2 (19) WHAT, CYNICAL? ME?

 POLITICS.

Patronizing or what? Three months before the election and already the 'you have a duty to vote' lectures from journalists determined to remind us how lucky we are not to be living in (1) a dictatorship (2) an overbearing kingdom (3) a country run by an immoveable political clique or (4) an inquisitorial hellhole under the thumb of a religious elite. Is that patronizing or what? Well, it is; but, sadly, they are right. 
I just wish they were not quite so holier-than-thou about it. 

Truth is, many people cannot see the point in rushing to the polls when they know the majority of those around them are (according to how politically 'safe' the area in which they live) programmed to vote unquestioningly for any ass with a blue ribbon around its neck or any donkey with a red ribbon, ditto: and that those dedicated party disciples will continue to pursue the same unquestioning ritual because they always have, their parents always did and, blissfully, their children always will. 
Token malcontents may vote for the token political crackpot, no matter how crackpot that crackpot's policies are. 
It is called democracy. 

As I have written before within these walls, there have been times when I have not bothered to vote. It has been said that those of us who fail to go to the polls deserve whatever we get. Bunkum. Whether we vote or not we will finish up being represented by party lackeys who will do exactly what the whips tell them to do. I'm sure the brightest sparks start out with the best of intentions; it's just that by the time their train pulls into London all that lofty idealism has wafted away like so many farts in the wind. 
Parliament is no place for those unwilling to walk the party line. 

This year, though, I shall vote. For whom I am not yet sure. To date only one prospective candidate has put a leaflet through my letterbox. If none of the others bother, I shall probably vote for him. Well, you've got to admire a trier. I think he is a Socialist, though, so he stands no chance over here, my vote or not. (Over her it's less Fifty Shades of Grey than Fifty Hues of Blue.) Anyway, whoever gets in I shall expect nothing. I'm too old to be taken in by promises. Always have been. But don't you find it implausible that each successive government's balls-ups are instantly attributed to errors made when their departed counterpart was in power, no matter how long ago that may have been? And don't you, too, find it exasperating that any promise made by a political party in the run up to an election instantly becomes too impractical (i.e. costly) to implement once that party gains power?

What, cynical? Me? Too right.  

Party leaders' debate on TV? Looks as though this daft import from America may not now come about. Don't ask me why. Ask somebody who gives a shit. 

HOME. 

The unstately edifice. A viewer came on Thursday: said she liked how quiet the place is, but it's not for her. Another on Saturday: her husband in tow. He liked it more than she did. They were only looking for a place to rent out to holidaymakers, anyway. Oh well. Keep 'em coming. 

TELEVISION. 

My view. 

Not only did the Beeb repeat series two of Father Brown, it also treated us to a rerun of the first series in which Hugo Speer played the thick police presence common to all old-fashioned whodunits. Inspector Valentine was an uncouth lout who seldom took his hat off, even in church, and whose senior officers would certainly, in those days, have ordered him to do up his shirt collar and tighten his tie; he didn't, from start to finish: maybe that's why he was later transferred. 

We saw (and have just about forgotten) the last episode of Last Tango in Halifax. Won't come back again, will it? Oh, all right, I expect it will.

Watching Fortitude on Sky Atlantic. Joint stars are: Imported snow, Sophie Grabol, Stanley Tucci, Michael Gambon, Richard Dormer and, for a few moments, Christopher Eccleston. The left hand doesn't seem to know that the right hand has frostbite, but I shall stick with it, if only because it's cold outside.

 Guess I'll also stick with the television adaptation (rewrite) of J.K. Rowling's first story for adults, The Casual Vacancy (BBC1), where Michael Gambon is again one of the stars. (Not bad for a man who allegedly says he has given up the stage because he can't remember his lines.) Sadly, as recorded at time of publication, I did not particularly enjoy the book. I blame public service. During the course of a fairly pedestrian NHS career I encountered just about every one of J.K.'s insular Pagford parishioners and, to a person, loathed the bloody lot of them. 

Broadchurch (ITV). Even the best actors can't rescue a total turkey and, to my mind, this one has been just that. David Tennant and Olivia Colman will surely be back in better yarns. 

The Wright Stuff (Channel 5). I still look in when anybody interesting adorns the guest list. This week Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Lee Hurst are on. Thought they would be amiability personified, but there was an immediate falling out over the three young British girls who have apparently taken off for Syria. Yasmin was sympathetic. Lee was not. Could be an interesting couple of hours every morning. Look for fireworks.

BOOKS. 

