IN THE NEWS.
The Floods.
I guess everybody from religious fanatics to global warming know-alls will spout their reasons for the unprecedented rainfall that has caused such devastation and sad loss of life this autumn.
Truth is, we are never prepared for freaks of nature and mostly live in a cocoon of complacency wherein disasters only happen to other people.
Television reminds us that the elements can beset anybody, but the comfort of an armchair in a warm living room removes reality from the situation.
Cameras never linger too long on chaos. Insurance companies hurry to advance it as a reason why next year’s premiums will go up. The usual platitudes about lessons being learned are routinely served up by beleaguered officialdom.
Cures are promised right up until the crippling pecuniary aspects become clear; then councils cravenly decide that effectiveness cannot be guaranteed; anyway, next year it will probably happen somewhere else…
Lessons will have been learned, though.
Mind out for that flying pig!
FILMS.
Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
Well I suppose one way to ensure that audiences know exactly the sort of film they are going to see is to slap a number after the title and rely on the success of the original to bring them back
So far none of these computer-animated gems has failed to amuse and entertain. This one incorporates a wealth of original ideas with some extended sight gags carried along from the two earlier films.
We loved it.
The numbered Ice Ages have even been given subsidiary titles (number 2 was The Meltdown).
Whether you have kids or, like me, are a big kid, I would recommend you obtain the complete DVD set.
And refuse to lend any of them out!
Night at the Museum 2.
No additional title to this one, just the number and Ben Stiller’s name at the top.
It’s OK, but only half as good as the original.
Don’t know whether any more are planned.
Hope not.
A third night at the museum would be one and a half too many.
TELEVISION.
Merlin. (BBC1)
New characters come and go, with or without ceremony.
King Uther Pendragon (Anthony Head) firmly believing that he has weeded out all the wizards in Camelot, maintains a blinkered unawareness that they are still gathered around him. In a recent episode he even married a troll (lovely OTT stuff from Sarah Parish).
His son Arthur (Bradley James) has yet to realise that manservant Merlin (Colin Morgan) has the description 'practising wizard' included in his C.V.
Amidst all the drama on offer, this sublime load of tosh gets barmier and more enjoyable by the week.
A great Saturday teatime warm-up for…
Strictly Come Dancing. (BBC1)
Where none of the pairs now stands out for culling.
I have no idea who the winners will be: was originally convinced that Ricky and Natalie had to make it to the final and there probably be competing with Ali and Brian. But Chris (with Ola) has terrific public support and Laila (a very good dancer) has Anton, a superb partner.
Nope, I can’t choose between them. They’re all great.
If it was left to me they’d all get a trophy.
The Paul O’Grady Show. (C4)
Theatricals and showbiz names clearly enjoy being on this show. Paul O’Grady’s ’You’re a star’ interviewing technique makes him the easiest of conversationalists and his guests revel in it.
This week Bradley James and Colin Morgan appeared again. Away from the set of Merlin their banter is little changed except that Colin Morgan clearly hails from Northern Ireland. Yes, Merlin has a charming Nor’ern Ir’ern accent. Well it surprised me.
In fact it’s the most surprised I’ve been since Dr. Who turned out to be a Scot.
The Graham Norton Show. (BBC1)
This fellow’s fay following is still a bit beyond my comprehension, but since Woss had his wrist slapped there has been a tad less of the outlandish about him.
Recent guests on the show have included Dame Shirley Bassey who, when her fellow guest Michael Sheen’s absent mother was insulted by comedian Rhod Gilbert for living in Port Talbot, simply said to Sheen: ”Hit ‘im.” (Good ol’ Shirl!) and Stephen Fry who made it clear that he delights in twitterers because they twitter and hates bloggers because they moan.
I shall retain a dignified silence.
No I won’t.
Fuck off, Stephen.
Bargain Hunt. (BBC1)
Retirement brings with it certain cultural restraints, one of which is daytime television.
I try to avoid all the reconditioned barrow boys with their auction dabbling, property dealing, small-time entrepreneurial find-me-a- cottage-priced-mansion-with-a-heated-swimming-pool stuff and concentrate on just a couple of cheerful time-wasters a day.
The ebullient, camera-mugging Tim Wonnacott presents Bargain Hunt.
In this house he is known as: “That bloke with the bow ties and the silly hats.”
He’s a bit posh English and is always ‘going orf ‘ to one stately home or another where he is invariably on first name terms with the owner.
I think y’gets what y’sees with him.
And never mind the office boy press screaming that the show is a sham, if I had a house full of antiques and needed to sell them I would get the lot transported up to Great Western Antiques and Fine Art Auctions, Glasgow, and have them sold off by Anita Manning.
What an auctioneer!
THE FESTIVE SEASON.
Christmas Again.
What did I tell you?
Well it’s not my fault if you’re not ready. Join the club: I never am.
Cards have started to arrive from those wonderful folk who are ready, of course, and by the end of next week I shall doubtless be running around like Hugh Grant at the beginning of Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Remember?
Anyway, this will probably be my last blog post before the holiday, so let me say
A Merry Christmas to all you nice folk who take the trouble to read it and A Happy and Prosperous New Year even to those who don’t, Stephen.
Now Be Sure Sound is on:
(The wait is worth it)
Click here: Santa and Reindeer
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
137. From Poor Press to Good Listening
IN THE NEWS.
Poor Press.
Nobody expects Gordon Brown to be viewed with much favour anymore.
It is clear, though, that he has been attempting to express his sympathy with those who have lost loved ones in the Afghanistan conflict by sending them a hand written letter of condolence.
Surely that is something to his credit, even if you believe the continuation of our part in the war is not.
Now a bereaved mother has been further upset because his letter to her family contained an incorrect spelling of their son’s name.
It was a regrettable, though I think understandable, mistake.
But I am old enough to remember how thousands disappeared in two world wars with their missing presumed deaths coldly disclosed in a telegram delivered by a downcast telegraph boy.
I would not want to see such a soulless system reintroduced just to avoid the blame for a misspelled name falling on any individual.
Would you?
Would that tabloid with tits The Sun?
Nurses.
Latest in the war on NHS common sense waged by wacky Department of Health advisers is the decision that by 2013 all nurses will be required to have a degree qualification. The nursing diploma will no longer suffice.
Now I have no objection to education. Didn’t get that much of it, so respect it the more.
But I do believe some jobs are best served by common sense and that a PhD in bedpan manipulation will be a qualification too far.
A nurse does not need a degree, she needs humanity.
Edward Woodward OBE.
We were sorry to hear the news of this fine actor’s death on the 16th November.
His early television appearances as Callan were gems.
They gained him a British Academy Television Award for Best Actor and thousands of fans (among them my Leader and me).
His role as McCall in the American television series The Equalizer won him a 1986 Golden Globe Award and he was an acclaimed stage and film performer.
He could sing, too.
Those who knew him said he was a pleasant man.
So did those who came across him by chance.
Back in the late sixties, the elderly father-in-law of a colleague of mine found himself sharing a railway carriage with “A chap on his own who looked as though he thought at first I might know him…”
They chatted all the way to Town.
After they had left the train and exchanged cheery farewells, the old gent’s son, waiting on the concourse to meet him, exclaimed: “ Dad! You never told me you knew Callan!”
“Who?”
“Edward Woodward. Callan on the tele. He’s famous.”
“Really? He didn‘t say. Nice young chap…very intelligent…liked him…“
On a personal note, it was while watching Callan that my first boss on the Isle of Wight was reported to have said to his wife: “I don’t care what he’s called in this programme, I see him in the office every day. His real name’s Barnden. He’s my Deputy.”
I could have been likened to many less worthy characters.
Thank you, Edward Woodward.
R.I.P.
READING.
Flowers For His Funeral.
It is some time since I began and finished a book inside a week but this Mitchell and Markby page turner by Ann Granger (Headline, 1994) kept me reading as though I was back in the old tuppence-a-week library days.
Guessed the murderer - always satisfying - but was caught out by the denouement - a reminder not to get too smug - and came away thinking I really must obtain more of this readable writer’s updated whodunits.
TELEVISION.
Doctor Who. (BBC1)
The Waters of Mars starred David Tennant and Lindsay Duncan, was co-written by Russell T. Davies and Phil Ford and was the first of a final three part episode which will conclude with David Tennant’s departure from the Doctor role at Christmas.
Here we had a darker and more self-absorbed Doctor Who than we have ever seen before and this one-off special ended with a splendid scene in which he and Mars research station boss Adelaide (Lindsay Duncan) did verbal battle over the changes in his doomed personality.
Time Lord or not, he’s still a man, he didn’t stand a chance of winning that one.
FlashForward. (Five)
I quickly became disorientated by all the flashing backwards and forwards. Intend to keep trying but catnaps may prevail.
Strictly Come Dancing. (BBC1)
Bruce Forsyth was away last week. Flu.
Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman were more than adequate stand-ins despite the help of Ronnie Corbett.
Tuffers went: it was time anyway.
This week Ricky and Erin were out.
Old Bruce was back.
Ah well, you can’t win ‘em all.
Garrow’s Law. (BBC1)
Andrew Buchan (previously John Mercer, the 21st century Callan) is Garrow, a young and better looking Rumpole of the Bailey, in this 1700s historical drama .
I have recorded the first three of a four part series and have just started watching it. Have to say yet again that nobody produces better historical stuff than we do in this country.
It would be a shame if one little series was all there is to be of Garrow.
My Leader and I are already hooked.
The Queen in 3-D. (C4)
H.M. has turned up a couple of times this week.
Where the hell did we put our 3-D glasses?
Children in Need Rocks the Royal Albert Hall. (BBC1)
Every now and then television compensates for all the dross with a true showpiece. This musical assortment of gifted performers provided just that.
There was something for everyone and every fiver it obtained for the charity was thoroughly deserved.
Gary Barlow organised splendidly.
Oh, I’d have contributed just for Annie Lennox‘s performance.
Children In Need. (BBC 1)
I think this was the best of these jamborees we have been offered in a long time.
There was the usual collection of tame sketches, end-of-the-pier vocals and ‘we’re-not-just-soap-actor’ song and dance routines performed by well-meaning celebrities.
There was a great deal of Terry Wogan. (I tend to the view that Sir Terence should be like a television in the next room, heard and not seen.) And there was a great deal to enjoy. A lovely ’turn’ by the newsreaders, the children’s tv show characters doing their official single (courtesy of Peter Kay) and even dear old Richard Wilson saying: “I don’t believe it.”
Who could ask for anything more?
LISTENING.
Golden Memories.
My Leader found this four part CD set for me. It contains recordings by just about everyone from The Andrews Sisters to Frankie Vaughan via Ella Fitzgerald and Al Martino.
She has also presented me with a CD containing a splendid selection of poems with music…
Words For You.
The voices of Honor Blackman, Brian Cox, Joanna Lumley, Geoffrey Palmer and a host of other well-known actors reciting just about everyone from Betjeman to Wordsworth over a background of popular classical music.
Magic.
Who could ask for anything more?
Poor Press.
Nobody expects Gordon Brown to be viewed with much favour anymore.
It is clear, though, that he has been attempting to express his sympathy with those who have lost loved ones in the Afghanistan conflict by sending them a hand written letter of condolence.
Surely that is something to his credit, even if you believe the continuation of our part in the war is not.
Now a bereaved mother has been further upset because his letter to her family contained an incorrect spelling of their son’s name.
It was a regrettable, though I think understandable, mistake.
But I am old enough to remember how thousands disappeared in two world wars with their missing presumed deaths coldly disclosed in a telegram delivered by a downcast telegraph boy.
I would not want to see such a soulless system reintroduced just to avoid the blame for a misspelled name falling on any individual.
Would you?
Would that tabloid with tits The Sun?
Nurses.
Latest in the war on NHS common sense waged by wacky Department of Health advisers is the decision that by 2013 all nurses will be required to have a degree qualification. The nursing diploma will no longer suffice.
Now I have no objection to education. Didn’t get that much of it, so respect it the more.
But I do believe some jobs are best served by common sense and that a PhD in bedpan manipulation will be a qualification too far.
A nurse does not need a degree, she needs humanity.
Edward Woodward OBE.
We were sorry to hear the news of this fine actor’s death on the 16th November.
His early television appearances as Callan were gems.
They gained him a British Academy Television Award for Best Actor and thousands of fans (among them my Leader and me).
His role as McCall in the American television series The Equalizer won him a 1986 Golden Globe Award and he was an acclaimed stage and film performer.
He could sing, too.
Those who knew him said he was a pleasant man.
So did those who came across him by chance.
Back in the late sixties, the elderly father-in-law of a colleague of mine found himself sharing a railway carriage with “A chap on his own who looked as though he thought at first I might know him…”
They chatted all the way to Town.
After they had left the train and exchanged cheery farewells, the old gent’s son, waiting on the concourse to meet him, exclaimed: “ Dad! You never told me you knew Callan!”
“Who?”
“Edward Woodward. Callan on the tele. He’s famous.”
“Really? He didn‘t say. Nice young chap…very intelligent…liked him…“
On a personal note, it was while watching Callan that my first boss on the Isle of Wight was reported to have said to his wife: “I don’t care what he’s called in this programme, I see him in the office every day. His real name’s Barnden. He’s my Deputy.”
I could have been likened to many less worthy characters.
Thank you, Edward Woodward.
R.I.P.
READING.
Flowers For His Funeral.
It is some time since I began and finished a book inside a week but this Mitchell and Markby page turner by Ann Granger (Headline, 1994) kept me reading as though I was back in the old tuppence-a-week library days.
Guessed the murderer - always satisfying - but was caught out by the denouement - a reminder not to get too smug - and came away thinking I really must obtain more of this readable writer’s updated whodunits.
TELEVISION.
Doctor Who. (BBC1)
The Waters of Mars starred David Tennant and Lindsay Duncan, was co-written by Russell T. Davies and Phil Ford and was the first of a final three part episode which will conclude with David Tennant’s departure from the Doctor role at Christmas.
Here we had a darker and more self-absorbed Doctor Who than we have ever seen before and this one-off special ended with a splendid scene in which he and Mars research station boss Adelaide (Lindsay Duncan) did verbal battle over the changes in his doomed personality.
Time Lord or not, he’s still a man, he didn’t stand a chance of winning that one.
FlashForward. (Five)
I quickly became disorientated by all the flashing backwards and forwards. Intend to keep trying but catnaps may prevail.
Strictly Come Dancing. (BBC1)
Bruce Forsyth was away last week. Flu.
Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman were more than adequate stand-ins despite the help of Ronnie Corbett.
Tuffers went: it was time anyway.
This week Ricky and Erin were out.
Old Bruce was back.
Ah well, you can’t win ‘em all.
Garrow’s Law. (BBC1)
Andrew Buchan (previously John Mercer, the 21st century Callan) is Garrow, a young and better looking Rumpole of the Bailey, in this 1700s historical drama .
I have recorded the first three of a four part series and have just started watching it. Have to say yet again that nobody produces better historical stuff than we do in this country.
It would be a shame if one little series was all there is to be of Garrow.
My Leader and I are already hooked.
The Queen in 3-D. (C4)
H.M. has turned up a couple of times this week.
Where the hell did we put our 3-D glasses?
Children in Need Rocks the Royal Albert Hall. (BBC1)
Every now and then television compensates for all the dross with a true showpiece. This musical assortment of gifted performers provided just that.
There was something for everyone and every fiver it obtained for the charity was thoroughly deserved.
Gary Barlow organised splendidly.
Oh, I’d have contributed just for Annie Lennox‘s performance.
Children In Need. (BBC 1)
I think this was the best of these jamborees we have been offered in a long time.
There was the usual collection of tame sketches, end-of-the-pier vocals and ‘we’re-not-just-soap-actor’ song and dance routines performed by well-meaning celebrities.
There was a great deal of Terry Wogan. (I tend to the view that Sir Terence should be like a television in the next room, heard and not seen.) And there was a great deal to enjoy. A lovely ’turn’ by the newsreaders, the children’s tv show characters doing their official single (courtesy of Peter Kay) and even dear old Richard Wilson saying: “I don’t believe it.”
Who could ask for anything more?
LISTENING.
Golden Memories.
My Leader found this four part CD set for me. It contains recordings by just about everyone from The Andrews Sisters to Frankie Vaughan via Ella Fitzgerald and Al Martino.
She has also presented me with a CD containing a splendid selection of poems with music…
Words For You.
The voices of Honor Blackman, Brian Cox, Joanna Lumley, Geoffrey Palmer and a host of other well-known actors reciting just about everyone from Betjeman to Wordsworth over a background of popular classical music.
Magic.
Who could ask for anything more?
Monday, November 02, 2009
136. If Hamlet sees a dagger...
HOME.
That bloody autumnal hour.
So let’s get the moans out of the way for a start. That bloody autumnal hour has had to be fiddled with again: the clocks, as my Leader annually reminds me, fall back in the fall.
I neither know nor care why we are required to put them back an hour in autumn, or indeed put them forward again come spring.
My body clock will be all at sevens not sixes for several weeks; I see the entire exercise as an unnecessary intrusion; and I never did manage to change the clock in my last car.
An unstately pile.
As I may have mentioned before, the terrace where we live was built in the early eighteen forties and became Grade 2 listed in the nineteen seventies.
Quite why it was given a listing I do not know.
The properties are no more than simple town houses: this one provides fairly adequate living accommodation for a small family, is spread over three floors and is in a convenient spot for schools and shops.
As listed property owners we’re entitled to be members of the Listed Property Owners Club, just as are Bedford, Bath and the entire Grade 1 crowd. But in our case it‘s nothing to boast about. I think many terraces like ours were given a listing to save local councils the trouble of knocking them down; a move that was likely to attract the vociferous displeasure of the Victorian Society and unfavourable mention in poems by Sir John Betjeman.
We never really think about it until the time comes for replacements, repairs and even, heaven forbid, additions:
then we have to think about it.
Local Government (which I vaguely remember was once a public service) has an entire department of busybodies to check that wooden doors and window frames are not replaced with sensible plastic, that nothing new is introduced into hallowed hovels and that planning permission is sought before so much as a scaffold is erected or a builder’s bum glimpsed.
We now require a replacement front window on the ground floor. Based on past experience (Post 42 refers) it is likely to be a long drawn out process.
We only bought the house because my Leader fell in love with the photograph of it taken by the estate agent when it was up for sale. As I recall, he did very little else of any use. Anyway, the word listed would not have concerned me if it had nothing to do with subsidence.
But I have grown increasingly fond of the old place over the years: it is our own unstately pile, has a mini moat outside the front gate when it rains (something else the useless tits at the Council have never bothered to cure), is comfortable, conveniently situated (just four minutes stroll from M & S) and has a garage worth almost as much as the entire terrace.
I am hoping our builder will deal with the Council’s Listed Buildings bunch.
My tolerance with bureaucracy was tested and found wanting years ago.
There will be more on this subject in (probably a long) time.
Flu Jab time again.
On a lighter note: as I know I have mentioned before (Post 112), time is a sprinter. Last year was yesterday, next year is tomorrow.
A week ago we held the 2009 AGM of the Flu Jab Club.
Same four people; same venue; fresh cheese scones, tea and coffee.
Lovely to see Wendy and Mo again.
I must look out the Christmas decorations…
TELEVISION.
Football: England v Belarus.
“Well, what did you think?” I asked the cat Shadow after England’s impressive 3 - 0 win.
“Opposition wasn’t all that special,” he said.
“Couple of goals poached by Peter Crouch, though, and some precision passing by Becks,” I said. “I thought it was a tidy performance.”
“Brilliant might win the World Cup,” he said. “Tidy won’t.”
I sighed. Sometimes there’s no pleasing him.
Trinity. (ITV 3)
A strong cast keeps this bizarre series - set in an updated Lindsay Anderson style public school - humping merrily along.
There is the customary clique of top toffs (the untouchable Dandelion Club); a pair of naïve idiots for light relief; sinister manipulation of Dean Dr. Edmund Maltravers (Charles Dance) from a television screen in his study, and an occasional murder to help things along.
It is total tosh, but it certainly ain’t boring.
Merlin vanished.
Just to prove he is a magician in the making the young Merlin disappeared completely from BBC1 for a fortnight this month. The only spell he cast to cover his magical departure was the screening of Formula 1 motor racing, World Championship:
Button won so all’s well with the world.
Doc Martin. (ITV1)
Dr. Ellingham (Martin Clunes) has finally overcome his aversion to the sight of blood. He only has to do the same with his lousy bedside manner and he’ll be home and dry.
What?
Yes, I did meet NHS consultants exactly like him!
The Force. (C4)
This short documentary series about the work of Hampshire Constabulary started with an enquiry, led by DCI Jason Hogg, into the killing of a young woman: her body, found in a country lane, had been stuffed into a suitcase and set alight.
“Sex could be a motive for the murder or a reason for the murder, there’s a subtle difference,” said the DCI, or some equally wise soul on his team. He and they came across well.
On a personal note, it might look all right on the box but I wouldn’t want their job.
True Blood. (C4)
Duelling banjos with fangs. I am having trouble getting my teeth into this.
Guess it‘s just not to my taste..
The Armstrong and Miller Show. (BBC1)
Some of the sketches will be a decided hit and some a total miss: depends on your sense in humour. We enjoy the two airmen talking mod teen, the gloriously accident prone lecturer and the spoof Flanders and Swann.
