180. Just a few more candid views.

MAKE WAY FOR THE HIT PERSONS.
(1) Sir Michael Wilshaw.
Give a government long enough to show it is incapable of doing any better than did its predecessors and wait for the trusted establishment hit persons to make their appearance.
Step up new Ofsted head Michael Wilshaw (remember Ian MacGregor? Richard Beeching? Steel? Coal? Railways?) who, clearly of the belief that peacekeeping is for the puny, insulted everybody in his former profession when he told a conference of head teachers: “Teachers don’t know the real meaning of the word stress,” and went on to pontificate about how stressful life was for his father in the Fifties and Sixties, doing long hours in three different jobs and at weekends to support a growing family. (Come back, Norman Tebbit, all is forgiven!)
Stress, he opined, was what he was under when he started as a head in 1985 in the context of widespread industrial action. Teachers were walking out of class at a moment’s notice and he was the sole lunch monitor every day for three years. He was also covering five classes in the sports hall when there was no one to teach them because his colleagues were working to rule.
What a popular little bugger he must have been.
Well, he was in teaching for 43 years (26 of them as a headmaster) and along the way became the only schoolteacher capable of defining stress.
This was not your defusing a booby-trapped bomb or dodging friendly fire from your American cousins sort of stress, understand; nor was it your commonplace trapped down a coal mine sort of stress. Oh no. This was your real life, down to earth, prolonged school dinner duty and people working to rule sort of stress. This was tough stuff.
But he did not, I notice, mention any class of forty plus children which included a large handful of ‘special needs’ cases and more than a dozen different birth languages. Perhaps he managed to ignore classes like that.
No doubt he hastened, too, to make known his loyalty whenever some prick in parliament, advised by the bevy of mostly failed academics that constitutes Ofsted, decided to move the educational goalposts yet again.
HMI have become a byword for crass negativity and this pompous Ofsted mouthpiece did nothing to allay the suspicion that the inspectorate is in dire need of a detached watchdog. Think: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Nobody inspects inspectorates in this country, do they?
(2) Andrew Lansley.
Less to write about here. Beleaguered Health Secretary Lansley tried to convince the Royal College of Nursing’s annual conference that the number of clinical staff in the NHS has increased since the 2010 election, despite the fact that the number of qualified nurses has gone down by 3,000.
He was heckled and jeered for his audacity and RCN general secretary Dr. Peter Carter later made it clinically clear that he and his colleagues thought Mr. Lansley’s comments were a nonsense and patently untrue..
Dr. Carter will be right. Trust me: I was never a doctor, but I paid them.
(3) Theresa May.
Even less to write about here. The Police Federation conference held in Bournemouth gave the Home Secretary a no more sympathetic reception than her unsympathetic address to them deserved. She was, they warned, destroying a police service admired throughout the world.
They, too, were right: but what did they expect from a bloody politician?
TELEVISION.
The Bridge. (BBC4)
A good series which, predictably and appropriately, came to an end on the bridge. I have no idea whether the Danish/Swedish co-producers intend screening more stories featuring detectives Saga and Martin, but I hope they do. They‘ll be daft if they don‘t..
The Mentalist. (C5)
This saunters along effortlessly, enlivened by the occasional con man wisdom of Patrick Jane (Simon Baker). In a recent episode he was talking to a hospitalised gangster and, having ascertained that the man was having trouble getting to sleep, said: “The cure for that is to count one as you breathe in and two as you breathe out.”
Later in the story the gangster confirmed the method had worked for him.
So I tried it. Yep. It worked for me, too.
Phineas and Ferb. (Disney HD)

It is my lot, as a grouchy grandparent, regularly to view whatever tele title is current favourite of the manipulative little remote control purloiner known to me as Little Boo.
Thus far this year I have survived Grandpa in my Pocket, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Tom and Jerry, various loud American kids’ shows and, now, the animated across-the-pond comedy Phineas and Ferb. Daily appearances of this inspired lunacy have so far led to eighty-plus recordings on my Planner list - and that’s before an advertised new series begins.
For the uninitiated, Phineas Flynn and his English stepbrother Ferb Fletcher are a pair of genius boys determined to allay summer vacation boredom by undertaking a mind-boggling series of grand schemes - usually in their back garden - to the intense irritation of older sister Candace Flynn, who is determined, forever unsuccessfully, to “bust” them (i.e. disclose their OTT project) to their unwitting mother, Lynda Flynn-Fletcher.
Meantime, back at the happy homestead, Perry the Platypus - the boys’ pet platypus - who, unbeknown to them, is a secret agent for the O.W.C.A. (Organisation Without a Cool Acronym) heads a cast of weirdly believable supporting characters.
I am completely hooked; which, I think, rather pleases Little Boo.
The Olympics. (All Channels)
Are my Leader and I the only people in the country who are not remotely interested in The Olympics? Be honest, do you hasten to a sports stadium every weekend in summer to watch people fire pistols in the air; run; jump; or attempt to throw something farther than anybody else?
Do you religiously watch athletics, even on television? If you do, you’re in the minority. Once upon a time I did, but the amateur world of Sydney Wooderson is long gone and I have no appetite for field and track professionals.
At the height of inflation, this lot is costing a fortune. Count us out.
Oh, we’re not interested in the bloody Eurovision Song Contest, either,
Thought you might like to know.
LAST WORD
Carmageddon: Reincarnation.

Following protracted negotiation, Stainless Games (the video games company founded in 1993 by Patrick Buckland and our son, Neil) finally recovered the full rights to Carmageddon and a Kickstarter campaign, aimed at supporting the reintroduction of the game to loyal former players and discerning newcomers, is currently underway.
For a man whose son has permanently made a living from graphic art, I must shamefacedly confess my total ignorance of what makes for a good video game. But I am reliably informed that vast numbers of discerning games buyers have enjoyed the car/person/ground-breaking lunacy of Carmageddon since it was launched in 1997.
Stainless are a lovely team and deserve every possible success with their new venture.
Go to: Carmageddon: Reincarnation to learn more from me boy.

179. Potter afterthoughts (plus the usual).

WARNER STUDIOS TOUR.
Further reflections on our April 2nd trip.
There are bound to be afterthoughts; when there is so much to see it is beyond the capacity of a grasshopper mind to register everything and I am easily sidetracked at the best of times. Half a mo…
[Coffee time.]
Now…where was I? Oh…yes…sidetracked and afterthoughts.
For a start, the official guide book - upon which I neglected to comment - is beautifully illustrated, packed with fascinating facts and a must as both a tour companion and a treasured memento. There is also a digital audio guide for hire (choice of eight languages; English version narrated by the excellent Tom Felton) which I’m sure works beautifully for everyone but the techno-nothing old guy. Say no more.
I failed to mention the Ollivander’s setup containing wand boxes labelled with the names of everybody who ever worked on the films. A pleasant young woman showed us around there and impressed by knowing the wand box whereabouts of any cast member mentioned to her.
(Below: Jess and Ellis are on the Knight bus.)

I also overlooked the giant chess pieces, the fantastic card models of Hogwarts and environs, the moving models (monster book, mutant baby Voldemort etc.) and the exhibition of costumes worn by cast members. It was a surprise how tall many of the actors appeared to be: Robbie  Coltrane as Hagrid was one helluva size! At the card model display I asked a young guide, who I gathered had had about three months training, whether he was now au fait with everything on the tour and he said yes, he thought so. I said it would take me a whole lot longer than three months to take in the half of it and he laughed and asked whether we had enjoyed it, though. Well, of course, we had. And that was before we so much as glimpsed the piece de resistance which comes right at the end and is breathtaking. Then to the shop again. Yes, it is pricey, but it’s a special day out, ain‘t it. By the time we came out everybody but my Leader had a souvenir (they really should get some decent sized models of Dobby).
Later, maybe?
Three hours for the tour is a good estimate: we started at 1.30 in the afternoon and finished at 4.20.

(Three happy travellers on Hagrid's bike.)