My reading seems to have fallen behind of late. Morning tele and an afternoon nap don't help. I am, however, halfway through Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. Bowled over, as usual, at Sir Tel's astuteness. More next time. 

Cheers. Mind how you go.

2 (18) IT'S ALL STILL HAPPENING.

ABROAD. 

The Land of Psychopathia. The Charlie Hebdo and allied murders in Paris were undertaken by religious loonies who (whatever their said country or creed) are basically citizens of Psychopathia, a nation of psychopaths led by paranoid sociopaths. They have a propensity for murder, misogyny and homophobia and there is no reasoning with them. The French dealt with them in the definitive way. What a sad world. 

HOME. 

My Leader. It was Tuesday, 9th of October, 2012 when Maureen went into hospital for an operation to replace her left hip. Prior to the operation she was in considerable pain but could walk without the aid of a walking stick: since the op. she has been free of pain but her physical balance is haywire and she cannot manage without a stick. On the few occasions she has seen him, her surgeon seems at a loss to explain it. She is not one for kicking up a fuss, so follow up appointments have been slow. Lord knows what next. I suppose we just have to be thankful that patients over here are not spending weeks stuck on trolleys in hospital corridors. We have just the one hospital nowadays: everybody there means well, but nobody seems to know quite what to do. In such a closed environment second opinions are are not easily obtained. It can be extremely dispiriting.

An ageing cat. 

The cat Shadow is getting old and it starts to show: not in his appearance, which is still pretty damn good, but in his demeanour and occasional need to take stock before he makes a move. He doesn't go much on that. There are new cats on the block, too. He is wary of them: the little black one seems all right...very young... but there's a pair of big tabbies who look as though they could be Kraycat twins...they'll need watching...and Manners-next-door (a.k.a. the cat Willow) died of old age a couple of weeks ago (indoors, quietly and without fuss, which was nice for him), so now there's no buffer between Shadow HQ and the rest of the terrace. It ain't like old times anymore. Everything is changing. And, for the record, Shadow dislikes change even more than I do. 

Unstately home news. The festive season mostly put an end to requests for a viewing and only only one viewer came before Christmas: she came from France and, though she liked the place, concluded it would not be big enough to accommodate her grand piano. Viva Semprini! 

At the beginning of this week there was an evening viewing. Nothing to report other than that the viewer was going away to think about it. Seems he's still thinking. Ah well. Everybody says it's early days. Roll on spring. 

TELEVISION. 

The Detectives. 

Foyle's War and Father Brown have both been and gone: Foyle, if the blurb be true, forever. We shall miss Michael Kitchen in his trilby hat and Honeysuckle Weeks in that Austerity Britain house of which Sir Stafford Cripps would have firmly approved. There has to be a Foyle follow up, doesn't there? 

Father Brown was as old hat and delightfully daffy as ever. The police were still obtuse; arch-villain Flambeau still an instantly recognisable master of disguise and the Father's class-riddled female followers still a selection of stock, between-the-wars, Brits. We still loved every silly moment of it. It will surely be back. Now Series 2 is being repeated and we're watching that again. Don't say a word. 

Broadchurch has also returned and we are as bemused by the neurotic antics of everybody currently involved as we were when first they descended on us. We still cannot fathom what all the fuss is about. 

NCIS is back, too. 

Only this morning we viewed a couple of taped episodes. One of them was entitled So it Goes and took Dr. Ducky Mallard (David McCallum) back to America's favourite version of England. 

Dear God. I do wish they wouldn't. American film and television people still have us all conversing either in Dick Van Dyke's 'Mary Poppinsh' or in the fraitfully laike thet* posh that only the likes of Noel Coward ever affected. Please be aware, Isle of Wight County, Virginia, anybody who talked laike thet in England today would - with the possible exception of the art critic Brian Sewell - be laughed right out of the country: I presume some already have and are appearing as Englishmen on American television.

AND FINALLY. 

Neil Barnden. 

It is our son Neil's birthday tomorrow, so I take this opportunity to wish him many happy returns and a healthy and prosperous year ahead. Anybody who wants to know what an Englishman of today actually does sound like can Google him on Interview with a game developer: Neil Barnden (Stainless Games) and listen to his interview with HDTanel. There's a chance to learn a little about producing computer games, too. End of the advertising and...*frightfully like that...of this post. 

2 (17) MANNERS! MANNERS!

 WATCHING. 

