Post 265. THIS IS ROBERT WHITE.

TELEVISION.

The Good Old Days.

American Irish tenor Robert White (above) was one of the many talented performers who graced the stage of Leeds City Varieties during the thirty years (1953 - 83) that The Good Old Days, produced by Barney Colehan, was televised.

Recent repeat showings - currently from the seventies - of the show, will have reminded those who cared to revisit them that popular entertainment will never die.

I particularly mention Mr. White because, not only was he then (and is still now) a very fine tenor, in our house he possessed a dual persona.

How come?

Well, in our house, whenever I sat at my computer with the music centre gently relaying Den's musical choices of the day, if those choices happened to include the voice of Peter Dawson, my Leader, as she passed by en route to wherever, would pause in the doorway to say with a smile: "Ah, Robert White."

So that's how come.

In our house, Peter Dawson (Australian bass-baritone and songwriter born in Adelaide in 1882) regularly metamorphosed into Robert White (American tenor and voice teacher born in the Bronx in 1936).

Don't ask me how it happened.

I have absolutely no idea.

He just did.

For some years I shook my head and said: "No, love, it's Peter Dawson, but you're close."

Then I gave up.

(Well at least she didn't confuse Peter Dawson (in the wing collar) with Peter White, a visually impaired English radio broadcaster and thoroughly nice bloke, who probably couldn't sing for toffee.)

Time went by and elderly memories became slightly foggy (well, mine did, anyway).

Then, a few weeks ago, BBC Four re-ran a Good Old Days episode first broadcast on New Year's Eve 1978/9 and there, along with Roy Castle, Dolores Gray and Eira Heath, was the handsome, forty-two-year-old, note-perfect tenor Robert White who, for his set, sang Sylvia and Danny Boy and, to round off the show, When You Come To The End Of A Perfect Day.

I duly recorded it and at breakfast the following day played it back for Maureen.

"Remember Peter Dawson?"I said. "Well, my love, this is Robert White."

"What a nice surprise and what a lovely voice," she said. "Is he still alive?"

"Dunno," I said. "Look him up on your ipad."

She did.

"Says he was born on the 27th October 1936. That makes him exactly six years and a month younger than you."

"No whatsit watson," I said. "I'll have a look on my computer later on."

I did.

Not only is he still going strong at eighty years old but, according to his Wiki entry, he still teaches at Juilliard in New York, one of the most prestigious music schools in the world.

So can he still sing?

If you would like to know, Google: Bird Songs At Eventide - Robert White - YouTube and hear him, two days after his seventy ninth birthday, enchant a gathering of well-wishers with an impeccable rendering of Eric Coates's composition.

 And that's it for now.

Footnote:

We had our local elections.

The results were not surprising.

More, perhaps, at the end of the month.

 

   

 

Post 264. YEP, MORE POLITICS.

FOR YOU PERHAPS.
Not for me.

Following that Bristol lady Brenda's much publicised disgust at Teresa May's snap election decision, the respected (by me, anyway) i columnist Simon Kelner hastened to decry Brenda's attitude on the grounds that we should all welcome every opportunity to vote, however repetitious or inconvenient we may feel it to be, because many people fought and died to give us our voting rights.
Whilst I instinctively side with Mr. Kelner on just about everything, I really do not think that people inveigled into two world wars saw the voting rights of future generations as their prime reason for going to war, let alone for enduring the all too oft ineptitude of their top brass. Neither do I believe that most wartime conscripts sent to the front gave a toss about what sent them there; most of them went because they had no choice and because they wanted to get the whole mess over with as quickly as possible, to get back home and to never talk about it again.
No. When it comes to it, I'm with the lady from Bristol on this one.
Another election? Not for me, thanks.
Oh, I'll go to the polling booth. But I know, no matter how much of a wet plank it may be (viz the one who has just resigned) or whatever guise it adopts, a Tory will be elected over here.
And if I wasn't so bloody-minded I'd stay at home.
C'est la vie.
TELEVISION.
Our recent choices.