Good value the pair of ‘em.
Murderland. (ITV1)
Robbie Coltraine, Sharon Small, Amanda Hale and Bel Powley share the limelight in this intriguing three parter. The story is told through the eyes of each of the main characters.
Like Trinity, it’s total tosh but it ain’t boring.
Last episode tonight.
Don't like all the flashbacks but I shan’t miss it.
READING.
A Song At Twilight.
Finally finished Brian Forbes’ excursion into John le Carré territory. It is a measure of his skill in the depiction of devious characters that by the end I cared not one jot what happened to any of them.
I have always thought that people who talked to each other in gobbledegook of the “If Hamlet sees a dagger someone will be shafted” sort, were clowns playing a silly, nonsensical game.
I believe more information about enemy intentions has been obtained from bad wireless security than ever has from sad sociopaths masquerading as spies.
And I think the CIA, GRU,KGB, MI5, MI6 and every other so-called intelligence agency of whatever country should have been laughed out of existence long before their silly self-deception got too big for their Alice in Wonderland boots.
Oh, one more thing: please stop sending me Russian emails, whoever you are. I am not a linguist, a communist, a capitalist or even a Seventh-day Adventist, so whatever your messages convey they are lost here.
That having been said, I wish you no less than you wish me.
That bloody autumnal hour.
So let’s get the moans out of the way for a start. That bloody autumnal hour has had to be fiddled with again: the clocks, as my Leader annually reminds me, fall back in the fall.
I neither know nor care why we are required to put them back an hour in autumn, or indeed put them forward again come spring.
My body clock will be all at sevens not sixes for several weeks; I see the entire exercise as an unnecessary intrusion; and I never did manage to change the clock in my last car.
An unstately pile.
As I may have mentioned before, the terrace where we live was built in the early eighteen forties and became Grade 2 listed in the nineteen seventies.
Quite why it was given a listing I do not know.
The properties are no more than simple town houses: this one provides fairly adequate living accommodation for a small family, is spread over three floors and is in a convenient spot for schools and shops.
As listed property owners we’re entitled to be members of the Listed Property Owners Club, just as are Bedford, Bath and the entire Grade 1 crowd. But in our case it‘s nothing to boast about. I think many terraces like ours were given a listing to save local councils the trouble of knocking them down; a move that was likely to attract the vociferous displeasure of the Victorian Society and unfavourable mention in poems by Sir John Betjeman.
We never really think about it until the time comes for replacements, repairs and even, heaven forbid, additions:
then we have to think about it.
Local Government (which I vaguely remember was once a public service) has an entire department of busybodies to check that wooden doors and window frames are not replaced with sensible plastic, that nothing new is introduced into hallowed hovels and that planning permission is sought before so much as a scaffold is erected or a builder’s bum glimpsed.
We now require a replacement front window on the ground floor. Based on past experience (Post 42 refers) it is likely to be a long drawn out process.
We only bought the house because my Leader fell in love with the photograph of it taken by the estate agent when it was up for sale. As I recall, he did very little else of any use. Anyway, the word listed would not have concerned me if it had nothing to do with subsidence.
But I have grown increasingly fond of the old place over the years: it is our own unstately pile, has a mini moat outside the front gate when it rains (something else the useless tits at the Council have never bothered to cure), is comfortable, conveniently situated (just four minutes stroll from M & S) and has a garage worth almost as much as the entire terrace.
I am hoping our builder will deal with the Council’s Listed Buildings bunch.
My tolerance with bureaucracy was tested and found wanting years ago.
There will be more on this subject in (probably a long) time.
Flu Jab time again.
On a lighter note: as I know I have mentioned before (Post 112), time is a sprinter. Last year was yesterday, next year is tomorrow.
A week ago we held the 2009 AGM of the Flu Jab Club.
Same four people; same venue; fresh cheese scones, tea and coffee.
Lovely to see Wendy and Mo again.
I must look out the Christmas decorations…
TELEVISION.
Football: England v Belarus.
“Well, what did you think?” I asked the cat Shadow after England’s impressive 3 - 0 win.
“Opposition wasn’t all that special,” he said.
“Couple of goals poached by Peter Crouch, though, and some precision passing by Becks,” I said. “I thought it was a tidy performance.”
“Brilliant might win the World Cup,” he said. “Tidy won’t.”
I sighed. Sometimes there’s no pleasing him.
Trinity. (ITV 3)
A strong cast keeps this bizarre series - set in an updated Lindsay Anderson style public school - humping merrily along.
There is the customary clique of top toffs (the untouchable Dandelion Club); a pair of naïve idiots for light relief; sinister manipulation of Dean Dr. Edmund Maltravers (Charles Dance) from a television screen in his study, and an occasional murder to help things along.
It is total tosh, but it certainly ain’t boring.
Merlin vanished.
Just to prove he is a magician in the making the young Merlin disappeared completely from BBC1 for a fortnight this month. The only spell he cast to cover his magical departure was the screening of Formula 1 motor racing, World Championship:
Button won so all’s well with the world.
Doc Martin. (ITV1)
Dr. Ellingham (Martin Clunes) has finally overcome his aversion to the sight of blood. He only has to do the same with his lousy bedside manner and he’ll be home and dry.
What?
Yes, I did meet NHS consultants exactly like him!
The Force. (C4)
This short documentary series about the work of Hampshire Constabulary started with an enquiry, led by DCI Jason Hogg, into the killing of a young woman: her body, found in a country lane, had been stuffed into a suitcase and set alight.
“Sex could be a motive for the murder or a reason for the murder, there’s a subtle difference,” said the DCI, or some equally wise soul on his team. He and they came across well.
On a personal note, it might look all right on the box but I wouldn’t want their job.
True Blood. (C4)
Duelling banjos with fangs. I am having trouble getting my teeth into this.
Guess it‘s just not to my taste..
The Armstrong and Miller Show. (BBC1)
Some of the sketches will be a decided hit and some a total miss: depends on your sense in humour. We enjoy the two airmen talking mod teen, the gloriously accident prone lecturer and the spoof Flanders and Swann.
Good value the pair of ‘em.
Murderland. (ITV1)
Robbie Coltraine, Sharon Small, Amanda Hale and Bel Powley share the limelight in this intriguing three parter. The story is told through the eyes of each of the main characters.
Like Trinity, it’s total tosh but it ain’t boring.
Last episode tonight.
Don't like all the flashbacks but I shan’t miss it.
READING.
A Song At Twilight.
Finally finished Brian Forbes’ excursion into John le Carré territory. It is a measure of his skill in the depiction of devious characters that by the end I cared not one jot what happened to any of them.
I have always thought that people who talked to each other in gobbledegook of the “If Hamlet sees a dagger someone will be shafted” sort, were clowns playing a silly, nonsensical game.
I believe more information about enemy intentions has been obtained from bad wireless security than ever has from sad sociopaths masquerading as spies.
And I think the CIA, GRU,KGB, MI5, MI6 and every other so-called intelligence agency of whatever country should have been laughed out of existence long before their silly self-deception got too big for their Alice in Wonderland boots.
Oh, one more thing: please stop sending me Russian emails, whoever you are. I am not a linguist, a communist, a capitalist or even a Seventh-day Adventist, so whatever your messages convey they are lost here.
That having been said, I wish you no less than you wish me.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
135. Roofing at home and 254 away.
HOME.
Maintenance.Forgot to mention in my last post that we have had our kitchen re-roofed.
It is a board and felt job with a couple of roof lights and when we moved in, around about 2000/1, we were advised by the surveyor that it would probably be necessary to replace it in a couple of years.
We held out; it lasted.
So this year, after a couple of reasonable summer months, we decided to have it replaced before, perhaps, winter forced our hand.
We found a reliable firm, accepted their quote, and a couple of weeks back they came in: Jim and his mate.
It pee-ed down, on and off, for the entire time they were here.
Jim was phlegmatic. “Better we know right away whether there are going to be any problems,” was his philosophy. “This way we find out early on.”
One night they left us with a tarpaulin between us and the rain.
That night we experienced the first truly unbelievable downpour for months. Water teemed off the kitchen roof and into the courtyard in a solid sheet. Standing at the kitchen sink was like standing behind Niagara Falls.
But we were miraculously leak free and the next day saw the laying of the new felt.
Finally came the replacement of old, cracked lead and the modification of the antiquated drainage system.
Job done.
Well, I take it job done.
Should last twenty years I am told, so I‘d be a tad optimistic if I said I‘ll let you know.
AND AWAY.
254 OBA.
My Leader and I spent the last few days of last week at a reunion of the 254 Old Boys’ Association. It was our first visit and it came about by chance.
I was wallowing around the web one night and happened upon the names of some ex boy soldiers who had been lads in the Royal Corps of Signals with me. Seemed they had formed an Association consisting entirely of those whose army numbers began 254 i.e. boys who, at the age of fourteen (and from the years 1942 to 1948/9 only), had enlisted in the Royal Signals as apprentices.
Further inquiries elicited the information that they hold an annual reunion (have done so since 1991), that wives were welcome and that, courtesy of the Grim Reaper, the Association’s numbers were fast depleting.
We were sent a nominal roll of OBA members and some copies of their magazine, Jimmy’s Journal, by editor Brian Fisher. We were invited to attend this year‘s bash, drove our car to Salisbury, were driven from there to Derby and back by newly found chum Jim Jenkins, were cordially received by Chairman Toby Seymour - together with as nice a bunch of people as you could find anywhere - and quietly enjoyed the entire experience.
Well…four star Mickleover Court Hotel, Derby…nice staff…all the trimmings… old pals like Wally Brown, Ted Mellor, Nat Preece and Brian Stockwell…a host of affable new pals, all contemporaries…a bevy of charmingly patient (not to say long-suffering) spouses…great organisation by dedicated volunteers…what was not to enjoy?
We shall go again next year if, as Sarah Kennedy so appropriately puts it, we are spared.
Alverstoke Michaelmas Fair.In a pleasant spot just outside Gosport, Hampshire can be found the charming village of Alverstoke wherein live my Leader’s sister, Our Marg, and her husband, Mike.
Every year the village holds a Michaelmas Fair and if we can we pay it a visit.
Brother-in-law Mike meets us at Gosport Ferry terminal and taxis us back and forth. The weather is usually fine. There couldn’t be a nicer way to spend a day.
We wander around the stalls and various charity catchpennies until loose change has departed and elderly energy flags.
We then repair to Our Marg’s to sample her excellent cooking; the two sisters talk sister talk and Mike and I cheerfully agree to disagree on just about every topic imaginable.
He is a devout Tory who firmly supported Margaret Thatcher and believes global warming is a myth. I am a devoutly non-partisan detester of politicians who regards himself as too old to do anything about global warming, myth or fact, and who refuses to lose so much as an hour’s catnap about it.
To the best of my knowledge we have never parted company on a sour note.
Why would we? He married Our Marg.
TELEVISION.
Leeds International Piano Competition.
Is it three years already? I suppose it must be.
This year I saw the televised concert performances of the first two contestants and pronounced them fine by me.
Cristina Ortiz, a magnificent concert pianist, quickly put the damper on such naive enthusiasm.
So I replayed them on DVD.
And of course the lady was right.
Her forthright views also made total nonsense of my theory that piano competitions are won by playing Rachmaninov, hitting the right notes in the right order, and finishing up at the same time as the orchestra.
Ah well…
Merlin.They’re back again. Young Colin Morgan (Merlin) and the rest of them: Anthony Head, Richard Wilson, Angel Coulby, Katie McGrath, Bradley James as Arthur, and the Voice of the Dragon provided by John Hurt.
Incidentally, how come nobody but Merlin and his mentor seem to know that there’s a bloody great talking dragon in the cellar?
It’s as daft as ever was and I shall try not to miss a single episode.
Harper’s Island.
We have regularly recorded this series and have just started watching it.
There’s plenty of misty forest, duelling banjos characters, lust and loathing.
And, like Merlin’s talking dragon, nobody seems to realise that the trees are full of booby traps and bodies.
Gawd! Ain’t it bloodthirsty?
I shall try not miss a single episode.
DAFT DAYS INDEED.
World Egg Day.The second Friday in October, the 9th, was World Egg Day.
What purpose did it serve?
Is the world falling behind in egg consumption? Are the world’s dairy farmers on the breadline? Is there fear that, universally, hens will become paranoid if the total amount they drop into their baskets is not instantly snapped up?
I like eggs, boiled, fried or poached, but I won’t be brainwashed into eating them by the announcement of another daft day.
National Poetry Day.And on the subject of daft days, National Poetry Day, with the theme Heroes and Heroines, fell on the 8th of October.
Probably the daftest thing about that one was news that the nation’s favourite poet is T.S. Eliot.
I was mulling it over, musing that I’d have bet on Pam Ayres myself, when the magical mystery Shadow appeared before me.
“Old Possum Eliot is favourite poet then,” he said. “Were you surprised?”
“Very,” I said. “Were you?”
“Oh yeah. I’d have bet on Pam Ayres myself.”
He struck his poetic pose.
I sighed, but there was no stopping him.
Shadow - The Poetry Cat (he announced)
A poem by Himself.
Shadow is a poetry cat: he’s called the Feline Bard
He scribbles on the rooftops and he scribbles in the yard.
And if by chance you find a scratchy scribble on your door,
You can bet composing Shadow has been at the muse once more.
Shadow, Shadow, you can rely on Shadow,
Shadow will be rhyming all the time:
No dog out-doggerels Shadow, top-cat poetic laddo,
He’s a dedicated master of the rhyme.
So lock up all your notepaper and cover all your walls,
For when it comes to scribbling verse ol’ Shadow don’t lack balls.
He’ll scribble in the sunshine and he’ll scribble in the rain.
He’ll scribble on your lavatory door - or even on the chain.
He’ll inscribe a rhyme on your Pekinese, or even on its fleas
He’ll tattoo a verse on your elbow and two of them on your knees.
He’s not averse to appending a verse that would make other poets despair,
But when he tried to do it to Eliot - MACAVITY WASN’T THERE!
He had a quick wash.
“Well, what do you think?” he asked.
“Not bad,“ I said. “Quite T.S. Eliot. Especially the last three words.”
Maintenance.Forgot to mention in my last post that we have had our kitchen re-roofed.
It is a board and felt job with a couple of roof lights and when we moved in, around about 2000/1, we were advised by the surveyor that it would probably be necessary to replace it in a couple of years.
We held out; it lasted.
So this year, after a couple of reasonable summer months, we decided to have it replaced before, perhaps, winter forced our hand.
We found a reliable firm, accepted their quote, and a couple of weeks back they came in: Jim and his mate.
It pee-ed down, on and off, for the entire time they were here.
Jim was phlegmatic. “Better we know right away whether there are going to be any problems,” was his philosophy. “This way we find out early on.”
One night they left us with a tarpaulin between us and the rain.
That night we experienced the first truly unbelievable downpour for months. Water teemed off the kitchen roof and into the courtyard in a solid sheet. Standing at the kitchen sink was like standing behind Niagara Falls.
But we were miraculously leak free and the next day saw the laying of the new felt.
Finally came the replacement of old, cracked lead and the modification of the antiquated drainage system.
Job done.
Well, I take it job done.
Should last twenty years I am told, so I‘d be a tad optimistic if I said I‘ll let you know.
AND AWAY.
254 OBA.
My Leader and I spent the last few days of last week at a reunion of the 254 Old Boys’ Association. It was our first visit and it came about by chance.
I was wallowing around the web one night and happened upon the names of some ex boy soldiers who had been lads in the Royal Corps of Signals with me. Seemed they had formed an Association consisting entirely of those whose army numbers began 254 i.e. boys who, at the age of fourteen (and from the years 1942 to 1948/9 only), had enlisted in the Royal Signals as apprentices.
Further inquiries elicited the information that they hold an annual reunion (have done so since 1991), that wives were welcome and that, courtesy of the Grim Reaper, the Association’s numbers were fast depleting.
We were sent a nominal roll of OBA members and some copies of their magazine, Jimmy’s Journal, by editor Brian Fisher. We were invited to attend this year‘s bash, drove our car to Salisbury, were driven from there to Derby and back by newly found chum Jim Jenkins, were cordially received by Chairman Toby Seymour - together with as nice a bunch of people as you could find anywhere - and quietly enjoyed the entire experience.
Well…four star Mickleover Court Hotel, Derby…nice staff…all the trimmings… old pals like Wally Brown, Ted Mellor, Nat Preece and Brian Stockwell…a host of affable new pals, all contemporaries…a bevy of charmingly patient (not to say long-suffering) spouses…great organisation by dedicated volunteers…what was not to enjoy?
We shall go again next year if, as Sarah Kennedy so appropriately puts it, we are spared.
Alverstoke Michaelmas Fair.In a pleasant spot just outside Gosport, Hampshire can be found the charming village of Alverstoke wherein live my Leader’s sister, Our Marg, and her husband, Mike.
Every year the village holds a Michaelmas Fair and if we can we pay it a visit.
Brother-in-law Mike meets us at Gosport Ferry terminal and taxis us back and forth. The weather is usually fine. There couldn’t be a nicer way to spend a day.
We wander around the stalls and various charity catchpennies until loose change has departed and elderly energy flags.
We then repair to Our Marg’s to sample her excellent cooking; the two sisters talk sister talk and Mike and I cheerfully agree to disagree on just about every topic imaginable.
He is a devout Tory who firmly supported Margaret Thatcher and believes global warming is a myth. I am a devoutly non-partisan detester of politicians who regards himself as too old to do anything about global warming, myth or fact, and who refuses to lose so much as an hour’s catnap about it.
To the best of my knowledge we have never parted company on a sour note.
Why would we? He married Our Marg.
TELEVISION.
Leeds International Piano Competition.
Is it three years already? I suppose it must be.
This year I saw the televised concert performances of the first two contestants and pronounced them fine by me.
Cristina Ortiz, a magnificent concert pianist, quickly put the damper on such naive enthusiasm.
So I replayed them on DVD.
And of course the lady was right.
Her forthright views also made total nonsense of my theory that piano competitions are won by playing Rachmaninov, hitting the right notes in the right order, and finishing up at the same time as the orchestra.
Ah well…
Merlin.They’re back again. Young Colin Morgan (Merlin) and the rest of them: Anthony Head, Richard Wilson, Angel Coulby, Katie McGrath, Bradley James as Arthur, and the Voice of the Dragon provided by John Hurt.
Incidentally, how come nobody but Merlin and his mentor seem to know that there’s a bloody great talking dragon in the cellar?
It’s as daft as ever was and I shall try not to miss a single episode.
Harper’s Island.
We have regularly recorded this series and have just started watching it.
There’s plenty of misty forest, duelling banjos characters, lust and loathing.
And, like Merlin’s talking dragon, nobody seems to realise that the trees are full of booby traps and bodies.
Gawd! Ain’t it bloodthirsty?
I shall try not miss a single episode.
DAFT DAYS INDEED.
World Egg Day.The second Friday in October, the 9th, was World Egg Day.
What purpose did it serve?
Is the world falling behind in egg consumption? Are the world’s dairy farmers on the breadline? Is there fear that, universally, hens will become paranoid if the total amount they drop into their baskets is not instantly snapped up?
I like eggs, boiled, fried or poached, but I won’t be brainwashed into eating them by the announcement of another daft day.
National Poetry Day.And on the subject of daft days, National Poetry Day, with the theme Heroes and Heroines, fell on the 8th of October.
Probably the daftest thing about that one was news that the nation’s favourite poet is T.S. Eliot.
I was mulling it over, musing that I’d have bet on Pam Ayres myself, when the magical mystery Shadow appeared before me.
“Old Possum Eliot is favourite poet then,” he said. “Were you surprised?”
“Very,” I said. “Were you?”
“Oh yeah. I’d have bet on Pam Ayres myself.”
He struck his poetic pose.
I sighed, but there was no stopping him.
Shadow - The Poetry Cat (he announced)
A poem by Himself.
Shadow is a poetry cat: he’s called the Feline Bard
He scribbles on the rooftops and he scribbles in the yard.
And if by chance you find a scratchy scribble on your door,
You can bet composing Shadow has been at the muse once more.
Shadow, Shadow, you can rely on Shadow,
Shadow will be rhyming all the time:
No dog out-doggerels Shadow, top-cat poetic laddo,
He’s a dedicated master of the rhyme.
So lock up all your notepaper and cover all your walls,
For when it comes to scribbling verse ol’ Shadow don’t lack balls.
He’ll scribble in the sunshine and he’ll scribble in the rain.
He’ll scribble on your lavatory door - or even on the chain.
He’ll inscribe a rhyme on your Pekinese, or even on its fleas
He’ll tattoo a verse on your elbow and two of them on your knees.
He’s not averse to appending a verse that would make other poets despair,
But when he tried to do it to Eliot - MACAVITY WASN’T THERE!
He had a quick wash.
“Well, what do you think?” he asked.
“Not bad,“ I said. “Quite T.S. Eliot. Especially the last three words.”
Thursday, September 10, 2009
134. New schools. New tele. Ol' Tel.
HOME.
Leaves.
It’s that time again.
