IN THE NEWS.
The Gurkhas. What a furore about whether or not Gurkhas should become permanent residents here.
The little blokes have fought in countless wars on our side and I'd rather they were for us than against.
So what is all the fuss about?
Are the Powers-That-Be worried lest, a generation or two on, Gurkha soldiers living here will become civilians uninterested in going to war? Do they think martial Nepalese may that quickly transform into pacifist Brits?
Would it matter if they did?
Joanna Lumley's Joan of Arc presence on their behalf has served to further her iconic status, remind us again that she is a consummate actress (many times during her M.P. belittling campaign she gave us her Margaret Thatcher browbeating the boys audition piece) and has provided a tasty hors d'oeuvre to the prize scandal of the week...
MPs Expenses. "What I did was within the rules" will surely go down as the poorest excuse for mishandling public money that has ever been trotted out by elected representatives to a suddenly aware electorate.
The fact that they and their benighted advisers compiled dodgy rules to legalize their actions screams of sharp practice.
If you or I had been discovered doing anything of the kind, whatever our employment, we would have been taken to court, fined and sacked.
So far as their reaction to being caught with their hands in the till is concerned, the apologies of party leaders have been more acceptable than the defiant bluster of the jumped up little Speaker of the House, but only just!
We are surrounded by acquisitive scoundrels and, as usual, the honourable few (that's very few) will suffer for their rascally associates.
Football. Surprisingly, when it comes to the honourable, a football manager has just shown the way.
Steve Coppell, faced with the realization that his Reading side, beaten by Burnley, would not gain the promotion he sought, has resigned.
Somebody badly needs him.
Pompey? The Saints? The House of Commons?
TELEVISION.
Kirstie's Home-Made Home (C4). This little series was a gem. Kirstie Allsopp ('er who's always after knockin' down walls on Location Location) showed MPs how to make money out of second home renovations without bending any rules.
You just film the whole bang shoot and flog it to commercial television.
It was a five parter which finished last night and if she decides she can make a few quid more by bringing it out on DVD we will buy it.
Newsnight Review (BBC 2). I was well pleased to see the quiet assassin Tom Paulin, accompanied by Anthony Horowitz and Natalie Haynes, doing battle with popular culture again last Friday: Martha Kearney chaired impeccably.
When I looked on the website later it became apparent that Dr. Paulin was not everyone's favourite academic that night.
A "beam me up" bunch of Trekkies was ray gunning for him.
Well, he has survived bigger and better spaced-out showers than them.
Mr Horowitz was not their most popular author, either; they regarded him as a mere writer of children's fiction, presumably unable to comprehend the mind blowing complexity of pointed ears and daring to boldly go where no man has gone before.
This to the man who wrote Foyle's War, one episode of which was worth any ten roller coaster sets of tumbling Enterprise crew members.
Ah well, to each his own.
Inspector George Gently (BBC 1). At the risk of spoiling it for someone, the crimes took something of a back seat in Gently in the Night when our hero challenged his assistant, Sergeant Bacchus, to step into the boxing ring with him for charity.
Young John was full of youthful confidence, but the outcome of the bout probably rested on one word dropped at the time of the challenge.
Suggesting that his superior officer was getting on a bit for fisticuffs, the young man said: "I know you did a bit of boxing in the army..."
and received the timely correction: "For the army."
Nice touch, that.
Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra (BBC2). A combination of Peter and The Wolf, The Young Person's Guide and (never mind The Buzzcocks) some glorious music hall zaniness.
We recorded it.
We shall keep it.
BOOKS.
Bryan Forbes. I have started reading The Endless Game (published, together with A Song At Twilight, by Arrow in 1998) and am reminded that over the years Bryan Forbes has proven to be a very smart all rounder.
Not only did he act, write scripts and direct films, but he turned out a number of very decent thrillers.
And he married Nanette Newman.
Who says you can't have it all?
Kathy Reichs. Following my comments about Death Du Jour, I have acquired (courtesy of my Leader) two more Dr. Temperence Brennan stories Grave Secrets and Break No Bones.
I'll just have to speed up my reading.
Well, at my age...
FILMS.
The Bridges of Madison County. Directed by and starring Clint Eastwood and co-starring Meryl Streep.
I did not see this 1995 film when it was first released; would never have done so had it not been shown on television earlier this year and, even then, have kept it languishing on the recorder for a few months.
Need not have feared.
Mushiness is not on the cards: not with Eastwood directing.
Meryl Streep, using one of her foreign American/American foreign accents, plays an Italian war bride, Francesca Johnson, who has an affair with much travelled photographer Robert Kincaid.
I watched it last night and rather enjoyed it.
Have always liked Meryl Streep, whatever her accent, and Clint Eastwood is totally reliable.
Nice change to see him packing a camera instead of a .44 Magnum, too.
The Night Listener. By coincidence this was screened on television a short time after I wrote about Armistead Maupin's novel in my last post.
It was directed by Patrick Stettner, starred Robin Williams and Toni Collette and sadly, even with Maupin as one of the screenwriters, lacked the suspense and surprise of the book.
No fault of the actors.
Some authors, Maupin and Mary Wesley among them, are just difficult to adapt to the screen.
A FINAL WORD ON THEM.
Trouble is, we could do worse!
I have heard it said already. "Next election we'll vote them all out!"
People are seething and their mood might well be reflected at the polls.
But before we all go off half-cocked I hope common sense will kick in.
We have seen what happens here when riot police are given free rein.
Do we want a reproduction of 1933 Germany?
A National Socialist British Workers' Party, by whatever name and under whatever leadership, would be a disaster.
I think we'd be better off just kicking this lots' arses and sticking to the status quo.
Trouble is, we really could do worse!
Friday, May 15, 2009
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
124. And yet more of the usual.
BOOKS.
Kathy Reichs. I have recently finished Kathy Reichs' death du jour.
Ms. Reichs is forensic anthropologist at the Labatoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Quebec. Her heroine, Temperance Brennan, is also a forensic anthropologist.
Fact and fiction merge so well in her stories that it is difficult to see the join.
I have the utmost respect for those talented people who succeed in transforming the subject of their working lives into award winning fiction. (Scott Turow, a practicing lawyer, has the same wonderful gift, though it comes as less of a surprise that a legal man should be able to spin a yarn.)
A forensic anthropologist clearly requires physical and mental toughness, patience, dedication and one helluva brain.
Kathy Reichs is good value.
Armistead Maupin. I read The Night Listener in less than a week: something of a record for me nowadays.
