194. Still slightly adrift.

MAINLAND.
Sinister forces.
I have long pooh-poohed the implication - furthered by innumerable US television cop and spy dramas - that America (together with any country that may be defined, vaguely or otherwise, as one of its allies) is under constant threat from sinister forces in kaftans, turbans and shoes with upturned pointy toes.
Now there has been the Boston bombing which killed little Martin Richard, followed last week by the savage murder of Drummer Lee Rigby at Woolwich.
In the face of such gratuitous brutality, what on earth can one think, say or do?
Well, apart from expressing how much one abhors the perpetrators and sympathises with every one of the relatives involved, very little.
I suppose anyone who questions the existence of a vast organisation hellbent on world domination (al-Qaeda or whoever) has to ask whether the instantly identifiable people who committed these atrocities were under instruction from such an organisation, or were simply individual fantasists seeking their own twisted glory.
I think probably the latter.
I regret (but can conjecture why) the police refrained from putting them six foot under, but trust they will spend the remainder of their sick lives in maximum security prisons. In the meantime, knee-jerk attacks on peaceful Muslim individuals and communities must cease, as must the constant demand on them to apologise for the sins of their lesser brethren.
If all religions were forced to seek forgiveness for the sins of their fallen members, every one of them would be in a state of constant apology.
Bully boys cannot be allowed to run riot, whatever their colour or creed.
Speaking of which…
Last Monday in i the columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown reported that since the Oxford sex abuse case and the slaughter of Drummer Rigby she has been receiving letters (some adorned with swastikas, others with pictures of Enoch Powell) containing “words of such odium that it felt as if acid was burning my hands.”
Her heinous crime? Simple. In a world where Johnny Foreigner can no longer be silenced by the threat of a gunboat, she is an unflinchingly outspoken Muslim.
Oh dear oh dear. How very dare she.
But this is a woman who only speaks her mind; she neither preaches hatred and sedition, nor supports those who do. And, the PC Brigade notwithstanding, are we not still supposed to be a country where freedom of speech is a right and common courtesy the norm?
So, no matter how little we relish another’s views, should we not respect his or her right, within the law, to express them? The ‘proud Britons’ who sent those shitty missives to Mrs. A-B have clearly not learned the cardinal rule of being a true Brit.
Fair play.
But why would they? Shits write shit. And usually join shit organisations like the BNP.
Which brings me to the average elderly Brit’s inborn dislike of a cosmopolitan society. We have long been multi-racial in this country and there’s no turning back. Even the most determined isolationist cannot fail to see that. No good moaning. Learn to live with it.
Or, in modern parlance, suck it up!
ISLAND (OF WIGHT).
More cat chat.

The cat Shadow was nicely settled on a plastic-bag atop the seat of his favourite armchair - a regular spot nowadays - and appeared to be sound asleep when, of a sudden, he said:
“David Beckham has hung up his boots then.”
I struggled my electric recliner into an upright position and stared across at him.
“Thought you couldn’t be bothered with football any more.”
“Oh, I can’t,” he said. “But ol’ Becks is world news, ain’t he? He’s not just football news.”
“By which I take it you do not see Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement as world news?”
“What? The boot kickin’ Scot? Na-a-ah, he’s just football news - and Manchester football at that.“
“Well they did win the Premiership again,” I said. “You’ve got to give it to the man, his team has a mightily impressive record.”
There was no response except for a gentle cat snore to inform me the chat was at an end.
He never did like ol’ Fergie.
TELELAND.
More comings and goings.

Scott and Bailey (that wonderful pair Lesley Sharp and Suranne Jones) together with their no-nonsense boss DCI Gill Murray (Amelia Bullmore) have now completed the eight part Series 3 shown on ITV and are on blissful good terms again. As it happens, though, I know a lot of old (male) coppers and - if they could be bothered to watch - they would wet themselves laughing at the idea of a police department run by a team of suffragettes. I blame the Americans (see Body of Proof, The Mentalist, Castle, etc.) but I have long blamed them for everything. Why not? They brought bloody chewing gum over here during the war.
I cannot be sure they were responsible for the convoluted storylines in the Dr.Who series which has just finished on BBC1, though; but I do suspect the writers have been producing what they imagine may be acceptable in the US. Anyway, young Matt Smith appears to be signing off as The Doctor (to go to America, perhaps?) and in the final episode we caught a glimpse of John Hurt: make of that what you will.
I’m a bit beyond caring about most tele stuff right now. Still can’t abide either the contestants or the presenters on most reality shows (The Apprentice, Four in a Bed, MasterChef and Perfection are prime examples) and even begin to tire of all the CSI stuff. Just how many “the only one of its type in the tri state area, the entire country, anywhere in the world, or the whole of the universe” can these people keep finding? OK, so it makes the crooks with bad foreign accents easier to catch in the space of an hour including adverts. But it’s lazy scriptwriting.
Fortunately there is still a little light relief to be found.

On Channel 4, the excellent Peter Kay’s The Tour that Didn’t Tour - Tour gave us the biggest laugh we have had this year. That man is magic.
We have also quietly enjoyed Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries Series 2, even if episode 13 (the last) did somehow get lost from our Planner. Alibi has just started a rerun, so we’ll see it eventually.
And then there was Murder on the Home Front which was pretty much CSI: Foyle’s War. I enjoyed that.
FILMLAND.
Epic

It being half term we took little Boo to see this animated film directed by Chris Wedge who also directed Ice Age.
Epic was totally different from the Ice Age films but no less a value production. Any film that keeps an eight year old boy glued to his seat for nigh on a couple of hours has to have a good plot and a lot of action.
Not as funny as Ice Age but we all enjoyed it.
BOOKLAND.
Pam Ayres.

The Necessary Aptitude, A Memoir, (Ebury Press) first published in 2011, is a beautifully written autobiography. My Leader has read it. I’m about a third of the way through: Pam is still at school and her childhood memories keep taking me right back to mine.
Maureen and I may be rediscovering the past for months to come.
And as if to prove that good books can, like buses, arrive in pairs:
Graham Hurley

I am two-thirds through The Perfect Soldier (Macmillan) first published in 1996. This is set in Angola and Molly Jordan’s reckless son, James, has died in a minefield. Her life in chaos, she flies out to the war torn country determined to discover the whys and wherefores of his death. Andy McFaul, the battered ex soldier and mine clearance expert who recovered James’s body, is not initially the most sympathetic of allies…
Mr. Hurley’s Angola has me well and truly hooked.
I’m just so glad I never had to go there.
SEEKING LAND.
Still slightly adrift.
The late finish to my May post is down to an intermittent fault that has bugged the old Dell of late.
The computer lifeboat captain has been notified and I believe he may be launching the lifeboat.
I shall try to publish this before we sink.