 Broadchurch (ITV): we watched series 3 and were reminded yet again that Britain is home to some of the finest acting talent in the world.
The Wright Stuff (Channel 5) frontman Matthew Wright apparently does not agree with that opinion. Well, not when it comes to Broadchurch anyway. In advance of looking in on the last series he dismissed it (to television critic Kevin O'Sullivan) as "more over-acting."
Hell, what does he know?
The Boss (BBC 1) is a new daytime quiz show hosted by Glaswegian actress, writer and comedian, Susan Calman. She is good. The format is tiresome.
World Snooker (BBC 2) We have been mesmermized again by those skilful enough to grace the tables at The Crucible, Sheffield, this year. My Leader has taken to calling me away from my computer when one or another of the participants is making an interesting break. Y'don't get more hooked than that. Not in this house y'don't.
I would look in more, but I get fed up with the verbal diarrhoea that engulfs every shot: John Virgo is particularly guilty. I do wish he'd shut up. Don't tell me it's for the visually impaired. He just likes the sound of his own voice.
Ah well. 

 

Post 263. AND ANOTHER THING

ABOUT GROWING OLD.
You sleep a lot.

When you grow old (unless you are a nocturnal nonagenarian or an indefatigable insomniac), you are inclined to sleep a lot.
The cat Shadow and I can sleep for England. It is our chosen sport. He is kipping right now in one of his favourite spots, my old armchair. Background piano music courtesy of John Ogden and Daniel Adni - a very elderly tape - and me here at the computer trying to look as though I am not at all likely to fall asleep at any second. It's our sort of afternoon. Before I do doze off, though, I must relay my thanks to all of you who expressed concern and sympathy at Shadow's recent brush with the more dangerous side of cat life. I am glad to report he is making excellent progress.
ABOUT THE DVLA.
You instinctively know.

When you grow old you instinctively know there will be no fucking justice. My Leader insisted we make an approach to the money grabbing political pawns in Swansea to seek a possible reversal of the eighty quid fine imposed on us for our wholly unintentional failure to pay the thirty quid or so vehicle license on our little car last year (Post 259).
I was agin any further dealings with them.
“They've been paid more than three times our annual fee now,” I said, “and no matter how good you think your argument is, they won't give a penny back. Trust me.”
But, bless her, she is still soft hearted enough to believe there might be kindly reason out there, so she drafted a letter and I signed it and off it went and in due course we had a missive from a minion described as an Enforcement Officer saying that s/he had reviewed the information provided and had “found nothing to support withdrawal of the Late Licensing Penalty.”
(In other words: Up Yours!)
All the letter actually amounted to was a lame set of reasons why the DVLA can never be wrong. e.g. “Your driver's license details are separate to those of your vehicle, therefore you are required to notify us separately using your V5C.” (Your what?).
Well, they do proudly boast that they collect around £6 billion a year in Vehicle Excise Duty (VED). And now that the Brexiteers are in power they are going to be collecting even more (at least £130/£140 per car per year w.e.f. April Fools' Day 2017 – ain't that appropriate?).
Furthermore, their offices are in Swansea (which cannot help but remind an old geezer like me of the nursery rhyme Taffy was a Welshman).
So the Enforcement Officer's decision (on behalf of the Secretary of State for Transport) “concludes the dispute process and we will not consider any further information from you about the case.”
We-e-ll, I never thought they would, so it's water under the bridge.
The future for the motorist in this country was settled years ago with the MP (probably a transport minister) who snootily proclaimed: “The motorist is a buoyant source of revenue.”
Motorists in this deferential little country have been finding out just how bloody buoyant ever since and, no doubt, will continue so to do ad infinitum.

                       (see W.Heath Robinson)
Happy driving, buddies.

Post 262. WHAT NEXT?

AN ARMED POLICE FORCE?

