Post 362. SOMETHING ORIGINAL?

YOU'RE UNLIKELY TO FIND IT ON TELEVISION.

ORIGINALITY is the programme producer's bête noire. If the coronavirus lockdown in our country has illustrated one negative facet of national television above any other it surely has to be the dogged determination with which the production powers-that-be adhere to the status quo: or amend it to its detriment. Much of today's programming is presented as if the target audience is a class of pre-school children. I watch it briefly, then reach for the 'let's find something other than this rubbish' remote. You have to have some pride. Among my pet hates I would particularly mention the new format of:  

BARGAIN HUNT. Who was it decided that this popular old programme would be improved if you set the contestants a programme presenter's challenge of buying at least one item priced over £70 and/or an item made in a place like Outer Mongolia? Could nobody convince whoever the moron was that you don't spend over £70 for something in a junk shop and make a profit on it in an auction house where the customers (most of whom have only come in to get out of the rain) have absolutely no intention of bidding any more than a tenner for anything no matter where it came from? Did nobody think to mention that the only bargain hunters who ever made a profit at auction were those who spent threepence ha'penny for something that fetched thirty bob or who risked thirty bob on something that magically made them thirty quid (less auction percentage and VAT)? 

For chrissake get back to the timeworn formula. It worked.

POINTS OF VIEW. Let us see the current presenter Tina Daheley on screen. We saw more than enough of Mr. Ubiquitous (Jeremy Vine) for ten years. On each of the last two series I have sent an email complaining about this sexist oversight. Neither approach was heeded. Well, neither complaint started “why oh why oh why...” 

 Do come on though, BBC. Before y'know what you'll be making me pay the licence fee.

AND THERE ARE MORE. But life really is far too short to go over the list of antique twaddle, cooking crap, reality rubbish etc. etc. yet again. As it is:

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING Prime Video series Hanna (too many episodes: half a dozen would be quite enough) and are increasingly drawn to Netflix and YouTube where many of the repeats are so old even I have forgotten how good or bad they originally were. Recently saw Alan Ladd and his son, David, in The Proud Rebel, a film with Olivia deHavilland which I don't think I ever did see before. It was sensitively directed by Michael Curtiz. Was reminded how unkind technicolour was to actors. The acting was good though: David Ladd won a Golden Globe award as “Best Newcomer of 1958” and a special award for “Best Juvenile Actor.” Hard to believe he's 73 now. Ms. de Havilland, bless her, is 103.

Coming back to the twenty first century, we have been chilling out with Jason Statham's blood and thunder offerings on Netflix. Apparently he doesn't like that many of them and very bluntly says so. Well, there are far worse action movies being produced without apology by his competitors. Actors should only utter unscripted lines to those of their nearest and dearest they know they can trust. Not all publicity is good publicity. Even the UK government must have realised that. Hancock's half hour as coronavirus patsy for the PM came to a complete end yesterday evening. The PM took the stand in person. There's a surprise.

AND TO CONCLUDE. The monster garden here at our island home is slowly being licked into shape by one of our nearest and dearest, daughter Roz. She has also spared me the expense of buying a violin by cutting my hair: it had reached a lockdown length of hippy proportions. Now I could take a squad on a drill square again and face not a single questioning eyebrow. That's what I call a haircut.

All for now.

Mix from a sensible distance: don't mingle.

Post 361. EVERYBODY HAS A GRIEVANCE.

HENCE THE THREAT TO PIGEONS' LAVATORIES.

IN A WORLD OF RETRIBUTION SEEKERS.

NOW IT'S STATUES. Throughout my boyhood, and certainly until we moved over here, there was a statue of Queen Victoria in the Guildhall Square, Portsmouth. I never gave it much thought. I'm not a royalist, but I'd rather have them in our palaces than a load of bloody politicians: then again, I'd rather have affordable homes for young people than a load of bloody palaces. I'm no great supporter of privilege: but I can't stop it. 

