actually using their long forgotten name.
As for the British homes, I have been pushing the cleaner around in my Leader's absence because if some of their owners are famous, so am I! Our unstately home could be on the next series. I wouldn't lay any odds, though.
Sadly the format of this old chestnut remains, like its presenter, boring and repetitive. It should be scrapped and he should retire to his stately pile. Has that ever been seen on Through the Keyhole?
No?
Well, if it ever is, don't bother me.
I'll be out making the tea.

EGGHEADS. (BBC2)

I like the Eggheads. Oh, the show is pretty much the sort of thing that I would usually avoid, but I happen to like the Eggheads themselves and sometimes wonder if I am the only twit in the country who does not obtain a spark of malicious pleasure when, very occasionally, they are beaten.
Strange though it may seem, one of the reasons I find myself siding with them is that they are very much the underdogs in this cunningly manipulated posh pub quiz. Everything is weighted in the challengers' favour. Choice of opponent, whether to go first or second with the questions, knowledge - through viewing past programmes - of the particular Egghead's weak subject and, last and very much least, the programme host, Dermot Murnaghan (a refugee news reader) whose totally one-sided presentation leaves no doubt that he just can't wait to see the clever buggers beaten by somebody...anybody!
In fairness, I do not think Mr. Murnaghan alone is responsible for this "let's beat the smug know-alls" attitude. I feel that those manipulative little sods behind the scenes may have something to do with it, too. Perhaps I am being paranoid, but have they advised challengers whether it will be better to go first or second? Have they suggested loud, open discussions on the Eggheads' perceived strengths and weaknesses? Have they encouraged the challenging team's wild applause and noisy support not only when one of them gets an answer right but when an Egghead gets one wrong?
(We-e-ell, it's good television, innit?)
Meanwhile the unflappable Kevin Ashman answers, briefly and correctly, almost every question put to him. Dear, deceptive Daphne Fowler twinkles as she dispatches yet another rash victim. Ol' Chris Hughes wraps up the simplest answer in a welter of (invariably correct) verbiage. Judith Keppel clearly struggles as the Murnaghan-baited fish-out-of-water and CJ de Mooi, whatever hairstyle, is himself: a laughable, knowledgeable, dismissive, vulnerable, occasionally sulky but mostly likeable young man with an impressive IQ. (He and I would be unlikely to get along but I'm an old man who has to look up IQ in the dictionary.)
I shall continue to watch Eggheads, continue to support the home team and continue to hurl abuse at the leprechaun of a referee.
Don't tell me I should get out more.
I know.

NCIS (Five)

I make no excuse for mentioning NCIS again. It continues to stand way above the majority of the opposition if only for the talent of its scriptwriters. Tonight's episode started with a weekend emergency which brought our team hurrying to Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and his by now typecast haircut. There followed some deft throwaway lines culminating in an exchange between Abby (Pauley Perette) and Agent Gibbs which starts with Abby marching in, military style, removing her helmet and giving a left-handed salute:
Gibbs: Wrong hand, Abbs.
(Abby salutes again, right handed)
Abby: Permission to speak freely, sir?
Gibbs: You always do, Abbs.
Abby: I know, but I've always wanted to say that.
And finishes with:
Abby: Thank you, sir!
Gibbs: Don't call me sir.
Abby: Thank you, ma'm. (Exits)
(Gibbs grins)
We grinned, too. This clever, funny, thoughtful show stays high on our don't miss list

67. I still remember...

AND THEY'RE STILL AT WAR.