It was worth every minute.
HOME.
Medina College Music Department Spring Concert.
Granddaughter Jess is a chorister in Medina College Choir which, together with the college ukulele orchestra, steel pans and a small brass section, treated an appreciative audience to an eclectic mix of music at this year’s Spring Concert. My Leader had previously been to one of the choir’s concerts so knew what to expect; I had not and did not. Should have guessed, though. They were a total joy and, saving the best ’til last, their rendition of Toto’s Africa was a tour de force unsurpassed by any arrangement I had previously heard. Superb. There really is not much wrong with the youngsters of today.
Costa Wight.
Here in the sunny south we have enjoyed some Mediterranean style weather. The hedgerows are thick with daffodils and, in a rare spell of sod-the-cost County pride, the Council has had the majority of roadside hedges neatly trimmed. A stately home owner would be proud of them.
There has to be a catch; given council involvement there always is.
Snippet of family conversation.
A local supermarket was selling packets of panties, Roz told Mo, six for £5 if you bought the plain, £8 for the fancy; all cotton; excellent value.
“They’ll have come from China,” I opined. “Everything comes from China nowadays. It‘s the cheap labour.”
“My school pencils come from Germany,” said bright little know-it-all Ellis.
“That’s because the Germans have got all the lead,” I said. “They stole it off our church roofs during the war.”
He thought about that for a moment, then he laughed:
“He’s lying again,” he remarked to his grandmother.
I do believe she may have agreed with him.
TELEVISION.
Titanic disaster. (Most channels)
In mid April 1912, through a combination of bad luck, insufficient lifeboats and overweening imprudence, the Titanic went down killing 1,517 of the 2,223 people on board. 92% of the 2nd class male passengers and over three quarters of all the passengers travelling 3rd class perished. It was that most treasured of all Brit historic happenings, a bloody disaster.
So one hundred years later the story had to be ghoulishly picked over for the umpteenth time and, as if a 3D Leonardo DiCaprio wasn’t enough, former welder and now dance judge Len Goodman weighed anchor with a so-so three part documentary series, a boatload of morbid bonkers-in-the-head souls set sail for the spot where the luckless liner sank, a commemorative musical muse was executed and playwright Julian Fellowes took a classy dive off the Titanic top board to complete an unexpected belly-flop.
I only watched Goodman, who I like because he reminds me of my uncle Bill. Couldn’t be bothered with the rest. Well, I know how it ends.
Silent Witness. (BBC1)
Currently ploughing through series 15 and nothing really changes. Oh, Amanda Burton long ago departed, presumably to stare into space elsewhere, but the remaining forensic pathologists are still poking their unwanted noses into police business and somehow emerging unscathed. They are still led by weird Professor Leo Dalton (William Gaminara) who, not content with losing his wife and children in a hit and run accident early in series 9, has now decided he wants to lose partner Janet (Jaye Griffiths). Don’t bother to ask why. I neither know nor care.
Homeland. (C4)
The American fetish with turbans-under-the-beds has never been more evident than in this finely balanced homage to national paranoia.
Damian Lewis is excellent as Sgt. Nick Brodie, a marine who went missing in Iraq, spent eight years in captivity and has suddenly been set free. Question is: has he or has he not been ’turned’ by the enemy?
Answer is: we shan’t find out. Not in this series, anyway. It has been so successful it is now all set for series 2 and, if it then remains popular…?
I shall continue to keep an eye out anyway. Good, well acted, stuff is always worth watching, even if it clearly is a load of propagandist bilge.
And I still think Mandy Patinkin is at his best when he’s singing.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. (C5)
We have reached Series 12 here. Laurence Fishburne has been succeeded by Ted Danson as team leader. The writers have produced some decent story lines and ol’ Danson has produced a suitably quirky new character. I like it.
Not Going Out. (BBC1)
Back for Series 5 and worth it. Lee Mack, Tim Vine and Sally Bretton, together with Katie Wix, Geoffrey Whitehead and a well chosen supporting cast, seldom falter with Daniel Peak and Lee Mack’s cheerful, occasionally LOL, scripts.
Castle. (C5)
I again make mention of this relatively light-hearted take on an all-too- familiar subject only to say how beautiful is Molly Quinn who plays Alexis, Rick Castle’s (Nathan Fillion) daughter and how delightfully Celeste Holm-like is Susan Sullivan as his mother, Martha. Americans can be such likeable people.
It has been the making of their film industry.
The Bridge. (BBC4)
More subtitled mayhem. A corpse is placed in halves on either side of the border on a bridge between Denmark and Sweden: a joint investigation by the law forces of both countries is launched and the two most incompatible detectives in the whole of Scandinavia are forced into unwilling partnership. The Swedish detective is Saga Noren, a semi-autistic young woman played by Sofia Helin and her Danish counterpart is Martin Rohde, a shambling, happily married man played by Kim Bodnia. Their sole likeness is that both are damn good investigators.
It’s another hit for the Vikings: demands close attention, too. You won’t so much as blink; well, not if you want to keep up with what they’re saying you won’t.
Four episodes in and we are well hooked.
RE:: NEW BLOGGING EXPERIENCE .
Blogger has a new look!
Those cunning kids at Blogger have been at it again. Following protracted warnings (which I should have heeded) they have introduced their completely new streamlined blogging experience that makes it easier for me (they say) to find out what I need and focus on writing great blog posts.
Gawdblessem! I just wish!
Their completely redesigned dashboard - not seen by you unless you have your own blog - will, I’m sure, be welcomed by bloggers all over the world (or, if you are an American, the USA) so I may be a somewhat lonesome dissenter; but the truth is, lovely Blogger designers, I neither like nor fully understand your new dashboard.
And that’s the trouble with change: the older you get the less you want it.
Ho hum.

178. The Making of Harry Potter.

Warner Bros. Studio Tour, London.

Well, we made it. Six of us set off on the 9 a.m. car ferry from the Isle of Wight and, the M25 proving less crowded than daughter Roz (who did all the driving) thought it might be, arrived at Leavesden a couple of hours early for our 1.30 p.m. studio tour.
It did not matter. Everything about this experience, from the free car parking to the well stocked gift shop, is exciting, carefully organised and warmly welcoming. High up in the entrance hall are king-sized photographs of the Potter cast and, safely suspended in one corner, the actual Ford Anglia which Ron and Harry purloined for their journey to school in The Chamber of Secrets. To one side is the gift shop and to the other the studio canteen which serves a reasonable selection of food at reasonable prices.

 You are called for your tour at the allocated time and, passing by Harry’s cupboard under the stairs, find yourself in a makeshift cinema A short introduction then leads up to your first view of the Great Hall, a strangely subdued area bereft of the clamour of wizard students and with neither the hanging candles (apparently a practical nightmare) nor the magic ceiling, both of which were added by CGI.
There follows a carefully constructed meander through the filmic world of Harry Potter: the models, the sets, the special effects and the artistry that went into producing the eight most financially successful films of all time.
Sets on display include Gryffindor Boys’ Dormitory (containing beds which gradually became too small to accommodate the grown-up versions of their original occupants); the common room, where hangs a picture of the young Professor McGonagal; Dumbledore’s office; Umbridge’s ghastly pink lair; the Potions Class; Hagrid’s hut and the Weasleys’ living room at The Burrow which showcases some delightful special effects. If you care to queue for a while you can get to ride on a broomstick or in the flying Ford, a green screen behind you magically pictures you soaring across London or hurtling ahead of the Hogwarts Express.

It’s great fun for kids of all ages.
On the backlot can be seen Hagrid’s motorbike; the three storey Knight Bus; the only section of Hogwart’s bridge ever built (the rest, again, was CGI); the exterior of Privet Drive and of Godric’s Hollow and the Riddle family tomb. You can also buy Butterbeer here; it costs an arm and a leg and tastes like ice-cream soda with a caramel topping, but it's a part of the experience that no true Potter fan will pass up.
The Creature Shop is another revelation. Here the makeup for Griphook the goblin, Greyback the werewolf and the villainous Voldemort was created, a life-size version of Dobby the house-elf was built and the creatures Aragog the giant spider, Buckbeak the hippogriff and Fawkes the phoenix were constructed. The Shop simply reeks of technical genius.
Thence to Diagon Alley. The shops are closed. Apparently they are very much open for business and very crowded in America’s World of Potter. Here you have just a front view of them and none the worse for that.

Ollivander’s wand shop; Weasleys’ joke shop; Gringotts bank: be photographed in front of one of them, absorb the unique atmosphere and smilingly move on.
To the awe-inspiring climax of the tour which, as i editor Stefano Hatfield’s 15 year-old daughter, Holly, wrote on the 30th of March in Britain’s first and only concise quality newspaper, “…actually brought tears of joy to many eyes.” Too right.
Finally there’s the shop again. It’s pretty pricey but there’s some lovely stuff to buy. Sadly, though, no models of Dobby: My Leader was disappointed.
On the positive side: from car park, to reception, to shop and café and throughout the entire tour the staff were patient, friendly and helpful. You can ask no more than that.
You have to book in advance for this treat. If you are a Potter fan and a worshipper of the goddess J.K. Rowling (join the club) go on the internet http://www.wbstudiotour.co.uk/ and do it now!
Grandson Ellis said it was the best day of his life. And that was after he'd been carsick on the way home. Perhaps we should have avoided the A3 during the 4-7pm stop-start.