There is no excuse. Let us start with the really nasty stuff. In Sydney, Australia, an Iranian extremist held nearly a score of people hostage in a cafe, finally killing two of them before he was put down by commandos. And in Peshawar, Pakistan, Taliban terror pedlars murdered 132 pupils and close on a dozen staff in a savage attack on a school: the mad bastards then blew themselves to smithereens. Such acts of violence, for whatever twisted reason, are inexcusable and serve only to confirm what a complete waste of space these hate merchants are. Why we continue to meddle abroad is beyond me anyway, unless it is just for the oil.

In my last blog post.

I failed to mention (put it down to age) a nasty incident that befell Independent columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on a London bus some weeks ago. It seems she was spat upon and called a “bloody paki” by a woman who was moving down the aisle to leave the vehicle. The woman was a stranger to her. Apparently none of the other passengers objected: too shocked, frightened, or apathetic perhaps? Or just silently relieved it had not happened to them? As if to lend weight to this abhorrent attack on an innocent citizen, there later came the spectacle of Black Friday (another daft import from America), a day when irresponsible department stores opened their cut-price doors to cut-throat hordes of shoppers who went mental for 50% off new television sets and not-to-be-missed mobiles. 

It was graceless mayhem. Thousands went for it and, as usual, the greediest bullies came off best. 

What the hell's happening? There was a time when we locked up head cases in asylums; now we mutely encourage their boorish lunacy. I think it started with clowns in union-jack-bedecked waistcoats indulging in vile, drunken behaviour abroad: it has since grown to encompass home and away and both sexes and all age groups, drunk or sober. I'm not sorry I'm old, but I fear for our grandchildren: what sort of future faces them? One can only hope that, growing up with it, they will simply regard a mannerless existence as the norm; rather like my generation has compliantly come to accept foul-mouthed comedians as vaguely acceptable. (Yeah, I think Mrs. Brown's Boys is a hoot, too. Can't believe the effin' and blindin' belongs on Have I Got News For You, though.) As the comedian Arthur English used to say: “Open the cage!” 

THE DETECTIVES. 

Cop these in 2015.

Foyle's War will be back on ITV on 4^th January, Broadchurch will return to ITV on 5^th January and Father Brown is coming back to BBC1 in a ten part series also starting on Monday 5^th January. 

More next time. 

REST OF THE TELE.

The usual Christmas. Loads of repeats: an interesting festive series of University Challenge (in which people who have made it in the media, after obtaining university degrees in everything but the media, competed to show how misuse of a decent education matters not); a plethora of old films (the majority of which I saw when they were first screened) and 'celebrity' (most of whom I did not know from Adam) game shows where the contestants do it for charity. There was also an absolute forest of Victoria Wood.

More next time.

I hope your Christmas was all you hoped it might be and less expensive than you anticipated. May your New Year be free of lying politicians, ill health, religious zealots and anybody who is introduced on television as 'an expert.' 

A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS 2015!

2 (16) STILL PLODDING ALONG.

WATCHING. 

What viewers? So far as the sale of our house is concerned, nothing is now likely to happen before Christmas: the last couple of requests to view ended in cancellation only hours before they were due to take place. Seems prospective buyers are discovering (at the very last moment) that money is tight and mortgages almost non-existent. Oh well, the old place has never looked more clean and tidy. It's eerie. 

Facing up to Facebook. Right now my computer Inbox is awash with shared links, updated statuses and new photos. It is lovely that so many nice people want to share their jokes, interests etc. with me and wonderful how the Facebook gurus contrive to let it be known when said interests are on view: I'd make a clever comment on every one if I had the talent or the time. Sadly I don't. Their splendid contributions are much appreciated, though. Thanks, folks. 
TELEVISION. 

The Wright Stuff. (Channel 5) 

There are worse people than Matthew Wright to watch on reality tele (the little unshaven twat who growls: “You've been fired” and the bald headed twat who shouts: “Cooking never got tougher than this”are obvious examples), so I still watch the bikini boy if his guest list includes somebody I think will interest me. A fortnight ago the pair invited to spend an entire week on the panel were the journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Dr. David Bull. It was a prospective red rag to a bull situation. (Sorry) 

Mrs. Alibhai-Brown is a British Muslim, a socialist and a republican. Dr. Bull is a Brit who has been a prospective conservative MP. He now spends a great deal of his time in America where he appears regularly on television. 
Their confrontation, when it came, was blunt and brief and neither side was the winner. 'Screechy' (the unseen one who talks in the host's ear) must have been delighted. It was what insiders call 'good tele.' I thought the participants were commendably straightforward. Matthew made conciliatory noises and it might all have ended there. But the next phone-in came from a lady who ventured what seemed to me to be a tongue-in-cheek admonition: panelists, she averred, really should be advised not to squabble in public...it ruined their image...(or something along those lines). 