It is vintage Maupin: fascinating characters, absorbing plot and the sort of page turner one would expect from the man who wrote Tales of the City.
In a world beyond my comprehension Mr. Maupin, too, is good value.
TELEVISION.
De-Lovely. (ITV1) One good thing about television programme padding is the opportunity it gives to see films you missed when they were released.
This 2004 musical biography, directed by Irwin Winkler and based on the life and work of Cole Porter, starred Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd as the composer and his wife, Linda.
My Leader and I enjoyed it immensely.
Like all good musicals it bore no relationship whatsoever to real life.
Cole Porter was a gifted tunesmith and superb lyricist who, apart from his marriage, had much in common with Noel Coward and Ivor Novello: they were talented composers and they were homosexuals.
Now they're dead.
Best remember them for their music.
Inspector George Gently (BBC1). He's back then: good old Martin Shaw in Fabian of the Yard mode, all gruff-voiced authoritarianism and unflinching rectitude.
Lee Ingleby, playing the hasty, ambitious know-all D.S. John Bacchus, is still with him.
Excellent stuff.
Primeval (ITV1). Jason Flemyng has taken over from Douglas Henshall.
It's still as daft as ever.
Robin Hood (BBC 1). Toby Stevens, playing Prince John, is replacing Keith Allen's Sheriff of Nottingham for a couple of weeks.
Never fear, it's still as daft as ever.
HOME.
Sister Doris. In between the moves into sheltered accommodation and into care of two of my wife's sisters, another sister, Doris, was admitted to hospital where she died suddenly.
She was 84 and a Jehovah's Witness.
Her funeral service, held at Portchester Crematorium, was well attended by family members - religious and irreligious - and by a good turnout of brother and sister Witnesses.
It was a Witness service.
At the customary gathering afterwards the Watch Tower tribe turned out to be a pleasant enough bunch, bless 'em.
I regard them as cranks rather less sinister than Scientologists, but I do wonder what accident they witnessed. At worst they suffer from an unquestioning belief in their religion, but there's an awful lot of that about.
I remain blissfully irreligious.
Don't care who it is, Jehovah or L. Ron Hubbard: I'd as soon believe in Harry Potter.
Council Elections. Leaflets through the letterbox: the Blair clone Cameron running around the country exhorting people to "vote for change" in the forthcoming local elections (figure it worked for President Obama do they?) and, very soon, the smiling faces of people you do not know and do not want to know, people who have neither known nor particularly wanted to know you, will invite you to vote for them.
Well, we've currently got the Tories and they're rubbish. Before them we had the Liberals and they were ditto. Labour stands not a chance here but, as experienced nationally, who would bank on them?
Whoever gets in here will continue to be manipulated by the suits they are supposed to be employing.
Costs will escalate and services will depreciate.
It has been going on for years.
Don't talk about bloody change to me.
Kathy Reichs. I have recently finished Kathy Reichs' death du jour.
Ms. Reichs is forensic anthropologist at the Labatoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Quebec. Her heroine, Temperance Brennan, is also a forensic anthropologist.
Fact and fiction merge so well in her stories that it is difficult to see the join.
I have the utmost respect for those talented people who succeed in transforming the subject of their working lives into award winning fiction. (Scott Turow, a practicing lawyer, has the same wonderful gift, though it comes as less of a surprise that a legal man should be able to spin a yarn.)
A forensic anthropologist clearly requires physical and mental toughness, patience, dedication and one helluva brain.
Kathy Reichs is good value.
Armistead Maupin. I read The Night Listener in less than a week: something of a record for me nowadays.
It is vintage Maupin: fascinating characters, absorbing plot and the sort of page turner one would expect from the man who wrote Tales of the City.
In a world beyond my comprehension Mr. Maupin, too, is good value.
TELEVISION.
De-Lovely. (ITV1) One good thing about television programme padding is the opportunity it gives to see films you missed when they were released.
This 2004 musical biography, directed by Irwin Winkler and based on the life and work of Cole Porter, starred Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd as the composer and his wife, Linda.
My Leader and I enjoyed it immensely.
Like all good musicals it bore no relationship whatsoever to real life.
Cole Porter was a gifted tunesmith and superb lyricist who, apart from his marriage, had much in common with Noel Coward and Ivor Novello: they were talented composers and they were homosexuals.
Now they're dead.
Best remember them for their music.
Inspector George Gently (BBC1). He's back then: good old Martin Shaw in Fabian of the Yard mode, all gruff-voiced authoritarianism and unflinching rectitude.
Lee Ingleby, playing the hasty, ambitious know-all D.S. John Bacchus, is still with him.
Excellent stuff.
Primeval (ITV1). Jason Flemyng has taken over from Douglas Henshall.
It's still as daft as ever.
Robin Hood (BBC 1). Toby Stevens, playing Prince John, is replacing Keith Allen's Sheriff of Nottingham for a couple of weeks.
Never fear, it's still as daft as ever.
HOME.
Sister Doris. In between the moves into sheltered accommodation and into care of two of my wife's sisters, another sister, Doris, was admitted to hospital where she died suddenly.
She was 84 and a Jehovah's Witness.
Her funeral service, held at Portchester Crematorium, was well attended by family members - religious and irreligious - and by a good turnout of brother and sister Witnesses.
It was a Witness service.
At the customary gathering afterwards the Watch Tower tribe turned out to be a pleasant enough bunch, bless 'em.
I regard them as cranks rather less sinister than Scientologists, but I do wonder what accident they witnessed. At worst they suffer from an unquestioning belief in their religion, but there's an awful lot of that about.
I remain blissfully irreligious.
Don't care who it is, Jehovah or L. Ron Hubbard: I'd as soon believe in Harry Potter.
Council Elections. Leaflets through the letterbox: the Blair clone Cameron running around the country exhorting people to "vote for change" in the forthcoming local elections (figure it worked for President Obama do they?) and, very soon, the smiling faces of people you do not know and do not want to know, people who have neither known nor particularly wanted to know you, will invite you to vote for them.
Well, we've currently got the Tories and they're rubbish. Before them we had the Liberals and they were ditto. Labour stands not a chance here but, as experienced nationally, who would bank on them?
Whoever gets in here will continue to be manipulated by the suits they are supposed to be employing.
Costs will escalate and services will depreciate.
It has been going on for years.
Don't talk about bloody change to me.
Monday, April 20, 2009
123. Mostly one mess after another...
IN THE NEWS.