The winds blow and just about every educated leaf from the trees in the school opposite makes a helter-skelter dash for our little front garden, just as every holy leaf from the church trees along the way makes for the courtyard at the back.
We, of course, have no trees.
I go back to sweeping and cursing, particularly out front.
I no longer feel particularly aggrieved with the trees, their mess is nature’s mess, but I do become heartily pissed off with the mucky, uncaring, graceless morons who drop sweet papers, food wrappers, drinks cartons (McDonald’s is down the road) and the rest of their fuck-you-Jack litter for me to shovel up.
Day may yet dawn when I make a collection of everything labelled McDonald’s and post it back through their letterbox.
Meantime, have you ever noticed that it is impossible to sweep up fallen leaves without the assistance of a stiff breeze?
Matters not how still the day, just you start sweeping…
School’s back.
Granddaughter Jess has started at high school this term: grandson Ellis started at primary school.
Youngsters arrive here every morning. Suddenly the world has reawakened.
Both had to be kitted out.
Jess went to a local outfitter where the enthusiast who served her ( a sort of Ollivander’s Wand Shop character) directed her attention to the blazers for her particular school with the words: “You’ll be size…” and he was right.
“Skirt size… “ he was right, remaining outfit ditto, shoes ditto, and finally, gym kit:
“You’ll want this size - trust me…”
She did. He was right.
She looks good in the new uniform. It could have been tailored for her.
As for Ellis, he has adapted to long trousers and shorter hair with the casual ease of a seasoned pre-schooler moving on.
I’m still not sure where the little boy went and the little man came from.
RADIO.
Terry Wogan.
Would you believe it? After the sumptuous - by my standards - praise I lavished on ol’ Tel in Post 129, the rascal came back from holiday on Monday 7th September and summarily announced his retirement.
He won’t be going until the end of the year so it looks like he could finish up with two world records: the longest successful golf putt ever televised (33 yards in 1981) and the longest retirement speech in the history of radio (103 days, less a few weekends and a holiday or two, in 2009).
Oh, for the news gathering impaired, Chris Evans is replacing him.
Anything good on Radio 4?
TELEVISION.
New Tricks.
In the last episode of series six Gerry Standing (Dennis Waterman) was revealed to be one of the sons of a Smithfield Market meat dealer. He was none too happy when his colleagues found out. Don’t ask me why.
In the end a startling case link encompassed team leader Sandra Pullman (Amanda Redman) in an unexpected way.
Something to do with a brother. Don’t ask me about that, either.
Perhaps I was out making a cup of tea.
Doubtless in the not too distant future the entire series will be shown again, will otherwise be made available to the technically au fait and will be marketed on DVD for those who cannot resist the lure.
I enjoyed what I saw but I can wait for series seven.
The Fixer.
John Mercer (the 21st century Callan), played by Andrew Buchan, is back on ITV in a new six part series.
The first story was about child trafficking, presumably to ensure we sided with Mercer no matter who he beat up or killed.
Unbeatable cast; unfathomable plot; unfaltering action.
Them as didn’t like Edward Woodward probably won’t like it: some of them as did like Edward Woodward won’t like it, either.
My leader, a Callan fan, is not sure about it.
Me?
I think it passes an hour.
Waking the Dead.
Another new series. Trevor Eve back again with Sue Johnston.
The stories are generally in two, nightly, parts.
He plays the snarling Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd (a borderline case for Broadmoor) and she plays the charming Doctor Grace Foley (who should ‘section’ him).
The entire concoction is tortuous, brutal and total tosh.
I watch it and scoff.
Agatha Christie’s Marple.
Here we are then. Julia McKenzie finally arrived in the first of four new Marple stories.
Reflecting on former Marple portrayals: on film I only ever saw Gracie Fields as a singing factory girl; Margaret Rutherford was the prize eccentric; Helen Hayes and Angela Lansbury were safe hands; Joan Hickson was the definitive and Geraldine McEwan the slightly cookie.
Ms. McKenzie plays the role more in the Hickson mould, a tad updated.
I think Agatha Christie would have approved.
The policemen in this episode, as played by Ralf Little and Matthew Macfadyen, were - for a change - depicted as sensible, competent coppers.
Well worth watching.
Blue Murder.
And another new series.
Mumsy copper Caroline Quentin back with her floundering squad of male underlings and a host of family distractions.
You can’t dislike it without being boorish.
International Football.
England v Croatia.
"England won 5 - 1 ," I said to the cat Shadow who had been out beating the bounds.
"Did Becks play?" he asked.
"For about ten minutes at the end. Made a few good passes."
He appeared to think about it.
"Anyway, they've qualified for the World Cup," I added cheerfully.
"Oh aye," he said. "We'll see next year then, won't we."
It was the most enthusiastic he has been in a long time.
FILMS.
Proof of Life.
This film, starring Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe, was released in the year 2000 and recently shown on television. We missed it at the cinema.
A strong supporting cast included Alun Armstrong, Michael Byrne, Michael Kitchen and David Caruso pre CSI: Miami: i.e. before he went into acting partnership with the screen- stealing pair of designer sunglasses.
Meg Ryan played a wife whose husband (the believable David Morse) was taken hostage in a South American country.
Russell Crowe played the negotiator for an insurance company who set out to rescue him.
The action scenes were lively. The romance was limp.
I’m not all that sorry we missed it at the cinema.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
We did originally see this in the cinema but decided it was the best thing on offer when it was screened again on television.
Potter film repeats are quite painless.
Come to think about it, though, we need not have watched an advert littered ITV rerun. We have the DVD.
There’s more out than in.
Leaves.
It’s that time again.
The winds blow and just about every educated leaf from the trees in the school opposite makes a helter-skelter dash for our little front garden, just as every holy leaf from the church trees along the way makes for the courtyard at the back.
We, of course, have no trees.
I go back to sweeping and cursing, particularly out front.
I no longer feel particularly aggrieved with the trees, their mess is nature’s mess, but I do become heartily pissed off with the mucky, uncaring, graceless morons who drop sweet papers, food wrappers, drinks cartons (McDonald’s is down the road) and the rest of their fuck-you-Jack litter for me to shovel up.
Day may yet dawn when I make a collection of everything labelled McDonald’s and post it back through their letterbox.
Meantime, have you ever noticed that it is impossible to sweep up fallen leaves without the assistance of a stiff breeze?
Matters not how still the day, just you start sweeping…
School’s back.
Granddaughter Jess has started at high school this term: grandson Ellis started at primary school.
Youngsters arrive here every morning. Suddenly the world has reawakened.
Both had to be kitted out.
Jess went to a local outfitter where the enthusiast who served her ( a sort of Ollivander’s Wand Shop character) directed her attention to the blazers for her particular school with the words: “You’ll be size…” and he was right.
“Skirt size… “ he was right, remaining outfit ditto, shoes ditto, and finally, gym kit:
“You’ll want this size - trust me…”
She did. He was right.
She looks good in the new uniform. It could have been tailored for her.
As for Ellis, he has adapted to long trousers and shorter hair with the casual ease of a seasoned pre-schooler moving on.
I’m still not sure where the little boy went and the little man came from.
RADIO.
Terry Wogan.
Would you believe it? After the sumptuous - by my standards - praise I lavished on ol’ Tel in Post 129, the rascal came back from holiday on Monday 7th September and summarily announced his retirement.
He won’t be going until the end of the year so it looks like he could finish up with two world records: the longest successful golf putt ever televised (33 yards in 1981) and the longest retirement speech in the history of radio (103 days, less a few weekends and a holiday or two, in 2009).
Oh, for the news gathering impaired, Chris Evans is replacing him.
Anything good on Radio 4?
TELEVISION.
New Tricks.
In the last episode of series six Gerry Standing (Dennis Waterman) was revealed to be one of the sons of a Smithfield Market meat dealer. He was none too happy when his colleagues found out. Don’t ask me why.
In the end a startling case link encompassed team leader Sandra Pullman (Amanda Redman) in an unexpected way.
Something to do with a brother. Don’t ask me about that, either.
Perhaps I was out making a cup of tea.
Doubtless in the not too distant future the entire series will be shown again, will otherwise be made available to the technically au fait and will be marketed on DVD for those who cannot resist the lure.
I enjoyed what I saw but I can wait for series seven.
The Fixer.
John Mercer (the 21st century Callan), played by Andrew Buchan, is back on ITV in a new six part series.
The first story was about child trafficking, presumably to ensure we sided with Mercer no matter who he beat up or killed.
Unbeatable cast; unfathomable plot; unfaltering action.
Them as didn’t like Edward Woodward probably won’t like it: some of them as did like Edward Woodward won’t like it, either.
My leader, a Callan fan, is not sure about it.
Me?
I think it passes an hour.
Waking the Dead.
Another new series. Trevor Eve back again with Sue Johnston.
The stories are generally in two, nightly, parts.
He plays the snarling Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd (a borderline case for Broadmoor) and she plays the charming Doctor Grace Foley (who should ‘section’ him).
The entire concoction is tortuous, brutal and total tosh.
I watch it and scoff.
Agatha Christie’s Marple.
Here we are then. Julia McKenzie finally arrived in the first of four new Marple stories.
Reflecting on former Marple portrayals: on film I only ever saw Gracie Fields as a singing factory girl; Margaret Rutherford was the prize eccentric; Helen Hayes and Angela Lansbury were safe hands; Joan Hickson was the definitive and Geraldine McEwan the slightly cookie.
Ms. McKenzie plays the role more in the Hickson mould, a tad updated.
I think Agatha Christie would have approved.
The policemen in this episode, as played by Ralf Little and Matthew Macfadyen, were - for a change - depicted as sensible, competent coppers.
Well worth watching.
Blue Murder.
And another new series.
Mumsy copper Caroline Quentin back with her floundering squad of male underlings and a host of family distractions.
You can’t dislike it without being boorish.
International Football.
England v Croatia.
"England won 5 - 1 ," I said to the cat Shadow who had been out beating the bounds.
"Did Becks play?" he asked.
"For about ten minutes at the end. Made a few good passes."
He appeared to think about it.
"Anyway, they've qualified for the World Cup," I added cheerfully.
"Oh aye," he said. "We'll see next year then, won't we."
It was the most enthusiastic he has been in a long time.
FILMS.
Proof of Life.
This film, starring Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe, was released in the year 2000 and recently shown on television. We missed it at the cinema.
A strong supporting cast included Alun Armstrong, Michael Byrne, Michael Kitchen and David Caruso pre CSI: Miami: i.e. before he went into acting partnership with the screen- stealing pair of designer sunglasses.
Meg Ryan played a wife whose husband (the believable David Morse) was taken hostage in a South American country.
Russell Crowe played the negotiator for an insurance company who set out to rescue him.
The action scenes were lively. The romance was limp.
I’m not all that sorry we missed it at the cinema.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
We did originally see this in the cinema but decided it was the best thing on offer when it was screened again on television.
Potter film repeats are quite painless.
Come to think about it, though, we need not have watched an advert littered ITV rerun. We have the DVD.
There’s more out than in.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
133. A Mostly Homely post.
HOME.
It took the Isle of Wight Council.
Economically this holiday island, like many another, is heavily reliant on the tourist industry for its survival. Parking charges are generally bloody, but I guess visitors are so accustomed to the avaricious money grubbing of councils that they expect the big stick wherever they go.
This year, however, legalized thievery reached new heights over here when popular carnival spots were deluged with parking tickets issued by council traffic wardens. Both the daytime and evening (Illuminated) carnivals were targeted. Needless to say the IW Council hotly denies accusations that its actions were monetarily motivated and claims that it only had safety in mind.
Is anybody seriously expected to believe that?
Do the patronising rogues care?
And do they give a toss how much goodwill and next year’s returning holidaymaker business they may have lost?
I sometimes think that when we stopped electing opportunistic jerry builders (who we knew were in it to fiddle council contracts from their funny handshake mates) and opted instead for career expenses claimants (who seem to be in it because they like the money and don’t like television) we took an enormous step backwards.
And it took the Scots.
When, in my last post, I ventured the opinion that sometimes we should simply tell our bullying American cousins to piss off, I had no idea the Scots would do it.
Should have known better.
They have always told the English where to go and the Romans built a bloody great wall across the north of England to avoid confrontation with them.
With a history like that did the pleasant President of America and his unpleasant Secretary of State (doing a televised good cop/bad cop routine) expect grovelling acquiescence to their clear indication that the man imprisoned for the Lockerbie deaths should remain incarcerated until he died?
How good or bad the evidence against him was, or whether the medical prognosis is at all questionable, I have no idea: so whether, given the choice, I would have released him I do not know.
But the Scottish Justice Minister did have the choice, decided enough was enough, and acted accordingly.
Though I still deeply distrust politicians, I must admit to the grudging belief that he may have done everybody a favour.
TELEVISION.
Proms on BBC4.
Just as I was decrying the dearth of my sort of music at the Proms along came the wonderful West-Eastern Divan Orchestra conducted by co-founder Daniel Barenboim to give us Liszt’s Les Preludes, the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, all hauntingly musical.
The orchestra was founded in 1998 by concert pianist Barenboim, an Israeli-Argentinian, and Edward Said, a Palestinian-American author.
In the words of the conductor it is “a project against ignorance.”
Whatever their off-stage differences, in performance this fine orchestra’s magical harmony is clearly born from its affection and respect for maestro Barenboim: feelings clearly reciprocated.
The following night, with an international cast of singers, they performed Beethoven’s Fidelio.
Long may they and their remaining founder thrive.
Cricket.
“England won The Ashes then,” I said to the cat Shadow.
“Yeah,” he said. “Did you watch it?”
“No, did you?”
“Nope.”
He thought for a moment: “Don’t matter. They wouldn’t have won if we had.”
FILM.
The Constant Gardener.
This intense, moving and well acted adaptation of the John le Carre novel was directed by Fernando Meirelles, produced by the late Simon Channing Williams and starred Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz (who won a best supporting actress Oscar).
There was a lot of flashback, a twisting plot and the subtle absence of a feel-good finish.
Fascinating.
AND HOME AGAIN.
A great result.
Libby and Eamonn Lawless own a farm here on the Island and we have been friends for many years.
Back in the seventies Eamonn, a superb horseman, ran a riding school at the farm and our daughter Roz was one of his pupils. She would have been around ten years old.
They got on.
Neither of them suffers fools.
When he eventually forsook the saddle Eamonn began more seriously entering his dogs for sheepdog trials. On the 24th of August we received an email referring us to the International Sheep Dog Society website which at the time carried the news that Eamonn and his dog Bill had become English National Trials Champions 2009.
Well done, mate!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0AKf6mCNhk
It took the Isle of Wight Council.
Economically this holiday island, like many another, is heavily reliant on the tourist industry for its survival. Parking charges are generally bloody, but I guess visitors are so accustomed to the avaricious money grubbing of councils that they expect the big stick wherever they go.
This year, however, legalized thievery reached new heights over here when popular carnival spots were deluged with parking tickets issued by council traffic wardens. Both the daytime and evening (Illuminated) carnivals were targeted. Needless to say the IW Council hotly denies accusations that its actions were monetarily motivated and claims that it only had safety in mind.
Is anybody seriously expected to believe that?
Do the patronising rogues care?
And do they give a toss how much goodwill and next year’s returning holidaymaker business they may have lost?
I sometimes think that when we stopped electing opportunistic jerry builders (who we knew were in it to fiddle council contracts from their funny handshake mates) and opted instead for career expenses claimants (who seem to be in it because they like the money and don’t like television) we took an enormous step backwards.
And it took the Scots.
When, in my last post, I ventured the opinion that sometimes we should simply tell our bullying American cousins to piss off, I had no idea the Scots would do it.
Should have known better.
They have always told the English where to go and the Romans built a bloody great wall across the north of England to avoid confrontation with them.
With a history like that did the pleasant President of America and his unpleasant Secretary of State (doing a televised good cop/bad cop routine) expect grovelling acquiescence to their clear indication that the man imprisoned for the Lockerbie deaths should remain incarcerated until he died?
How good or bad the evidence against him was, or whether the medical prognosis is at all questionable, I have no idea: so whether, given the choice, I would have released him I do not know.
But the Scottish Justice Minister did have the choice, decided enough was enough, and acted accordingly.
Though I still deeply distrust politicians, I must admit to the grudging belief that he may have done everybody a favour.
TELEVISION.
Proms on BBC4.
Just as I was decrying the dearth of my sort of music at the Proms along came the wonderful West-Eastern Divan Orchestra conducted by co-founder Daniel Barenboim to give us Liszt’s Les Preludes, the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, all hauntingly musical.
The orchestra was founded in 1998 by concert pianist Barenboim, an Israeli-Argentinian, and Edward Said, a Palestinian-American author.
In the words of the conductor it is “a project against ignorance.”
Whatever their off-stage differences, in performance this fine orchestra’s magical harmony is clearly born from its affection and respect for maestro Barenboim: feelings clearly reciprocated.
The following night, with an international cast of singers, they performed Beethoven’s Fidelio.
Long may they and their remaining founder thrive.
Cricket.
“England won The Ashes then,” I said to the cat Shadow.
“Yeah,” he said. “Did you watch it?”
“No, did you?”
“Nope.”
He thought for a moment: “Don’t matter. They wouldn’t have won if we had.”
FILM.
The Constant Gardener.
This intense, moving and well acted adaptation of the John le Carre novel was directed by Fernando Meirelles, produced by the late Simon Channing Williams and starred Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz (who won a best supporting actress Oscar).
There was a lot of flashback, a twisting plot and the subtle absence of a feel-good finish.
Fascinating.
AND HOME AGAIN.
A great result.
Libby and Eamonn Lawless own a farm here on the Island and we have been friends for many years.
Back in the seventies Eamonn, a superb horseman, ran a riding school at the farm and our daughter Roz was one of his pupils. She would have been around ten years old.
They got on.
Neither of them suffers fools.
When he eventually forsook the saddle Eamonn began more seriously entering his dogs for sheepdog trials. On the 24th of August we received an email referring us to the International Sheep Dog Society website which at the time carried the news that Eamonn and his dog Bill had become English National Trials Champions 2009.
Well done, mate!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0AKf6mCNhk
Monday, August 17, 2009
132. Beware of Russian Arabs and Self-Importance
HOME.
It was a Russian Arab!
Report from our languages correspondent in Ventnor, Neil Barnden (nepotism - so what!) after I sent him an assumed Arabic email for which I had been unable to obtain an English translation from Google translate.
"It is Russian (the text refers to something costing 3900 rubles - probably Viagra!). But I can't get any translation from the text either. The names you copied into your blog were actually in Cyrillic script - which Google translate was happy to work with. So perhaps it's the fact that this text has been translated from Cyrillic Russian to 'Roman' Russian that's the problem."
Well thanks, Neil, now I need not fear al-Qaeda: just the KGB.
Hell, they don't target you for shunning their Viagra, do they?
Three lessons in self-importance.
Lesson 1.
I suppose it is not surprising what a touchy little politician American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can be. She is, after all, still married to Bill. But her recent outburst in response to a question from an uncomprehending Congolese student was a classic in affronted dignity.
She is not alone of course. Self-importance in the political world is more common than fleas on a hedgehog.
It has even been mooted that Georgy, writer of the pro-Georgian blog Cyxymu, an outspoken critic of sadly misunderstood Vladimir Putin and his gentle cronies, so upset delicate Russian sensibilities that party line hackers swamped the web, interrupting Twitter and Facebook, in a concerted attempt to disable his blog.
Lesson 2.
Now we have the ludicrous example of America v. McKinnon, where a British hacker and Asperger syndrome sufferer named Gary McKinnon is to be extradited to the United States to face charges that he infiltrated American military websites, caused thousands of dollars in damage to their national security and badly dented their beribboned self-esteem.
What a pathetic bunch of incompetents they are.
If an eccentric Scot can so easily slide under the razor wire of their computer security is it inconceivable that Afghanistan, China, Iran, Russia, or even Monaco might be doing the same?
OK, so the man needs to have his wrist slapped for being a bloody nuisance, but by a court here, please, not by the US criminal justice system.
Sometimes we should simply tell our bullying American cousins to piss off.
Lesson 3.
On Wednesday our two daughters travelled to Italy for a well-earned holiday. The following is an extract from my diary after their arrival phone call to their mother.
The actor James Nesbitt and his family were at Gatwick and booked on the same flight as Jacqui and Roz. Seems he left his wife struggling with the luggage, the kids and all the arrangements, sailed to the head of the queue to be first to board the plane, and left nobody in any doubt that he considered himself much the VIP.
Consequently, Mo's: "How interesting..." reaction to the initial news that he was at the airport elicited a typically down-to-earth response from Roz:
"Not really. He's a tosser."
She's usually right.
See you, Jimmy.
TELEVISION.
BBC Proms 2009.
My interest in the Proms is desultory nowadays. I have never been able to understand the lure of Stravinsky, Shostakovich or any of the weirdly discordant modern composers so readily given a Proms platform in recent years. As time goes by I find it increasingly difficult to accept them. I play no instrument but I love melodic music.
Recently The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, conducted by Vasily Petrenko, performed Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor. No matter how dismissive the pianoforte aficionados may be, you cannot write it off.
This performance, with the occasionally wild-eyed Stephen Hough as soloist, was somehow as new as its young orchestra.
