105. Some Sadness, Some Gladness and Some Madness.

NICOLA.

On Tuesday 6th May. 2008 we attended the funeral of Nicola (Royston-Parry) Graham, daughter of my wife's niece, Barbara.
Nicola had spina bifida and was not expected to live beyond eighteen years. That she made it to thirty three was a tribute to the care she received from medical professionals, the love of her immediate family, the support from friends and sympathetic organizations and her own immense courage.
The funeral service was lovely. Conducted by a young woman, Amy Brading, there was not a religious moment in it. Nicky's favourite music (e.g. Eva Cassidy singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow) was played and I cannot remember being more moved or impressed by a service, ever.
Way to go, kid, way to go.

NICE ONE POMPEY!

Yes! Portsmouth has something to celebrate at last.
Harry Redknapp's Pompey football team won the FA Cup last Saturday in a fascinating, if somewhat scrappy, 1 - 0 tussle with Cardiff City.
My Leader and I are Portmuthians so the win gave us particular pleasure. I was only eight years old when last they won it and that was five years before she was born.
"Can we expect a little more from you now that Pompey has won the Cup?" inquired the cat Shadow.
"There's been a lot on." I said defensively.
"You haven't put finger to keyboard for three weeks," he said. "That's not so much a lot on as downright bloody laziness."
"Don't you be mealy-mouthed now, mate," I said. "You speak your mind."
Well I wouldn't have bothered but the little perisher slept right through the match.
Actually, Maureen didn't watch it, either. She had important needlework to do.
Pays to get your priorities right.

BACK TO THE BOX.

Dexter. (ITV1)
Saw the last couple of episodes of this well acted nonsense and am still not sure whether it better deserves commendation or castigation. In truth, I find it an amoral conception which leads to occasionally uncomfortable viewing. It will be a questionable choice next time around.
My son, a gentle chap, thoroughly enjoys it.
Guess it's an age thing.
Dr.Who. (BBC1)
This time the doctor was in Agatha Christie country.
Fenella Woolgar was Agatha, poised to make the dramatic disappearance that probably sold more books in a fortnight than her publisher's mediocre publicity would in a decade.
Felicity Kendal was there, sadly without Pam Ferris, so the crime solving fell to the Doctor and Donna.
Donna's contribution was littered with helpful Christie book titles and plot ideas for Agatha to ponder upon when she got to Harrogate.
I think the vicar was a bee (a lot of them are) and for the life of me I cannot remember the whys and wherefores of it all.
But then I seldom ever did with Mrs.Christie's stuff, so that was nothing new.
CSI: NY. (Five)
Are they ever going to catch that bloody taxicab killer?
Class of 62 - from 15 to 60. (BBC2)
This followed the lives of Marion Gaunt and her friends after they left Sandford Secondary Modern School. Leeds.
What a doughty bunch. My Leader and I sat fascinated as each told of her hopes, her disappointments, her search for fulfillment, her successes and her failures.
Don't usually watch what I regard as voyeuristic programmes.
Don't even watch the soaps.
But this was different.
This was the real world inhabited by real northern women and it was worth every minute of the watching.
So good luck to you all, Class of 62.

And now, for a bit of fun, the ultimate CSI spin-off -

CSI: IW
Executive Producer: Dennis Barnden
Director; Jessica White.

Series 1. Episode 1/1: - Crushem Gets The Needle.

Will Crushem and his Isle of Wight CSI team are investigating a messy murder in a seaside apartment which contains a corpse, ample lighting and an in-credit electricity account.
They are searching for clues by torchlight.
The victim is a young woman. Her clothing is in disarray and from the lapel of her dishevelled jacket Crushem recovers the pointed half of a needle which he drops into a plastic bag.
Crushem's GFA (Glamorous Female Assistant) spots a pink crumb on the four hundred square feet of bloodstained carpet: she recovers the crumb with tweezers and it, too, goes into a plastic bag.
Crushem's GMA (Glamorous Male Assistant) watches her admiringly. He is in love with her, but wisely refrains from telling her so on the grounds that same-job relationships are a mistake. Besides, if he tells her she will certainly be dead before the series ends.
"What is it?" he asks.
"Looks like pink shortbread," she replies.
"Crumbs!" he exclaims.
"Well...one, anyway," says Crushem.
(Cue theme song - The Who's newly adapted: Blimey O'Reilly, Who Are You Foolin' Again?)
In her laboratory, Crushem's KFG (Kookie Forensic Genius) quickly reaches a startling conclusion: this is not blood soaked ordinary shortbread, this really is pink shortbread. It was only marketed a fortnight ago and is sold in just one shop. To date a mere two people have bought it (we are told by the KFG's male colleague who is in love with her) and one of them was sent to prison last week. So the other is either the victim or the perpetrator...
What fun.
In the path lab Crushem's EDC&F (Eccentric Doctor Colleague and Friend) finds no trace of shortbread in or on the vic. What he does find is a strand of hay in the vic's shoe and the hay (according to the KFG) is particular to one farm in the West Wight.
So now we know. The perp, not the vic, bought the shortbread.
Furthermore, the KFG's besotted colleague tells us, the perp is known to the shopkeeper who sold said shortbread.
The perp is (surprise, surprise) a farmer in the West Wight.
The Team moves in.
They corner the farmer in his hay barn in broad daylight. They are wearing body armour and helmets with lighted torches affixed to them, They have pistols at the ready.
"She shouldn't 'ave turned me and me shortbread down," he shouts, brandishing a shotgun in their direction. "Cost me a ...king fortune that shortbread did. An' then, when I ate the lot in front of 'er, she called me a greedy pig! Shouldn'ta said that, not when I was carryin' me brand new riphook...I mean, ain't that askin' for trouble?" So saying he aims his shotgun at the GMA, fires and (despite the fact that he unfailingly kills game on the run and bird on the wing with a single shot) misses.
There is a hail of return gunfire and he lands lifeless in the hay.
(C.U. bullets tearing through specially prepared carcass from local butcher's shop.)
Crushem reaches him first and plucks the other half of the needle found in the vic's lapel from the sleeve of his tweed jacket.
"Looks like you just found a needle in a haystack, C," says the GFA.
"Half of one, anyway," says Crushem.

(Show disclaimer regarding events, characters and any degree of realism. Give notice that any likeness to any living person should result in that person seeking immediate psychiatric help.)

104. A Fitting Goodbye

ANTHONY MINGHELLA CBE. (1954 - 2008)

I have little to add to the many news reports covering the memorial service held here on the Isle of Wight last Saturday.
St. Thomas's Church, Newport, was packed and, on a beautiful sunny day, over a hundred stood outside to listen to the relayed service, show their respect for this gentle, talented man and silently express their sympathy with his family.
As may have been expected, some fine actors with whom he had worked and/or become friends - among them Jude Law, Alfred Molina and Alan Rickman - made the journey from the mainland to pay tribute to him.
In all it was a fitting public goodbye to a much admired Islander.

BACK TO THE BOX.

Foyle's War. (ITV1)
When they sound the last All-Clear (went the song) how happy my darling we'll be...
Well, on the 20th April Michael Kitchen took his wonderfully underplayed performance, his scene-stealing DCS Foyle hat and his lonely final departure from Hastings police station.
It was a moving exit in the execution of which he quietly upstaged the off-screen end of war celebrations.
Those of us who have enjoyed Anthony Horowitz's wartime gems are far from happy. We are concerned that there may be no more of them.
But Sherlock Holmes, whose writer did not want to bring him back, survived the Reichenbach falls .
So surely Christopher Foyle, whose writer does want to bring him back, can survive the last All-Clear?
Rumour has it he will.
I do hope rumour is right.

Taggart. (ITV1)
When DCI Matt Burke (Alex Norton) meets up again with old flame Kathy Moffat (Phyllis Logan) and offers to help her, it is obvious that he is heading for trouble. (Ol' Phyllis usually is trouble nowadays.)
It is apparent, too, that his problems will be magnified by the presence of Chief Superintendant Laura Henson (Deidre Davies), a high-flyer intent on reducing costs by purging the force of senior officers she considers to be past their sell-by date. They include him.
Needless to say his team saves his neck, right prevails, the villains (including the pushy high-flyer) fail and he is left remarking ruefully to DS Reid (Blythe Duff): "No fool like an old fool, eh Jackie?"
No team like the Taggart team, either.
Mur-rder-r.

Heroes. (BBC2)
They're back here in a new eleven parter.
It's a delightfully daft concept.
It dodges from scene to scene and character to character like a special for the under fives.
It keeps me in a state of mesmerized bewilderment.
I shall continually ask myself why I am watching it.
And I shall watch it all.

Dr. Who. (BBC1)
The Doctor kicks along at a lively pace.
We have had peacefully inclined aliens, the Ood, who appear to have sneezed spaghetti from their noses.
Now we have warlike aliens, the Sontarans, who my old friend Anonymous John would probably describe as:
"Big-headed little mooshes."
We also have Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) back and, somewhat to the Doctor's discomfiture, instantly friendly with his new sidekick, Donna.
They'll cause him more trouble than any alien.
Serves him right.
Yep, I shall watch it all.

103. A Fast Farewell to Foyle

FOYLE'S WAR. (ITV1)

They were all back last Sunday.
There was DCS Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen) wearing his seriously good acting trilby; there was DS Paul Milner (Anthony Howell) wearing his seriously good acting limp; and there was every old bloke's fantasy driver, Samantha (Sam) Stewart (the wonderfully named Honeysuckle Weeks) wearing a khaki uniform better than any ATS girl ever did in my day.
I was going to write that the new series seemed to have started under a bit of a pall. That the war was apparently coming to an end and what were they going to call it then? Foyle's Peace?
But my Leader remarked on an article in the ultimate digital tv and radio guide wherein Anthony Horowitz, the creator of Foyle, interviewed by Radio Times correspondent Benji Wilson, expressed no small irritation with former ITV supremo Simon Shaps.
It seems that Mr. Shaps, presumably suffering from a rush of blood to the head, had axed Foyle's War before he left ITV for pastures new.
Oh dear, what a disappointment.
No surprise, though.
Television, like any other business, is packed with giftless gits dodging from lofty managerial height to loftier managerial height leaving a trail of bad decisions and daft mistakes behind them. It's the blueprint for modern management.
So, unless the new boss shows enough sense to recommission it, or to invite Mr.Horowitz to write a sequel, Foyle's War will come to an end tomorrow, Sunday 20th April, 2008.
Flags should be flown at half mast.
And to rub salt into the wound, Benji Wilson mooted the Foyle's Peace title ahead of me.
Oh, all right, so it didn't take a Stephen Hawking to come up with it.