193. Madness, sadness, sanity and cheer.

ACROSS THE POND.
Madness and sadness.
Why do the cowardly lunatics who carry out bomb attacks always pick on folk least deserving of their insane hatred?
Taking part in a marathon for charity calls for stamina and goodness of heart. The thousands of amateurs who devote their time and energy to such causes are among the best of humankind; people determined to do some good in the world. Any attack on them, or those who support them, is unforgivably evil and anyone who undertakes such an attack is a sociopathic waste of space.
An eight year old boy was among those killed in the Boston bomb blasts; a happy child waiting near the finishing line for his father to complete the run. The swift unmasking, pursuit and gunning down of the perpetrators may provide a satisfying outcome to many, but it will not bring back poor little Martin Richard or lessen the grief of the family left to mourn him.
By the same token an admirable attempt, by President Barack Obama, to introduce new legislation limiting the buying and ownership of guns in America was defeated in the Senate. That bloody gun lobby again.
So the current plethora of bereaved US families clearly matters not a jot to their weapons industry. Well, why would it? There is no sentiment in business and certainly none in that avaricious, death-dealing trade. They must be longing for Kim Jong-un or somebody - anybody - to start another world war.
AT HOME…
A quick thank you.
Pleasant messages provided footnotes to my last two posts. OK, so they came from my Leader’s niece, Dawn (mainland domiciled), and from island-based friend Anonymous John. The two have never met, but I guess their comments make them members of a somewhat select club and I am grateful for their support.
Cheers, you two.
ON THE MAINLAND.
What a palaver!
I liked neither Margaret Thatcher nor her acolytes, so kindly disposed Conservative friends who asked whether I saw the funeral did, I fear, obtain an abruptly negative response.
Oh, I know many of them thought she was the bee’s knees.
“She got things done,” I was once advised, loftily.
My reply was brusque then, too:
“So did Hitler.”
Well…along with mining and most British industry…it’s all over now.
What a palaver, though!
COMPUTERWISE.
No sooner the word.
Another session of weird happenings on my elderly computer resulted in an email to our son which went along the lines of:
“Hi Neil - Some cheeky bastard has managed to post a bunch of adverts on my blog. Any idea how I can get rid of them?”
This was followed by a telephone conversation where it was established that the offending adverts had somehow infiltrated my blog post list but were not visible on the published blog and that a last ditch attempt to rectify the situation, by disconnection of the mains plug, had resulted in absolute failure of the computer on/off switch.
The old Dell was dead again.
"I thought that switch was the trouble…I’ll be over in my lunch break,” said the computer lifeboat captain.
The confounded computer instantly sprang back to life.
True to his word, though, our rescuer arrived. He sat with a sandwich and a cup of tea and went to work; in no time at all he found the program (who thinks up these daft spellings?) responsible for the adverts and got rid of it. He also went to town on the myriad minor games and space stealers cluttering up the works. When he finished I was still custodian of The Chamber of Secrets, still held captive The Prisoner of Azkaban, had lost Finding Nemo and had parted company with assorted games that I could not remember seeing or playing.
For a couple of days after he left everything moved a little bit faster: Windows…Google…the hands on the clock…my chair…everything!
Then, a couple of nights back, the screen started turning itself off and on. Don’t know why. I shan’t bother the computer lifeboat captain yet.
Could be just tiredness: mine and the computer’s.
Ho hum.
BACK TO THE BOX.
Comings and goings.
If I had a system that would record half a dozen programmes and allow me to watch yet another, all at the same time, there are evenings on television when I could be using the lot. There are also entire prime viewing hours when there is such a paucity of anything worthwhile to see that Planner becomes an absolute necessity. Oh well…
Game of Thrones is back, with many of the good, the bad and the ugly still in evidence. Grimm came back, and Castle and Dr. Who and (all too briefly) Foyle’s War.

We have also been impressed by Endeavour, played by Shaun Evans (above right) a nineteen sixties return to the Morse saga wherein a young Morse’s early sleuthing abilities are recognised and nurtured by the excellent Det. Inspector Fred Thursday (Roger Allam - above left).
Apart from Foyle, the departing series we shall most miss is Person of Interest, a premise so implausible it rings true. Jim Caviezel (below right), playing John Reese and Michael Emerson (below left), playing Harold Finch, are perfectly cast as are Taraji P. Henson and Kevin Chapman as their - initially unwilling - police helpers. Great viewing.

AND LASTLY.
Almost a couple of conversations
Children in grandson Ellis’s class (7 - 8 years old) are now being given the opportunity to take swimming lessons in school time. Following assembly on Monday mornings they are taken to a popular Island swimming pool for tuition. The whole session takes about a couple of hours and Ellis loves it.
“But if it’s over before lunch,” his grandmother just had to know, “what do you do when you get back to school?”
“Lessons,” he replied with a shrug.
She, bless her, was suitably disarmed. I am made of sterner stuff.
“What lessons, buddy?” I inquired wickedly. “Pythagoras? Euclid?”
He eyed me for a moment and his eyes shone as he delivered the riposte:
“No-o-o-o, Boo, it’s not Hogwarts.”

We had four days of sunshine - which could be our entire summer - so I took the opportunity to go hatless on my afternoon jaunt to collect the little buddy from school.
He bustled across the playground, peering up at me with his head on one side and a speculative expression on his face.
“You’re white, Boo,” he said. “I hadn’t noticed that before.”
I accepted his book bag and his empty lunch box, in the way that a dutiful elderly retainer does, puzzling the while, vaguely, whether racism had finally become part of the modern primary school curriculum.
Sensing my confusion, he said: “Your hair…it’s white…I hadn’t noticed ‘til now…” then, tilting his head the other way and clearly bent on accuracy, he added: “Not that side, though. You’re still grey that side. You’ve just gone white this side.”
I grinned and shook my head. Well, what can you say?
As we set off for home I think I may have glimpsed, way away in the sky over the school, the flying figure of a departing Peter Pan.

192.Yet more arrivals and departures.

HERE ON THE ISLAND.
The elephant in the room.

As mentioned in Post 191, during the course of a major reshuffle we transferred my computer (daughter Roz and I transporting the entire complicated contraption in one Laurel and Hardy manoeuvre) down from the first floor to my re-sited office desk in the dining room. The move went very well and the computer did not sulk.
In this house, though, computers represent the modern technological age; a topic upon which few people are less well-informed than your technology cursing correspondent. So when, of a sudden, the Barnden Snr. computer ship started to founder, a SOS was sent by house phone (I can never remember how to switch on the mobile) to son Neil who, recognising the seriousness of the situation (and with the promise of his mother’s freshly cooked cheese scones twitching at his nose), made haste to launch his computer lifeboat. Our rescue was swift and painless: the elephant in the room was the mouse.
Now it never crossed my mind that the Microsoft Wireless Mouse 5000 I was using was not constructed to last forever: the year of manufacture was 2008 and that is barely more than yesterday to me.
In the event…
I replaced the offending object with a Microsoft Wireless Mouse 5000 (New Packaging): which means what? Christ knows, but apparently it is the latest model. I bought a Speedlink silk mouse pad - dandy little grey sheet with a bitten pear shape at its centre - to go with it and everything now works a treat. What’s more, seeing as how I am in no way mainstream media, I am not compelled to finish with the words “other mice and pads are available…” So I shan’t; though they are.
Then the bombshell…
My Leader, in the meantime, invoked the female prerogative and opined that I would be better off in the first floor office upon which, with new curtains and a repaint job, she had worked a cosmetic miracle.
I made a few half-hearted objections (I have always liked that little room) but she said I spend more time at my computer than she does at her needlework so it only made sense that I should go back there.
Then came the bombshell. Though we were still struggling to recover from our last upheaval (and bearing in mind that she still very much needs her stick when walking) last Friday evening this anything-but-boring Leader suggested she and I might tackle the second move, just the two of us, over the weekend!
To say the least of it I was dubious: but on Saturday morning we got started and by Sunday afternoon, with family help in removing surplus-to-requirements stuff from the premises, we were pretty much back to the cheerful mayhem that we call home.
Last item to be moved: my computer…
Neil moved it. Brought it back upstairs and set it up and it sulked. Simply refused to work. Finally he departed, nonplussed, with the promise that he would return on Monday and take it to his office at Stainless (who recently had great news on the Carmageddon Reincarnation front - Google: Stainless secures $3.5m…for full story). A Stainless’s computer boffin, I was assured, would sort it out in seconds.
At half past five on Monday morning I went downstairs to the telephone power point, unplugged the defunct telephone-to-computer downstairs line (which I had somehow overlooked when the computer was moved) plugged in its upstairs t. to c. counterpart, came back, switched on and watched as, after a brief pause for effect, the recalcitrant computer sullenly came back to life.
Neil said the phone line wouldn’t have caused that much trouble and there is probably an intermittent fault in the on-off switch; but, now it’s functioning, best leave it alone.
Me? I’m always happy to leave technology alone.
IN LONDON.
The school kids in the Commons.