Tch, tch! Exit Never-on-Monday Matthew, the friendly fisherman with the bad back: Enter How-dare-you-slate-my-guests Matthew, tough television front man, bristling with unrighteous indignation. Nobody, but nobody, climbs on their high horse higher than our Matthew once he starts; he can hover at the edge of outer space. And he did. It was like a warm up for the Jeremy Kyle Show. He finally concluded his dramatic denouncement of the flabbergasted caller with a dismissive wave to signal the lecture was at an end. It had been a promising call, too. 

Ne'er mind, I'll still look in when he has somebody interesting, nice, funny, controversial, likeable (perm any two from five) on the panel. He can be a reasonable enough bloke, too, when he's not being Matt the twat. 

War Horse. Directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis and based on a novel by Michael Morpurgo, this epic, set at the time of the first world war, was shown on BBC1 a week or so ago. Did you see it? Or did the Beeb's surfeit of salutes to WW1 finally prove too much for you? I watched. The photography was top class and the acting matched it. My Leader, no fan of war films whatever the war (she believes that the politicians who start wars should be sent out to fight them), watched it with me once she realized it was more Black Beauty than All Quiet On The Western Front. It had an ominous beginning, an action-packed middle and a happy ending, so it pleased those of us who still covet such things.

Peaky Blinders (BBC2). 

The boys from Brum, led by Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), were back for a second villainous, sex-crazed, foul-mouthed series and it looks like they're set for a third. I recorded the entire series and we watched them over a couple of days. Very steamy and violent and a sound reminder that if you're looking for outright chicanery you need only look for the politician. 

George Clarke's Amazing Spaces (Channel 4). George has found an incredible array of quirky dwellings adapted - from a variety of unlikely beginnings - by a host of imaginative and determined enthusiasts. This is a cracking, original little programme. 

Concerto at the BBC Proms (BBC4). Somebody at the Beeb had a bright idea. In the wake of the Proms, why not repeat a few 'notable' concertos performed over the years? So they showed one a week for four weeks and the chosen 'of notes' were: the melodic Mendelssohn Violin Concerto played by Janine Jansen with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Mozart Clarinet played by Julian Bliss, Mozart Piano Concerto number 23 played by Richard Goode and Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto number 4 (an extended maze of sophisticated scales and very little else) rattled off by Russian virtuoso Boris Berezovsky accompanied by the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Filmed between 2005 and 2008, all four performances seem rather dated now. 

BACK TO BOOKS. 

Talking of dated: I have just finished reading Edmund Crispin's Buried for Pleasure: first published in 1948, it took me right back to the days during the second world war when mate Tony and I used to write (and illustrate) our own detective stories in exercise books for exchange readings. All of that is long gone, but I instinctively knew whodunit in the Crispin story and was smugly pleased when it transpired I was right. Well, in a lively little yarn written when I as about twelve years old, I conjured up a murderer almost identical to the one in Buried for Pleasure: six years before Mister Crispin's pre PC masterpiece, too. My neat nipperpiece was called Pay or Die. 

“So was it ever published?” 
What, written in longhand in a wartime exercise book by an elementary schoolboy? Do behave. 

I finished Sally Green's Half Bad (Penguin books 2014) and concluded it was not at all bad. 

And I have just come to the end of Moving Pictures, the story of how the movies invaded Discworld. Written, directed and produced in glorious technicolor by Sir Terry Pratchett, I nodded and grinned my way through every classic-film-referenced reel of it. What a wonderful writer that man has always been. 

THE DETECTIVES. 

The Dr. Blake Mysteries are back on BBC1 and we are in late 1950s Australia where the crime-busting GP, played by Craig McLachlan, is doing what amateur detectives forever do; testing the patience of his town's friendly constabulary and infuriating the local bigwigs. We like his housekeeper and his Standard motor. 
Body of Proof (Channel 5). 

Megan Hunt, played by Dana Delaney, another doctor who finds the time to poke her nose into things that only armed police officers should be dealing with, is back again and busy poking her nose in...Enjoyable if you like Dana Delaney. We do. 
AND OTHER THINGS. 
Here we go again. “It's less than four weeks to Father Christmas time,” said the cat Shadow. “Have you written any cards yet? Or looked for the decorations? Or put the sprouts on the hob?” 
“Don't nag,” I said. “There's plenty of time and I'm always late anyway.” 
“You're getting worse by the year,” he opined. “I think you'd better wish all the nice folk who read this rubbish the Compliments of the Season before it's too late.” 
“I think you'd better shut up before I put you in Cat's Protection and buy a puppy,” I said. The Festive Season has begun so I'll not print his obscene rejoinder. But in case I am not in print again before the slightly slimmer Santa comes down your chimney this year:
       Have a Happy Christmas 

                       Gawdblessyerwunanall.

