HOME.
Lacking resolution.
I avoid New Year resolutions. So does my Leader. So does the cat Shadow.
In my case, the first month of the year has always gone before I take in that Christmas is no longer with us.
Anyway, I long ago resolved that resolution keeping requires too much willpower.
In my Leader’s case, she is too involved with family, friends and staying upright (a lifelong teetotaller, she is frighteningly prone to tripping over) to go making sudden lifestyle changes.
Furthermore, she recently took up pilates and has joined the W.I., so that‘s change enough, thank you.
As for the cat Shadow, he just says: “Me? Change? Na-a-ah. Why try to improve on perfection?” and scoots off through the cat flap ahead of my coarse one word reply.
Lacking credibility.
Are you as pissed off as I am by the constant “this has all been left to us by the left” whine of coalition mouthpieces every time another political balls-up comes to light?
They never learn, do they? This lot blames the last lot and the last lot blamed the lot before them.
If they put as much time into doing their best for the country as they do into scoring political points, promoting themselves on chat shows and writing Gilderoy Lockhart style books, we’d all be living in Shangri-La.
AND ABROAD.
Egypt.
I have been in Egypt twice. Each occasion was brief, but not brief enough, I was in the army and the visits involved incarceration in a transit camp at Port Fouad. Neither time was a particularly pleasant experience and my lasting impression of the country was that it bred some of the world’s most talented thieves.
Now public pressure has finally unseated President Hosni Mubarak, a dictator who, like Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, refused to relinquish power.
Thousands of Egyptians, watched by the world and an army that had vowed not to fire upon them, turned out to peacefully protest his continued presence. In no time at all the cowardly bully boys who support him were attacking the protesters: hundreds were killed and thousands injured.
What will happen now is anybody’s guess. Mine is that if the current army administration ever steps aside it will only be to make way for another undesirable approved by the Oil Grabbing Club of America.
And that is the most thought I have given to Egypt since the Suez crisis postponed my departure from the army until the end of 1956.
I shall not repeat what I said about Eden, Nasser and Eisenhower at that time; they are all dead now and they were never on my Christmas card list anyway.
TELEVISION.
Silent Witness. (BBC1)
I hope this isn’t a spoiler, but Harry was bumped off and reincarnated in a way that made mockery of Bobby Ewing’s return to Dallas all those years ago. Series 14 is now over.
Do we need any more?.
Lark Rise to Candleford. (BBC1)
A good final series with misty-eyed Dorcas and dizzy housemaid Minnie finally getting their men; the postman‘s wife falling pregnant; Queenie sensing the grim future; Gabriel’s newfangled seed sowing machine a success and the return of Alf’s hopeless mother, convict Caroline.
Would have been nice if Emma’s husband could have made it, too, but even Ruraltania can’t have everything.
Any Human Heart. (C4)
I taped the four episodes of William Boyd’s fascinating drama and watched them recently. The actors who played different ages of the leading character, Logan Mountstuart, were so good I even stopped laughing at his name and the pair cast as the awful Duke and Duchess of Windsor were so convincing I badly wanted to slap them.
The murder of Sir Harry Oakes at the time the duke was governor of the Bahamas provided an interesting plot strand and the author’s article on the subject (published in The Guardian last year) can be found on Google under the title The real-life murder case behind Any Human Heart.
Arctic with Bruce Parry. (BBC2)
He has captivated desert tribes and charmed arctic tribes with equal ease. How does he do it? Well, he’s an obviously nice bloke who will have a go at anything and he doesn‘t mind being laughed at. Invariably he finishes up liked and respected. I have never met Bruce Parry but he is well up on my list of people who are good value.
Episodes. (BBC2)
In this barbed little comedy, television writers Bev (Tamsin Greig) and Sean (Stephen Mangan) have accepted an invitation to take their successful English sitcom across the Atlantic to be buggered about by the Americans.
So far every indignity imaginable has been heaped upon them including the introduction of Matt LeBlanc, played by Matt LeBlanc, as replacement for their own - Royal Shakespeare Company - leading actor (Richard Griffiths).
If you liked Friends you will probably like it: I didn’t so I don’t.
Gok’s Clothes Roadshow. (C4)
Of whom was Michael Buerk thinking when (in an outspoken few words about the ageism furore at the Beeb) he mentioned “mincingly camp” television presenters?
I have no idea, so don‘t ask me.
