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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.
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.
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!
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