Quick revenge. No matter what Boris Johnson actually said, "Revenge is a dish best served cold" would have been by far the most appropriate comment he could have made as, carefully denying a witch-hunt, he hurried to announce the resignation of Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick and the appointment of his counter-terrorism successor.
A.C. Quick was clearly careless not to have considered the shits with cameras before he climbed from a car carrying undisguised secret material for all to see. It was a dream come true for the thin-skinned parliamentary creeps thirsting to be rid of a man who had recently caused them considerable political embarrassment.
In his shoes my deepest regret would be that I once made the mistake of apologizing for something I had said about them.
High-flyers' wives. To the forefront in the media muckrake over Bob Quick's actions was the revelation that his wife ran a luxury car hire firm from their home. Since the firm was not funded by the taxpayer I'm not sure how discreditable this was supposed to be.
It did remind me, though, that not only has the salary of high-flyers risen hugely over the years but, in local government especially, the partners of high flyers seem to possess a magic password that somehow obtains them a sinecure in social services or suchlike to coincide with their other half's appointment: I presume this little extra to be, like everything in the high flyer's salary deal, an irritating but inevitable consequence of letting public servants take themselves too seriously and our money too easily.
The maxim "if you pay peanuts you get monkeys" cuts no ice with me: so far as I'm concerned, if you up the ante you just get greedy monkeys.
Another playground squabble. And another pointless apology. Yep, this time from the jaw-dropping Scot, no less.
In his begrudging apology Gordon Brown accepted responsibility for the shameful scheme (see crocodile tears) to slate Tories on the internet and, in the same breath, said that was why the person responsible had been removed from office.
So McBride minor has been sent home with a note and another playground squabble has been settled. Hurrah!
Enter the mealy-mouthpiece. This morning a high ranking police spokesman firmly defended their policing of demonstrations.
Well, no matter how wrong an organization may be it will always find a mealy-moutnpiece to insist that it is right. This one is defending kettling and talking of how lucky the protesters in this country are (compared, presumably, to China). It appears not to have dawned on him and his colleagues that even the most peaceful protester is going to become infuriated at being roughhoused by unidentifiable thugs in uniform.
Last week a totally innocent man was killed. He was attacked in full view of millions watching television, His attacker was clearly a former school bully who had found his calling as a riot policeman and was now a baton-happy bastard.
No mealy-mouthpiece can talk that away. There have been too many instances of official bullying since the crushing of the miners.
Now there is modern technology. No good just switching off the CCTV cameras and hiding your faces. Thousands of citizens have mobile photographic recording devices.
You too, officer bully boy, are being watched,
TELEVISION.
A Question of Genius (BBC2). Yet another general knowledge quiz. This is presented by Kirsty Wark.
The questions are difficult and the prize money is poor: it is the good old Beeb at its parsimonious best and it concludes with Kirsty badgering the last person standing with questions about what their final answer may be, appearing to squeeze the answer from them against their will and then waiting...waiting...waiting...waiting to say whether or not they have answered correctly.
By the time she tells them I have usually gone to make a cup of tea: one of these days a finalist will keel over: but it's good tele, innit?
No, it bloody isn't.
It is boring and patronizing to competitor and viewer alike.
Newsnight Review (BBC 2). When Kirsty Wark originally presented this programme Tom Paulin and Germaine Greer were regular panellists.
Never know who is going to be on it now.
Last Friday night Ian Hislop and Michael Portillo gently crossed swords. There was also a pleasant young woman, Clemency Burton-Hill, who did her best to prevent open warfare.
Kirsty appeared not to notice the atmosphere of mutual dislike enveloping the two men. Well, she has experienced it all before, Greer and Paulin didn't always hit it off, either.
I made Hislop a points winner, but that may be because I have never liked Portillo.
Britain's Got Talent (ITV1). The success of Susan Boyle. Amateur talent nights stopped being my idea of entertainment way back in the days when Hughie Green, exuding smarminess, presented Opportunity Knocks.
His show, like this modern version of it, did find the occasional gem (e.g. Pam Ayres and Les Dawson) but relied in the main on a stream of sadly talentless hopefuls who should never have listened to the blandishments of relatives and pub mates before venturing into the lions' den.
I tend to think in terms of the gormless being judged by the giftless.
One should never be too dismissive, however.
Yesterday daughter Roz and granddaughter Jess drew our attention, via YouTube, to Susan Boyle, a Scottish spinster who sang her way to a standing ovation on the first round of the third series of Britain's Got Talent.
Much has been made of her homely appearance and, though she has the voice, she is certainly no Ruthie Henshall.
But I am old enough to remember when you judged singers by their voices, not their looks.
Anyway, Ms. Boyle instantly became a worlwide success: and she's a cat lover.
Good luck to her.
Primeval (ITV1). Mention of Ruthie Henshall reminded me that Douglas Henshall (no relation so far as I know) has left this crazy Saturday night caper where prehistoric creatures as big as houses visit shopping malls and eat the occasional shopper without attracting public attention.
Like Bill Petersen in CIS, ol' Dougie is sadly missed: which is more than can be said for the assembly line of monster fodder not even remembered for their terrified screams.
Comes as no surprise to me.
The British public expects anything to happen in shopping malls.
When daughter Jac lived in Wandsworth she was firmly convinced that mothers only took their children to the Arndale Centre to smack them.
She did not hang around there.
Once, as she was striding through on her way to Sainsbury, a man with a clipboard stepped out and said: "Excuse me madam, have you had an accident in the last three years?"
"No," she replied, without pausing in her stride, "I always walk like this."
Countryfile (BBC1). Come on then. Own up. Which ...king genius thought it a good idea to downsize dear ol' John Craven, move his excellent Sunday morning programme to seven o'clock in the evening and put it in the hands of a bunch of unknown (albeit likeable) juniors?
Sunday morning has always been the right time to discuss cows contracting consumption, badgers being culled and pigs being de-knackered.
I can do without it over my dinner, thanks.
Last of the Summer Wine (BBC1). And is that the same ...king genius who moved this new series from its traditional seven o'clock on a Sunday evening spot to six o'clock so that old guys like me miss the first episode because six o'clock is the traditional time for not-much-with-Aled?
Yes I do buy a television guide.
A very expensive one.
But I should not need to consult a television guide for some programmes: some programmes should be sacrosanct.
If you can't see that, you ...king genius, you're a ...king plank!
SOCCER.
