198. Normal service resumed.

HOME.
Falling down report.

We are pleased to report gradual improvement in confidence and mobility following our recent falling down experiences. My Leader battles on come rain or shine and my appreciation of the kindness shown by the people who aided me is still equalled only by my anger at whatever useless bastard jettisoned an empty carrier bag in such 'don't give a fuck' fashion. 
Mostly the reaction of friends has been concerned and sympathetic. There was one slightly negative email, but that was from an old mate who managed to fall over his own feet on some stairs last December and doesn't now seem inclined to have much sympathy with anyone else. Well...why should he?
Anyway, our particular thanks go to 'Anonymous' John Appleton and Ian Dillow, both of whom sent messages that cheered us up enormously, and to our constantly supportive family. We're lucky people. 
Storm report.
It happened last Sunday evening and we have not had a storm like it on the Island for many years: it reached its pitch just as grandson Ellis got to bed. Sunday nights he stays with us no matter what. It is written in stone. But he is, he informed his grandmother, a bit nervous of thunder and lightning.
She allowed him to watch her ipad for a little while, then told him a (small-boy-ribald-humour-laden) story about how thunder and lightning really comes about. Really?
Then she settled him down, still giggling, for the night. I looked in ten minutes later and he was sleeping the deep, deep sleep of a happy lad who knows no fear. Every child should have a gran like that.
That bloody hour again.
As I write this piece, the schools are on half-term (which is OK) and the clocks have been put back an hour (which is not). Well, I suppose the kids being on holiday gives us a week to try and get used to waking up at six o'clock when we're totally geared for seven and being ready for lunch at eleven, an hour and a quarter before the bloke with the silly hats and bow ties invites us to go bargain hunting.
I still hate it, though. It's bright too early and it's dark too early and our little gardens are a haven for migrant leaves – religious ones from the church along the way and educated ones from the school opposite – all the more galling because we don't have any trees. I still think we only alter the time because some bugger in parliament has shares in a car battery firm. Have I said all that before? No matter. Think about it.
REST OF THE WORLD.
Spying.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has accused the American secret services (a bunch called the NSA – look 'em up if you're interested) of intercepting her mobile phone calls. She has responded by taking the logical course of action, a telephone confrontation with President Barack Obama: Well you would, wouldn't you?
The President strongly denied the accusation: Well he would, wouldn't he?
And now the French have joined in: Well they...
So once again the Alice in Wonderland world of the super spook is left looking downright ridiculous. What do these paranoid pallbearers expect to discover? How many expert codebreakers have been enlisted to unravel Chancellor Merkel's hairdressing appointments, supermarket shopping lists et al and turn them into coded messages to and from a sinister figure hellbent on world domination? Took our minds off the shit state of the economy for a couple of minutes though, didn't it?
Lies and insults.
When I was a youngster the standard antidote to name calling was "Sticks and stones may break your bones but names will never hurt you."
Isn't it about time the Plebgate crowd, together with the ubiquitous army of politically correct malcontents waiting to be racially offended by every look or word, were gently advised to knock it off?
As to: "Who told a lie, the police or the MP?" Other than them, who bloody cares? 
The sensitive little souls should be told to get a life.
TELEVISION.
Did you see the proms this year?

If you didn't, they were good. If you did, weren't they good?
For a start, they included a couple of hugely popular piano concertos: Beethoven's 4^th played by wonderful Mitsuki Ochida (back to the Proms after nearly twenty years and accompanied by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Mariss Jansons) and Rachmaninov's 2^nd played by the sightless young pianist and composer Nobuyuki Tsujii, (with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Juanjo Mena). 
Beautiful music; wonderful presentation.
For the romantic classics enthusiast there was a good selection including a fine performance of Beethoven's 5^th Symphony given by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Donald Runnicles and (a truly wonderful experience this year) the Last Night of the Proms where Nigel Kennedy again showed himself to be the finest, funniest, most endearing violinist (and Aston Villa fan) born here in my lifetime and the American mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato (a glorious voice, a fantastic personality) sang Rule Britannia as though she meant it.The NSA can listen to my telephones any time it likes. I'll listen to her.
Watching the detectives appear and disappear.
After all the hoo-ha over CSI New York outlasting CSI Miami, we now have neither. The New Yorkers, too, have been pensioned off. I never got over the departure of Melina Kanakaredes anyway. Nice bunch of actors, though, and I wish them lots of broken legs in the future.
Now there's only dear ol' D.B. Russell (Ted Danson), with the long-running CSI Crime Scene Investigation crowd, left on the scene and their future has looked uncertain ever since Gil Grissom (William Petersen) left. 
NCIS is still soldiering (or should that be sailoring?) on, but trusty Mark Harmon and his magical team mates can only be there until the suits distributing the dollars decide to dispose of them. Stands to reason, doesn't it? Viewing figures will always be less important than advertising revenue to the people holding the purse strings.
Poirot is currently making his last four appearances (discounting endless repeats on some of those channels that could not exist without them). David Suchet has been the only actor ever to transform the two-dimensional little egotist into a real person and in the first of the series he was joined, fittingly, by old friends Hugh Fraser (Hastings), Philip Jackson (Japp) and Pauline Moran (Miss Lemon).