Oh, Gok Wan is back. Same protagonists. Same format. Same feel-good affectation. Same compulsive viewing. We’ll watch the lot.
He doesn’t hurt anyone, ol’ Gok.
Taggart. (ITV1)
With a blog title like Watching the Detectives you would be failing in your remit were you not still watching this unlovely bunch.
Jackie Reid (Blythe Duff), Robbie Ross (John Michie) and Matt Burke (Alex Norton) are still solving every mur-r-rder in Glasgow with practised ease and without so much as a mention of Stuart Fraser (Colin McCredie).
We missed the seemingly unmissed Stuart and, unlike his detective colleagues, went in search of him. Our enquiries revealed that Colin McCredie was simply telephoned one afternoon (by some woman in London) and told he was no longer in the show.
I imagine much the same thing happened to Hugh Fraser (Hastings), Philip Jackson (Japp) and Pauline Moran (Miss Lemon) when Agatha Christie’s Poirot was apparently taken over by bloody accountants.
Strange and frequently cruel business, show business.
READING.
Michael McIntyre.
Readers of Life and Laughing who anticipate 300 bouncing pages of sheer hilarity are going to be disappointed. It falls short by 5 pages,
It also turns out to contain rather more life than laughter and to be a down-to-earth reminder that there is no such thing as overnight success in this world.
Michael McIntyre clearly deserves his excellent reputation.
Anyone who wants to be a stand-up should read him…and think on.
Judi Dench.
And Furthermore is another pleasant memoir by another pleasant actress.
I happened upon it by chance among my Leader’s ‘to read’ pile and read it through in a couple of days. It revealed little a fan of Dame Judi’s did not already know.
In the end I can only refer to my piece on Julie Walters (Post 120).
Graham Hurley.
Blood and Honey starts with a headless body washed up beneath cliffs on the Isle of Wight. The torso cannot be identified and DI Joe Faraday is soon embroiled in a seemingly no win investigation involving a nursing home owner with Bosnian connections.
DC Winter, in the meantime, has problems enough with his own head, a beautiful, sympathetic call girl and a ruthless businessman.
If I didn’t know better I would swear Graham Hurley was a policeman.
Lacking resolution.
I avoid New Year resolutions. So does my Leader. So does the cat Shadow.
In my case, the first month of the year has always gone before I take in that Christmas is no longer with us.
Anyway, I long ago resolved that resolution keeping requires too much willpower.
In my Leader’s case, she is too involved with family, friends and staying upright (a lifelong teetotaller, she is frighteningly prone to tripping over) to go making sudden lifestyle changes.
Furthermore, she recently took up pilates and has joined the W.I., so that‘s change enough, thank you.
As for the cat Shadow, he just says: “Me? Change? Na-a-ah. Why try to improve on perfection?” and scoots off through the cat flap ahead of my coarse one word reply.
Lacking credibility.
Are you as pissed off as I am by the constant “this has all been left to us by the left” whine of coalition mouthpieces every time another political balls-up comes to light?
They never learn, do they? This lot blames the last lot and the last lot blamed the lot before them.
If they put as much time into doing their best for the country as they do into scoring political points, promoting themselves on chat shows and writing Gilderoy Lockhart style books, we’d all be living in Shangri-La.
AND ABROAD.
Egypt.
I have been in Egypt twice. Each occasion was brief, but not brief enough, I was in the army and the visits involved incarceration in a transit camp at Port Fouad. Neither time was a particularly pleasant experience and my lasting impression of the country was that it bred some of the world’s most talented thieves.
Now public pressure has finally unseated President Hosni Mubarak, a dictator who, like Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, refused to relinquish power.
Thousands of Egyptians, watched by the world and an army that had vowed not to fire upon them, turned out to peacefully protest his continued presence. In no time at all the cowardly bully boys who support him were attacking the protesters: hundreds were killed and thousands injured.
What will happen now is anybody’s guess. Mine is that if the current army administration ever steps aside it will only be to make way for another undesirable approved by the Oil Grabbing Club of America.
And that is the most thought I have given to Egypt since the Suez crisis postponed my departure from the army until the end of 1956.
I shall not repeat what I said about Eden, Nasser and Eisenhower at that time; they are all dead now and they were never on my Christmas card list anyway.
TELEVISION.
