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.

2 (11) Wish us luck, eh?

CURRENT AFFAIRS. 

In my Isle of Wight office.

The cat Shadow has just fallen off the narrow shelf behind my computer. He sleeps there, sun through the window, when I am writing. His fall was cushioned by the curtain and the desktop, so the only harm done was to his dignity. He said a muted “bollocks,”had a quick wash and sedately departed the desk when he caught the scent of my Leader's freshly cooked chicken being taken from the oven. He'll do. 

We are leaving Newport I.W. 

In case you do not already know (and at times it felt as though I was the only one who didn't), we have put our Newport house on the market. The agents are Hose Rhodes Dixon and the details are on their website. We have been very happy here over the last thirteen years, but my Leader has not fared particularly well since the hip operation and those who love us have become worried that, with two flights of stairs, the old place is likely to become more than we can manage in the not too distant future. Age and infirmity, my dears. So the idea is that we shall move back to the village of Wootton Bridge, where we first settled when we arrived on the Island forty six years ago; we were there for over thirty years, so should quickly feel at home again. And we will be in a bungalow, to the relief of all concerned. Wish us luck, eh? 

Will Scotland leave the UK? 

We're now about a couple of weeks away from the Scottish Independence vote. I hope they don't go, but will not be surprised if they do. It is the nature of countries to look for independence. In Cyprus, circa1952, I was told by a charming young Greek communist: “We don't want EOKA, we just want your lot out.” They subsequently avoided that union with Greece and got us out. They also lost half their country to the Turks. I can't help wondering how much it was worth it. So I hope the Scots will stay. Independence is a myth anyway: don't the Yanks already own Aberdeen? 

Speaking of Americans...

 Two famous actors gone. Lauren Bacall, following a stroke at the age of 89 and Robin Williams, who sadly took his own life at the age of 63. A friend who worked in Customs and Excise once plucked up the courage to compliment Lauren Bacall on being even more beautiful in real life than she was on screen: she kissed him on the cheek for his cheek and told him he was the nicest customs officer she had ever met. He was certainly the happiest that day. From all one has heard, she really was a lovely person. I gather that, at his best, so too was Robin Williams. He was a disturbingly talented actor and comedian who was addicted to drink and drugs and suffered bouts of severe depression. One can only regret the way his life ended and feel sympathy for those he left behind. Also RIP a famous Englishman. Richard “Dickie” Attenborough at the age of 90.

Lord Attenborough was a powerhouse in the world of British cinema: a gifted actor, far-sighted director, brave film producer and the definitive luvvies luvvie. He will be an immensely hard act to follow. 
TELEVISION.
Under The Dome is back and Big Jim is still alive and we find that extremely aggravating. New Tricks is also back and it would be easy to say we find that extremely aggravating, but we don't: the only one of the old old guard left is Gerry Standing (Dennis Waterman) and the new old guard has been carefully chosen. Tamzin Outhwaite, Denis Lawson and Nicholas Lyndhurst were safe choices; viewing figures will not suffer as a result of their arrival on the scene. Anyway, the stories amble along just as they always have and we fans still find them easy viewing. A personal thought, though: If Nicholas Lyndhurst is the sort of actor who takes his character (retired DCI Dan Griffin) home with him, life must be pretty darned miserable in his house right now. Do him a favour, scriptwriters, cheer the bugger up! In complete contrast, Hell on Wheels is back and “Doc” Durant is still alive and we cannot help but find that aggravating. 
READING. 
Have just read: Guards! Guards! and Pyramids (Corgi), both by the incomparable Terry Pratchett. We laughed fit to bust. If you like Sir Tel you will have read them; if you don't you won't and that's your loss. Have also read: The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (Sphere).