The F.A. Cup. (Semi-final) I woke the cat Shadow and told him that Everton had despatched Man.United on a penalty shoot-out.
"I suppose Man.U. fielded a weak side," he said.
"Don't think it was their full first team," I replied, "How did you know?"
"Just seemed likely. They're in line to win almost everything but they want their best players fit to go for the most prestigious things. National trophies are no longer that important."
"I think that's sad," I mused. "What do you think? "
"I think it's called progress, mate," he said.
HOME.
When is a mess not a mess? A little pile of clean nightwear sat on the first stair leading to Jess's top floor bedroom.
After she had retired to bed it was still there.
In the morning when her grandmother tackled her about it she laughingly admitted to having felt too lazy to move it.
I gave her an old-fashioned look.
"Well I hope you will," I admonished her. "I don't want that mess there forever."
"It's not a mess, Pops," she replied sweetly. "It's creativity."
Collapse (in helpless mirth) of stout party.
Quick revenge. No matter what Boris Johnson actually said, "Revenge is a dish best served cold" would have been by far the most appropriate comment he could have made as, carefully denying a witch-hunt, he hurried to announce the resignation of Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick and the appointment of his counter-terrorism successor.
A.C. Quick was clearly careless not to have considered the shits with cameras before he climbed from a car carrying undisguised secret material for all to see. It was a dream come true for the thin-skinned parliamentary creeps thirsting to be rid of a man who had recently caused them considerable political embarrassment.
In his shoes my deepest regret would be that I once made the mistake of apologizing for something I had said about them.
High-flyers' wives. To the forefront in the media muckrake over Bob Quick's actions was the revelation that his wife ran a luxury car hire firm from their home. Since the firm was not funded by the taxpayer I'm not sure how discreditable this was supposed to be.
It did remind me, though, that not only has the salary of high-flyers risen hugely over the years but, in local government especially, the partners of high flyers seem to possess a magic password that somehow obtains them a sinecure in social services or suchlike to coincide with their other half's appointment: I presume this little extra to be, like everything in the high flyer's salary deal, an irritating but inevitable consequence of letting public servants take themselves too seriously and our money too easily.
The maxim "if you pay peanuts you get monkeys" cuts no ice with me: so far as I'm concerned, if you up the ante you just get greedy monkeys.
Another playground squabble. And another pointless apology. Yep, this time from the jaw-dropping Scot, no less.
In his begrudging apology Gordon Brown accepted responsibility for the shameful scheme (see crocodile tears) to slate Tories on the internet and, in the same breath, said that was why the person responsible had been removed from office.
So McBride minor has been sent home with a note and another playground squabble has been settled. Hurrah!
Enter the mealy-mouthpiece. This morning a high ranking police spokesman firmly defended their policing of demonstrations.
Well, no matter how wrong an organization may be it will always find a mealy-moutnpiece to insist that it is right. This one is defending kettling and talking of how lucky the protesters in this country are (compared, presumably, to China). It appears not to have dawned on him and his colleagues that even the most peaceful protester is going to become infuriated at being roughhoused by unidentifiable thugs in uniform.
Last week a totally innocent man was killed. He was attacked in full view of millions watching television, His attacker was clearly a former school bully who had found his calling as a riot policeman and was now a baton-happy bastard.
No mealy-mouthpiece can talk that away. There have been too many instances of official bullying since the crushing of the miners.
Now there is modern technology. No good just switching off the CCTV cameras and hiding your faces. Thousands of citizens have mobile photographic recording devices.
You too, officer bully boy, are being watched,
TELEVISION.
A Question of Genius (BBC2). Yet another general knowledge quiz. This is presented by Kirsty Wark.
The questions are difficult and the prize money is poor: it is the good old Beeb at its parsimonious best and it concludes with Kirsty badgering the last person standing with questions about what their final answer may be, appearing to squeeze the answer from them against their will and then waiting...waiting...waiting...waiting to say whether or not they have answered correctly.
By the time she tells them I have usually gone to make a cup of tea: one of these days a finalist will keel over: but it's good tele, innit?
No, it bloody isn't.
It is boring and patronizing to competitor and viewer alike.
Newsnight Review (BBC 2). When Kirsty Wark originally presented this programme Tom Paulin and Germaine Greer were regular panellists.
Never know who is going to be on it now.
Last Friday night Ian Hislop and Michael Portillo gently crossed swords. There was also a pleasant young woman, Clemency Burton-Hill, who did her best to prevent open warfare.
Kirsty appeared not to notice the atmosphere of mutual dislike enveloping the two men. Well, she has experienced it all before, Greer and Paulin didn't always hit it off, either.
I made Hislop a points winner, but that may be because I have never liked Portillo.
Britain's Got Talent (ITV1). The success of Susan Boyle. Amateur talent nights stopped being my idea of entertainment way back in the days when Hughie Green, exuding smarminess, presented Opportunity Knocks.
His show, like this modern version of it, did find the occasional gem (e.g. Pam Ayres and Les Dawson) but relied in the main on a stream of sadly talentless hopefuls who should never have listened to the blandishments of relatives and pub mates before venturing into the lions' den.
I tend to think in terms of the gormless being judged by the giftless.
One should never be too dismissive, however.
Yesterday daughter Roz and granddaughter Jess drew our attention, via YouTube, to Susan Boyle, a Scottish spinster who sang her way to a standing ovation on the first round of the third series of Britain's Got Talent.
Much has been made of her homely appearance and, though she has the voice, she is certainly no Ruthie Henshall.
But I am old enough to remember when you judged singers by their voices, not their looks.
Anyway, Ms. Boyle instantly became a worlwide success: and she's a cat lover.
Good luck to her.
Primeval (ITV1). Mention of Ruthie Henshall reminded me that Douglas Henshall (no relation so far as I know) has left this crazy Saturday night caper where prehistoric creatures as big as houses visit shopping malls and eat the occasional shopper without attracting public attention.
Like Bill Petersen in CIS, ol' Dougie is sadly missed: which is more than can be said for the assembly line of monster fodder not even remembered for their terrified screams.
Comes as no surprise to me.
The British public expects anything to happen in shopping malls.
When daughter Jac lived in Wandsworth she was firmly convinced that mothers only took their children to the Arndale Centre to smack them.
She did not hang around there.
Once, as she was striding through on her way to Sainsbury, a man with a clipboard stepped out and said: "Excuse me madam, have you had an accident in the last three years?"
"No," she replied, without pausing in her stride, "I always walk like this."