Anyway, I believe the Queen Vic statue is still there, though I gather it is currently under threat from today's militia of aggrieved zealots who, seeking abject apology for our past misdeeds, are threatening to remove all reminders of sins such as slavery from the world they feel it should now be. Some task.

Not to be left out of any possibility of a ruckus, hordes of moronic football hooligans, bored without opposition supporters to kick into A & E, are determined to “protect our heritage” from those would-be erasers of the more unlaudable events in our history. Oh dear oh dear.

When I was working for the - long defunct - Portsmouth Executive Council (NHS) back in the sixties a senior colleague, shooing the pigeons off his office windowsill for the umpteenth time, remarked to me: “Look at 'em, the useless articles. Good for nothing but fornicating, and defecating.”

I grinned and said: “Old Queen Victoria probably sent them here.” The royal statue was just a few hundred yards away. ”Maybe they'll go cooing back there now and crap on her.”

He liked the sound of that. “Good,” he said. “Serve her bloody right.”

And that was that.

The respected art historian Sir Simon Schama (he of the most gloriously unkempt bookcase in the UK) thinks statues should be relocated to museums. An interesting viewpoint. It would cost a lot of money, but it could save a lot of angst. When you think about it, though, there would not be that much sense in such an evacuation. Most statues are just lavatories for pigeons. The majority of us spend our lives strolling past them without a second glance: they are ignored stone effigies of royals and so-called national heroes left there for the pigeons to shit on. Public toilets have been closed to humans for several months now; don't let's begrudge our feathered friends their simple relief. Leave their loos alone. The retribution seekers will eventually find something else for which to seek retribution. If there's a second pandemic it'll probably be that.

I STILL DO NOT SUBSCRIBE to Twitter, and seldom open my Facebook account. Am extremely wary of social discourse.

J.K. Rowling's recent experience of social media backlash (if you're one of her fans, or a determined detractor, you'll know more about it than I do) has done nothing to allay my cautious outlook on expressing honest opinion nowadays.

This much I do know: if I had been a child actor blessed with wealth and fame by the magical talent of a world famous author and, when I grew up, that author had somehow said or written something with which I had misgivings, I would have waited until I next met her to make my doubts known and seek further enlightenment. 

Publicly I would have kept my big trap shut.

All for now.

Keep your distance, it ain't over yet!

Post 360. WITH RESPECT...

THE PUBLIC NEEDS TO KNOW.

IT'S FOR THE GREATER GOOD

BOLLOCKS! is my immediate reaction whenever some sniffily superior citizen confronts me with one or the other of those patronising platitudes. I was never convinced when foot-in-the-door journalists used: 'The public needs to know' as their prime excuse for downright rudeness. The public does not always need to know and seldom ever will if it is a matter of any importance. 'With respect' is an opening I hear from far too many people who clearly intend anything but respect for the person they are about to address. And I have never heard the words 'It's for the greater good' said by somebody who, whatever 'it' was, had been or would be adversely impacted by it. 

Right now we are up to our necks in sound bites. The clever dicks who pied pipered us out of Europe are using the same tactics to put across their pandemic messages. 'Save our NHS' as a slogan from a political party that has spent years undermining it at every turn and would still, given the opportunity, put it entirely into the hands of private enterprise, is hypocritical cant. So, it now seems, was 'Stay at  home.' 'Only go out for essential shopping.' 'We're all in it together,' etc. Many people were fined for failure to comply with fairly clear instructions and I have to admit I was firmly of the belief that the government was doing everything it could in an unprecedented situation. Ah no. Think again. 

CUMMINGSGATE put paid to that. 

While all we normal (?) mortals (including the millions who put this government into power with a massive majority) were abiding by the rules, the Prime Minister's chief aide, Dominic Cummings, decided the rules were not for him and drove his wife and himself, both coronavirus infected, with their small son, to an empty cottage in the grounds of his parents house in Durham. It has all been told too many times now for me to waste blog space churning over it again. Enough to ask: What the hell was he thinking? Did he really believe he was that impregnable? Is he? If so, why? 

One thing is for sure. No matter how much the P.M. may wish to 'move on', this won't go away.