2 (15) So you wait, you wait and wait...

GIRL DON'T COME.

It's a matter of height. 

If I still had the Sandie Shaw recording of Chris Andrews' timeless words it would have been getting a considerable airing of late. The girl from the estate agents did not come for quite some time; even as I was bemoaning the fact, however, she arranged a viewing. The prospective purchasers came, declared the ceilings too low, and went.We have a step-grandson who stands six foot four or more and he never seems to have found the ceilings too low. So there y'go. Hagrid height viewers apart, all is quiet on the property front. Oh, the agents have changed the offending Garage and Parking notice: six footers with good eyesight and a clear head will easily be able to decipher the replacement. WATCHING. 

Funeral of Lorna Kill. 

The usual family gathering. If it ain't the (what seems like) annual gathering at Portchester in Hampshire, it's the alternative one on the Isle of Wight. This year it was the Island's turn. I refer, of course, to the gathering of solemn faces at a Crematorium. Last Monday family members and friends of 'our Lorna' met at the I.W. Crem to pay their final respects to her. My introduction to the proceedings would have been more solemn had Maureen and I not reached the crematorium doorway alongside Mo's nephew Kelvin who, taking in the rapidly filling block of pews on either side of the central aisle, inquired quietly:“Bride or groom?” Nothing that came afterward could follow that. The pious pedantry of a Jehovah service certainly couldn't. Ah well, to each their own. 

THE DETECTIVES. 

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. 

Season 14 ended in strangely abrupt fashion with Paul Guilfoyle (Captain Jim Brass) finding a measure of realignment with his drug addicted murderous daughter and, presumably, choosing that moment to retire from the police. How many writers did it take to come up with quite such a tame ending? Mr. Guilfoyle (and Jim Brass) deserved better – much better. 

Scott and Bailey. 

Another series end, but this time a tidy, two-part, feel-good finale to the illustrious career of station boss DCI Gill Murray (Amelia Bullmore, who also wrote the scripts).They'll be back and, with any luck, Ms Bullmore will continue to contribute scripts; her on screen presence will be greatly missed. 

THE BOOK WORLD. 

Current reading: I am a chapter or three into Half Bad by Sally Green, Buried For Pleasure, by Edmund Crispin and Moving Pictures by Terry (“A month went by quickly. It didn't want to hang around.”) Pratchett. More next month. It will go by quickly...

LAST SAY. 

Clockomania. It's that bloody hour again. “Fall back in the fall” be damned. Fortunately the weather here has been good and the kids are on half term this week, but I'm now wide awake at six in the morning and probably will be for a couple of months. Why? There's absolutely no need for it. I'll vote for the first politicians who promise to retain British Summer Time forever. Well, there's always a faint chance the lying sods will keep their word. 

Halloween. It's that 'intimidate the old folks' time again. Doors will be hammered and “trick or treat” demands will be made. My Leader has just gone out to buy a load of sweets for the little gangsters. I blame the Americans, but I blame them for just about everything. The Google Halloween icons are fantastic though, aren't they? 

Mobile phone pics. Thanks to Facebook, since Mo's sister's funeral took place, we have been sent - with the best of intentions I know - several pictures taken on mobile phones by family members. Might have been tempted to print one or two of them but we are all older now and I am, maybe, a bit wiser. The last pic to arrive had me looking a bit like an elderly, overweight Peter Dinklage. It was sent by Kelvin Fay's younger brother, Peter. I'm not sure whether I should thank or throttle him. The jury is out. That's enough for this month. Trick or treat! 

2 (14) More comings and goings.

WATCHING.

Social media friends.

Thoughts on losing them. 

