173. Another year, another muse.

BETWEEN YOU AND ME.
The public sector strike.
I was a NHS employee for thirty two years. Member of two unions: NALGO and a smaller bunch representing Family Practitioner Committee employees. Neither of them ever did me much good, but I recognised that without them things would probably have been worse. They’re all UNISON now, so I suppose they finally twigged that their jealous little divisions made them an employer’s pushover.
I tolerated lousy pay, often antagonistic and unreasonable members of the professions, irate members of the public who believed that public servant was a shorthand term for public convenience and assorted ministers of state who felt it beheld them to keep moving the goalposts to their advantage. Seems none of that has changed.
I put up with it because I hoped that when I retired, the 6 % I paid into the pension fund from my gross salary every month, plus the 8% contributed by the employers would, when added to the scanty old age pension provided by the state, enable my wife and I to manage without state handouts throughout our declining years. It has done - just about - so the buggers at the Inland Revenue have continued to tax me, just in case I become too comfortable.
I never went on strike; back then the country was less crowded and the salaries of top officers in the social services were less bloated than those of today. My sympathy is with the lower paid. More years to work for a smaller reward? On their money? Christ!
The elusive muse.
Back in the days when everything I wrote was knocked out on an old Remington, each new venture would open with a waste paper basket full of false starts. A blank sheet of paper would glare at me from the typewriter and dare me to discover the muse. A tentative first muse would turn out to be counterfeit; a muse not fit to be mused. A second and third would be found wanting because they were too far from, or too close to, the editor’s notion of suitable copy. Eventually an approximation of the muse I sought would present itself and, with constant breaks to correct typing errors, I would set myself to producing a minor masterpiece. Well, you have to hope.
Nowadays two or three typewriters are stashed around the house and staying very quiet lest they go the way of many another surplus-to-requirements old reliable. In their place, the computer screen glares blankly at me, daring me to discover the muse. The wastepaper basket is empty and my editor is me. Never mind the muse, I should be able to cruise it.
But I have a sneaking feeling that a former editor of my acquaintance, who shall remain nameless (Ian Dillow), a man who spent fruitless years trying to persuade me to submit copy that even faintly suited the tenor of his award winning NHS magazine, would register mild disapproval if I became predictable now.
So sod the muse, what’s next? Ah yes…
Amusing interlude.
We were enjoying a leisurely breakfast. Sunday; no kids. Tele on as usual. Fern Britton interviewing singer Kathleen Jenkins. Serious business.
Fern exuding empathy: “And did you feel your voice was a gift from God?”
My Leader snorted. “Well she didn’t get it from bloody Tesco.”
Nearly fifty years of marriage and a laugh every day. Gawdblessyer, darlin.’
TELEVISION.
Gareth Malone.

Despite my frequently expressed dislike of reality television, this young bloke (born in 1975, for those who give a tinker’s cuss about such things) has rewritten the script on people programmes to the point where I have at last found a liking for televised amateur talent. He is an incorrigible creator of choirs. Indeed, when it comes to singing, he can transform people who are tone deaf and paralysed with stage fright into outgoing models of pitch perfect melody. A truly inspirational choirmaster, his successes so far have included persuading the shy, the reluctant, an entire town and two garrisons of army wives to embark on the quest for choral perfection. Right now there is a good chance that Paul Mealor’s song Wherever You Are, recorded by the army wives, will top the charts this Christmas.
In 2010 Gareth Malone was given the Freedom of the City of London.
I’d give him a knighthood.
Jeremy Clarkson.
Well ol’ Clarkson was asked what he thought about the one day strike action held by the public services, wasn’t he? It was on The One Show and he said the strike was great because you could drive around London with ease and it left plenty of room in restaurants. He then, because he was on a BBC show and should therefore ‘present a balanced view,’ said he would take out all the strikers and shoot them - in front of their families. This would surely have been accepted as an instance of his customary schoolboy humour had he not also remarked that he avoided travelling by rail because of all the hold-ups caused by people jumping off railway bridges to commit suicide.
Oh dear oh dear. Whether he was put up to saying it or not, what a twat!
The outcry about it has been out of all proportion, of course, but you’d think these media types would glean something from the likes of Ross and Brand and the late Simon Dee, wouldn’t you?
I’d give him a kick up the arse.
Whose idea?
Incidentally, is there a solitary producer, director or unsung programme maker in the whole of television blessed with a single original idea?
Latest carbon copy programme to appear is The Manor Reborn (BBC1), a house restoration documentary already done - very competently and almost to bloody death - by Sarah Beeny and her husband, Graham, in their two series of Beeny’s Restoration Nightmare (Channel 4).
The Manor Reborn features Penelope Keith (To The Manor Born) and Paul Martin (Flog It), two personable and proficient presenters. They’ve done their best to drum up some interest in the project, but, without the brooding malevolence of an East Yorkshire councillor contriving to scupper their plans, they really had no chance. Whose prosaic idea was this?
I’d give him (or her) the same treatment I’d give Clarkson.
Life’s Too Short. (BBC2)
Apparently Warwick Davis inspired this sitcom written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Looked in briefly but the title says it all.
READING.
Currently I am reading The Independent on Mondays and i for the rest of the week. I’m a bit careful about paying out more than that to skip through a few decent articles and do the concise crossword. Still enjoy Yasmin Alibhai-Brown having a go at just about everything and Tom Sutcliffe’s measured views on the television scene. My book reading is nil since the last post. Perhaps I need the same treatment I’d give Clarkson.
AND TO CONCLUDE…
The cat Shadow has taken to following me around. I don’t know where he gets it from, he was born long after Arthur Helliwell departed. It must be something to do with winter. I’m warmer than his box when the heating goes off so he lands on my lap at every opportunity. Trouble is, if I don’t adjust him he sends my legs to sleep and when I do adjust him he makes plain his displeasure. Sometimes I feel like giving him the same treatment I’d give Clarkson. He’s on the little table alongside my desk now, though. Curled up peacefully and sound asleep. Well at least there’s no poetry.
MEANTIME…
CHRISTMAS!
The greetings cards from lovely, efficient, organised people have started to arrive, I am in my customary state of festive goodwill and don’t-know-where-to-start panic and this could be my last post before the magic day or, for that matter, before the end of the year. So I take this opportunity to wish:
Whoever you are, dear reader, and of whatever persuasion you may be,
A HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND A PEACEFUL AND PROSPEROUS 2012!

172. Winter and Watching...

HOME.
More about Watching...
Since blathering on about the format of Watching…(at the end of Post 170), my attempts at an alternative have come to naught. I have dabbled, but been unsuccessful, with a move to Google Chrome (it started to become too much of a palaver for a man who rings for a mechanic if the car doesn‘t start) and I was magically visited for a week by alOt, which intrigued me because I had no idea it was coming - or would so quickly go. It was quite nice while it lasted, though. The net result has not been entirely zilch. Somewhere along the way I managed to lose my blog picture. The solemn little snapshot eventually summoned up to replace it has me looking like a Parkhurst escapee, but it will have to do until son Neil’s happy holiday collection can be raided; he and Pauline have just moved house again so lord only knows when that will be.
Meantime…
It would seem the blog is still visited, for whatever reason, by somebody out there. Last week I received an email from a chap who wanted me to know how much he enjoyed barnden.blogspot.com/ in general and my last two posts in particular. I was pleased to learn that my meanderings continue to inhabit the ether and, initially, slightly flattered that a stranger should take the trouble to remark glowingly upon them.. However, it turned out he was another company rep seeking to involve me in some way with his business and when I cleared out my Outlook Express his message got lost. Pity, because I did mean to answer it. Gathered his company was based in Limassol, Cyprus. Never mind, if he had really read the blog he would know I don’t join things of which I know nothing. If I did I would have done it last year. Heck! I could have had a new pair of slippers then: gratis. No, I avoid any involvement outside my comfort zone. This chap did not offer any inducement, but timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. Nice email, though.
That bloody hour!
Yep, that bloody hour again. Autumn and the clocks went back. I am now waking up at six thinking it must be seven and dozing off halfway through QI because it comes on at 10 pm, which will remain 11 pm to me for at least another month. Is this really just for Scottish farmers? And if it is, will we still be governed by it when Alex Salmond gets self-rule for Scotland?
TELEVISION.
Hidden. (BBC1)
Philip Glenister apart, this convoluted four part conspiracy twaddle should have been kept hidden.
Joanna Lumley’s Greek Odyssey. (ITV1)

