142. Melina who?

HOME.

That window.
Happy with the window. Content to pay the bill even if it was more than double the original price of the house. Far from happy with the V.A.T demanded by a grasping treasury. Don’t mind paying those who do it all. Very much mind paying those who do fuck all.
Mini Cooper Y 438 CBL.
And while I am about it, let me express my displeasure with the owner of the above numbered Mini. Last Saturday morning this idiot parked on the hard standing directly in front of our garage door. My wife, prevented from using the family car, was made twenty five minutes late for an assignment.
She left a note on the windscreen of the Mini inviting the owner to call at the front door and apologise.
Fat chance.
As secretly as it had been left, the car was removed. Presumably the owner thought possession of Island Residents Permit IRP 38836 - 01 meant he or she had permission to park anywhere.
I am assuming whoever it was cannot read - there is a No Parking sign above the garage door - so if you know him or her perhaps you would be good enough to pass on this message:
DO
NOT
DO
THAT
AGAIN
YOU
DICK
HEAD.
Thank you for your co-operation.

TELEVISION.

DVDs.
We have started to pile up the recordings again. Don’t remember when Mo was screened, but we watched it last weekend.
Julie Walters was excellent as former Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam who finally brought peace to Northern Ireland with the Good Friday Agreement.
The credit for her success was hijacked by P.M. Tony Blair and his creepy henchman Peter Mandelson.
Trust politicians?
The News.
Accusations of Bullying.
Don’t care where they are. In the school playground, the workplace, or at 10 Downing Street; bullies are scum. Now the jaw-dropping Scot is accused of bullying staff at No.10. His creepy henchman Peter Mandelson (yes, that little bugger again) hurried to his defence, as did Britain’s prize model of self-control John Prescott. They were followed by Ed (talking) Balls.
With an election in the offing, who the hell knows who to believe.
But I ask you…
Trust politicians?
CSI: NY.
CSI Detective Third Grade Danny Messer (Carmine Giovinazzo) is walking again. I presume he finally accepted this season’s pay offer. His disablement provided a reasonable sub plot based around his will to recover. Meantime, he kept working. Hell, if Melina Kanakarides had been on the staff in my office I’d have kept working if I had to walk there on my hands.
Lark Rise To Candleford.
Ruraltania trotted out its disabled character sub plot when Robert Timmins (Brendan Coyle), distracted by the chatter of Minnie Mude (Ruby Bentall), fell off his ladder. The fall left him in agony, Ivy. (That’s one for the older reader.) Guess it is not too much of a spoiler to say he got over it. There was a fleeting visit from the lady of the manor and a gloriously daffy St. George and the Dragon play. There were fine performances again from Linda Bassett, Karl Johnson and the rest of the cast. You can tell when a series is doing well: it attracts stars like Tom Conti, who appeared the week before last as a concert pianist. He is another Scottish actor, like Ken Stott, who only has to be on the screen to steal the scene. He was gently written in and out and we were all left smiling through the tears.
CSI Trilogy.
This was a good gimmick enabling Laurence Fishburne to fully establish his grip on the CSI scene while reminding the stars of NY and Miami that, in the acting world as in every other business, nobody is indispensable.
NCIS.
There has to be an exception to every rule and Mark Harmon is such an exception. So far as I can see, in what has become close to a cult show, he is indispensable.

READING.

I have just read Lost for Words by John Humphrys. (Hodder and Stoughton). Good book about the mangling and manipulating of the English language. Made me re-read some of my blog posts and think: bloody hell, did I write that? I then recalled the advice given to me years ago by the novelist George Woodman: “It is good that you can admire another person's writing, but never let it undermine your opinion of your own work.” So I shall not dwell too long on the done and dusted.
I am still reading and enjoying Where Was I ?! The World According to Terry Wogan. Not sure about his new show on Radio 2, though. I was never all that happy with Parkinson’s weekly tribute to Frank Sinatra, so a weekly dollop of obsequious TOGs could be a fawn too far. Sunday lunchtime has never been the same since the Billy Cotton Band Show disappeared.
My reading may be further put on hold: Simon’s Cat, the promised book of cartoons by Simon Tofield, has just been presented to me by my Leader.
Not a Christmas or a birthday present: just a present because she knew I wanted it.
Melina who?