Tuneful and exciting and great viewing.
Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
Just shown here have been a couple of episodes when Christopher Meloni was away.
Mariska Hargitay managed brilliantly and serial policeman Richard Belzer, "Captain" Dann Florek and confident ice-T were first rate.
When ol' Chris did come back he found himself thrown straight into the deep end with a nasty case involving neo-Nazis and little children being shot by a sniper. The story had more twists and turns than a mountain road, a denouement that the writers of Murder She Wrote would have killed for, and a screen-stealing performance by Marcia Gay Harden as an undercover FBI agent.
Special Victims Unit becomes more special with each series.
FILM.
Grow Your Own.
This little film, directed by Richard Laxton, surfaced and sank in 2007 to mixed reviews, most of them rather poor.
I watched it on television on a night when the opposition was mostly repeats and I found it quite enjoyable.
There was a touch of gentle humour, a few sad truths, and nice underplaying by a multi-racial cast of modern day Brits.
I put it in The Full Monty/Hear My Song category so perhaps I am prejudiced.
I liked them, too.
READING.
The Endless Game.
Finally reached the end of Bryan Forbes's lengthy spy yarn to find that it really is the prelude to A Song at Twilight, published with it. He's good enough to make you persevere, so I shall.
I shall also be reading Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith because it was a gift and is clearly a far cry from his No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency.
More anon.
CARS.
The Old For New Deal.
We are exchanging our ten year old, two door, 1.4 Seat Arosa (one careful owner) in a couple of months for a new, four door, 1.2 Hyundai i10 Comfort.
The exchange is being done under the scrappage scheme and, though I shall miss the Arosa's great little engine (it would do over ninety all day long on the motorway I have been told), we shall not be sorry to abandon the inconvenience of only two passenger doors.
Anyway, the one careful owner tag cuts no ice when it comes to depreciation.
I checked its trade-in price.
Hear the hollow laughter?
It was a Russian Arab!
Report from our languages correspondent in Ventnor, Neil Barnden (nepotism - so what!) after I sent him an assumed Arabic email for which I had been unable to obtain an English translation from Google translate.
"It is Russian (the text refers to something costing 3900 rubles - probably Viagra!). But I can't get any translation from the text either. The names you copied into your blog were actually in Cyrillic script - which Google translate was happy to work with. So perhaps it's the fact that this text has been translated from Cyrillic Russian to 'Roman' Russian that's the problem."
Well thanks, Neil, now I need not fear al-Qaeda: just the KGB.
Hell, they don't target you for shunning their Viagra, do they?
Three lessons in self-importance.
Lesson 1.
I suppose it is not surprising what a touchy little politician American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can be. She is, after all, still married to Bill. But her recent outburst in response to a question from an uncomprehending Congolese student was a classic in affronted dignity.
She is not alone of course. Self-importance in the political world is more common than fleas on a hedgehog.
It has even been mooted that Georgy, writer of the pro-Georgian blog Cyxymu, an outspoken critic of sadly misunderstood Vladimir Putin and his gentle cronies, so upset delicate Russian sensibilities that party line hackers swamped the web, interrupting Twitter and Facebook, in a concerted attempt to disable his blog.
Lesson 2.
Now we have the ludicrous example of America v. McKinnon, where a British hacker and Asperger syndrome sufferer named Gary McKinnon is to be extradited to the United States to face charges that he infiltrated American military websites, caused thousands of dollars in damage to their national security and badly dented their beribboned self-esteem.
What a pathetic bunch of incompetents they are.
If an eccentric Scot can so easily slide under the razor wire of their computer security is it inconceivable that Afghanistan, China, Iran, Russia, or even Monaco might be doing the same?
OK, so the man needs to have his wrist slapped for being a bloody nuisance, but by a court here, please, not by the US criminal justice system.
Sometimes we should simply tell our bullying American cousins to piss off.
Lesson 3.
On Wednesday our two daughters travelled to Italy for a well-earned holiday. The following is an extract from my diary after their arrival phone call to their mother.
The actor James Nesbitt and his family were at Gatwick and booked on the same flight as Jacqui and Roz. Seems he left his wife struggling with the luggage, the kids and all the arrangements, sailed to the head of the queue to be first to board the plane, and left nobody in any doubt that he considered himself much the VIP.
Consequently, Mo's: "How interesting..." reaction to the initial news that he was at the airport elicited a typically down-to-earth response from Roz:
"Not really. He's a tosser."
She's usually right.
See you, Jimmy.
TELEVISION.
BBC Proms 2009.
My interest in the Proms is desultory nowadays. I have never been able to understand the lure of Stravinsky, Shostakovich or any of the weirdly discordant modern composers so readily given a Proms platform in recent years. As time goes by I find it increasingly difficult to accept them. I play no instrument but I love melodic music.
Recently The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, conducted by Vasily Petrenko, performed Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor. No matter how dismissive the pianoforte aficionados may be, you cannot write it off.
This performance, with the occasionally wild-eyed Stephen Hough as soloist, was somehow as new as its young orchestra.
Tuneful and exciting and great viewing.
Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
Just shown here have been a couple of episodes when Christopher Meloni was away.
Mariska Hargitay managed brilliantly and serial policeman Richard Belzer, "Captain" Dann Florek and confident ice-T were first rate.
When ol' Chris did come back he found himself thrown straight into the deep end with a nasty case involving neo-Nazis and little children being shot by a sniper. The story had more twists and turns than a mountain road, a denouement that the writers of Murder She Wrote would have killed for, and a screen-stealing performance by Marcia Gay Harden as an undercover FBI agent.
Special Victims Unit becomes more special with each series.
FILM.
Grow Your Own.
This little film, directed by Richard Laxton, surfaced and sank in 2007 to mixed reviews, most of them rather poor.
I watched it on television on a night when the opposition was mostly repeats and I found it quite enjoyable.
There was a touch of gentle humour, a few sad truths, and nice underplaying by a multi-racial cast of modern day Brits.
I put it in The Full Monty/Hear My Song category so perhaps I am prejudiced.
I liked them, too.
READING.
The Endless Game.
Finally reached the end of Bryan Forbes's lengthy spy yarn to find that it really is the prelude to A Song at Twilight, published with it. He's good enough to make you persevere, so I shall.
I shall also be reading Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith because it was a gift and is clearly a far cry from his No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency.
More anon.
CARS.
The Old For New Deal.
We are exchanging our ten year old, two door, 1.4 Seat Arosa (one careful owner) in a couple of months for a new, four door, 1.2 Hyundai i10 Comfort.
The exchange is being done under the scrappage scheme and, though I shall miss the Arosa's great little engine (it would do over ninety all day long on the motorway I have been told), we shall not be sorry to abandon the inconvenience of only two passenger doors.
Anyway, the one careful owner tag cuts no ice when it comes to depreciation.
I checked its trade-in price.
Hear the hollow laughter?
Thursday, August 06, 2009
131. INDEX 1 - Posts 1 to 130
THE CAST - IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER.
Abbot, Russ: 127 Abby (Scluto): 64,68,75,103,115 Ackland, Josh: 129 Adams, Douglas: 82 Adams, Tony: 118 Affleck, Ben: 29 Agyeman, Freema: 75,104 Alexander, Sasha: 35,46 al-Fayed, Mohamed: 98 Alibhai-Brown, Yasmin: 40,69,71,79,89,97,128 Allen, Dave: 115 Allen, Keith: 124 Alliss, Peter: 130 Allsopp, Kirstie: 116,125 Amis, Martin: 89 Amos, Emma: 71 Anderson, Bruce: 97 Anderson, Jon: 127 Andrews, Julie: 43 Annis, Francesca: 87 Anonymous John: 75,77,83,84,99,104,106,109,112,121 Ant & Dec: 122 Armstrong, Alun: 3,8,108,129,130 Armstrong, Jonas: 128,129 Arnott, Jake; 101 Ashdown, Simon: 64 Asher, Jane: 118 Ashman, Kevin: 68,73 Asriel, Lord: 88 Astaire, Fred: 114 Astin, Sean: 111 Atkins, Eileen: 92,97 Atkinson, Rowan: 53 Aunt Kate: 41 Ayres, Pam: 117,123 Bacchus, D.S. John: 111,124,125 Bailey, Bill: 125 Balding, Claire: 129 Ballesteros, Seve: 81 Banks, Leslie: 63,69 Bannen, Ian: 25 Barclay, D.S.I. Iain: 62 Barker, Sue: 78 Barlow, D.S. Charlie: 62 Barnaby, D.C.I. Tom: 16,27,84,97,115 Barnden, Dennis: 105,110 Barnden, Jacqui: 75,82,123,127 Barnden, Lilian: 100 Barnden, Neil: 28,29,51,55,70,82,84 Barnden, Pauline: 84,99 Barrett, Alan: 118 Barron, Keith: 84 Barrowman, John: 101 Bassey, Shirley: 78,96 Bean, Sean: 111 Becket, Thomas: 98 Beckham, David: 74,75,76,77,84,86 Beeching, Richard: 111 Beesley, Max: 101,115 Belfrage, Bruce: 112 Belzer, Richard: 16 Bening, Annette: 86 Bennett, Alan: 107,109,111,112,114 Bennett, D.I.George: 111 Bennett, Jan: 76,113 Benton, Mark: 102 Bergerac, Jim: 16,27 Berlin, Irving: 95 Bernstein, Leonard: 96 bin Laden, Osama: 102 Black, Jennifer: 93, Blair, Tony: 8,66,67,78 Blanc, Ernest: 127 Blessed, Brian: 61 Bloom, Orlando: 48 Blumenthal, Heston: 49 Bocelli, Andrea: 77 Bogart, Humphrey: 43 Bolam, James: 38,108,130 Bolton, Michael: 95 Bonasera. Stella: 126 Bond, James: 33 Bonneville, Hugh: 62 Boorman, Charlie: 92 Bowles, Lynn, 129 Bowlly, Al: 95 Bowman, Stuart: 64 Boyd, D.S. Peter: 62 Boyd, 'Barrowlands': 129 Boyd, William: 117 Boyle, Susan: 123,126 Brading, Amy: 105 Brambell, Wilfrid: 100 Branagh, Kenneth: 114 Brand, Russell: 112 Branning, Dot: 97 Braun, Lilian Jackson: 4. Brennan, Temperance: 124,125 Brett, Jeremy: 7 Brett, Simon: 7,8 Brimble, Nick: 61 Broadbent, Jim: 100 Brooks, D.S.Ronnie 122 Brown, Gordon, 8,66,73,78,108,123 Brown, Johnny Mack: 85,117 Brown, June: 97 Brown, Rosie: 119 Brown, Warrick: 116 Bruford, Bill: 127 Brydon, Sir Mark: 51 Buble, Michael: 87 Buchan, Andrew: 99 Buchan, John: 115 Buchanan, Colin: 72,73 Bucket, Hyacinth: 63 Bullard, Dr. George: 84 Burke, D.C.I. Matt: 57,104 Burnham, Andy: 112 Burroughs, Edgar Rice: 43 Burton-Hill, Clemency: 123 Bush, George: 67 Butler, Phil: 75 Butterworth, Peter: 83 Cadfael, Bro: 97 Caine, Horatio 11 Caitlin (Todd); 35,46 Callan, David: 33,99 Cameron, David: 73,124 Camilleri, Andrea: 114 Campbell, Menzies: 89 Campion, Albert: 7 Carroll, Lewis: 65 Carson, Willie: 129 Carter, Jim: 100 Caruso, David: 7,10,11,18,39,58,91,100 Caruso, Enrico: 96 Casement, Roger: 95 Cassandra: 85 Cassidy, Eva; 105 Cassidy, Hopalong: 117 Castle, Andrew: 126 Castle, John: 24 Cerdan, Marcel: 107 Chambers, Tom: 114 Chandler, Raymond: 43,114 Chapman, Beth Nielsen: 95 Charlatans, The: 128 Charteris, Leslie: 43,77,114 Christie, Agatha: 87,105 Churchill, Randolph: 82 Churchill, Winston: 74 Cink, Stewart: 130 Claire and Lara: 9,10,29,33,39,65 Clapp, Gordon: 61 Clarke, Oz: 49 Clarke, Roy: 83, 127 Clarke, D.S. Siobhan: 93. Clarke, Warren: 16,72,73 Clarkson, Jeremy: 107 Cleasby, Emma: 86 Clooney, George: 13 Close, Glenn: 110 Clunes, Martin: 87 Cocker, Joe: 127 Cole, George: 63 Cole, Brendan: 114 Cole, Kevin: 12 Collette, Toni: 125 Collins, Joan: 91 Coltraine, Robbie:27,31,84 Columbo, Lt: 130 Columbus, Chris: 80 Comden, Betty: 83 Connery, Jason: 128 Connery, Sean: 61 Connolly, Billy: 120 Constantine, Leary: 89 Cook Jnr,, Elisha: 46 Cooke, Christian: 118 Cookson, Catherine: 107 Cooper, Gary: 43 Cooper, Jilly: 86,95 Cooper, Tommy: 33,77 Coppell, Steve: 64,125 Corbett, Harry H. 100 Corden, James: 121 Corelli, Franco: 96 Cosmo, James: 21 Costello, Elvis: 46 Costner, Kevin: 61,86 Coward, Noel: 77,83,96,124 Crabbe, D.I. Henry: 7,121 Cracker: 27 Craig, Daniel: 90.95 Cranham, Kenneth: 74 Craven, John: 123 Crawford, Randy: 127 Creek, Jonathan: 44,111,115 Cremer, Bruno: 114 Cribbins, Bernard: 108 Crispin, Edmund: 122 Cromwell, Oliver: 115 Crosby, Bing: 95,96,115 Cruise, Tom: 120,130 Crushem, Will: 105,110 Cuaron, Alfonso: 80 Cunningham, Liam: 86 Curtis, Richard: 53 Dale, James Badge: 11 Dali, Salvador: 76 Dallaglio, Lawrence: 82 Dallerup, Camilla: 114 Daltrey, Roger: 71,72 Daly, Fred: 81 Dalziel, D.C.S. Andy: 16,72,73 Damon, Matt. 29 David, Ziva: 94,115 Davies, Alan: 111,115,117,121 Davies, Dangerous: 7,8,71 Davies, Deidre: 104 Davies, Rupert: 114 Davies, Russell T: 51,100,102,108 Davis, Bette: 43 Davis, Phil: 69,100,101 Davison, Peter: 7,8,71,87 Daws, Robert: 76 Dawson, Les: 123 Day, Doris: 95 Dayer, Roz: 60,84,95,123 De'ath, Charles: 71 Deed, Judge John: 69 deMooi, C.J: 68,73,107 Dench, Judi: 78 de Pablo, Cote: 94 Depp, Johnny: 95 Dexter (Morgan): 105,115,120 Dexter, Colin: 64,95,107,109,111 Diana, Princess: 76,117 Dickens, Charles: 109 Dimbleby, David: 108 Dinozzo, Anthony: 46,64,115 Dillow, Ian: 53 Diversity: 126 Doctor Who: 73,75,102,104,105,106,107,108 Donat, Robert: 115 Donna (Noble): 102,104,105 D'Onofrio, Vincent: 58 Doris (sister) 124 Douglas, Kirk: 43 Dourdon, Gary: 116 Dowland, James: 121 Driscoll, Sgt. Jack: 130 Duff, Blythe: 104 Duffy, Carol Anne: 126 Dumbledore, Albus: 56,86 Dunn, Carrie: 114 Durante, Jimmy: 96 Durr, Jason: 115 , Duvall, Robert: 86 Dyke, Greg: 112 Eagleton, Terry: 89 Earp, Wyatt: 94,95 Eastwood, Clint: 125 Elliot, John: 82,109 Elliott, Sam: 94 Ellis, grandson 'Boo': 42,53,60,64,75,93,109,111,114 Evans, Rupert: 98 Eve, Trevor: 62,101,102 Everett, Rupert: 33 Ewen, Jade: 126 Faldo, Nick: 81 Falk, Peter: 130 Farndon, Zoe: 127 Feast, Michael: 74 Federer, Roger: 79,108,130 Fen, Gervaise: 122 Ferguson, Alex: 49,59,64,126 Ferris, Pam: 105 Fields, Gracie: 96 Fillis, Brian: 100 Finch, Scout: 111 Fine, Sylvia: 95 Firth, Peter: 24,91 Fishburne, Laurence: 122 Fisher, Connie: 22,48 Fitz: 31 Fitzgerald, Tara: 38 Flemyng, Jason: 124 Fletcher, Cyril: 96 Fletcher, Dexter: 101 Fletcher, Jessica: 50,97,103 Fletcher, Justin: 100 Flynn, Barbara: 97,109 Flynn, Errol: 128 Flynn, Jerome: 33 Fogle, Ben: 98,117 Forbes, Bryan: 125,127 Forsyth, Bruce: 114 Fowke, Philip: 81 Fowler, Daphne: 68,73,107 Fox, James: 108 Fox, Laurence: 64 Foxx, James: 130 Foyle, D.C.S. Christopher: 7,62,63,103,104,109 Franz, Dennis: 11,61,63 Fraser, Hugh: 8 Fraser, D.C. Stuart: 57 Frazer, Liz: 63 Fred & Ginger: 43 Freeman, Morgan: 61 French, Dawn: 98,121 Friday, Sgt.Joe: 111 Front, Rebecca: 64,76 Frost, David: 68 Frost, D.I. Jack: 7 Fry, Stephen: 74,100,113,115,117,127 Fu Manchu, Dr. 100 Gallagher, (brothers): 115 Gallagher, Frank: 64 Gamble, P.C. 90 Gambon, Michael: 86,91,114 Gandhi: 128 Gandolfini, James: 65,90 Gardner, Freddie: 96 Gaunt, Marion: 105 Gedda, Nicolai: 127 Gens, Veronique: 10 Gently, D.I. George: 69,111,124,125 Gerrard, Steven: 75,106 Gershwin, George: 96 Gervais, Ricky: 37 Gibbs, Leroy 'Jethro' 22,35,46,58,64,68,75,92,93,94,95,103,115 Gielgud, John: 64 Gifford, Josh: 129 Gish, Sheila: 64 Glenister, Philip; 69,101,118 Gless, Sharon: 53 Gok, Wan: 109,126 Goody, Jade: 56 Goran, Det. Robert: 58 Gould, Elliott: 43 Graham, Julie: 115 Graham, Nicola (Royston-Parry): 105,106 Granger, Hermione: 50,80,130 Grant, Richard E: 72,73 Grappelli, Stephane: 96 Green, Adolph: 83 Green, Hughie: 101,102,123 Green, Robson: 24,28,33,37 Greer, Germaine: 113,123 Griffiths, Richard: 7,97 Grint, Rupert: 50 Grissom, Gil: 116 Gross, Andrew: 53 Grout, James: 64 Grump, Arthur: 115 Guetary, Georges: 96 Guinness, Alec: 90,128 Hagrid: 27,84 Haining, Peter: 77 Hallinan, Olivia: 98 Hamilton, Lewis: 89 Hammerback, Dr. Sid: 126 Hammond, Joan: 82,96 Hancock, Tony; 101 Hannah, John: 21,74 Hannay, Richard: 115 Harbinson, Patrick: 111 Hardwicke, Edward: 