2 (4). Shadow, Sarah-Jayne and supporting cast.

WATCHING.

Shadowland.

The cat Shadow woke suddenly.

"You didn't publish my poem," he said.

I donned my guileless look. "Poem? What poem?"

"Last month...Loitering around with a poetry look...? He can wait until next month? I can read, y'know.”

“Oops,” I said. “I was in a bit of a hurry.”

“Yeah. Well, you can make up for it this month. I have an equal-gender, next-year's-election, party-political poem.”

“Christ,” I said.

“Indeed,” he said and struck his poetic pose.

“Are you sure about this?” I queried.

“Publish and be damned,” he said. "Here goes..."

Predictable pre-polls prediction.

When an MP comes pubbing and buys you a beer,

And promises you some monstrous favour,

You can bet your sweet life it's election next year

And s/he seriously hopes you'll vote Labour.

When an MP's doorstepping in your part of town

And compliments you on your cat:

You can bet that s/he's hoping to get your name down

As that rare Liberal Democrat.

When an MP appears - just the once - in your pub,

And gives you the Glory Days story;

(Then asks why you don't join the local Con club)

You won't need to ask if s/he's Tory.

But the dedicated xenophobe who makes it quite clear

You should break free from foreigners forthwith,

Is the one, by and large, that you most have to fear;

S/he'll be BNP or UKIP --- and a DIV!

He eyed me quizzically.

I shook my head in a shrug-of-the-shoulders sort of way.

“What?” he said.

“Didn't you say you were off football and politics?”

“When?”

“The last time Pompey got beaten by some back alley town which, in their heyday, they would have driven past without noticing it was there.”

“How are the mighty fallen,” he said.

“Them and a lot of others,” I said. “That apart, I seem to remember you saying football was just an excuse for all the countries we've beaten in wars to get their own back."

“Did I say that? How perspicacious of me. And politics?”

“You went along with our Leader when she decided MPs were all talk and no listen and she would have no further truck with them.”

"It was Dimbleby's Question Time and I was dozing on her lap," he muttered. "I was in no position to disagree."

“So why go all politically poetic now?”

“Well, from now on everything the politicos think or do is going to be geared to next year's election, isn't it? I just thought I'd get in on the act.”

“Now that's prescient,” I said. “That's sagacious.”

He yawned. “Yeah...and if you put them with perspicacious, what have you got?”

I took too long trying to form an unflattering reply.

“Journalese,” he said, and went back to sleep.

2010 revisited.

I'm not very good on names and am slightly apprehensive when it comes to double-barrelled Christian names (a fad based on the dicey assumption that hyphenated monikers are likely to be large, pushy, female and American).

Way back in Watching... I made the mistake of expressing this prejudice and was rightly taken to task by Sarah-Jayne Leverton (not large, not pushy, not American; pleasant, attractive, based in Cornwall) who, I think, was - and for all I know may still be - a copywriter for Clifford James.

At that time I also concluded that opening up my blog to guest writers might turn it into a cost free advertising spot for them. Sheer paranoia, my dears. This is a random monthly blog; not even that posturing little prick Putin would undertake a Crimea on it. Blame such fears on an ingrained tendency to like most people and trust but few.

Anyway, quite by chance, in my documents the other day, I came across the 2010 Rambler blogs we love article, written by Sarah-Jayne, which led to our contretemps. It was a nice little piece, I appreciated it and apologize if I did not say so at the time. Hope she is well and that her business thrives.

As to apologies.

Is an apology a sign of weakness? I don't think so. To my mind, never to apologize is a sign of pig ignorance.

That 'never apologize, it's a sign of weakness' line was originally delivered by the late John Wayne in the film She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and has since (presumably in tribute) become a staple of Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) in the television series NCIS. I wince whenever I hear it.

That having been said, I wonder how much worse it is than the patently insincere apology delivered nowadays by the spokesperson of whatever authority, business, or country, is deemed to be responsible for some awful wrong done in its name. When it comes down to it, none of them actually cares, do they? Better they said nothing than meant nothing.

End of cynical exposition.

THE DETECTIVES.

Comings and goings.

Person of Interest. Reese (Jim Caveizel) and Finch (Michael Emerson) are back on Channel 5 (Thursdays) for the second half of the current series. Totally daft concept, but we like it.

Likewise, The Mentalist (Simon Baker) is back. He, together with Lisbon (Robin Tunney) and Cho (Tim Kang), has been drafted into the FBI: don't ask. The remainder of the gang are currently wafting around the periphery; they can be seen on Channel 5 on Tuesdays.

Also on Channel 5 (every Saturday) a new detective series

Sheriff Longmire, starring Robert Taylor: not the American one (he would have been over a hundred years old now) but a fine Australian actor who was in The Matrix. If you liked Tom Selleck as Jessie Stone you will like Robert Taylor; they are interchangeable.

The same cannot be said for Inspector De Luca (another new series, this time on BBC4, Saturdays 9pm) and Montalbano, a very different plate of pasta. De Luca is played by an actor new to me, Alessandro Preziosi, and is set in Italy at the time when Mussolini was in power. It is a four part series which, on first showing, does not measure up to its Sicilian counterpart in either performance or location. But I live in hope.

For those suffering from an absence of Nordic noir, BBC1 is currently screening another series of Shetland (Tuesdays) starring the excellent Douglas Henshall as DI Jimmy Perez. The cast includes Alison O'Donnell, Steven Robertson and a host of familiar Scottish actors. The stories are as dark as their Scandinavian counterparts and it is good to know that, for some anyway, there is life after Taggart.

Line of Duty: Series 2 was written by Jed Mercurio. It could equally have been written in 1977 by G.F. Newman (Law and Order). There was not one trustworthy or likeable character in it. Great stuff for actors, though. Keeley Hawes et al were splendid.

AND OTHERS.

More comings and goings.

I continue to enjoy The Walking Dead , but have to be in the mood for it. No such reservations with the second series of Mr. Selfridge and the first of The Musketeers, both of which my Leader and I have enjoyed from start to finish.

The same has to be said for David Hare's Worricker trilogy, Page Eight, Turks and Caicos and Salting the Battlefield. Bill Nighy starred in all three as Johnny Worricker, a disenchanted Mi5 officer. If you like him you will have liked it; if you don't...well...

In the meantime, Tom Hollander and Olivia Colman are back with the third series of Rev (Hurray!) and Timothy Spall, playing P.G. Wodehouse's Lord Emsworth, has just completed another series of Blandings (A-a-ah).

Not much wrong with the British acting scene, is there?

FINALLY.

Back on the Isle of Wight.

Nothing ever changes. Not really.

Last year a bunch of local politicians got together here to offer the electorate an alternative to its customary choice of increasingly unpopular Conservatives and Liberals.

The new crowd called themselves Independents. They were, by and large, former Conservatives and Liberals; but the ploy worked and they were voted in.

This year an Independent Remuneration Panel (fuck knows who they are or who elected them) has recommended a hefty rise in the allowances of senior Island councillors. The council has “agreed to accept the recommendations.” 
What a surprise. Their total allowances bill is £471,696 and hundreds of their employees are in line for redundancy.

It's another world, ain't it.

What's more, those confounded clocks have gone on again!

I might recover in April.