Mr. Cummings has hitherto seemed to relish his 'most hated man around Westminster' image. Now it's biting him on the bum. Well, they never learn. Perhaps he should have paid more attention to the way the world now is for his 'most hated man' predecessor, Alistair Campbell, and taken up the bagpipes.

I dunno though. Perhaps his one saving grace is that he hasn't.

LASTLY: A LOSS AND A FIND.

Sad to report the loss from our lives of old friend Jim Plant who died a few nights ago at the age of ninety four. Jim and I became friends after his retirement from the police: he was the station sergeant at Newport I.W. for many years and when he befriended you he became your friend for life: a trait I have been fortunate enough to find in many career services (army, excise, police) personnel over the years.  Jim joined the police as a cadet, from his home in Shanklin I.W., at the age of seventeen and was an Islander through and through. He died of natural causes in a chair at his bungalow, here on the island, with his daughter Carolyn at his side.  RIP old pal, you will be much missed.

The find was a friendly email from Mr. Kym Barnden in Adelaide. South Australia who, while researching Barnden family history, found my blog and has sent a cheerful hello message. I shall get back to him with as much family stuff as I can, but I'm not great on remembering the past. It ain't age, it's idleness. Ne'er mind.

Be in touch, mate.                           

  

. 

  

Post 359. STILL SCRIBBLING.

STILL PUZZLING.

And getting no less forgetful.

I forgot to mention grandson Ellis's fifteenth birthday in my last post. It was a great day, too. Even in lockdown. Roz decorated her living room with lockdown birthday balloons and posters and arranged for the remainder of the family, who do not live here, to gather in their homes that evening with computer, ipad, phone (whatever), set up online to wish the birthday lad every success and a joyful future. There was birthday cake and Roz organised a quiz which enabled us to share with each other our hilarious ignorance of the world at large. Well, none of us ever intended challenging the Eggheads anyway. I think everyone enjoyed themselves, though. Mo and I certainly did. We seldom get all the family together nowadays. Thanks again, Roz.

Thanks for the neat tidying up job in the front garden, too. Along with Mo's driveway border (not pictured) it looks a treat.

Which, considering I don't want WATCHING to be seen only as a published personal diary, is enough about us for the time being.

SO WHAT IS LOCKDOWN TO YOU?

Is it still a sad necessity?

Or are you starting to see it as unnecessary imprisonment? Depends on so many things, doesn't it?

If you are alone. If you are healthwise endangered. If you have elderly or otherwise vulnerable loved ones at risk. If you are in the non-essential work category. If you see financial ruin on the horizon. If you are a seaside/sun/social gatherings worshipper. If you are one of the 'I knows me rights' tribe. If you are of the sort who seriously thinks workers may enjoy not being at work. If you are predominantly of responsible or irresponsible disposition.

Any or many of those things may colour your outlook.

And if you think governmental directives will eventually make sense, think Dominic Cummings and think again.

IN THE MEANTIME.

Music.

It's another bank holiday and, sitting here with the view down a sunny back garden, I have again enjoyed my CD of Lars Vogt (above) and the Royal Northern Sinfonia performing Beethoven's Piano Concertos 1 and 5, and am currently being beguiled by Peter Donohoe's definitive performance of Litolff's Concertos Symphonique. Hard life, ain't it.

Meanwhile, Classic FM has informed us with monotonous regularity that HRH the Prince of Wales will be broadcasting tonight and tomorrow on Classic FM at 8 pm. Both sessions will be of two hours duration. (Doubtless Ts and Cs will apply.)

Apparently Charlie is going to let us in on his musical tastes. Well, if nothing else, it will be the longest Desert Island Discs on record.

Royalists, those who think it has to be better than what's on television, and the downright inquisitive, will tune in.

That's enough about everything for the time being. 
Stay safe.

Post 358. TRUTH TO TELL.

CLINT EASTWOOD IS SO RIGHT.

About we anti-socials.

To those like me who spend far too many hours locked in with a computer I doubt there has been a more apposite view on anti-sociability than this one from Clint Eastwood.