This week the journalist John Walsh's amusing little article in i bewailed the loss of three followers from his list of Twitter buddies. It was not so much that he had lost them, it was more the realization that he would never...ever...know why. Gave me pause for thought, that did. I have thus far avoided Twitter, but (with my Leader's encouragement) now have a Facebook account. I'm not much good at it. In the first place, the craze to spread pictures around passed me by way before computers and ipads came along. I still shudder at the memory of other people's holiday lantern slides. Never sought to inflict my seaside snaps on them. Then there is the one line chitchat. I can't do that. If I could I'd be a stand-up comedian. So I guess someone will defriend me sometime. Bound to happen. May already have done so without my noticing. Fact is, I shan't lose much sleep over it. Most of my Facebookers are relatives – the more distant of whom would pass me in the street without a flicker of recognition – others are virtual friends who seem to collect network buddies like velvet collects dog hairs. I don't have that many close friends. Just a few old ones I cherish. So, nice as it is to have word of the outside world occasionally, I lack the curiosity that would drive me to dip into the lives of others on a regular basis. Good luck to them all, though, even the ones I'd probably loathe (and be loathed by) if we ever met. Keep at it and try not to hurt anybody on the way, eh? 

Another departure. 

And then there were two. 

When I married my Leader I acquired seven sisters-in-law. It came as a bit of a shock. My sole experience of siblings had been two foster brothers. Most of the sisters lived in and around Portsmouth and Gosport. After we moved to the Isle of Wight we saw little of them other than during their short annual visit to a holiday complex here at Puckpool. Five of them have now expired, four in the past few years. At around 3 am on Sunday the fifth October, Maureen's oldest sister, 91 year old Lorna Kill, (a resident of Cowes for her entire married life and more) died here at St. Mary's Hospital, Newport: she had suffered a lengthy, thankfully painless, heart attack and her death was a peaceful one. Back when Mo was very young and needed support, Lorna was one of the sisters who provided it, even though she and her husband were not wealthy and had two children of their own to raise. She possessed a lively temper, but her heart (along with her sense of humour) was in the right place. My Leader once posited to her: “As a girl you were Plymouth Brethren, then you became C of E; now you're a Jehovah's Witness. Are you hedging your bets, Lorn?” I believe her suitably choice response was delivered with a smile. Though we seldom met, I liked her. Whichever heaven you have found, RIP Lorna Kill.  

THE DETECTIVES. 

Television. 

Chasing Shadows. 

This little series starred Reece Shearsmith, Alex Kingston, Don Warrington and an impressive supporting cast. It had a quirky premise and, given the chance, D.S. Sean Stone (seemingly an Autism or Asperger's sufferer), who runs investigative circles around his bemused colleagues, could be on our screens even longer than it took Gary McKinnon to avoid extradition to America. Preposterous but watchable. 

Lewis. Series 8.

Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox are still Lewis and Hathaway. In one of those bizarre twists only feasible within a television police force, Hathaway (after forty days and forty nights – or perhaps it was a year - in the wilderness) has been promoted to DI and is busy rejecting sergeants and struggling with a dicey murder case. To 'boost his confidence,' Chief Superintendent Innocent (Rebecca Front), obviously a very poor psychologist, recalls the retired Lewis to back him up. The first story went quite well and Hathaway did not murder Innocent or Lewis. Give it time.

FILM. 

What we did on our holiday.

Maxie, who comes every six weeks to cut our hair and keep us up to date with what's happening in the world, recommended this little film to us. She and her youngsters, Ruby and Raff, thought it was great. My Leader and I duly went to see it yesterday. It was our first trip to the local cinema together since the last Harry Potter film. I don't much like the cinema. The refreshments are too expensive, the adverts are too loud, the trailers go on too long, the seats are less comfortable than my armchair at home and, in the long run, it costs a damn sight less to wait and buy the video. That having been aired, we enjoyed the film. It is, of course, 'Outnumbered' with beautiful Scottish scenery. Written and directed by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, the cute kids still have their own say, the grownups still struggle to keep up and ol' Bill Connolly, who clearly has no qualms about acting with children, gives a fine performance as their terminally ill granddad. If you liked Outnumbered, you'll love it.

LAST SAY.

 The cat Shadow, ensconced on my printer, his current favourite work spot, said of a sudden: “I've been reading the blog.” 

“Oh aye,” I said. “What do you think?” 

“Well you seem a bit down,” he said. “I've told you before, things won't change just because you don't like 'em.” I grunted a halfhearted warning, but he knows how to pull the strings. “Take this social media thingy,” he said. “It is something you can either do or you can't. Seems to me most young people can, but they've been brought up with it. Nobody but you is going to care if you're not that good at it. It will still be going long after you've kicked the bucket.” 

I nodded. “Right. Anything else?” 

“Yes. You've always moaned about sound in the cinema. Last time you went you said the bloody adverts were designed either for the totally deaf or to make you totally deaf. You said the noise wasn't that loud in the bloody gun club.” 

“That was a long time ago,” I reflected. “Haven't touched a gun for years.” 

He was not to be sidetracked.“Well, those adverts in the cinema, like the adverts on television, are not going to get any quieter because you don't like 'em.” 