7 Hardy, Robert: 64 Harewood, David: 128 Hari, Johann: 79,97,128 Harmon, Mark: 16,22,31,35,58,64,68,75,92,93,94,100, Harper, Lee: 111 Harrington, Padraig: 81 Harris, Richard: 5 Hastings, Captain: 7,8,97,111 Hathaway, Det.Sgt: 64 Havers, D,S, Barbara: 2,83,106 Havers, Nigel: 41 Hawking, Stephen: 103 Hayman, David: 62,101 Haynes, Natalie: 125 Hayter, James: 128 Hayward, Louis: 43 Hazlewood, Charles: 12 Head, Anthony: 111 Helfgott, David: 22 Henman, Tim: 79 Henri, Thierry: 59 Henriksson, Krister: 114 Henshall, Douglas: 123,124 Henshall, Ruthie: 123 Henson, C.S. Laura: 104 Hepburn, Katherine: 43 Herman, Jerry: 96 Heymer, Dennis: 102 Hibberd, Stuart: 112 Hickson, Joan: 87 Hill, Harry: 100 Hinds, Ciaran: 115 Hislop, Ian: 37,62,111,123 Hitler, Adolf: 71 Hoffman, Philip Seymour: 120 Holliday, Doc: 95 Holman, Claire: 64 Holmes, Sherlock: 7,31,97,104 Hood, Robin: 61,122,129 Horowitz, Anthony: 103,104,109,125 Howard, Trevor: 96 Howe, Steve: 127 Howell, Anthony: 63,103 Howerd, Frankie: 101,102 Hubbard, Ron. L. 124 Hucknall, Mick: 127 Hughes, Chris: 68,73 Hughes, Gwyneth: 62 Hughes, Sean: 71 Humble, Kate: 74,127 Humphrys, John: 92 Hunt, D.C.I. Gene: 69,101 Hunter, Alan: 69 Hunter, Russell: 99 Hurt, John: 111 Ice Road Truckers: 99,116 Imrie, Celia: 120,127 Ingleby, Lee: 69.111,124 Innocent, Harold: 61 Isaacs, Jason: 49,51,53,100,101 Izzard, Eddie: 64 Jackson, Barry: 84 Jackson, Peter: 48,111 Jackson, Philip: 8,111 Jacobi, Derek: 97 Jacobs, Marc: 110 James, Clive: 36 James, P.D: 111 Jankovic, Jelena: 79 Japp, C.I. James: 7,8,97,111 Jardine, Douglas: 59 Jason, David: 7 Jehovah: 124 Jeffreys, Prof. Alec: 44 Johanssen, Scarlet: 111 John, Elton: 78 Johns, Stratford: 62 Johnson, Boris: 123 Johnson, Celia: 96 Johnson, Karl: 98 Johnson, Lyndon B. 57 Johnson, Samuel: 40 Johnston, Sue: 97 Jones, Martha: 104 Jones, Nicholas: 24 Jones, Suranne: 118 Joseph, Lesley: 117 Joy, Robert: 126 Judd, Ashley: 124 Kahn, Gus: 95 Kanakaredes, Melina: 11,126 Kaye, Danny: 51 Kearney, Martha: 125 Kendal, Felicity 105 Kennedy, Gordon: 76 Kennedy, Nigel: 120 Keppel, Judith: 68,73 Kerr, Deborah: 89 King Charles 1: 115 King, Justin: 128 King, Simon: 74,127 Kingdom, Peter: 127 Kingsley, Ben: 128 Kington, Miles: 97 Kipling, Rudyard: 69 Kitchen, Michael: 7,62,63,103,104 Kline, Kevin: 124 Kos: 57 Kuryakin, Ilya: 35 Lahbib, Simone: 24 Lamb, Amanda: 116 Lancaster, Burt: 43 Lane, Dorcas: 98,121 Lane, Lupino: 96 Langford, Bonny: 99 Lansbury, Angela: 50,51,120 LaPlante, Lynda: 111,115 Larwood, Harold: 59 Latham, Jody: 99 Laughland, Nick: 71 Laughton, Charles: 82 Law, Jude: 104 Lean, David: 96 le Carre, John: 90 Lee, Peggy: 127 Leigh, Janet: 130 Le Mesurier, Joan: 101 Le Mesurier, John: 101 Lemon, Miss: 8,97,111 Lewis, Damian: 128 Lewis, D.C.I. Janine: 44 Lewis, D.I. Robert: 64 Liddell, Alvar: 112 Lincoln, Andrew: 22,31 Lock, Sean: 117 Locke, Josef: 96 Lockhart, Sally: 107,109 Logan, Phyllis: 104 Long, Max: 109 Lovegood, Linda: 79 Luca, Giordano: 128 Luft, Lorna: 117 Lumley, Joanna: 51,53,121,125 Lusardi, Linda: 99 Lynley, D.I. Tommy: 2,83,106 Lyra: 95 Mack, Lee: 118 Maigret, Insp. Jules: 114 Makutsi, Mma: 121 Malfoy, Draco: 80 Malfoy, Lucius: 49,53 Mallard, Dr.'Ducky': 35,115 Mankell, Henning: 114 Mantle, Doreen: 97 Marcus Aurelius: 82 Margolyes, Miriam: 97 Marlowe, Philip: 43,114 Marnham, Patrick: 18 Marple, Jane (Miss): 87,97,98,101 Marples, Ernest: 111 Mastrantonio, Mary Elizabeth: 61 Matthews, Jessie: 41 Maugham, Somerset: 82 Maupin, Armistead: 124,125 May, James: 49 McBride, Damian: 123 McCain, John: 111 McCallum, David: 35 McClaren,Steve: 14,15,47,76,84,92 McCredie, Colin: 57 McCutcheon, Martine: 87 McDermid, Val: 111 McDonnell, Owen: 130 McEnroe, John: 81 McEwan, Geraldine: 61,87,97,98 McFly: 128 McGee, Timothy: 103,115 McGovern, Jimmy: 31 McGregor, Ewan; 92,109,111 McKellan, Ian: 111 McKenna, Charlene: 64 McKenzie, Julia: 76,97,98 McKidd, Kevin: 86 McLaughlin, Joseph: 96 McNeice, Ian: 100 McShane, Michael: 61 Medavoy, Greg: 61 Melua, Katie: 95,109 Menuhin, Yehudi: 96 Mercer, John: 99 Mercury, Freddie: 101 Merlin: 56,111 Merman, Ethel: 96 Merton, Paul: 37,76,107,113 Miles, Ben: 98 Milligan, Spike: 89 Mills, John: 63 Milner, Paul: 63,103 Minghella, Anthony: 100,104 Mirren, Helen: 38,78 Mitchell, David: 121 Mitchell, James: 99 Mitchum, Robert: 96 Mitty, Walter: 127 Mo, friend: 112 Molina, Alfred: 104 Monk: 97 Monroe, Marilyn: 43 Montalbano, Insp, Salvo: 114 Monteith, Kelly: 101 Montgomery, Robert: 43 Moore, Roger: 43 Moran, Pauline: 8 More, Kenneth: 115 Morse, D.I. Endeavour: 69,97,107 Motion, Andrew: 78 Mourinho, Jose: 87,126 Mower, Patrick: 99 Mullan, Peter: 99 Munch, John: 16 Murnaghan, Dermot: 68,73,86,107 Murray, Al: 69,97 Murray, Andy: 79 Murray, Jamie: 79 Murray, Sean: 103 Mynenko, Yuriy: 128 Nadal, Rafael: 108 Nettles, John: 16,27.58 Newell, Mike: 80 Newman, G.F. 101 Newman, Nanette: 125 Nighy, Bill: 100 Nilsson, Harry: 95 Norton, Alex: 57,104 Norton, Graham: 86,126 Novello.Ivor: 124 Obama, Barack: 111,117,124 Ochoa, Lorena: 82 Oddy, Bill: 74, 127 Ogden, John: 81,96 Ogilvy, Ian: 43 O'Grady, Paul: 41,91,115 Osbourne, Jack: 36 Osbourne, Sharon: 20 O'Shea, Tessie: 96 Osmond, Donny: 86 Outhwaite, Tamzin: 99,101 Owen, Michael: 84 Pack, Roger Lloyd: 35,118 Packham, Chris: 127 Padel, Ruth: 126 Palance, Jack: 46 Pallette, Eugene: 128 Palmer, Harry: 33 Paris, Charles: 7,8 Park, Nick: 115 Parker, Nathaniel: 106 Parker, Peter: 113 Parkinson, Michael: 117 Parton, Dolly: 96 Pascoe, D.I. Peter: 16,72,73 Paterson, Bill: 109,122 Patinkin, Mandy: 44,92 Patterson,James: 53 Paulin, Tom: 113,123,125 Pavarotti, Luciano: 85 Paxman, Jeremy: 92 Payne, John: 130 Peake, Maxine: 101 Penry-Jones, Rupert: 24,91,115 Perette, Pauley: 64,68,75 Pertwee, Sean: 86 Petersen, Willian. L: 15,26,44,51,122,123 Phillips, Sian: 38 Pigott-Smith, Tim: 72 Pixies: 128 Plater, Alan: 64 Poirot, Hercule: 7,31,97,103,111 Poliakoff, Stephen: 91 Poppins, Mary ; 94 Porter, Cole: 96,124 Porter, Linda: 124 Portillo, Michael: 123 Potter, Beatrix: 109 Potter, Dennis: 114 Potter, Harry: 4,5,9,12,27,39,45,50,63,77,78,79,80,82,83,88,100,106,111,114,120,124,130 Powell, Dick: 43,114 Powell, Robert: 115 Powers, Stefanie: 68 Prescott, John: 8,91 Presley, Elvis: 96 Preston, Duncan: 120 Preston, Robert: 96 Price, Claire: 93, Prince Philip: 98,106 Prodigy, The: 128 Pullman, Philip: 50,88,90,95,107,109 Queen Elizabeth 2: 80,91,100,102,106,121 Quentin, Caroline: 44 Quick, A.C. Bob: 114,123 Quilleran, Jim: 4 Rachmaninov, Sergei: 96 Rackham, Jane: 33 Radcliffe, Daniel: 50 Radd, Ronald: 99 Ramotswe, Precious: 100,121 Ramsay, Gordon: 37,115 Rankin, Ian: 21,109,111 Rathbone, Andy: 28 Rathbone, Basil: 61 Rathbone, Willie 34 Rattle, Simon: 10 Razorlight: 128 Rebus, D.I. John: 21,25,29,30,88,93. Red Arrows: 128 Redknapp, Harry: 70,105,112,118 Redman, Amanda: 38,108,130 Reichs, Kathy: 121,122,124,125 Reid, D.S. Jackie: 104 Reilly, Kelly: 115 Renwick, David: 111 Reynolds, Kevin: 61 Rhys-Davies, John: 48 Richard, Cliff: 34,78 Richard The Lionheart: 61 Richards, Ben: 99 Richards, Dakot Blue: 95 Richie, Shane: 35 Rickman, Alan: 5,29,30,53,61,104,120 Riseborough, Andrea: 115 Robb, Natalie: 64 Robeson, Paul: 89 Robinson, Tony: 108 Roddick, Andy: 130 Rodgers, Richard: 129 Rogers, Anton: 76 Rogers, Ginger: 114 Rohmer, Sax: 100 Ronaldo, Cristiano 67,108 Rooney, Wayne: 15,67,84,86 Rooper, Jemima: 111 Root, Henry: 87 Rose, Anika Noni: 121 Ross, Jonathan: 112,130 Rowling, J.K. 5,18,27,36,45,63,71,77,78,80,82,88,98,100,114,130 Rush, Geoffrey: 22 Sachar, Louis: 50 Sachs, Andrew: 112 Saint, The: 43,77,114 Sallis, Peter: 127 Sanders, George: 43,114 Saunders, Jennifer: 49,53,121 Savage, Lily: 115 Sawalha, Julia: 98,117,121 Sayers, Dorothy L: 28 Sayle, Alexei: 107 Schofield, Phillip: 99 Schweitzer, Albert: 111 Scoresby, Lee; 94 Scott, Jill: 121 Secombe, Harry: 96 Sellars, Peter: 22 Semprini, Albert: 95 Sessions, John: 121 Sewell, Brian: 76 Shahi, Sarah: 128 Shaps, Simon: 103 Sharp, Lesley: 22,31 Shaw, Martin: 69,124 Shcherbachenko,Ekaterina: 128 Shearer, Alan: 14, 15 Sheila,friend: 99,112,121 Shepherd, Jack: 62 Shore, Dinah: 95 Shrapnel, John: 71 Shunpike, Stan: 111 Silent Bob: 30 Sim, Alistair; 63 Simenon, Georges: 114 Simm, John: 115 Simon's Cat: 118 Sinatra, Frank: 36 Sinclair, Hugh: 43 Sinise, Gary: 11,126 Sipowicz, Andy: 61,63 Sjowall & Wahloo: 114 Skellern, Peter: 127 Skinner, Claire: 76 Slater, Christian: 61 Sleep, Wayne: 117 Sloan, Mark: 97 Small, Sharon: 106 Smiley, George; 90 Smith, Alexander McCall: 100 Smith, Andreas Whittam: 97 Smith, C.Aubrey: 69 Smith, Julian: 126 Smith, Kevin: 30 Smith, Liz: 45,98 Smith, Maggie: 97,111 Smith-Start, Brix: 126 Snape, Prof. Severus: 5,66 Snowdon, Liza: 114 Soprano, Tony: 65,90 Spall, Rafe: 102 Sparrow, Walter: 61 Spencer, Phil: 116 Spiderman: 113 Spielberg, Steven: 14 Squire, Chris: 127 Squire, William: 99 Staff, Kathy: 127 Standen, Clive: 128 Staunton, Imelda: 97 Steed, Maggie: 7,97 Stephen, Jaci: 72,73 Stereophonics: 128 Stettner, Patrick: 125 Stevens, Rachel: 114 Stevens, Toby: 124 Stewart, Sam: 63,103 Stott, Ken: 21,25,30,62,88,90,93,101, Strachan, Gordon: 49 Streep, Meryl: 110,125 Street-Porter, Janet: 121 Streeter, Tanya: 83 Stuart, Moira: 62 Styne, Julie: 83 Suchet, David: 7 Sutcliffe, Thomas: 108,121 Sutherland, Joan: 128 Swift, Clive: 118 Sykes, Melanie: 91 Tarrant, Chris: 87 Tarzan: 43,69 Tatchell, Peter: 112 Tate, Catherine: 102 Tate, Jeffrey: 120 Tauber, Richard: 96 Taylor, Mac: 11,100,126 Teale, Owen: 64 Templar, D.C.S. Gill: 93, Tennant, David: 102108 Tennyson, D.S. Jane: 38 Terry, John: 75,106 Thatcher, Margaret: 71,99,108,125 Thaw, John: 69 Thomas, Leslie: 71 Thomas, Matthew: 71 Thompson, Emma: 98,121 Thompson, Flora: 98 Timmins, Laura: 98,100 Titchmarsh, Alan: 86,102,126 Tofield, Simon: 118 TOGs: 3,5 Tolkein, J.R.R. 48 Tomkinson, Stephen: 127 Torode, John: 60 Torres, Fernando: 108 Townsend, Robert: 81 Townshend, Pete: 78,110 Toyah (Wilcox): 117 Tracy, Spencer: 43 Treacy, Philip: 110 Trelawney, Sybil: 98 TrippingOnWords: 9,21,29,33,39,51,53,58,65,75 Trotter, John Scott: 96 Troughton, David: 58,108,129 Troughton, Patrick; 108,129 Troughton, Sam: 129 Tuck, Friar: 128 Turnbull, Giles: 58,87,109 Turow, Scott: 124 Twain, Mark: 57 Umbridge, Dolores: 79 Valentine, Anthony: 71,99 Valjean, Jean: 27 Van Dyke, Dick: 94,117 Vane, Harriet: 28 Vegas, Johnny: 117 Venables, Terry: 92 Vickers, Roy: 38 Vogt, Lars: 10 Von Nida, Norman: 81 Wainwright, Hetty: 97 Wainwright, Rufus: 78,127 Wainwright, Sally: 118 Wakeman, Rick: 127 Walker, Johnny: 129 Walker, D.C.S. MIchael: 62,101 Wallace & Gromit: 115 Wallace, Gregg: 60 Wallander, Insp. Kurt: 114 Walliams, David: 101,102 Walsh, Bradley: 122 Walter, Harriet: 122 Walters, Julie: 106,118,120 Walters, Paul: 5,41 Warhol, Andy: 107 Wark, Kirsty: 123 Warnes, Jennifer: 127 Waterman, Dennis: 38,108,130 Watson, Doctor: 7 Watson, Emily: 109 Watson, Emma: 50,130 Watson, James: 89 Watson, Tom: 130 Waugh, Evelyn: 82 Weasley, Molly: 120 Weatherley, Michael: 46,64 Weaver, Sigourney: 120 Webber, Andrew Lloyd: 22,126 Weeks, Honeysuckle: 7,63,103 Weissmuller, Johnny: 43,69 Wells, H.G. 106 Wendy, friend: 112 Wenger, Arsene: 59,64 Wesley, Mary: 5,18,38,125 West, Samuel: 58 Wexford, C,I, Reg: 97 Whately, Kevin: 64,97 Wheeler, Jimmy: 113 White, Jessica: 20,47,50,60,76,83,84,95,105,110,113,123,128 White, T.H: 63,67,77 Whitehouse, Mary: 106 Whitehouse, Toby: 51 Whitfield, David: 96 Whitfield, June: 97,127 Who, The: 128 Widmark, Richard: 102 Wilde, Oscar: 77 Wilde, Brian: 127 Wilkinson, Colm: 27 Wilkinson, Johnny: 82 Williams, Iris: 96 Williams, Lee: 101 Williams, Robin: 125 Williams, Rowan: 98 Williams, Venus: 79 Willis, Bruce, 5 Wilson, Benji: 103 Wilson, Richard: 111 Wilson, (truth about): 85,117 Wimsey, Lord Peter: 28,31 Wincott, Michael: 61 Winkler, Irwin: 124 Winstone, Ray: 43,48 Wogan, Terry: 3,5,13,18,27,41,102,106,126,129 Wolf, Dick: 122 Wood, Elijah: 111 Wood, Victoria: 53,72,73,76,120 Woodman, George: 85 Woodman, Greta: 85 Woodward, Edward: 99 Woolgar, Fenella: 105 Wright, Clarissa Dixon: 109,111 Wycliffe, D.C.S. Charles: 62 Wynter, Danny Lee: 91 Yates, David: 80,100,130 Yates, Jess: 102 Yates, Paula: 102 Young, James: 64 Young, Neil: 128 Young, Will: 128 Zellweger,Renée: 109 Zingaretti, Luca: 114
Abbot, Russ: 127 Abby (Scluto): 64,68,75,103,115 Ackland, Josh: 129 Adams, Douglas: 82 Adams, Tony: 118 Affleck, Ben: 29 Agyeman, Freema: 75,104 Alexander, Sasha: 35,46 al-Fayed, Mohamed: 98 Alibhai-Brown, Yasmin: 40,69,71,79,89,97,128 Allen, Dave: 115 Allen, Keith: 124 Alliss, Peter: 130 Allsopp, Kirstie: 116,125 Amis, Martin: 89 Amos, Emma: 71 Anderson, Bruce: 97 Anderson, Jon: 127 Andrews, Julie: 43 Annis, Francesca: 87 Anonymous John: 75,77,83,84,99,104,106,109,112,121 Ant & Dec: 122 Armstrong, Alun: 3,8,108,129,130 Armstrong, Jonas: 128,129 Arnott, Jake; 101 Ashdown, Simon: 64 Asher, Jane: 118 Ashman, Kevin: 68,73 Asriel, Lord: 88 Astaire, Fred: 114 Astin, Sean: 111 Atkins, Eileen: 92,97 Atkinson, Rowan: 53 Aunt Kate: 41 Ayres, Pam: 117,123 Bacchus, D.S. John: 111,124,125 Bailey, Bill: 125 Balding, Claire: 129 Ballesteros, Seve: 81 Banks, Leslie: 63,69 Bannen, Ian: 25 Barclay, D.S.I. Iain: 62 Barker, Sue: 78 Barlow, D.S. Charlie: 62 Barnaby, D.C.I. Tom: 16,27,84,97,115 Barnden, Dennis: 105,110 Barnden, Jacqui: 75,82,123,127 Barnden, Lilian: 100 Barnden, Neil: 28,29,51,55,70,82,84 Barnden, Pauline: 84,99 Barrett, Alan: 118 Barron, Keith: 84 Barrowman, John: 101 Bassey, Shirley: 78,96 Bean, Sean: 111 Becket, Thomas: 98 Beckham, David: 74,75,76,77,84,86 Beeching, Richard: 111 Beesley, Max: 101,115 Belfrage, Bruce: 112 Belzer, Richard: 16 Bening, Annette: 86 Bennett, Alan: 107,109,111,112,114 Bennett, D.I.George: 111 Bennett, Jan: 76,113 Benton, Mark: 102 Bergerac, Jim: 16,27 Berlin, Irving: 95 Bernstein, Leonard: 96 bin Laden, Osama: 102 Black, Jennifer: 93, Blair, Tony: 8,66,67,78 Blanc, Ernest: 127 Blessed, Brian: 61 Bloom, Orlando: 48 Blumenthal, Heston: 49 Bocelli, Andrea: 77 Bogart, Humphrey: 43 Bolam, James: 38,108,130 Bolton, Michael: 95 Bonasera. Stella: 126 Bond, James: 33 Bonneville, Hugh: 62 Boorman, Charlie: 92 Bowles, Lynn, 129 Bowlly, Al: 95 Bowman, Stuart: 64 Boyd, D.S. Peter: 62 Boyd, 'Barrowlands': 129 Boyd, William: 117 Boyle, Susan: 123,126 Brading, Amy: 105 Brambell, Wilfrid: 100 Branagh, Kenneth: 114 Brand, Russell: 112 Branning, Dot: 97 Braun, Lilian Jackson: 4. Brennan, Temperance: 124,125 Brett, Jeremy: 7 Brett, Simon: 7,8 Brimble, Nick: 61 Broadbent, Jim: 100 Brooks, D.S.Ronnie 122 Brown, Gordon, 8,66,73,78,108,123 Brown, Johnny Mack: 85,117 Brown, June: 97 Brown, Rosie: 119 Brown, Warrick: 116 Bruford, Bill: 127 Brydon, Sir Mark: 51 Buble, Michael: 87 Buchan, Andrew: 99 Buchan, John: 115 Buchanan, Colin: 72,73 Bucket, Hyacinth: 63 Bullard, Dr. George: 84 Burke, D.C.I. Matt: 57,104 Burnham, Andy: 112 Burroughs, Edgar Rice: 43 Burton-Hill, Clemency: 123 Bush, George: 67 Butler, Phil: 75 Butterworth, Peter: 83 Cadfael, Bro: 97 Caine, Horatio 11 Caitlin (Todd); 35,46 Callan, David: 33,99 Cameron, David: 73,124 Camilleri, Andrea: 114 Campbell, Menzies: 89 Campion, Albert: 7 Carroll, Lewis: 65 Carson, Willie: 129 Carter, Jim: 100 Caruso, David: 7,10,11,18,39,58,91,100 Caruso, Enrico: 96 Casement, Roger: 95 Cassandra: 85 Cassidy, Eva; 105 Cassidy, Hopalong: 117 Castle, Andrew: 126 Castle, John: 24 Cerdan, Marcel: 107 Chambers, Tom: 114 Chandler, Raymond: 43,114 Chapman, Beth Nielsen: 95 Charlatans, The: 128 Charteris, Leslie: 43,77,114 Christie, Agatha: 87,105 Churchill, Randolph: 82 Churchill, Winston: 74 Cink, Stewart: 130 Claire and Lara: 9,10,29,33,39,65 Clapp, Gordon: 61 Clarke, Oz: 49 Clarke, Roy: 83, 127 Clarke, D.S. Siobhan: 93. Clarke, Warren: 16,72,73 Clarkson, Jeremy: 107 Cleasby, Emma: 86 Clooney, George: 13 Close, Glenn: 110 Clunes, Martin: 87 Cocker, Joe: 127 Cole, George: 63 Cole, Brendan: 114 Cole, Kevin: 12 Collette, Toni: 125 Collins, Joan: 91 Coltraine, Robbie:27,31,84 Columbo, Lt: 130 Columbus, Chris: 80 Comden, Betty: 83 Connery, Jason: 128 Connery, Sean: 61 Connolly, Billy: 120 Constantine, Leary: 89 Cook Jnr,, Elisha: 46 Cooke, Christian: 118 Cookson, Catherine: 107 Cooper, Gary: 43 Cooper, Jilly: 86,95 Cooper, Tommy: 33,77 Coppell, Steve: 64,125 Corbett, Harry H. 100 Corden, James: 121 Corelli, Franco: 96 Cosmo, James: 21 Costello, Elvis: 46 Costner, Kevin: 61,86 Coward, Noel: 77,83,96,124 