177. Don't ask...

HOME.
Who is running this country?
So 65 year old former businessman Christopher Tappin and 23 year old Richard O’Dwyer, a Sheffield Hallam University student, have been dealt with in exactly the way the Americans still want us to deal with Scottish hacker Gary McKinnon; by extradition. Mr. Tappin was extradited to the USA in February and, if the Home Secretary has her way, Mr. O’Dwyer will shortly follow him.
Why? Have they broken any of our laws?
If they have, why has our legal system not dealt with them? If they have not, why the hell have we even considered dragooning two British citizens in such a fashion? Are we forever to kowtow to American paranoia? Who is running this country?
I said it way back in Post 132 and I make no apology for saying it again: Sometimes we should simply tell our bullying American cousins to piss off.
Bible bashing bullies.
Something else that seems to have started in the good old US of A is the open intimidation of those entering or leaving so-called abortion clinics. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service’s clinic in Bedford Square, London. has been a particular target recently and now that the tent city fronting St. Paul’s has been cleared, the weather has been good and there’s the usual dross on tele, the number of anti-abortion protesters has magically increased and is reported to be indulging in open harassment of its hapless victims.
Now I do not mind peaceful protest. Everybody has a right to their opinion. But I draw the line when protest is presented in the form of bullying. Matters not how earnestly religious their cause, protesters must not be allowed to intimidate those with whom they are at odds. Bible bashing bullies are no better than football hooligans or protection racket thugs.
The police should disperse them, gently but firmly.
SAD.
So far this year the weather here has been surprisingly clement, which means, as a change from my winter norm, I should be feeling quite chipper.
I don’t.
Oh, I am well aware that Scotland and The North have not fared anything like as well (to the best of my memory, the rain on Fort William only ever eases up long enough to accommodate the snow) but in the subjective world of seasonal depression scant consolation is obtained from open-minded comparison. Rain or shine, winter is winter even when it has been officially designated as spring. It takes more than a show of wild daffodils and the objective reminder that “we’ve had it much better down here,” to dispel the blues.
Next thing you know they’ll be fiddling about with that bloody hour on the clocks again. Phooey!
ABROAD
Really sad news.
The Belgian coach crash in which 28 people, 22 of them children, were killed in a Swiss tunnel, (a further twenty four children were injured, many of them seriously) was surely the most awful accident imaginable.
Back in the mid-fifties when I was in the army and stationed in Germany I was, for military manoeuvre purposes, the sometime troop sergeant of  Belgian Liaison Troop, a position for which, since I spoke neither French nor Flemish, I was the ideal British army choice.
I was very fortunate. Many of my Belgian colleagues spoke English and I was put under the wing of Jimmy Ruisshaert, a Flemish-born staff sergeant, who spoke half a dozen languages fluently. We became friends and I was privileged to meet his wife and children and to spend the occasional weekend at their home. After I left the army, through a combination of moves and mishap, we lost touch. Which was a great pity. I have often wondered what became of him and of his family. They were wonderfully friendly, civilized people. The travellers on that coach will doubtless have been of similar stock.
What a sad. sad world this can be.
TELEVISION.
Upstairs Downstairs. (BBC1)
A bearded Art Malik is barely recognisable and, as might be expected with a new take on an old favourite, nothing is as good as it was and nobody is as good as they were. Sorry, Art.
Whitechapel. (ITV1)
Rupert Penry-Jones’s prim police inspector remained an enigma as little Phil Davis’s brusque, kindly sergeant carried him through another six part series of nutty characters and bizarre murders. Still daft, still watchable.
My Life in Books. (BBC2)
Anne Robinson, back for a second series, was slightly less Rita Skeeter than she was in the first. Her celebrity guests included Pam Ayres, who is still our - and, surely, the nation’s - favourite poet and Phil Davis, who is seldom interviewed on television. As might have been expected from a man who has been directed on stage by Joan Littlewood and in films by Mike Leigh, both proponents of improvisation, he was quick, articulate and interesting. He should brave the interview circuit more often.
My Leader and I liked him.
Frost on Interviews. (BBC Four)
Hallo…good morning/afternoon/evening…and welcome,
Well, you’re welcome to Frost. I never could take to the man. Always thought he was a giftless bore even if he did help unseat Richard Nixon.
One president is just like another to me.
This was a good trawl around the changing face of the television interview, though. Oh, there was the occasional lapse into mutual back scratching with other old chat show hosts, but the examples of how interviewing technique has changed over the years were pertinent and well presented,
The Wright Stuff. (C5)

Tony Blackburn’s courtesy son continues to be the best morning alternative to Jeremy Kyle and who, or what, isn’t? Even if you don’t much like young Mr. Wright, his guests are often top-notch and over the past week have included the singer Michael Bolton, whose recording of If I Could is among the eight discs I would choose to accompany me in the unlikely event I should ever become famous enough to be a castaway on that prized Radio 4 desert island. Mr. Bolton was there to plug his album Gems, which includes Field of Gold, a tastefully arranged duet with the late Eva Cassidy.
Nice man, nice Duets Collection.
READING.
Jo Brand.
It’s Different for Girls was first published in 2005 and has left me puzzling over how a matronly former nurse could prove to be quite so multi-talented. This is a woman who is a successful stand-up comedian, popular guest on shows like QI and, now, an infuriatingly competent writer of modern fiction.
I give up.
FILMS.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
After the magic of Harry Potter (our last film outing) the magic of India was a back-to-earth - but no less captivating - experience. Director John Madden assembled a superb cast (Judi Dench, Celia Imrie, Maggie Smith, Penelope Wilton, Bill Nighy, Ronald Pickup and Tom Wilkinson in particular) and, as is generally the way with the best, they did not disappoint. Neither, in such exalted company, did Dev Patel as Sonny, the young man whose misleading advertisement led them to seek retirement perfection at the Marigold Hotel.
“Everything will be all right in the end,” said Sonny. “If it’s not all right then it’s not the end.”
When we left the cinema everything was all right.
TAILPIECE.
We were sitting in bed. Saturday morning. Tea and toast. Radio 2 playing quietly in the background: Brian Matthew with his impeccably researched Sounds of the Sixties (mostly sounds I would not have remembered the day after I first heard them, let alone fifty years later). It was the weekend. It was routine. It was peaceful.
Maureen unerringly broke the spell.
“Vinyl’s back then,” she said.
Don’t ask.

176. People and a scooter have gone.

HOME.
Half term.
Yep, half term holiday again and I don’t know who feels most free, the pupils or the teachers. We have had a bit of a break without leaving the Island. Enjoyed a pleasant family lunch at daughter-in-law Pauline and son Neil’s new home last Sunday: they, with dog Lotte and cat Hobbes, are settling in nicely. Daughter Jac, Mike and Hannah came from Oxford for a few days. The weather has been kind and everybody seems to have enjoyed the break. It will be over far too soon.
Recklessly exciting, ain’t it?
Perhaps I should get the paints out.
In The Elusive Muse (Post 173) I made mention of a blank screen and the challenge it poses. Truth to tell it’s little different from a blank canvas to an art student or an interviewing committee to an interviewee; it all comes down to presenting the best possible image. Difference is, with the blank screen and canvas there is time to think, to adjust, to amend; with the interviewing committee there is not.
We have never been short of something to say in our house. Long silences, unless accompanied by immersion in a book or radio/television programme, are relatively unknown and indicate something amiss; there is a great deal of lively observation and trivial chatter. Away from home it’s another matter: I was always hopeless at interviews and am still painfully tongue-tied in any sizeable gathering of strangers. The only time I ever empathised with a politician was when an elderly committee chairman of my acquaintance told me: “I once found meself sittin’ next to Ted Heath at dinner. Y’know what? The fella had no social conversation whatsoever.”
“How strange,” I said, and thought: Good on him!
Thankfully, unless I fall foul of the law, I need never be interviewed again. I attend few social gatherings devoid of familiar faces, so small talk poses far less of a problem: I have done no painting for some years and the blank computer screen no longer bothers me: well, not this month, anyway.
Too peaceful? Yeah. Perhaps I should get the paints out.
A warning to others?
Chris Huhne has been required to resign from political office and John Terry is no longer captain of the English soccer team. Huhne is charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice (lying to the law over who was driving his speeding car) and Terry is accused of racial abuse (allegedly shouting “fucking black cunt” at an opposing player). Neither case has yet been proven and neither, to the best of my knowledge, resulted in physical injury to anyone. When it comes down to it, both cases were instigated by hurt feelings. It‘s another world.
Forgive my cynicism, but isn’t politics jam-packed with lying bastards and professional football with mouthy, overpaid, morons? It may appease the protagonists‘ unwell wishers and the omnipresent PC Brigade, but what purpose will be served by litigation? Will it act as a deterrent to others? I doubt it. Might temporarily drive some of them underground, that’s all.
Think leopards and spots, dear reader, think leopards and spots…
Two walked away.
As a result of the John Terry firing, manager Fabio Capello walked away from his England job ostensibly incensed at the FA for daring to act without consulting him. Coincidentally, on the same day the manager of Tottenham Hotspurs, Harry Redknapp, walked away from court a free man after being found not guilty of tax evasion.
Right now Mr. Redknapp is popular favourite to replace Mr. Capello in the top managerial post.
I asked our football affairs expert, the cat Shadow, what he thought: I call him “Our football affairs expert” ironically and feel quite comfortable with the description. It‘s only like some backroom boy on television being described as “Our meals-on-wheels expert” or “Our African tribal dance expert.” You doubt the former could boil an egg or ride a bike and you are downright certain the latter has been no closer to Africa than Whipsnade Zoo, but you expect and tolerate bullshit from television people.
“Ol’ Harry should have been made England boss years ago,” the cat Shadow opined with total conviction. “He could make a silk purse out of a sow‘s ear…and he’ll have to.”
“Yeah, but if he gets the job how long d‘you think he‘ll stick with it?” I said.
“Oh, at least until he’s seventy, providing they give him seven million quid a year plus another ten in an offshore bank account,” he said wickedly.
“You really are a cynical little bugger,” I said.
Departure of a stationary scooter.