Countryfile (BBC1). Come on then. Own up. Which ...king genius thought it a good idea to downsize dear ol' John Craven, move his excellent Sunday morning programme to seven o'clock in the evening and put it in the hands of a bunch of unknown (albeit likeable) juniors?
Sunday morning has always been the right time to discuss cows contracting consumption, badgers being culled and pigs being de-knackered.
I can do without it over my dinner, thanks.
Last of the Summer Wine (BBC1). And is that the same ...king genius who moved this new series from its traditional seven o'clock on a Sunday evening spot to six o'clock so that old guys like me miss the first episode because six o'clock is the traditional time for not-much-with-Aled?
Yes I do buy a television guide.
A very expensive one.
But I should not need to consult a television guide for some programmes: some programmes should be sacrosanct.
If you can't see that, you ...king genius, you're a ...king plank!
SOCCER.
The F.A. Cup. (Semi-final) I woke the cat Shadow and told him that Everton had despatched Man.United on a penalty shoot-out.
"I suppose Man.U. fielded a weak side," he said.
"Don't think it was their full first team," I replied, "How did you know?"
"Just seemed likely. They're in line to win almost everything but they want their best players fit to go for the most prestigious things. National trophies are no longer that important."
"I think that's sad," I mused. "What do you think? "
"I think it's called progress, mate," he said.
HOME.
When is a mess not a mess? A little pile of clean nightwear sat on the first stair leading to Jess's top floor bedroom.
After she had retired to bed it was still there.
In the morning when her grandmother tackled her about it she laughingly admitted to having felt too lazy to move it.
I gave her an old-fashioned look.
"Well I hope you will," I admonished her. "I don't want that mess there forever."
"It's not a mess, Pops," she replied sweetly. "It's creativity."
Collapse (in helpless mirth) of stout party.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
122. From cat chat to Fen country
HOME.
More cat chat.The cat Shadow was to all intents asleep in the chair beside me when of a sudden he asked: "Why d'you keep tippety-tappin' on that computer keyboard?"
At first I thought the gentle rattle of the keys must have irked him, but he did not sound querulous and he has never complained before.
I had to think on my seat.
"It keeps me off the streets."
He yawned.
"Whatever. You'll not change anything. All the television programmes you detest have gained in popularity since you started decrying them."
I sensed an unwinnable conversation coming on and tried to head him off.
"Why do governments keep effiin' about with the time?" I grumbled. "Every six months we have to put an hour on the clock, or take off an hour; my body clock takes ages to re-adjust."
He made it clear that he was not to be distracted.
"Truth is, mate, when it comes to tele you're swimming against the popular tide. People love all that phone in and join in stuff. They feel involved: like it's their television."
I snorted. Sod the popular tide. Today's loved is tomorrow's loathed.
"There's still too much cookery, property and reality on the box," I said. "Too many auctions and phone-ins and long...long waits for some smarmy git to reveal who will or won't be back next week. And there's far too many masochists just waiting to let a cretinous cook curse them or a mouthy little millionaire in need of a shave tell them they're fired. I don't care how popular it all is, it's crap."
"Well that's stymied your chances of appearing in anybody's kitchen or on The Apprentice," he mused. "Speaking as your personal adviser I must warn that you're running out of options."
"Just don't volunteer me for Big Brother or anything to do with Ant and Dec," I said.
He blinked his cat smile.
"How about Lloyd and Webber?"
A long twenty years. It has recently been reported that a third of army families are discontented with the accommodation allocated to them.
A MoD spokesman says it will take twenty years to upgrade the offending homes.
But military families were making similar complaints, to my knowledge, when I joined the army in 1945.
Rather a long twenty years that.
TELEVISION.
Live International Football (ITV1). Shadow's Soccer: he woke up ten minutes after the England v. Ukraine game ended.
"England won 2 -1," I told him. "They weren't bad in the first half but struggled a bit in the second. Barry and Johnson and Becks were yellow carded."
My Leader's customary subsequent engagement having kept her from the game, he had enjoyed the comfort of her chair for the evening.
Now he dropped down and stretched.
"Time for supper, ain't it?" he enquired.
I struggled to my feet.
"Sometimes I wonder what your last servant died of. And how come you were awake right through the Slovakia game and slept right through this one?"
"Don't be a blonde," he said. "The Slovakia game was a good one. Try to remember the last time England played two good games in a row."
Law & Order: UK (ITV1). In post 120 I expressed uncertainty about this Dick Wolf inspired addition to the many cops and robbers shows already to be seen on our screens. I should have known better.
The likes of Bill Paterson and Harriet Walter are always good value and Bradley Walsh is excellent as senior DS Ronnie Brooks.
With this cast, Law and Order: UK, like the American original, could run and run.
CSI Crime Scene Investigation (Five). Ol' Bill Petersen, wearing a silly hat and an uncomplimentary beard, took off to find the love of his life in Pategonia or somewhere.
His departure left a huge empty space that not even the imperturbable Laurence Fishburne has so far managed to fill.
Robin Hood (BBC1) and Primeval (ITV1). Two new series for Saturday night viewing. Watched them. Look foward to the return of Merlin.
READING.
Kathy Reichs. I should by now have finished reading her death du jour and probably would have had I not become sidetracked by re-reading Edmund Crispin's Fen Country: twenty six stories featuring Gervaise Fen. The first detective story omnibus I owned contained The Moving Toyshop by Crispin, and I very much enjoyed it. Fen Country has merely served as a reminder that short story writing is difficult and dates quickly.
Must get back to Ms.Reichs.
More cat chat.The cat Shadow was to all intents asleep in the chair beside me when of a sudden he asked: "Why d'you keep tippety-tappin' on that computer keyboard?"
At first I thought the gentle rattle of the keys must have irked him, but he did not sound querulous and he has never complained before.
I had to think on my seat.
"It keeps me off the streets."
He yawned.
"Whatever. You'll not change anything. All the television programmes you detest have gained in popularity since you started decrying them."
I sensed an unwinnable conversation coming on and tried to head him off.
"Why do governments keep effiin' about with the time?" I grumbled. "Every six months we have to put an hour on the clock, or take off an hour; my body clock takes ages to re-adjust."
He made it clear that he was not to be distracted.
"Truth is, mate, when it comes to tele you're swimming against the popular tide. People love all that phone in and join in stuff. They feel involved: like it's their television."
I snorted. Sod the popular tide. Today's loved is tomorrow's loathed.