No apology for again publishing the above picture of the author. This is the second Cormoran Strike thriller. Like The Cuckoo's Calling it starts off slowly, as does the mutual attraction that clearly exists between Strike and his lovely assistant Robin Ellacott: their prospective romance still gains painfully slow momentum. She stays betrothed to a twat called Matthew and he, who has taken two books (and close on 900 pages) trying to get over a beautiful nightmare called Charlotte, is unable to see the woodland for the bluebells. I begin to wish they'd get on with it. Mysteries are being solved while they're being coy. I like them both, though. Liked this book, too. If I didn't like Cormoran Strike for any other reason (and he is the sort of bloke I would approach very very cautiously) I'd like him because he has an even sillier bloody name than Gideon Fell, Gervase Fen, Sexton Blake or Sherlock Holmes. That apart, Robert (J.K.) Galbraith, unlike some respected female crime fiction authors (Ngaio Marsh and P.D. James for example), is a convincing writer of male dialogue. Strike never sounds as though he might be light on his feet. Both Alleyn and Dalgliesh sometimes did. Please don't talk to me about their feminine side: I lunch once a month with a bunch of ex policemen; they don't have a feminine side between them. 
TAILPIECE. 
The world our descendants have to face. 
War in the Middle East and in The Crimea/Ukraine. 
Two world wars in the last century promised to bring "peace in our time." There has been no let up to brutal conflict of one sort or another ever since. If it isn't religious, it's political. Silly born bastards led by ambitious cretins are killing each other off all over the Middle East and, under cover of that, in the area alongside Russia. The arch villains, as usual, are religious dogma and political avarice. Now we are seeing pictures of ten year old children bearing arms for ISIS and, from the USA, hear that a nine year old girl accidentally killed a firearms instructor who was teaching her how to fire a 9mm Uzi submachine gun. Are they all mad? In England, the Jehovah's Witnesses parents of a five year old being treated for a brain tumour in a hospital at Southampton, peremptorily removed the child, still on a drip, to a place initially unknown. Presumably they acted through religious conviction. Well, they have the right to follow whatever religion they choose, even that one. How sad, though. 

NB Baby Ashya King was later rushed into hospital in Spain and his parents arrested. Ever wonder whether religion, any religion, is worth it? And as for a political creed, as well get committed to an asylum. None of it promises much for our grandchildren or their children. One can only hope that when (if) they get to our time of life, they will be expressing the same concerns because not that much has changed after all. Enough for this month.   

2 (10) Here we go again.

WATCHING.

The Commonwealth Games. 
As I have written before somewhere, in my youth I was a very keen follower of athletics: I particularly admired the prowess of long distance runners A.F. H. Newton and Paavo Nurmi; the quiet determination of amateur middle distance runner Sydney Wooderson, (holder of what was then the world record for the mile, 4 mins, 6.4 seconds); the definitive sporting Englishman Lord Burghley (a fine hurdler and much respected athletics administrator) and the magnificent American athlete Jessie Owens (who rubbed Nazi noses in the excrement four times at the 1936 Summer Olympics).

For myself, as I have also written before somewhere, nothing earth shattering. At around sixteen years of age I was captain of the Royal Signals junior cross country team (based at Catterick Camp, Yorkshire) and we were top of the North Eastern Counties (junior) league; that's about as far as it went. I did love it, though. So it is with regret that I find myself saying: “Thank Christ the Commonwealth Games is over!” Why? 
Because, as I know I have written before, only a very small handful of people regularly go to athletics events nowadays. (The last time I turned out was to watch Sydney Wooderson at Pitt Street, Portsmouth, circa 1944, when he won the mile in about 4mins 10/20 secs and finished not even breathing heavily.

There was also a very good high jumper whose name eludes me and Sgt. Brown of the Portsmouth Police won the three miles walk in world record time.) I think the extreme following for the last Olympic Games - and this latest lot in Glasgow - has been down to high-powered nonstop publicity and the ever increasing onlooker desire to feel close to an event (births, deaths, weddings, funerals, accidents, games), any event. So we were treated to an overkill of runnin', jumpin', throwin', swimmin', divin', fightin' and sweaty chattin' on the Beeb for an entire fortnight. It quickly became tiresome and the rubbish reality shows, together with the soaps, must have made hay while the sun was shining in Scotland. None of this was the fault of the Games participants. All the athletes who took part, whatever their discipline, win or lose, did a splendid job. Scotland, too. Very little wrong, ever, with the way Scotland does things. But it will all be forgotten later this month when football starts again. Nobody, except the winners, remembers who won what or by how much when an athletics meeting is over. Try naming all the competitors in the last 100 metres dash you watched. If you can, you need to get out less. 

The Middle East. 

What do you say about the wicked goings on out there? Any force that will kill women and children without compunction is evil; any faction that will use women and children as a human shield is vile: and any nation that allows the immoral bastards among its citizenry to sell arms to either or both of them - is a model of democratic excellence and sound business sense: well, that's what they tell me, the immoral bastards. 