A British born middle-aged nut job goes berserk with a hired car on Westminster Bridge and the cry for cowboy cops reaches another crescendo.
The reaction is understandable. Not only did this loser kill and maim innocent people going about their peaceful business, he then murdered an unarmed Palace of Westminster police officer (who should, surely, have been armed?) before another officer (who came from lord knows where, armed but just too late) rightly shot him dead.
So what next?
Must we finally give way to the gun totin' example set by America and most of the rest of the world? Will all British bobbies soon be wearing side arms?
I fear so and I hope not.
Throughout my life I have come to know (and generally like) quite a lot of policemen. The majority of them, whatever their rank or disposition, have been opposed to the notion of an armed police force in Britain. They believe that weapon carrying lawmen attract weapon carrying villains. I respect that opinion.
Doesn't stop me wishing, whenever some murderous moron attacks them, that they all wore body protection and were armed with more than a truncheon. I fear, though, that many British policemen given guns would be more of a danger to themselves, their colleagues and the public, than to any armed lawbreaker.
Perhaps the answer is to equip them with Tasers.
I am also much inclined to the belief that only the terrorist bedecked in explosives is likely to be a genuine 'soldier of Isis' (or whatever the fundamentalist freaks are currently calling themselves). The rest are just pathetic publicity seekers who see an act of insane violence as their sole guarantee of gaining the public recognition they have no hope of obtaining in any other way.
Sick world, ain't it?
TELEVISION.

Colin Dexter, the crime writer whose thirteen Morse books (from which came the television series, succeeded by the equally popular Lewis and then Endeavour follow ups) has died aged 86.
The entire Morse set was gifted to me some years ago by the younger of our two daughters, Roz, and I am still assiduously ploughing through them.
Mr. Dexter was, of course, that little bloke whose Hitchcockian appearances in his televised Morse and Lewis stories were waggish fun. His death came as a small reminder to me that none of us goes on forever. He was two days my junior.
This week:

Yasmin Alibhai Brown has been one of the panellists on The Wright Stuff and I have watched with a smile as she has entered into brief exchanges with fellow panellist Richard Fairbrass and guests such as Alistair Campbell.
Though we have never met, I like Yasmin and only occasionally disagree with her, so it was good to hear that she has been voted Newspaper Columnist of the Year at this year's National Press Awards.
I would say "Good on you, girl!" but that would be extremely pesumptuous, probably sexist, and could get me into big trouble with the PC brigade.
Sod it. I'll say it anyway. "Good on you, girl!"
Another series of Call the Midwife came and went. We watched every episode, as we always do, close to tears at the tear-jerker situations (don't talk to us about the good old days, we lived them) and filled to the brim with admiration at the sheer talent of the actors involved. I hope they'll all be back before too long.
I guess everybody has a favourite. Mine is Judy Parfitt who, if my memory serves me rightly, played some deliciously nasty characters in her youth, and now plays Sister Monica Joan, a dementia sufferer with a wonderful heart, a sweet tooth and a wicked sense of humour. She has me misty-eyed as soon as she appears. My Leader smiles and says: "She's done it again, hasn't she." Yep, she has.

She does it every time.

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post 261. THIS IS SHADOW.

THE FAMILY CAT.

The cat Shadow had a good day last Friday: well, right up until his last trip out to beat the bounds he did. He went out quite late in the evening, was gone longer than usual and when he returned was bleeding badly from his right front paw. Maureen bathed the paw in a mild saline solution and we settled him for the night.
By morning the paw had swollen considerably and the state of his left front leg was also questionable. We booked to have him seen at the local veterinary practice, Medina Veterinary Group, which (praise be) is open on Saturday mornings.
There followed the short journey in the car with him (wrapped in a towel - he'd have fought to escape a box) in my arms: the long, long wait (he could not have been more patient) to see the vet: the examination (he only swore once): the X-rays (he has a broken and partially crushed bone in his right leg and a dislocated bone in the left one): the summing up: the paying up (i.e. the timely reminder that a veterinary practice is not a department of the NHS) and the trip back home.
Vet. Mr. Tommy Blaehr was precise and practical. It looked as though Shadow had been run over by a vehicle of some kind: he was in very good nick for his age (22/23ish) but would be better not subjected to an operation: he had now been given a two week antibiotic injection (his last trip to the vet was 11 years ago) and a dose of liquid pain killer. We (that will be nurse Mo) would need to administer the pain killer for the next few days.
Cats, counselled the vet, have a propensity for self-healing. Given a satisfactory first week (eating, drinking, resting) Shadow could be close to recovery between four and six weeks time.
Mr. Blaehr would like to check him over during the first week and if all was well that would be that.
THE MIRACLE CAT.
Check-up day. We took him back for his check-up today - Wednesday - and (wrapped in a towel in my arms) he patiently waited in the car, his head moving like a Wimbledon spectator as the rush hour traffic filed past, until the vet was free to see him.
He then paraded across the surgery floor placing all four paws firmly down in proud cat marching order. (I knew he could do it. He jumped up onto my desk this morning.)
Mr. Blaehr called in a colleague to see the miracle cat walking and said: "You have to see this. Two front legs broken last Friday night. Now look at him."
Elated, we came home with him in his towel and a final word of veterinarian advice: "Try not letting him jump off any walls for a while."
Try to stop him, I thought.

