Post 489. NEVER APOLOGIZE,

IT'S A SIGN OF WEAKNESS

WAS SAID BY JOHN WAYNE.
Actually he said: "Never apologize, mister, it's a sign of weakness" in John Ford's film She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. It was a quote later adopted (less the 'mister') by Mark Harmon's character Leroy Jethro Gibbs in the long running television series NCIS. Both actors said it with conviction. It is, of course, a load of bollocks. Never apologising (my preferred spelling) does not indicate strength, it indicates pig-ignorance comparable only to the hypocrisy of an insincere apology. 

Mention of NCIS has reminded me that the actor David McCallum died last month at the age of 90. He played Dr. 'Ducky' Mallard in the series. In the 1960s he had become very popular  in the TV programme The Man From UNCLE, and one of my favourite lines from the many series of NCIS was Jethro Gibbs' answer when Kate (Sasha Alexander) asked him: "What do you think Ducky looked like when he was young?" Mark Harmon timed it perfectly: "Illya Khuryakin?"
David McCallum was the trained oboist son of musical parents. He became a respected actor and was, I think, a rather nice person.
Another respected actor, Michael Gambon, also died last month. Pneumonia. Aged 82. He was the ideal replacement for the late Richard Harris as Albus Dumbledore and, arguably, the best television Maigret ever to follow Rupert Davies. I think he was a wicked joker, too. Thus to...
TELEVISION.
How do you lose two viewers for a complete television series in just one episode? Watch the first episode of The Good Ship Murder (Channel 5) that's how. At its conclusion I looked at Mo and said: "God that was bad." And she said: "Wasn't it awful" without a question mark. Ah well.

Thanks be for a light hearted film. We saw Toni Collette and Damian Lewis in Dream Horse (Prime Video). Took us right back to the joy of Hear My Song (1991) and The Full Monty (1997). This one was based on the true story of how a Welsh barmaid and cashier, Jan Vokes (Toni Collette), persuaded her neighbours to help her breed a racehorse, Dream Alliance, that might one day win the Welsh Grand National. Don't ask me if it happened. It's a feel good film.

And that's that for now.

Lord ain't the weather dreadful?

Ruddy clocks gone back, too. Ho hum.