They were back in force for the budget, the school kids in the Commons; braying and caterwauling over the Chancellor’s budget speech and being benignly berated throughout by the Deputy Speaker, a fine north country comedian named Lindsay Hoyle. Watch out for him; he’s the best thing in the Commons since Betty Boothroyd.
In the meantime both the plebgate loudmouth and the parliamentary bar room brawler (I won't soil my blog index with their names) continue to cause all sorts of trouble for law and order, which they and their cronies obviously think themselves way above.
I know I’ve said it before, but William Golding must surely have had Westminster in mind when he wrote Lord of the Flies.
Stefano Hatfield leaving i.
The executive editor of i, Stefano Hatfield, has posted news of his impending departure from that neat little newspaper. It appears he has been made editorial director of London Live, a new television channel and the first digital terrestrial station aimed solely at the city. Now I have no idea what an editorial director does, but I presume it will be something of considerable importance and influence in the organisation and clearly those heading it know him to be the man for the job. Well, they would; two-and-a-half years ago they chose him to edit i, which they also own and which is, it would seem, the only current newspaper with a growing circulation.
My Leader and I will miss his daily ‘letter.‘ wish him every success in the new job and pray to God he doesn’t introduce another Jeremy Kyle onto the jam-packed television talk show scene. Even Londoners don’t deserve that. Whoever replaces him at i will have a hard act to follow and will probably not have a daughter who can write a damn good article about the Warner Brothers London (Harry Potter) studio tour.
All the best, Stefano Hatfield.
AND IN SCOTLAND.
A change at the right time?.
News this morning that the eight police regions in Scotland are to be merged into one at midnight tonight. Police Scotland will be headed by the first Chief Constable of Police Scotland and will become effective on the 1st April 2013, April Fool’s Day. Seems appropriate, don‘t it?
TELEVISION.
Mayday. (BBC1)
Opinions are bound to vary, but well-respected critics can sometimes leave me wondering whether they and I watched the same programme. We enjoyed this little drama. It was shown on successive afternoons over five days and told of events following the sudden disappearance of a teenage May Queen. Perhaps the red herrings were piled a bit too high, but a strong cast worked hard to prevent risibility.
Most of the critics panned it. Ah well…
Broadchurch. (ITV1)
This thriller was initially aired at the same time as Mayday: Kudos had a hand in both productions, but Broadchurch is being shown in eight weekly episodes and stars David Tennant, an extremely popular actor. A strong cast works hard to prevent us becoming too bored to look in next week . We are quite enjoying it, but no more than we enjoyed Mayday. Most of the critics are bowled over by it. Ah well…
Lightfields. (ITV)
From the outset, this five parter - set over three time frames and involving a mildly creepy haunting - was not designed to appeal to me, so it took another strong, hard-working cast to retain my attention,
By the end we (my Leader and I) really did want to know who was to blame for Lucy’s tragic death, even if it was everybody and nobody.
And the critics? Ah well…
SAD FOOTNOTE.
Richard Griffiths OBE (1947 - 2013)

Was saddened to hear of the death of actor Richard Griffiths on March the 28^th.. Equally at home in an array of diverse roles, he was never a man to be typecast by his considerable size and was clearly respected by all who worked with him. As viewers, we loved his Henry Crabbe in the television series Pie In the Sky and loathed his Uncle Vernon (the worst sort of Muggle) in the Harry Potter films.
His departure will leave a king-sized gap in the world of British acting.

191. On getting old - or something like that.

HOME.
The curse of moving.
We have been moving house. Not to another house but within this one, which can be even worse.
It all started when grandson Ellis proudly showed his best mate, Jake, the top floor room where he sleeps when he stays here, which was also his grandmother’s workroom. Best mate Jake was not impressed. A sewing machine (no matter how expensive) and a dolls’ house (of whatever value) are not impressive in a room being presented as a small boy’s bedroom. It was, according to outspoken eight year old Jake, “a bit lame.”
Clearly changes had to be made.
But no change is ever going to be a small one, is it? Well, not in this house it ain’t. In this house change has always had a knock-on effect; move one book and the whole bloody lot tumbles sideways.
Nevertheless, after brief deliberation agreement was reached. Grandson Ellis would have the entire top floor front to himself. My Leader would move her work stuff to the first floor back room (my computer room) and I would relocate to the ground floor dining room: if my computer was still working after the move (it has been known to sulk when shifted) I might still get a blog post out this month. It all sounded very simple. At least, it did when we decided upon it. Such was our enthusiasm we reckoned not with how long it had been since last we undertook a major upheaval. Only now, as my bravely limping Leader repaints that little first floor room and I struggle to lift stuff I would have given no thought to carrying half a mile ten years ago, have we begun to realise…
What getting old means.
I was never going to get - or look - old: it was top of my things-not-to-do-before-I-die list from a very early age and became an integral part of my CV. It was a happy self-delusion that survived (propped up by my Leader’s repeated jocular assertion that she was my ‘picture in the attic’) until but a few years ago when I finally realised I had become invisible to most people younger than myself and voiceless when I spoke to them: It was a signpost pointing to being old and I don’t think I read it too badly. I just inwardly shrugged and outwardly - powerless to communicate - disappeared when in youthful company.
Anyway, in what’s left of my life there’s a great deal more to irk me than the age-old problem of old-age invisibility.
For a start, there has been a marked decline in common courtesy which has come to irritate me the more with each passing year: proof can be found in the plethora of foul-mouthed graceless morons, devoid of respect for anything or anybody - including themselves - who plague our society in an age when it should have been educated out of them.
Then there has been the failure of public institutions to live up to their once proudly boasted ethical standards: Politicians still abuse power and fiddle their expenses; the business world, sport, and much of the media, appears to be run by foreign gangsters; hospital trusts turn out to be anything but trustworthy; religions become ever more self-deceptively hypocritical; the police seldom grace the streets except in cars or riot gear; education (EBC-GCSE-school-academy) chases around in circles at the whim of whatever political mouthpiece currently calls the tune; and bankers, who have gambled everybody into bankruptcy, still award themselves massive bonuses because they can.
And on a local note: bush telegraph on the Isle of Wight has it that Island prisons now house the majority of the nation’s convicted sex-offenders; rapists, paedophiles and suchlike dregs of humanity. Local consensus has it that as long as they are locked up their presence will have to be accepted, but too many could decide to remain on the Island when they are released and that is not acceptable. The words “have served their time” mean nothing to Islanders who are understandably and emphatically NIMBY on the subject. I’m with them.
Getting old means I express my concern at these matters without much care as to whether or not anybody listens. It also means I spend a lot of time muttering: “Bring back National Service!” (though in my days as a regular soldier I was totally opposed to conscription) and snarling: “Flog ’em!” “Birch ’em!” “Lock ‘em up and throw away the key!” “Shoot ‘em!” “Hang ‘em!” Or…the ultimate deterrent…“Send the bastards back where they came from - even if it is The Isle of Dogs!”
Who said you mellow with age?
Perhaps an ageing cat.