56 Up. 

This lovely reality tele series (where cameras return at seven yearly intervals to check on the progress of participants first filmed when they were seven years old) belies all my worst opinions about the genre. My Leader and I have watched it from the outset and it has always been worth the seven years wait. This year was no exception and showed all the protagonists to have become respectable middle-aged people. Sadly, following the update on Lynn Johnson, it was reported that she died in May 2013 after a short illness. A nice family woman, she was a librarian up until local councillors started giving top council officers vast salary deals, themselves ludicrously high expense packages and many worthwhile people (librarians and their like) redundancy. Sad world sometimes, isn't it? 

THE DETECTIVES. 

Not much change. 

Most of the programmes are repeats (e.g. Midsomer before the producers were browbeaten into employing a regular quota of ethnic minority actors) so there is no shortage of Frost, Morse and Poirot. I can still sit through two hour long episodes of Foyle's War and Montalbano, but generally ignore the rest; saw them all when they were new. Word is that Lewis (Kevin Whately) and Montalbano (Luca Zingaretti) are to return soon:

so, too, Midsomer (which I assume will be carefully tailored to evade the PC scrutineers longing to be offended). Ah well. Honi soit qui mal y pense. 

All the best to you and yours.   

2 (9) Back to square one – almost.

WATCHING.

Could you read it?

I am a grade 2 listed diabetic who has been very lucky; over the past couple of years, despite murmurings in the direction of age-related cataracts, the prescription from my optician has not changed. So I was able to read the tiny lettering (the apparent designer type size for Google Chrome is TNR14) in which Post 2 (8) appears. But it really is small, isn't it.? Google Chrome, of course, does not extend to the user the old fashioned choice of small, medium or large type size. Proof, were it needed, that no change, for whatever reason, is ever for the better.That having been said, an email, purporting to come from the Inland Revenue to tell me I may be due a refund (some hopes), arrived recently: it was promptly given the 'we cannot process this' treatment by those same Google buddies. Can't complain about that, can you? Anyway, I have gone back to square one – almost – and upped the type size for this contribution. See how it goes.

I'll sit anywhere dot com.

Two trays used by family members when snacking whilst watching tele (dreadful habit...don't tell me) had been stacked upside down on my footstool. The cat Shadow, being a cat, seized the opportunity. My Leader, who had only abandoned the trays for a few minutes, laughed:

“Look at that. I'll sit anywhere dot com.”

TELEVISION.

Gawdelpusitsgamesagain! 

Yep, games again. Tennis (the itches are back in force - Djokovic beat Federer in the men's final), golf (the Women's British Open blew through Royal Birkdale in windy weather) and footie (the World Cup was won by Germany on ITV and the Beeb at the same time). If you didn't follow any of it you had to read a book or go sky diving or mountaineering.

Alan Hansen.

The football pundit retired after the world cup. He played football as a central defender for Partick Thistle, Liverpool and Scotland and followed that with 22 years at the BBC as one of the experts on Match of the Day. This is a man who experienced the best and the worst in football moments. Cup and league successes were offset by both the Heysel and Hillsborough stadium disasters. His television work has shown him to be as cool a pundit as he was a player and he will be a very hard act to follow. Good luck and good golfing, Mr. Hansen.

THE DETECTIVES.

Grimm.

Another season finished and this time Nick has been divested of his Grimm status by the infuriating Adalind. If you are interested it looks as if Season 4 will start on October the 24th this year.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Apparently series 15 has been commissioned. It needs to be a little more positive than season 14, which seems to have lurched from the unlikely to the unbelievable with scarcely a twitch of Ted Danson's spectacles. Paul Guilfoyle, who has been Captain Jim Brass since the show's inception, will not be in it. Written out. Shame. We liked him. Good luck, tough guy.

2 (8) Still struggling with the technicalities.

Extemporizing.
I may well regret it later, but for this Post I have abandoned my practise of composing the lot outside the blog and transferring it, copy and paste, to the New Post page, I think the Google Blog rule makers probably frowned upon it and, if the haphazard appearance of Post 2 (7) is anything to go by, it can cock up the publication process something rotten. That having been said, if this lot comes out so small you need a bloody magnifying glass to read it, I'll be off back to Times Roman 20 and sod the rules.
Douglas revisited.