Crabbe, D.I. Henry: 7,121 Cracker: 27 Craig, Daniel: 90.95 Cranham, Kenneth: 74 Craven, John: 123 Crawford, Randy: 127 Creek, Jonathan: 44,111,115 Cremer, Bruno: 114 Cribbins, Bernard: 108 Crispin, Edmund: 122 Cromwell, Oliver: 115 Crosby, Bing: 95,96,115 Cruise, Tom: 120,130 Crushem, Will: 105,110 Cuaron, Alfonso: 80 Cunningham, Liam: 86 Curtis, Richard: 53 Dale, James Badge: 11 Dali, Salvador: 76 Dallaglio, Lawrence: 82 Dallerup, Camilla: 114 Daltrey, Roger: 71,72 Daly, Fred: 81 Dalziel, D.C.S. Andy: 16,72,73 Damon, Matt. 29 David, Ziva: 94,115 Davies, Alan: 111,115,117,121 Davies, Dangerous: 7,8,71 Davies, Deidre: 104 Davies, Rupert: 114 Davies, Russell T: 51,100,102,108 Davis, Bette: 43 Davis, Phil: 69,100,101 Davison, Peter: 7,8,71,87 Daws, Robert: 76 Dawson, Les: 123 Day, Doris: 95 Dayer, Roz: 60,84,95,123 De'ath, Charles: 71 Deed, Judge John: 69 deMooi, C.J: 68,73,107 Dench, Judi: 78 de Pablo, Cote: 94 Depp, Johnny: 95 Dexter (Morgan): 105,115,120 Dexter, Colin: 64,95,107,109,111 Diana, Princess: 76,117 Dickens, Charles: 109 Dimbleby, David: 108 Dinozzo, Anthony: 46,64,115 Dillow, Ian: 53 Diversity: 126 Doctor Who: 73,75,102,104,105,106,107,108 Donat, Robert: 115 Donna (Noble): 102,104,105 D'Onofrio, Vincent: 58 Doris (sister) 124 Douglas, Kirk: 43 Dourdon, Gary: 116 Dowland, James: 121 Driscoll, Sgt. Jack: 130 Duff, Blythe: 104 Duffy, Carol Anne: 126 Dumbledore, Albus: 56,86 Dunn, Carrie: 114 Durante, Jimmy: 96 Durr, Jason: 115 , Duvall, Robert: 86 Dyke, Greg: 112 Eagleton, Terry: 89 Earp, Wyatt: 94,95 Eastwood, Clint: 125 Elliot, John: 82,109 Elliott, Sam: 94 Ellis, grandson 'Boo': 42,53,60,64,75,93,109,111,114 Evans, Rupert: 98 Eve, Trevor: 62,101,102 Everett, Rupert: 33 Ewen, Jade: 126 Faldo, Nick: 81 Falk, Peter: 130 Farndon, Zoe: 127 Feast, Michael: 74 Federer, Roger: 79,108,130 Fen, Gervaise: 122 Ferguson, Alex: 49,59,64,126 Ferris, Pam: 105 Fields, Gracie: 96 Fillis, Brian: 100 Finch, Scout: 111 Fine, Sylvia: 95 Firth, Peter: 24,91 Fishburne, Laurence: 122 Fisher, Connie: 22,48 Fitz: 31 Fitzgerald, Tara: 38 Flemyng, Jason: 124 Fletcher, Cyril: 96 Fletcher, Dexter: 101 Fletcher, Jessica: 50,97,103 Fletcher, Justin: 100 Flynn, Barbara: 97,109 Flynn, Errol: 128 Flynn, Jerome: 33 Fogle, Ben: 98,117 Forbes, Bryan: 125,127 Forsyth, Bruce: 114 Fowke, Philip: 81 Fowler, Daphne: 68,73,107 Fox, James: 108 Fox, Laurence: 64 Foxx, James: 130 Foyle, D.C.S. Christopher: 7,62,63,103,104,109 Franz, Dennis: 11,61,63 Fraser, Hugh: 8 Fraser, D.C. Stuart: 57 Frazer, Liz: 63 Fred & Ginger: 43 Freeman, Morgan: 61 French, Dawn: 98,121 Friday, Sgt.Joe: 111 Front, Rebecca: 64,76 Frost, David: 68 Frost, D.I. Jack: 7 Fry, Stephen: 74,100,113,115,117,127 Fu Manchu, Dr. 100 Gallagher, (brothers): 115 Gallagher, Frank: 64 Gamble, P.C. 90 Gambon, Michael: 86,91,114 Gandhi: 128 Gandolfini, James: 65,90 Gardner, Freddie: 96 Gaunt, Marion: 105 Gedda, Nicolai: 127 Gens, Veronique: 10 Gently, D.I. George: 69,111,124,125 Gerrard, Steven: 75,106 Gershwin, George: 96 Gervais, Ricky: 37 Gibbs, Leroy 'Jethro' 22,35,46,58,64,68,75,92,93,94,95,103,115 Gielgud, John: 64 Gifford, Josh: 129 Gish, Sheila: 64 Glenister, Philip; 69,101,118 Gless, Sharon: 53 Gok, Wan: 109,126 Goody, Jade: 56 Goran, Det. Robert: 58 Gould, Elliott: 43 Graham, Julie: 115 Graham, Nicola (Royston-Parry): 105,106 Granger, Hermione: 50,80,130 Grant, Richard E: 72,73 Grappelli, Stephane: 96 Green, Adolph: 83 Green, Hughie: 101,102,123 Green, Robson: 24,28,33,37 Greer, Germaine: 113,123 Griffiths, Richard: 7,97 Grint, Rupert: 50 Grissom, Gil: 116 Gross, Andrew: 53 Grout, James: 64 Grump, Arthur: 115 Guetary, Georges: 96 Guinness, Alec: 90,128 Hagrid: 27,84 Haining, Peter: 77 Hallinan, Olivia: 98 Hamilton, Lewis: 89 Hammerback, Dr. Sid: 126 Hammond, Joan: 82,96 Hancock, Tony; 101 Hannah, John: 21,74 Hannay, Richard: 115 Harbinson, Patrick: 111 Hardwicke, Edward: 7 Hardy, Robert: 64 Harewood, David: 128 Hari, Johann: 79,97,128 Harmon, Mark: 16,22,31,35,58,64,68,75,92,93,94,100, Harper, Lee: 111 Harrington, Padraig: 81 Harris, Richard: 5 Hastings, Captain: 7,8,97,111 Hathaway, Det.Sgt: 64 Havers, D,S, Barbara: 2,83,106 Havers, Nigel: 41 Hawking, Stephen: 103 Hayman, David: 62,101 Haynes, Natalie: 125 Hayter, James: 128 Hayward, Louis: 43 Hazlewood, Charles: 12 Head, Anthony: 111 Helfgott, David: 22 Henman, Tim: 79 Henri, Thierry: 59 Henriksson, Krister: 114 Henshall, Douglas: 123,124 Henshall, Ruthie: 123 Henson, C.S. Laura: 104 Hepburn, Katherine: 43 Herman, Jerry: 96 Heymer, Dennis: 102 Hibberd, Stuart: 112 Hickson, Joan: 87 Hill, Harry: 100 Hinds, Ciaran: 115 Hislop, Ian: 37,62,111,123 Hitler, Adolf: 71 Hoffman, Philip Seymour: 120 Holliday, Doc: 95 Holman, Claire: 64 Holmes, Sherlock: 7,31,97,104 Hood, Robin: 61,122,129 Horowitz, Anthony: 103,104,109,125 Howard, Trevor: 96 Howe, Steve: 127 Howell, Anthony: 63,103 Howerd, Frankie: 101,102 Hubbard, Ron. L. 124 Hucknall, Mick: 127 Hughes, Chris: 68,73 Hughes, Gwyneth: 62 Hughes, Sean: 71 Humble, Kate: 74,127 Humphrys, John: 92 Hunt, D.C.I. Gene: 69,101 Hunter, Alan: 69 Hunter, Russell: 99 Hurt, John: 111 Ice Road Truckers: 99,116 Imrie, Celia: 120,127 Ingleby, Lee: 69.111,124 Innocent, Harold: 61 Isaacs, Jason: 49,51,53,100,101 Izzard, Eddie: 64 Jackson, Barry: 84 Jackson, Peter: 48,111 Jackson, Philip: 8,111 Jacobi, Derek: 97 Jacobs, Marc: 110 James, Clive: 36 James, P.D: 111 Jankovic, Jelena: 79 Japp, C.I. James: 7,8,97,111 Jardine, Douglas: 59 Jason, David: 7 Jehovah: 124 Jeffreys, Prof. Alec: 44 Johanssen, Scarlet: 111 John, Elton: 78 Johns, Stratford: 62 Johnson, Boris: 123 Johnson, Celia: 96 Johnson, Karl: 98 Johnson, Lyndon B. 57 Johnson, Samuel: 40 Johnston, Sue: 97 Jones, Martha: 104 Jones, Nicholas: 24 Jones, Suranne: 118 Joseph, Lesley: 117 Joy, Robert: 126 Judd, Ashley: 124 Kahn, Gus: 95 Kanakaredes, Melina: 11,126 Kaye, Danny: 51 Kearney, Martha: 125 Kendal, Felicity 105 Kennedy, Gordon: 76 Kennedy, Nigel: 120 Keppel, Judith: 68,73 Kerr, Deborah: 89 King Charles 1: 115 King, Justin: 128 King, Simon: 74,127 Kingdom, Peter: 127 Kingsley, Ben: 128 Kington, Miles: 97 Kipling, Rudyard: 69 Kitchen, Michael: 7,62,63,103,104 Kline, Kevin: 124 Kos: 57 Kuryakin, Ilya: 35 Lahbib, Simone: 24 Lamb, Amanda: 116 Lancaster, Burt: 43 Lane, Dorcas: 98,121 Lane, Lupino: 96 Langford, Bonny: 99 Lansbury, Angela: 50,51,120 LaPlante, Lynda: 111,115 Larwood, Harold: 59 Latham, Jody: 99 Laughland, Nick: 71 Laughton, Charles: 82 Law, Jude: 104 Lean, David: 96 le Carre, John: 90 Lee, Peggy: 127 Leigh, Janet: 130 Le Mesurier, Joan: 101 Le Mesurier, John: 101 Lemon, Miss: 8,97,111 Lewis, Damian: 128 Lewis, D.C.I. Janine: 44 Lewis, D.I. Robert: 64 Liddell, Alvar: 112 Lincoln, Andrew: 22,31 Lock, Sean: 117 Locke, Josef: 96 Lockhart, Sally: 107,109 Logan, Phyllis: 104 Long, Max: 109 Lovegood, Linda: 79 Luca, Giordano: 128 Luft, Lorna: 117 Lumley, Joanna: 51,53,121,125 Lusardi, Linda: 99 Lynley, D.I. Tommy: 2,83,106 Lyra: 95 Mack, Lee: 118 Maigret, Insp. Jules: 114 Makutsi, Mma: 121 Malfoy, Draco: 80 Malfoy, Lucius: 49,53 Mallard, Dr.'Ducky': 35,115 Mankell, Henning: 114 Mantle, Doreen: 97 Marcus Aurelius: 82 Margolyes, Miriam: 97 Marlowe, Philip: 43,114 Marnham, Patrick: 18 Marple, Jane (Miss): 87,97,98,101 Marples, Ernest: 111 Mastrantonio, Mary Elizabeth: 61 Matthews, Jessie: 41 Maugham, Somerset: 82 Maupin, Armistead: 124,125 May, James: 49 McBride, Damian: 123 McCain, John: 111 McCallum, David: 35 McClaren,Steve: 14,15,47,76,84,92 McCredie, Colin: 57 McCutcheon, Martine: 87 McDermid, Val: 111 McDonnell, Owen: 130 McEnroe, John: 81 McEwan, Geraldine: 61,87,97,98 McFly: 128 McGee, Timothy: 103,115 McGovern, Jimmy: 31 McGregor, Ewan; 92,109,111 McKellan, Ian: 111 McKenna, Charlene: 64 McKenzie, Julia: 76,97,98 McKidd, Kevin: 86 McLaughlin, Joseph: 96 McNeice, Ian: 100 McShane, Michael: 61 Medavoy, Greg: 61 Melua, Katie: 95,109 Menuhin, Yehudi: 96 Mercer, John: 99 Mercury, Freddie: 101 Merlin: 56,111 Merman, Ethel: 96 Merton, Paul: 37,76,107,113 Miles, Ben: 98 Milligan, Spike: 89 Mills, John: 63 Milner, Paul: 63,103 Minghella, Anthony: 100,104 Mirren, Helen: 38,78 Mitchell, David: 121 Mitchell, James: 99 Mitchum, Robert: 96 Mitty, Walter: 127 Mo, friend: 112 Molina, Alfred: 104 Monk: 97 Monroe, Marilyn: 43 Montalbano, Insp, Salvo: 114 Monteith, Kelly: 101 Montgomery, Robert: 43 Moore, Roger: 43 Moran, Pauline: 8 More, Kenneth: 115 Morse, D.I. Endeavour: 69,97,107 Motion, Andrew: 78 Mourinho, Jose: 87,126 Mower, Patrick: 99 Mullan, Peter: 99 Munch, John: 16 Murnaghan, Dermot: 68,73,86,107 Murray, Al: 69,97 Murray, Andy: 79 Murray, Jamie: 79 Murray, Sean: 103 Mynenko, Yuriy: 128 Nadal, Rafael: 108 Nettles, John: 16,27.58 Newell, Mike: 80 Newman, G.F. 101 Newman, Nanette: 125 Nighy, Bill: 100 Nilsson, Harry: 95 Norton, Alex: 57,104 Norton, Graham: 86,126 Novello.Ivor: 124 Obama, Barack: 111,117,124 Ochoa, Lorena: 82 Oddy, Bill: 74, 127 Ogden, John: 81,96 Ogilvy, Ian: 43 O'Grady, Paul: 41,91,115 Osbourne, Jack: 36 Osbourne, Sharon: 20 O'Shea, Tessie: 96 Osmond, Donny: 86 Outhwaite, Tamzin: 99,101 Owen, Michael: 84 Pack, Roger Lloyd: 35,118 Packham, Chris: 127 Padel, Ruth: 126 Palance, Jack: 46 Pallette, Eugene: 128 Palmer, Harry: 33 Paris, Charles: 7,8 Park, Nick: 115 Parker, Nathaniel: 106 Parker, Peter: 113 Parkinson, Michael: 117 Parton, Dolly: 96 Pascoe, D.I. Peter: 16,72,73 Paterson, Bill: 109,122 Patinkin, Mandy: 44,92 Patterson,James: 53 Paulin, Tom: 113,123,125 Pavarotti, Luciano: 85 Paxman, Jeremy: 92 Payne, John: 130 Peake, Maxine: 101 Penry-Jones, Rupert: 24,91,115 Perette, Pauley: 64,68,75 Pertwee, Sean: 86 Petersen, Willian. L: 15,26,44,51,122,123 Phillips, Sian: 38 Pigott-Smith, Tim: 72 Pixies: 128 Plater, Alan: 64 Poirot, Hercule: 7,31,97,103,111 Poliakoff, Stephen: 91 Poppins, Mary ; 94 Porter, Cole: 96,124 Porter, Linda: 124 Portillo, Michael: 123 Potter, Beatrix: 109 Potter, Dennis: 114 Potter, Harry: 4,5,9,12,27,39,45,50,63,77,78,79,80,82,83,88,100,106,111,114,120,124,130 Powell, Dick: 43,114 Powell, Robert: 115 Powers, Stefanie: 68 Prescott, John: 8,91 Presley, Elvis: 96 Preston, Duncan: 120 Preston, Robert: 96 Price, Claire: 93, Prince Philip: 98,106 Prodigy, The: 128 Pullman, Philip: 50,88,90,95,107,109 Queen Elizabeth 2: 80,91,100,102,106,121 Quentin, Caroline: 44 Quick, A.C. Bob: 114,123 Quilleran, Jim: 4 Rachmaninov, Sergei: 96 Rackham, Jane: 33 Radcliffe, Daniel: 50 Radd, Ronald: 99 Ramotswe, Precious: 100,121 Ramsay, Gordon: 37,115 Rankin, Ian: 21,109,111 Rathbone, Andy: 28 Rathbone, Basil: 61 Rathbone, Willie 34 Rattle, Simon: 10 Razorlight: 128 Rebus, D.I. John: 21,25,29,30,88,93. Red Arrows: 128 Redknapp, Harry: 70,105,112,118 Redman, Amanda: 38,108,130 Reichs, Kathy: 121,122,124,125 Reid, D.S. Jackie: 104 Reilly, Kelly: 115 Renwick, David: 111 Reynolds, Kevin: 61 Rhys-Davies, John: 48 Richard, Cliff: 34,78 Richard The Lionheart: 61 Richards, Ben: 99 Richards, Dakot Blue: 95 Richie, Shane: 35 Rickman, Alan: 5,29,30,53,61,104,120 Riseborough, Andrea: 115 Robb, Natalie: 64 Robeson, Paul: 89 Robinson, Tony: 108 Roddick, Andy: 130 Rodgers, Richard: 129 Rogers, Anton: 76 Rogers, Ginger: 114 Rohmer, Sax: 100 Ronaldo, Cristiano 67,108 Rooney, Wayne: 15,67,84,86 Rooper, Jemima: 111 Root, Henry: 87 Rose, Anika Noni: 121 Ross, Jonathan: 112,130 Rowling, J.K. 5,18,27,36,45,63,71,77,78,80,82,88,98,100,114,130 Rush, Geoffrey: 22 Sachar, Louis: 50 Sachs, Andrew: 112 Saint, The: 43,77,114 Sallis, Peter: 127 Sanders, George: 43,114 Saunders, Jennifer: 49,53,121 Savage, Lily: 115 Sawalha, Julia: 98,117,121 Sayers, Dorothy L: 28 Sayle, Alexei: 107 Schofield, Phillip: 99 Schweitzer, Albert: 111 Scoresby, Lee; 94 Scott, Jill: 121 Secombe, Harry: 96 Sellars, Peter: 22 Semprini, Albert: 95 Sessions, John: 121 Sewell, Brian: 76 Shahi, Sarah: 128 Shaps, Simon: 103 Sharp, Lesley: 22,31 Shaw, Martin: 69,124 Shcherbachenko,Ekaterina: 128 Shearer, Alan: 14, 15 Sheila,friend: 99,112,121 Shepherd, Jack: 62 Shore, Dinah: 95 Shrapnel, John: 71 Shunpike, Stan: 111 Silent Bob: 30 Sim, Alistair; 63 Simenon, Georges: 114 Simm, John: 115 Simon's Cat: 118 Sinatra, Frank: 36 Sinclair, Hugh: 43 Sinise, Gary: 11,126 Sipowicz, Andy: 61,63 Sjowall & Wahloo: 114 Skellern, Peter: 127 Skinner, Claire: 76 Slater, Christian: 61 Sleep, Wayne: 117 Sloan, Mark: 97 Small, Sharon: 106 Smiley, George; 90 Smith, Alexander McCall: 100 Smith, Andreas Whittam: 97 Smith, C.Aubrey: 69 Smith, Julian: 126 Smith, Kevin: 30 Smith, Liz: 45,98 Smith, Maggie: 97,111 Smith-Start, Brix: 126 Snape, Prof. Severus: 5,66 Snowdon, Liza: 114 Soprano, Tony: 65,90 Spall, Rafe: 102 Sparrow, Walter: 61 Spencer, Phil: 116 Spiderman: 113 Spielberg, Steven: 14 Squire, Chris: 127 Squire, William: 99 Staff, Kathy: 127 Standen, Clive: 128 Staunton, Imelda: 97 Steed, Maggie: 7,97 Stephen, Jaci: 72,73 Stereophonics: 128 Stettner, Patrick: 125 Stevens, Rachel: 114 Stevens, Toby: 124 Stewart, Sam: 63,103 Stott, Ken: 21,25,30,62,88,90,93,101, Strachan, Gordon: 49 Streep, Meryl: 110,125 Street-Porter, Janet: 121 Streeter, Tanya: 83 Stuart, Moira: 62 Styne, Julie: 83 Suchet, David: 7 Sutcliffe, Thomas: 108,121 Sutherland, Joan: 128 Swift, Clive: 118 Sykes, Melanie: 91 Tarrant, Chris: 87 Tarzan: 43,69 Tatchell, Peter: 112 Tate, Catherine: 102 Tate, Jeffrey: 120 Tauber, Richard: 96 Taylor, Mac: 11,100,126 Teale, Owen: 64 Templar, D.C.S. Gill: 93, Tennant, David: 102108 Tennyson, D.S. Jane: 38 Terry, John: 75,106 Thatcher, Margaret: 71,99,108,125 Thaw, John: 69 Thomas, Leslie: 71 Thomas, Matthew: 71 Thompson, Emma: 98,121 Thompson, Flora: 98 Timmins, Laura: 98,100 Titchmarsh, Alan: 86,102,126 Tofield, Simon: 118 TOGs: 3,5 Tolkein, J.R.R. 48 Tomkinson, Stephen: 127 Torode, John: 60 Torres, Fernando: 108 Townsend, Robert: 81 Townshend, Pete: 78,110 Toyah (Wilcox): 117 Tracy, Spencer: 43 Treacy, Philip: 110 Trelawney, Sybil: 98 TrippingOnWords: 9,21,29,33,39,51,53,58,65,75 Trotter, John Scott: 96 Troughton, David: 58,108,129 Troughton, Patrick; 108,129 Troughton, Sam: 129 Tuck, Friar: 128 Turnbull, Giles: 58,87,109 Turow, Scott: 124 Twain, Mark: 57 Umbridge, Dolores: 79 Valentine, Anthony: 71,99 Valjean, Jean: 27 Van Dyke, Dick: 94,117 Vane, Harriet: 28 Vegas, Johnny: 117 Venables, Terry: 92 Vickers, Roy: 38 Vogt, Lars: 10 Von Nida, Norman: 81 Wainwright, Hetty: 97 Wainwright, Rufus: 78,127 Wainwright, Sally: 118 Wakeman, Rick: 127 Walker, Johnny: 129 Walker, D.C.S. MIchael: 62,101 Wallace & Gromit: 115 Wallace, Gregg: 60 Wallander, Insp. Kurt: 114 Walliams, David: 101,102 Walsh, Bradley: 122 Walter, Harriet: 122 Walters, Julie: 106,118,120 Walters, Paul: 5,41 Warhol, Andy: 107 Wark, Kirsty: 123 Warnes, Jennifer: 127 Waterman, Dennis: 38,108,130 Watson, Doctor: 7 Watson, Emily: 109 Watson, Emma: 50,130 Watson, James: 89 Watson, Tom: 130 Waugh, Evelyn: 82 Weasley, Molly: 120 Weatherley, Michael: 46,64 Weaver, Sigourney: 120 Webber, Andrew Lloyd: 22,126 Weeks, Honeysuckle: 7,63,103 Weissmuller, Johnny: 43,69 Wells, H.G. 106 Wendy, friend: 112 Wenger, Arsene: 59,64 Wesley, Mary: 5,18,38,125 West, Samuel: 58 Wexford, C,I, Reg: 97 Whately, Kevin: 64,97 Wheeler, Jimmy: 113 White, Jessica: 20,47,50,60,76,83,84,95,105,110,113,123,128 White, T.H: 63,67,77 Whitehouse, Mary: 106 Whitehouse, Toby: 51 Whitfield, David: 96 Whitfield, June: 97,127 Who, The: 128 Widmark, Richard: 102 Wilde, Oscar: 77 Wilde, Brian: 127 Wilkinson, Colm: 27 Wilkinson, Johnny: 82 Williams, Iris: 96 Williams, Lee: 101 Williams, Robin: 125 Williams, Rowan: 98 Williams, Venus: 79 Willis, Bruce, 5 Wilson, Benji: 103 Wilson, Richard: 111 Wilson, (truth about): 85,117 Wimsey, Lord Peter: 28,31 Wincott, Michael: 61 Winkler, Irwin: 124 Winstone, Ray: 43,48 Wogan, Terry: 3,5,13,18,27,41,102,106,126,129 Wolf, Dick: 122 Wood, Elijah: 111 Wood, Victoria: 53,72,73,76,120 Woodman, George: 85 Woodman, Greta: 85 Woodward, Edward: 99 Woolgar, Fenella: 105 Wright, Clarissa Dixon: 109,111 Wycliffe, D.C.S. Charles: 62 Wynter, Danny Lee: 91 Yates, David: 80,100,130 Yates, Jess: 102 Yates, Paula: 102 Young, James: 64 Young, Neil: 128 Young, Will: 128 Zellweger,Renée: 109 Zingaretti, Luca: 114
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
130. From Magic to Mystery via Misery
FILMS
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
Most of the usual cast are back for the sixth - and darkest to date - episode of this popular film series.