 

He said nothing, but I reckon he thought a lot.
  

Post 260. SHORT POST TO END A SHORT MONTH.

TELEVISION.
Mostly old ones.

Father Brown came back; a new series followed immediately by the repeat of an old one. I liked Mark Williams (above) in the Harry Potter films and I like him in this, even if the story lines do remind me how very dated so many of my boyhood favourites now are.
By the same token, I like Claire Goose who, in The Coroner, is surely the most unlikely law representative on television since Brenda Blethyn's Vera. Claire's Coroner is showing daily as I write, but it's the old stuff (series 1) again.
Anyone trapped into watching daytime television may also wonder that the ubiquitous Tim Wonnacott (him of the colour co-ordinated clothes, bow ties and silly hats) is still regularly fronting episodes of Bargain Hunt.
I guess the Beeb has too many hours to fill not to join in the internationally indulged plethora of ancient repeats and use of material fronted by ego-driven people they claim to have removed for one or another disciplinary reason.
It's a bit of a farce, but I doubt any of it will be more than a ripple on the sand by this time next year.
With any luck the same will apply to whatever sycophantic shit has been spouted by tabloid journalist Piers Morgan and his fellow Trump disciple Nigel Farage.
Say no more: I wish they would.
IN MEMORIAM.
Peter Skellern.

                    14.03.1947 - 17.02.2017
I am sitting here listening to Peter Skellern's CD Sentimentally yours which contains 20 impeccably (as always) presented songs including the moving Still Magic, a favourite of ours for many years.
Peter died of cancer - that wretched disease again - at the age of 69. He was a haunting singer, gifted songwriter and an extremely accomplished musician who studied piano at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His song You're A Lady brought him to prominence in 1972 and he then enjoyed a steadily successful career.
Last October it was revealed that he had a brain cancer and it was inoperable: on the 26th of that month he was ordained by the Bishop of Truro as a deacon and priest of the Church of England.
He is survived by his wife, two children and four grandchildren.
The charming Sentimentally yours will continue to be given the occasional airing in this house for as long this old geezer is around to listen to it and Still Magic will forever leave the hint of a tear in this old geezer's eye.
                RIP Rev. Peter Skellern
   entertainer extraordinary and a good man.

 

Post 259. BACK IN THE OLD ROUTINE.

HOME.
Change of IW council leader.

Councillor Jonathan Bacon (Independent) resigned last month as leader of the council over here.
I was sorry to hear it.
Back in 2015 I wrote to Councillor Bacon expressing my displeasure at the poor facilities afforded elderly citizens using the council's refuse tip in Forest Road on the Island. It was a carping old guy's letter of the sort a busy public representative must receive far too often and I figured it would end up tidily filed in a wastepaper basket.
Imagine my surprise when I received a polite and informative reply from the council leader.
I concluded that he was an all right person (even if his political group did appear to have no more grip on things than any of them ever do) and that he would certainly get my vote if the opportunity arose in the future.
His resignation (together with that of his deputy) came about because the government is squeezing the financial life out of county authorities nearly everywhere and, to add to the usual problems here, the Conservative group, rejected at the last local election, has consistently thrown its toys out of the political playpen.
Mr. Bacon has now been replaced as council leader by the Tory leader of the Conservative - Ukip alliance (God help us).
It will not be a change for the better.
ABROAD.
To Wales.