Over the years the four of them have done Agatha Christie proud.

The English Ripper Street is back: the American Person of Interest is back: and the Sicilian Montalbano is back. All are welcome in our house. We also thoroughly enjoyed The Young Montalbano, an excellent in-between-Montalbano-series series. Well you can't have too much of some good things.
Lastly...and for the only time this year: The Specsavers Crime Thriller Club. This is a six part run-up to the SCTC Awards evening when radiant looking actors and actresses – and some rather uncomfortable looking writers - turn up to feign enthusiasm as the people they didn't expect to get an award are presented with an award by the people they hoped would get an award, but didn't.

Bradley Walsh adequately hosted all six programmes and the Awards show. No surprise there. He is, after all, the most realistic Detective Sergeant on our television screens today. He didn't get an award.
AND TO CONCLUDE.
254 OBA.
This year we were again unable to make it to the 254 Old Boys Association AGM.
It was held in Derby and we originally booked to go. Maureen has, however, had a difficult time since the hip operation and is currently still awaiting information about a scan that took place some weeks ago. [Nobody could ever accuse St. Mary's I.W. of rushing anything. One just has to trust that no news is good news.] So she was not up to the rather lengthy journey and we were compelled to apologise and pull out. In the event, our subsequent falling over sessions would have put paid to any imminent travel plans.
Never rains but it pours, does it. I am just looking outside the window...