Keith-next-door recently sold the scooter that graced his front garden for a considerable time. It failed its MOT and he was about to give it away when a scooter enthusiast snapped it up for a reasonable price. Keith-next-door and his partner, Heidi, were delighted. On the other paw, the cat Shadow was deeply disappointed. His scooter enthusiasm had seen him spending long, long sunny hours asleep on the warm, stationary, comfortable seat from which Keith-next-door never moved him.
Summer for him may never be the same again.
ABROAD.
The Middle East.
Sunshine apart, the Middle East is currently not the place to be. Syria is murderously boiling over and Egypt cannot so much as maintain peace at a soccer match. Right now it’s cold and miserable everywhere in the UK: but so far this year nobody has been killed by government shellfire or in an insane football riot.
Let’s count our blessings.
TELEVISION.
Mrs. Brown’s Boys. (BBC1)
The second series of this uniquely presented Irish comedy has now finished. If you liked the first series you will have liked it and if you didn’t like the first series you probably won’t have watched it; who gives a feck anyway?
We loved it.
Whitechapel. (ITV1)
Rupert Penry-Jones, Phil (“Shake me up, Judy”) Davis and Steve Pemberton make the best they can of what is still a somewhat disjointed premise.
Alex Polizzi: the fixer. (BBC2)
The people who need fixing are generally unfixable: the fixer, a business guru, dispenses simplistic advice. And this ghoul’s eye view of failing businesses conveniently fills another prime time hour with cheap-jack reality television. The popularity of reality remains inexplicable to me.
Body of Proof. (C5)
Is it my imagination or are we witnessing the demise of the male hero in television drama? Here we have Dana Delaney as Megan Hunt, a feisty (rude) female medico involved, in some CSI sort of way, in the crime solving business. Her boss, Dr. Kate Murphy (Jeri Ryan), is the first female Chief Medical Examiner in the history of Phlladelphia and a force to be reckoned with (overbearing). It seems that positive (aggressive) women are all the thing in America today. The words please and thank you do not exist.
Ah well.
Eternal Law. (ITV1)
Not even the excellent acting of a fine cast has been able to convince me that angels would return to earth as barristers. Christ knows what the writers were thinking about.
Call the Midwife. (BBC1)
This has got better and better. Jessica Raine heads a well chosen cast of British actresses in stories based on the late Jennifer Worth’s memoirs.
Any viewer who thinks Miranda Hart is just a light comedienne with a talent for falling down really should think again.
The Great British Countryside. (BBC1)
In this four part series Julia Bradbury and Hugh Dennis started off with Cornwall and made a decent enough job of it. Their next destination is Yorkshire. He is an adaptable entertainer and she has been presenting outdoor television programmes for all of five years. How the viewing figures for their HD screening of rocks and hedgerows will compare with those of Country file (also BBC1), which in the same week had Ellie Harrison and Matt Baker on the Isle of Wight, we’ll have to see. You can’t accuse the Beeb of originality, though, can you? These are identical twins.
READING.
Bill Bryson.
I finished The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid with the knowledge that the kid grew up and moved on and finally stopped eliminating people when he realized he couldn’t tell which of them buy books.
The Thunderbolt Kid had me in tears of laughter over the attempt made by Milton Milton’s father to dive off the improbably high diving board at Lake Ahquabi in Iowa, and near to tears of despair over the lethal inhumanity displayed worldwide by the manufacturers of nuclear weapons.
Bill Bryson (who lives in England) deserves all the accolades that have come his way.
I only say that to avoid being vaporized.
Ian Dillow.
In response to my piece about Ian last month I received an email, headed From one famous person to another, in which he thanked me for the plug but not for the blog and then proceeded to bring my laissez faire reporting up to date. For a start, he had almost forgotten that he was once the PRO for Wessex Regional Health Authority. Seems he left PR behind in the eighties and started on the managerial ladder. Somehow, regardless of experience, his responsibilities mounted. (He was once, for example, the Regional Personnel Officer.) Finally, in the last five years before he retired, he was one of six main board directors at Wessex. He was awarded an MBE in the 2000 Honours for services to health charities.
And, as if that wasn’t enough, he was a JP for 32 years (Chairman of North Hampshire Branch for six) and only parted company with the magistracy when he turned 70 last October.
He still, I gather, doesn't know what he wants to do for a living!
I have an awful feeling I may have been name-dropping after all.