Swansea: where, if my elderly memory serves me aright, the DVLA resides.
I received a letter last week from one of those debt collection firms which every public body now seems to employ (at Christ knows what cost to the taxpayer) to chase up anybody who, for whatever reason, has ignored or overlooked making a payment to them.
It seems I had failed to cough up the road fund licence fee due on our little car last October. (Something which, throughout the close on sixty years I was issued with - and required to display - an annual disc, I never once failed to deal with.)
I phoned the debt collection agency and a pleasant voiced young woman informed me that I would be required to pay a fixed penalty of £80 to them and then get in touch with the Authority to pay the thirty-or-so quid licence fee due.
I there and then made arrangements for payment of the fixed penalty and left the rest to the More Intelligent Half (MIH) of our marriage who had been out when I opened the post.
The MIH rang the DVLA and, in more reasonable tones than I would ever have conjured up, pointed out that we have at no time received notice of our road fund fee being due.
But notice was sent, she was told, to the address on DVLA records (which was, it transpired, our address before we moved here).
But why, inquired my MIH patiently, was said notice sent to that address when the Agency has since been notified of our new one?
Because no such notification has been received by us, asserted the DVLA telephone spokesperson.
That's very strange, countered the MIH, when you consider that we each possess a driving licence bearing our new address.
The glib and clearly oft-repeated reply broached no further discourse.
"Oh, that's not the same department."
NOTE TO DVLA MANAGERS.
No matter how many £s billion your Agency deals in annually, if you are incapable of installing a computer system that concurrently amends the records held by all your departments, you are really no more than a bunch of technically inept twats, are you?
And on the clear understanding that the planks in parliament will never abandon the road fund licence in favour of 10p on every gallon of petrol, bring back the bloody tax disc!

 

Post 258. NEITHER TEEN NOR TITLED.

MISSED THE HONOURS LIST AGAIN.
Wrong age, wrong attitude.

Somewhere back among the changes of title and conversations with the cat that this blog has recently become, I bemoaned that I was never a teenager. People of my era were past their teens before teenage became the 'in' word to describe young people aged thirteen to nineteen: I was merely an awkward adolescent and I did not become an adult until the age of twenty one: some who knew me at the time might question that, too.
Likewise, when my father first went to work 'on the buildings' he was called Bill by those who knew him and nothing at all by those who didn't. This lasted throughout his blue collar years.
Later he joined the collar and tie brigade where he became Mister Barnden to senior colleagues and Sir to tradesmen and juniors.
That was office protocol way back when.
It lasted through most of my working life, too.
Didn't let it bother me.
A lad who went into the army at the age of fourteen soon discovered what answering to rank was all about: and it wasn't always the people you respected who you were obliged to  address as 'sir.'
I met a vast number of dickhead 'sirs,' both in and out of the army.
Never got that far myself.
In the army I did not reach a rank where 'sir' was appropriate and by the time I packed up in the NHS there was scarcely a 'sir' to be heard in the workplace.
Doesn't look like I'm headed for the knighthood now, either.
So: do I regret it?
Na-a-a-h. I don't support a political party, am lukewarm about the royal family and am neither a famous actor nor a gay icon (let alone both).
So why would I be made a sir?
Funny old world we live in, though, ain't it.
TIME FOR MORE WRITING.
And some casual name-dropping.
Maybe a man who finished his last blog post with a warning to the reader that there are a lot of clowns out there really shouldn't have started it with a picture of himself in a wizard's hat; but I did enjoy wearing that titfer: long ago it was a Halloween choice of our granddaughter, Jessica White (Director: CSI Isle of Wight, Series 1 and 2 - Post 110), and I was last seen wearing it at the start of Post 157 on the 31st October, 2010, towards the end of which the two gentlemen named below were mentioned.
To explain: the rewriting of my long ago shelved children's book - current working title The Badgers of Deep Wood - includes a new prologue which I tentatively sent to friend, retired magistrate (and life member of the NUJ), Ian Dillow (still the one wearing the moustache), to assess.