NCIS. (Five)

Last night we reached episode twenty of series four and a rum old business it was.
Somehow, over the past few weeks, Agent Tim McGee (Sean Murray) has become a sort of NCIS Jessica Fletcher churning out best selling thrillers. His leading characters bear an unmistakeable likeness to his workmates, even down to the names: L. J. Tibbs? Come on...
It is clear that we are reaching the end of a 24 episode run of this hugely likeable slice of hokum. Jethro Gibbs's acting haircut is beginning to act up again, the plots are becoming progressively less believable and only our familiarity with the characters keeps us fondly glued to it.
Heck, anyone who can resist daffy Abby (Pauley Perrette) has to have something wrong with them.

102. A Sheriff, A Tribute, A Hallo and A Few Goodbyes.

OL' TITCHY IS SHERIFF.

Alan Titchmarsh has just been made High Sheriff of the Isle of Wight, a title bestowed by H.M. Queen Elizabeth 2 (an elderly lady apparently prone to the charms of a TV gardener from Yorkshire).
Opinions on the appointment vary.
There are those who will always echo the views of Her Majesty. They are the sort who would support any choice she made. She could choose Osama bin Laden and they would agree wholeheartedly.
Then there are those who think he is just a tiresome mini celebrity who happens to have a holiday home here and the post should have gone to a caulkhead (somebody island born).
Whenever I've seen him on the box, Terry Wogan's homely description "bonny" fits him perfectly. I do not know whether, away from the screen, he is a charmer or a tosser and I could not give a f-f-fig one way or the other.
In my working days, though, I was once required to fill in a questionnaire from the Department of Health seeking, among other things, an answer to the question: Are you aware of any racial problems in your area?
My reply was as follows: There are no racial problems on the Island. Anybody not born here is a foreigner.
So ol' Titchy will have to understand that to Islanders he will always be a foreigner, whatever his reputation or standing.
If he has already absorbed that much and - more importantly - learnt to accept it with good grace, he will find this a pleasant enough berth, in or out of office. If he has not and has no intention of so doing, he will find that television fame impresses nobody worth impressing.
What? Oh, my wife and I are celebrating our fortieth year here.
We are still foreigners.

RICHARD WIDMARK (1914 - 2008)

This is a small tribute to the splendid actor Richard Widmark who died on 24th March at the age of 93.
I first saw him in the 1947 film Kiss of Death and came out of the cinema thinking: (1) that new chap was one helluva good psychopath:(2) wonder if his manic laugh will typecast him? And (3) what a pity he didn't bump off Victor Mature.
Mr. Widmark remained a charismatic and dependable star throughout his entire career. Other actors visibly looked to their laurels when he was about.
If I had been an actor I would have relished working with him.
How better to perfect your craft than to work with the best?

BACK TO THE BOX.

Hughie Green: Most Sincerely. (BBC4)
This was another in the Curse of Comedy series and featured a believable performance by Trevor Eve in the lead role.
I always thought that Hughie Green was an unctuous phoney - and I mean that most sincerely, folks - so it came as no surprise to learn he was also an unpleasant womanizer and a self-important bully.
Mark Benton played the sanctimonious - and equally detestable - presenter of Stars On Sunday, Jess (The Bishop) Yates who, after his death in 1993, fell victim to Green's malicious revelation (via a News of the World journalist at his 1997 funeral) that he was the real father of Yates's beloved daughter, Paula.
Three years later Paula Yates, too, was dead.
Only in the most derisive sense were there any comedians in this story.
How it crept into this particular series is a mystery.
Doctor Who (BBC1)
Yep, the Doctor (David Tennant) is back for another thirteen weeks. This time he has Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) as his purely platonic helpmate and a host of threatening aliens old and new to contend with, all courtesy of Russell T. Davies.
I shan't miss a single episode if I can help it.
Hotel Babylon. (BBC1)
This hotel potboiler came to its gloriously farcical conclusion.
It was unadulterated tripe.
There will be another series next year.
And of course we shall watch it.
Torchwood. (BBC2)
The second series of this one ended, too.
I expect it will be back.
But it will be back without a couple of our favourite characters.
And of course we shall watch it.
Frankie Howerd: Rather You than Me. (BBC4)
In a fortnight of farewells, this was the last in the short Curse of Comedy series and one that really did belong to it..
Frankie Howerd (born Howard) was played by David Walliams (born Williams) to very good effect,
His acolyte/lover/chauffeur/partner/manager Dennis Heymer was played, to equally good effect, by Rafe Spall.
At a time when public knowledge of his homosexual proclivities would probably have finished a fluctuating show business career, Frankie Howerd, a promiscuous homosexual, was no more convincing as a heterosexual than was that ludicrous toupee masquerading as his real hair.
Both comedy and his sexuality were a curse to this troubled man.
There is no doubt that Dennis Heymer was the best thing that ever happened to him.

101. Cat Chat, Hancock, Tough Tecs & 5 Star Bilge

CONVERSATION WITH A SULKING SHADOW.

"Are you sulking?" I asked the cat Shadow.
"Why would you care?" he answered sullenly.
"You are," I said. "You're sulking."
He had a quick wash and feigned interest in the line of Harry Potter DVDs alongside the television.
"Come on then, who's rubbed your fur up the wrong way?" I demanded.
"I've seen that picture on your blog," he announced aggrievedly."That should have been me, that should."
It took a moment for me to cotton on. Then I said: "Mother's one hundredth? It couldn't be you. You weren't there. Roz and Jess's cat Figgy was there. That's why he's in the picture."
"Well I'm thinking of leaving home," he said.
"You already do," I retorted. "Every night after supper. And every bloody morning you're back for breakfast."
As suddenly as he was miffed he was mollified.
He grinned his cat grin.
"Yeah," he said. "Why break the habit of a lifetime."

HANCOCK AND JOAN. (BBC4)

After Phil Davies and Jason Isaacs as Steptoe and Son, another acting tour de force, Ken Stott as Tony Hancock.
When I read about it in my ultimate digital TV and radio guide I had to look twice. S-S-S-Stott as H-H-H-Hancock? Swipe me, he's nothing like him!
Trouble with playing one-off individuals is that their unique talent defies reproduction. Being a talented original is what made them famous.
At his best Tony Hancock was a comic genius of instantly recognizable voice, loveable pomposity and impeccable timing.
At less than his best he was a talent sadly wasted.
At his worst he was a thoroughly nasty alcoholic.
Ken Stott, neither looking nor sounding like him, managed to portray the lad 'imself - by walk, mannerism and gesture - with uncanny accuracy.
Co-star Maxine Peake was excellent as Joan Le Mesurier, wife of Hancock's actor friend John, who became the ultimate love of the comedian's life.
With Hughie Green (Trevor Eve) and Frankie Howerd (David Walliams) to follow, The Curse of Comedy is proving to be a very fine drama series indeed.

TWO DETECTIVES TOO MANY.

Last Thursday saw the final episode in the current run of two detective shows. Ashes to Ashes (BBC1) and Trial & Retribution (ITV1).
I can't say I was sorry to see them go. Hard-bitten, tough-talking tecs are a bit wearisome after a while. Two of them on the same night can become downright tiresome: anyway, I get niggly trying to decide which of them to record.
So I hope DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) and Chief Supt. Michael Walker (David Hayman) will be given a long holiday.
Bring back Miss Marple.

HE KILLS COPPERS. (ITV1)

Another villainous cops and murderous villains yarn. This three-parter, with opening sequences set in 1966, is based on a Jake Arnott novel and brought to mind the early work of G.F.Newman. Everybody is a chancer and nobody half decent lives longer than the first episode.
Keeps you watching, though.

HOTEL BABYLON. (BBC1)

Have you watched this?
Then perhaps you are one of the several million appreciative Babylonians.
Sorry to say I'm not.
I think it's a load of five star bilge.
Dexter Fletcher, as The Concierge, tries hard to give credibility to his and everybody else's part.
Leading actors, first Tamzin Outhwaite then Max Beesley, playing the Hotel Manager, struggle desperately to manage unbelievable staff, impossible guests, ludicrous scripts and unlikely love interests before disappearing, with a relieved sigh, to the West End or the provincial stage for sanity and less money. At the moment Lee Williams has the role. I give him until the end of the series and that's just a P45 away.
Each week a guest star, usually well enough known to know better, turns up and hams it up, presumably for a decent pay packet.
I was all for chucking it in midway through the episode after Max Beesley left: but then, magically, one of the hotel guests (a licentious, conceited actor - yeah, some of it rings true) sat down at a piano and started to play Bohemian Rhapsody. Before you could say Freddie Mercury he was joined by three of the staff in a hilarious parody of the original Queen masterpiece. It almost compensated for the damned silly story.
By the end I was even cheerful enough to accept as guest star the omnipresent John - somebody really should tell him about Kelly Monteith - Barrowman.
Well, you can't blame any entertainer for grabbing all the work he can get.
But I still remember Kelly Monteith.
Do you?
You do?
Bloody hell.

100. From 100 Not Out to No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency.

ONE HUNDRED NOT OUT.

My mother, Lilian, was 100 on the last day of last year. A decent age to reach.
She received a congratulatory card from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 2 (which nowadays the forthcoming centenarian's relatives have to apply for via the Ministry of Pensions) and, there no longer being a telegram service, she received an imitation telegram from the Pensions Minister.
Well, the Prime Minister was probably abroad: Scotland, perhaps.
Most of the family were able to attend the celebratory get-together and we have finally managed to transfer the digital camera pictures onto the computer: these include one of mother with granddaughter (holding great grandson), son, grandson and great granddaughter (holding cat) which I publish just in case any old friend or distant relative should chance upon it.
Although physically frail, Lilian is mentally as sharp as a razor and, despite poor eyesight, still keeps up with the snooker on television.
She had a good birthday and thoroughly enjoyed all the attention

GETTING ON A BIT.