Lovely Joanna swans around Greece meeting fascinating people and being the most gracious ambassador at large England never had. Everybody and everything enchants her and everybody and everything is enchanted by her. Fortunately none of her outings (Aurora Borealis, Nile and now this) has lasted long enough to cloy. Short and sweet. Way a documentary series should be, It was nice to see Nana Mouskouri again, too: still singing and still, like Joanna, a quality act.
Strictly Come Dancing. (BBC1)
Nothing about this reality romp has changed (except the Sir before Bruce Forsyth’s name and I don’t count that). The professional dancers are still consummately professional, their choreography is still marvellous, the celebrity contestants are still increasingly difficult to choose between, the costumes are still stunning, the orchestra is still superb and the joker in the pack is still much in evidence: this year in the rotund shape of Russell Grant. We’ll watch it right through. Well, it’s a conversation piece, ain’t it.
Downton Abbey. (ITV1)
This came to the expected tear-stained conclusion: writer Julian Fellowes carefully rounded everything off with enough loose ends to ensure another series. That’s it, except to say that Tom Sutcliffe summed it up better and at greater length in The Independent on Monday 7th November. Worth a quid of anyone’s money.
As for the rest...
Y’know, I don’t much care about the rest right now. Whether it’s age, or winter depression, or just too much of a not too good thing, my television viewing has of late become desultory. Oh, I still enjoy QI and Have I Got News For You and Merlin and suchlike, but I do not hesitate to abandon most of the rest for more important things like filling the dishwasher or making a cup of tea.
Perhaps it is a prolonged sulk brought on by the inexplicable popularity (to me, anyway) of so much cheap-jack reality rubbish. This starts with a plethora of antique (which we used to call junk) dealer programmes, goes on to encompass the finding, buying, selling, inspection and repairing of houses by and for people I have neither met nor wish to meet, and is rounded off by an avalanche of cooks (calling themselves chefs) eager to instruct me in the art of cooking with panache and too much butter. There follows the constant line-up of publicity hungry masochists waiting to (1) show me they can eat crap in a jungle, (2) cook for - and cheerfully hate - each other in their own homes (while a loud-mouthed voice-over makes sarcastic comments); (3) enjoy a competition where a self-proclaimed ‘food nutritionist’ bellows that cooking does not get any harder (as if he knows) and shovels food into his mouth like a hungry gannet; (4) be patronised by a bunch of millionaires who may or may not wish to throw a sprat to catch a mackerel and (5) get themselves fired by a bullying little sod who badly needs a shave.
Anybody for a cuppa?
READING.
A backlist…
Perhaps it is age, or winter depression, or even just too much of a very good thing, but my reading has fallen behind, too. On my ‘just started’ list I have Simon Kernick’s The Crime Trade, and Bill Bryson’s The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid, while on my bedside table resides a looked-at-the-first- page-or-two-may-never-get-any-further pile which includes Life of Pi, One Day and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. More on one or the other - or even all - of them if and when I ever find the inclination and the damned time.
FOOTNOTE.
Fellow feeling.
My Leader was recently sent a box from Amazon containing a small model of Jack Sparrow for Ellis. The box was big enough to hold the entire set of Pirates of the Caribbean and Jack was surrounded by enough wrapping paper to make a sizeable gap in one of the rainforests along the river after which Amazon is presumably named.
The cat Shadow, who over the years has disdainfully declined just about every designer cat bed known to man, decided that the box and its brown paper packaging was the ideal relaxation spot for a discerning moggy. He took it over. Now, when I am not in my armchair, he spends long days in it. Seems, though, that I am not the only one affected by dark day depression. Once I am settled in my chair he comes quietly and joins me. I don’t ask him why. Reckon it’s fellow feeling. We both get fed up in winter.

171. Thank gawd I don't have a deadline.

254 OBA Reunion 2011.

Last year this pleasant get-together of vintage Royal Signals boy soldiers, together with their wives and partners, was held at the Ramada Tamworth (Leics.) Hotel. (Post 156 refers) This year it was at the Aspect Hotel, Tamworth. Same place. I have no idea why the name was changed, but presume it may be, as Jack Webb said in Dragnet, to protect the innocent. Whatever: the nice young people (anyone under fifty is young to me) staffing the place were mostly courteous, concerned and competent. Less so in the kitchens where nobody seemed to know how to properly roast a potato or to have any intention of frying an egg;. Perhaps they were worried about the customers’ cholesterol levels; this is, after all, a nanny state.
We drove up to Oxford on Thursday 29^th September and stayed overnight with our daughter Jac. She took us to dinner at the renowned Magdalen Arms (a nice pub) and we basked again in the warmth of a daughterly welcome and the inexplicable magic that is the city of dreaming spires. On Friday we made it to Tamworth; a leisurely trip on mainly far from leisurely motorways. At the hotel we were given the keys to a room. Twin beds. I gently demurred. We have been married for forty nine years and understand not the concept of twin beds. A nice receptionist fixed it. The double room we were given in its place was situated directly behind the kitchens from whence came no roast potatoes or fried eggs but did come the incessant blast of a large fan. It was like having a tent on the hard shoulder of a motorway. We were not about to complain again. It was the hottest autumn week anyone could remember and we had to have the window open the entire four inches permitted by the burglar proof locks; but a nice lass had done her best to settle us in and we could ask no more than that.
On Saturday 1^st October there was an arranged coach trip to the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire where a brief service was held hallowing and dedicating a bench and memorial tree to the OBA and, at the same time, remembering all long and recently departed members, especially founder member George Severs. The trip coincided with a visit by over 10,000 bikers to the arboretum. Seems they do the ride annually to show their support for the armed forces, and they give thousands of pounds to the arboretum and to the Royal British Legion. Lovely people.
We returned to the hotel for dinner and the opportunity to take in the latest version of old friends’ reminiscences. Funny, but even when you remember the incident concerned, your memory of it seldom matches that of the storyteller. Well, the police have difficulty finding a reliable witness among people asked to recall something that happened only minutes ago, so what the hell can you expect after 60+ years?
The sun continued to shine all the way back to the Island on Sunday 2^{nd Oct.} . I drove at what seems to be the normal motorway speed nowadays and we made it comfortably to Pompey in four hours. Far too much traffic and (though I know Yasmin Alibhai-Brown would not agree) far too many people. But I’ve said all that before.
HOME.
Floating to the dentist.

No, we weren’t on anything, we literally did float to the dentist. It all came about when, a few months ago, our old friend and long time family dentist, Keith Fradgley, retired from the Ventnor practice he shared with his son Tim and their associate, Greg Willetts. Word was that a replacement would be hard to find, not only because Keith was a vastly experienced dental surgeon, but also because he was one of a dwindling number on the Island still willing to provide decent treatment under NHS arrangements.
My Leader acted. She saw a notice in the local press that the University of Portsmouth Dental Academy was looking for volunteer patients prepared to submit themselves for treatment by suitably supervised dental students and she signed us on. Thus came about a succession of trips across the Solent to William Beatty Building in Hampshire Terrace, Portsmouth.
It has been a splendid and reassuring experience. Maureen has received treatment at the hands of several young trainees, all of them careful and gentle and likeable. She has two or three more sessions to go and is totally sanguine about them. I needed only the ministrations of a dental hygienist and she turned out to be the lovely Tara. Lucky old me. My course of treatment is now complete and we have word that Keith’s practice has at last found a successor prepared to brave the current bunch of NHS bureaucrats. Brave new dentist. So it is back to regular check-ups at Ventnor and goodbye to the forays afloat. My sincere thanks go to Portsmouth Dental Academy and all who staff it. A great team.
TELEVISION.

Timothy Spall Back at Sea. (BBC4)
Good ol’ Tim, accompanied by wife Shane, continues to chug around Britain in The Princess Matilda. He makes the odd mistake, gives way to the occasional string of profanity, is obviously popular wherever he goes, and we are all one hundred percent on his side.
So, it seems, is The Queen.
This was a short series. There has to be at least one more.
We and The Queen look forward to it.
Question Time (BBC1)
I ignored my better judgment and looked in on David Dimbleby’s programme again It was a special about 9/11. After half an hour of political people talking at, rather than to, each other, I gave up. My Leader is right. Their talk changes nothing: none of them ever listens.
It is also the case that my patience, long ago grown thin, grows perceptibly more so as time goes by.
Of course the nigh on 3,000 victims of that attack on America did not deserve to have their lives cut short: but neither did the 62,000+ civilians killed during the blitzing of Britain in the Second World War, or the “at least 132,000” civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last ten years, or the millions of civilians slaughtered in conflict all over the world since our last war to end all wars came to an end.
Life is not fair. The scum will always rise to the top and the cavalry will never arrive on time. Politicians and profiteers are happy for it to stay that way. Why else would there be such carnage everywhere?
Get used to it. I cannot see it changing in my lifetime. Always hope it will before our grandchildren get to be my age, but doubt it.
The Secret World of Whitehall. (BBC2)
A fascinating glimpse into the world of faceless mandarins and special professional advisers (for none of whom have we voted) who unquestionably run this country.
Without them parliament really would become Lord of the Flies.
Doctor Who. (BBC1)
Another series over and the absence of the writer who created most of the characters has become ever more noticeable. That Torchwood crowd must be on cloud nine. Turns out the doctor had to die if he was not to die and that’s what he did. He then took off, suited and wearing a rather snazzy ten gallon hat. With any luck he’ll find Russell T. Davies before the next series is due to begin.
DCI Banks. (ITV1)
The reliable Stephen Tompkinson is back in another detective series. Not bad, but barely on a par with George Gently and way behind Foyle’s War.
Doctors. (BBC1)
This lunchtime soap is to general practice what the Asp was to Cleopatra. Current storylines - in which doctors and staff of The Mill Health Centre dodge in and out of the homes and lives of patients like demented stalkers - have included the sort of Agony Aunt counselling by a practice nurse that would not have been proffered by even the greenest nursing auxiliary, a burglar caught up in a wife’s retaliation when she discovers her husband’s infidelity and - running like an unmarked black van through it all - a rogue CSI man who commits murder, knows exactly how to clean up the crime scene, and has planted evidence to frame one of the doctors. It’s enough to make Horatio Caine forswear his sunglasses.
Merlin. (BBC1)

Never mind the departure of Doctor Who. Episode 1 of Merlin did not disappoint: there was sorcery, suspense, derring-do and a cliffhanger ending. Yep, he’s back! Hooray!
READING.
Graham Hurley.
Finished Permissible Limits still aware that I am unlikely to become a best selling thriller writer, but almost convinced I could fly a P-51 Mustang. Mr. Hurley can have that effect on you. You will have to buy the book to discover what I mean.
FOOTNOTE.
With the to-ing and fro-ing and an absence of prompting from the cat Shadow (who took advantage of the sunny weather to pose on the scooter in next door's front garden) I am late with this post. Thank gawd I don't have a deadline.