Ian's editorial eye delivered a judgment that was, thankfully, favourable. He advised I also seek the advice of his old friend Graham Hurley, the popular writer of crime fiction and page-turner standalone novels. I did as suggested and was elated to receive another kind response together with some excellent practical advice. Now a New Year writing binge has me rewriting Badgers, attempting the first draft of that too-long-postponed crime story and keeping up with this - aka the cat Shadow's - blog. (Wish me luck. I do enjoy the scribbling, but making it look easy is never as easy as it looks.)

In conclusion, my thanks again to Mr. Dillow,
to M. Hurley (above) and to all of you who regularly look in on my meandering with a kind heart.
May this year be good to you. 

Post 257. NOT MUCH OF A YEAR.

 JUST HAVE A GOOD CHRISTMAS.

Apropos age.
My Leader recently remarked, when I was ranting about some (probably innocuous) thing or another, that she hoped I would never suffer from dementia because that would make me quite impossible to deal with.
She was right.
Age has not mellowed me nor the years contained. Dylan Thomas would never have exhorted me: "Do not go gentle into that good night."
I sometimes wonder why. I think I'm an affable enough old guy. Could it just be peevish senility? I hope not: don't particularly rue growing old; have always considered it better than the alternative.
It is not personal involvement in the almighty mess brought about by us and other interfering nations in the Middle East, either: our country only sells the cluster bombs, nobody is raining them down on us yet. And it is not seasonal affective disorder, that's for sure: thus far the season here has been delightfully unwintry.
So what, then?
Could it be because, insidiously, many of the things I have always taken for granted have either changed or disappeared?
The UK financially owes a bloody fortune to the world and his wife (don't ask who or what is to blame for that). The last of the mines has closed. The steel business is drifting away. Many respected family concerns have gone. Branch banks and shops long since went to the wall. The post office has become a counter in the local grocery store and the car industry is mostly in foreign hands.
Or could it be more to do with the niggling upsurge of foul-mouthed 'attitude' that seems to have crept into this nation since the twenty first century began?
Whatever it is:
I don't like it Which means I shall do what I invariably do when I don't like something and have nobody I can reasonably blame for it: I shall blame gun totin' America, the land of the rising lawsuit.
Well it really hasn't been much of a year, has it.
As happens when you are old:
Several personally cherished people have died and others have required hospital treatment for cancer. At least a couple of the latter are responding very favourably to current treatment and they, praise be, will surely have A Merry Christmas.
I can only wish the same to you and combine with it the wish that you will have A Happy New Year.

Whether I am back before then:
Will depend on how immersed I have become in the rewriting of my long ago shelved children's book The Badgers of Deep Wood and whether, simultaneously, I have begun work on a crime story containing at least one character I have been promising introduction to the printed word for over seventy years.
Go carefully!
There are a lot of clowns out there.

 

  


 

Post 256. ANOTHER LOOK AT i.

A NEWSPAPER OF EDITORS.