197. Lots of reading and falling.

HOME AGAIN.
A chapter of accidents.
Last week Maureen went to stay with her sister in Alverstoke, Hants. Brother-in-law Mike was away on a walking holiday and my Leader went to keep Marg company for a few days. I gather everything went well enough, though the day after Mo's return home she let slip that she had undergone another fall on her outward journey and consequently was nursing a badly bruised right leg to go with the bruised/cracked/broken rib/s sustained when she tripped on a carpet in our dining room the previous week. No good me berating myself for not being there to save her on either occasion. I actually was with her last Friday when she fell in the street. Her falls are sudden and definite: Superman couldn't save her.
So on Saturday, instead of our planned trip to the Michaelmas Fair at Alverstoke, I took her, nursing a painful right foot, to Beacon Health Centre at St. Mary's, the sole working hospital on the Island since the last NHS shake up. The foot, an x-ray revealed, was not broken, it was sprained. We sighed our relief and I drove her back to Newport where M&S was holding a 50% off sale: not even a one-legged Leader could resist that.
I would, it was agreed, "pop next door to Morrisons" for a couple of items not stocked by M&S.
I was approaching a flight of stone steps leading down to Morrisons' car park when an empty plastic carrier bag from that establishment, carried up by the wind over the top step, inexplicably wrapped itself around my feet and brought me crashing to the pavement just short of the steps. My left hand and right elbow were cut, both knees and a somewhat overweight elderly midriff were bruised and I was badly shocked. I was also very lucky. I had not fallen down the steps and two extremely kind shoppers came to my assistance (one seemed to have nursing experience and the other escorted me back into M&S to find Maureen). Without them I would never have made it back onto my feet, let alone back to Mo, so my heartfelt thanks go to the pair of them. Lovely ladies.
I am grateful, too, for the kindness and consideration shown by the splendid folk at M&S, not least their newly trained first aider, Dee, whose first patient I was and who concluded the dressing of my wounds with the advice that I return to St. Mary's for a check up. (She rang us at home to ask after my progress the next day, too.)
So, bless her, my Leader, she of the sprained foot, drove me back from whence we had shortly before come and my wounds were re-dressed. It didn't take long. After all, we were season ticket holders.
A couple of days later I am feeling much better and do so hope Mo is. She needs some really good luck: about a month ago she was in the car with grandson Ellis when a tailgating white van man drove into the back of them. They were shaken but not physically injured. The car required a fairly extensive body job, was in a local (insurer - designated} garage for a fortnight and was brought back just in time for me to collect her on her return from Alverstoke. Also, before she left for the mainland she had some patterns to photocopy for one or other of her sewing circles. My hp photocopier fouled up attempting the job and, in a foolish move to temporarily replace it, we completely crashed the computer. Screen went black.
The computer lifeboat captain came, carried out all the standard procedures, got nowhere, gently cursed and got in touch with the computer recovery expert.
Dan the Man came. Daniel has been recovering stricken computers for eleven years. He is called in by Stainless whenever one of their computers founders. He carried out all the standard procedures, got nowhere, gently cursed and departed with the computer under his arm. 
For a while I was without wife, car or computer. It was a quiet time.
Anyway, Dan the Man took but a few days to resurrect the computer.
"What was wrong with it?" I asked him.
"It was buggered," he replied.
I do love an expert who doesn't talk down at you with technical details.
And the photocopying? Oh, the newsagent down the road did that at a very reasonable price. Makes you wanta spit, don't it?
Some magical moments.
Fiddler.
Way back in the nineteen seventies, youngest daughter Roz and I went to see Fiddler on the Roof at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton. It was a beautiful production (Tevye, played by a chap called Reg Dyer, was a mesmerising double of Topol) and when, early on, the chorus line did their cossack-style advance downstage – complete with lighted candles on their hats - a delighted, shining-eyed little Roz turned to share the moment with me; it was a magical experience.
So this year on the 14^th of September, as a slightly advanced 51^st wedding anniversary gift, Roz took Maureen and I to Southampton to see a matinee performance of Fiddler on the Roof, the Mayflower being the first venue of a UK tour directed and choreographed by Clive Revel Horwood (of Strictly Come Dancing) and starring Paul Michael Glaser (of Starsky and Hutch). We had an excellent lunch at the Vestry restaurant and bar before making our leisurely way across the road to the theatre where we were greeted with a notice informing us that Paul Michael Glaser was indisposed. The role of Tevye would be played by Eamonn O'Dwyer.

"That'll be all right," I said."The stand-in always works twice as hard."
He did, too.
In their penultimate performance in Southampton, Mr. O'Dwyer and his colleagues delivered a spellbinding blend of acting, singing, management of the set and, without a separate orchestra, onstage musical accompaniment (many playing several instruments).

 The Fiddler (Jennifer Douglas) not only played cool violin, she had a cool head for heights.
At the end a cheering audience gave the players a standing ovation and this old chap had been transported back some thirty five years.
Thank you, lovely Roz.
Evensong.
To the best of my knowledge the roof is still on Portsmouth Cathedral despite an attendance by my Leader and I at Evensong on Sunday 1st September. We went because our friend from Cornwall, Anne, sings in The Saint Hugh Singers (a select group of choristers gathered from all over the country), which was guesting there. In the event, I think the imposing but slightly overgrown building needed as many defaulters like us as it could get. The congregation was sadly sparse. Pity, because the combined voices, guest and resident cathedral, were a delight to the ear.
We were so pleased to see Anne again, if only for a brief spell.
READING.
The perfect Potter replacement.
A short time after the second Harry Potter book was published, our daughter-in-law, Pauline, asked if we had read any J.K. Rowling. We had not. So we hastily rectified the oversight, became doting followers and happily joined the queue, with granddaughter Jessica, at our local Ottakers, renamed POttakers, every publication night thereafter. It was a magical time.
Now, daughter Roz's partner, Nick, has directed us to four of his favourite Discworld novels and...would you believe it?...we are well and truly hooked again. Both of us have read them all.
I find it hard to believe that Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad and Lords and Ladies, published by Gollancz in 1987, 1988, 1991 and 1992 respectively (and many times since by Corgi), had never before come to our attention; the first of them was published ten years before Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone graced a shelf in any welcoming bookshop.
Have you read them? If you have, you will surely have read the lot. If you haven't, buy all four together. Nobody should read just one.
Oh, for the benefit of the uninitiated, they are the hilariously recounted adventures of witches Grandma Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Margrat Garlick and they are told (with a plethora of footnotes and fine humour) by the comedy genius that is Terry Pratchett.