"You were right," I told the cat Shadow."Football is only an
excuse for more and more war."
He looked surprisingly less than triumphant.
He said: "Saw that business in Rome, did you? No decent cat
would behave like that. We try to look all tough and territorial
but only a psychopathic cat fights for nothing."
I sighed.
"The Italian police certainly didn't seem to need much of
an excuse," I said. "You get the feeling that they were just
waiting to baton-charge a crowd of unarmed foreign
football fans. That they've been waiting for it all year."
"They probably have," he said. "It's an us and them thing
with most police forces. Besides, nobody is going to arrest
the police for assault, are they, no matter how violent. So
they use the excuse to let off steam and practise all the
crowd control thuggery they've been taught during the year."
"Anyway, Manchester United lost," I said as an afterthought.
"Oh, I'm not crowing," he reflected gently. "I may not be
fond of the boot-kicking Scot and his Red Devils but I don't
wish violence on them or their supporters. No, with any luck
Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo will score a load of
goals when Roma goes to Old Trafford next Tuesday."
I eyed him in total perplexity:
"Thought you weren't interested in soccer anymore?"
"Oh, I'm not," he said. "I shan't watch it."
"You'll be out beating the bounds then," I said.
He sensed the disbelief in my voice and headed for
the cat flap.
I went the other way.
I still remember the last time he did that...

IT'S A BIT QUIET.

My Leader is in Oxford so it's a bit quiet around here.
Don't ask, just guess that it has everything to do
with looking after cats and you won't be far wrong.
Anyway, she will be back at the weekend.
I shall drive down to meet her off the 4 p.m
boat, BT and Wightlink permitting.
The French have a train which travels at over three
hundred miles an hour. ("Mind your coffee, Henri!")
We have an Oh Mister Porter set-up that goes into line
maintenance melt down every bank holiday.
So Maureen will be back at the helm on Saturday evening, BT
and our generally dependable ferry service permitting.
Why am I telling you this?
I don't know.
Like I said, it's a bit quiet around here.

T.H.WHITE AGAIN.

I have just finished reading the second book in
T.H.White's Arthurian saga The Once And Future King.
The Witch in the Wood is an equally compelling but
altogether different book from The Sword in the Stone.
Much of The Witch in the Wood is taken up with the
origin and effects of war.
Mr. White's philosophy was sound and humane.
His book should be compulsory reading once a year
for Tony Blair.
And once a year it should be read to George Bush

66. It's war everywhere

WHAT FOOTBALL?

"England won," I said to the cat Shadow.
"Won what?" he asked.
"The football," I said.
"What football?"
"The international. Beat Andorra."
"Oh, I was away while all those overpaid prima donnas pranced
about," he grumbled. "Seemed by far the best thing a sensible
cat could do."
"Well, England won 3 - 0," I persisted.
"Not until the second half, though," he said.
I eyed him speculatively.
"Oh, we hear it all up there on the rooftops," he continued.
"News travels fast, especially bad news."
"And a 3 - 0 win is bad news?"
"Given the team they were playing and the time it took...very
bad news."
I gave him my Professor Snape look of hearty detestation.
"Do sod off," I said.
He marched to the cat flap.
Half way out he broke wind.
Just has to have the last word.

ANOTHER GIFT FROM THE CHANCER CHANCELLOR.

A government which contains the tiresome trio Blair, Brown
and Reid is a government with three Scottish connections
too many. Latest of these unworthies to arouse my ire yet
again is the jaw-dropping Chancellor who last week finished
a budget speech by smugly announcing a drop in income
tax, then slapped an extra £5 on the Road Fund Tax for my
little car and required me to pay the extra when I presented
at the post office the following day.
If proof was needed that the only thing worse than a
politician is a child molester, there it is.
What's more, when dear Tony finally gets his backside out of
it, this pillar of probity will probably become Prime Minister.
Bloody hell!

WHY ARE WE THERE AT ALL?

The news that fifteen British sailors and marines had been
captured in disputed waters of the Persian Gulf and were
being held captive in Iran came as the sort of shock that
brings about the reaction: "Right! That's us at war then!"
Now that they have been released, however, is it not
reasonable to ask why we are there at all?
All this 'ferreting out terrorists' bullshit cuts no ice when
it is clear that we are probably only there to safeguard
the price of petrol in America.
And If you think about it, how would we react if a bunch
of Iranian gunboats turned up in The English Channel and
searched passing ships?
Would we accept their claims that they were on the
French side of the water?
Huh!