The process of ageing, or getting on a bit, can be a bugger. The words creaky, cranky and invisible may well spring to the mind of any getting on a bit reader who still has a mind, or any spring. So maybe it is because I am getting on a bit - though I don't feel especially old - that I find myself increasingly irked by much of the twaddle currently purporting to be entertainment on television. There's way too much reality bunkum; too many copycat competition shows featuring publicity seeking celebs; too many repeats (including those cheekily describing an old show as revisited); far too many cooking programmes, antiques programmes, auctioneering programmes, and property rubbish where, when they are not tarting up tat for profit, people are swanning all over the place looking at properties they have not the slightest intention of buying.
"Mabel and Maurice eventually decided not to purchase the twenty-seven-roomed mansion in Ascot and unfortunately were outbid for the two-up-two-down pied-a-terre in France. They are remaining in their mobile home (think caravan) while they review their options."
Know what? I really dont give a toss. Do you? Does anybody?
So I have become more discriminating in my television viewing habits of late. I am no longer bothered when Mark Harmon's acting haircut fails to register in a couple of episodes of NCIS, or David Caruso's sunglasses upstage everybody by being donned as he enters, rather than when he leaves, through the French windows in CSI Miami.
I don't care when Mac, of CSI New York, is stalked and endangered throughout several episodes by a 333 lunatic straight out of Sax Rohmer.
(What? Sax who? Oh, an old thriller writer...Dr.Fu Manchu...see Wikipedia...)
Furthermore, I do not believe that there is a Middle Eastern terrorist under every American bed just waiting to creep out and join the vast Muslim alliance that will huff and puff until it blows all their skyscrapers down. Hell, there were never any Reds under the beds, either, so stop being so bloody melodramatic.
Besides, there's still quite a lot to be cheerful about.
Well, there is on our tele.
On our tele we still have Harry Hill's TV Burp and Justin Fletcher on CCTV and darned good plays like Brian Fillis's The Curse of Steptoe, featuring darned good actors like Phil Davis and Jason Isaacs as Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett. We still have Russell T. Davies's Torchwood and we still have splendid soaps and excellent costume dramas.
University Challenge, Mastermind and Fry's QI remain constant pleasures if you like that sort of thing: we do.
There are even some pretty good, albeit foul-mouthed, comedians still to be seen.
And, without doubt, getting on a bit is still preferable to the alternative.

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE.

Yippee! Here we go again!
The film Harry Potter and the Half Cut Prince (Does ask for it, doesn't it, J.K.) is due for release on the 21st of November. It is being directed by David Yates. .
Additional characters will include Jim Broadbent as Horace Slughorn: I had Ian McNeice in mind but Jim Broadbent is very good. There is also some talk (if the part is not inexplicably scrapped) of Bill Nighy being cast as the new Minister of Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour: I would have chosen Jim Carter but Bill Nighy is very good.
Well it's Easter now.
There will be Christmas stuff on the shop shelves next week.
It'll be September before you can blink.

LARK RISE TO CANDLEFORD. (BBC1)

This fine series came to an end on Easter Day. Faultless sets, direction and acting. I even came to tolerate Laura referring to her parents as Mar and Par.
By the time it was over there was scarcely a dry eye in the house.

THE No.1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY. (BBC1)

I thoroughly enjoyed Alexander McCall Smith's novel about Precious Ramotswe setting up the first, the only and therefore the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency in Botswana and was eager to see the television version of it.
Well, nobody ever adapted difficult books more skilfully and sensitively for the screen than the gifted writer/director Anthony Minghella, so of course it was a delight.
More than that I have little to say except that Anthony's death at the age of 54 has stunned the Isle of Wight He was born and bred here and unfailingly made public mention of it when collecting numerous awards.
Our kindest thoughts go out to the family of this much respected, gentle man.
He will be sadly missed.

99. Not for those of a nervous disposition.

ANONYMOUS VAGRANT.

Anonymous John's wife and our good pal, Sheila, has sent us an email headed Vagrant. It seems this decidedly dicey character has been seen in the vicinity of Sheila and Anonymous John's mini manor, a pleasant abode where they have lived in modest luxury (with the occasional meal) ever since A.J. won a few quid on the viewers' lottery, masquerading as a competition, that occurs daily on the ITV1 programme Dickinson's Raw Deal (sic).
I think Anonymous John should beware.
An anonymous vagrant like this could have designs on his wife and his winnings.

IT'S ALL OR NOTHING.

I have been engaged in what our daughter-in-law, Pauline, jocularly refers to as playing dolls houses again. This time it has involved the dismantling of built-in bookcases and their departure, along with over a thousand books, from our first (American second) floor computer room to a variety of destinations.
My Leader empathises but cannot refrain from the gentle dig that I am overdoing it. She says it's all or nothing with me. I try to dismiss such calumny but truth to tell I'm knackered.
Never mind, the job is almost done, though I have not tackled a blog post since the 19th of February.
Doesn't time fly when you're having fun?

THE BRITISH WEATHER.

Never ceases to surprise that in an area of land stretching at most 874 miles (Land's End to John O'Groats) there can be blizzards in Scotland and Northern England, flood warnings in The Midlands and balmy weather from London to the South Coast. All at the same time.
We have just experienced hurricane conditions throughout much of England.
Not in Scotland. The sun shone and birds sang in Inverness.
Oh yes, we Brits do have a reason for our obsession with the weather. Which leads me, somewhat tortuously, to...

DANCING ON ICE (ITV1).

This is one of those winter television programmes that has celebrities (many of whom have allegedly never skated before) partnered with professional ice skaters in a bid to become the best duo in yet another reality competition.
Viewers are invited to vote. The money made from their telephone calls probably pays the participants' fees and may even cover the cost of Phillip Schofield's eyebrow pencil.
During the last series I saw that definitive little battler Bonny Langford get her head cracked, so this time I was inclined to give it a miss. I like Bonny.
But my Leader is a fan of the programme and, in the way of a woman who could have taught Margaret Thatcher the art of manipulation, inveigled my interest with the words: "Linda Lusardi's in it."
Now lovely Linda, in the nicest possible way, is a standing joke in our house.
When we first moved here I found myself listening, amused and slightly alarmed, as little Jess discussed with her mother which startling pink she should have on the main wall of the bedroom we had set aside for her. She would only be in the room for one night a week, but she knew what she wanted. I knew what I didn't want. I didn't want startling pink.
In those days paint manufacturers were giving weird names to their colours. Names like Mortimer Mauve, Belinda Blue and Winsome White were not unusual.
I ambled back to the kitchen and my Leader, busy cooking, enquired: "How are they doing?"
"She wants Penelope Pink in her bedroom," I said. "Well, I want Linda Lusardi in my bedroom but it ain't going to happen."
I came to like that pink wall eventually. I was a little disappointed when Jess changed rooms and it was re-decorated.
Oh, Linda Lusardi was all too soon voted off Dancing On Ice. But she tried bravely and came across as a thoroughly nice person.

ICE ROAD TRUCKERS (Five).

This documentary series followed the fortunes of a bunch of cussedly reckless individuals.
It seems that every winter ice roads are constructed across the expanse of frozen lakes in Canada's Northwest Territories.
Along these roads tons of essential supplies are delivered by truck to the diamond mines. Top money is paid to those prepared to put their skill and nerve to the test in making such deliveries.
The trucks are huge, the loads enormous and the ice road often barely three feet thick atop water which can and will swallow up vehicle, driver and cargo in a careless or just unlucky instant.
As the season draws out the ice gradually thaws until, eventually, there is no road. Well, not until next year.
For whatever reason they do it, money, pride, daring, the ice road truckers are a breed apart.
They are gamblers. They are heroes. They are bloody mad!
My Leader and I think they are great.

THE FIXER (ITV1).

John Mercer (Andrew Buchan) is an ex soldier, a killer with a conscience, a man required against his will to perform acts of murder. He has a lame duck assistant, Calum (Jody Latham), a colleague, Rose, who the management has planted on him (Tamzin Outhwaite) and a ruthless boss called Lenny (Peter Mullan).
I quite enjoyed the first episode. Well I knew I would because I liked it forty years ago. It ran from 1967 to 1972 and it was called Callan.
David Callan (Edward Woodward) was an ex soldier, a killer with a conscience etc. He had a lame duck assistant, Lonely (Russell Hunter), colleagues Meres (Anthony Valentine) and later Cross (Patrick Mower) placed by the management to keep an eye on him and a ruthless boss called Hunter (firstly Ronald Radd and finally William Squire).
Yep, The Fixer is simply 21st century Callan.
I don't know whether Callan writer James Mitchell has grounds for legal action against Fixer writer Ben Richards, but if I was Ben I'd be careful in future not to be standing too near the edge of an underground railway platform when the train is coming in.

98. Mr.Fogle, Ms McKenzie, Dr.Williams, L.R. to C. & The Palace

GOOD TELE, INNIT?

I have been watching Ben Fogle's Extreme - climb every mountain, ford every stream -Dreams. Might have given it a miss on the grounds that it is the dreaded reality television. [I am still strongly opposed to the use of the general public as entertainers.] But Ben is the sort of bloke who expects nobody to do what he won't do himself, so that makes it half bearable even to an old grouch like me.
I will never understand the logic behind the choice of certain team members of course, (well...it's good tele, innit?) but there is a feel good conclusion to the proceedings each week which appeals to those fans of Ben Fogle who just have to have an a-a-a-a-a-ah ending.
Afraid I tend to snort impatiently when the compulsory attention seekers whinge on.
Cannot help but be aware that there is a crew with a bloody great camera tackling the same desert - forest - mountain - river - swamp and doing it without sound or dramatics.
Daunting? Tell them about it.
Still, my Leader is a fan, so a-a-a-a-ah.

MARPLE UNVEILED.

That didn't take long.
The next Miss Marple on television will be Julia McKenzie.
Well, she'll be a fine successor to Geraldine McEwan and I feel slightly smug that she was one of my choices for the role. Oh, all right, one of my ten names. I reckon as a soothsayer that has to put me on a par with Professor Sybil Trelawney (see Emma Thompson via J.K. Rowling). Anyway, I very much look forward to the new series and wish Ms McKenzie all the theatrical breaking of legs in the world.

ROWAN PUTS HIS OAR IN.