What a wonderfully dry observation.

It was sent to my Facebook account which I mostly forget to look at. My cellphone is switched off most of the time, too. I forget to switch it on. Twenty quid's worth ($24) of pay-as-you-go goes a long way with me.

So, for what it's worth, this is a more accurate view of my pandemic world than any other expressed so far.

Sad, ain't it.

WHEN IT'S NOT CORONAVIRUS.

It's still the weather.

Yes, with we Brits the weather is still probably the most regular topic of our everyday conversation next to the vast number of fatalities from Covid 19 (apparently the highest in Europe).

How long it will be before we can return to normal life again, and whether anything will ever be the way it was, is also much discussed.

The former royals Harry and Meghan, thanks largely to their current press image in the UK, get scant mention.

Ah well. They'll survive.

So will chit-chat about the weather.

Eh? Oh, currently sunny with cold winds.

I know, I know...

THEN THERE'S TELEVISION.

Or house hunting.

Most of it (if the sight of a packed bookcase conveniently situated behind even the most vacuous of television personality is to be trusted) around startlingly bookish people. 
No, I don't believe it either.

I do believe that chat show panellists, accustomed to the approval of a compliant audience, are struggling with lockdown broadcasting: none of the popular shows still making an appearance has a comfortable feel to it. Many of them would have been better served staying away and giving their regulars a rest. Off-screen introverts do not react well to intrusion: they embrace their personal space. 
It shows.

SO FOR THE LAST LAUGH.

Trust a smart kid.

Is this why they want 'em back at school?

Enjoy a bit of relaxation.

Don't go socially berserk.

Post 357. END OF WW2 CELEBRATIONS?

OH, DO GIVE OVER!

It's the cats' birthday.

Yep. Both of them. Spike (above), who insisted on being seen in front of a bookcase because that's what they're all doing nowadays and she's read about as many books as most of them, and Angel – the boy – the other half of a name mix-up by daughter Roz when they were the size of a very small fist: Spike was the spikier one then and she still rules the roost now. Angel and the dog Buddy (a week younger than them) are putty in her tiny but lethal paws. I love 'em all: and they love me when I'm dispensing biscuit treats.

LOCKDOWN.

The schoolroom is open. 

Roz's living room has become grandson Ellis's schoolroom and, in keeping with the irrepressible sense of humour of his mother and teacher, has its own Ofsted report defiantly posted on the door. 

It ain't a fair reflection, but I love it.

TELEVISION.

A real book person.

You can pick out the real book people if you don't just take those camera views into other people's houses as an invitation to check on their wallpaper.

One real book person is the English academic Dame Mary Beard (above) who is an expert on Ancient Roman civilization, a Professor of Classics at Cambridge University and an extremely likeable television personality. 

Her extended, book- filled, den is everything Mo and I feel at home around. 

To add to the ambience, in a recent TV programme she interviewed Sir Simon Schama who, clearly at home, stood in front of the most gloriously chaotic bookcase in the whole learned world. He immediately became our favourite art historian.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST.

YouTube.

If you scramble around you can sometimes come across an unexpected gem. It was my good fortune the other evening to chance upon a great performance of Nessun Dorma sung by Michael Bolton (below}. I have his Vintage album of classic songs, which we cherish, but this is something else. If you like Michael and have not heard this track, look it up. It is followed by Vesti La Giubba, a wonderful duet with Luciano Pavarotti.

Go carefully.

Don't chance your arm. 

Post 356. EVERYONE'S GOT A BOOKCASE.

TO SIT IN FRONT OF.

When they're on television.

Have you noticed? Could you help but notice? Each of 'em has a bookcase to plonk 'emself in front of: even the buggers you sense have never read right through a book in their entire celebrity lives.

I believe the techno nerds who know all about resizing an image (don't look at me) are already picking the titles off books on the shelves behind this diverse bunch of often unlikely academics. Gawdawmighty!