175, INDEX 3 - Posts 152 to 174

Akers, Rev. Graham: 161 Alibhai-Brown, Yasmin: 155, 166, 171, 173 Arbuckle, Roscoe ‘Fatty’: 167 Amstell, Simon: 155 Anderson, Pamela: 153 Armstrong, Alun: 156,158,159 A.S.P. 163 Assange, Julian: 159 Atwell, Hayley: 158 Aubre, Juliet: 152 Ax, Emanuel: 170 Bach, Johann Sebastian: 152 Baker, Hylda: 159 Baker, Matt: 159 Baker, Simon: 174 Banks, DCI: 171 Banks, Leslie: 164 Banksy: 170 Barnden, Dennis: 154,160 Barnden,Lilian:160 Barnden,Maureen:154,155,157,158,160
Barnden,Neil:158,160,161,172 Barnden, Pauline: 161,172 Barnden, Rosalind: 160 Barnden, William: 160,165 Barr, Genevieve: 153 Barry, John: 167 Bartholomew, George: 161 Bassey, Shirley: 167 Bean, Sean: 167 Beaton, M.C: 152,155,156,157,169 Beckham, David: 159 Beeny, Sarah and Graham: 173 Beesley, Max: 164 Bennett, Jan: 161 Bennett-Rice, Ava Rose: 161 Bennett-Rice, Theo 161 Biggles: 163 Bin Laden, Osama: 166 Blake, Sexton: 163 Blanc, Ernest: 152 Blethyn, Brenda: 166 Bocelli, Andrea: 152 Boe, Alfie: 161, 167 Boggess, Sierra: 154 Bolam, James: 156 Bonneville, Hugh: 153,156, 166 Bourne, Jason: 174 Bowker, Peter: 161 Boyd, William: 162 Bradley, David: 152 Brady, Nicholas: 163 Brahms: 170 Brand, Jo: 153 Brand, Russell: 173 Brandon, John G. 163 Britton, Fern: 173 Broadbent, Jim: 166 Brooks, Edwy Searles: 163 Brown, Gordon: 159 Brown, June: 170 Brown, Mrs: 164 Brown, William: 163 Bryson, Bill: 172,174 Buchan, Andrew: 158, 159 Buchan, John: 163 Burke, Matt: 162 Burrows, Edgar Rice: 163 Busby, Matt: 166 Butchard, Stephen: 152 Caine, Horatio: 171 Callaghan, Slim: 163 Cameron, David: 159 Capello, Fabio: 154 Cardby, Mick: 163 Caroline, 161 Carter, Jim: 156 Casey, Anna Jane: 154 Cassandra: 166 Castle: 168 Caution, Lemmy: 163 Chaplin, Ben: 164 Charpentier, Marc-Antoine: 152 Charteris, Leslie: 163 Chesney, Marion: 169 Cheyney, Peter: 163 Christie, Agatha: 161 Clarke, Roy: 154 Clarkson, Jeremy: 173 Coe. Sebastian 164 Cole, George: 154 Cole, Lily: 166 Cole, Martina: 167 Collins, Kevan: 152 Colman, Olivia: 152,166 Columbo, Lt. 168 Conquest, Norman: 163 Coward, Noel: 153 Crawford, Michael: 168 Creasey, John: 163,167 Criswell, Kim: 154 Crompton, Richmal: 163 Cruise, Tom: 165 Cryer, Barry: 166 Cryer, Sgt. Bob: 154 Cumberbatch, Benedict: 152,174 Cumming, Alan: 167 Damon, Matt: 165 David, Ziva: 168 Davies, Russell T. 171 Davis, Geena: 165 Davis, Warwick: 173 Dee, Simon:: 173 Dench, Judi: 162 Dick, Brian: 161 Dickens, Charles: 174 Dillow. Ian: 157,159,173,174 Dimbleby, David: 171 Divo, Il: 167 Dobby: 169 Doctor Who: 166,171 Dooley, Shaun: 166 Doyle, Conan: 152,174 Driver, Minnie: 154 Drummond, Bulldog: 163 Du Beke, Anton: 159 Duff, Blythe: 162 Durr, Jason: 161 East, John: 157 Eden, Anthony: 162 Eisenhower, General: 162 Elliott, Harold: 160 Elliott, Brian: 160 Ellis. Grandson (Little Boo): 158,159,160,161,165,172 Enfield, Harry: 156 EVE: 168 Eve, Trevor: 165 Ewing, Bobby: 162 Falk, Peter: 168 Faraday, DI Joe: 153, 155,162, 166 Farrar, David: 158 Faulks, Sebastian: 163 Fellowes, Julian: 156, 172 Felton, Tom: 169 Firth, Colin: 163 Firth, Peter: 163 Fishburne, Lawrence: 167 Follett, Ken: 158 Forlani, ClaireL 174 Forsyth, Bruce: 172 Fox, Uffa: 167 Fradgley, Keoth: 171 Fradgley, Tim: 171 Fraser, Hugh: 162 Fraser, Stuart: 162 Freeman, Martin: 152,174 Freeman, Morgan: 165 Frost, DI Jack: 166 Gadaffi, Colonel: 163, 170 Gatiss, Mark: 152,174 Gedda, Nicolai: 152 Gervais, Ricky: 173 Gibbs, Philip: 158 Gilbert, Rhod: 156 Giles, Edward: 156 Gilfry, Rod: 154 Gillen, Aidan: 153 Glenister, Philip: 164,172 Gok Wan: 162 Goldberg, Whoopi: 153 Goose, Claire: 166 Gordon, Ruth: 168 Grabol, Sofie: 174 Grant, Russell: 172 Graves, Rupert: 158,168 Gray, Berkeley: 163 Green, Robson: 155 Greenstreet, Sydney: 158 Greig, Tamsin: 162 Griffith, D.W: 167 Griffiths, Richard: 162 Grint, Rupert: 169 Gull, DCS Stewart: 152 Gunn, Victor: 163 Hackman, Gene: 165 Hague, William: 155 Haitink, Bernard: 170 Hall, Richard: 152 Hancock, Sheila: 169 Hannay, Richard: 163 Hari, Johann: 159 Harkness, Capt. Jack: 169 Hart, Ian: 152 Hart, Miranda: 159,161 Hastings, Capt. 162 Hawes, Keeley: 153 Head, Anthony: 155 Heath, Edward: 163 Heather, friend: 155 Helliwell, Arthur: 173 Henshall, Douglas: 153, 163 Henshaw, John: 163 Henson, Gavin: 159 Herdman, Josh: 169 Herman, Jerry: 168 Herriot, James: 174 Hickson, Joan: 161 Hill, Melanie: 155 Hinds. Ciaran: 161 Hollander, Tom: 152 Holmes, Sherlock: 152, 163,174 Hume, David: 163 Hunt, Linda: 174 Hurley, Graham: 153.154,155,157,158,161,162,166,169,170,171 Hurt, John: 155 Hutchings, Geoffrey: 155 Imrie, Celia: 153, 174 Jac, daughter: 156,160,171 Jackson, Michael: 161 Jackson, Philip: 162 Jacobi, Derek: 155 Jalil, M.M.A: 170 James, Bradley: 155 Jameson, Susan: 156 Jane, Patrick: 174 Japp, Inspector: 162 Jason, David: 166 Jenkins, Jim: 156 Jenkins, Kathleen: 173 Jess, granddaughter: 153,157,160,168 John, friend: 157 Johns, W.E. 163 Jolie, Angelina: 165 Jones, Alex: 153 Jones, Suranne: 168 Jordan, James: 159 Jupp, Miles: 152 Kate, Duchess of Cambridge: 166 Keith, Penelope: 173 Kernick, Simon: 172 King Robbo: 170 King, Simon: 157 Kingston, Alex: 166 Kirwan, Dervla: 153 Klass, Myleene: 167 Kunz, Charlie: 165 Kyle, Jeremy: 166 Lancashire, Sarah: 152 Langlais, Jean: 152 Langton, DCS James: 161 La Plante, Lynda: 161 Laurie, Hugh: 153 Lawless, Eamonn: 157,158 Lawless, Libby: 158 Lawrence of Arabia: 166 Lebedev, Evgeny: 157 LeBlanc, Matt: 162 Lee-Potts, Andrew: 161 Lemon, Miss: 162 Lewis, Matthew: 169 Li’l Abner: 169 Lincoln, Andrew: 165 Little, Mark: 166 Littlewood, Dominic: 155 Lockhart, Gilderoy: 162 London, Bishop of: 166 Lowthorpe, Philippa: 152 Lucas, Matt: 161 Lumley, Joanna: 172 Lund, Sarah: 164, 166, 174 Luther, DI John: 168 Lynch, Evanna: 169 Macfadyen, Matthew: 158 Mackenzie, Baz: 166 McAvoy, James: 165 McBurney, Simon: 152 McCallum, David: 164 McCarthy, Joe: 164 McCarthy, DI Patrick Aloysius: 163 McCredie, Colin: 162 McDonald, Trevor: 161 McGrath, Katie: 155 McIntyre, Michael: 161,162 Mack, Lee: 161 McKee. Gina: 153 McKenzie, Julia: 161 McKinnon, Gary: 159 McNeile, H.C. 163 McShane, Ian: 158 Madison, Rex: 163 Magnus, Dr. Walter 164 Mallard, Dr. Ducky: 164 Malone. Gareth: 173 Mandelson, Peter: 164 Manford, Jason: 153 Mangan, Stephen: 162 Marchant, Tony: 158 Marple, Miss Jane: 161 Marshall, Lyndsey: 158 Martin, Anna Maxwell: 163 Martin, George R.R: 167 Martin, Paul: 173 Maslen, Scott: 159 Matekoni, Mr. J.L.B.:168 Melling, Harry: 169 Merchant, Stephen: 173 Merlin: 155, 171 Merton, Paul: 167 Michie, John: 162 Miller, Ben: 161 Mitchell, Hugh: 169 Mo, friend: 174 Moffatt, Steven: 152 Moir, Jim: 161 Moran, Pauline: 162 Morecambe, Eric: 161 Morgan, Colin: 155 Morgan, Piers: 166 Morrissey, David: 163 Morton, Anthony: 163 Mountstuart, Logan: 162 Mouskouri, Nana: 172 Mubarak, Hosni: 162,163 Mugabe, Robert: 162 Murphy, Jimmy: 166 Murray, Devon: 169 Myers, David: 157 Nasser, Colonel: 162 Neeson, Liam: 165 Nesbitt, James: 153, 154 Newhart, Bob: 164 Newsome, Joel: 152 Nilsson, Harry: 152 Nixon, Richard: 166 Norton, Alex: 162 Oakes, Harry: 162 Obama, Barack: 166 O’Carroll, Brendan: 164 Ogden, John: 170 Orwell, George: 164 Ovenden, Julian: 154 Parkes, Shaun: 153 Parry, Bruce: 162 Paterson, Jennifer: 157 Patten, Chris: 164 Peake, Maxine: 164 Pearson, Richard: 154 Pennington, Rt. Hon. Arthur Stukely: 163 Penry-Jones, Rupert: 164 Pepperdine, Vicki: 153: Petersen, William: 167 Phelps. James; 169 Phelps, Oliver: 169 Plater, Alan: 155 Pope, William Arthur & Edith: 160 The Pope 155 Potter, Beatrix: 167 Potter, Harry: 152,158,159,165 ,168,169 Prince Philip: 155, 167 Prince William: 159,166 Pullman, Sandra: 169 Purcell, Henry: 152 Queen Elizabeth II: 155,171 Radcliffe, Daniel: 169 Raisin, Agatha: 152,153,155, 156, Ratner, Gerald: 164 Redman, Amanda: 156 Redmayne, Eddie: 158 Reeves, Vic: 161 Reid, Jackie: 162 Reilly, Kelly: 161 Richard, Eric: 154 Richardson, Ralph: 163 Rickman, Alan: 169 Rigby, Daniel: 161 Robinson, Anne: 163 Rodgers and Hammerstein: 154 Rogan, Rockfist: 163 Ross, Carlton: 163 Ross, Jonathan: 173 Ross, Robbie: 162 Rowling, J.K. 158,159,169,170 Roz, daughter: 161,168 Rush, Geoffrey: 163 Russell, Christine: 165 Russell, Christopher: 165 Russell, Jane: 163 Rutherford, Margaret: 156 Salmond, Alex: 172 Sam, fishing buddy: 153, 154 Sanders, George: 158 Sandon, Henry: 170 Sapper: 163 Scanlan, Joanna: 153 Sergeant, John: 153 Sell, Colin: 166 Severs, George: 171 Sewell, Rufus: 161 Sharp, Lesley: 168 Sheila, friend: 157 Shute, Nevil: 158 Simm, John: 164, 166 Simovic, Marija: 152 Smallbone, Adam: 152 Smith, Alexander McCall: 167,168 Smith, Dame Maggie: 156,169 Smith, Matt: 152 Snape, Prof. Severus, 169 Soward, Maureen: 166 Soward, Pat: 166 Spall, Timothy: 171 Spall, Shane: 171 Sparrow, Jack: 172 Spearritt, Hannah: 161 Spooks, 155 Stacher, Helmut: 161 Stanhope, DCI Vera: 166 Stanton, Andrew: 168 Steele, Tommy: 153 Stephenson, Pamela: 159 Stuke, Neil: 164, 166 Sutcliffe, Tom: 172, 173 Symons, Julian: 163 Taggart: 162, 166 Tara: 171 Tarzan: 163 Templar, Simon: 163 Tennant, David: 166 Terfel, Bryn: 152 The Baron: 163 The Saint: 163 The Toff: 163 Thompson, Emma: 153, 154 Tinker: 163 Titchmarsh, Alan: 167 Tointon, Kara: 159 Tompkinson, Stephen: 171 Travis, DI: 161 True-May, Brian: 164 Turner, Andrew: 156 Turner, J.V. 163 Vaughan, Malcolm: 156 Visnjic, Goran: 154 WALL-E: 168 Walliams, David: 161 Walters, Julie: 162 Warren, Marc: 164 Waterman, Dennis: 156 Watson, Emma: 169 Watson, Dr, John: 152,174 Waylett, Jamie: 169 Webb, Jack: 171 West, Timothy: 166 Whately, Kevin: 155. 165 Whicker, Alan: 161 Whitehouse, Paul: 156 Widdecombe, Ann: 159 Wilde, Oscar: 159 Wilkening, Anne: 152 Wilkening, Peter: 152 Willetts, Greg: 171 Williams, Olivia: 166 Wilson: 163 Wilson, John: 154 Wilson, Richard: 155 Wilton, Penelope: 156, 163 Windsor, Duke & Duchess : 162 Winstone, Jaime: 152 Winters, DC: 162 Wise, Ernie: 161 Wogan, Terry: 156 Wood, Victoria: 161 Woodvine, John: 155 Wright, Bonny: 169 Wright, Matthew: 166 Zailer, Charlie: 166 Zen, Aurelio: 161