As a choirboy in wartime Britain I attended matins and evensong every Sunday without fail. Swinging the lead was not encouraged: swinging the thurible was.
But I quickly lost patience with dogma and have long held the view that nobody should believe anything without question.
Now Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has (somewhat in keeping with a sainted predecessor, Thomas Becket) put his oar into turbulent waters. It is his view that the adoption of certain aspects of sharia law is unavoidable in the U.K.
He must be thankful that this is not the 12th century or four knights would have been on their way to visit him.
As it is there have been rumblings from certain establishment mouthpieces who should know better but never do: there have been hysterical calls for his resignation from the office boy press: and there has been the usual sanctimonious posturing about the need for him to apologise.
Why?
I have no idea whether he is right or wrong and I am not about to believe him without question.
But he, like me, is a citizen of a country where there is supposed to be freedom of speech within the law.
I cannot see that he has broken any law.

LARK RISE TO CANDLEFORD (BBC1).

Not quite Cranford, perhaps, but this Sunday night excursion into the land of oo-ar and la-di-da accents has all the right ingredients.
There is a wise and decent postmistress, Dorcas Lane, played by Julia Sawalha, a wise and decent squire, Sir Timothy Midwinter, played by Ben Miles and a splendid cast of oo-ar and la-di-da actors including the ever reliable Liz Smith and dear ol' Karl Johnson. There is also Dawn French as a constantly abandoned wife and mother (a boozy version of her Jam and Jerusalem character).
The main character, Laura Timmins, thought to be based on herself by author Flora Thompson (1876 - 1947), is faultlessly played by Olivia Hallinan.
My Leader and I like it.

THE PALACE (ITV 1).

Here we have newly crowned King Richard IV (Rupert Evans) struggling to find his way through the morass of intrigue, resentment and stupidity that surrounds him: most of it engendered by his own family. No change there, then.
It is watchable, too, particularly if you are one of those who gives any credence to the weird conspiracy theories currently being aired by Mr. Mohamed al-Fayed in the lawcourts. (I think they are just the sad, impossible to prove, honest beliefs of a bereaved father - and I am no fan of self-important Prince Philip.)
But as a television series The Palace is no West Wing or Dallas.
It's simply tripe with tiaras.
And yeah, my Leader and I like it.

97. An Independent reader, watcher and complainant

AN INDEPENDENT READER.

Yasmin Alibhai - Brown and Johann Hari are the first two people I read in The Independent every Monday. I then turn to the erudite Andreas Whittam Smith, whose financial nous scares me silly. I try to ignore The Pocket Churchill, Bruce Anderson. (Well, with my advancing years and diminishing powers I sometimes have a disgraceful tendency to agree with him, if only in a very small c conservative way.)
I usually read Miles Kington's piece before turning to the editorial, the letters and the quick crossword. His death last week was an enormous loss to the world of humorous writing and he will be a terribly hard act to follow.
Last Monday, Yasmin wanted to know why racial abuse is now considered acceptable in this country.
It seems she and others were subjected to crass treatment from "posh hooligans" at a public debate (on "what we wanted from the London Mayor") in Cadogan Hall, Sloane Square, a couple of weeks ago.
In the course of a loud verbal attack she was called a "cunt" and told to go back to Uganda.
As I have remarked elsewhere in this blog, bullies are scum.
So the moron who shouted those brave words should have been spirited away by the law, thrown into a Black Maria, transported to a distant police station to spend a contemplative night and then released on a week's police bail with the words: "C.U. Next Tuesday, eh?"
Who knows what has come over this nation.
To be good mannered is now regarded as patronising. Effing and blinding in public is accepted. There is contempt for anything but a positive approach i.e. rudeness. No age group or class is exempt. There is an absence of self respect and respect for others. Litter louts and fly-tippers abound. Don't try to get through to anybody; they'll be too busy talking on their mobile or listening to their ipod.
Sadly, we oldies are no little to blame
(See my post of 15th April 07 New stuff on the block - good and bad! Ignoring Bigotry.)
More sadly, it is far too late to do anything about it.
There is too much apathy and negativity and fear.
And too much sitting in front of the television - or computer.

(IGNORING BIGOTRY - final paragraph)
It is as well that Yasmin Alibhai-Brown of The Independent does not read stuff like this. I would not want to add to her despair at the state of the national psyche. But there you are, concerned lady, an awful lot of old buckets will have to be kicked before this country becomes a haven for any but the likes of Al Murray's Pub Landlord or, more insidiously, those like me who sadly can condone bigotry by ignoring it.

LAMENT FOR A DEPARTING MARPLE.

I was sorry to hear that Geraldine McEwan will no longer be playing Miss Marple.
In a nineteen twenties middle class way Jane Marple was easily the most charming of Agatha Christie's fictional detectives and Ms. McEwan, with a wicked glint here and a sly riposte there, accomplished a subtle revamping of the character for the current television series. Not that I am impressed by the all singing all dancing Agatha Christie's Marple or, for that matter, by Agatha Christie's Poirot: where are Miss Lemon, Inspector Japp and Captain Hastings?
I do like Geraldine McEwan, though, and look forward to seeing her on screen again soon, whatever the role.
So who will replace her as Miss Marple?
I dunno.
How about Miriam Margolyes? She would be great and I like her.
But I like Eileen Atkins and Barbara Flynn and Sue Johnston and Gemma Jones and Julia McKenzie and Doreen Mantle and Maggie Smith and Imelda Staunton and June Whitfield and a whole lot of others who would be great, too.
If you are a follower of Miss Marple you will no doubt be looking for a favourite of your own to fill the role.
Doubtless we will all be left foolishly floundering when the sublime successor surfaces.

[Avoid abominable alliteration. Ed]

REPETITION, REPETITION, REPETITION.

If there is one thing you can rely on from the compilers of television programmes it is that there will be no shortage of repeats.
Currently we are starting what must be at least the third re-run on ITV3 of Pie In The Sky, the enjoyable cook/detective romp which originally ran from 1994 to 1997. Even with unmissable Richard Griffiths and always watchable Maggie Steed, this is a slice too much.
Same goes for the Best of American in the CSI's and NCIS. After five or six lengthy series, viewers surely do not welcome the reminder that they could have ignored it all from the very beginning.
Today Cadfael is back. A one-off, perhaps, but one I have seen twice already. This time even Derek Jacobi with his herbs cannot revive it.
As for Poirot, I've seen the series so many times I'm a phantom understudy to most of the actors.
Likewise I probably know more about Morse than Kevin Whately does.
Sherlock Holmes has spent as much time in my living room as he has in Baker Street.
Wexford waves to me across the road.
Hetty Wainwright smiles when we meet in the grocer's shop.
Monk recognizes me instantly - but doesn't shake hands.
And I am a regular guest at the homes of Mark Sloan and Jessica Fletcher in America and the Tom Barnaby family in England.
What? How have I avoided becoming a 'vic' at Malibu Beach, Cabot Cove or Midsomer?
Hell, I'm just too damned unreasonable to finish up as a non-speaking extra in a body bag.
Ironically, this complaint is a repeat.
But a genuinely restructured repeat, not a blatantly cheap space filler.

AND A WORD OF PRAISE.

Don't usually watch soaps, but the solo performance by June Brown on East Enders last week was not to be missed. Dot Branning's message to her husband was superb stuff. If Ms Brown and all concerned do not get television awards there will be no justice.

96. Mainly Musical Memories

A FEW CHERISHED RECORDINGS.

Have been sitting here with a tape playing on the ancient hi-fi. Thought it was rather good, then realized it was one of my own compilations from way back.
I was always particular. If I hadn't thought David Whitfield made a great job of Bernstein's Maria he wouldn't be on the tape. Same applied to Dolly Parton's version of Cole Porter's I Get A Kick Out Of You and to Robert Preston singing Jerry Herman's I Won't Send Roses.
Trouble is, I have seldom bought a tape or CD (let alone a DVD) which has not been a disappointment once the single which enticed me to buy it has worked its magic. This particularly applies to the works of modern singer/songwriters, many of whom surround their one deservedly popular composition with a load of self-penned dross.
I solved the problem by transferring the stuff I really liked onto blank tape.
There are now several such tapes floating around the place. Jimmy Durante singing Make Someone Happy is on the same tape as Enrico Caruso's recording of Because. Yehudi Menuhin and Stephane Grappelli are there, too, with their rendition of Gershwin's They Can't take That Away From Me: so is Shirley Bassey (There's a Place For Us) and Georges Guetary (I'll Build A Stairway To Paradise).There is also a marvellous Welsh contralto called Iris Williams singing He Was Beautiful and a couple of classics from Freddie Gardner, arguably the greatest alto sax player ever.
There is the joy of hearing Franco Corelli sing Nessun Dorma, of smiling as Ethel Merman yet again belts out There's No Business Like Show Business and of laughing aloud as Elvis Presley fights that hilarious losing battle with the truly wonderful backing singer on Are You Lonesome Tonght.
It's not all home-made recordings of course. A tape of Bing Crosby's 20 Golden Greats bears listening to right through, especially the tracks made with John Scott Trotter's orchestra.
And it would be sacrilege to filch a movement from Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.2, none of which, despite David Lean's film Brief Encounter, was composed by Noel Coward. (Ol' Noel wrote the 'frightfully-frightfully' Brief Encounter script. It was based on his 1936 one-act play Still Life. The fragrant Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard - a man who, according to Robert Mitchum, "You'll never catch acting" - then turned in classic British performances. The rest is 'frightfully-frightful' history.) Anyway, only a vandal would meddle with a recording made by the great pianist John Ogden.

AND MEMORIES...