 Former, current and future.
As I must have mentioned sometime in the past - repetition becomes a sadly boring norm nowadays - I have been a reader of i since the first 20p edition in October 2010. It now costs 50p daily throughout the week and 60p on Saturday.
So is it still a worthwhile buy?
To my mind, yes; though, for my sins, I have always preferred good writing to political bullshit and this baby of The Independent seems to have survived its first six years (1) by being a model of good writing and (2) by refusing to pursue any particular party line. As an admirer of good journalism and a political non-believer, that suits me.
The first editor of the paper was Simon Kelner and he is still a regular i columnist. He was followed as editor by Stefano Hatfield in 2011 and the current incumbent, Oliver Duff, in 2013.
Stefano (who is now global editorial director at John Brown Media – a huge job I imagine), continues to make a small (about 500 words) contribution every Monday. Oliver's daily Letter from the Editor  
is now a master class in democracy in that it is often written by the Assistant Editor, Deputy Editor, Political Editor, Chief Reporter, i Correspondent or an Expert in one thing or another. I enjoy all that and just can't wait for the views of i's Hyde Park Corner expert, Piccadilly At Midnight expert, Posh Penthouse Toffs expert, or (and I might even offer my own services for this) Fulminating Old Farts expert.
In addition to the above mentioned cadre of journalistic luminaries, the illustrious Andreas Whittam Smith (original editor of The Independent) and the ubiquitous Janet Street Porter (former editor of just about everything) contribute regular articles to the paper.
The joy of this grand editorial line-up is that none of them fits the screenwriter Danny Brocklehurst's wonderful description of an unseen editor in the TV series Exile: “He couldn't write fuck on a dusty blind.” Any of this lot could and, given a dusty blind as the sole outlet for their talent, probably would (with the obvious exclusion of the lofty Sir Andreas of course).
This much is for sure: had I been a journalist working for any one of 'em I'd have made sure I went back with a good story - even if I'd had to rob a bloody bank myself.
So why have I taken another look at i now?
Well, the newspaper world has been in such disarray since Murdoch scuppered Fleet Street that I wonder how much longer BRITAIN'S FIRST AND ONLY CONCISE QUALITY TITLE can survive.
Gone are the days when the likes of William “Cassandra” Connor wrote a column in the Daily Mirror for thirty years (broken only by his four years in the army during WW2).
Now it seems more likely to be:
here today...television presenting or the dole queue tomorrow.
There was a time when I, like those awful never-made-it mothers who pushed their kids into the Hollywood circus, would have been delighted to see any of my children get a job in journalism. As it turned out, my two daughters are in teaching and my son in graphic art. Life in their professions is currently uncertain; a career in journalism now seems even more so. Personally there is no regret that the journalistic life eluded me, either. I have my cherished NHS pension. Had I been a newspaper employee my pension would probably have been pinched by Robert Maxwell.
Good luck to all at the little i newspaper anyway. I'll keep buying you daily for as long as you're there and I can afford you. Never have indulged in the annual tickets thingy; I'd have lost the lot in a week around here.
Should have published this post yesterday: forgot there are only thirty days in November. 
All being well, back before Christmas.
Mind how you go. 
    

Post 255. A SOUND OF THUNDER.

 

RAY BRADBURY PREDICTED IT.
And was only thirty nine years out.

So we woke up this morning to the news that during the night the hunter Eckels panicked, ran off the levitating path and crushed a butterfly. That fine writer the late Ray Bradbury had him do that in 2055, but Mr. Bradbury was writing in 1952 so for him to be only thirty nine years out was a pretty damned good prediction. If you've not read the short story A Sound of Thunder look it up on Wiki - and for Deutscher think Trump.
Christ, America! Is there no limit to your paranoia? TELEVISION.
In wake of that election.

The Walking Dead (FOX TV UK) American actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan (above) should be feeling rather pleased with himself. His fellow countrymen have just voted a fat, big-mouthed Negan into the White House. (No doubt the FBI will find somewhere to hide the barbed wire bedecked baseball bat when he gets there.)
Poldark finished its run on BBC One. We watched it. A splendid cast of British actors did their best with an old-fashioned and at times wickedly unacceptable story line. It will be back next year. The Level, also blessed with an excellent cast, came and went on ITV and
Paranoid (ITV), with a superb British-German team of actors, finishes tomorrow night.
I can only repeat my oft-repeated lament: on television I like plays, drama and thrillers, with actors honestly being someone else. I do not like  reality rubbish where 'real' people are dishonestly being themselves.
HOME.
My Leader does not believe the cat Shadow said any of the things I attributed to him last month. She thinks I made the lot up. When I told him what she thought he just shrugged. (How does he do that?)

   All for now.     

Post 254. BEWARE A CONTEMPLATIVE CAT.

FURTHER RECONSIDERATION.
The cat Shadow yawned.