Time to join the club, though, I thought. Get yourself looking a bit educated, Den. Sit yourself down before one of the bookcases in the living room and get your grandson, aided by his grandmother's ipad, to take a 'this is me at home' picture.

So there you are. You don't need be a television 'celebrity.' All you need is a bookcase and a grandson: and a, prefererably eclectic, selection of books.

In case anybody cares, up there behind me on the top shelf is a handful of WW2 ego trips by Winston Churchill (warmongering politician, decent writer), a selection of titles by wonderful novelist Mary Wesley, an Oxford English dictionary, and a 'let's keep it all tidy' miscellany of fillers (don't ask).

On the shelf below that are the complete Harry Potter (and some other) books by J.K. Rowling, the His Dark Materials (and some other) books by Philip Pullman, The Once and Future King by T.H. White, There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar and my old friend the late George Woodman's Taken at the Flood (which should perhaps be in another bookcase but books get shifted in this house). I won't bore you with any more name dropping. Suffice it to say I have actually read all the books on those shelves written by those authors. I have not just been photographed in front of that particular bookcase because some smart-arse television producer said: “You sit there, Dennis, it'll look more like you're knowledgeable.” If I sound grouchy it's because I am bloody grouchy.

It is not lockdown and it is not

TELEVISION.

Which started unusually well this week.

Sunday evening kicked off with the BBC Young Musician 2020 Keyboard Category final which was won by sixteen-year-old pianist Thomas Luke (above), an Isle of Wight lad. Hurray!

No question the choice was right. One of the judges was the renowned pianist Peter Donohoe (below) and if he says you're the winner, you're the winner.

My evening concluded with:

The last ever episode of Homeland in which arguably the worst mother in the world, Carrie Mathison (she wouldn't pose for a picture), single-handedly averted WW3 and suitably rounded off her career as a spy for Saul Berenson by becoming... guess what?

Ho-hum.

Bye-bye, Carrie.

That's it for now.

Post 355. AS LOCKDOWN CONTINUES.

WE ARE WATCHING MORE

Films and TV series. 

I think people are seeing much more on Netflix (other suppliers of film and TV series are available) since the lockdown. We are taking in films and series of stuff we didn't see before because, surprise surprise, they were on stations we mostly ignored. It has encouraged us to watch everything from the previously unseen (by us) western series Godless, which I liked, to the many heaps of abandoned garbage which my Leader has subsequently dismissed with the words: "That was half an hour we'll never get back."

One of my current viewing enjoyments is the UFO 'conspiracy theory' series Project Blue Book. I firmly believe we cannot be the only reasoning beings in all the galaxies, and this fascinating take on the findings of Professor J. Allen Hynek, excellently portrayed by Aiden Gillen (pictured), does seem to justify that belief.

SYFY HD is currently screening series 2.  

I have found YouTube on our television, too, and that has enabled me to rediscover Pekka Kuusisto's 2016 performance of Tchaikovsky's violin concerto at the Royal Albert Hall, together with the most hilarious encore given at the BBC Proms in its entire history. I read that the maestro suffered an injury late in 2018 which put a stop to his violin playing and he consequently, despite prior reservations, joined the ever lengthening list of soloists who have become orchestra conductors. I think any orchestra would be happy to see him on the rostrum, but I hope he will be back scraping the catgut when the next Proms gathering comes along.

Cheers, Pekka Kuusisto!

The departure of live sport from television, together with wise adherence to the safe distance rule, has completely bemused the sadly limited imagination of most television producers. It has, however, enabled them to serve up even more ancient tat and repeat repeats than they can when those long hours of live reality rubbish and semisacred sport are in full sway.

Well, chancers never miss a chance, do they.

We view much of the unearthed TV output from our middle-aged years with wry smiles and, often, mutterings of disbelief at what was acceptable then. The golden age of television?

A cliché to say so, but it's another world now.

Some of it for the better. 

BUT NOT ALL.

Some things just get worse.

In America: President Trump has a brainwave (a worrying thing in any politician) and queries whether it might not be possible to inject some sort of cleansing agent (bleach?) into coronavirus sufferers to clean out their lungs. Oh dear.