The memories of those I have seen on stage are particularly cherished.
When the Austrian tenor Richard Tauber sang at The Kings Theatre, Southsea, he took centre stage (without microphone) and his voice hit the dome which looms above the gallery and filled it with breathtaking sound.
I was a teenager sitting in 'the gods' for one and sixpence in the old money (seven and a half pence now) and that evening I joined the ranks of the truly privileged. I witnessed a superb performance by the finest lyric tenor of the age who, to close his programme, acknowledged our wild applause with half a dozen encores. What a star.
Tenors were very popular on the variety stages back then. The second world war was barely over, there was radio but no television. Theatres and cinemas provided the bulk of our entertainment.
I saw Harry Secombe at the South Parade Pier Theatre, Southsea. He did a crazy shaving act which he brought to a conclusion, in the customary way, with a song. The young Secombe had a beautiful bel canto tenor voice. I think he sang Rodgers and Hart's With A Song In My Heart. He then blew a raspberry and fell flat on his back.
I liked ol' Harry. Nothing ever changed him. Not the success, not the knighthood, not the vagaries of colleagues. He was just a thoroughly nice man. It came as no surprise when, after his death, a friend said: "He sang 'If I Ruled The World.' If he had ruled the world it would have been a better place."
I was in an army camp when I first heard Josef Locke. I noted his name and the next time I saw my mother told her:
"I heard a great tenor on the wireless a few weeks back. I've written down his name."
"I heard a good 'un recently, too," said my mother. "What's your chap's name? Mine's Josef Locke."
Josef Locke (real name Joseph McLaughlin) was a top of the bill favourite and, by all accounts, a generous after show party giver. He was a big, tall, former policeman who stood all of his own height back from the microphone when he sang.
Perfect microphone technique. Perfect clarity. Perfect presentation.
When he appeared at the Theatre Royal, Portsmouth, I was one of a packed house held spellbound. He could embrace an entire audience. Years later one of the old variety turns, interviewed on television, was asked who was the most charismatic performer he ever saw. There was no hesitation, "Josef Locke," he said.
Eventually ol' Jo took off to Ireland leaving the tax man short changed. Everybody but the tax man saw the funny side of it.
Before the second world war I was taken by my parents to see many fine music hall performers at The Hippodrome, Portsmouth.
I still vaguely remember seeing Gracie Fields, Cyril ("Odd ode coming up") Fletcher, Tessie O'Shea and the show Me and My Girl starring Lupino Lane. Sadly the old Hippodrome became an early victim of the war and was never rebuilt.
My Leader tells me that we went to see the great Australian soprano Joan Hammond in 1961 or early 1962. Anyway, before we were married.
I expect she's right.
Why Dame Joan chose to give what was billed as Her Farewell Performance in England at Portsmouth Guildhall I have no idea. Suffice to say we went and she was as good as she had been when, long before my Leader came into my life, I had seen her in La Boheme and in Madam Butterfly.
It was a memorable evening made doubly so when, during the interval, a charming woman came over to us.
"Maureen, how lovely to see you here," she said.
My future Leader introduced me and a pleasant conversation ensued in which we all agreed that Joan Hammond was still far too good for retirement.
When we resumed our seats Maureen said: "I always liked Miss Berry. She was my music teacher at school."
Maureen was seventeen or eighteen and later became a devotee of The Hollies. Operatic sopranos were not really her scene.
But she enjoyed that evening: not least, I suspect, because the following day a few eyebrows would have been raised at her alma mater.

95. Another load of readin' and watchin'

COOPER AND CARSON - TWO GOOD READS.

Towards the end of last year I finished reading Jilly Cooper's Wicked! (Corgi Books 2007) and read Michael Carson's The Knight of the Flaming Heart (Black Swan 1996).
I like Jilly's bonkbusters. Never read one without feeling that (1) she's having a laugh and (2) it will sell and sell and sell. Her research is thorough, whatever the subject, and she is a darned good story teller. Wicked! runs to close on a thousand pages and is well worth buying with your Christmas book vouchers.
The Knight of the Flaming Heart is a slightly fey, very Irish tale in which the ghost of Sir Roger Casement appears and performs miracles in Africa and Ireland. I found it an amusing and interesting read and am still wondering why nobody has adapted it for film or television.
Come to think of it, though, I was the one who did not know that Philip Pullman's Northern Lights had been filmed under the title The Golden Compass, so perhaps The Knight of the Flaming Heart exists in movie form but has been renamed Roddie or Miracle at Ardfert or Boma's Ghost or something.
Oh well, back to...

THE GOLDEN COMPASS.

We saw this film last week: Roz, Jess and me. Jess and I had read Northern Lights so knew, individually, what we expected of it.
Roz is still threatening to borrow my copy of His Dark Materials so she had no preconceptions. No matter. We all enjoyed it. Director Chris Weitz stuck closely to Philip Pullman's book. The well chosen cast - Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra in particular - acted sublimely and the daemons and bears were equal to the imagination of the most demanding Dark Materials fan.
A super film.

NCIS (FIVE - Fridays)

Episode 5/24 of series four and Gibbs has got rid of the moustache. Perhaps he, too, has seen The Golden Compass and concluded that Sam Elliott will be Lee Scoresby for keeps. Or maybe he has heard that Johnny Depp is the rumoured choice to play Wyatt in the next Wyatt Earp film. (With Daniel Craig as Doc Holliday?) If he's heard that I'll be surprised. I just made it up.
Anyway, he looks better clean shaven.

POLITICS (Very briefly)

Our radio and television news is currently filled to bursting with the American political scene. Don't know why.
I cannot imagine that America gives a shit about our political scene. I doubt if ninety percent of Americans know we exist.
So it matters not to me whether the U.S. gets its first black President or its first controlled-weeping female President.
I have made known my views on politicians as a race and when I see thousands of excitedly screaming supporters hailing the victory of one or other of them in any country my heart sinks at the gullibility of those so easily conned into the belief that the victor is there for anyone other than him or herself.
I'll say no more (sniff) for fear of losing New Hampshire.

NEGLECTED ONES.

"You've been neglecting me," said the cat Shadow. "This festive season malarkey has occupied you far too much."
From his chair at the end of the computer room he gazed past me and took in the heading of this item.
"Is that part of the 'Old Ones, New Ones' thing you come out with sometimes?" he asked. "Where did you get it?"
"Semprini," I said. "Albert Semprini. Very good pianist. Popular on BBC radio many years ago. Always started his programme by saying: 'Old ones, new ones, loved ones, neglected ones.' Then he'd give you half an hour or so of charming pianoforte. That's back when music was music, not the stuff you hear now."
"Don't be a music snob," he admonished. "You like Katie Melua and Beth Nielsen Chapman."
"Well, yes, and I liked Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore and Doris Day. I liked Al Bowlly, too. Heck, there were loads of singers I liked back in the old days. Some bloody good composers, too. Best CD I've heard over the years has been Harry Nilsson's A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night. All stuff by wonderful composers like Irving Berlin, Sylvia Fine and Gus Kahn. Michael Bolton did a similar thing a few years back and that was magic, too."
He dropped down off the chair and stretched. "Need to feed and beat the bounds," he said. "We must talk music again later. I like hearing about who was who in your day."
"Why not," I said. "I've bored everybody else daft with it. Why should you escape? I'll try to avoid reeling off a list of names, though, that's taking the boring old git persona a tad too far."
"Breaking the habit of a lifetime, then, just for me. You are kind," he said.
And was gone.

FOOTNOTE.

Am currently reading The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman and Last Seen Wearing by Colin Dexter.
Keeps me off the streets.

94. Happy New Year

THAT'S IT.

Yes, that's it for another year.
Christmas Eve provided the customary intrigue of people struggling to supermarket checkouts pushing trolleys laden with bread.
I wonder about them. Are they guest-house keepers? Are they bread sauce manufacturers? Are they simply pessimists? It is only a two-day break and many of the shops are open on Boxing Day.
Your guess is as good as mine.
We went to Roz, our youngest, for dinner on Christmas Day.
She, husband Mark and children live a couple of miles up the road from us. When we arrived they were experiencing a power cut. The electricity had been off since half seven in the morning. It came back on at about three in the afternoon.
Fortunately, Roz cooks by gas. It must have been an infuriating time for the people who rely on electricity.
There's a nearby pub which remained open without coolers or fridges and with warm beer. England their England!
The local paper contained a piece about it.
Seems a senior councillor who lives a bit further out was affected by the problem, too.
He had no power from 7.20am until just after 9am.
The paper quoted him as saying: "All the candlelight gave the house a nice traditional feel."
What, for an hour and three quarters?
Who votes for these jokers?

NCIS. (Five)

Episode 4/24 of series four had Gibbs (Mark Harmon) running things again, his acting haircut backed up by a well-rehearsed grey moustache which suggested he may have read for the part of Lee Scoresby in The Golden Compass but narrowly lost out to Sam Elliott (a man born wearing a stetson).
Well, there's bound to be another rehash of the interminable Wyatt Earp saga in the pipeline. Perhaps ol' Mark could try for that. He would be very good and he certainly looks the part. He mustn't give up on NCIS though.
Cote de Pablo has settled in as the lethal Ziva David. I don't know whether her attempts to speak Hebrew are good, bad or indifferent and I don't care. She certainly can't sound any worse than dear old Dick Van Dyke did as an Englishman in Mary Poppins.
We shall continue to follow this lovely bunkum next year.
Never mind all the terrorist tosh; we like a good laugh.

NO RESOLUTIONS.

Shan't make any New Year resolutions. Never do.
If you do, I hope you'll manage to keep to them for more than a day.
The following are a few words from an e-mail received today from our friend Jan.
"Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that made you smile. I want to wish you all health, happiness and success in 2008. We all have our own idea as to what defines happiness and success - hope all yours are met."
Whether the words are Jan's or those of somebody who sent them to her to be forwarded, they fit the occasion very well indeed.
Happy New Year!

93. Goodbye Rebus, Hallo Gibbs, Merry Xmas All

I HAD A MAN'S COLD.

November departed and December started and there was I, completely out of it all.
I had a man's cold again.
It started with razor blades in the throat and rapidly became the runny, shivery, decidedly life-threatening, probably-flu-despite-the-flu-jab, could-even-be-pneumonia, multi-handkerchief-filler that only a man suffers.
It could not in any way be likened to the get-on-with-it-it's-nothing-compared-to-having-a-baby sort of one-hanky-snuffle instantly dismissed by a woman.
I was stoical of course.
Well, experience counts in these near-death situations.
And my Leader, bless 'er, refrained from any but sympathetic noises.
Not a single birth giving comparison was heard.
I do love that woman.

CRANFORD IS THE VERY BEST. (BBC1 - Sundays)

Just knew it would be.
Brilliant actors have arrived, done their acting bit and gone. There has not been a flaw.
We just sit back and let it wash over us..
So much costume drama produced for television in this country is without equal. We may not do much in the sporting world but nowhere else in the universe can compete with our richness of acting talent, technical know-how and inspired television direction.
Nor has any other country such a wonderful list of long-departed writers whose work could have been written for the medium.
Eschew false modesty.
Cranford is costume drama at its very best.

NCIS. (Five - Fridays)

Well, it's back. Same frightening Middle Eastern villains, same daft sort of plot (only Spooks can compete in that department), same Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) who has acquired a badly rehearsed acting haircut and a general appearance of one auditioning for Ben Gunn in the pantomime version of Treasure Island.
Great stuff.
Watch this space.