“And they'll still be there long after...” I murmured.

“Precisely,” he purred. “Same goes for reality television in all its forms: the cooking, the quiz and chat shows, bullshitting business people, property stuff, antiques, auctions and celebs going on jollies. It's cheap-to-make tele and you're the only one I know who truly detests it.” 

“Oh dear,” I said. “Shall I buy a dog and stop watching the box altogether?” 

He grinned his best cat grin. “N-a-ah. Anything's better than long walks in the rain with a poop bag in your hand, ain't it?” 

“We must talk again sometime,” I said faintly.

2 (13) Scotland. So now we know.

WATCHING.

Scottish Independence. 

So now we know. 

Scotland, as the entire world will have noted, narrowly rejected independence. It was a satisfying conclusion for just over half the reported 84.5% turnout, a bitter disappointment for the rest and a narrow victory for the Union. I don't think anyone is crowing (yet) and, in true political fashion, the wild promises made by the headless chicken who scurried north from Westminster are already being back-pedalled by the mouthy bantams convinced that Churchill or Thatcher would simply have sent a gunboat up the Clyde and the army into Glasgow. 

In the end it was good ol' Gordon Brown (the jaw-dropping Scot himself) who saved the day for the UK with a spate of rousing deliveries reminiscent of the late Ian Paisley: so persuasive was he, he may possibly have booked himself the most unlikely seat in the House of Lords this century. I'm still glad the Scots are staying, but I'm not looking forward to the aftermath. Stronger local powers in England? Devolution? I do hope not. What crafty, delegating dickhead thought that one up? It sounds like divide and conquer to me. 
The Middle East. 

Haven't we done enough? 

So now it is British bombs on Iraq. Not enough that we went in, toppled the regime of a leader we had helped put in power, made a sorry mess of the aftermath before quietly departing. Not enough that thousands were killed or maimed and there has been religious/tribal war ever since. Now we have become back up team to current American 'assistance' in the country's affairs. Has anybody seriously considered how close this US obsession with draining the entire Middle East of its oil is bringing us to a third world war? Has anybody seriously considered anything at all? We should never have invaded the country in 2003 and our further involvement will only be rubbing salt into a very ugly wound: rushing around arresting turbans all over the UK is no mitigation, either. Will we never stop being bombastic little Britain? Will we never wake up? 
THE EMPIRE HAS GONE!

University time. 

Jessica Daisy Patricia White. 

Our granddaughter, Jess (Director of CSI: Isle of Wight in 2008), departed for Hertfordshire Uni at Hatfield last Saturday. 

Her parents went with her and saw her settled in. I believe she will be studying pharmacy: ask me no more, I spent years paying chemists for their NHS work and know little else about them other than that the majority were very pleasant people with whom to deal. We are delighted that Jess gained a university place (despite Gove's decision to totally fuck up the exam marking system this year) and our love and every good wish go with her. We shall miss her bright presence around here much more than she may think. The absolute best of doom on you, my love. 

THE DETECTIVES. 

Cherchez la femme. 

Rizzoli and Isles is going strong with Angie Harmon as Jane Rizzoli and Sasha Alexander as Maura Isles, Scott and Bailey unflaggingly entertains with Lesley Sharp as Janet Scott and Suranne Jones as Rachel Bailey and the short series Crimes of Passion is good for two more nonplussing films, with Tuva Novotny as Puck Ekstedt attracting corpses like no other honeymooner in Swedish history. For better than good measure, Dana Delaney is back as Megan Hunt in another helping of Body of Proof. Who says nobody writes good dramatic parts for women now? 

AND THE REST. 

Property on tele. 

Grand Designs: Kevin McCloud is still finding incredible people who have incredible designs for living (often at incredible prices). How on earth most of them obtain planning permission from the army of bureaucratic blobs around the country is a mystery that I doubt any of the super lady sleuths named above could solve. I suspect backhanders, but I am a man of suspicious disposition. I have no such suspicions about Location, Location, Location, however. Kirsty Allsopp and Phil Spencer obviously know - and are on knowing terms with - every estate agent in the country. It does help, of course, that they (in keeping with Escape to the Country advisers Alistair Appleton, Jules Hudson, Aled Jones, Denise Nurse et al) are generally on the lookout for properties priced at around three quarters of a million quid; this for people who have just sold their one bedroom flat in London. Writing as a guy who has a dear old three storey terraced house for sale in Newport, Isle of Wight, which has thus far attracted scant interest, I cannot help but wonder whether the average television property punter has the faintest idea what the real world is all about. 