Five of us went to see it: four enjoyed it, the other one went to sleep.
Well...it ain't a film for a four year old.
My enjoyment was slightly tempered by some glaring departures from the J.K. Rowling original.
Slimy accountants apart, why did film director David Yates choose to make substantial alterations to a bestselling author's work?
I would put it down to him being an arrogant bugger, but I believe he speaks highly of me.
A couple of weeks ago the often irksome Jonathan Ross interviewed Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) and behaved himself sufficiently not to ask too many lewd questions about her private life.
She has changed little over the Potter years, is still brightly intelligent, blessed with innate common sense - the two don't always go together - and seems destined for a succesful life long after the curtain has fallen on the final Potter film.
Meantime, with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows being imaginatively split into Part 1 and Part 2, we should be seeing her on screen until at least 2011: later than that if Warner Brothers play the same daft release game they played with The Half-Blood Prince.
Collateral.
I like Tom Cruise (no matter what weird religion he may espouse) and this 2004 film proved again what a fine actor he is. Good guy or villain he delivers the works.
Here he is the villain; Vincent, a contract killer. The hero is cab driver Max, perfectly played by James Foxx, who is forced to take part in the killer's plan to make several hits around L.A. in one night.
The result is a thriller on a par with The Long Kiss Goodnight.
Thoroughly enjoyed it.
TELEVISION.
New Tricks.
The same reliable crew (Redman, Armstrong, Bolam and Waterman) are halfway through series six and show no sign of flagging. So far we have had stories about a murderous monk, a duplicitous American airforce chief and a cunning control-freak husband.
All have been totally watchable .
Shows what can be done with regular airing, reasonable story lines and fine actors.
Wimbledon.
I found the cat Shadow asleep and when I woke him he was devoid of poem.
"That's not like you," I said. "Once the heavy servers and the ball boys...girls...children...whatever...have done their stuff you're usually full of rhyme."
"Well it was Federer again, wasn't it," he grumbled. "OK, so there was the big serving much improved Andy Roddick and a final that went on forever, but in the end Federer won and he doesn't rhyme with anything.
"I talked it over with the boys on the roof: none of us could find a rhyme for Federer or Roddick."
"Didn't the Centre Court's new retractable roof come to mind?" I asked.
"Nothing rhymes with roof, either, other than goof, hoof and poof," he said sourly. "Anyway, I lost the muse."
I might have commiserated had he not immediately gone back to sleep.
Golf.
He seemed to be sleeping again when the British Open finished at Turnberry.
Eventually Tom Watson was beaten by Stewart Cink.
(Praise be, not one newspaper carried the headline Cink Sinks Watson.)
Suddenly I became aware that a Shadow eye had opened.
"Ol' Tom didn't manage it then," he said.
"I thought you were asleep," I said.
He stretched: "Na-a-ah, I was just giving me eyes a rest. I heard Peter Alliss and the rest of 'em rabbiting on."
He thought for a few seconds. "How old are you?" he asked.
"Seventy eight, " I replied.
"Just think," he said, "If you'd been a professional golfer the whole bloody world would have been told that a thousand times between the 16th and the 19th of July."
He really had been awake.
Columbo.
When it comes to a thousand times, I'm sure Peter Falk's Columbo repeats must well exceed that number. Today it was Janet Leigh and John Payne in the 1975 episode Forgotten Lady. She played Grace Wheeler Willis, a former star of musicals, much admired by Columbo's wife.
According to Columbo, in their early days together Mrs. Columbo dragged him to see all of Grace's films.
Halfway through, the thought struck me that Mrs. Columbo must hate her husband with a passion.
Everybody she admires he eventually arrests for murder.
No wonder she refuses to be seen with him.
Single-Handed.
A new police kid on the block, this time a Garda one, Sgt. Jack Driscoll (Owen McDonnell) working in western Ireland.
Last night we saw the first of a three parter and it was uncomfortable viewing.
I was reminded of a friend of mine who, some years ago, was offered a police job on one of the Channel Islands: he declined when it turned out that outside the holiday season he would be expected to turn a blind eye to certain (locally regarded as minor) law infringements.
Jack Driscoll finds himself in something of the same predicament. He has taken up the post of senior police officer in the area where he was brought up.
His conscientious approach to the job is hampered by the fact that his father, the popular previous holder of the post, was an 'us and them' copper quite prepared to ignore anything that might embarrass his cronies.
There is a disturbingly insular and faintly incestuous atmosphere about it all.
Damned good television though.
HOME.
A reasonable reason for a late post.
At the beginning of the second week in July I was stricken with the squits; easier to spell than diarrhoea.
I know it sounds like an old bloke's attempt to outdo the advert where a red-haired woman with strange eyes tells her mates she's passing hard lumps - (Could that be why she has strange eyes, d'you think? No matter.) - but this attack put me in bed for a couple of days, took a couple of weeks to clear and was caused by the food poisoning bacteria Campylobacter.
Don't know how I came by it. Could have been from a portion of fish and chips. Never will know now. Didn't care to gather evidence.
One thing is for sure: I have never had it before and I never want it again.
ps. At the risk of an indelicate reply, where is that advert coming from?
Unsolicited e-mails.
Lately my Inbox has been the casual target of people writing in Arabic. At least, I assume it's Arabic. No idea what they want.
They could be trying to sell me a carpet.
They could be attempting to recruit me into al Qaeda.
They could even be proclaiming a fatwa against me.
Normally I just delete such stuff and empty the deleted items folder, but two have appeared again this morning and for the first time I have opened them.
As you may have gathered, they didn't explode.
One was a short message from Святослав Панфилов which I did not keep and the other was from Новикова Лида which I thought I might publish but the attempt went haywire.
(Monitored by that contradiction in terms, an Intelligence Agency?)
Needless to say I have not the slightest idea what any of it is about.
I would rather not be responsible for somebody in the Middle East having their hands, head, or unmentionables chopped off but, what the hell, how many fundamentalists read this?
So if anybody else out there gets unsolicited Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sinbad messages and can translate them into English, even if it's very rude, please let me know what they say.
Oh, if the senders are seeking support for the young woman who could be flogged for wearing trousers, they need look no further. I am on her side.
Religious bigotry is crap and its perpetrators are crap artists.
Whatever their religion.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
Most of the usual cast are back for the sixth - and darkest to date - episode of this popular film series.
Five of us went to see it: four enjoyed it, the other one went to sleep.
Well...it ain't a film for a four year old.
My enjoyment was slightly tempered by some glaring departures from the J.K. Rowling original.
Slimy accountants apart, why did film director David Yates choose to make substantial alterations to a bestselling author's work?
I would put it down to him being an arrogant bugger, but I believe he speaks highly of me.
A couple of weeks ago the often irksome Jonathan Ross interviewed Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) and behaved himself sufficiently not to ask too many lewd questions about her private life.
She has changed little over the Potter years, is still brightly intelligent, blessed with innate common sense - the two don't always go together - and seems destined for a succesful life long after the curtain has fallen on the final Potter film.
Meantime, with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows being imaginatively split into Part 1 and Part 2, we should be seeing her on screen until at least 2011: later than that if Warner Brothers play the same daft release game they played with The Half-Blood Prince.
Collateral.
I like Tom Cruise (no matter what weird religion he may espouse) and this 2004 film proved again what a fine actor he is. Good guy or villain he delivers the works.
Here he is the villain; Vincent, a contract killer. The hero is cab driver Max, perfectly played by James Foxx, who is forced to take part in the killer's plan to make several hits around L.A. in one night.
The result is a thriller on a par with The Long Kiss Goodnight.
Thoroughly enjoyed it.
TELEVISION.
New Tricks.
The same reliable crew (Redman, Armstrong, Bolam and Waterman) are halfway through series six and show no sign of flagging. So far we have had stories about a murderous monk, a duplicitous American airforce chief and a cunning control-freak husband.
All have been totally watchable .
Shows what can be done with regular airing, reasonable story lines and fine actors.
Wimbledon.
I found the cat Shadow asleep and when I woke him he was devoid of poem.
"That's not like you," I said. "Once the heavy servers and the ball boys...girls...children...whatever...have done their stuff you're usually full of rhyme."
"Well it was Federer again, wasn't it," he grumbled. "OK, so there was the big serving much improved Andy Roddick and a final that went on forever, but in the end Federer won and he doesn't rhyme with anything.
"I talked it over with the boys on the roof: none of us could find a rhyme for Federer or Roddick."
"Didn't the Centre Court's new retractable roof come to mind?" I asked.
"Nothing rhymes with roof, either, other than goof, hoof and poof," he said sourly. "Anyway, I lost the muse."
I might have commiserated had he not immediately gone back to sleep.
Golf.
He seemed to be sleeping again when the British Open finished at Turnberry.
Eventually Tom Watson was beaten by Stewart Cink.
(Praise be, not one newspaper carried the headline Cink Sinks Watson.)
Suddenly I became aware that a Shadow eye had opened.
"Ol' Tom didn't manage it then," he said.
"I thought you were asleep," I said.
He stretched: "Na-a-ah, I was just giving me eyes a rest. I heard Peter Alliss and the rest of 'em rabbiting on."
He thought for a few seconds. "How old are you?" he asked.
"Seventy eight, " I replied.
"Just think," he said, "If you'd been a professional golfer the whole bloody world would have been told that a thousand times between the 16th and the 19th of July."
He really had been awake.
Columbo.
When it comes to a thousand times, I'm sure Peter Falk's Columbo repeats must well exceed that number. Today it was Janet Leigh and John Payne in the 1975 episode Forgotten Lady. She played Grace Wheeler Willis, a former star of musicals, much admired by Columbo's wife.
According to Columbo, in their early days together Mrs. Columbo dragged him to see all of Grace's films.
Halfway through, the thought struck me that Mrs. Columbo must hate her husband with a passion.
Everybody she admires he eventually arrests for murder.
No wonder she refuses to be seen with him.
Single-Handed.
A new police kid on the block, this time a Garda one, Sgt. Jack Driscoll (Owen McDonnell) working in western Ireland.
Last night we saw the first of a three parter and it was uncomfortable viewing.
I was reminded of a friend of mine who, some years ago, was offered a police job on one of the Channel Islands: he declined when it turned out that outside the holiday season he would be expected to turn a blind eye to certain (locally regarded as minor) law infringements.
Jack Driscoll finds himself in something of the same predicament. He has taken up the post of senior police officer in the area where he was brought up.
His conscientious approach to the job is hampered by the fact that his father, the popular previous holder of the post, was an 'us and them' copper quite prepared to ignore anything that might embarrass his cronies.
There is a disturbingly insular and faintly incestuous atmosphere about it all.
Damned good television though.
HOME.
A reasonable reason for a late post.
At the beginning of the second week in July I was stricken with the squits; easier to spell than diarrhoea.
I know it sounds like an old bloke's attempt to outdo the advert where a red-haired woman with strange eyes tells her mates she's passing hard lumps - (Could that be why she has strange eyes, d'you think? No matter.) - but this attack put me in bed for a couple of days, took a couple of weeks to clear and was caused by the food poisoning bacteria Campylobacter.
Don't know how I came by it. Could have been from a portion of fish and chips. Never will know now. Didn't care to gather evidence.
One thing is for sure: I have never had it before and I never want it again.
ps. At the risk of an indelicate reply, where is that advert coming from?
Unsolicited e-mails.
Lately my Inbox has been the casual target of people writing in Arabic. At least, I assume it's Arabic. No idea what they want.
They could be trying to sell me a carpet.
They could be attempting to recruit me into al Qaeda.
They could even be proclaiming a fatwa against me.
Normally I just delete such stuff and empty the deleted items folder, but two have appeared again this morning and for the first time I have opened them.
As you may have gathered, they didn't explode.
One was a short message from Святослав Панфилов which I did not keep and the other was from Новикова Лида which I thought I might publish but the attempt went haywire.
(Monitored by that contradiction in terms, an Intelligence Agency?)
Needless to say I have not the slightest idea what any of it is about.
I would rather not be responsible for somebody in the Middle East having their hands, head, or unmentionables chopped off but, what the hell, how many fundamentalists read this?
So if anybody else out there gets unsolicited Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sinbad messages and can translate them into English, even if it's very rude, please let me know what they say.
Oh, if the senders are seeking support for the young woman who could be flogged for wearing trousers, they need look no further. I am on her side.
Religious bigotry is crap and its perpetrators are crap artists.
Whatever their religion.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
129. After Ascot a few more departures.
HOME.
Hmm - Hmm.
The cat Shadow was hovering.
"You're hovering," I remarked. "What is it, food again?"
"Do try to curb the negative attitude," he said. "As a matter of fact it's Royal Ascot." He struck his poetic pose and my heart sank.
"Don't tell me: you have a poem."
"Too right, mate, listen to this..."
And before I could so much as close the stable door he was emoting to a tune reasonably close to the Richard Rodgers classic My Favourite Things:
"Most Favoured Mascot."
Girls in posh dresses and millinery monstrosities,
Blokes in grey toppers and hired suit pomposities.
Look at me, I am a right royal mascot
Perched on the back of a posh coach at Ascot.
Hmm - Hmm
Owners and trainers and horses in blinkers,
Brightly clad jockeys and tipsters and tinkers
Odds on the favourite's not going to win
Best back a horse owned by a Sheik Yadust Bin.
Hmm - Hmm
Race talking Claire Balding has got all the patter,
She can talk the hind leg off a horse that don't matter.
But the prize little waffler, no doubt about that
Is little Willie Carson in a bloody great hat.
When the chosen horse
Does just half the course
When I'm blowing a gasket
I simply imagine I'm perched on a posh coach,
The most favoured royal mascot.
[Repeat all verses]
"That's it," he said. "Repeat all verses."
I smiled: "Maybe later."
"D'you think they'd like it?" he asked after a while. "Rodgers and Hammerstein?"
"If they weren't dead I think it'd kill 'em," I said.
He thought about that for a moment.
"You're having a josh with me," he said.
"Sure," I replied. "But more Gifford than Ackland."
BBC Radio 2.
I still listen every weekday morning to Wake Up To Wogan, [On line, on digital and on 88 to 91 FM.]
I shake my head as he talks over the beginning or the end (sometimes both) of every track he plays to make sure nobody will illegally record it: I mutter when he forgets to credit the performer and when he inexplicably drops his voice at crucial moments: I smile indulgently when he wheezes with laughter at the least funny Janet and John sketch and I growl impatiently as he introduces yet another contribution from the TOG repertory company led by its tiresome retired actor manager.
I love it.
The unscripted banter of the broadcasters, the way Traffic Totty Lynn Bowles talks about "north bahnd and sahth bahnd" traffic and once even announced that there were "hold ups to sahth bahnd traffic at the rahnd abaht."
I like Deadly and Johnny and Charlie and the seldom-heard-never-seen Barrowlands Boyd.
I wouldn't change a minute of it. It's not the same with anyone else, not even Johnny Walker, who I also like.
It's just not a normal morning without ol' Tel.
This week he's away on a holiday break. It will probably last no more than a fortnight and it happens every three or four weeks.
Sure there's more important things than snorkers and broadcasting.
Like what?
Like golf.
And grouting.
TELEVISION (CONTAINS SPOILERS).
Robin Hood.
Robin (Jonas Armstrong) bade a fitting farewell to Nottingham by blowing his enemies and half the town to smithereens.
He then succumbed to the poison on a dagger wielded by Gisborne's sister.
Well. at least there is the nucleus of a cast left for the next series.
One interest in series three has been the casting of Alun Armstrong's son Joe as Alan a Dale (bumped off last week) and of David Troughton's son, Sam, as Much.
(Grandfather Patrick Troughton was in the first television series of Robin Hood.)