And in the UK: Prime Minister Johnson's current partner gives birth to a baby boy (his sixth - publicly known of - child) and the House of Commons wildly applauds it.

Well, everybody loves a new baby. But that effusively?

Yeah, it really is another world now.

AND TO CONCLUDE.

A perverse month.
Just when it seemed the sun would shine forever, along came April showers and, just as quiet roads were becoming rather enjoyable, out came the dickheads (petrolheads) to pollute the peace again. 
Human nature? Huh!

Oh, our window cleaner came this morning. Sun was shining. From a suitable distance he cleaned all the windows.  
As he left the downpour started. 
Essential service? Huh!

Help yourself and others stay alive.

Stay at home.

Post 354. THE LEGALISED GANGSTERS..

HERE ON THIS ISLAND

And throughout Britain.

National, local and private administrative bodies are increasingly taking the heavy-handed approach and employing firms of legalised gangsters (debt collection 'businesses') to extort cash from the public for them. This extortion takes the form of 'fining' citizens (usually motorists) for alleged misdemeanours (mostly parking infringements), however unintentional. The 'fines' are increased for failure to pay within a certain time and there is a threat of blacklisting on a list of 'bad debtors' for any who refuse to be blackmailed. 

In America in the nineteen twenties those who illegally imposed such demands on people were known as protection racketeers. Britain's twenty first century version is no better. Just legal. 
My wife has recently fallen foul of the insidious bastards, so at the moment I am hopping mad about them. But I have been sick and tired of the acquisitive line taken by the powers that be to motorists in the UK since the day I passed my driving test in 1957. Various authorities and their bounty hunter 'heavies' have been bleeding the vehicle owner dry ever since, so I have had a very long time to hate their guts.

Truth to tell I still think the MP, way back, who smugly described the motorist as “a buoyant source of revenue,” should have been dragged from Parliament and hung by his neck from the nearest lamppost no matter how accurate his description. That would have wiped the silly grin off his face. 

For me, driving's not a pleasure anymore. 
Hasn't been for years. So now I neither drive nor own a car. My wife is our car owner and driver. Still will be, all being well, when this plague thing is over and done with. 
She (like you?) is missing the driving at present.

What? Oh, she was totally mislead by somebody at the desk in Newport's Riverside Centre who assured her she was OK parked there when she visited them one Saturday before the lockdown. Even with her disabled driver badge, she wasn't.

She has paid the fine. 

I'd have told them to fuck off.

LEISURE TIME.

Well, unless you are one of those poor souls in hospital, or having a tough time making a recovery from your last visit to one, or somebody who is able to work from home, it's all leisure time now, isn't it. 

Trouble is, you can't go out and enjoy it. My Leader is currently working like a pixilated pixie in the garden. I take her a cuppa and do a bit of edging. She doesn't let me overdo that, either. 
There is a lot more traffic about here now. They can't all be going to essential work, or walking the dog, or going to a shop for imperative supplies, can they? 
Word is, though, that there is a police car stationed up the road watching them fly by. 
But shouldn't somebody be stopping some of them? If only to ask how much they really want Covid-19 to spread? 
Well, perhaps not. Most of them wouldn't have a clue why they were being asked a question like that. 
You can't ask reasonable questions of dickheads.
So fine 'em. 
Better that than fining elderly ladies parked in wrong places. 
Can't resist showing this pair of fine ladies again.

Go carefully, and only if entirely necessary.

Post 353. LIKE SUNDAY EVERY DAY.

IT'S ALMOST RELIGIOUSLY QUIET. 

Without the traffic. 

If you ever prayed for some peace and quiet you must be thinking your prayers have been answered.

It's like Sunday every day, isn't it? Almost religiously quiet. I keep expecting roast beef for dinner with Rawicz and Landauer providing the background music. Or Billy Cotton and his band if you were a dinner at lunchtime person.