I thought I might get a picture of the travelling hamster Douglas and here he is. Beggars belief how swiftly he acclimatized to the tartan and everything it represents. He, Neil and Pauline very much enjoyed their holiday in Scotland. It shows, don't it?
Fiddling with Facebook.
The clearly competent staff at Facebook are sending me regular reminders that nice people wait for me to read their Facebook missives and, presumably, say:  "I like what I have read and this is what I think..."
But, y'know, I really don't care that England have been knocked out of the football...everyone expected it...or that some overpaid South American diva bit another player. Why don't they just tell the bugger he can't come back here, Liverpool or no Liverpool?  (Yeah, I know, pie in the sky.) I also, long ago, ceased to follow cricket except to cast a casual glance towards the County results to see how Hampshire are doing. And now it's tennis again. Not much mention of that on Facebook so far. Well, most of my lot couldn't afford the strawberries and cream, let alone a ticket for Wimbledon.
Upshot is, my technically inexpert attempts at social toing and froing drag me well out of my comfort zone. I don't even text on the telephone. I like the funny messages sent by many of those who do, though. Some folk are so clever.
Miles Jupp.

Mention of folk who are clever brings me neatly to the former Balamory pink castle owner and inventor Miles Jupp  (Archie) whose current stand-up tour brought him to the Medina Theatre, here in Newport I.W., last Friday evening. Son Neil had tickets and invited me along. I gladly accepted the invitation. Mr. Jupp is a gently funny Englishman with a quietly wicked delivery. In the first half he talked about his family and four children aged between four and one. ("You can do the figures for yourselves."). After the interval he spoke of the Balamory days and how he had not actually owned a pink castle on a fictional Scottish island. There were few belly laughs, but we chuckled from beginning to end and not many modern comics can bring that off. Take any chance you may get to see him. I'm so glad I did.
That's it for now. 
Two posts in one month. Am I setting a precedent? Perhaps.. See how this little lot works out.
GAWDBLESSYERWUNANALL!

2 (7) Yet more catching up to do.

WATCHING.

A sort of clock watching.

The trouble with setting oneself time limits (in this case, once a month) to produce a few printed words, is that a sort of clock watching process becomes the norm and invariably culminates in a last minute dash to meet one's needlessly set deadline.

It thus came as some surprise to me last month when I finished Beware saying...a couple of days early and cheerfully published it.

Blame that confounded election. It left...

Yet more catching up to do.

For a start I must send greetings to Anonymous J.A. and say how pleased we were to hear that he and his driveway were well on the mend. Sheila and Mo keep in touch on the ipaddy-touch-type-telephone-thingies, 'tis true, but your occasional blog comment is still very welcome, John.

Then I must say hello to Jac's friend, Zoe Farndon (how long has it been?) and a thanks for your nice little note. The cat Shadow still thinks yours is the only name that rhymes with Barnden – it is if you say it quickly. And Botleigh Grange, eh? What a small world. We've still not met; but one day, who knows? All the very best, Zoe.

READING.

Alex Grecian.

I finished The Yard (Penguin fiction) and it was a damn good read so I went on to the second of the Murder Squad yarns, The Black Country, which was as good, if not better. Mr. Grecian is an American who, occasional slips in dialogue and period apart, clearly has an affinity with Jack The Ripper's England. Dr. Bernard Kingsley, the first ever (and seemingly self-appointed) forensic pathologist, together with his clever daughter, Fiona, and his trustworthy factotum, Henry Mayhew, do the scientific stuff and a fledgling band of Scotland Yard detectives, Inspector Walter Day and Sgt. Nevil Hammersmith prominent among them, do the investigating. The whodunit appears in italics from the outset, so the stories are stronger on action than on plot: but they are high, wide and hansom (cab) page turners: well worth adding to your crime library.
Robert B. Parker.
In Post 2 (5), I pleaded for the return of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe to the crime novel scene.                               Now I have to admit, shamefacedly, that for many years my reading has too often given way to an idle fixation with the television screen. Robert B. Parker's books thus went by unnoticed and he wrote exactly the sort of yarn I thought no longer existed. I have just finished Night Passage, the first Jesse Stone novel (No Exit Press); great stuff if the majority of your boyhood reading consisted of tough detectives and westerns.                                                                               All very American but reassuringly familiar to a Brit who was a fan of the old b/w B pictures where Jerome Cowan was Sam Campbell and Chester Morris was Boston Blackie. Mr. Parker, who also wrote the hard-boiled detective series Spenser, died at his desk in 2010. He was 77. A gilt-edged professional writer. Unusual marriage arrangements. Fascinating. (See Google.) 
Terry Pratchett. 

