Post 345. STILL TAKE IN TELEVISION.

WHEN THERE'S NOWT ELSE.

But it has to be good.

Jesse Stone: Tom Selleck (above) in the leading role, is good - as is the rest of the cast - in this series of television films based on detective stories written by Robert B. Parker. The leading actor is way older than Jesse Stone is in the books, but the author apparently approved the casting. Smart man. 

The books are good, too. I am currently re-reading Night Passage, the first of the series, on kindle. Helps me abide the nonstop flow of quiz and property shows that are grist to the television provider's mill. My Leader likes them: I don't.

Robert B. Parker also wrote the Spenser private detective yarns and the western story Appaloosa, which inspired a decent screen adaptation directed by Ed Harris, who starred along with Viggo Mortensen, Rene Zellweger, and Jeremy Irons.

On the 18 January, 2010, Robert Brown Parker was found dead at his desk. Way to go.
Vera: Dear ol' Brenda Blethyn is back as DCI Vera Stanhope. 

Couldn't be farther from Jessie Stone, but tough and humorous in a British sort of way. Ms Blethyn, who is only a couple of years younger than Mr. Selleck is, like him, totally convincing in the title role.
Breaking Dad: Barney Walsh (22) takes his famous father, Bradley (59), on a tour of America in two short series of gently madcap adventures.

Barney plays passable guitar, sings pleasantly, and puts his father through a wringer of don't-do-this-to-the-old-man physical tests. It is charming and, at times, somewhat worrying. 

Maureen and I had a two line conversation after the last series.

I said: “I wouldn't have let our Neil set me up like that.”

And she replied: “No. But they're in show business, love.”

That says it all.
Downton Abbey: Mo decided that viewing the film at home, whatever the cost, was infinitely preferable to sitting in a cinema with me moaning about the ear-splitting sound, the cost of the refreshments, and the Ill-mannered buggers rustling giant popcorn bags in the row behind.

She didn't say any of this, but I got the message and was happy to sit at my end of the settee, with the recliner up, quietly watching the old tele gang (plus Imelda Staunton) deliver the filmic goods. And does anybody not love Maggie Smith at her autocratic best? 
It was almost as daft as Call The Midwife which, nowadays, is utterly dependent on its wonderful cast to rescue it from some inexcusably saccharine story lines.

Anyway, I quite enjoyed Downton: packed though it may be with the type of person I instinctively detest.

AND FINALLY.

Are we being taken over?

In the nicest possible way?

Toodle pip.