174. When Wiki went AWOL

HOME.
Searching for the net.
We’ve had a bundle of trouble contacting the internet over the past few weeks. Don’t know what we did to upset it but neither I, on my antiquated designer Dell, nor my Leader, on her trendy pale green laptop, was able to garner so much as a ‘hallo,’ ‘goodbye,’ or ‘kiss my connection’ for days at a time. I muttered imprecations and spent even more time watching television and tackling the concise crossword.
My Leader rang talktalk and talked talk about it. They finally concluded that it might be the filter. I wondered what the hell the filter was.
My Leader’s friend Mo, a good pal who knows about such things, said the filter plugs into the phone line and she had recently updated hers. My Leader then procured a modified replacement. It gave us three hours on the internet before zilch! I got a fit of the sighs and a slight twitch under the left eye. My Leader got in touch with the talktalk trouble hunters again. At the conclusion of a considerable confab they concluded it could be the router. I wondered what the hell the router was.
My Leader and her friend Mo both knew what the router was. It sits on my desk next to the 19” Hanns.G LCD monitor and it is fronted by a little line of lights which I have always blissfully ignored. One of them - the one labelled internet - was not working. Talktalk said they would send another router. The following day the failed light lit up. It’s fine right now. Won’t cancel the substitute, though; that might just be wholly reliable.*
And we’ve done quite enough searching for the net, thank you.
*New router arrived a couple of days later (much sooner than expected, bless ‘em)) and so far is working wonderfully well. Thanks, talk talk.
TELEVISION.
The Killing ll. (BBC4)

Sofie Gråbøl.
Back in our good old tuppence-a-book library days my father oft remarked that the writers of thrillers and cowboy yarns had but one original story in them; thereafter they just produced the same thing with a different title. That was 70 years ago. Nothing changes.
If you saw The Killing (Post 164 refers), The Killing 2 was decidedly déjà vu. In The Killing there was one decent local politician in Copenhagen trying to do the right thing and being constantly undermined by the treachery of those about him. A girl was killed. All hell broke loose. Enter Detective Inspector Sarah Lund (Sofie Gråbøl). In 2 there was one decent national politician in the whole of Denmark trying to do the right thing and being constantly undermined by the treachery of those about him.
Bring on the female corpse; bring back Sarah Lund and step up the treachery. Same meat, slightly different gravy. You know that Sarah will win and you know she will get no thanks.
Still dark. Still subtitled. Still loved it.
Young James Herriot (BBC1)
Now this was different. Forget tight-fisted Yorkshire farmers and dry-stone walls. This was a naïve but determined young man at a veterinary college in Glasgow in the early thirties. Frankly, it was pretty grim stuff. It was a short series. Don’t know if there will be another. Not sure that I care.
The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff.(BBC2)

A send-up of Dickens who can stand sending up. It was showbiz celebrities doing silly turns in a pantomime way. Celia Imrie (above) was good, but when isn’t she?
The Mentalist. (C5)

So Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) bumps off Red John, is put on trial for murder, talks the jury into finding him not guilty, realises he has not killed the real Red John and off we go again. At least he didn’t come out of the shower having dreamt it all. And he, together with the rest of the team, are still as gloriously unbelievable as ever.
Sherlock. (BBC1)

Another short, mostly enjoyable, series starring an actor with a name that sounds like something off a drug assembly line, Benedict Cumberbatch, and an actor with a name that sounds like a 20th century shoe manufacturer, Martin Freeman. They are perfectly cast as 21st century versions of Holmes and Watson and I imagine the episode entitled Reichenbach Fall has no more brought an end to writer Mark Gatiss’s modern version of the Baker Street sleuth than The Falls did to a disenchanted Conan Doyle’s original.
Series 3 is waiting in the wings.
NCIS (FX)
Series 9 started with a convoluted episode involving yet another sinister fringe agency within an agency so beloved of our more paranoid American cousins. Enough to say that Tony was shot - not dead - just enough to fall on his head and suffer the cliché loss of memory a hero routinely suffers whenever writers want to indulge in flashback storytelling. I think a sinister fringe agency may have been employed to bugger about with the storylines. Don’t know who they are but I wish they’d go away.
NCIS: Los Angeles, (Sky1)
Even with those fine actresses Linda Hunt and Claire Forlani on board, this doesn’t appeal to me. Never has. Oh, it might be Los Angeles but it ain’t NCIS, not now, not ever. Pity, because I’d like to like it.
The Bourne Identity - The True Story. (C5)
This documentary alleged that the CIA, as sinister an agency as any in the world, had brainwashed people into becoming Bourne-type assassins. If that is true - and it certainly came across that way - we have already sunk into Orwellian nightmare and need look no further than America to explain why. Mark you, we must have a fair number of former public schoolboys quite capable of dishing out similar treatment to any aggravating dissident or pleb in this country. We don’t extradite them all, do we?
FILM.
Race to Witch Mountain. (2009)
Why are kids films often better than those produced for adults? In this Disney film a tough cabbie becomes the unexpected protector of two stranded alien children who are trying to reach their rescue spacecraft before they are caught and taken for experimentation by evil American scientists.
It is daft, action-packed, and an easy way to spend 98 minutes of weekend viewing time.
READING.
Bill Bryson.
As mentioned in my last post, I have done no book reading of late, so it was with considerable pleasure that I started on The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. Bill Bryson has long been one of the writers my family rely on as a safe gift to buy me for birthdays or at Christmas. His Dictionary of Troublesome Words (Penguin Reference, 1984) has been a guest on my desk for many years, but I had forgotten just how funny he can be. The Thunderbolt Kid has had me laughing aloud and I am seldom a mirthful reader. More if he ever grows up and I ever recover my composure.
Ian Dillow.
No, the former PRO of Wessex Regional Health Authority and editor of Link magazine has not, to my knowledge, written a book; though he could and should. Last month, however, in response to my name-dropping his name, (not my description, I thought you could only name-drop the famous) he emailed me his editorial judgment on my fleeting, long past, venture into journalism. It was a funny and extremely kind little note and it gave this old bloke a warm glow that had nothing to do with the Christmas cognac and lasted throughout the entire festive season. Thanks, famous person.
LAST WORD.
When Wiki went AWOL.
Bit late again this month, but at least this will give you, kindly reader, something to read on the day that Wikipedia went absent without leave. AWOL is a court martial offence, Wiki, but we miss you and understand your reasons.
So come back tomorrow and we’ll say no more about it, eh?