170. From Anarchy to Graffiti via J.K. and Manny.

HOME.

The frightening face of anarchy.

Anarchists used to be depicted as comic figures who wore black hats and cloaks; they were wild-eyed and bearded and they carried a bomb atop of which was a lighted fuse. How things change.

A couple of weeks back anarchy hit the streets of London and, via social network messages, rapidly spread to other cities around the country. People were killed as mobs of thieving bastards indulged in frenzied rioting and looting. Shops were destroyed, property was burned, the defenceless were robbed and, for a terrifying while, mass violence ruled. When it was all over, government mouthpieces hastened to take credit for ending it. They didn’t. The police, badly managed and equipped though they were at the start, eventually did.

Now somebody will have to work out how to stop it happening again. This is too important to be left to any politician, whatever title he or she may boast, and it must certainly not be handed to some gun toting bullshitter from America.
We have plenty of sound coppers here quite capable of formulating the right plans to deal with future outbreaks of mass theft and thuggery. Make a respected (within the force) senior officer responsible for forming a national anti-anarchy team and let him get on with the job.
All we need then is for David, Nick, Theresa, Ed, Boris and the rest of the political forefronters to shut the hell up and keep the hell out of it.
Yeah…I know…pigs might fly.

Ludicrous sentencing.

I cannot believe, either, that respect for the law was much enhanced by the judge who sentenced a couple of idiot Facebook contributors to prison for four years for inciting riot. Apparently neither of the idiots managed to persuade other idiots to turn up at their proposed kick-off sites; neither of them attacked persons or property and neither managed to convince even their Facebook friends that they were anything other than type-happy online dickheads. A fine and a hefty helping of community service would surely have done for them. Instead, with our prisons already overcrowded, the judge chose a bloody great hammer to crack two very small nuts.
Rogue care workers who bully and cheat elderly people get less. This was ludicrous sentencing.
Oh well…say no more lest the police knock at my door.
ABROAD.
Libya.
As I write this Col. Gaddafi’s rule seems to be coming to an end. Whether he will be replaced by former justice minister Mustafa Mohammed Abdul Jalil, or by some faceless opportunist lurking in the background, will probably depend on who most appeals to the CIA.

TELEVISION.

A+ list celebrities.

With the riots taking up more and more viewing time and summer holidays in full swing, television programmers have resorted to the customary diet of popular repeats bolstered by a few new series, most of them tried and tested favourites.

In the past I have somewhat churlishly questioned how much it must cost an allegedly strapped BBC to ferry rich celebrities all over the world looking up their ancestors (something the cat Shadow manages to do, daily, without leaving the rug in the living room). Now Who Do You Think You Are is back on BBC1 and the first people searching into their past were June Brown and Jo Rowling (above), two rightly famous persons and very much A+ list celebrities.

I’m still not sure whether other people’s family histories are any of my business, but both ladies were articulate, sincere and unflinching in their quests. Many of their findings were, as is often the case when one probes the past, extremely moving,
Following each of them around was an education and a joy.

BBC Proms 2011.

This year the Proms came alive for me with the discovery of the concert pianist Emanuel Ax. I bow my head in shame at the admission, because Manny Ax has apparently been a welcome performer at the Proms for thirty five years and, in my musical ignorance, this year is the first that I have come across him.

I have to thank Brahms - not my favourite composer - for the discovery. Two successive evenings last week were given over to the composer’s music: the concerts, performed by The Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Bernard Haitink, included Piano Concertos No. 1 and 2, with Emanuel Ax the soloist.

What a revelation! A pianoforte genius who is a cross between the much loved Henry Sandon of the Antiques Roadshow and the late, great John Ogdon (without the goatee). I hope maestro Ax would not be offended by that description, but doubt he will ever read this, so I shall not worry too much.

I was captivated by both his mastery of the keyboard and his generosity of spirit. The orchestra clearly loved him and he them. Brahms is still not my favourite composer, but I will listen to his work with a new ear from now on.
And I’ll listen with a great big smile on my face if Emanuel Ax is playing.

The graffiti craze.

Something else that came from America and makes me smile. Recent television programmes featuring Banksy and King Robbo have put a new slant on wall scribbling - something that used to be confined to public toilets - and show that not only are the worthies who write and draw on every spare wall in the country amazingly talented, they are also fiercely competitive and dogmatically territorial.
My admiration for them is tempered by the realisation that if I was a council boss I’d detest them; employ a full time team of painters to constantly erase every sweep of their spray cans and stroke of their brushes; prosecute them mercilessly when they were caught and hope they would find themselves in front of the sort of justice that sent down those two futile Facebook comics for four years.

But I’m just an ordinary man in the street and I love their fuck you, Jack fanaticism.

READING.

Graham Hurley.

I am halfway through Mr. Hurley’s Permissible Limits and becoming more and more aware why I am not a best selling thriller writer. He is so damn good.
More next time.

AND THE BLOG.

A need for modernisation?

For some time now I have been considering a change in the presentation of  Watching…a notion that has become increasingly appealing each time it comes to the difficult (to me, anyway) task of editing and presenting a post. The blog reached 5 years of age last month, so perhaps the time is right for me to review it, or to consider creating another.

An aristocratic old parliamentarian once said something along the lines of: “No change, for whatever reason, is ever for the better,”

In complete contrast, a nice old boy I met while serving on a committee which has long since ceased to exist assured me: “The main thing I learned from a lifetime in business was that you either make changes or you die.”

Trouble is, change does not come easily to me. Most of the changes imposed by our infuriating national lords and masters, or their local pipsqueak counterparts, seem to be made for the sake of it. Seldom do they make sense. So I am wary, even when it is only the proposed modification of an old bloke’s occasional blog. I’m not in business and if it ain’t broke…
Back next month in one format or another.

169. News views and the last Potter.

HOME.  

What are they hiding this time?

Is it just me or does anybody else think this phone hacking furore is a load of twaddle? So far we have had an Australian billionaire and his son answering questions in parliament, a police chief out on his ear, sackings, resignations, the wrapping up of the Screws Of The World and a load of gutter press journalists cast into the wilderness wondering whether they still have that unwritten best seller left in them, Where will it all end? The House of Commons was jampacked when they discussed it. Far more members turned up than would dream of so doing to discuss a rise in the old age pension, a proposed reduction in the obscene profits made by privatised public utilities, or the discontinuation of our futile involvement in the Middle East.Sometimes it just makes you despair. What the hell are they all hiding this time? What is so secret in their paranoid political lives that nobody, but nobody, should know about it? Christ! Anybody can hack into my phone if they want to. (The mobile, too: it’s seldom switched on) I’ll cheerfully tell them in advance what they’ll hear on the house phone. They’ll hear innocuous conversations with family and friends and they’ll hear the odd sales guy from India being given short shrift because he has rung at mealtime again. They’ll hear top secret info regarding the dates and times of our dental and medical appointments and highly confidential conversations disclosing whether one or the other of us can collect our grandson from school. They’ll hear sisters and friends talking to my Leader and people talking to me who have rung up hoping to talk to my Leader. They may even intercept the needs to know news that the cat (codename Shadow) who worryingly failed to report for breakfast has now been seen sunbathing on next door’s kitchen roof. They’ll be brain numb in under a week and it will serve them bloody right!  Phone hacking? Baloney! The most dreadful recent news has come from

ABROAD.

The Norway deaths. 

Why this beautiful country, filled with peace loving people, should have become victim to a solitary man’s murderous craving for publicity is surely beyond the comprehension of any sane human being. Between seventy and eighty people died in his bomb and shooting attacks before, relying on the professional integrity of the lawmen who caught up with him, he yielded without resistance to avoid being justifiably executed on the spot. Now a nation mourns and the world awaits what will doubtless be a protracted, much publicised trial: precisely the outcome he was looking for. Norway abolished capital punishment in 1905, but I guess he will be given a life sentence. If it was left to me it would be a life sentence for every life he took and they would run consecutively. He would thereafter be made a non- person, unspoken of right up until he was eventually forgotten. Hell, the sad little misfit has had too much publicity already.