The cat Shadow is estimated to be about eighteen years of age; nobody knows exactly how old and he’s not telling. He can still manage a six foot leap from one roof to another but now gives the manoeuvre a bit more concentration. The only indication he provides that he may be getting on a bit comes in an increased tendency to ignore the fresh water replenished daily in his dish, opting instead for the rainwater retained on the lid of the dustbin in the back garden or - lord help us - whatever liquid remains in the bowl propped on its side in the kitchen sink. There has also been a noticeable increase in his choice of inconvenient places to bed down: currently he is sleeping atop the freshly laundered and ironed curtains that my wife placed close to a radiator to air; I guess it makes a change from whomever’s coat/hat/handbag/homework that happens to have been left in his vicinity.
Don’t ask. He’s a cat.
TELEVISION.
Jools Holland: My Life in Music. (BBC2)
What a pleasant bloke ol’ Jools is. This documentary had him talking of his time with Squeeze, presenting The Tube with the late Paula Yates, his twenty years on Later…With Jools Holland, his unexceptional early life and his quite exceptional adult life as a musical programme presenter, boogie-woogie pianist (among the best in the world) and founder of the two-man Jools Holland Big Band which grew into his twenty-piece Rhythm and Blues Orchestra. This was value viewing.
The Richard Dimbleby Lecture 2013. (BBC2)
Bill Gates talked, fluently and persuasively as one might expect of a multi-billionaire, about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s mission to eradicate polio worldwide. No well-meant undertaking is ever without its detractors and already five vaccination workers have been murdered in Pakistan where, as in Afghanistan and Nigeria, word had been spread that the polio vaccine was being used as a means of sterilizing Muslims. Sheer bunkum, but you can always rely on religious fanatics for trouble.
Not that distrust of Mr. Gates is confined to Muslims. There are others who find the concept of the philanthropic billionaire hard to reconcile with outright success in business. Google: Bill Gates: nice charity work, shame about the business practices I Ellie Mae O‘Hagan to see what I mean.
Four in a Bed. (C4)
My Leader watches this. It is a modified version of Come Dine With Me in which guest house keepers invade each other’s establishments for B&B and the chance to unearth obscure dust and the stray pubic hair.
When last I chanced upon it, a relatively amiable bunch of contestants were being spitefully put to the sword by a pair of bitchy ‘private hoteliers’ who must have set gay rights back twenty five years.
 I could ask who watches it but I have already mentioned one person who does.
Me? I’d not stay with most of the pairs who compete. Not at any price!
Foyle’s War. (ITV1)

Word is that Michael Kitchen and Honeysuckle Weeks are returning this year in three new two-hour episodes. Hurray!
More when it happens.
READING.
Christopher Brookmyre.
Quite Ugly One Morning (advertised as ‘thrillingly unpleasant’) was apparently voted best first novel of the year (by somebody) in 1996. The author’s take on dire doings in the NHS certainly registered with me, a long ago retired Family Practitioner Committee employee, and I’m not sure how I should feel about that.
Whoever you are and wherever you may be I wish you good health.

190. What's been happening?

FOR A START...
I’ve re-read a few past posts and am as ready as I’m likely to be to resume the sporadic scribbling. Gawdblessyer if y’ still look in. So what has been happening? Well…
ACROSS THE WATER.
In Portsmouth.
Maureen’s sister Ruth died on the 18th December. Most of the family attended the funeral on the 10th January. At the time of her death she was two days past her 87th birthday. She lived in Portsmouth most of her life, survived a husband and son, could be moody at times but had a heart of gold and willingly gave shelter to an adolescent Mo when it was most needed. RIP Ruthie Lea.
Worst experience of the day: the taxi to Portchester Crematorium from The Hard at Portsmouth was the least disabled-passenger-friendly we could possibly have chanced upon and was driven by the least helpful driver. We shall not avail ourselves of that one’s services again.
Best experience: being surrounded by the familiar - and unfamiliar - faces of a large family and its friends. Even on such a sad occasion it was a joy to meet those who came to have a chat.
In London.
Another competition to find new writing talent is being launched by newspaper of the year i. This time interested university students are being invited to submit (in editor Stefano Hatfield’s own words) “450 words on one of the following five relatively timeless topics: whether Britain should stay in or leave the EU; the decline of our high streets and what that means; why arts and culture matter in a recession; a defence of modern-day football; and do Britain’s young study the right subjects and work hard enough?” If none of those subjects appeals, the competitors can submit one on a subject of their choice, but are warned to avoid topics which may have “fallen off the news agenda by the time columns are published next month.”
Deadline for email entries to i@independent.co.uk is 12 noon on Monday 28th January, should contain the word iWriters in the header and entrants should include their course and place of study.
If I was studying English/journalism at university I’d be emailing my entry right now, chance how genuine the prospects would be. I’m only sorry I’m more than sixty years too old, went not to university, have only ever been marginally competitive and would have been a useless foot-in-the-door dickhead, anyway. It would have been a daily column or nothing for me.
But good luck if you are an undergrad who sees this as a career chance and competes accordingly. I wish you every success.
And when it comes to luck, in Vauxhall last week two crane drivers escaped death when a helicopter hit their crane and crashed in flames. Seems the crane was not manned because the senior driver overslept. Surely they were the luckiest people in the metropolis that day.
ON THE ISLAND.
Christmas over.
Our little living room looks strangely bare bereft of the accumulated models of Santa Claus gathered over the years, the half-tree in plastic Canadian spruce and the annual welcoming decorations. Put in black and white it all sounds decidedly naff and probably is, but we like it and so do all the little kids and most of the adults who see it. Them as don’t can please themselves. To my mind, the most worthwhile quote from any celebrity last year was made by the actor and film director Clint Eastwood who (asked what his fans thought of him playing older roles) said that one of the advantages of getting old is you no longer need give a crap what anybody thinks. I’ll second that.
My Leader.
Despite a few confidence-sapping falls, progress following the hip replacement is being steadily maintained. Expert opinion has it that a bout of polio at an early age weakened her left side and it has now been decided that physiotherapy will be of benefit. My Leader is a fighter and the experts are sound.
Beyond that one can only hope.
ON TELEVISION.
Last Tango in Halifax. (BBC1)
I recorded the complete series of this romantic drama by Sally Wainwright and we watched the episodes in one viewing session. It was playwriting at its very best and the acting was superb: the stars were (in alphabetical order) Derek Jacobi, Sarah Lancashire, Anne Reid and Nicola Walker. Some cast, eh?
We thoroughly enjoyed it and there is talk of another series.
Elementary. (Sky Living)
This is at least a positive attempt to use the Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson characters differently. Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu play the roles in a likeable way and only Arthur Conan Doyle purists will carp at the presentation. My Leader and I both like it.
Father Brown. (BBC1)
G.K. Chesterton’s detective priest has memorably been played on film by both Alec Guinness and Kenneth More, but I fancy this new series may establish Mark Williams as the definitive Father Brown in much the same way that the long-running television series Poirot proved actor David Suchet to be the only actor ever to convert that cardboard character into a real person.
NCIS Season 10. (FOX)
They’re back again in full flow. Caught up with and despatched their immediate villain, too. Didn’t buy my storyline (offered somewhere way back), but did produce a comeuppance scene in which Gibbs delivered us from ever setting eyes on the rascal again. It was very well done.
They couldn’t have afforded me anyway.
AND SO TO THE SNOW.
To the disappointment of the kids, we never get it that bad over here. Just a sprinkling. My Leader, bless her, has managed even the worst of it with grips on the soles of her shoes and her walking stick.
Me, I still remember 1946 in Catterick Camp, Yorkshire and winter any year in Klagenfurt, Austria. Now that was snow. (Swing that lamp!)
Wherever you are, though, wrap up warmly and mind how you go.

189. Goodbye 2012. Hallo 2013.

HOME AT YEAR’S END.
Not me, buddy.

Following the publication of post 188 a handful of comments (two of them now published) reached me, all from the same source, saying: Hi Mr. Barnden, can you remember the day that I stayed with you when you lived in a very small building in Bournemouth and then I walked all the way back to Southampton where I lived. My feet felt like I had been on one of our first route marches. Have a lovely Christmas. Ginger.
Well, thank you for your Christmas good wishes, Ginger, and I am sorry about your feet which must have been extremely sore for you still to have such a memory after what, I assume, has been a very long time.
But whoever you stayed with back then it was not me, buddy. I have never lived in a small, large, detached, semi-detached or even terraced building in - or so much as near - Bournemouth. Indeed, apart from one conference at a hotel and a couple of visits to shows at the old Winter Gardens (above), I know absolutely nothing of the place.
Your feet would have got very wet if you had walked to Southampton from where I live. My wife and I have been on the Isle of Wight for close on forty five years: Prior to that we lived in and around Portsmouth.
Lord alone knows where your Bournemouth Barnden came from, but if he had a car and let you walk all that way I don’t think much of him.
All the best and have a good New Year. Dennis.
So it didn‘t end after all.
I refer to the world: and who really thought it would? Well, I didn’t, but I’m not a Mayan; in fact, I’m not an anything if you discount cynical old sod: I certainly am that. My Leader tells me I don’t like people and she is about right. I certainly don’t like too many people and, no matter what anybody says to the contrary, there are far too many people in this country now. It is a situation that cannot be reversed.
The alternative would be too awful to contemplate. Better government by fools than by nationalistic bastards. So, although the world may not have ended, the cosy world depicted in all our wartime propaganda films (Went The Day Well? Cottage To Let, The Way Ahead etc.) certainly has. Like it or lump it we are not that nation anymore. And y‘know what?
It really ain’t the end of the world.
It only seems like it sometimes.
SEASONAL TELE SCENE.
On the negative side, Christmas 2012 saw the usual smattering of war films, seasonal specials, Morecambe and Wise reruns and end of series tear-jerkers. On the positive side there was an abundance of good acting, not least from…
Merlin.