Now my Leader has purchased Sir Terry's Discworld novel Night Watch and says I should be first to read it. Trouble is, by the time I've regaled her with all the bits I thought were hilarious...
A-a-ah, she'll still read it anyway..
No time for tele talk, it's already October and lengthy periods without the computer have put many hours on my reading time; so not only have I read the four Discworld masterpieces, I dipped back into the Agatha Raisin yarns of the prolific, multi-named M.C. Beaton for another good read, A.R. and the Murderous Marriage. So it is fitting that a picture of Ms. Beaton conclude this post. Cheers, all.

196. Clearing up a few oversights.

WATCHING.
Television I nearly didn't mention.

In the mishmash of easily forgettable tele that has flickered before me of late, I almost overlooked Crossfire Trail, a decent 2001 western which turned up a couple of weeks back. I'm sure it had been on before but the old memory only cut in occasionally; so Mark Harmon as a smarmy villain and Tom Selleck as "Jesse Stone in a cowboy hat" were still, after twelve years, compulsive viewing.
Saw the series end of The Returned. What is it about beautiful scenery that brings out the weird in thriller writers? I was able to find no more logic in this fascinating French zomby yarn than I do in the actions of the New Zealand "duelling banjos" characters inhabiting Top of the Lake; but I imagine all will be revealed one day. In the meantime, the daftness is enjoyable and the scenery is exquisite.  
Oh, Luther came to an end, too. Rumoured to be the last series ever. Pity, because no matter how dire things became for our hero you could always sense the presence of his psychopathic fairy godmother, Alice, in the background. And when she arrived it became quite another story.
Idris Elba and Ruth Wilson headed a strong cast.
THINKING.
Random scribbling.
I am not, as any decent journalist (and I believe there are still a few about) would quickly surmise, a professional hack; I'm just that sad individual dismissed by Dr. Johnson (on April 5^th 1776) with the words: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”  I write because I like to write. Sod Samuel Johnson. 
Trouble with being a random scribbler, though, is not what you write or how you write it; it's what, in the end, you unintentionally leave out.
My short term memory – mid and long, too, for that matter – does not improve with age. In my last blog post I had intended thanking Kelvin Fay for his message. The thanks were to be made on behalf of the cat Shadow so they were of some import: but, along with something else that I meant not to forget but cannot for the life of me remember, I forgot. Anyway, now that I've reminded myself, thanks Kelvin, hope you and yours are well.
Local council election.
I had also intended making mention of the Isle of Wight Council election held a couple of months ago. Anybody who read Post 188 (and several along similar lines) will know my opinion of our last bunch of elected representatives. Not to put too fine a point upon it, I thought they were overgrown school prefects and serial expenses claimants. I am realistic enough to appreciate, however, that the alternative would be a big mistake: which is why I can never entirely favour the idea of abolishing the royal family; they may be nothing more than unbeatable winners in Britain's most one-sided lottery, but they have to be a better option than palaces packed with pestilential politicians, elected or not. Cromwell was proof that you can do worse than keep a king and his kin.
In the event, the citizens of this little island unceremoniously dumped the controlling Conservative council, electing in its stead a mixed bag of former Tories and Liberals calling themselves Independents. Same meat, different gravy. I am not overly optimistic, but we'll see.
Post 195 revisited.
Heading post 195 "Friends - please email me!" might have been a good idea had I thought it through. Those who regularly read the blog and/or sometimes email their funny forwards to me have mostly got in touch; it simply did not occur to me at the time that there were going to be those who no more had my email address than I now have theirs.
Mine is barndens@talktalk.net and, for the record, I still have no desire to be fiercely friendly on Facebook or tiresomely talkative on Twitter.
But social networks can strike a spark.
My Leader keeps in touch with people by phone, ipad and text and does, occasionally, look in at the Facebook entries of family and friends. The following, glorious, spark of lunacy was posted on Facebook by daughter Roz's pal Michelle:
"I don't have Alzheimer's, I have Sometimers: sometimes I remember and sometimes I don't."
Know the feeling, Mich., know the feeling.
The necessary attitude.