READING.

Reaper by Graham Hurley.

Reaper was first published in 1991 and entails events leading up to the 1982 Falklands conflict. It is a story involving love, betrayal, the lunatic antics of the IRA, the actions of a couple of Special Branch thugs and the machinations of an assortment of psychopaths masquerading as intelligence operatives. If you generally like Graham Hurley’s work you will like it. I did.

Our Lady of Pain by M.C.Beaton (MarionChesney).  
I think Marion Chesney’s alter ego does better with the Agatha Raisin stories. This is an Edwardian pot boiler which features Lady Rose Summer and Captain Harry Cathcart with both of whom I quickly lost patience.If you generally like M..C. Beaton’s work you may like it. I didn’t.

TELEVISION.

New Tricks. (BBC1)

Another series well underway and, in Setting Out Your Stall, a rare appearance by Sheila Hancock as Sandra Pullman’s unpopular mother. Easy viewing.              

The Hour. (BBC2)                      

Fifty nine minutes too long for me.

Torchwood: Miracle Day. (BBC1) 

The fire quickly went out on this, too. There are now American connections.Everybody except the formerly immortal Captain Jack has found they are unable to die. He is dying and his could be the only funeral in the cemetery. Episode 3 of 10 has just been shown. I’ll try and relight the torch but I’m not optimistic.

50 Greatest Harry Potter Moments. (ITV1)

They might be the 50 Greatest if your tastes exactly match those of the programme compiler. Mine seldom do, so I invariably miss such gems as: 50 Most Shunned Heroes With Halitosis, 50 Most Bloodthirsty Origami Disasters, 50 Most Unconvincing Elvis Impersonators,etc. I also determinedly avoid anything that starts with the words The Very Best Of…or The Late Great…It’s not the subject that puts me off, it’s the presentation. I get heartily pissed off with that old guy, wearing Li’l Abner overalls and a straggly moustache, who cuts in every twenty seconds to tell you how he knew the star in the sixties but can’t remember anything about it because if you can remember the sixties you weren’t there. So I viewed this 50 Greatest with misgivings and they were justified. The contributions from those who acted in, or worked on, the films were fine; pertinent, interesting and often amusing. But I was at a loss to work out why anybody thought the views of non participants - comedians, pop singers, reality show winners et al - no matter how enthusiastically voiced, would be of any more interest to me than mine would to them. Oh well, I remain a Potter devotee. No PR sales doc will change that.

FILM.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (Pt.2).

A super finish to a super series. All eight films have been moderately true to the seven books and all have been perfectly cast. The addition of a somewhat low key Deathly Hallows Pt.1 (which included the demise of Dobby) set the tone for this all action, occasionally tear-jerking, finale.

Nobody disappointed. The youngsters who have featured throughout the entire series: Daniel Radcliff (Harry), Rupert Grint (Ron), Emma Watson (Hermione), Harry Melling (Dudley), James and Oliver Phelps (Fred and George), Bonny Wright (Ginny), Tom Felton (Draco), Matthew Lewis (Neville), Josh Herdman (Goyle) and Devon Murray (Seamus), together with the slightly later additions, Hugh Mitchell (Colin) and Evanna Lynch (Luna), have become attractive young adults and fine actors. 

They have provided hours of innocent pleasure to millions of enchanted filmgoers and there should be success for them far beyond Potter. I certainly hope that will be the case. 

(I also hope that Jamie Waylett, who played Crabbe in the first six films and missed out on Deathly Hallows through drug charges, will stop being a silly young man before he ruins his life completely.) 

As for the bevy of respected stage and screen stars who did not feel it beneath them to appear in a Potter film, none gave less than their impressive best. Lovely Maggie Smith, battling a couple of debilitating illnesses along the way, commanded attention whenever she appeared (hasn’t she always?) and splendid Alan Rickman’s Snape was surely the most insidious antihero of all time.

From beginning to end we have been spellbound by Hogwarts and all who spelled in her. Book and film. The spell is unbreakable so I care not for the opinions of detractors and begrudge not a single penny made by those involved in the franchise. We went as a family group to see Deathly Hallows Pt.2 and next year we shall take a family trip to Leavesden studios where this very British series has been filmed. Magic like that just lasts and lasts.

Well done, J.K. Rowling!

Good man, Professor Snape!

168. Goodbye Columbo. Hello WALL-E.

 IN APPRECIATION.

Peter Falk. (1927 - 2011)

Watching the Detectives would be a misnomer if I failed to lament the loss of Peter Falk who played the gloriously scruffy and deceptively clever Lt.Columbo, Los Angeles Police Department’s finest, from 1971 until 2003.
I dare say every Columbo follower has a favourite episode. Mine, and that of my daughter Jackie, was Try To Catch Me, made in 1977 and co-starring Ruth Gordon. The veteran actress and the likeable actor clearly relished every scene they played together. It was close to perfection.
For that matter, Columbo guest actors mostly did seem hugely at ease with a star who was the personification of technical competence and generosity of spirit.
Oh, just one more thing…
Peter Falk, actor, artist and chess enthusiast, died in Beverley Hills on the 23rd of June, 2011 at the age of 83.
He will long and fondly be remembered.

HOME.

Social Networking.
Every now and then a friend, relative or chance acquaintance has approached me to become a fellow traveller on one of the social networking websites.
I have always politely declined or simply ignored the offer.
In the first place, blogging takes up quite enough of my time; in the second, I could neither face up to Facebook nor witter on Twitter without quickly making plain my ingrained unsociability.
Why should anybody be interested in what I had for breakfast, whether my Leader or I cooked dinner, or what time I made my way to bed?
I know it has become the in thing to proffer up one’s private life for public scrutiny, but I am not celeb interviewee material; chat show hosts would not want to talk to me. Might be different if I had half a dozen mistresses fifty years my junior, had succeeded in grafting a new strain of orchid onto the dog rose in my courtyard, or had obtained a knighthood following years of flouting a modest talent to maximum effect before a stupefied audience.Might be different, too, if I was the sort of moron who just couldn’t wait to be seen doing bushtucker trials or getting himself fired by an arrogant little twat in need of a shave.
But such is not the case.
So I’m afraid someone else will have to chit chat with the social network dabblers: a good old gossip on the net is not for me, even if it is cheaper than the pub.
But thanks again for asking.
Giveaway headgear.
When I was young most men wore hats. A hat was an indication of the job, place on the corporate ladder, even the class, of the wearer. I seldom wore a hat after I parted company with the army: nearly twelve years of military headgear was quite enough. But a few weeks ago my Leader and I were over in Pompey, shopping at Gunwharf Quays, when I chanced upon baseball caps similar to those worn by the NCIS cast and, on a whim, bought one.
I donned it for the first time when I set out on an unpromising morning to collect my newspaper.
“I am actually an NCIS employee,” I told my Leader. “But I don’t have the letters on my cap because I’m working incognito.”
“Off you go then, Special Agent David,” she said.
Blew me cover completely.

TELEVISION.

Camelot. (C4)
The current craze is for depictions of the medieval to be downright manic. This series is no exception. It may well be the way things were back then.
Anyway, if I was around I don’t remember it; and thank whatever god for that.
Decent cast but, at ten episodes, too long.
Top Gear. (BBC2)
Yeah, they’re back again. Same overgrown schoolboys racing about in same (albeit latest model) cars. Wonder if any of them would know how to stop the air conditioning unit in my Hyundai i10 piddling all over the garage floor?
No?
Neither does my main dealer.
Scott & Bailey. (ITV1)
Lesley Sharp played DC Scott, Suranne Jones played DC Bailey and Rupert Graves played an arsehole barrister. Not much new there then.
It was a six part series. The girls will be back. He won’t.
The Shadow Line. (BBC2)
In this sombre seven parter nobody decent, or even half decent, came to a happy ending. Beautiful performances from a splendid cast which included Lesley Sharp again, this time playing an Alzheimer’s sufferer. Such a fine actress. Well deserves to be a Dame of the British Empire, though I guess my recommendation won't help her.
Luther. (BBC1)
Still not my cup of tea, but lasted only four episodes so I scarcely had time to ignore it.
It will be back.
Perhaps I’ll ignore it then.
Castle. (C5)
Could as easily have been called Murder He Wrote but wasn’t, presumably to avoid litigation.
I’m determined to give this a chance, even if it does at first come across as a desperate attempt to revamp The Mentalist by introducing a bit of family interest. The leading actors are pleasant and the stories so far are viewable standard fare. We’ll see.
The Killing. (C4)
Talking of revamps, this is an unashamed American remake of the immensely successful Danish crime series Forbrydelsen. I am again determined to give it a chance, but I cannot help being reminded of the English remake of Wallander which abysmally failed to match the excellence of its Swedish precursor.
Well it stands to reason, doesn‘t it?:
Portrayals of Scandinavia are best left to Scandinavians.

READING.

Alexander McCall Smith.
I finished The Full Cupboard of Life. (Abacus £6.99 or see Google for outlets with reduced prices.)
Mr. McCall Smith’s Botswana remains delightfully amusing and his characters charmingly predictable. Yet another success for No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.
So did Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni make the parachute jump?
That would be telling.
Heck, you can always buy the book.