Our heroes departed with Arthur (Bradley James) and Merlin (Colin Morgan) jointly giving a superb farewell performance.
We made a half-hearted attempt to stem our tears.
Downton Abbey.
No chance of a grandstand performance from the departing protagonist in this Julian Fellowes’ warm-up for the next series. Word has it the latest sacrificial lamb (who finished up under a classic car with blood leaking from every orifice) is off to make his fortune in America. Good luck to him.
Call The Midwife.
Baby on the doorstep. Chummy with Nativity play hysteria. A wealth of kindness and tolerance and understanding, all in the same strangely pristine slum area. Again though, damn good acting.
Mrs. Brown’s Boys.
A hilarious helping of Nativity nonsense from Brendan O’Carroll and the team. It really should have been introduced with a warning that it could cause death by laughter. I laughed until I was gasping. Word is you either love ‘em or hate ‘em. Whatever…they’ll do for me.
This time they almost did!
As for the rest of it…
We are always impressed by the animated stuff. The Snowman and The Snow Dog, Room on the Broom, How to Train Your Dragon and Ice Age: a Mammoth Christmas were all very watchable. There were also a couple of decent plays in Restless (Charlotte Rampling still deservedly topping the bill) and Loving Miss Hatto, written by Victoria Wood, which had Francesca Annis and Alfred Molina in the leading roles; you won’t do better than that.
STILL READING…

I am a third of the way through Grimm Tales For Young and Old by Philip Pullman and find myself constantly reflecting what a load of codswallop I thought the Grimm brothers were when, as a boy, I first read them. Sadly even the esteemed Mr. Pullman cannot make a silk purse out of every sow’s ear. But perhaps I am simply missing the point of the exercise, so I shall persevere.
The book currently occupying pride of place on my bedside table is Quite Ugly One Morning by Chistopher Brookmyre. Apparently it was his first novel. Bloody brilliant.
And lastly...
A few words about the journalists who weekly/daily bring their respective - and mostly respected - viewpoints to my pedestrian world.
Throughout 2012 I have been amused (sometimes grimly) by the forthright outpourings of The Independent’s Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (still my favourite crusading columnist even if she has made me ponder my initial reaction to J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy, a book I disliked because I have at sometime met and loathed everybody in it.)
Tom Sutcliffe continues to mirror image my Weekend’s Viewing - always a great boost to the elderly ego - and, Tuesday through to Saturday, the executive editor of i.
Stefano Hatfield, a man not nearly as pompous as his title suggests, regales me with the shortest and best editorial in the country.
I can only wish continued success to all of them this year.

A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR TO YOU, TOO!

188. Last moans of the year.

HOME.
Look on the bright side.
Well it happened at last. A few weeks back we became members of that huge club of ill-fated motorists welcomed by the planks in power as "a buoyant source of revenue.”
A short time after Mo came home from the hip operation, and barely a month after she had been granted a blue badge for the car, she mistakenly thought she was free to park in the sole spot available in one of our town’s jampacked streets. Hampered by the crutch she is still using and by limited movement on and off seats, she did not realise that the spot was one where the double yellow lines almost indiscernibly crept up onto the pavement.
So, during the twenty or so minutes that the car was unattended, one of the blue jacketed cash collectors of The Isle of Wight Council kindly put a penalty ticket on it. The spot was a loading bay and, apparently, not even God can park in one of those without a van or lorry to load or unload.
We duly made written representation against the penalty charge and that was duly turned down by whatever plank in power duly turns down such representations.
We then duly joined the ranks of those who duly pay up.
Well, look on the bright side; it was the first time for us and I suppose it will help swell the coffers of whichever bunch of profligates currently thinks it necessary to pay massive salaries to top council employees, extravagant severance and redundancy packages when they are found wanting, and fat retainers when they are miraculously welcomed back as ’advisers.’
It doubtless will also help towards the close on half a million quid filched from the public purse - on this island alone - last year by serial claimants of expenses calling themselves councillors. (The Isle of Wight Council leader, Clr. David Pugh, picked up £35, 370. 70 in allowances and expenses for doing nothing of any consequence and many of his colleagues walked away with far more than the average cleaner will earn in a year and did far less for it.) Over the past few years these pretentious mini ministers have taken on the mantle of ‘cabinet members’ - with or without portfolio would you believe? - and, to ensure that none of their buddies be left out of the trough, have co-opted a bevy of independent (non-elected) members to their ranks.
Frankly, I don’t think any of them could organize a brothel in a red light district, but that’s just my opinion and I must admit to still thinking of council tax as ‘the rates.’
I also, for my sins, believe we were better off in the days when councils - employing public servants, not local government officers - were largely the domain of crooked businessmen and jerry-builders who claimed little in expenses but made up for it by acquiring all the fattest council contracts. You knew where you stood with them. They were honest crooks.
AND AWAY..
US Presidential Election 2012.

Am I alone in wondering why we were bombarded with every aspect of it when America held this 2 billion dollar plus bonanza to elect its president?
Tell me they are that interested in us and listen for the snort of derision.
In the event, President Barack Obama was re-elected and that was the outcome for which I, and clearly the majority of his countrymen, had hoped.
Well the man has done me no harm --- yet.
AND ON TELEVISION.
Royal Variety.
I missed the first hour of this ITV1 offering through watching Rick Stein and Mastermind on BBC2, but soon became aware that I probably hadn’t missed much. I saw the last hour and a half and found it to be the usual combination of obsequious comedians, singers limited to one song and a guest star from across the pond: this year it was Neil Diamond.
With the exception of Heather Headley, star of The Bodyguard musical, I found nothing refreshing in any of it. You can find her live performance on YouTube if you are interested.

Copy and paste: Heather Headley - I Will Always Love You (Live Royal Variety)
Britain‘s best what?
Latest afternoon time filler is yet another cookery programme. This time the participants are cookshop owners and the idea is that a couple of Simple Simon characters swan around tasting the wares of various piemen and finally decide which of them - cue long…long…long… long pause for effect - deserves to stay on the tiresome trail to find Britain’s Best Bakery (ITV1). My Leader is smitten with it and so, I suspect, is half the female population of the nation. I am not.
Where’s the originality? Where’s the urge to present something new?
Nowadays much of my viewing time is taken up asking: “Do we really need this?”
Do we really need more television cookery? Do we have to have another antiques programme? Or another bloody quiz show? Or quite such a glut of reality rubbish?
Can we not do without the array of desperate nonentities and career-faded celebs imprisoned in jungles or glass-walled houses? Clearly the unimaginative producers of goggle box fodder think we can’t, but their world is governed by viewing figures, studio top brass and the whims of advertisers, so to them such bilge has to be an ideal adjunct to endless repeats of Diagnosis Midsomer Murder She Wrote.
Ah well…My TV viewer’s remark at the foot of this year’s report is:
Could do better. Try harder next year.
And that does it for the moans.
SO TO CONCLUDE.
It's almost Christmas.
There have been quite a few bright spots this year, too, but they will have to wait until my next post and that won’t be until the festive season is over. Right now there is quite enough to think about.
Should we be sending cards? Of course we should. The usual nice folk are already sending to us.
Will we get around to well- organized responses? Good lord no!
Are there too many before Xmas lunches planned? Never!
Will the gifts be sorted, wrapped and delivered on time? Ask Mo.
So if you have sent to us, or haven’t, or mean to but forget to, or are expecting to hear from us and don’t, or do but it’s too late anyway…

HAPPY CHRISTMAS, DEAR FRIEND, THANKS FOR BEING WHO YOU ARE.