When Terry Wogan left BBC Radio2 and handed over the breakfast show to Chris Evans, I was somewhat dismissive of the new lad. Shouldn't have been. He knows his stuff and has gently remodelled the programme to suit a wider listening public: nowadays we miss him when he's not there. He is also a natural radio broadcaster, which has one distinct drawback; he shares with the illustrious Wogan the disadvantage of being better heard than seen. Like Wogan, though, he cannot resist the temptation to appear on the box, so it was no surprise that he invited us all to look in on him (via the web) when he broadcast from Glastonbury. It proved to be a masterclass in the art of radio presentation and not at all what I expected. For a start, I had always cheerfully imagined the daily offering coming from a vast studio in which Mr. Evans, Lynn Bowles, Vassos Alexander, Moira Stuart, a celebrity guest and little Noah were all present and were joined every Friday by the singing ghost of Sammy Davis Jnr. If Glastonbury was anything to go by, nothing could be more removed from fact. Here your garrulous DJ sat alone at a desk faced by a proliferation of switches and a pile of notes. He spent a lot of time switching switches, shuffling papers and staring into space. Just occasionally there would be a physical presence to talk to, but mostly he talked to his microphone; a lonely man addressing an invisible audience. It was shoulder shruggingly boring. But he comes across as a happy chap; which is understandable when one reads that he is a multi-millionaire who owns a fleet of classic cars and (apparently without anywhere to put it) a bridge.  He has, without question, the necessary attitude.
Anyway, it makes someone who sits alone in front of a computer and earns bugger all look like a bit of a blockhead, doesn't it?
Don't answer that.
READING.
The Necessary Aptitude.

I finished reading Pam Ayres' memoir and then failed to mention it in my last post; don't know why (Sometimers, perhaps). Suffice to say it echoes many of my childhood and working life experiences, is quite beautifully written and provides an uplifting message to anybody who feels (or has ever felt) they do not have the necessary aptitude.  

Lovely work, Pam, you're a good 'un.

The Cuckoo's Calling.
The dialogue is excellent throughout this crime novel by Robert Galbraith and the description of people and places is faultless. Plot and action take some time to emerge, but are worth the wait.
Private investigator Cormoran Strike is an updated version of Slim Callaghan, Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade. He even acquires the easy-on-the-eye secretary, Robin Ellacott, who has been sent by a 'temp' agency to which she obviously will not return when the story finishes.
I enjoyed it (do still enjoy 'almost any whodunit by anybody') and have no doubt it will make a good film. I think Mr. Galbraith knows that, too. This may be his first crime story but I believe he has probably been published before. Perhaps in a different genre under a different name, eh. 
Anyway, when it is filmed, (and it certainly will be) Strike should be played by Jonathan Cake and Robin by Emma Watson. Won't be, but should.
I very much look forward to Strike 2.
'Bye for now.

195. Friends - please email me!

THE LAUNCH OF A NEW COMPUTER.

Afloat again.

 

With the good old Dell close to sinking (see Slightly Adrift last month) son Neil, the computer lifeboat captain, decided we had best scuttle her. He subsequently arrived and presented me (gratis) with a brand new Compaq class replacement powered by Windows 8. Following a valiant attempt to coax some updated know-how into my unreceptive head, he departed muttering that something would have to be done about “those fucking rectangles..” (The tiles providing access to the new system.) True to his word he was back in a couple of days and uploaded (downloaded? I'm never sure) a modification which has transformed the Windows 8 into something more like the 7. He then asked if there was anything else I would like transferred off the old Dell. That unearthed...Problem 1: My Leader, well aware that I am disinclined to part with clapped out mechanical favourites, had taken the scuttling advice to heart. The day after he installed the replacement she consigned my old Dell, powered by the beloved Windows XP, to the nearest refuse tip. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

So to...

FRIENDS – PLEASE EMAIL ME!

Problem 2: With the departure of the old Dell went all my pictures and my address book – including short cuts to my Fw friends. So, dear ol' pal, if you were (and would like again to be) on my Fw list, I'd much appreciate an email from you carrying an up-to-date email address. Doesn't have to be a long communication. Just a one word message. “Balls” will do. All I have to do then is find the new address book and learn how to Fw on Bcc again. Simple ain't it?  Gawdblessyer...hope to hear from you soon.

ON THE BOX.

Wimbledon.

