2 (18) IT'S ALL STILL HAPPENING.

ABROAD. 

The Land of Psychopathia. The Charlie Hebdo and allied murders in Paris were undertaken by religious loonies who (whatever their said country or creed) are basically citizens of Psychopathia, a nation of psychopaths led by paranoid sociopaths. They have a propensity for murder, misogyny and homophobia and there is no reasoning with them. The French dealt with them in the definitive way. What a sad world. 

HOME. 

My Leader. It was Tuesday, 9th of October, 2012 when Maureen went into hospital for an operation to replace her left hip. Prior to the operation she was in considerable pain but could walk without the aid of a walking stick: since the op. she has been free of pain but her physical balance is haywire and she cannot manage without a stick. On the few occasions she has seen him, her surgeon seems at a loss to explain it. She is not one for kicking up a fuss, so follow up appointments have been slow. Lord knows what next. I suppose we just have to be thankful that patients over here are not spending weeks stuck on trolleys in hospital corridors. We have just the one hospital nowadays: everybody there means well, but nobody seems to know quite what to do. In such a closed environment second opinions are are not easily obtained. It can be extremely dispiriting.

An ageing cat. 

The cat Shadow is getting old and it starts to show: not in his appearance, which is still pretty damn good, but in his demeanour and occasional need to take stock before he makes a move. He doesn't go much on that. There are new cats on the block, too. He is wary of them: the little black one seems all right...very young... but there's a pair of big tabbies who look as though they could be Kraycat twins...they'll need watching...and Manners-next-door (a.k.a. the cat Willow) died of old age a couple of weeks ago (indoors, quietly and without fuss, which was nice for him), so now there's no buffer between Shadow HQ and the rest of the terrace. It ain't like old times anymore. Everything is changing. And, for the record, Shadow dislikes change even more than I do. 

Unstately home news. The festive season mostly put an end to requests for a viewing and only only one viewer came before Christmas: she came from France and, though she liked the place, concluded it would not be big enough to accommodate her grand piano. Viva Semprini! 

At the beginning of this week there was an evening viewing. Nothing to report other than that the viewer was going away to think about it. Seems he's still thinking. Ah well. Everybody says it's early days. Roll on spring. 

TELEVISION. 

The Detectives. 

Foyle's War and Father Brown have both been and gone: Foyle, if the blurb be true, forever. We shall miss Michael Kitchen in his trilby hat and Honeysuckle Weeks in that Austerity Britain house of which Sir Stafford Cripps would have firmly approved. There has to be a Foyle follow up, doesn't there? 

Father Brown was as old hat and delightfully daffy as ever. The police were still obtuse; arch-villain Flambeau still an instantly recognisable master of disguise and the Father's class-riddled female followers still a selection of stock, between-the-wars, Brits. We still loved every silly moment of it. It will surely be back. Now Series 2 is being repeated and we're watching that again. Don't say a word. 

Broadchurch has also returned and we are as bemused by the neurotic antics of everybody currently involved as we were when first they descended on us. We still cannot fathom what all the fuss is about. 

NCIS is back, too. 

Only this morning we viewed a couple of taped episodes. One of them was entitled So it Goes and took Dr. Ducky Mallard (David McCallum) back to America's favourite version of England. 

Dear God. I do wish they wouldn't. American film and television people still have us all conversing either in Dick Van Dyke's 'Mary Poppinsh' or in the fraitfully laike thet* posh that only the likes of Noel Coward ever affected. Please be aware, Isle of Wight County, Virginia, anybody who talked laike thet in England today would - with the possible exception of the art critic Brian Sewell - be laughed right out of the country: I presume some already have and are appearing as Englishmen on American television.

AND FINALLY. 

Neil Barnden. 

It is our son Neil's birthday tomorrow, so I take this opportunity to wish him many happy returns and a healthy and prosperous year ahead. Anybody who wants to know what an Englishman of today actually does sound like can Google him on Interview with a game developer: Neil Barnden (Stainless Games) and listen to his interview with HDTanel. There's a chance to learn a little about producing computer games, too. End of the advertising and...*frightfully like that...of this post.