187. A lot can happen.

HERE…
A lot can happen…
It was five weeks ago last Tuesday that my Leader underwent the hip operation and it is two months since I last ventured a blog post. A lot can happen in a couple of months. Indeed, so much has that I am at a loss where to begin. Let’s start at the unstately pile where we have had an enclosed shower unit installed. It was a no choice situation. Mo would not have been able to climb in and out of the bath for a while yet and I have been showering rather than bathing for longer than I care to remember.
No change is ever entirely straightforward of course - there’s a law that governs it - but the unit is now up and running, I don’t think we’ll miss the bath and we have been able to indulge in the annual splash on our respective birthdays, both of which have been celebrated since last I wrote.
Meantime, we have been on twice weekly visits to surgery for a practice nurse to assess the extent of Mo’s op. recovery. They are taking no chances.
It’s a good practice.
The Anniversary Party.
To my relief I was not called upon to make a speech at our wedding anniversary party. Many nice folk accepted the invitations sent out by Roz who apparently only had Mo’s old phone book in which to find the names and addresses of our friends, some of whom were not listed therein and, when they were, had been entered using Mo’s unique filing system, to wit: first name only; surname only; nickname only; outdated phone number only; both names but only on such page as happened to be handy at time of entry, etc. etc.
We were unaware who was or was not being invited so a few good pals who might have been asked were, regrettably, missed out. It was a nice day, though, and the weather was kind. Our thanks go to Roz, to Pauline and Neil who provided open house and buffet for everybody and to all those friends who did come along or otherwise afforded us their good wishes. Our heartfelt apologies go to those who would have, had they not been unwittingly overlooked.
The Cat Hernia.

Of the several nice gifts we received that day I was particularly intrigued when a hefty parcel was handed to me by a slightly breathless John Appleton with the words: “Careful…it’s heavy.” I was and it was. When, bulging eyed, I finally struggled to a convenient unwrapping spot, it turned out to be a solid stone cat of sleepy demeanour and guaranteed frost/lift resistance. The cat Hernia (choosing the name was not a strain) is now sitting on the kitchen windowsill where he is routinely acknowledged by me and resolutely ignored by the cat Shadow.
Birthday Greetings.

Google’s 14th Birthday, celebrated with a birthday cake logo, happened to fall on the day I celebrated my 82nd, so I have commandeered their cake in recognition of my hefty seniority. Since then both my Leader (last Monday) and our granddaughter, Jess, (yesterday) has celebrated/is celebrating another year on this earth. That means we will have had three birthday get- togethers and pass-the-parcels in a month.
No doubt about it, we know how to live.
A belated happy birthday to Google, too.
AND THERE…
A lot did happen.
Heads rolled at the BBC following the Savile scandal and a botched attempt at PM baiting on ITV by sheep in sheep’s clothing Philip Schofield resulted in a slapped wrist for him. Where will it all end?
Everything that happened happened long ago and many of the protagonists are dead. Victims, real and bogus, have since rushed to seek justice and any compensation that may be harvested.
The lawyers will be having a field day again (Charles Dickens got it so right) and, amidst cries that there is no smoke without fire, there will be indignant demands for public apologies, for the closure of Twitter and Facebook, for a complete shake-up of the BBC, for monitoring of the internet and for Lessons to be Learned. Come to think of it, there might even be a demand for compulsory voting at Police Commissioner elections. (What a waste of public money that lot is!)
AND ON TELE…
Emmy Awards.

The usual bunch of British hopefuls went across the pond for this television wingding. It seems an Emmy is the American television equivalent of a cinema Oscar and the Downton crowd were particularly optimistic.

In the event, Maggie Smith, who was not present, got best supporting actress and that was it. The only other Brit to win anything was Damien Lewis, an Old Etonian; he took the coveted best actor award for his ongoing performance in the Fox 21 production Homeland. Incidentally, is there any centre stager currently in politics or showbiz who was not at Eton? Oh…all right…Michael Caine… but they‘d have had to blow the bloody doors off to get him in.

Parade’s End. (BBC2)

Tom Stoppard wrote the scripts and Benedict Cumberbatch had the leading role in this period piece set around the time of the first World War, when social values were being challenged and the suffragette movement was in full flow.
I gather the books were not particularly well received when first published in the nineteen twenties. Pity, but unsurprising in a nation always bedevilled by class snobbery. Writer Ford Madox Ford, an officer in the Welch Regiment during World War 1, depicted the futility of the conflict with an accuracy bred of experience. Neither we nor the Germans learnt sense from it and people like my WW1 conscript grandfather were left pondering the senselessness right through WW2. At least Madox Ford was spared that. He died in June 1939, three months before the second war started.
Despite the sort of glaring fault common to films about the military (British soldiers do not salute when they are hatless, only Americans do that) this was a good series and deserved better than the Friday night viewing spot it was allocated.
Bradley Walsh: Crime Connections (ITV3)
If you were at a bit of a loose end this was an easy enough way to fill in the odd hour one evening a week. There was a decided touch of déjà vu so far as I was concerned because I pretty much invented the idea way back on October 12th, 2008. It can be found in the TELE section of Post 111 - Decidedly Not a Celebrity Diary. The programme makers made a six part series; I did it in a couple of paragraphs. That figures…
Merlin. (BBC1)
Hurray! He’s back! People are still being spellbound, literally, and Arthur is still too thick to realise that his faithful servant is the Wonderful Wizard of Camelot. Old Uther is dead (so only available for guest spots) and Morgana wanders the woods exuding evil from every pore. I’m still an avid viewer no matter who else thinks what.
Strictly Come Dancing. (BBC1)
The professional dancers, singers and musicians remain excellent and the celebrity contestants continue to make incredible progress week by week. Still a top show, with or without the benighted old compere.
Nick Nickleby. (BBC1)
This fine little series (directed by David Innes Edwards) ran every afternoon, starred Andrew Simpson, Linda Bassett and Adrian Dunbar and was the best daily viewing on the box that week.
Gawd bless Charlie Dickens!
AND ON RADIO…
Sunday mornings generally start with Alyd Jones on BBC Radio2. It’s an entrenched God spot but he does have some good guests. A few weeks ago he welcomed that excellent musician and likeable Londoner, Joe Brown.

 When Joe was asked his opinion of current British talent shows he expressed the view that the performers were generally more impressive than the judges, many of whom were totally devoid of any talent whatsoever and no, he would never be a judge; he liked people too much for that. Good for him: there are far too many judges in the world anyway. More recently, Irish singer and harpist Mary O’Hara talked about her life, her career, and a faith that included twelve years as a nun. What a charming woman and, singing or talking, what a captivating voice.
BBC Radio 2 spent last week plugging the Beeb’s Children In Need charity and Chris Evans auctioned off all sorts of ‘once in a lifetime’ (i.e. until this time next year) goodies for which the usual moneyed self-publicists flamboyantly bid. Why anybody would offer thousands of pounds to eat, drink, drive a car, play golf or otherwise act the goat with a sports, showbiz or reality show ‘celebrity’ is quite beyond me, but I assume it has more to do with Andy Warhol‘s “15 minutes of fame” than with any compelling urge to embrace a charitable cause.
Genuine philanthropy is usually more self-effacing.
Still, I suppose CIN week helps a lot of children who, too young to vote, are routinely ignored by the government (of whatever party); so it has to be doing some good.
AND SO TO READING.
J.K.Rowling.