173. Another year, another muse.

BETWEEN YOU AND ME.
The public sector strike.
I was a NHS employee for thirty two years. Member of two unions: NALGO and a smaller bunch representing Family Practitioner Committee employees. Neither of them ever did me much good, but I recognised that without them things would probably have been worse. They’re all UNISON now, so I suppose they finally twigged that their jealous little divisions made them an employer’s pushover.
I tolerated lousy pay, often antagonistic and unreasonable members of the professions, irate members of the public who believed that public servant was a shorthand term for public convenience and assorted ministers of state who felt it beheld them to keep moving the goalposts to their advantage. Seems none of that has changed.
I put up with it because I hoped that when I retired, the 6 % I paid into the pension fund from my gross salary every month, plus the 8% contributed by the employers would, when added to the scanty old age pension provided by the state, enable my wife and I to manage without state handouts throughout our declining years. It has done - just about - so the buggers at the Inland Revenue have continued to tax me, just in case I become too comfortable.
I never went on strike; back then the country was less crowded and the salaries of top officers in the social services were less bloated than those of today. My sympathy is with the lower paid. More years to work for a smaller reward? On their money? Christ!
The elusive muse.
Back in the days when everything I wrote was knocked out on an old Remington, each new venture would open with a waste paper basket full of false starts. A blank sheet of paper would glare at me from the typewriter and dare me to discover the muse. A tentative first muse would turn out to be counterfeit; a muse not fit to be mused. A second and third would be found wanting because they were too far from, or too close to, the editor’s notion of suitable copy. Eventually an approximation of the muse I sought would present itself and, with constant breaks to correct typing errors, I would set myself to producing a minor masterpiece. Well, you have to hope.
Nowadays two or three typewriters are stashed around the house and staying very quiet lest they go the way of many another surplus-to-requirements old reliable. In their place, the computer screen glares blankly at me, daring me to discover the muse. The wastepaper basket is empty and my editor is me. Never mind the muse, I should be able to cruise it.
But I have a sneaking feeling that a former editor of my acquaintance, who shall remain nameless (Ian Dillow), a man who spent fruitless years trying to persuade me to submit copy that even faintly suited the tenor of his award winning NHS magazine, would register mild disapproval if I became predictable now.
So sod the muse, what’s next? Ah yes…
Amusing interlude.
We were enjoying a leisurely breakfast. Sunday; no kids. Tele on as usual. Fern Britton interviewing singer Kathleen Jenkins. Serious business.
Fern exuding empathy: “And did you feel your voice was a gift from God?”
My Leader snorted. “Well she didn’t get it from bloody Tesco.”
Nearly fifty years of marriage and a laugh every day. Gawdblessyer, darlin.’
TELEVISION.
Gareth Malone.

Despite my frequently expressed dislike of reality television, this young bloke (born in 1975, for those who give a tinker’s cuss about such things) has rewritten the script on people programmes to the point where I have at last found a liking for televised amateur talent. He is an incorrigible creator of choirs. Indeed, when it comes to singing, he can transform people who are tone deaf and paralysed with stage fright into outgoing models of pitch perfect melody. A truly inspirational choirmaster, his successes so far have included persuading the shy, the reluctant, an entire town and two garrisons of army wives to embark on the quest for choral perfection. Right now there is a good chance that Paul Mealor’s song Wherever You Are, recorded by the army wives, will top the charts this Christmas.
In 2010 Gareth Malone was given the Freedom of the City of London.
I’d give him a knighthood.
Jeremy Clarkson.
Well ol’ Clarkson was asked what he thought about the one day strike action held by the public services, wasn’t he? It was on The One Show and he said the strike was great because you could drive around London with ease and it left plenty of room in restaurants. He then, because he was on a BBC show and should therefore ‘present a balanced view,’ said he would take out all the strikers and shoot them - in front of their families. This would surely have been accepted as an instance of his customary schoolboy humour had he not also remarked that he avoided travelling by rail because of all the hold-ups caused by people jumping off railway bridges to commit suicide.
Oh dear oh dear. Whether he was put up to saying it or not, what a twat!
The outcry about it has been out of all proportion, of course, but you’d think these media types would glean something from the likes of Ross and Brand and the late Simon Dee, wouldn’t you?
I’d give him a kick up the arse.
Whose idea?
Incidentally, is there a solitary producer, director or unsung programme maker in the whole of television blessed with a single original idea?
Latest carbon copy programme to appear is The Manor Reborn (BBC1), a house restoration documentary already done - very competently and almost to bloody death - by Sarah Beeny and her husband, Graham, in their two series of Beeny’s Restoration Nightmare (Channel 4).
The Manor Reborn features Penelope Keith (To The Manor Born) and Paul Martin (Flog It), two personable and proficient presenters. They’ve done their best to drum up some interest in the project, but, without the brooding malevolence of an East Yorkshire councillor contriving to scupper their plans, they really had no chance. Whose prosaic idea was this?
I’d give him (or her) the same treatment I’d give Clarkson.
Life’s Too Short. (BBC2)
Apparently Warwick Davis inspired this sitcom written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Looked in briefly but the title says it all.
READING.
Currently I am reading The Independent on Mondays and i for the rest of the week. I’m a bit careful about paying out more than that to skip through a few decent articles and do the concise crossword. Still enjoy Yasmin Alibhai-Brown having a go at just about everything and Tom Sutcliffe’s measured views on the television scene. My book reading is nil since the last post. Perhaps I need the same treatment I’d give Clarkson.
AND TO CONCLUDE…
The cat Shadow has taken to following me around. I don’t know where he gets it from, he was born long after Arthur Helliwell departed. It must be something to do with winter. I’m warmer than his box when the heating goes off so he lands on my lap at every opportunity. Trouble is, if I don’t adjust him he sends my legs to sleep and when I do adjust him he makes plain his displeasure. Sometimes I feel like giving him the same treatment I’d give Clarkson. He’s on the little table alongside my desk now, though. Curled up peacefully and sound asleep. Well at least there’s no poetry.
MEANTIME…
CHRISTMAS!
The greetings cards from lovely, efficient, organised people have started to arrive, I am in my customary state of festive goodwill and don’t-know-where-to-start panic and this could be my last post before the magic day or, for that matter, before the end of the year. So I take this opportunity to wish:
Whoever you are, dear reader, and of whatever persuasion you may be,
A HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND A PEACEFUL AND PROSPEROUS 2012!

172. Winter and Watching...

HOME.
More about Watching...
Since blathering on about the format of Watching…(at the end of Post 170), my attempts at an alternative have come to naught. I have dabbled, but been unsuccessful, with a move to Google Chrome (it started to become too much of a palaver for a man who rings for a mechanic if the car doesn‘t start) and I was magically visited for a week by alOt, which intrigued me because I had no idea it was coming - or would so quickly go. It was quite nice while it lasted, though. The net result has not been entirely zilch. Somewhere along the way I managed to lose my blog picture. The solemn little snapshot eventually summoned up to replace it has me looking like a Parkhurst escapee, but it will have to do until son Neil’s happy holiday collection can be raided; he and Pauline have just moved house again so lord only knows when that will be.
Meantime…
It would seem the blog is still visited, for whatever reason, by somebody out there. Last week I received an email from a chap who wanted me to know how much he enjoyed barnden.blogspot.com/ in general and my last two posts in particular. I was pleased to learn that my meanderings continue to inhabit the ether and, initially, slightly flattered that a stranger should take the trouble to remark glowingly upon them.. However, it turned out he was another company rep seeking to involve me in some way with his business and when I cleared out my Outlook Express his message got lost. Pity, because I did mean to answer it. Gathered his company was based in Limassol, Cyprus. Never mind, if he had really read the blog he would know I don’t join things of which I know nothing. If I did I would have done it last year. Heck! I could have had a new pair of slippers then: gratis. No, I avoid any involvement outside my comfort zone. This chap did not offer any inducement, but timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. Nice email, though.
That bloody hour!
Yep, that bloody hour again. Autumn and the clocks went back. I am now waking up at six thinking it must be seven and dozing off halfway through QI because it comes on at 10 pm, which will remain 11 pm to me for at least another month. Is this really just for Scottish farmers? And if it is, will we still be governed by it when Alex Salmond gets self-rule for Scotland?
TELEVISION.
Hidden. (BBC1)
Philip Glenister apart, this convoluted four part conspiracy twaddle should have been kept hidden.
Joanna Lumley’s Greek Odyssey. (ITV1)

Lovely Joanna swans around Greece meeting fascinating people and being the most gracious ambassador at large England never had. Everybody and everything enchants her and everybody and everything is enchanted by her. Fortunately none of her outings (Aurora Borealis, Nile and now this) has lasted long enough to cloy. Short and sweet. Way a documentary series should be, It was nice to see Nana Mouskouri again, too: still singing and still, like Joanna, a quality act.
Strictly Come Dancing. (BBC1)
Nothing about this reality romp has changed (except the Sir before Bruce Forsyth’s name and I don’t count that). The professional dancers are still consummately professional, their choreography is still marvellous, the celebrity contestants are still increasingly difficult to choose between, the costumes are still stunning, the orchestra is still superb and the joker in the pack is still much in evidence: this year in the rotund shape of Russell Grant. We’ll watch it right through. Well, it’s a conversation piece, ain’t it.
Downton Abbey. (ITV1)
This came to the expected tear-stained conclusion: writer Julian Fellowes carefully rounded everything off with enough loose ends to ensure another series. That’s it, except to say that Tom Sutcliffe summed it up better and at greater length in The Independent on Monday 7th November. Worth a quid of anyone’s money.
As for the rest...
Y’know, I don’t much care about the rest right now. Whether it’s age, or winter depression, or just too much of a not too good thing, my television viewing has of late become desultory. Oh, I still enjoy QI and Have I Got News For You and Merlin and suchlike, but I do not hesitate to abandon most of the rest for more important things like filling the dishwasher or making a cup of tea.
Perhaps it is a prolonged sulk brought on by the inexplicable popularity (to me, anyway) of so much cheap-jack reality rubbish. This starts with a plethora of antique (which we used to call junk) dealer programmes, goes on to encompass the finding, buying, selling, inspection and repairing of houses by and for people I have neither met nor wish to meet, and is rounded off by an avalanche of cooks (calling themselves chefs) eager to instruct me in the art of cooking with panache and too much butter. There follows the constant line-up of publicity hungry masochists waiting to (1) show me they can eat crap in a jungle, (2) cook for - and cheerfully hate - each other in their own homes (while a loud-mouthed voice-over makes sarcastic comments); (3) enjoy a competition where a self-proclaimed ‘food nutritionist’ bellows that cooking does not get any harder (as if he knows) and shovels food into his mouth like a hungry gannet; (4) be patronised by a bunch of millionaires who may or may not wish to throw a sprat to catch a mackerel and (5) get themselves fired by a bullying little sod who badly needs a shave.
Anybody for a cuppa?
READING.
A backlist…
Perhaps it is age, or winter depression, or even just too much of a very good thing, but my reading has fallen behind, too. On my ‘just started’ list I have Simon Kernick’s The Crime Trade, and Bill Bryson’s The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid, while on my bedside table resides a looked-at-the-first- page-or-two-may-never-get-any-further pile which includes Life of Pi, One Day and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. More on one or the other - or even all - of them if and when I ever find the inclination and the damned time.
FOOTNOTE.
Fellow feeling.
My Leader was recently sent a box from Amazon containing a small model of Jack Sparrow for Ellis. The box was big enough to hold the entire set of Pirates of the Caribbean and Jack was surrounded by enough wrapping paper to make a sizeable gap in one of the rainforests along the river after which Amazon is presumably named.
The cat Shadow, who over the years has disdainfully declined just about every designer cat bed known to man, decided that the box and its brown paper packaging was the ideal relaxation spot for a discerning moggy. He took it over. Now, when I am not in my armchair, he spends long days in it. Seems, though, that I am not the only one affected by dark day depression. Once I am settled in my chair he comes quietly and joins me. I don’t ask him why. Reckon it’s fellow feeling. We both get fed up in winter.