FILM.

 Add this animated gem by Pixar to my list of favourites. The world has long come to an end, buried under trillions of tons of waste, and the only moving things left are a small robot, WALL.E,  and his friend Hal, a cockroach.
WALL-E is a Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class - the last of his kind - who ventures forth daily to transform acres of rubbish into cubes which he neatly stacks atop each other until they form compact mountains.
He is kind, industrious and a lover of the musical film Hallo Dolly, to which he hums and dances along. His enthusiasm, like Jerry Herman’s opening music, is infectious and my Leader and I have since been haunted by Michael Crawford’s rendition of Put On Your Sunday Clothes.
WALL-E’s lonely world is suddenly invaded by Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator EVE, a Ziva David style robot (NCIS fans will comprehend) landed on earth to search for any sign of plant growth. WALL-E falls in love with her and, coincidentally, he has unearthed a seedling plant…
The film was released in 2008 and was directed by Andrew Stanton. If you have not seen it I suggest you look out for the next TV showing, or pick up a DVD somewhere.
For those who are interested there is an excellent article on Wikipedia,
My Leader has now bought me the CD and the DVD. Talk about spoilt.
Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (Pt,2)
The big night for the stars is over and next week on the 15th we get to see the final film.
I believe daughter Roz has been persuaded to take granddaughter Jess to the 0001 hours Island premiere. They’ll love it. I’d go too, but I’m usually asleep at that time. (A snippet of info I shall not be divulging on Facebook or Twitter.
Oh, I shall go as soon as I can. And bollocks to the Potter haters.
Have a good whatever...

167. School‘s out.

HOME.


Rediscovering school.
My Leader and I were recently involved in a family learning course held at Ellis’s school on Thursday mornings. We were accepted as student stand-ins for his working mother and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
The lessons included an outside search for interesting insects, an analysis of Goldilocks and The Three Bears and an in depth appreciation of the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf.
Did you know that woodlice are crustaceans, not insects? Were you cognizant of the fact that they have fourteen jointed limbs, or that they do not pee but do eat their own poo?
Were you aware that worms have five hearts and no eyes?
Did you care? (No? Shame on you!)
The course ran for five weeks at the conclusion of which we each received a certificate of attendance. As my Leader cheerfully put it: “We have finally been certified.”

Ribald remarks will be ignored.

If there’s a next time, we’ll go again.

Traffic control: you have to admire the logic.
One of the recent forays into Never-Never Land taken by those responsible for controlling the traffic over here has been the imposition of a one-way traffic order on a road which took traffic from Sandown and Shanklin across the outskirts of Newport to the village of Carisbrooke and beyond. The road was perfectly adequate for two-way traffic throughout, but somebody - probably a councillor - saw a way of reducing the flow of vehicles past his house and that was that. The upshot has been the, now legally established, closure of that road to uphill traffic at a junction halfway along it, and a diversion taking said traffic back into Newport and out past two (one of them primary) schools. This, it seems, is what the planners (surely a contradiction in terms) call planning.
Waste of time writing to them I am reliably informed: they answer not.
Waste of time phoning them, too: they heed not.
Their maxim seems to be: ignore the buggers and they’ll go away.
You have to admire the logic, don’t you?

TELEVISION.

Game of Thrones. (Sky Atlantic)
Nobody plays tough but honourable better than Sean Bean. He was tough but honourable Richard Sharpe (a hero of the Napoleonic Wars) from 1993 to 2008 and here he is tough but honourable Ned Stark (hero of a medieval fantasy). It is clear that Ned can come to no good. A fair-minded man is at a distinct disadvantage when all about him are downright medieval.
There is a shortage of likeable characters in George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire fantasies and heroes are killed off before you have chance to know them. It is bloodthirsty but compelling.
I might have found it disturbing, but I am old enough to remember John Creasey bumping off the heroes in his Department Z stories whenever he appeared to tire of them.
And that was before Mr. Martin was born.
There’s nothing new in the world of fiction.
Paul Merton’s Birth of Hollywood. (BBC2)
Paul Merton is a fan of old Hollywood and it shows in every reel of this short series.
As would be expected of a regular on HIGNFY he is quick and funny; he is also refreshingly outspoken at times. The film director D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, which was largely responsible for the re-emergence of the Ku Klux Klan, gets a particularly sober mention, as does the public humiliation of Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle.
We learned, we laughed, we pondered, we enjoyed.
Can’t ask more than that of a documentary.

Prince Philip at 90. (ITV1)
Alan Titchmarsh (still wearing his posh suit for RHS Chelsea Flower Show) made a further bid for the knighthood with this, suitably deferential, probe into the life of the longest-serving royal consort in British history.
Once, when she was about twelve years old, my future wife hurtled down Market Hill, Cowes, on a bicycle and screeched to a halt barely inches from HRH and his old friend Uffa Fox. Had the ground been wet (and it inevitably rains during Cowes Week) she would have brought down not only a promenading prince and his companion but probably the whole of Special Branch.
It was the closest either of us has ever been to royalty.
Prince Philip saw the funny side. Well, he was over fifty years younger then and no harm had been done.
Ol’ Titchy didn’t find out much more than we already know about the royal personage.
At his best the old boy charms attractive females who catch his eye and testily suffers unattractive males who walk on broken glass around him.
At his worst he is a pain in the arse.
Aren’t we all?
Classic Brit Awards (ITV1)
I usually avoid these fawning get-togethers, too, but this one was rather good. Myleene Klass’s presentation was faultless.
Il Divo opened the show in fine style: Alfie Boe and the cast of Les Miserables were absolute magic; a splendid selection of solo performers followed and, to round it all off, Dame Shirley Bassey took to the stage to perform John Barry’s Bond theme Goldfinger with the London Chamber Orchestra.
Nobody spent too long thanking their mother, father and the tortoise at the end of the garden,
Yes, it really was rather good.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. (Series 11) (C5)
This, on the other hand, has become rather bad. A dreadful load of tosh.
I don’t know whether the actors are privy to future story lines, but would never be surprised the learn that William Petersen had some inkling of what the future held in store and bolted for freedom before the compulsory serial killer could be brought in to make a daft ’go it alone’ idiot of him. Lawrence Fishburne surely had no idea and has my sympathy.I suppose it is inevitable that a country where forty percent of the population own guns will have a neurotic fixation on mass murderers, but in America the serial killer has become as much a lazy scriptwriter’s plot stand-by as has the omnipresent turbaned terrorist.
How many writers contribute to this cliched crap?
No matter.
Just give it a rest, will you?
Martina Cole’s The Runaway. (Sky 1)
Recorded this and watched all six episodes over a couple of days.
Apart from the drag queens, led by Desrae (Alan Cumming) the characters made the Game of Thrones crowd look like something out of Beatrix Potter.
Medieval minds would know no better; but this was London in the sixties. Not for the faint hearted.
Made you proud not to be a Londoner.

READING.

Alexander McCall Smith.
The Full Cupboard of Life is Botswana’s No.1 Ladies’ Detective agency again.
Mma Ramotswe continues gently to wrestle with her own problems and with those of her clients. I have only reached chapter five and am totally hooked. Will Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni make the parachute jump?
More next time.

166. Trips near and far and Barry Cryer

HOME

Finally sorted.
If you look up Hogwarts on Google you will be find a couple of Hogwarts Sorting Hat quizzes designed to tell you which school house you belong to.
I tried them both and each gave me the same result :- "Gryffindor!"
Yeah, I thought it would probably say that for everybody, too: but it doesn’t.
My Leader’s result said Ravenclaw. Would you believe it?
Go on. Be daft. Have a go!
Get Sorted By The Hogwarts Sorting Hat!
That wedding.
Were you carried along on the flood of publicity for the Kate and Wills nuptials? I may not have been, but there was no denying my Leader.
“It’s a woman’s thing,” she explained gently. “No woman can resist a good wedding.”
Well, I thought, it would be churlish and probably sexist to turn my back on it then. So I watched with her.
Good, wasn’t it?
Oh, I can understand if you are one of those who saw it only as a royal publicity stunt, a costly exercise in public manipulation at a time when thousands…millions even…of youngsters have a snowballs chance in hell of affording any sort of wedding, let alone the deposit on a small house. But, no matter how understandable your disenchantment, when it comes to the Kate and Wills wingding you will find yourself much in the minority.
Thing is, this country does pageantry better than any other country in the world. Nowadays, come to think of it, pageantry is probably the only bloody thing this country does do better than any other country in the world.
As a devout non-believer (in just about everything), to my surprise I quite enjoyed the wedding service, approved of the hymns and found myself solemnly agreeing with the Bishop of London’s homily.
They came across as a nice young couple and no matter how undesirable the idea of another hereditary king may be, the contention that the post would better be filled by some power-mad …king politician is just a nonsense.
Anyway, all the horses and carriages and smiling and waving and kisses on the balcony and mass adulation whilst a dear little girl held her hands over her ears was magically awful.
Christ knows what it has cost, but there is certainly no shortage of people wishing the pair all the best.
We’re among ‘em.