Been little else on the telly has there? Oh well, the weather's been good and, with the departure of all the favourites but the great Scot and Djokovic, I thought this year Andy Murray might...just... possibly?
So I settled back in my armchair. contentedly awaiting the start of the men's final. Then, to my dismay, the cat Shadow appeared and he was obviously hellbent on poetry.

“Wimbledon again,” he said brightly. “I have a poem.”

I tried to look encouraging, though I know I didn't sound it:

“Go on then,” I said.

He struck his poetic pose and emoted:

Tennis on ice.

For those who slithered and skidded and fell

Wimbledon this year has surely been hell.

Slipping and sliding on treacherous grass,

Spending less time on their feet than their arse,

Bemoaning the fact that they ever came near

S.W. 19 for this slipperiest year.

Nadal and Federer went out in a flash,

And Serina cut not quite her bold usual dash

None of them seemed to know what way, or which

To deal with obscure names that ended in 'itch.'

Lisicki beat Williams, shedding tears of relief

Then lost to Bertoli and shed tears of grief.

So to the men's final – this time there's no hitch:

It's the Scot Andy Murray and the Serb, Djokovic.

He eyed me expectantly.
I pondered: “Couldn't you have waited until after the men's final?”   
“That could go on for hours,” he said. “And Murray might not win.”

How do you reason with logic like that?

“Anyway, I'm off for a snooze in the sunshine,” he added. “It will be bedlam in here until that lot's over.”
He didn't come back until the bedlam was over; it was time for his dinner and, as the world now knows, Murray had won.

“See,” I taunted. “you could have got a historic moment into your poem.”

“I can't wait for the football season to start,” he said, “then I'll be able to sleep indoors again. Football crowds are quieter.”
He can be such a dismissive little bugger sometimes.

Rest of our viewing.

The Returned. French updated zombies in a beautiful location. I like it, in an 'admire the scenery' sort of way.

The Borgias. More medieval mayhem surrounding an indestructible Jeremy Irons.

Luther. Why do all tele heroes (Gibbs, Jo, etc.) finish up being investigated by establishment gits with nothing better to do? It started when remote – politically directed – interlopers were introduced into US television dramas to ride roughshod over maverick detectives and their doting acolytes. Clearly it is a recognised and understood thing in America.
Now it is happening to Luther. He's English. He should tell 'em to fuck off.  
Me? I'd tell 'em it's lazy scriptwriting.

READING.

Graham Hurley. I have finished reading The Perfect Soldier in which Mr. Hurley points an accusing finger at this - and every other - country involved in the manufacture and sale of Perfect Soldiers (i.e. anti-personnel mines). I have to admit the story left me in despair for humankind. Whatever happened to civilization? If the author is right (and I would never doubt his research) there are now more mines than people in Angola; in Cambodia there were so many anti-personnel mine victims they were running out of crutches and, in the final stages of the Falklands conflict, the departing Argentinians randomly scattered mines from helicopters so that islanders will forever be in danger from them: On East Falkland, the author tells us, there are beaches where it will never be safe for a human being to walk again. Over 100 million A/Ps are spread around the world, particularly in Third World farming areas, and 26,000 people a year, mostly civilians, are killed or maimed by them.
We are far from blameless. At the time this book went to print Britain was responsible for a fifth of the world market in arms sales.  Yeah, proud Brit...think on...

James Patterson.

Four Blind Mice is another Alex Cross yarn; this time Dr. Cross – think Morgan Freeman - comes up against the US army, represented by a kill-happy clique of rogue Vietnam war veterans. Mr. Patterson may seem to effortlessly produce these short-chaptered yarns (115 chapters/309 pages), but don't be fooled: the man is a craftsman and in Four Blind Mice his villains are horribly acceptable all-American buddies. Whatever did happen to civilization? Yeah, proud Yank...think on...

Ian Dillow.

Not a book from Ian, though he really should write one (perhaps with me) before it's too late (for either of us}. Meantime he has emailed me this little gem. I hope it will cut and paste. Well...you know me and modern technology...But If it does, I dare you not to smile.

Mendel's Defecatory Principle.

This is a deceptively simple philosophy that an exceptionally gifted friend has been slaving over and refining for most of his life.

I am delighted to report that he has fine-tuned the principle to its absolute quintessential essence.  This he has completed to a degree that it may now be shared with a select band of friends that may appreciate its elegance and simplicity.

 

 

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.