171. Thank gawd I don't have a deadline.

254 OBA Reunion 2011.

Last year this pleasant get-together of vintage Royal Signals boy soldiers, together with their wives and partners, was held at the Ramada Tamworth (Leics.) Hotel. (Post 156 refers) This year it was at the Aspect Hotel, Tamworth. Same place. I have no idea why the name was changed, but presume it may be, as Jack Webb said in Dragnet, to protect the innocent. Whatever: the nice young people (anyone under fifty is young to me) staffing the place were mostly courteous, concerned and competent. Less so in the kitchens where nobody seemed to know how to properly roast a potato or to have any intention of frying an egg;. Perhaps they were worried about the customers’ cholesterol levels; this is, after all, a nanny state.
We drove up to Oxford on Thursday 29^th September and stayed overnight with our daughter Jac. She took us to dinner at the renowned Magdalen Arms (a nice pub) and we basked again in the warmth of a daughterly welcome and the inexplicable magic that is the city of dreaming spires. On Friday we made it to Tamworth; a leisurely trip on mainly far from leisurely motorways. At the hotel we were given the keys to a room. Twin beds. I gently demurred. We have been married for forty nine years and understand not the concept of twin beds. A nice receptionist fixed it. The double room we were given in its place was situated directly behind the kitchens from whence came no roast potatoes or fried eggs but did come the incessant blast of a large fan. It was like having a tent on the hard shoulder of a motorway. We were not about to complain again. It was the hottest autumn week anyone could remember and we had to have the window open the entire four inches permitted by the burglar proof locks; but a nice lass had done her best to settle us in and we could ask no more than that.
On Saturday 1^st October there was an arranged coach trip to the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire where a brief service was held hallowing and dedicating a bench and memorial tree to the OBA and, at the same time, remembering all long and recently departed members, especially founder member George Severs. The trip coincided with a visit by over 10,000 bikers to the arboretum. Seems they do the ride annually to show their support for the armed forces, and they give thousands of pounds to the arboretum and to the Royal British Legion. Lovely people.
We returned to the hotel for dinner and the opportunity to take in the latest version of old friends’ reminiscences. Funny, but even when you remember the incident concerned, your memory of it seldom matches that of the storyteller. Well, the police have difficulty finding a reliable witness among people asked to recall something that happened only minutes ago, so what the hell can you expect after 60+ years?
The sun continued to shine all the way back to the Island on Sunday 2^{nd Oct.} . I drove at what seems to be the normal motorway speed nowadays and we made it comfortably to Pompey in four hours. Far too much traffic and (though I know Yasmin Alibhai-Brown would not agree) far too many people. But I’ve said all that before.
HOME.
Floating to the dentist.

No, we weren’t on anything, we literally did float to the dentist. It all came about when, a few months ago, our old friend and long time family dentist, Keith Fradgley, retired from the Ventnor practice he shared with his son Tim and their associate, Greg Willetts. Word was that a replacement would be hard to find, not only because Keith was a vastly experienced dental surgeon, but also because he was one of a dwindling number on the Island still willing to provide decent treatment under NHS arrangements.
My Leader acted. She saw a notice in the local press that the University of Portsmouth Dental Academy was looking for volunteer patients prepared to submit themselves for treatment by suitably supervised dental students and she signed us on. Thus came about a succession of trips across the Solent to William Beatty Building in Hampshire Terrace, Portsmouth.
It has been a splendid and reassuring experience. Maureen has received treatment at the hands of several young trainees, all of them careful and gentle and likeable. She has two or three more sessions to go and is totally sanguine about them. I needed only the ministrations of a dental hygienist and she turned out to be the lovely Tara. Lucky old me. My course of treatment is now complete and we have word that Keith’s practice has at last found a successor prepared to brave the current bunch of NHS bureaucrats. Brave new dentist. So it is back to regular check-ups at Ventnor and goodbye to the forays afloat. My sincere thanks go to Portsmouth Dental Academy and all who staff it. A great team.
TELEVISION.

Timothy Spall Back at Sea. (BBC4)
Good ol’ Tim, accompanied by wife Shane, continues to chug around Britain in The Princess Matilda. He makes the odd mistake, gives way to the occasional string of profanity, is obviously popular wherever he goes, and we are all one hundred percent on his side.
So, it seems, is The Queen.
This was a short series. There has to be at least one more.
We and The Queen look forward to it.
Question Time (BBC1)
I ignored my better judgment and looked in on David Dimbleby’s programme again It was a special about 9/11. After half an hour of political people talking at, rather than to, each other, I gave up. My Leader is right. Their talk changes nothing: none of them ever listens.
It is also the case that my patience, long ago grown thin, grows perceptibly more so as time goes by.
Of course the nigh on 3,000 victims of that attack on America did not deserve to have their lives cut short: but neither did the 62,000+ civilians killed during the blitzing of Britain in the Second World War, or the “at least 132,000” civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last ten years, or the millions of civilians slaughtered in conflict all over the world since our last war to end all wars came to an end.
Life is not fair. The scum will always rise to the top and the cavalry will never arrive on time. Politicians and profiteers are happy for it to stay that way. Why else would there be such carnage everywhere?
Get used to it. I cannot see it changing in my lifetime. Always hope it will before our grandchildren get to be my age, but doubt it.
The Secret World of Whitehall. (BBC2)
A fascinating glimpse into the world of faceless mandarins and special professional advisers (for none of whom have we voted) who unquestionably run this country.
Without them parliament really would become Lord of the Flies.
Doctor Who. (BBC1)
Another series over and the absence of the writer who created most of the characters has become ever more noticeable. That Torchwood crowd must be on cloud nine. Turns out the doctor had to die if he was not to die and that’s what he did. He then took off, suited and wearing a rather snazzy ten gallon hat. With any luck he’ll find Russell T. Davies before the next series is due to begin.
DCI Banks. (ITV1)
The reliable Stephen Tompkinson is back in another detective series. Not bad, but barely on a par with George Gently and way behind Foyle’s War.
Doctors. (BBC1)
This lunchtime soap is to general practice what the Asp was to Cleopatra. Current storylines - in which doctors and staff of The Mill Health Centre dodge in and out of the homes and lives of patients like demented stalkers - have included the sort of Agony Aunt counselling by a practice nurse that would not have been proffered by even the greenest nursing auxiliary, a burglar caught up in a wife’s retaliation when she discovers her husband’s infidelity and - running like an unmarked black van through it all - a rogue CSI man who commits murder, knows exactly how to clean up the crime scene, and has planted evidence to frame one of the doctors. It’s enough to make Horatio Caine forswear his sunglasses.
Merlin. (BBC1)

Never mind the departure of Doctor Who. Episode 1 of Merlin did not disappoint: there was sorcery, suspense, derring-do and a cliffhanger ending. Yep, he’s back! Hooray!
READING.
Graham Hurley.
Finished Permissible Limits still aware that I am unlikely to become a best selling thriller writer, but almost convinced I could fly a P-51 Mustang. Mr. Hurley can have that effect on you. You will have to buy the book to discover what I mean.
FOOTNOTE.
With the to-ing and fro-ing and an absence of prompting from the cat Shadow (who took advantage of the sunny weather to pose on the scooter in next door's front garden) I am late with this post. Thank gawd I don't have a deadline.