AWAY

Hogwarts and beyond.
A couple of weekends back the young family went on holiday to Florida for a fortnight to visit Disneyland and the world of Harry Potter. They returned just a few days ago. Enjoyed every moment of it. Didn’t want to come back. They plan to return in a couple of years when Boo is eight and big enough to go on all the rides.
My Leader and I enjoyed their enjoyment via phone calls, texts etc. Neither of us was keen to discover Disney, but I would quite like to have seen Hogwarts. Bit long in the tooth for all the traipsing around now, though, and the sight of a moving staircase would make me queasy.
Anyway, we quite enjoyed a selfish fortnight to ourselves.
More 254.
By way of a short break, on the day the young family went to America we returned to Botleigh Grange Hotel, Hedge End, Hants, for this year’s get-together of 254 OBA Southern Chapter (Posts 135 and 143 refer).
We travelled across on the Friday. this time the weather favoured us and our experience of last year made the trip that much easier. Indeed, the following day we motored around Hampshire finishing up at Alton - what a super little town - and drove back via the area where we lived when we were first married. Lord, in nearly fifty years how everything has changed!
Once again the service at Botleigh Grange Hotel was excellent and the accommodation first class.
Our thanks to Pat and Maureen Soward for the understated time and effort they always put into organizing the event and to all the OBA members, spouses and guests whose mutual affability is the making of it.

ABROAD

Death of Osama Bin Laden.
After nearly a decade, the alleged mastermind behind 9/11 has been killed by U.S. troops in Pakistan. The news was announced by President Barack Obama on 2nd May.
Given the American propensity for death by friendly fire, my first reaction was one of relief that Lawrence of Arabia died in a motor cycle accident in 1935.

TELEVISION.

Doctor Who. (BBC1)
I don’t quite know what this new series is all about. In the first two-part story President Richard Nixon figured prominently and that was enough to curdle my yoghurt.
River, played by Alex Kingston, cheered things up a bit, but the producers are apparently going for a darker approach this time. Could be good. We might even finish up in Copenhagen with DI Sarah Lund.
The second story took place in pirate land. Hugh Bonneville and Lily Cole were the guest stars and it all took place in a single episode which wickedly incorporated every cliché in the book (except Long John Silver’s parrot). Funnily enough, the one episode formula was more understandable. Perhaps condensing it simplified the plot.
Exile. (BBC1)
This was a three parter with a sterling cast which included Jim Broadbent, Olivia Colman, Shaun Dooley, Claire Goose, John Simm and Timothy West.
Tom Ronstadt, a drug-riddled journalist, returns to Lancashire determined to discover why his father, Sam, former deputy editor of the local newspaper and now an Alzheimer’s sufferer, had once beaten him so badly that he had left home intending never to return.
Tom’s investigation uncovers a Haut de la Garenne style scandal and a brutal truth about his background.
The story could as easily have been told in two parts, but the acting well compensated for any feeling that it took its time and, as is often the way with a good drama, there was the occasional line of dialogue that particularly appealed to me.
Tom’s father - in a rare lucid moment - said of a former boss:
“He couldn’t write fuck on a dusty blind.”
God bless cantankerous old journalists!
Vera. (ITV1)
Shades of Sarah Lund, the goggle-eyed crime fiction fan cannot help but feel a sense of déjà vu whenever a new British cop show is aired.
DCI Vera Stanhope, played by Brenda Blethyn as a cranky, menopausal matriarch, is another addition to the let’s-doff-our-hats-to-Denmark school.
I have been a Brenda Blethyn admirer since the days of Chance in a Million and Outside Edge, so feel sorry that I cannot see Vera as the next Jack Frost.
Not that I’m an expert: when I first saw Frost I thought David Jason was miscast and way too small for a copper.
Didn’t take into account the size of the talent, did I?
Case Sensitive. (ITV1)
Detective Sergeant Charlie Zailer (Olivia Williams), the second female sleuth to appear on ITV in as many days, turned out to be a personal life disaster in charge of a complicated murder enquiry. Her problems were compounded by a slim DC sidekick who was probably in love with her and a fat overbearing boss who definitely was not.
She and her sidekick solved the case and, in so doing, doubtless saved the fat boss from a quick walk into early retirement. Well, unless he was looking to end his career, no head of a police department would put a lowly sergeant in charge of a high profile murder investigation. Not bloody likely.
Poetic licence?
Do come on.
United. (BBC2)
The Busby Babes and the Munich air tragedy.
We watched, close to tears, as David Tennant (playing coach Jimmy Murphy) and the remainder of an excellent cast, took us back to the BEA Elizabethan plane crash that resulted in the dreadful depletion of Matt Busby’s brilliant young Manchester United football team in February 1958.
United is back at the top again this year.
Whatever you may think, it belongs there.
The Wright Stuff. (C5)
When I have nothing else to do, which is seldom, I look in on Matthew Wright, an ex Mirror journalist (Piers Morgan was his editor. Cassandra must have been spinning at the speed of light!) who has a weekday morning show where he tolerates a small studio audience and accepts a few phone-ins from people prepared to chance his mood of the moment.
To like the show you have to like Matthew Wright; or simply thank God he’s not Jeremy Kyle. I fall into the latter category.
It helps, too, if you like the (mostly media) people invited along as guests for the week. I usually do.
Last week Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Neil Stuke were the permanent guests and Claire Goose turned up one morning to talk about her part in Exile. It was a change to see Mrs. A-B without the unwell-wishers who seem to dog her every public appearance and the panellista were generally lively and candid without being unnecessarily aggressive.
This week Mark Little is on the panel: another excellent contributor. The host, though, will be away undergoing an operation on his lower back.
I wish him good luck and hope he will be back soon (cue for song).
Well, The Wright Stuff without Wright would never run on like Taggart has.

READING.

Graham Hurley.
In No Lovelier Death (Orion) a teenage party at a judge’s house in the posh Southsea district of Craneswater is advertised on Facebook, attracts scores of kids from contrasting backgrounds, and culminates in riot and murder.
There are two corpses alongside the swimming pool of the holidaying judge’s next door neighbour and one of them is the party giver, Rachel, the judge’s daughter.
To add to DI Faraday's problems, he and his colleagues are not alone in their pursuit of the murderer. The judge’s next door neighbour is Baz Mackenzie, a former drug baron and semi-reformed hard case who had promised to keep an eye on things while the judge was away. Baz feels he has a personal score to settle…
This is Graham Hurley on top form.

THEATRE.

Barry Cryer.
We enjoyed a rare evening out recently when Pauline and Neil (the Ventnor Barndens) asked us if we would like to see Barry Cryer at Shanklin Theatre with them and a bunch of friends. We would and we did.
Ol’ Baz, accompanied by I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue pianist Colin Sell, coasted through the evening like a cyclist on a long downhill run.
Using the alphabet method to introduce his topics he cruised through just about every email joke doing the rounds in the past five years (he probably wrote most of them), performed a couple of songs, indulged in a little Flanders and Swann banter with pianist Colin, dropped a few famous names without making us cringe and concluded his act (with an encore) to warm applause.
Well you have to admire a man who not only can remember all those email jokes at the age of 76, but is brave enough to wear a bright red waistcoat.
Lovely evening, Mr. Cryer.
Thanks again, Paul and S.J.

165. A gentle stroll through time..

HOME.

Ellis‘s time.
End of last week was end of school term and time for the Easter fair at grandson Ellis’s school. Children, teachers and parents combined to make a happy after-school occasion of it and little Boo, a pupil when I took him to school in the morning, was a tiger by the time he got home in the evening.
Ain’t education great nowadays?
My time.
I hated school for much of my young life. Bully boys formed bullyboy gangs and too many of the staff were superannuated sadists.
At one of the seven schools I went to between the age of five and thirteen I recollect Mr. Supercilious, a wartime schoolteacher venting his ire at being excluded from uniformed combat by launching a zero tolerance campaign against the kids in his charge.
“If you ever have to rely on arithmetic for your living, boy,” he thundered at me on one occasion, “you’ll finish up a dustman!”
He had two approaches, the bellowing and the sarcastic, which he often combined. I cannot remember him ever laughing, smiling. or showing the slightest hint of humour.
I don’t know how he finished up..
Careers adviser, perhaps.
What? Oh, I finished up an administrator and finance officer in the NHS.
My father‘s time.
My father went to St. Luke’s school in Portsmouth where he learned the three R’s and how to fight. His father (one of the first warrant officers in the RN) died when dad was nine and he left school to take up an apprenticeship as a carpenter and joiner at the age of fourteen.
I remember less of him than I would have liked. He died at the age of fifty four; that was over fifty years ago, three years after I left the army and three before my marriage to Maureen, who never met him.
He was Portsmouth born and bred. Dark, short (only five foot six and a half - he insisted on the half), thickset, shrewd, a self-taught pianist in the mode of Charlie Kunz, a loyal family man and a dry humorist.
In my early teens I once stood with him at the top of Portsdown Hill looking out across Portsmouth. It was a clear day and for no good reason my teenage imagination ran riot. “I bet they could build a bridge from here all the way to France,“ I said.
Just the trace of a smile flickered across his face.
“Yeah,” he said. “With lifts down to the Isle of Wight.”
For many years he was chairman of Southsea Liberal Club (‘No political or religious talk in the club, please.’) and once told me he owed his regular re-election to never becoming involved in excitable squabbles.
“I’m phlegmatic; I wear ‘em down.”
His views on people were pithy but not venomous.
On a large, likeable woman: “Stout party; heart of gold.”
On a pompous man: “He rates himself a bit.”
On any entertainer he liked: “Good turn that one.”
On a seemingly innocuous snooker player. “Never play him for money.”
And on anyone he considered to be mental: “A bit touched I reckon.”
As a young man he played football, Portsmouth League, for the Dockyard Recorders. He played in goal, though he was never a dockyard employee and well below average height for a goalkeeper. His only connection with 'The Yard' was via his brother-in-law, Bill, who was a recorder and also in the team. The two were good friends, so I guess a sort of ‘on loan’ scheme went on, even back then. Anyway, uncle Bill rated him as a ‘keeper and you worked every fiddle you could to be top of the league, even back then.
In the course of his working life Dad went from carpenter to building firm manager, to costings clerk in the Portsmouth City Architect department, a post he held until his death.
My most abiding memory is of an immensely competent man. Lord knows what he could have achieved had he been given the luxury of a university education.