I conclude this section, appropriately, with a gilt edged British writer. My Leader and I are still laughing over our joint favourite recent read, Mort. (Corgi Books) If you have read Terry Pratchett's work you will probably know the true magic of Discworld. If you have not, what's stopping you? All you need is a sense of humour and the resolve to, for a start, borrow or buy the witches and wizards stories: you'll never regret it. In this one, Mort becomes Death's apprentice. DEATH TALKS LIKE THIS and has a horse called Binky. Mort, a simple lad, whose body “appeared to have been built out of knees” learns more about life from Death than he would ever have learnt from life.

By the time I had finished this tale it was my hope (and I wish this for Sir Terry, too) that when my time does come, Death himself – or a subcontractor who looks startlingly like Mort - might appear beside me and say: TIME TO GO, OLD BOY, TIME TO GO.

And I shall go, smiling, all the way to wherever.

TELEVISION.
Happy Valley.
Sarah Lancashire's portrayal of police sergeant Catherin Cawood, as written by Sally

Wainwright, Last Tango in Halifax/Scott and Bailey etc., 

should see her among the TV award winners next year.

The climax to Happy Valley, where only the tough survived,

was one of the most violently satisfying this peace loving old geezer has seen for years. The story had a beginning, a middle and an end, too. Excellent.

Anyway, I'll watch anything with Sarah Lancashire or Lesley Sharp in it. They play the sort of woman I married fifty two years ago.

Jack Taylor.

If you have watched any of these you will know they are set in Ireland and Iain Glen plays private eye (former garda) Jack Taylor. If you haven't watched it, Jack is a boozer and a womaniser who looks as though he has been pulled through a hedge backwards. He gets beaten up in every episode. His young buddy was shot by a madwoman but, pay negotiations willing, will recover for the next series. Jack has a heart of gold and anyone who likes Iain Glen will like him. I do.

That's about it.

Quirke.
I gather this short series hung about somewhere in the Beeb's
Lost and Reluctantly Found department for nigh on a couple

of years before somebody presumably thought it would be 

better than another bloody cookery show. Well, it is. But only just.The story is set in Ireland where Quirke (Gabriel Byrne) is chief pathologist in the Dublin city Morgue.
Our hero is a boozer and a womaniser and looks as though he

has been dressed by a mortician. He gets beaten up in the first episode. By the end of the series, the love of his life has died, his father is on the critical list and his daughter is thinking of going abroad. Incidentally, he has a heart of gold and anyone who likes Gabriel Byrne will like him. I do.
And that's about that.

Eggheads.
So dear old Daphne Fowler, the smiling assassin, has left

Eggheads. She became a member of the team at its inception in 2003 and has decided, at the age of seventy five, that enough is enough. Good for her. On current form, Chris Hughes (some eight years her junior) should do likewise.

My Leader still follows the programme. I can take it or (mostly) leave it. To my mind, any team that takes on a new boy whose name is preceded with the words “tremendous knowledge” has been well dumbed down. And as I said somewhere way back, now that the entire world knows the weakest head-to-head subject of every egghead, any decent pub quiz team can beat them; and that's doubly sure if Kevin is on the team and cooking is on the question list.

Happy retirement, Daphne. Put your feet up, girl.

Have also been watching...Castle, Coast Australia, Fargo, Game of Thrones, Grimm, Rizzoli and Isles, and Wallander, to name a few. 

I really do need to get out more, don't I?

LAST THOUGHTS.

Daft dress.
Breakfast on BBC1 recently sent reporter Steph to interview fisher folk and a whisky producer at a Scottish port. She and they stood, quayside, to talk. She and they – presumably at the whim of some health and safety fanatic - wore white overall coats and white mesh trilbies. Steph and her fishery interviewee then moved on to the fish storehouse: a vast shed full of fish-filled stalls. People wandered to and fro around and between the stalls, most of them hatless and all dressed in their everyday garb: clearly nobody owned a white overall or a white mesh trilby.
Suddenly our broadcasters looked a bit overdressed.

Later, as is the way with Breakfast, the interviews were

repeated: by that time, Steph and her quayside companions had lost their whiter than white h/s gear and were suitably attired in warm, sensible mufti.

I'd love to have heard what was said in the interim.