"There's still too much cookery, property and reality on the box," I said. "Too many auctions and phone-ins and long...long waits for some smarmy git to reveal who will or won't be back next week. And there's far too many masochists just waiting to let a cretinous cook curse them or a mouthy little millionaire in need of a shave tell them they're fired. I don't care how popular it all is, it's crap."
"Well that's stymied your chances of appearing in anybody's kitchen or on The Apprentice," he mused. "Speaking as your personal adviser I must warn that you're running out of options."
"Just don't volunteer me for Big Brother or anything to do with Ant and Dec," I said.
He blinked his cat smile.
"How about Lloyd and Webber?"
A long twenty years. It has recently been reported that a third of army families are discontented with the accommodation allocated to them.
A MoD spokesman says it will take twenty years to upgrade the offending homes.
But military families were making similar complaints, to my knowledge, when I joined the army in 1945.
Rather a long twenty years that.
TELEVISION.
Live International Football (ITV1). Shadow's Soccer: he woke up ten minutes after the England v. Ukraine game ended.
"England won 2 -1," I told him. "They weren't bad in the first half but struggled a bit in the second. Barry and Johnson and Becks were yellow carded."
My Leader's customary subsequent engagement having kept her from the game, he had enjoyed the comfort of her chair for the evening.
Now he dropped down and stretched.
"Time for supper, ain't it?" he enquired.
I struggled to my feet.
"Sometimes I wonder what your last servant died of. And how come you were awake right through the Slovakia game and slept right through this one?"
"Don't be a blonde," he said. "The Slovakia game was a good one. Try to remember the last time England played two good games in a row."
Law & Order: UK (ITV1). In post 120 I expressed uncertainty about this Dick Wolf inspired addition to the many cops and robbers shows already to be seen on our screens. I should have known better.
The likes of Bill Paterson and Harriet Walter are always good value and Bradley Walsh is excellent as senior DS Ronnie Brooks.
With this cast, Law and Order: UK, like the American original, could run and run.
CSI Crime Scene Investigation (Five). Ol' Bill Petersen, wearing a silly hat and an uncomplimentary beard, took off to find the love of his life in Pategonia or somewhere.
His departure left a huge empty space that not even the imperturbable Laurence Fishburne has so far managed to fill.
Robin Hood (BBC1) and Primeval (ITV1). Two new series for Saturday night viewing. Watched them. Look foward to the return of Merlin.
READING.
Kathy Reichs. I should by now have finished reading her death du jour and probably would have had I not become sidetracked by re-reading Edmund Crispin's Fen Country: twenty six stories featuring Gervaise Fen. The first detective story omnibus I owned contained The Moving Toyshop by Crispin, and I very much enjoyed it. Fen Country has merely served as a reminder that short story writing is difficult and dates quickly.
Must get back to Ms.Reichs.
Friday, March 20, 2009
121. From red noses to a man's cough
TELEVISION.
QI. This programme provided a red letter day for Alan Davies who actually managed to win.
I put it down to the company he was keeping.
Faced with clever Emma Thompson, clever David Mitchell and clever John Sessions, he abandoned his customary habit of jumping in with the obvious - invariably incorrect - answer and simply left it to whichever of them felt lucky.
When they did, they weren't, he was: clever Alan.
Comic Relief: Funny for Money. In The Independent last week Janet Street-Porter saw red over red noses.
Under the heading I'll be relieved when this charade ends she wrote that she was not impressed with entertainers who "bravely take a few days out of their busy schedule to visit Africa and be photographed with grateful orphans" and declared that "the whole ego trip of such exercises is thoroughly nauseating."
My concern was less with the motives of the entertainers than with the accuracy of the title. With the exception of the French, Saunders, Lumley Mama Mia and the climax of Corden's pep talk I thought 'funny for money' was stretching it a bit.
Occasionally funny...slightly funny...downright unfunny...or even relying on your charitable goodwill to accept as funny...would have been more accurate descriptions.
Truth to tell, much of the show is self-indulgent twaddle.
If you think I'm an old curmudgeon, you're leaning on an open door.
I also have qualms about the obsequious claptrap presented at Royal Command shows: generally finish up thinking this shouldn't befall a bloody politician, let alone H.M. Queen Elizabeth II (an elderly woman who has done me no harm).
Small wonder she turns out less and less nowadays.
I wouldn't bother at all.
Lark Rise to Candleford. Series two finished last Sunday. Twelve episodes and farewell to ruraltania until next year.
I shall miss it, but there comes a time when the mar-ing and par-ing has to stop. Anyway, I'm pleased that Dorcas Lane, played by Julia Sawalha (my one weakness) has acquired a little man. Suits her. Shall worry slightly about the abandoned hotel, though. Won't it get terribly damp and musty while James Dowland is away seeking another fortune?
He's such a twirp. I knew he shouldn't have given everything to that female former partner.
The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency. The first of a new six part series and I enjoyed it.
My Leader was uncertain and gave it a miss; she has not said why, but one senses that she, in common with the respected television critic Tom Sutcliffe, is concerned that its naivety may be a trifle condescending and doubts it will stand the test of time. I just sat back and allowed the believable Jill Scott and Anika Noni Rose, as Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi, to free me for an hour from the customary African output.
It's not that I don't care, it is that I feel there is more to the country than prey being killed by beasts of prey and humans being killed by disease, neglect and political corruption. The lady detectives are no more fanciful than Crabbe's Pie in the Sky and Africa is clearly a fascinating place, so I shall accept No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency in the same lighthearted spirit that it is offered.
Life's too short...
READING.
Kathy Reichs. I have started on death du jour and get the feeling one needs to be a forensic anthropologist to properly appreciate it.
Ne'er mind, I'll keep reading. After all, I never miss a CSI.
HOME.
Moving on.Two of my Leader's sisters, widows in their eighties, have recently had to move from their houses. One has gone into a care home and the other to sheltered accommodation. The upheaval experienced by the elderly when this happens is equalled only by the strain visited upon those charged with making the change as easy as possible for them. There is invariably a mountain of surplus-to-requirements belongings to be sorted and disposed of (much of it of nostalgic value and mysteriously required at a later date) and there is often property to be sold and legal things like Power of Attorney to be considered involving solicitors and estate agents and pretty much everyone else with a licence to print money.
Then finally, when all is done and dusted and the bills have been paid, the recriminations start to come from those who now feel they have been unnecessarily deprived of their independence and have consequently become denizens of God's waiting room.