TELEVISION.

Waking the dead. (BBC1)
It’s all over. Dead and buried.
DS Peter Boyd (Trevor Eve) has yelled his last yell, broken his last rule and neatly arranged for the assassination of the assassin of the person assigned to his team to assassinate his career.
Don’t get it?
Don’t matter.
The Walking Dead. (C5)
Yep, another doom-laden title. Andrew Lincoln (him who was Egg in This Life), turns up in America with a sheriff’s badge and a credible accent to fight incredible zombies played by an incredible army of incredibly awful looking extras.
Totally barmy.
Lewis. (ITV1)
The murder count has surely risen since dear ol’ Kev Whately took up the reins in Oxford. Any one of a host of talented actors could have been the murderer in the episode shown last Sunday.
It was a bit Midsomer with dreaming spires, but we enjoyed every minute.

FILMS.

Taken.
Liam Neeson starred in this all action thriller. He played a retired CIA agent who went after the white slave captors of his daughter. If you saw Geena Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight, Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible films, Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity or Gene Hackman in Target you will get the idea.
At a time when there is so much dross on television, Taken was a welcome change. Liam Neeson sitting in a chair reading a newspaper would be more watchable than many another actor delivering Hamlet‘s soliloquy and the catalogue of continuity goofs to be found on Google went by my Leader and I unnoticed. We were too busy enjoying the film to be sidetracked by trivia.
Wanted.
James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie were the stars of this dip into mayhem. Based on a comic book limited series, its lineage was all too apparent, Decent plot twist and fun to watch, though.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 1. (DVD)
The DVD is out just in time to be relished before the release of the final part in July.
I do not intend writing more about it here; Potter followers can find excellent Amazon reviews on the net.
We purchased the double disc set from them. Good price, too.

READING.

Christine and Christopher Russell.
My Leader was looking for a particular book in Waterstone's when we chanced upon this nice couple signing copies of their first two Warrior Sheep books The Quest of the Warrior Sheep and The Warrior Sheep go West (published by Egmont).
Intrigued, we bought them for me to read to Boo when he is a little older.
Meant I had to read them first. Any excuse.
So will he enjoy them when he is a little older?
I think he will.
And have I enjoyed them?
Ohmygrass yes!

164. Not bad here - think I'll stay.

HOME.

Shake-up at the BBC.
Chris Patten, or Lord Patten of Barnes if you want to be formal, is one of those done-all-right-thank-you political figures (like Lord Coe, Lord Mandelson and many another Lord Elpus) whose charmed career proves it ain‘t what you know, it‘s who you know.
He has just been made Chairman of the BBC Trust.
It seems he doesn’t watch much TV but does have the right connections.
So now, to top up the £30,000 a year he is guesstimated to obtain as a paid advisor to BP (one assumes his advice was never sought as far away as the Gulf of Mexico) he has fallen into every OAP’s dream pension: £110.000 a year to sit his arse in at two or three meetings a week.
One can only assume the government is banking on him finding time between his advisories, honorary fellowships and position as Chancellor of Oxford University, to act as a Brit Joe McCarthy, rooting out all those involved in the notorious BBC left-wing conspiracy.
Expect heads to roll. Expect creepers to keep climbing. Expect no good to come of it. Political dabbling spells disaster.
(If in doubt see Police, Education and the NHS.)
And at ITV.
If George Orwell had written Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1984 it might have contained the Political Correctness Police, for surely PC is the present day version of his Thought Police.
Latest to fall foul of this insidious cult is the Midsomer Murders producer Brian True-May. He dared exercise his right to free speech with the revelation that ethnic minorities do not appear in his Midsomer villages because he is trying to present something that appeals to a certain audience, it seems to have succeeded (for 15 years) and he doesn’t want to change it.
Now he is in hot water.
For what? Telling the truth?
Shades of Gerald Ratner, are we still punishing people for that?
I don’t think there was any racist intent on the man’s mind. I’ve watched his programme since its inception and have honestly never noticed an absence of ethnic minorities. Why would I? The nineteen thirties England where I was brought up had no such thing. Proves his point really, doesn’t it?
Racism is ignorant lunacy and should be firmly discouraged, but political correctness is not the answer and only a tabloid mind would imagine it is.
People from abroad do play a crucial role in this country today, but surely they don’t have to appear in every act to prove the point.
After all, it isn’t as if every episode of Midsomer ended with a song by the Black and White Minstrels. Now that really would be something for the PC brigade..
If the law has been broken, act on it. If it hasn’t, drop it!
And re-instate Mr. True-May.

ABROAD.

Living here's not so bad.
Earthquake in New Zealand. Tsunami killing thousands and causing nuclear power leakages in Japan, trouble throughout the Middle East, civil war in Libya leading to air strike intervention.
Not so bad living here after all, is it?
Think I'll stay.

TELEVISION.

Mad Dogs. (Sky1)
It was a cast to die for; or at least to take out an extra mortgage for.
Max Beesley, Ben Chaplin, Philip Glenister, John Simm and Marc Warren, all in the same show. I’d have been very happy with 10% of their combined wages bill.
What? I wouldn’t buy a house in Majorca, I’d buy Majorca.
Ben Chaplin apart (anybody as unpleasant as Alvo, the character he played, had to be erased early on) the remaining protagonists were present throughout the entire four part series. It must have cost their paymasters a fortune. Needless to say they were worth every penny.
Strange ending, though. Very, very strange ending.
Marchlands. (ITV1)
The story behind little Alice’s sad death was revealed in the fourth and final episode. This was a welcome relief to the remainder of the cast, particularly those who had lived in the haunted house and especially to the woman who, right until the last moment, dogmatically refused to believe in ghosts.
Never mind spoilers, Alice turned out to be a nice little girl and everyone but the surviving members of her family lived happily ever after.
Outcasts. (BBC1)
Short titles, sci-fi and futuristic drama being all the vogue, Outcasts had a familiar feel to it.
What we had here was The Survivors evacuated from an uninhabitable or disappearing world (your guess is as good as mine) to a far from friendly planet five years’ space ride away.
In the real world a drop in viewing figures resulted in the programme being rescheduled from prime time on Mondays and Tuesdays to late night on Sundays. I missed an episode or two. Didn’t realise. Thought it was just bad continuity. By the time I cottoned on it was too late. Then the news leaked through. There will not be another series; not even to sort out the bevy of loose ends. So I shall forever wonder why, in a culture which could produce a shield powerful enough to protect the entire planet, people were living in a shanty town.
Ah well, ne’er mind.
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is. (BBC2)
The format has been tried in various ways but this series puts two dealers in competition, using their own money, to find which of them can make the most money buying and selling antiques over the course of a week, profits to go to the individual‘s chosen charity.
I have no objection to the dealers (though many of the people with whom they do business will surely not welcome them so kindly after the programme has been aired): but I do object to the idiot voice-over and the ludicrous use of nicknames to describe them. The Fox? Knocker? The Hit Man? Makes them sound like a bunch of all-in wrestlers. I thought only snooker introductions had become that silly.
On the subject of idiot voice-overs, though…
Come Dine with Me. (C4)
I still avoid this puerile time-waster. My Leader watches it: she‘s the people person here. I not only lack patience with the backstabbing participants, I invariably finish up wanting to butcher and cook the mouthy twat who does the background commentary.
Slow roast on a spit, perhaps?
The Killing. (BBC4)
This dark Danish mystery is literally that: dark.
It’s the old CSI syndrome. Nobody seems to know how to switch a light on so they all shine torches everywhere. We have now reached episode 19 of the 20 part series and have had maybe half a dozen glimpses of Copenhagen in daylight throughout the lot.
Detective Inspector Sarah Lund has been in the dark so long she has become a life-risking fatalist: in pitch black conditions she ventures to obvious danger spots, leaves her gun in the car, advertises her location to any possible assailant by loudly enquiring whether anybody is there, waves her torch to no useful effect and constantly becomes separated from the colleague with whom she was initially instructed to collaborate. She was supposed to be transferring to Sweden. Believe it when it happens.
Don’t care about the dark. Don’t care about the subtitles.
Love it.
Silk. (BBC1)
Oh gawd, I thought, another bloody barrister thing. Good actors (Maxine Peake, Rupert Penry-Jones, Neil Stuke), but another bloody barrister thing?
I shouldn’t have prejudged.
Even more soap opera than the real thing, but very watchable.
Rather like it.
NCIS. (FX)
Despite its increasing resemblance to 1940s b/w English propaganda films (think Leslie Banks in Went the Day Well and Cottage to Let), we are still watching this delightful War On Terror twaddle. We were hooked long ago. If nothing else holds us, the chemistry between Gibbs and Abby never fails.
In recent series the scare-mongering Us versus Them storylines have been lightened by sideline stories, the latest of which featured Bob Newhart as Dr. Walter Magnus, former Chief Medical Officer of the department and an Alzheimer’s sufferer. His scenes with ‘Ducky’ Mallard (David McCallum) were excellent.
Mrs. Brown’s Boys. (BBC1)
Written by and starring Brendan O’Carroll and recorded in front of a live audience. They feckin’ laughed. We feckiin’ laughed. The PC are doubtless havin’ feckin’ apoplexy and the critics feckin’ hated it.
Has to be a huge feckin’ success.