Oh dear oh dear…I disliked The Casual Vacancy from start to finish. Perhaps my working class background and 30’s elementary school education has something to do with it, but I found myself at odds with both the no-hopers stuck in the gutter, for whom I might have been expected to muster some sympathy, and the petty power players on the Parish Council who managed to irritate me even more in fiction than they do in fact.
Truth to tell, I didn‘t much like anybody in this small town saga. They seemed like people who had been kept at the back of the author’s mind until she found the right place to publicly embarrass them.
I’m sorry, J.K., but on this evidence Harry Potter is already calling to you from the wizarding world as clearly as Sherlock Holmes called to Arthur Conan Doyle from Reichenbach Falls in 1903,
Without Hogwarts, you see, the magic has gone.
AND TO CONCLUDE..
Another philosophical chat.
Grandson Ellis was concerned to know how his grandmother’s convalescence was progressing.
Everything was going along well, she told him. Recently she had gone back to her Wednesday evening quilting group; had a lovely evening; he had met the ladies there once, did he remember them?
Oh yes, he said. There was a man, too. Was he still there?
Well…no…the man was the quilting teacher’s husband and, sadly, he died recently.
There was a brief pause for a small boy to muster his thoughts. Then: “That’s a shame,” he said. “How old was he?”
My Leader pondered for a moment: “I think he was about the same age as big Boo, eighty two.”
He eyed me contemplatively. “Hmm…you’re not dead yet, are you.”
“He can’t die,” interposed his grandmother. “He has to look after me.”
“Well when he dies,” he said, “you’ll have to get a butler.”
Don’t you just love the logic of a seven year old?

Thanks for looking in. I’ll  be back sooner next time.

186. First an anniversary - then getting hip.

AT HOME.
Concentrated effort.

My Leader shoved sheaves of paper into the shredder and the cat Shadow supervised. There was a surreal air of feline concentration about them and it did not invite disturbance. I disturbed not. Daughter Roz took the picture.
FORTHCOMING EVENTS.
An Anniversary.
Tomorrow, Saturday 22nd September, 2012, Maureen and I will celebrate our fiftieth wedding anniversary. It has been the one and only marriage for the pair of us and its longevity is due to luck, mutual stubbornness and strict adherence to the agreement made at the outset of our liaison: If you know you could say something that would really hurt, don’t say it.
There is to be a party (organised by family members led by Roz, so it will be a good one) to which friends and relatives will doubtless be invited and at which I shall probably be expected to say a few words. I am a poor public speaker so my darling girl may find herself enduring a gabble of awkward platitudes that miserably fails to convey how much I truly appreciate her.
That being the case and in view of the fact that I write somewhat better than I talk, let me express here and now, lovely Nod, in the presence of all the nice people who bother to read this, my heartfelt thanks to you for fifty years of love, laughter, kindness, understanding, three decent kids, everything that has ever mattered in my life and a marriage made in Heaven (well, in Pompey anyway).
You are and will always be the light of my life and what on earth has happened to the wedding day picture I meant to head this piece with?
An Operation.
Just over a fortnight after the anniversary celebrations comes the cold light of day reminder that we are all mortal, i.e. prone to wear and tear.
Mo has been suffering with increasingly painful left hip trouble for a considerable time now and will be undergoing a hip replacement operation at our local hospital on the 9th of October.
Whether you’re religious or not, if you can think of it on the day, offer up a little prayer for her, will you? I shall and I’m not much given to religion.
(See POST OP ACTIVITIES below)
AN AWAY EVENT.
254 OBA. A good weekend missed.
The annual reunion of 1943 - 48 Signals boy soldiers is back at Derby this year. My Leader and I decided after last year’s ‘do’ that we probably would not make it this time. To us the roads in England are an overcrowded nightmare, the cost of ferrying the car across, even at the slightly reduced Island rate, is increasingly prohibitive and the privatised railways appear to be a cash grabbing lottery. With all the goings on here at present it seems our decision to stay put was providential.
There are pleasant folk we shall miss, though, and the ambience of OBA get-togethers is total magic. So, health and the domestic situation willing, perhaps we’ll make it again next year. This year’s reunion will be a good weekend missed. We apologise and our good wishes go to all those stalwarts who do attend and to all those absent through ill health or suchlike.
POST OP ACTIVITES.
Expect me when you see me.
When Maureen leaves hospital she will spend a couple of weeks recuperating at Neil and Pauline’s home. They have a ground floor en suite guest room which will be ideal: our three storey pile would not. So I shall be doing plenty of travelling back and forth doing my husbandly visiting, grandsonly (from school) collecting and Shadowly cat sitting. I have no idea when I shall next be blogging.
Expect me when you see me.

185. A bit more of much the same.

LOOKING OUT.
Without a Shadow of Doubt.
The gurus at Google Blog have incorporated safeguards into the blogging process to protect those of us who blog the embarrassment of concluding a post with unsavoury or inappropriate outsider comments. Like any good idea it has its flaws. Comments finish up being attributed to Anonymous and I have not a clue how to find out who Anonymous is; I know, it sounds daft, but I’m sure it makes sense to the gurus. However, a little while back a kind soul left a message on my spam inbox (whatever that might be) asking whether the cat pictured at post 183 was Leonard, a dear, quiet, black and white moggy who resided with us up until his peaceful death many years ago in Ventnor. The answer (whoever you may be) is: No, that’s just a b/w cats thing, they do look alike but the one in the picture is, without a shadow of doubt, the cat Shadow. He has now recovered from his operation and, to prove it, ventures forth nightly to beat the bounds. Thank you, though, for your intriguing enquiry: if you would like to email: barndens@talktalk.net I shall be pleased to discover who you are and chat further.
Kindest regards to you.
Tho’ April Showers come in May, June, July…
It’s official then: We have just experienced the wettest summer in 100 years. That means it has probably been the worst holiday season in living memory for everybody connected with the home holiday industry and the best ever for cinema owners and anyone connected with holidays abroad. If you have kids, the six week break becomes a long time when you can’t get them out of the house. And if you live in an area prone to flooding…well…
On the bright side, if you’re here you’re not in Syria.
GCSE Results.
More direction changing. More goalpost moving. More (flatly denied) political interference. Our granddaughter did exceptionally well (sat 11 subjects, got 10 A’s and a B), but very many youngsters and their teachers were dealt a formidably low blow without warning when examiners were leaned upon to tighten up the marking system this year.
It is impossible to measure the mischief done to education, the police, the NHS and that ‘buoyant source of revenue’ the motorist, by whatever pillock is in power at any time. All of them are convinced they are the bee’s knees and none of them has a clue. If the whole of parliament and every elected council in the country went on strike tomorrow everything would run like clockwork. The buggers simply don’t know when to leave well alone.
LOOKING IN.
The Borgias. (Sky Atlantic)

Jeremy Irons as Pope Alexander V1 dominates this dissolute drama of papal promiscuity and divine dirty deeds. As could be expected, there is gore galore and scarcely a decent, likeable or trustworthy character left alive.
We watch goggle-eyed.
Sinbad. السندباد البحري (Sky1)

This is glorious tosh starring newcomer Elliot Knight as Sinbad, reliable Elliot Cowan as Gunnar (I imagine the directors used character names when addressing them on set.) and cute Marama Corlett as Sinbad’s almost romantic interest. Apparently production costs have been high but, to be fair, the cast has measured up to it. Could run for a long time. There will surely be more of Orla Brady as arch-villainess Taryn.
Person of Interest. (C5)
A former special forces and CIA man living as a dissolute wanderer (what other kind is there?) is recruited by a surveillance genius millionaire (what other kind is there?) to save potential murder victims from their dire destiny. It’s a crazy premise, very American, very watchable. My Leader and I are hooked. Currently being screened on Tuesday nights at 10.00 if you are of the early to bed type and would like to record it.
New Tricks. (BBC1)

New series: there was an unwelcome outsider and much fretting in the ranks before Jack (James Bolam) left to kick the bucket abroad; his departure followed a superbly acted explanatory scene with Brian (Alun Armstrong).
The evidence suggests this may be the final outing for the cold case crew.
Dr. Who. (BBC1)