AND DEEDS.

Facebook.

My Leader is a regular follower of the Facebook outpourings of family and friends and has spent a considerable time trying to persuade me to look in on their – often very funny – exchanges.

Thus it was that, the other day, I allowed myself, with considerable misgivings, to finally join this popular social network. Mo did the signing up stuff for me. I don't do admin. Haven't done since 1989.

I did fill in my personal page, though. That resulted in me being listed as living in Isle of Wight, Virginia where, it seems, a couple of hundred people were pleased to hear it, over a hundred talked about it and a couple of thousand didn't give a toss. I'll never be able to afford a visit to I.W. Virginia, but I shall take the opportunity to look in at a few nice people's Facebook offerings. Doubt I'll become a very active participant. I do, as I pointed out to nephew Kelvin, have enough writing and washing up to do already. His response was to call me a grumpy old sod; an impudent (albeit accurate) description. So to

The Queen's Birthday Parade.

BBC Television screened the customary Trooping of the Colour at this year's birthday parade for H.M. Queen Elizabeth II (gawdblesserintshewonnerful) who was celebrating one or other of her two birthdays: don't know why she gets two but think it may be the reason she describes herself as “we.”

The Coldstream Guards Trooped the Colour

 and were magnificent. I would be very happy if that, together with ceremonial guard/escort duties were to be their sole task nowadays.

We are not officially at war unless, behind my back, somebody has decided otherwise, so we should not be sending troops to Afghanistan, or anywhere else, at the whim of some inflated politico, be it a Blair, a Cameron, or an American “ally.” Even the most inflexibly martial moron must secretly realise that going gung ho into the Middle East was an appalling mistake and remaining there has been an exercise in life-wasting futility. Our involvement has cost far too much in human misery and appears to have been of benefit only to American oil firms, international arms dealers and the scum who deal in illicit drugs.

Where was I? Oh...yes...the birthday parade was customarily well orchestrated. H.M., sadly, looked less than happy. Prince Philip managed a dutiful wave or so to the cheering crowd. The royal children proved they can still sit on horses and, in timeworn fashion, the family finally adorned the balcony of Buckingham Palace to acknowledge the adoration of that meticulously regimented throng in The Mall.

A flyover of planes, ancient and modern, brought the proceedings to a satisfactory conclusion.

They (and we) are still pretty good at the pomp lark.

I.W. Music Festival 2014.
Last weekend it was Isle of Wight Music Festival time again.

Some of our bunch went to see Red Hot Chili Peppers who were the stars (good, I'm told) on Saturday. Kings of Leon topped the bill on Sunday. The musical cat Shadow heard it all from next door's kitchen roof. (He said he prefers Biffy Clyro.)

My Leader and I didn't go. Well, she drove me past the site on Father's Day, but I think that was just to teach me a lesson. None of it appeals to me. But from outside our front door we were treated to a display of aerobatics by the Red Arrows on the last day. They, like the Guards, were magnificent.

SO TO LAST LAST THOUGHTS.
Scotland with Douglas.

Son Neil and his wife, Pauline, have been on holiday north of 

the border. They have been accompanied by Douglas, a travelling hamster who first joined them in America and now goes everywhere with them. He has taken to Scotland like a caber, has been seen on Facebook in a kilt and a hamoshanter and has been photographed with two Castle Douglas guides.

Don't ask me where such lunacy comes from, but I'll try and get a picture for the next post. 

2 (6) Beware saying without thinking!

WATCHING.

Shadowland again.

“How about making it a hat trick?” suggested the cat Shadow, casually. I ignored him. He's just trying to engineer another cute cat appearance, I thought, and it ain't going to happen.

Ever get the feeling you can't win?

Home improvements.

With considerable assistance, from Roz and Nick, my Leader has set about redecorating the unstately pile. Granddaughter Jess's gloriously shambolic pied-a-terre has become a pristine guest bedroom and the facade has been given sympathetic updating. My contribution has sensibly taken the form of positive encouragement and negative involvement. I'm too old to be a decorator and, truth to tell, never was any good at it. Anyway, by the time they're through I may not know the old place. Intriguing prospect, that.

Beware saying without thinking!

My Leader hurriedly hushed me in Marks and Sparks the other day. She didn't threaten divorce or tell me she'd 'have to let me go' (doesn't anybody ever get 'the sack' or 'their cards' or 'fired' any more?) but she was clearly discombobulated and that's not like her. I was almost hushed.