163. Not Booker but very readable.

HOME.

A bright morning.
Sitting in my cubbyhole, computer room, study (think modesty, realism or Hyacinth Bucket), listening to old classics on the ancient Aiwa and looking out at the familiar back-of-house scene bathed in wintry sunshine, I was at peace with the world until…
A gloomy forecast.
I picked up on news that the Isle of Wight would probably be saddled with two members of parliament instead of one following the next election (due in 2015).
My first reaction probably gets it about right: if this government has agreed to two for one it will only be because it expects another diehard Tory to be elected. Two wet planks wearing blue rosettes are as likely to win as one over here. Oh, following the Bembridge Harbour scandal there were a couple of nods in the direction of orange, but orange is this year’s blue isn‘t it?
Rest assured, whatever colour the pair start out as they will quickly prove to be chocolate fire-guards, the public will be burdened with yet another set of questionable expenses claims, and the Island will have gained nothing

AND ABROAD.

The Middle East.
Churlish really to complain about parliamentarians in this country.
Frequent bloody protest continues in Egypt, despite the removal of President Mubarak.
Hundreds have been killed by Gaddafi’s - allegedly mercenary - army in Libya.
Tunisia seems set to boil over.
We should keep out of it. We should never have been there anyway.
And that’s been my opinion since the nineteen forties.
New Zealand.
The earthquake at Christchurch has taken lives and demolished buildings. The Kiwis have never failed to support us in times of trouble. We should do everything in our power to help them now.
Never could understand why Heath chose to cut them dead and take up with Europe. His French was lousy anyway.

TELEVISION.

Faulks on Fiction. (BBC2)
Somebody at the BBC decided it was time to adorn a prime-time Saturday night spot with a touch of culture and, to the joy of booksellers I’m sure, commissioned Sebastian Faulks to chat about literary heroes, heroines, snobs and villains.
He is an urbane chap, decently educated, and he says little with which even an old-fashioned elementary schoolboy would disagree. Such is the range of his subject, however, that much is overlooked or ignored.
(At this point I think the subject becomes more reading than television and I courteously invite the reader to take it up again further on.)
My Life in Books. (BBC2)
This is another opportunity for familiar faces to impress us with their versatility.
Seems if they’re not skating, dancing or performing silly tasks in an imitation jungle for a couple of overpaid Geordies, they are (as I am sure their agents would confirm) dedicated bookworms.
I would have to be more than desperate for publicity before I agreed to appear on any programme fronted by Anne Robinson, but a couple of otherwise intelligent people now turn up each evening, presumably under the misguided impression they will simply be sought to talk about the books that have shaped their lives.
They really should know better.
'Rita Skeeter' Robinson cannot resist digging the dirt. Artfully choosing her moment she transforms the interview into a prurient quiz session.
Why does she do it?
Most likely answer: “It’s good tele, innit.”
Well, not for me it isn’t. I simply don’t care whether the person she’s talking to is gay, or a reformed cokehead, or a presenter who has been sought out by a dozen illegitimate children. It‘s none of my flaming business. Or hers.
Oh. I shall continue to watch the programme, but only in the hope that one of her victims will tell her where to shove her magic quill. And walk out.
South Riding. (BBC1)
I think I saw the cinema version. Must have been a hundred years ago. Ralph Richardson was in it. Upstaging rascal he was. Always liked him.
Anyway, it’s costume drama on Sunday night again. David Morrissey, Anna Maxwell Martin, Penelope Wilton and a barely recognisable Peter Firth are in it. Nobody upstages them. Douglas Henshall and John Henshaw are along for good measure.
I am fascinated by the closed little world depicted, but not surprised. I’m old enough to remember 'means testing.' From what my seniors told me, if concentration camps had been set up in this country back then there would have been no shortage of volunteers to run them.
Mean little race we can be.
Marchlands. (ITV1)
Three families living in the same house at separate times: 1968, 1987 and 2010. The story dodges about a bit, but basically comes down to the mystery of how and why little Alice drowned in 1967. It is a creepily cliched ghost yarn, but very watchable. Only one episode left, so this week Alice will probably tell us what did happen to her; or at least tell the woman who refuses to believe ghosts exist.
Mad Dogs. (Sky 1)
Taped - and have just watched - the first three episodes of this four parter. The last part will be shown on the same night as Marchlands.
Four blokes go to Majorca to visit an ostensibly wealthy mate who nobody with any sense would cross the road to meet.
So far things have gone from bad to worse.
More next time.

READING.

Footnote to Faulks on Fiction.
I cannot agree with Faulks’s contention that, after Sherlock Holmes, there were no heroes between the two world wars.
My boyhood was packed with heroes from our local twopence-a-book-a-week lending library, (two detectives and a western or two westerns and a detective chosen every Friday to be read over the weekend and returned on Monday).
Sadly, purists like Mr. Faulks and the late Julian Symons in his book Bloody Murder, chose to ignore, or sniffily dismiss as unreadable, most of the popular thrillers favoured by we tuppence-a-week bookworms back in the thirties and early forties.
Bulldog Drummond, the creation of ‘Sapper,’ H.C. McNeile, was a hero of that time, so was John G. Brandon’s A.S.P. (the Rt.Hon. Arthur Stukely Pennington would you believe?) and D.I. Patrick Aloysious McCarthy, a loose cannon cop before his time.
The phenomenal John Creasey’s The Toff and The Baron (written under the pseudonym Anthony Morton): Leslie Charteris’s Simon Templar (The Saint) and Berkeley Gray’s Norman Conquest, each cast in the same mould, were gloriously unstoppable amateur crime fighters.
Most of the writers had several pen names (Berkeley Gray - real name Edwy Searles Brooks - was also Victor Gunn, Rex Madison and Carlton Ross) and nearly all of them boosted their earnings by writing Sexton Blake stories.
Blake, with his assistant Tinker - a young man who lived with him without attracting adverse comment in more innocent (even blinkered?) times - was a hero of such likeness to Sherlock Holmes that he must have been a cousin from the other side of the tracks.
Many detectives combined brains with brawn. J.V. Turner, who wrote as Nicholas Brady and also, under his more famous pseudonym, David Hume, produced the Mick Cardby stories. Cardby was a two-fisted private eye with a police inspector father who kept an eye on him. Peter Cheyney wrote about Lemmy Caution and Slim Callaghan, both of them tough private eyes with nobody to keep an eye on them. All were infallible and charming.
Back then most heroes were tough but decent, even our boyhood ones: Rockfist Rogan (Champion) and Wilson (The Wizard) were comic book winners and the likes of Biggles (W.E Johns) William Brown (Richmal Crompton), Richard Hannay (John Buchan) and Tarzan (Edgar Rice Burrows) were champions in hardback.
Yes, fiction was crowded with heroes between the wars.
They may not have been up to Booker Prize standard, but they did exist..

FILM.

The King’s Speech.
It seems I am the only one in the world who has not seen it, so my Leader has persuaded me to accompany her today - she has already seen it but says it is worth a second viewing. Shan’t write about it next time. The awards have already said everything there is to say, though I am told Geoffrey Rush was brilliant and should really have won the Oscar for best supporting actor.
Nice that the best actor Oscar went to Colin Firth, though. Nice, too, that he did not start his acceptance speech by thanking his mother, father, wife, sons, agent, manager, pet cat and the tortoise at the end of the garden.
It’s all so bloody luvvie, isn’t it.
Jane Russell.
News this morning that this beautiful woman has died at the age of 89.
She may not have been the greatest actress in the world, but any lad who saw her debut in The Outlaw and did not madly envy Billy the Kid had to have had something wrong with him.

(Must finish now or the indexing of this will take longer than it took to write it.)