We live on the main road between the towns of Newport and Ryde. Over thirty years ago a bypass around our village, Wootton Bridge, was planned by the I.W. Council which, in customary Council fashion, compulsory purchased two en route little bungalows from which three helpless villagers were evicted. The Council was then persuaded to reallocate the funding for the bypass to the building of a new bridge at Yarmouth which would enable wealthy yachties to safely get to the supermarket at Freshwater for their groceries.The Wootton bypass plan was abandoned and has never, to my knowledge, been broached at any subsequent Council meeting.

The two little bungalows were demolished and the land where they stood was appropriated to accommodate one large, attractive, not to be subjected to a compulsory purchase order, replacement.

It was probably all settled by Council petty corruption. Most things are over here, just as they are in almost every town and city in the entire country.

So what brings it all back to me now?

Well, on the positive side, if that bypass had been built the road outside here would have been as almost religiously quiet as it is now, we would not have needed double glazing (wonderful though that may be), our windows would have been wide open on every bright sunny day, and the value of this and every other property along this stretch of road would have gone through the roof. 

On the negative side: we could never have afforded to be here.

Anyway, the old bridge at Yarmouth was bloody dangerous.

LAST MONTH I FORGOT TO MENTION.

That confounded hour.

It went forward at 1 o'clock a couple of weeks ago and we shall have British Summer Time now until the last Sunday in October. I'd be happy if it never changed again. I like BST even if, for a few weeks, I shall be awake at dark o'clock every morning with the bedside timepiece telling me it's an hour later than my body clock reckons it to be. By the time October gets here I shall be tickety-boo and totally unready to change back again. I really don't want that clock up there to read an hour earlier come 25 October next. So, you bureaucrats, do us a favour: from now on leave our clocks at BST. 
It's a civilized time.

But it really does fly.

Discussing recently how quickly the years go by after one retires (thirty one since my retirement from the NHS), was surprised to learn that two friends I always thought of as much younger than me have both been retired for more than twenty years.

I've always had a viewpoint older than I am, though that takes some doing nowadays. The only youthful thing I ever did was abandon bachelorhood when I was nearly thirty two years old to marry a lass thirteen years my junior. That rash flurry into adolescence has so far lasted fifty nine years and, three children, two grandchildren, and a bevi of step and courtesy young relatives later, seems set to continue until one of us kicks the bucket.

To those seeking the secret of our lengthy marriage we have a stock explanation: We're both extremely stubborn. Eh? 

Mmm. Perhaps it is a little more than that.

TELEVISION.

It's films and mini-series now.

Every now and then it comes home to me that we survived WW2 without television. 

How did we manage? I guess it was a case of what you've never had you never miss. We had the radio of course. It was seldom off in our house. But we didn't have talking pictures anywhere other than in cinemas – and I was ordered to leave promptly for home if the sirens went while I was 'at the pictures.' I always did as I was told. You didn't defy my mother. 

Our local 'fleapit' survived the war. Was there for some years after. If it's still there now it will be a supermarket.

RIP Johnny Mack Brown. That's progress.

And now we are not allowed out, so thank the gods for the box in the living room.

Currently I am watching a fascinating reworking of War of the Worlds with Gabriel Byrne, Elizabeth McGovern and Co. It's good.

We are also watching 'the last ever series' of Homeland. Really? Whatever. 

CIA agent Carrie (Claire Danes) is still manically rushing around the middle east spreading ill will for America in the most well-meaning way and Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin), her mentor, is still failing to control her while making excuses for her excesses. When it's all over I hope Mr. Patinkin will continue to entertain with his singing. I have just been listening on YouTube to his 2008 recording of Over The Rainbow. Beautiful. 

Other than that we are doing the mini-series circuit (Mo goes for the historical stuff and I for westerns and thrillers) and we are constantly on the lookout for decent films. Netflix is pretty good on that score. Have just seen Effie Gray, Emma Thompson's film about John Ruskin and his wife. Well worth the viewing.

And that's that for now.

Mo's talking to her pals on ipad. They go to one or the other's house on Wednesday evenings but that's out at the moment.

So thanks be for technology. 

Go safely wherever you are.