Silent Witness. (BBC1)
I hope this isn’t a spoiler, but Harry was bumped off and reincarnated in a way that made mockery of Bobby Ewing’s return to Dallas all those years ago. Series 14 is now over.
Do we need any more?.
Lark Rise to Candleford. (BBC1)
A good final series with misty-eyed Dorcas and dizzy housemaid Minnie finally getting their men; the postman‘s wife falling pregnant; Queenie sensing the grim future; Gabriel’s newfangled seed sowing machine a success and the return of Alf’s hopeless mother, convict Caroline.
Would have been nice if Emma’s husband could have made it, too, but even Ruraltania can’t have everything.
Any Human Heart. (C4)
I taped the four episodes of William Boyd’s fascinating drama and watched them recently. The actors who played different ages of the leading character, Logan Mountstuart, were so good I even stopped laughing at his name and the pair cast as the awful Duke and Duchess of Windsor were so convincing I badly wanted to slap them.
The murder of Sir Harry Oakes at the time the duke was governor of the Bahamas provided an interesting plot strand and the author’s article on the subject (published in The Guardian last year) can be found on Google under the title The real-life murder case behind Any Human Heart.
Arctic with Bruce Parry. (BBC2)
He has captivated desert tribes and charmed arctic tribes with equal ease. How does he do it? Well, he’s an obviously nice bloke who will have a go at anything and he doesn‘t mind being laughed at. Invariably he finishes up liked and respected. I have never met Bruce Parry but he is well up on my list of people who are good value.
Episodes. (BBC2)
In this barbed little comedy, television writers Bev (Tamsin Greig) and Sean (Stephen Mangan) have accepted an invitation to take their successful English sitcom across the Atlantic to be buggered about by the Americans.
So far every indignity imaginable has been heaped upon them including the introduction of Matt LeBlanc, played by Matt LeBlanc, as replacement for their own - Royal Shakespeare Company - leading actor (Richard Griffiths).
If you liked Friends you will probably like it: I didn’t so I don’t.
Gok’s Clothes Roadshow. (C4)
Of whom was Michael Buerk thinking when (in an outspoken few words about the ageism furore at the Beeb) he mentioned “mincingly camp” television presenters?
I have no idea, so don‘t ask me.
Oh, Gok Wan is back. Same protagonists. Same format. Same feel-good affectation. Same compulsive viewing. We’ll watch the lot.
He doesn’t hurt anyone, ol’ Gok.
Taggart. (ITV1)
With a blog title like Watching the Detectives you would be failing in your remit were you not still watching this unlovely bunch.
Jackie Reid (Blythe Duff), Robbie Ross (John Michie) and Matt Burke (Alex Norton) are still solving every mur-r-rder in Glasgow with practised ease and without so much as a mention of Stuart Fraser (Colin McCredie).
We missed the seemingly unmissed Stuart and, unlike his detective colleagues, went in search of him. Our enquiries revealed that Colin McCredie was simply telephoned one afternoon (by some woman in London) and told he was no longer in the show.
I imagine much the same thing happened to Hugh Fraser (Hastings), Philip Jackson (Japp) and Pauline Moran (Miss Lemon) when Agatha Christie’s Poirot was apparently taken over by bloody accountants.
Strange and frequently cruel business, show business.
READING.
Michael McIntyre.
Readers of Life and Laughing who anticipate 300 bouncing pages of sheer hilarity are going to be disappointed. It falls short by 5 pages,
It also turns out to contain rather more life than laughter and to be a down-to-earth reminder that there is no such thing as overnight success in this world.
Michael McIntyre clearly deserves his excellent reputation.
Anyone who wants to be a stand-up should read him…and think on.
Judi Dench.
And Furthermore is another pleasant memoir by another pleasant actress.
I happened upon it by chance among my Leader’s ‘to read’ pile and read it through in a couple of days. It revealed little a fan of Dame Judi’s did not already know.
In the end I can only refer to my piece on Julie Walters (Post 120).
Graham Hurley.
Blood and Honey starts with a headless body washed up beneath cliffs on the Isle of Wight. The torso cannot be identified and DI Joe Faraday is soon embroiled in a seemingly no win investigation involving a nursing home owner with Bosnian connections.
DC Winter, in the meantime, has problems enough with his own head, a beautiful, sympathetic call girl and a ruthless businessman.
If I didn’t know better I would swear Graham Hurley was a policeman.
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