Another new series and another reshuffle. The Beeb is starting to look like Cameron‘s cabinet. This time it is Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, who are heading for the exit. It will happen around the middle of the current series and will (we are told) be spectacular. Well, they’re nice young actors and for a while they’ll be missed. But actors are nomads. Only those appearing in soaps expect security. This pair are good enough to survive the move.
FILM ON THE BOX.
Syriana.
Stephen Gaghan’s 2005 film is a convoluted tale of skulduggery in the oil world and was, apparently, based on See No Evil, a book by former CIA agent Robert Baer.
A difficult film to follow, the four storylines finally come together in a coherent, albeit ominous, climax which fully confirms my suspicion that America is the most dangerous country in the world. This view is not echoed by our government (forever constrained by economic and militaristic considerations) but is simply that of an old Brit who, as a boy, lived in a country still boasting an empire. That empire is, of course, history.
Reluctant to face facts, our leaders still trot us along behind the USA like an eager little terrier. But we are no longer like them. Theirs has become more and more the greedy, empire-building nation. We’re mostly over that; or should be. We’ve done more than our share of plundering in the past and we shall be paying the price for a long, long time to come.
So forget the cousins across the pond bit. Many of them may be very nice, but as a race they are foreigners who happen to speak a sort of English. Theirs is a gun-happy, ruthless business culture and eventually their pursuit of cheap oil, together with their weapon-wielding connivance in the affairs of other nations, will result in yet another world war. It is sad but inevitable.
And when it comes we should keep the hell out of it!
We should; but we won’t.
AND SO TO BOOKS.

I finished Alan Hunter’s Gently Does It. That leaves me another nine Gently books to read and the dire possibility that I may yet choke on peppermint creams. But to look on the bright side, Sgt. Bacchus, played on television by Lee Ingleby has not yet appeared so perhaps he never will. I am still only halfway through Sandi Toksvig‘s The Chain of Curiosity. My slow reading rate is not helped by constant laughter and an irksome tendency to hysterically read back to my Leader that which she hooted over way back before she passed the book on to me.
I’m not sure that I can revisit Gently when I reach the end of The Chain… Perhaps I’ll go back to Agatha Raisin. I think I have an unread Graham Hurley somewhere, too. How did that come about?

184. Reflections around a recovering cat.

HERE AND NOW.
Music.

I am settled in my chair in the computer room listening, for the umpteenth time, to a self compiled tape of recordings made by the late Richard Tauber. Just reached the end of Eric Coates’s Bird Songs At Eventide, recorded in 1932, and reflected again that it has never been sung better; fantastic pianissimo finish. If you like the tenor voice you can Google Richard Tauber sings - Bird Songs At Eventide and listen to it.
Set me thinking there are many modern singers who would probably benefit from recording old favourites. Some already have tackled medleys of songs by the likes of Berlin, Gershwin and Porter and, even if it does sometimes seem like a last ditch attempt at career revival when a ‘pop icon’ pilfers tunes from the past, it can certainly make for fascinating listening.
Sting, for example, made a very decent job of Someone to Watch Over Me and Mick Hucknall did the same with Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye. Both can be viewed on YouTube.

If you are a fan of Rufus Wainwright he can be seen singing Macushla, a Count John McCormack favourite. If you’d like to hear McCormack’s version it, too, is on You Tube - just look for Richard Tauber - Macushla and you will get a picture of Tauber accompanied by the voice of McCormack. Trust me, I know. I listened to both of them whilst they were still alive. I do love it when technology makes a harmless balls-up, though, don’t you?
And for what it’s worth, I’d advocate young Wainwright include Bird Songs At Eventide in his programme. The outcome might be too camp for my tastes but it would surely appeal to his many fans.
The Olympic Games.

Well we finally saw the back of them - and without trouble - so thank whatever god for that. Friends of ours went to see Usain Bolt do his stuff. Apparently the stadium was marvellous and the London atmosphere was magic. I wouldn’t have gone, but neither would I venture to put flowers at the scene of a fatal accident or place them in front of the home of someone who had died in one. Truth is, I distrust public demonstrations of feeling when they are presented by strangers whose sole motivation seems to be to get in on the act. This time the feeling was friendly and welcoming, but it can so easily be otherwise.. (See the film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas for a reminder, or consider the misery heaped upon any of the currently oppressed people of the world.)
But well done everybody, be they black, brown, white, yellow or sandy-grey-russet. The 2012 Games were a success that not even Britain’s plethora of detractors could totally dismiss.
Let’s hope everything will be just as peaceful and even more successful for the Paralympians when they compete.
The Cat in the Plastic Lampshade.
I am a little late with this bulletin because, unlike the Duke of Edinburgh, the cat Shadow does not have daily proclamations made about his health, but does have the occasional family visitor. I have spent the past week cat sitting a bewildered moggy wearing an inverted lampshade around his neck. On Thursday 9th of August he was placed in the care of local veterinary surgeons Green and Forster for an operation to remove the lump on his head referred to in post 183. He had no food after 7pm the night before the operation, was kept in overnight with a litter tray, was allowed water only until 7am and was admitted to veterinary hospital just after 8am. He left behind an irreparably smashed, jammed, cat flap (locked to prevent his premature departure) and the strong impression that he was mightily displeased at this outrageous affront to his dignity. That’s my boy,
The cyst was fortunately benign and the operation to remove it successful. We picked him up in the afternoon and he went berserk in the box we took to collect him. At home he became a model patient, went back to the vets after two days to be assessed (My Leader drove: I carried him firmly wrapped in a towel; he quite enjoyed that) There followed eight days of being the cat in the plastic lampshade, professionally described as Buster Collar 10cm and Cat Collar Simba Splash Purple 12” S17. (Don’t ask)
By last Saturday, when we took him to have his stitches and the offending lampshade removed, he was pretty well pissed off, but had reached gold medal standard at lampshade wearing activity, culminating in a determined mountain climb to next door’s kitchen roof trailing the collar strap beneath him: he had by then learned how to scratch it undone.
Discharge accomplished, we drove him home quietly, taking in the scenery, content at a week well spent. Euphoric that it is all over, he has since spent hours fastidiously grooming himself and is now dozing comfortably on the rocker settee in the courtyard. I am still reeling at the combined cost of the operation and the replacement cat flap.
The sun is shining and he thanks you for your good wishes. BACK TO THE BOX.
BBC Proms 2012.

The Proms this year provided a welcome respite from mostly non-stop coverage of the Olympic Games. I still tend to avoid anything modern, so Daniel Barenboim’s wonderful West-Eastern Divan Orchestra performing the Beethoven symphony cycle was, so far as I am concerned, somewhat undermined by the addition of music by Pierre Boulez. But hell, what do I know? I neither read music nor play a musical instrument.
I might have enjoyed An Evening with Ivor Novello, though. Saw several of his musicals way back when he was still appearing in them. Mary Ellis, Olive Gilbert, Trefor Jones and Vanessa Lee were among the fine singers chosen to star in those shows. He knew a good voice when he heard one. So did I…and still do. Sadly, I felt neither soloist in this tribute programme would have particularly appealed to him: well. not for their voices anyway.
I was disappointed. But hell, what do I know…?
George Gently.

Apparently Martin Shaw is to return to our screens next week for another series. My enjoyment of it may be slightly tempered by the reminder that I am still only half way through the first of the ten Gently case files bought for me by my Leader and henceforth must hurry…
BACK TO THE BOOKS.
Alan Hunter’s Gently Does It has thus far proven to be a case of No He Doesn‘t. I try not to blame Mr. Hunter. Nowadays my attention span is prime suspect at every turn of a page. But I do hope Gently goes off peppermint creams before the bloody things make me sick and, in the meantime, my faint curiosity over whodunnit has been totally absorbed by
Sandi Toksvig’s The Chain of Curiosity which my Leader laughed over for a week before passing it on to me to laugh over ever since. I shall certainly have reached the end before my next post.
I may even arrange for Gently to have done it, too.