As the youngest of six (originally eight) sisters, my Leader's help is usually sought whenever there is a family crisis. This is both flattering and very tiring. This week she has been involved with moving her oldest sister who lives on the Island. Next week she will be on the mainland, helping deal with the aftermath of the other sister's move. I don't think there will be much negative output from either of them. Well, not in Maureen's direction there won't. She may be the youngest but she is the one who most resembles their late mother.
Funny the effect that can have.
Anonymous John. News from friend Sheila (via my Leader) that our old friend Anonymous John is labouring with the dreaded man's cough. (I know that one, it's much worse than the discreet hack into a handkerchief cough suffered by secretary girls with shorthand notebooks on their knees.)
It's no joke to you, John, so keep warm, take such medicine as you are allowed, and get back to fighting fit very soon.
QI. This programme provided a red letter day for Alan Davies who actually managed to win.
I put it down to the company he was keeping.
Faced with clever Emma Thompson, clever David Mitchell and clever John Sessions, he abandoned his customary habit of jumping in with the obvious - invariably incorrect - answer and simply left it to whichever of them felt lucky.
When they did, they weren't, he was: clever Alan.
Comic Relief: Funny for Money. In The Independent last week Janet Street-Porter saw red over red noses.
Under the heading I'll be relieved when this charade ends she wrote that she was not impressed with entertainers who "bravely take a few days out of their busy schedule to visit Africa and be photographed with grateful orphans" and declared that "the whole ego trip of such exercises is thoroughly nauseating."
My concern was less with the motives of the entertainers than with the accuracy of the title. With the exception of the French, Saunders, Lumley Mama Mia and the climax of Corden's pep talk I thought 'funny for money' was stretching it a bit.
Occasionally funny...slightly funny...downright unfunny...or even relying on your charitable goodwill to accept as funny...would have been more accurate descriptions.
Truth to tell, much of the show is self-indulgent twaddle.
If you think I'm an old curmudgeon, you're leaning on an open door.
I also have qualms about the obsequious claptrap presented at Royal Command shows: generally finish up thinking this shouldn't befall a bloody politician, let alone H.M. Queen Elizabeth II (an elderly woman who has done me no harm).
Small wonder she turns out less and less nowadays.
I wouldn't bother at all.
Lark Rise to Candleford. Series two finished last Sunday. Twelve episodes and farewell to ruraltania until next year.
I shall miss it, but there comes a time when the mar-ing and par-ing has to stop. Anyway, I'm pleased that Dorcas Lane, played by Julia Sawalha (my one weakness) has acquired a little man. Suits her. Shall worry slightly about the abandoned hotel, though. Won't it get terribly damp and musty while James Dowland is away seeking another fortune?
He's such a twirp. I knew he shouldn't have given everything to that female former partner.
The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency. The first of a new six part series and I enjoyed it.
My Leader was uncertain and gave it a miss; she has not said why, but one senses that she, in common with the respected television critic Tom Sutcliffe, is concerned that its naivety may be a trifle condescending and doubts it will stand the test of time. I just sat back and allowed the believable Jill Scott and Anika Noni Rose, as Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi, to free me for an hour from the customary African output.
It's not that I don't care, it is that I feel there is more to the country than prey being killed by beasts of prey and humans being killed by disease, neglect and political corruption. The lady detectives are no more fanciful than Crabbe's Pie in the Sky and Africa is clearly a fascinating place, so I shall accept No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency in the same lighthearted spirit that it is offered.
Life's too short...
READING.
Kathy Reichs. I have started on death du jour and get the feeling one needs to be a forensic anthropologist to properly appreciate it.
Ne'er mind, I'll keep reading. After all, I never miss a CSI.
HOME.
Moving on.Two of my Leader's sisters, widows in their eighties, have recently had to move from their houses. One has gone into a care home and the other to sheltered accommodation. The upheaval experienced by the elderly when this happens is equalled only by the strain visited upon those charged with making the change as easy as possible for them. There is invariably a mountain of surplus-to-requirements belongings to be sorted and disposed of (much of it of nostalgic value and mysteriously required at a later date) and there is often property to be sold and legal things like Power of Attorney to be considered involving solicitors and estate agents and pretty much everyone else with a licence to print money.
Then finally, when all is done and dusted and the bills have been paid, the recriminations start to come from those who now feel they have been unnecessarily deprived of their independence and have consequently become denizens of God's waiting room.
As the youngest of six (originally eight) sisters, my Leader's help is usually sought whenever there is a family crisis. This is both flattering and very tiring. This week she has been involved with moving her oldest sister who lives on the Island. Next week she will be on the mainland, helping deal with the aftermath of the other sister's move. I don't think there will be much negative output from either of them. Well, not in Maureen's direction there won't. She may be the youngest but she is the one who most resembles their late mother.
Funny the effect that can have.
Anonymous John. News from friend Sheila (via my Leader) that our old friend Anonymous John is labouring with the dreaded man's cough. (I know that one, it's much worse than the discreet hack into a handkerchief cough suffered by secretary girls with shorthand notebooks on their knees.)
It's no joke to you, John, so keep warm, take such medicine as you are allowed, and get back to fighting fit very soon.
Friday, March 06, 2009
120. Billy,Feds,Julie,Tom,Alan,Sigourney & Catgut.
TELEVISION.Billy Connolly: Journey to the Edge of the World. (ITV1)
We have thoroughly enjoyed Billy Connolly's journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the Northwest Passage. Wonderful scenery, fascinating people along the way and a lively, sympathetic commentary from ol' Bill.
You either like him or you don't. We do.
Those who don't should shelve their prejudice: this is too good to miss.
US Cop Shows.
The more I see of Dexter, and many another US cop show, the more convinced I become that we should not, under any circumstances, introduce the equivalent of the FBI into this country.
It alarms me slightly that we are now producing a British television version of Law and Order. I do hope it is not the thin end of the wedge.
Thames Valley tossers and public school wallies in wigs are bad enough, but at least they are our tossers and wallies.
BOOKS.
Julie Walters.
I finished That's Another Story, the autobiography with a faint feeling of déjà vu.
Fine actress, many acclaimed performances in the theatre: Mrs. Overall of Acorn Antiques on television and that marvellous old waitress serving - and corpsing - Celia Imrie and Duncan Preston in Victoria Woods' Two Soups sketch: Rita in the film Educating Rita, dance teacher to Billy Elliot, Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter films: awards galore.
But the more successful the acting becomes the less time there is for anything else. This, along with a desire to maintain a private life, must be a common problem for popular actors seeking to avoid unwelcome attention and prying eyes.