REBUS. (ITV1)

Series 5 ended with the typical "let's finish Rebus" characters failing to finish Rebus. Ken Stott (despite the jaundiced views of the TV editor in my ultimate digital TV and radio guide) is still excellent as Rebus. So is Claire Price as DS Siobhan Clarke and Jennifer Black as DCS Gill Templar.
I think it would be a pity if it just faded away now.
Edinburgh's such a pretty place, too.

WHAM! IT'S CHRISTMAS AGAIN.

Well it is, isn't it?
Heck, shops and garden centres have been flogging Santa stuff around here since September. You get so used to it you lose sight of what it's all about until - wham! - it's under a fortnight away and barely a card written or a gift wrapped.
We'll probably do a lot of Compliments of the Season malarkey this year to avoid upsetting atheists, agnostics, skeptics, infidels, heretics, Pyrrhonists, or the sort of religious fundamentalist who takes offence at the naming of a Teddy bear.
I refuse to be disheartened.
The half tree will go up and the Santas will come out and the Happy Christmas sign will face the front door and friends of all religions or no religion will be equally welcome.
So if you're in the neighbourhood, drop by for a drink and a mince pie.
Oh, and in case I forget, or somehow don't get around to it again,
A Merry Christmas to You!


P.S. Grandson Ellis, two years old, has discovered Christmas.
He says it is: "Baby Jesus in 'is 'ouse."
Now that's what I call a description.

92. Old ones, new ones, loved ones...

CRANFORD (BBC1 - Sundays)

Just glance down the cast list and you can sense a superb series. This is Elizabeth Gaskell's Cheshire market town beautifully staged and looking, though I feel sure Miss Deborah Jenkyns (Eileen Atkins) would deplore my saying so, a million dollars.
Something to record after the Antiques Roadshow, then.
We shall still watch Long Way Down (BBC2) until the very end. Boorman and McGregor are compulsive viewing.

EGGHEADS. (BBC2 - nightly)

Last week the Eggheads were beaten twice in two days.
On Tuesday they lost to a team of museum people who departed with £33,000.
On Wednesday they were beaten by a bunch of tax inspectors, but the prize money was back to £1,000. (Hurray!)
Time to demand a change in the format, Eggheads.
And the departure of Dreadful Dermot.

WE CAN'T ALL BE EGGHEADS.
(Or museum people or, thanks be, tax inspectors.)

On Monday at 7.30 pm my Leader reminded me that Mastermind was about to start.
"Hurry up or you'll miss the chance to get your two right answers," she advised cheerfully.
The gifted imagination of television schedulers ensures that half an hour of Mastermind (John Humphrys being consistently pleasant) is followed by half an hour of University Challenge (Jeremy Paxman being occasionally likeable).
After Mastermind I repaired to the kitchen.
When "Come on! Come on!" Paxman started his introduction I bolted back to the television.
"What's the rush?" my bemused Leader called after me.
The truth will out.
"Must try to increase my right answers to four."

MATCH OF THE DAY LIVE. (BBC1 - Wednesday 19th November)
England 2 - Croatia 3

So England failed to qualify for Euro 2008.
The scoreline says it all.
The cat Shadow departed long before it finished.
England manager Steve McClaren and assistant Terry Venables departed shortly after it finished.
I departed at 9 pm to watch Heroes on BBC2.

NCIS. (Five)

At the end (a while back) of what I took to be the final series, Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon), having quit his job, walked along a beach to meet up with his old boss.
I thought that was it.
NCIS was over.
Now it seems he may have had a dream in a shower or something because a new series is being advertised and the word repeat has not been mentioned.
If this really is brand new and has never been shown here before, great!
I need no longer watch repeats of

CRIMINAL MINDS. (Five)

Where each week dear old Mandy Patinkin, gravitas glasses on the end of his nose, appears with The Sequential Dialogue Club.
This is a delightful load of bunkum in which it is clear that from me - to you - via her - to him - back to Mandy dialogue has been allocated to the ensemble, sequentially, to be delivered without pause for breath or suggestion of thought.
Sometimes two or three people share a sentence.
It is democracy gone mad.
Once the Criminal Mind of the week has been terminated, a voice-only who sounds a lot like Mandy Patinkin delivers a worldly-wise denouement - without let or hindrance - and that's that.
I still enjoy it.
Though ol' Mandy really is better when he's singing.

CSI (Five)

Thinking about sequential dialogue brought to mind my one bone of contention with CSI.
No forensic or other expert in a CSI/NY/Miami (whatever) episode is ever allowed to express a view without some fellow cast member simplifying it, in alternative words, for the benefit of the viewing public.
Ever stopped to wonder at the incredible patience of experts who take no offence at this?
I have.
I find myself longing for just one expert who will yell: "Stop re-wording everything I say, you smart-ass! Fuck off!"

91. A few more Dribs and Drabs

CANUTE AT THE SEASIDE.

When we moved here seven years ago I could sit at my computer by the upstairs workroom window and, on the corner of a road just along from our garage, take in the sight of a pleasant little bungalow probably built around the time of the second world war.
It stood in a reasonable garden.
Then, a few months ago, it was demolished.
The entire site has now been taken up by a three storey block of flats. It is the second of its kind to be built around here, less than a hundred yards apart, in the past six months. Most of them are devoid of private parking.
Seems councils have been counselled that people who choose to live in flats should not be encouraged to own cars. Well. the shops are but a short walk away.
I am well aware that the jaw-dropping Scot and his henchpersons are tossers - they are M.P.s after all - and I do realize that the local prats-in-power are fiscally bound to creep to central government.
But are not their sad attempts to drive more and more people back to the pre 1950 days of mass public transport just another example of Canute at the seaside?
Mark you, with petrol at the cost it is now even old Two Jags Prescott may soon have to use his bus pass.

EIGHT WASTED MINUTES, YOUR MAJESTY.

Yes, all that pomp and paraphernalia and thumping on doors just for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 2 to tell us, in eight wasted minutes, that her government is going to stick its oar into education...health...oh...you name it...you've heard it all before.
The eight minutes would have been far better spent if the aforementioned Queen Elizabeth 2 (an elderly lady who really has done me no harm) had been allowed to say:
"My government will make the same almighty cockup of absolutely everything that it and previous governments have for as long as I, or any of my subjects, can remember. It will also indulge in the same lies and deception to cover up its considerable shortcomings. That having been said, my husband and I look forward, with wry amusement, to the childish party squabbling which, no doubt, my words will engender at Westminster in the near future."

A COLLINS MOMENT.

Love her or loathe her, ol' Joan Collins does occasionally come out with a gem.
Talking to Melanie Sykes on The Paul O'Grady Show recently, she was asked whether there was anything sexy about kissing handsome actors in films. Her reply was a throwaway masterpiece.
"No. You are too worried about being on the right camera. And makeup are too worried that you might smudge your lipstick - or smudge his lipstick!"
Wicked.

SPOOKS OR MIAMI?

On Tuesday nights at 9 o'clock it is either Spooks on BBC1 or CSI: Miami on Five. Or watch one of them and record the other. Both are hilarious tosh, but while the former has actors. the latter has David Caruso and his acting sunglasses.
I cannot choose between them so I always record Spooks and watch it after I have seen Miami with my Leader. She does not watch Spooks. Well, apart from Peter Firth there are no antiques in it.
On the other hand, David Caruso's sunglasses are probably worth as much as any antique.
My Leader and I count how many times ol' David stands sideways to talk to somebody.
My Leader: "Why do you think he stands like that?"
Me: "To avoid being kicked in the balls."
(Later)
My Leader: "He's got that strange, wistful look on his face again."
Me: "Perhaps he forgot to stand sideways."
Both of us: "Hallo! He's putting his sunglasses on! There'll be trouble now..."

JOE'S PALACE.

One of the Spooks stalwarts, Rupert Penry-Jones, had a leading role in this absorbing drama by Stephen Poliakoff. The main character, Joe, was beautifully portrayed by newcomer Danny Lee Wynter and the eccentric billionaire who employed him to act as doorkeeper at a mansion was that star actor, very funny interviewee and self-proclaimed liar, Sir Michael Gambon.
Nothing ever seems to happen in a Poliakoff story. You just have to keep watching.
The end was worth the wait.

90. Unresolved history, a bit of tele and a new film

DECENT COPPERS DON'T GET THANKED ENOUGH.

On Tuesday last we had a telephone call from P.C. Gamble, the police officer who took our statements when we experienced the abortive burglary early this month, to tell us that CCTV footage on the cameras closest to where we live have revealed no sign of any suspiciously sneaking, or obviously fleeing, white-jacketed figure.
Nobody saw anything of the cheeky git or any companion(s) he may have had. He simply disappeared like one of the subjects of the TV series Without a Trace.
He is unresolved history.
Meantime I have not only renewed the security at the back of the house but have opted to double it.
Paul, the nice chap who originally supplied and fitted the garage door, advised me to drill holes through the bottom of the door and continue straight on down for least four inches into the concrete floor. Then drop six inch bolts through.
So when he had repaired the damage that is exactly what I did. If matey tries his arm again he may, with any luck, pull his shoulders out of joint.
The mental insecurity these little bastards cause is incalculable.
Our thanks, though, to P.C. Gamble for his common sense approach to the whole tiresome business.
Decent coppers don't get thanked often enough.

SMILEY'S PEOPLE. (Saturday evenings) (BBC4)

This sequel to John le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a long awaited repeat.
George Smiley (Alec Guinness) spent almost the entire second part of the two-part opener walking alone, looking about him and being enigmatic.
Made you realize what a damned good actor Guinness was, though.

THE SOPRANOS (Final episode) (E4)

There was an expected flood of fatalities and an unexpected ending.
James Gandolfini (as the overweight, lethal, strangely charismatic Tony Soprano) was watchable until the last second.
His fellow actors were, without exception, superb.
Since its inception in 1999 this HBO production has been universally praised.
Brilliant direction, brilliant background music and meticulous observation ensured its success.
It will be a hard act to follow.

HIS DARK MATERIALS HAS MATERIALIZED.