Fascinating family likenesses.
CSI: NY.
The end of series five was a master class in actor management.
Faced by the inevitable clamour from actors' agents for their clients' salaries to increase in proportion to the increased popularity of a show, the cunning executive will gather the entire cast together in a bar and quietly ease a black sedan into position outside.
A window will roll down...a machine gun will appear...
Care to guess who will still be around for series six?
Hmm - Hmm.
The cat Shadow was hovering.
"You're hovering," I remarked. "What is it, food again?"
"Do try to curb the negative attitude," he said. "As a matter of fact it's Royal Ascot." He struck his poetic pose and my heart sank.
"Don't tell me: you have a poem."
"Too right, mate, listen to this..."
And before I could so much as close the stable door he was emoting to a tune reasonably close to the Richard Rodgers classic My Favourite Things:
"Most Favoured Mascot."
Girls in posh dresses and millinery monstrosities,
Blokes in grey toppers and hired suit pomposities.
Look at me, I am a right royal mascot
Perched on the back of a posh coach at Ascot.
Hmm - Hmm
Owners and trainers and horses in blinkers,
Brightly clad jockeys and tipsters and tinkers
Odds on the favourite's not going to win
Best back a horse owned by a Sheik Yadust Bin.
Hmm - Hmm
Race talking Claire Balding has got all the patter,
She can talk the hind leg off a horse that don't matter.
But the prize little waffler, no doubt about that
Is little Willie Carson in a bloody great hat.
When the chosen horse
Does just half the course
When I'm blowing a gasket
I simply imagine I'm perched on a posh coach,
The most favoured royal mascot.
[Repeat all verses]
"That's it," he said. "Repeat all verses."
I smiled: "Maybe later."
"D'you think they'd like it?" he asked after a while. "Rodgers and Hammerstein?"
"If they weren't dead I think it'd kill 'em," I said.
He thought about that for a moment.
"You're having a josh with me," he said.
"Sure," I replied. "But more Gifford than Ackland."
BBC Radio 2.
I still listen every weekday morning to Wake Up To Wogan, [On line, on digital and on 88 to 91 FM.]
I shake my head as he talks over the beginning or the end (sometimes both) of every track he plays to make sure nobody will illegally record it: I mutter when he forgets to credit the performer and when he inexplicably drops his voice at crucial moments: I smile indulgently when he wheezes with laughter at the least funny Janet and John sketch and I growl impatiently as he introduces yet another contribution from the TOG repertory company led by its tiresome retired actor manager.
I love it.
The unscripted banter of the broadcasters, the way Traffic Totty Lynn Bowles talks about "north bahnd and sahth bahnd" traffic and once even announced that there were "hold ups to sahth bahnd traffic at the rahnd abaht."
I like Deadly and Johnny and Charlie and the seldom-heard-never-seen Barrowlands Boyd.
I wouldn't change a minute of it. It's not the same with anyone else, not even Johnny Walker, who I also like.
It's just not a normal morning without ol' Tel.
This week he's away on a holiday break. It will probably last no more than a fortnight and it happens every three or four weeks.
Sure there's more important things than snorkers and broadcasting.
Like what?
Like golf.
And grouting.
TELEVISION (CONTAINS SPOILERS).
Robin Hood.
Robin (Jonas Armstrong) bade a fitting farewell to Nottingham by blowing his enemies and half the town to smithereens.
He then succumbed to the poison on a dagger wielded by Gisborne's sister.
Well. at least there is the nucleus of a cast left for the next series.
One interest in series three has been the casting of Alun Armstrong's son Joe as Alan a Dale (bumped off last week) and of David Troughton's son, Sam, as Much.
(Grandfather Patrick Troughton was in the first television series of Robin Hood.)
Fascinating family likenesses.
CSI: NY.
The end of series five was a master class in actor management.
Faced by the inevitable clamour from actors' agents for their clients' salaries to increase in proportion to the increased popularity of a show, the cunning executive will gather the entire cast together in a bar and quietly ease a black sedan into position outside.
A window will roll down...a machine gun will appear...
Care to guess who will still be around for series six?
Sunday, June 14, 2009
128. From I o W to Cardiff - music all ways.
HOME.
Isle of Wight Festival.
Yeah, it's that time again. Granddaughter Jess has gone with one of her friends and the requisite adult accompaniment to be entertained by a host of assorted musical talent at the 8th IW Festival.
Who is appearing?
No, not The Who, that was last year.
Among those I recognise are The Charlatans, Neil Young, Stereophonics, McFly, Razorlight and Will Young.
Then there are groups like The Prodigy and Pixies of whom I know little and, finally, there will be a host of bands with names like The Bitch, The Botch, The Kitsch and The Crotch of whom I know nothing.
They will all be very loud and very good after ten cans of lager.
Yesterday those of us in the area who have not joined the festival audience were able to stand outside our houses and watch The Red Arrows give another fantastic display over the site.
My Leader and I must have seen them half a dozen times in the past few years.
They are sheer magic.
Long may they reign.
READING
The Independent.
Perhaps surprisingly for a retired old bloke I scarcely found time to read much last week.
On Monday I managed a look at Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's column.
She was decrying women who flee the political battlefield: at least, I think that's what it was, I could be wrong, a week is a long time in political journalism.
Then, on Friday, Johann Hari warned that we are filling space with trash, much of it orbiting earth at thousands of miles an hour.
That really was dire news.
I always thought all the trash in space was beamed back by satellite to become reality television.
Both of these journalists are fine writers.
I bet they cheer up sometimes, too.
TELEVISION
I'm Running Sainsbury's (C4).
At a time of economic downturn the chief executive of Sainsbury's, Justin King, one of those charming blokes born to sail through interviews, had the brilliant idea - well, lays claim to the brilliant idea - that shop floor workers (now called colleagues would you believe?) should be invited to submit their proposals for the better running of the company.
The idea is not entirely new: every sharp company in the country must have experimented with a staff suggestion box from which it hoped to garner a few good ideas for as little money as possible.
But the Sainsbury's idea had a twist: four of the proposals would be taken up for a trial period in selected stores under the direction of the proposer.
Of the first two, one suffered setbacks and has not worked out - sad, because it was a nice idea - and the other has been given an extended trial in twenty shops.
When I go into a supermarket only two things really concern me:-
(1) why have they shifted every-goddam-thing around again? and:-
(2) how long is the queue at the checkout going to be?
I have loathed and avoided standing in queues ever since the war: still remember ration books and people lining up outside the butcher's shop.
So far as my involvement in the process of shopping is concerned, I do not try the free samples offered by free sample offerers, I do not bother with anything said over the Tannoy and I do expect to lose my wife inside twenty minutes somewhere between wines and spirits and pet food.
For the next half hour she ceases to be my Leader and becomes: "Where the hell is Maureen?"
What?
Well of course it's my fault.
Life (ITV3).
That pleasant English actor Damian Lewis is back for what is apparently the last series of this amiable American cop drama. Sarah Shahi co-stars as his likeable, down-to-earth partner.
It is a well scripted, well acted, easy to follow show; which means - in televison production terms - it is absolutely right for the axe.
I shall be sorry to see it go.
Robin Hood (BBC1).
Talk is that Jonas Armstrong, arguably the best Robin in this load of supreme tosh since Jason Connery, is to be replaced by an Errol Flynn lookalike called Clive Standen who has suddenly appeared in the role of Archer, half-brother of Robin and Gisborne (don't ask).
We are close to the end of series three which started off with the casting department choosing David Harewood (an actor for whom I have the utmost respect) as a black Friar Tuck.
This chap blithely wanders into Nottingham and York unnoticed by the colour-blind townsfolk.
Well, with abject apologies to Yasmin A-B, neither my imagination nor my political correctness stretches quite that far.
Friar Tuck was Eugene Pallette (1938) and James Hayter (1952).
He was a fat old white bloke, not a well-built young black bloke.
Still, looking back I was opposed to the casting of Ben Kingsley as Gandhi and of Alec Guinness as Indian mystic Godbole and Arab leader Prince Feisal, too.
Does that make me a racist?
Do I care?
BBC Cardiff Singer of The World 2009.
A great week and a wonderful final from which the Russian soprano Ekaterina Shcherbachenko emerged a deserved winner.
(Dame Joan Sutherland, frail but indomitable, presented the trophy.)
The popular People's Favourite prize went to tenor Giordano Luca from Italy and the toughest competitor to beat in the competiton, undoubtedly, was an amazing countertenor, Yuriy Mynenko, from the Ukraine.
Well done the BBC and well done Wales!
Isle of Wight Festival.
Yeah, it's that time again. Granddaughter Jess has gone with one of her friends and the requisite adult accompaniment to be entertained by a host of assorted musical talent at the 8th IW Festival.
Who is appearing?
No, not The Who, that was last year.
Among those I recognise are The Charlatans, Neil Young, Stereophonics, McFly, Razorlight and Will Young.
Then there are groups like The Prodigy and Pixies of whom I know little and, finally, there will be a host of bands with names like The Bitch, The Botch, The Kitsch and The Crotch of whom I know nothing.
They will all be very loud and very good after ten cans of lager.
Yesterday those of us in the area who have not joined the festival audience were able to stand outside our houses and watch The Red Arrows give another fantastic display over the site.
My Leader and I must have seen them half a dozen times in the past few years.
They are sheer magic.
Long may they reign.
READING
The Independent.
Perhaps surprisingly for a retired old bloke I scarcely found time to read much last week.
On Monday I managed a look at Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's column.
She was decrying women who flee the political battlefield: at least, I think that's what it was, I could be wrong, a week is a long time in political journalism.
Then, on Friday, Johann Hari warned that we are filling space with trash, much of it orbiting earth at thousands of miles an hour.
That really was dire news.
I always thought all the trash in space was beamed back by satellite to become reality television.
Both of these journalists are fine writers.
I bet they cheer up sometimes, too.
TELEVISION
I'm Running Sainsbury's (C4).
At a time of economic downturn the chief executive of Sainsbury's, Justin King, one of those charming blokes born to sail through interviews, had the brilliant idea - well, lays claim to the brilliant idea - that shop floor workers (now called colleagues would you believe?) should be invited to submit their proposals for the better running of the company.
The idea is not entirely new: every sharp company in the country must have experimented with a staff suggestion box from which it hoped to garner a few good ideas for as little money as possible.
But the Sainsbury's idea had a twist: four of the proposals would be taken up for a trial period in selected stores under the direction of the proposer.
Of the first two, one suffered setbacks and has not worked out - sad, because it was a nice idea - and the other has been given an extended trial in twenty shops.
When I go into a supermarket only two things really concern me:-
(1) why have they shifted every-goddam-thing around again? and:-
(2) how long is the queue at the checkout going to be?
I have loathed and avoided standing in queues ever since the war: still remember ration books and people lining up outside the butcher's shop.
So far as my involvement in the process of shopping is concerned, I do not try the free samples offered by free sample offerers, I do not bother with anything said over the Tannoy and I do expect to lose my wife inside twenty minutes somewhere between wines and spirits and pet food.
For the next half hour she ceases to be my Leader and becomes: "Where the hell is Maureen?"
What?
Well of course it's my fault.
Life (ITV3).
That pleasant English actor Damian Lewis is back for what is apparently the last series of this amiable American cop drama. Sarah Shahi co-stars as his likeable, down-to-earth partner.
It is a well scripted, well acted, easy to follow show; which means - in televison production terms - it is absolutely right for the axe.
I shall be sorry to see it go.
Robin Hood (BBC1).
Talk is that Jonas Armstrong, arguably the best Robin in this load of supreme tosh since Jason Connery, is to be replaced by an Errol Flynn lookalike called Clive Standen who has suddenly appeared in the role of Archer, half-brother of Robin and Gisborne (don't ask).
We are close to the end of series three which started off with the casting department choosing David Harewood (an actor for whom I have the utmost respect) as a black Friar Tuck.
This chap blithely wanders into Nottingham and York unnoticed by the colour-blind townsfolk.
Well, with abject apologies to Yasmin A-B, neither my imagination nor my political correctness stretches quite that far.
Friar Tuck was Eugene Pallette (1938) and James Hayter (1952).
He was a fat old white bloke, not a well-built young black bloke.
Still, looking back I was opposed to the casting of Ben Kingsley as Gandhi and of Alec Guinness as Indian mystic Godbole and Arab leader Prince Feisal, too.
Does that make me a racist?
Do I care?
BBC Cardiff Singer of The World 2009.
A great week and a wonderful final from which the Russian soprano Ekaterina Shcherbachenko emerged a deserved winner.
(Dame Joan Sutherland, frail but indomitable, presented the trophy.)
The popular People's Favourite prize went to tenor Giordano Luca from Italy and the toughest competitor to beat in the competiton, undoubtedly, was an amazing countertenor, Yuriy Mynenko, from the Ukraine.
Well done the BBC and well done Wales!
Monday, June 08, 2009
127. Home and Away - with music.
HOME.
Music.
The weather has been glorious so I have been sitting here doing less than I should and not giving a tinker's cuss.
In the background my old aiwa digital audio system (posh description for an inexpensive stereo) is helping lull me from the slog of extemporaneous composition.
Randy Crawford is halfway through the fascinating One Day I'll Fly Away; Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes will shortly be telling me that they are Up Where We Belong, then it will be Still Magic with Peter Skellern and then still more magic with Peggy Lee's You Can Sing A Rainbow: Mick Hucknall will follow to remind me how he feels Every Time We Say Goodbye and after that the duet from The Pearl Fishers will be sung in French by Nicolai Gedda and Ernest Blanc.
It's one of my personal choice tapes: put it together some years ago and still enjoy every one of the more than thirty tracks on it.
Good job I shall never be invited to choose eight Desert Island Discs.
How do those who get the invitation make up their minds?
Yesterday, in similar tranquil mood, I listened to the Yes album Fragile and marvelled again at the superb musicianship of Bill Bruford, Steve Howe, Chris Squire and Rick Wakeman and at Jon Anderson's terrific rendition of Heart of the Sunrise.
Well they'd never have time for that on your radio desert island, would they?
Na-a-h, I couldn't select just eight tunes.
I'd be forever hankering after the stuff I'd left out.
Reading.
I continue at a leisurely pace with Bryan Forbes' The Endless Game.
Could go faster but for incessant interruptions and a couple of months backlog of DVDs demanding attention.
So far ol' Bryan has been such darned good value that whatever DVD I have on at the same time as I read needs constant rewinding (or whatever you call it on a DVD) because I become so immersed in the book I lose the plot on the box.
Well, to be honest, losing the plot is not something I find difficult to do nowadays.
Once did a complete three year correspondence course with my radio playing in the background, but that was more than fifty years ago and you didn't have to watch radio.
Come to think of it, I sometimes wonder why I am watching...
Television.
And Springwatch again.
Kate Humble, Simon King and Chris Packham are doing the honours.
Bill Oddie should be missed, sadly or happily according to whether you were or were not a fan, but I don't see any signs of the team falling apart since his departure so I guess that says it all for programme presenters.
They're as necessary as they are popular and as popular as last week's show.
Kingdom is back on Sunday evenings.
Ol' Stephen Fry playing the kindly country solicitor Peter Kingdom.
Lovely start of week tosh with a great cast including a lady particularly popular in this part of the world, Celia Imrie.
I think she has a home here somewhere.
Everybody likes her.
In the first episode, the guest stars were June Whitfield and Peter Sallis, both on the run from
Last of the Summer Wine.
Since the demise of Kathy Staff somebody (tell me not Roy Clarke?) has decided that Russ Abbot, as Hobbo, should replace the late Brian Wilde's Foggy as the token Walter Mitty character.
Hobbo is not a success, the series is sadly limping, and I do not blame June Whitfield and Peter Sallis if they are AWOL.
At the moment they are better off with Stephen than with Russ and far better off with either than with the other Stephen on
Stephen Tomkinson's African Balloon Adventure.
Always liked the idea of travelling by hot air balloon, but this is a trip too far.
What goes up must come down and when I came down it would have to be somewhere flat, convenient for rescue and clear of hazards.
It would not have to be in the middle of impenetrable scrubland or herds of startled wild animals.
I'm sure Stephen Tompkinson and camera crew survived the three episodes - we'd have heard, wouldn't we? - and well done them.
But beautiful though the scenery clearly is, the thought of where we could land next would have precluded participation on my part.
Against my religion.
Devout coward.
AWAY.
Manchester International Festival, Manchester, UK, 2009.
In July our daughter Jac and her friend Zoe Farndon are going to see the singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright's new opera Prima Donna.
I don't know how Zoe is with languages; Jac is fluent in German and can manage a smattering of Italian: the opera is in French.
Doesn't matter.
Hell, I speak nothing but Isle of Wight English with a side-helping of Invective but that never stopped me enjoying opera in Italian.
Che Gelida Manina is melodic in a way that Your Tiny Hand is Frozen just ain't.
I hope Prima Donna will be a magical first for Rufus and a total treat for all those faithful fans who make it to Manchester.
That particularly goes for Jackie and Zoe.
Enjoy every minute my dears.
Music.
The weather has been glorious so I have been sitting here doing less than I should and not giving a tinker's cuss.
In the background my old aiwa digital audio system (posh description for an inexpensive stereo) is helping lull me from the slog of extemporaneous composition.
Randy Crawford is halfway through the fascinating One Day I'll Fly Away; Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes will shortly be telling me that they are Up Where We Belong, then it will be Still Magic with Peter Skellern and then still more magic with Peggy Lee's You Can Sing A Rainbow: Mick Hucknall will follow to remind me how he feels Every Time We Say Goodbye and after that the duet from The Pearl Fishers will be sung in French by Nicolai Gedda and Ernest Blanc.
It's one of my personal choice tapes: put it together some years ago and still enjoy every one of the more than thirty tracks on it.
Good job I shall never be invited to choose eight Desert Island Discs.
How do those who get the invitation make up their minds?
Yesterday, in similar tranquil mood, I listened to the Yes album Fragile and marvelled again at the superb musicianship of Bill Bruford, Steve Howe, Chris Squire and Rick Wakeman and at Jon Anderson's terrific rendition of Heart of the Sunrise.
Well they'd never have time for that on your radio desert island, would they?
Na-a-h, I couldn't select just eight tunes.
I'd be forever hankering after the stuff I'd left out.
Reading.
I continue at a leisurely pace with Bryan Forbes' The Endless Game.
Could go faster but for incessant interruptions and a couple of months backlog of DVDs demanding attention.
So far ol' Bryan has been such darned good value that whatever DVD I have on at the same time as I read needs constant rewinding (or whatever you call it on a DVD) because I become so immersed in the book I lose the plot on the box.
Well, to be honest, losing the plot is not something I find difficult to do nowadays.
Once did a complete three year correspondence course with my radio playing in the background, but that was more than fifty years ago and you didn't have to watch radio.
Come to think of it, I sometimes wonder why I am watching...
Television.
And Springwatch again.
Kate Humble, Simon King and Chris Packham are doing the honours.
Bill Oddie should be missed, sadly or happily according to whether you were or were not a fan, but I don't see any signs of the team falling apart since his departure so I guess that says it all for programme presenters.
They're as necessary as they are popular and as popular as last week's show.
Kingdom is back on Sunday evenings.
Ol' Stephen Fry playing the kindly country solicitor Peter Kingdom.
Lovely start of week tosh with a great cast including a lady particularly popular in this part of the world, Celia Imrie.
I think she has a home here somewhere.
Everybody likes her.
In the first episode, the guest stars were June Whitfield and Peter Sallis, both on the run from
Last of the Summer Wine.
Since the demise of Kathy Staff somebody (tell me not Roy Clarke?) has decided that Russ Abbot, as Hobbo, should replace the late Brian Wilde's Foggy as the token Walter Mitty character.
Hobbo is not a success, the series is sadly limping, and I do not blame June Whitfield and Peter Sallis if they are AWOL.
At the moment they are better off with Stephen than with Russ and far better off with either than with the other Stephen on
Stephen Tomkinson's African Balloon Adventure.
Always liked the idea of travelling by hot air balloon, but this is a trip too far.
What goes up must come down and when I came down it would have to be somewhere flat, convenient for rescue and clear of hazards.
It would not have to be in the middle of impenetrable scrubland or herds of startled wild animals.
I'm sure Stephen Tompkinson and camera crew survived the three episodes - we'd have heard, wouldn't we? - and well done them.
But beautiful though the scenery clearly is, the thought of where we could land next would have precluded participation on my part.
Against my religion.
Devout coward.
AWAY.
Manchester International Festival, Manchester, UK, 2009.
In July our daughter Jac and her friend Zoe Farndon are going to see the singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright's new opera Prima Donna.
I don't know how Zoe is with languages; Jac is fluent in German and can manage a smattering of Italian: the opera is in French.
Doesn't matter.
Hell, I speak nothing but Isle of Wight English with a side-helping of Invective but that never stopped me enjoying opera in Italian.
Che Gelida Manina is melodic in a way that Your Tiny Hand is Frozen just ain't.
I hope Prima Donna will be a magical first for Rufus and a total treat for all those faithful fans who make it to Manchester.
That particularly goes for Jackie and Zoe.
Enjoy every minute my dears.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
126. It's poetry week or month or something.
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.
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.
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