So what, you may ask, had I done to warrant the application of a hurried hush? Had I loudly broken wind, or belched, or introduced foul language into the sacrosanct world of men's cardies and ladies' undies?

Well...not exactly...but almost; what I'd done, in all innocence, was put into words my preferred colour for a v-neck jumper to go with light brown slacks.

“These primary colours are all well and fine,” I said, “but what I'm really looking for is nigger brown. Don't they do that now?” 

Well, you must forgive me, I have never wittingly insulted a foreign person (of whatever colour) and I was a trifle taken aback at Mo's sudden hushing, let alone the embarrassed air of resignation with which she delivered it. I had, it seems, committed the latest in an ever increasing list of English mortal sins. I had spoken aloud a taboo word and it wasn't brown.

But, you see, right through my childhood and teens in the nineteen thirties and forties, a rich, dark shade of brown was exactly what n-word brown was: I held many skeins of wool in that very colour on my outstretched hands while my mother rolled it into balls for knitting; it was a colour I rather liked and, to the best of my knowledge, neither it nor I hurt a soul.

So, American rednecks and South African bigots apart, what happened to suddenly make the word so unspeakable that it brought the television presenter Jeremy Clarkson – strangely cowed without car - to our screens, begging forgiveness lest he lose his job?

For that matter, what damned silliness prompted the BBC to force the resignation of Radio Devon broadcaster David Lowe (a 'veteran DJ' who some unwell wisher has probably been seeking to remove for years) for playing an ancient version of The Sun Has Got His Hat On which, unbeknown to him, contained said word?

It does sometimes seem that Big Brother is alive and well and buggering about not only with the English language but with everyone born to speak it.

OK, so I will probably never say the offending word aloud again – well, not in public anyway. Nor will my descendants. They've been well advised.

Perversely, though, I do wonder how long it will be before words like yellow and slanted and homely are outlawed because they may offend people of the Orient, or those of even slightly craven disposition, or those with almond - shaped eyes, or those who are not exactly Helen of Troy or Adonis.

Where will it all end?

Who knows? 'Where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise' no longer applies. The PC contingent and educated outsiders expect better of 21st Century Britain than blissful ignorance excused by freedom of speech: given their way the dungeons will be full of free speakers (a few of whom may even remember what colour n-word brown was).

So if, by some weird cosmic miracle, my spirit comes back here at the end of the century, I'll not expect to understand a word anyone says. It won't matter. Nobody will be talking face to face anyway. They'll all be nattering into their mobile phones and secretly doing the dirt on each other for grammatical/political slips of the tongue. 

lol that, eh?

THE DETECTIVES.

When is a detective?

You can't really call Finch and Reese detectives or Person of Interest a murder mystery yarn. If you have ever watched it you will know what I mean and if you have seen any of the last three episodes you will fully understand my contention that it should be retitled Person of Perplexity. Another series over and we must wait until next year to face the bewilderment all over again.

Another series of The Mentalist completed, too. 

Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) and Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney) finally got it together and that could well have been that. But I gather there will be a final series next year. Pleasant, daft and always watchable.

Hinterland, set in Wales, is very Welsh and, at times, seems very long. In a north country sort of way, pet, the same goes for Vera. Not even Brenda Blethyn can solve that. An hour and a half is about fifteen minutes too long for most cop stuff: in some cases, two hours can be three too many.

Most established American crime dramas are made in series of twenty or more episodes. The current way of dealing with this on British television (apparently unhappy beyond four – or, at best, six – episodes a series) is to lose patience halfway through and start screening episodes two at a time; this is done without warning and, for those smart enough to pre-record (i.e. make sure they can fast forward the adverts), evokes a situation where entire episodes can be missed due to non-planning or because they clash with other plans.

Castle, NCIS, CSI and many others have endured this cavalier treatment after a series or two. Makes you wonder who bought them and why.

LAST BUT BY ALL MEANS LEAST.

That Election.

I never trusted Harold Wilson with his pipe and his Gannex raincoat: I thought he was a total con man. By the same token, I deeply distrusted the insincere grin that was Tony Blair; a man who feathered his own nest all the way from his WMD 'friendship' with George Bush to his hate hate agreement with that humourless careerist Gordon Brown.