"I've been thinking about it and it lacks subtlety," he said.
"What does?" I enquired with all the naivety of one who really should know better.
"Your new faeces thingy title," he said. "It ain't subtle, it ain't particularly clever and it ain't appropriate to most of what you write."
"And you, of course, have thought up something better," I sniffed.
"As a matter of fact I have," he replied. "Something much better."
I was nettled: "All right, clever dick, spit it out."
"You should call it Watching From The Cat's Eyes," he said, and eyed me expectantly.
"Oh, come on," I grumbled. "You want me to put your eyes in the title now?"
He grinned: "No, not mine y'daftie, the ones in the road; the cat's eyes old Percy Shaw patented."
I blinked; wondered how he came to know the name of an eccentric Yorkshireman whose brilliant invention must have saved millions of lives; concluded I need not ask; said: "O.K. I'm interested. What's your reasoning?"
"Well cat's eyes sees all the passing traffic, don't they?" he said and, before I could reply, hurried on: "But they sees it in a special way: they don't just take in the facade, they sees the muck underneath. I reckon you mostly sees things that way, too."
What a cunning old cat. If you want to convince a man, flatter him.
"Hmm. You could be right," I found myself saying, "but the title really has only just been changed, hasn't it..."
"Never mind that," he interrupted impatiently. "If you're not happy with it, change it again."
"I think this is more a case of you not being happy with it," I said. "I'm only concerned that the nice people who usually look in might get fed up with all this mucking about and give up altogether, or just not be able to find it."
"The word Watching will find it," he said airily. "And don't underestimate the nice people: they might wonder what the hell you're up to, but they'll not be too bothered by the trivia of changing titles. They've had to put up with that bloody pair in the American Presidential campaign for weeks. Anything's an improvement on that."
"You've convinced me," I said. "In November I'll change the title to Watching From The Cat's Eyes."
"Good for you," he said.
On his head be it.
TELEVISION.
I watched:
The last ever Great British Bake Off on the BBC. Doubt I'll ever watch Bake Off again. 
The Walking Dead: season seven, first episode, was almost as vicious as the American Presidential campaign. I may never watch Walkers again, either.
What?
Oh, none of us will be able to avoid watching that bloody pair in America.
What are they thinking about over there?
In the meantime, over here next month I'll be

       WATCHING FROM THE CAT'S EYES

 
 

Post 253. WHEN THE WHAT HITS THE FAN?

SO MUCH FOR CHANGE.

The cat Shadow gave me a disparaging look. (How does he do that?)
"When the faeces hits the fan?" he snorted. "Don't you mean when the shit hits the fan?"
"Well, that may be the common quotation," I said starchily, "but in order to avoid upsetting your delicate cat sensibilities I thought a little light alliteration appropriate."
"Bollocks," he said.
So much for delicate.
So much for change.
TELEVISION.
Sleuths, Spies and Sorcerers: Andrew Marr's Paperback Heroes. (BBC Four)
Based on the first of the series, Mr. Marr's lectures about how detective fiction works are going to be cheerfully predictable. If you are someone of my age and background you may be disappointed that the likes of Margery Allingham (who wrote about the enigmatic Albert Campion) and Ngaio Marsh (with her highly unlikely Inspector Roderick Alleyn and his patronizing artist wife, Agatha Troy) were not considered.
All four of the Queens of Crime (the above pair together with Dame Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers) were purveyors of genteel British snobbery neatly wrapped up as classic whodunit.
My dad and I always preferred detective yarns with a bit more action: writers like John G. Brandon, John Creasey, Leslie Charteris, Raymond Chandler, David Hume and even dear old Berkely Gray aka Victor Gunn (usually chosen by me from the tuppence-a-book lending library), comprised most of our reading list throughout the early nineteen forties.
We were English working class males. The genteel really was not us.    
READING.

Have read two more of M.C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin stories: The Wizard of Evesham and The Witch of Wyckhadden and am halfway through The Fairies of Fryfam. Easy reading while the Windows 8 underwent further modification following the sudden departure of my entire email records including Saved.
Aren't computers a bloody nuisance sometimes?
Ne'er mind, I would probably have overlooked these pleasant little Beaton murder mysteries if Steve, the local computer guru, hadn't taken off for a week with the offending machine. C'est la vie.
HOME.
A birthday treat.
For my 86th birthday last month the family treated me to a neat little 5-in-1 Steepletone music centre. It replaced the piece of equipment I most missed after we moved here last year, my old Aiwa, which was a sad victim of the removal.

 Thank you, my dears, this new little gem works wonderfully and is much appreciated.
That's all for now.