READING. 

A couple of oldies. 

Eric by Terry Pratchett, first published in 1990. A Discworld novel...well...more a novelette really...this little book contains some prize Pratchettisms (e.g. “Midnight dropped off the clock.”) and includes three of my favourite characters: Rincewind, The Librarian and The Luggage; so Sir Tel can be forgiven if it sometimes seemed a trifle wide of the mark. The great man is only human after all. He had to pay the rent, too. 
The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin. A Gervase Fen mystery first published in 1944. Very Oxford donnish. Very much one for the fellows. Very old hat now. 

Blogger gods willing, more next month. 

2 (12) Scotland: we'll soon know.

WATCHING.

Scottish Independence. 

We'll soon know. 

Less than a fortnight to the vote and Alex Salmond's breakaway band, boosted by their leader's crafty ability to convince on television (competitive political bullshitting on the box is another deplorable American import that should have stayed in America), is clearly closer to an historic victory than had ever been envisaged by the smug twits in our fine British Parliament. They, suddenly desperate to save their arses, have now sunk to offering bribes. It's pathetic. I still hope the Scots won't go. Britain needs them and vice versa, but the need is inherently less strong in their case. What they don't need, though, is a government that expects respect. So I hope the moderate majority among them will have no truck with blinkered Scottish nationalism and will opt to put up with the same crap bunch we all have to put up with, at least until the next election. 
For a more reasoned view read Yasmin Alibhai Brown in The Independent.

The joy of house selling. 

Here we go. 

(1) Our house is the only one on this terrace that has a garage and parking, two valuable amenities that are accessed by a road adjoining the terrace. Situated, as we are, close to the town centre, the garage is rara avis, or, as daughter Roz puts it: "As rare as rocking horse shit." After the estate agents had put their board outside, we rang them and suggested they add the words with garage and hardstanding to it. The garage, we said, would sell the house. They said good idea and it would be done next Wednesday; that was the day their boards man puts up the boards. Their man duly came on Thursday and slapped a red worded message on the board. It said: Garage with parking. So that should get them plenty of calls from people looking to buy a garage with parking in the middle of Newport. I only hope they remember to mention the house that goes with it. 

(2) One of the nice young women at the estate agents rang on a Saturday morning to ask if a prospective purchaser could look at the place that afternoon. She (the agent) was alone in the office (she said) so would not be available to show the person around; would we do it? The answer was firmly in the negative. We do not employ agents and then do their job for them. Her response was equable; she would conduct the viewing at a later date. The following Monday she rang again. Could she bring the p.p. around at five o'clock today. We said yes; we would be absent. We shopped from half four until six. The next morning she rang to say that she had waited for the p.p. who had not turned up. It was later established that the lady concerned had forgotten the appointment; perhaps they could do it next week? A friend did warn me there would be times... 

Ashya King and family. 

Books and covers spring to mind. 

Never judge a bookie by his runner, never judge a runner by his religion and never judge anybody or anything on initial media coverage. Last month I was guilty (like many another I'm sure) of believing that Brett and Naghmeh King had probably removed their five year old son from a Southampton hospital because their religious beliefs were opposed to him receiving treatment there. That, apparently, was not the case and I, along with many another, owe them an apology. The couple, as the world now knows, had taken the little lad, who has a brain tumour, to seek proton beam treatment, available abroad, that they thought would be better for him than the standard radiotherapy obtainable under NHS arrangements here. Doctors at the Southampton hospital had disagreed and thought moving the child at that time would endanger his life. What followed seems to have been a textbook example of mutual bloody-mindedness. One can only hope poor little Ashya will obtain maximum benefit from whatever treatment he is finally given and that the vultures of the legal business have not flocked to persuade the Kings that they should enter into costly litigation. Everybody thought they were doing their best by the boy. That will surely remain their prime concern.

THE DETECTIVES. 

Two new arrivals. 

Crimes of Passion (BBC4). 

This is a short Swedish series (try saying that without your teeth in) which has been based on stories written in the late 1940s early 1950s by Maria Lang. There are three main characters: Puck (a smart girl), Eje (her boyfriend, later husband) and Christer (a randy police superintendent). Puck is the leading light, the stories are dated; the net result is easy viewing. Such is not always the case with 
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (ITV): there was a pilot episode last year: the station is now screening two more. 

Paddy Considine plays Whicher and struggles more patiently than I ever would with English class distinction and lousy lighting. Worth the exasperated sighs and squint-eyed viewing though. 

The Fates willing, back after the referendum.