Southern Television now tells us that, at the recent EU elections, the Isle of Wight had the biggest UKIP turnaround in the South. So Nigel Farage, a prick with a pint in one hand and a cigarette in the other, has become the man of the moment and the Island, always an area of high unemployment, has taken yet another backward step in its search for a saviour.

Me? I wouldn't buy a used car from the bloke or lend the slightest support to his pure-blood-wizards' party; but I was born in Portsmouth, so over here I'm just another foreigner who took a job that could have been given to an Islander: I kept it for 21 years, too.
Some people have no shame.

Back next month, age and slips of the tongue willing.

2 (5) A precis of sorts.

WATCHING.

A cat at home.

The cat Shadow was so taken by his rooftop picture that he has pestered me for another appearance ever since.

Well, you try telling him he's not a fashion model. 

Another ...king cockup.

This is the genuine last minute flyer. Yesterday I was cheerfully contemplating closing a completed Post 5 when, without warning, the blogspot.doc.odt - Open Office Writer upon which I have thus far recorded all my Part 2 posts, inexplicably jumped to a blank page and the entire preceding scribble was gone. I cannot find it: I know it must be lying in wait somewhere but I have not the slightest idea where. So this hurriedly cobbled together mishmash is the result of – yeah, you've seen the heading - another ...king cockup.
If I ever do suss the way to recover the original I shall publish it, no matter how outdated it may then be. If you, dear reader, have a solution, I can be reached on barndens@talktalk.net and will cheerfully consider it.

(Don't be rude, it doesn't become you.)

I know I could call in Dan the Man again, but he was here no more than a fortnight ago and one lost blog post hardly seems worth wasting his valuable time.

In the meantime, a sort of precis...

254 OBA. 
We attended the Southern Chapter annual reunion at Botleigh Grange Hotel, Hedge End, Southampton.

Most of the regulars were there. We made it despite satnav Hermione who decided to sulk and direct us back to the Royal Pier, Southampton. Ignoring her nonsense cost us an hour and forty-plus minutes of fruitless driving around Hampshire.

When we finally reached the hotel there was an Indian wedding reception on the go. Beautiful bride, handsome groom, brightly coloured turbans, exotic saris, wall-pounding music, Rolls Royce departure car; the lot. Lovely occasion.

Made you proud to be British.

As did the gathering of R. Signals old boys, plus many of their kith and kin, gathered for dinner on Saturday April the 5th. The event was, as usual, organized by Pat and Maureen Soward and presided over by Pat, an excellent Chairman. We thoroughly enjoyed the company and the ambience. Our journey back the following day, with the help of a rejuvenated Hermione, was a doddle. Left the hotel at 10.20am and caught the 11.00am car ferry.

As Our Ernie's dad said: “Daft, I call it.”
WHAT ELSE?
Oh...yes...The Wright Stuff. 
On Monday 7th of April, St. Patrick's Day, columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, there for the week, appeared in a smart green outfit with matching accessories. It later transpired that (for once in her life) she didn't know what day it was. The following Friday – different colour each day – she wore red to herald Sports Relief weekend. Well informed choice, that. 
If I ran The Independent I'd introduce a new fashion page and ask her to edit it. Well, I'm quite brave long range: think brickbats at one hundred yards.

THE DETECTIVES.

The US paranoia persists.

During the second world war we had good reason to produce propaganda films in this country. We were officially at war with Germany, a martial nation, and our national confidence needed regular boosting. In retrospect, most of those wartime films were farcical, low budget and about as believable as snow in the Sahara. But we accepted them without question. Now, without officially being at war with anyone, the Americans are playing the same farcical propaganda game. Watch any US television drama and you will soon find yourself knee-deep in forebodings about the threat from Iraq (usually pronounced Eye-rack), the remainder of the Middle East, Pakistan, China, Russia and anyone whose accent may be hopelessly mangled by a bit part actor. It is all total tosh of course, but the paranoia persists and, I fear, grows. I so prefer detectives who solve whodunnits and get into punch-ups with crooked cops and hoodlums who are not Russian Mafia heavies. 

Come back Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade, all is forgiven!

AND SO TO THIS MONTH'S FOOTNOTE.

Anonymous John.

Word reached me that Anonymous John Appleton was very much under the weather and I should have phoned him. But I'm not much of a conversationalist on the phone. So I hope you won't mind me taking this opportunity to wish you (and your driveway) a rapid and complete recovery, John. 

Cheers, old mate.