Clearly I was well adrift with my suggestion that Ken Stott would make a good Lord Asriel in Northern Lights.
The film had already been made and is currently being advertised under the title The Golden Compass.
So, good for Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials has materialized.
I had not heard a murmur until now. Well, I wouldn't have known me Golden Compass from me Northern Lights, anyway, but the other two books will surely follow, with or without their original titles.
Wonder if Iorek Byrnison sounds like Gandalf?
Oh, Daniel Craig plays Lord Asriel.
Sorry, Ken.

89. Dribs and Drabs

ALIBHAI-BROWN v AMIS.

At a slow time for news - and I include the resignation of Sir Menzies Campbell - Martin Amis managed to get himself named and pictured on the front page of The Independent simply by pissing off Yasmin Alibhai - Brown. (Surely not a recommended course of action for any but the most supremely arrogant man.) I would as soon seek serious trouble with my Leader.
Mr. Amis had allegedly made remarks of a Muslim baiting/hating nature which were seized upon by Ms. Alibhai-Brown - who can be quite touchy where such matters are concerned - and she roasted him in her newspaper column.
His reply, in which he blamed Professor Terry Eagleton, a Manchester University colleague, for misrepresenting his views, ("The anti-Muslim measures he says I 'advocated' I merely adumbrated..." Christ!) proclaimed his innocence in a weirdly conciliatory and condescending letter which became the biggest news in The Independent on a slow Friday.
Anyway, since both Ms. Alibhai - Brown and Mr. Amis are featured in Wikipedia, where their differences are mentioned, I will remark only that Yasmin A - B, for all her tendency to professional indignation, remains high on my list of respected people and that I have read none of Martin Amis's work because - to paraphrase Spike Milligan - he wouldn't read any of mine.
Further comment would be superfluous.

THE WEAKEST LINK (POLITICAL SPECIAL)

Ming, why Chris?
He has attracted a bunch of supporters determined to undermine my leadership.
Chris, why Ming?
How can anyone take seriously a man who pronounces his name like a Chinese dynasty? Anyway, it's my turn.
Nick, why Ming?
Well, he's old enough to have founded a Chinese dynasty. He's had his time. The party needs a new image.
So this is not just the back-stabbing treachery of a colourless bunch of juniors?
No...no...no...
Ming, you are the weakest link. Goodbye.

DEBORAH KERR.

The actress Deborah Kerr died on the 16th October aged 86. She was the most (six times) nominated film star never to actually win an Oscar. In her seventies she received an honorary Oscar, a just reward for a beautiful, talented leading lady who over the years carried many, often less deserving, co-stars to glory.
I wonder whether she minded always being remembered for From Here To Eternity?
Surely not.
She was wonderful in it.

WHAT A SILLY PROFESSOR.

Professor James Watson, a 79-year-old geneticist and Nobel Prize winner, has caused one helluva furore with his much publicized view that black people are less intelligent than their white counterparts.
What a silly professor he is.
I wouldn't care if he had found incontrovertible proof of his theory, his silliness lies in the shouting of it from the roof tops.
The grievance brigade, nooses in hand, have rushed to the attack of course.
Better him than me.
That having been said, I feel I should still defend our (fast diminishing) right to free speech.
But then I am too old and cynical to be much influenced by anyone's scientific, religious, or political opinion.
I long ago realized that had I been born with half the brains and talent of a Paul Robeson or a Lord Leary Constantine I would have made far more of my life.
And no redneck in America or snotty little London hotel manager would have objected to my colour.
Well they don't when you're white.

SPORT.

The cat Shadow came into the kitchen and, by way of making conversation, I said: "Haven't heard much from you lately."
He gave me a questioning look.
"Well you generally have some comment on the sport," I added. "But we've had the England soccer and rugger games and Lewis Hamilton's Formula One championship bid and you haven't said a thing."
He turned about and exited, cat flap, kitchen door.
"Know what you mean," I shouted as the flap swung shut behind him.

88. A burglar, an actor, two losses and a win.

A BIT OF A SHOCK.

One evening a week or so back we were sitting at ease in our living room when there was an almighty crash at the back of the house.
"What the hell was that?" I wondered as I headed for the kitchen.
When I found out it was a bit of a shock.
In the sideway leading from the back door of the garage to the courtyard I made out a (probably teenage) figure.
He registered my appearance at the same moment I saw him and he turned tail.
We keep the kitchen door locked so by the time I had recovered the key and made my way outside he was well gone. The garage light was on and he had kicked open its locked back door, smashing the rimlock in the process. That had been the cause of the almighty crash. The actual garage door (electric) had been prised halfway up and dislodged from its runner on the mechanism side.
The road beyond was empty. It runs alongside our terrace and there are no houses opposite, just a church wall.
My language stripped leaves off the trees in the churchyard.
I have never been much of a tough guy but had I been a few years younger and got my hands on him he'd have received a bloody good thumping.
Would have done no good, though. I'd have been charged with assault and the thieving little bastard would have got away with a caution.
Oh. we gave statements to a very decent young policeman and I guess that will be the end of it.
Anyway, you can't really cure thieves.
Back when I was an army boy a thief was caught in the act by his room-mates. They summarily stamped on his hands. Months later he was discovered to be stealing from the NAAFI shop and was discharged from the service. When his kit was checked and packed it was found to contain items of equipment belonging to just about every other boy in his barrack room.
No, you can't cure them.
But sometimes, awfully, I think the Arabs had the right idea.

AN ACTOR'S (BETWEEN DRAGS) VIEWPOINT.

According to the 29 September - 5 October edition of my ultimate digital TV and radio guide, Ken Stott, who plays Detective Inspector John Rebus, has decided that four months of dead bodies at a time has become too harrowing. It seems he may do something along the lines of a two-hour Rebus The Opera, Rebus On Ice or Rebus Christmas Special (my definitions, not his) in the future, but doubts he will do another series.
All this was conveyed between breaks taken for a quick drag at a cigarette.
Asked whether a role in a Harry Potter film would be of interest to him he made it very clear that it would not. It seems his viewpoint is that the Potter books are overrated and that if we are going to encourage children to read books it should be to read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, not J.K.Rowling.
Oh dear.
Perhaps, when the Pullman stories are eventually filmed, he will be sought to join the cast of Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. (Probably given the title Dark Materials 1, 2 and 3 by some genius.) He would make a splendid Lord Asriel. But he should take care if the producers are the Disney organization. He could find himself spending an entire series with Goofy or Donald Duck as his daemon and that would do little for his dignity.
I mock lightly.
This is a man who can walk alone down an empty beach, stand looking out to sea, and keep your interest throughout the entire mundane manoeuvre.
This is an actor.

EGGHEADS (BBC2)

Recently their winning run ended and the Eggheads saw £75000 handed over to a team of Oxford undergraduates. Better that than handing it to a team of lawyers or politicians, I suppose.
Oh, the challengers had only two team members left at the end, but they chose to be asked the first batch of questions (there's a surprise), struggled with the fact, but eventually guessed, that Nicosia was further south than Valetta and (what a surprise!) the Eggheads were then posed a question regarding how many States in America still carry the death penalty...38, 18 or 8?
They guessed 8. They should have guessed 38. My guess is that fewer than five out of 303 million Americans would have had the slightest idea.
I have experienced a sensation of deja vu, too.
I started to believe these programmes to be repeats when, £3,000 after that big loss, a bunch from Preston appeared and, lo and behold, the Eggheads were beaten again. There was something much too familiar about it. That's the trouble with being a goggle box gazer, you are sometimes sure you have seen it all before. Could be imagination. Could be coincidence. Could just be that you have. Who cares?
But it really is time the format was changed.
And the presenter!

MATCH OF THE DAY LIVE: (BBC1)
(England v Estonia - 13th October 2007)

The cat Shadow had predicted 'the same sort of win as last time' and, airing the view that England was still only a first half team, had gone to sleep.
Fortunately we had a welcome and unexpected guest who not only knows her football but has the added bonus of a ready sense of humour.
Just before the end of the game, with Englad 3 - 0 in the lead, she remarked dryly: "I think they should give Man of the Match to that Estonian who scored the marvellous own goal."
Now that really is a guest worth welcoming.

87. Blogs will become spiritual fish and chip paper

GILES'S PREDICTION.

On the rare occasion that I am in masochistic mood I visit the website of Giles Turnbull and linger long enough to be reminded how little I know about this computer lark.
Mr. Turnbull, who is also a husband, dad, freelance writer, singer and photographer, clearly knows a very great deal about computers. I despair. I have been driving a car for fifty years without knowing anything other than how to top up the windscreen washer water and shove some air into the tyres. If I turn the ignition key and it fails to start I curse and ring for help. It is unlikely that I will ever understand the computer.
What's more, I too am a husband, a dad, still have an old Box Brownie somewhere and nowadays have a singing voice about which the late Henry Root might have said: "He's no Michael Buble but he is bad."
None of which does anything to lift my depression when the knowledgeable Mr.T predicts, as he has recently, that in less time than it took to start a run on Northern Rock, all our blog stuff will be erased.
Sadly I had rather looked forward (when bucket kicking time arrives) to soaring through the ether and being hailed by a friendly shout of "Hi, Barney," (the army nickname) "been reading your blogstuff...there's a posse of politicians hell bent on keeping you out of their heaven!" and shouting back: "Thanks, mate, I've been relying on it."
But now it is not to be. The blogstuff will have disappeared like a forgotten celebrity. Someone in the ether will have wrapped their spiritual fish and chips in it.
I have Giles Turnbull's educated opinion and I'll bet he's right.
Ah well, I still drive the car when the engine sparks into life so I might as well still thump the computer keys when I have been welcomed to XP.
The results won't last forever, but nothing does.
And I will continue to visit http://gilest.org/. (surreptitiously) until the Blog Ed's blue pencil or intransigent time puts an end to it.
What?
Oh, I shall read the non technical stuff and look at the pictures.
I'm good at that.

DEPARTURE OF THE PORTUGUESE IN THE POSH OVERCOAT.

On the day that The Pensioner's manager departed I called to the cat Shadow: "Jose Mourinho has left Chelsea! It's been on the news!"
"Well that's no surprise," he said. "Word was out on the roof weeks back."
"Really? Saying what?" I asked.
"Saying that the Portuguese in the posh overcoat had taken to the track suit. 'He's on his way out,' they said."
"Because he'd taken to the track suit?" I jeered. "You're having a laugh."
"Change of image, change of team," he intoned sententiously.
I shook my head. "Come and have some breakfast," I spluttered.
Well, what can you say?

