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.
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