AGATHA CHRISTIE'S MARPLE. (ITV1 Sunday 23rd September)

This time it was At Bertram's Hotel, probably Agatha Christie's most nonsensical whodunnit (discounting anything to do with the ludicrous duo Tommy and Tuppence) and proof that even a very famous mystery writer should have avoided incorporating an institution like Brown's - which I believe was her favourite hotel and the model for Bertram's - into a story without making sure the plot was equal to the location.
Geraldine McEwan's Miss Marple was again completely different from the late Joan Hickson's definitive portrayal. I think the author would have liked Ms. McEwan little more than she liked Margaret Rutherford in the role, but I like her whoever she's playing.
Martine McCutcheon was fine as her volunteer assistant.
Francesca Annis, Peter Davison and the remainder of a hard working cast struggled gamely to make sense of it all and very nearly succeeded.

DOC MARTIN. (ITV1 Monday 24th September)

Martin Clunes is back as the Cornish village GP Martin Ellingham who is sickened by the sight of blood. This is Sunday night fare held over for a day. Daft storylines are rescued by the leading actors (see Monarch of the Glen, Heartbeat, The Royal etc.) and it makes perfect viewing for someone doing the quick crossword.
I like the fact that among the quaint characters, unbelievable love interests and barmpot story lines, Martin Clunes's former hospital consultant rings true if only for his pomposity and rudeness.
As an old boss of mine once said: "The most unbearable GPs are the failed consultants."
He was right, y'know.

WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE? NURSES SPECIAL.
(ITV1 Tuesday 25th September)

There was a large and sympathetic studio audience, doubtless a large and sympathetic viewing public and Chris Tarrant sucking in air through his teeth with a loud hissing noise. None of it helped much. Nerves clearly took over. One nurse won £20,000, two won £10,000 and, if general knowledge was anything to go by, your life was anything but safe in their hands.
Perhaps they were put off by ol' Tarrant's hissing, perhaps it was the sudden realization that they were frighteningly vulnerable away from the security of their hospital specialism, but one of them even had to check with the audience that a contusion was a bruise.
Never mind, they all took the money at the right time.
Hurray for that!

86. One niggling little thing after another

HAVE BEEN NIGGLED BY....

I know I promised otherwise, but it is hard to resist having an occasional niggle when you really are a grumpy old git. Anyway, I'm fed up with midde-aged comics trotting out grumpy old people twaddle on television. Comedians on the box should be funny. If they can't be funny they should keep their traps shut. That's my first niggle sorted.
My second niggle is with the way jargon spouters mess up the English language. I remember the first time I heard the phrase 'at this moment in time.' It was at a meeting of yet another committee of self-important meddlers.
"Do you mean now?" I asked the speaker.
The disapproving look I received suggested I had been caught robbing the offertory.
I became well accustomed to that look over the following years as I dared to question such gems as: 'At grass roots level' ("Are we talking underground here?") 'Madam Chairman' ("Would that be a female male or a male female?") 'I am flying a flag in the direction of...' ("Since flags generally fly towards the rear do you mean you're talking out of your arse?")
Currently one of my pet dislikes is the word "Enjoy" used to round off a sales pitch. If somebody hopes you will enjoy a meal, or a particular experience, or a car, or any other bloody thing, why the hell don't they expand enough to say so? Truth to tell they don't give a toss. Their token "enjoy" means no more than does the token: "Have a nice day."
Niggle three:- Why are Graham Norton and Alan Titchmarsh chosen to present every other programme on television? Do they have hidden expertise in musical theatre, classical music etc. as well as a bit of a talent for listening to celebrity chatter and (in Titchy's case) remembering the Latin names of flowers? Do they have better agents than anybody else? Or is it just that they know where the bodies are buried?
Niggle four:- What twat convinced the directors/producers (whatever) of television competition programmes that the long...long...long...far too long pause between question and answer is 'good television?' It ain't. It's just a pain.
Latest sufferer is that pleasant chap Donny Osmond who hosts the programme Identity where, in a bid to win £10,000, contestants are required to guess the correct identity of a selection of participants chosen from a dozen possibilities.
When the contestant of the day has made a choice (e.g. Flatulence Sufferer From Farnborough), Donny points at the chosen participant and demands something along the lines of: "Number four! Flatulence Sufferer From Farnborough! Is that your identity?" There follows not only the long...long...long...far too long pause (during which the participant is allowed neither to say nor to indicate that the truth - let alone the wind - may be out), but then a silly suspense tune is incorporated to prolong the agony.
I just read my newspaper until Eggheads comes on. Then I get niggled with Dermot Murnaghan all over again.
And don't talk to me about on/off switches - you'll only get me niggled.

HAVE BEEN READING.

Wicked! by Jilly Cooper (Corgi 2007), a story about two schools, their pupils and their teachers. One of the schools is posh and the other is the sort of school I remember. The book is packed with inspired Jilly Cooper names, some new, some familiar to readers of her past fiction, many difficult to place without constant reference to her useful Cast Of Characters.
So is this another niggle?
Nope, this is Jilly Cooper.
This is a darned good read.

HAVE WATCHED.

Open Range, a western with Robert Duvall, Kevin Costner and Annette Bening. Great stuff in the mould of Lonesome Dove. My Leader and I enjoyed every moment. They even had Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore (Michael - now Sir Michael - Gambon) playing the Irish villain. Goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, the entire cast was excellent.
Dog Soldiers, a horror film set in Scotland, starred Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd, Liam Cunningham, Emma Cleasby and a strong supporting cast of squaddies and werewolves. Very British and very, very good.

HAVE BEEN PLEASED AT...

England's soccer performances agains Israel and Russia
"What do you think about it, then?" I asked the cat Shadow as he was leaving to beat the bounds. England were 3 - 0 in the lead against Russia.
"Pretty good," he said. "Now they only have to do the same in Moscow."
"Didn't have Becks, either," I said.
"I noticed," he said dryly. "Seem to remember giving you my opinion on that subject long ago."
"Oh, he'll be back," I said. "You can't leave the likes of him and Rooney out forever."
"Perhaps not. Let's just see how well they do when they meet Germany again," he said.
He can niggle me a bit sometimes.
He does it deliberately.

85. Mostly remembering George Woodman and Pavarotti

GEORGE WAS A VERY POSITIVE INFLUENCE.

The cat Shadow stretched languidly in my Leader's chair, secure in the knowledge that its customary occupant was visiting our solitary (and often unfairly maligned) hospital for an x-ray to make sure the persistent cough with which she has been plagued for several weeks holds no dire significance.
"Were you ever ambitious?" he asked.
"Yeah, I suppose so," I said, "but not for power. I never wanted to rule anybody and I have always opposed anybody who wants to rule me."
"What were your ambitions then?"
"Oh heck, there were loads of them - mostly daydreams - and they changed over the years."
"Go on," he coaxed.
"Well, when I was a kid I wanted to be a newspaper columnist like Cassandra of the Daily Mirror. That was after I got over wanting to be Johnny Mack Brown, the cowboy hero of Flaming Frontiers, or Wilson from The Truth About Wilson in the Wizard comic."
"What happened?"
"Oh, a wise uncle, bit of a negative influence, asked me if I could parse, or do shorthand, or even knew the parts of speech. I was twelve or thirteen and in a wartime elementary school. We were being groomed to be shop assistants, or to unplug sinks on sink estates or something equally useful. We knew there were nouns, verbs and adjectives and how to write 'Dear Sir' and 'Your obedient servant' on a job application form should we ever get to complete one. The wise uncle knew the score even before he asked the questions. He told me to forget a literary career."
"So you went into the army."
"From the age of fourteen until I was twenty six, yes."
"Any ambitions at that time?"
"To see my time out and to complete the correspondence course I'd started when I was about twenty four."
"You've not mentioned that before."
"No, well...it was never going to get me a qualification or a job, but it included a brush-up-your- English introduction from which I learned for the first time about those eight confounded parts of speech. It also acquainted me with the writer George Woodman who was my course tutor and a very positive influence. For a time George was the only Independent member of Whitstable Council. He had a lot of friends and I was fortunate enough to be included among them. We only ever met once, but our friendship by correspondence and the occasional phone call lasted right up until his death."
"Good writer?"
"Oh yes, his novel Taken At The Flood was published by Macmillan in 1957. Darned good yarn. I think it's out of print now, but I saw somewhere that We Remember Whitstable, written by George and his wife Greta and published by Pryor Publications, can still be obtained on the internet.
"So you just wanted to become a writer," he mused and with a glint of mischief in his eyes repeated: "What happened?"
I gave him a decidedly old-fashioned look. "I became a writer."
"I won't argue with that, mate," he said gently, "I don't know what I'd say without you."

AUTUMN LOOMS.

Suddenly it is September, two thirds of the way through the year and autumn looms. (Americans call it the fall, one of the few agreeable modifications they have made to our language.)
I dread it.
We have no trees in our tiny front garden or in the courtyard at the back, but the church along the way has loads of them and the school opposite is not short of them; a couple of gardens further down from our courtyard have them, too.
We find ourselves to be the solitary dead leaf depository for the entire neighbourhood.
So each year I get out and sweep and shovel and swear and, for the umpteenth time, point out to uninterested listeners that we have no trees.
"I do not care," I snarl, glaring in the direction of the church,"whether or not they are holy leaves; they are a ...king nuisance and if my drains get blocked I'll sue somebody."
Most of the time my drains do not get blocked and I don't think a lawyer would advise litigation, not even if they did and I knew who was responsible. However, by the time the last leaf has fallen I am quite prepared to repay what my solicitor would call "An act of God" by suing God.
Meantime, we drive out into the country - a stone's throw away - and admire the russets and browns and yellows and reds of the shrubs and trees in all their breath-taking autumnal majesty. We remark upon their beauty and give thanks for it. We say yet again that we must one day visit New England in the fall and know that we probably never will. And we return home gratefully aware there are billions of fallen leaves that did not come to rest in our garden. But don't tell me that when I'm sweeping the buggers up.

LUCIANO PAVAROTTI.

There will be so much written and said about this great tenor. I never had the good fortune to see him on stage but, thanks to television and film, everybody with any interest in singing knew the big man with the big voice, the big smile and the white handkerchief.
His death at 71 was sad but not unexpected.
His legacy will surely last forever