Trouble is, the desire for privacy, no matter how understandable, does not make for a gripping read and at times I had the feeling, just as I did when reading Angela Lansbury's biography, that I might as well be reading the Wiki entry.
Never mind, she says she enjoyed writing it so who am I to carp?
What? Criticise Mrs. Weasley? Never!
FILMS.
Mission Impossible Three.
I like Tom Cruise but I didn't much like this film.
Well, even an all action thriller has to be a bit sensible: Ethan Hunt (Tom) would have killed off Philip Seymour Hoffman's Owen Davian as soon as it became obvious that nothing was to be gained from him but personal threats.
Everybody (not least ol' Tom) would then have been spared the tedium of Ethan sprinting everywhere like a leftover character from Chariots of Fire.
Snow Cake.
Starring Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver, this gentle film, shown on BBC2 earlier this year, was described in my copy of The best TV and radio listings you can get! as a tragicomedy.
An unpromising story line dealt with the death of a bright, quirky girl, reluctantly given a lift by Alex (Alan Rickman), who is killed when his stationary car is hit by a lorry. The guilt he feels for his guiltless involvement in the matter is lost on her mother (Sigourney Weaver), a fully functioning autistic woman who sees no point in pointless apology.
For me, the two leading players were enough to sell it and from the outset it was clear that they were were made for their roles.
If you missed it make a note to watch it next time around. Lovely acting from all concerned and a unique take on a small town in Canada.
MUSIC.
At Home.
The cat Shadow is settled in his chair behind me at the other end of the little computer room which my Leader still declines to think of as the study because, at five foot wide by ten foot long, it falls short of study status.
Nigel Kennedy is playing Bruch's Violin Concerto No.1 (a tape on the ancient aiwa) with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jeffrey Tate.
We are at peace with the world.
I don't know what it is with cats and violins, but our first ever cat would come running from anywhere to join me in listening to the Tchaikovsky.
Shadow is the same.
Try telling them that catgut comes from the intestines of goat, sheep, horse, pig or suchlike creature, but never from a cat.
When they believe they're listening to the innards of an ancestor?
Do come on.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
119. In memory of Rosie Brown
Last week we attended a thanksgiving service for the life of Rosie Brown who has been our daughter Jacqui's closest friend since primary school.Rosie was vivacious company and a joy to everyone who knew her. A practising Christian and highly respected Art Therapist, she exuded impishness, was funny, caring and kind.
She called us Auntie Mo and Uncle Den and we adored her.
The service last Monday was held in a packed St. James' Church, Ryde. Three ministers, including her pastor from Hanwell, conducted the service and people came from near and far; an entire coachload travelled from London.
Everyone who knew her will cherish memories of her uniquely comic outlook. We first experienced it at a childrens' party in our house when she was little more than six or seven. Asked what she was going to do when she grew up she replied, her eyes shining with gentle mischief, "Marry a rich man."
It may not have come true, but it was the answer the question deserved.
Over the years she perfected a glorious lunacy and once turned up as Sir Les Patterson at a send-off 'do' when Jac was going to Australia.
Recently she could be seen sporting a t-shirt inscribed: Jesus loves you but I'm his favourite.
Rosie travelled extensively and for the past several years had been living and working in the London area. Her parents and brother are still resident on the Island and she regularly returned to see them.
On the morning of 2nd February, at around six o'clock, she was found to have died in her sleep.
She was 43.
Rosemarie Jane Brown, Art Therapist and friend;
born Isle of Wight 17.06.1965; died London 02.02,2009
For further tributes see GonetooSoon.org
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
118. From Simon's Cat to yet more apologies
BRAINCHILD OF SIMON TOFIELD.
Simon's Cat.
Praise be for friends who can put you right. The cat Shadow was a trifle disappointed but agreed that he neither could nor should take credit for being the inspiration behind the moggy shown under the heading Wake Up in my post of January 15.
Our favourite hairdresser and good pal Maxine pointed out that the cat in the animated cartoon is Simon's Cat, the creation of London animator Simon Tofield (Tandem Films). The cartoon is called Cat Man Do and is one of a hilarious series, the others being Let Me In, TV Dinner and Simon's Sister's Dog: we had only seen Cat Man Do as a forwarded email under the heading Wake Up: no mention was made as to the originator.
So apologies to Mr. Tofield, thanks for a little bunch of great laughs and if anybody reading this is as much in the dark as I was and would like to see the entire series, YouTube is the place to look.
And two Simon Tofield illustrated books are to be published by Canongate, one at the end of this year and one for Christmas 2010.
Make great presents - if you can resist hanging on to them.
A LOAD OF BALLS?
Front Page Stuff.
On the front page of The Independent yesterday was the headline: Cannabis linked to testicular cancer. Seems scientists in the United States have been doing their stuff again.
I'm not a user; don't even like the smell of it; but I can hear cannabis users all over the country shouting: "Bollocks!"
TELEVISION.
Demons. (ITV1)
Philip Glenister with Christian Cooke as Buddy the Vampire Slayer. Passes an hour.
Not Going Out. (BBC1)
Written by and starring Lee Mack.
If you don't like him you can always go out.
The Old Guys. (BBC1)
Roger Lloyd Pack, Clive Swift and Jane Asher. Put years on me.
Unforgiven. (ITV1)
When I occasionally moan that reality crap is taking over television I am in truth pleading for more plays like this gem by Sally Wainwright.
We recorded it and watched all three parts on the same afternoon.
An excellent cast led by Suranne Jones (as Ruth Slater who, after fifteen years in prison for the murder of two policemen, sets out to find her young sister) kept us enthralled from start to finish.
So to hell with your kangaroo cooks and gourmand geezers, I'll settle for more of this, please.
BOOKS.
Julie Walters.
I am about a third of the way through That's Another Story, the autobiography. (Weidenfeld & Nicolson.)
No surprises so far but she has only just left school.
Alan Barrett.
Laugh on the Loo presents Wicked Comedy for the Cistern Chapel. (Marks & Spencer)
Highly recommended to everyone except haemorrhoids sufferers.
FOOTBALL.
Goodbye to Tony Adams.
Have just heard the news that Portsmouth F.C. manager Tony Adams has been sacked.
The team has been abysmal since Harry Redknapp left, to be followed like a cruise missile by striker Jermain Defoe, so the sacking comes as no surprise.
Who best to replace him?
I asked the cat Shadow and he said: "It's Premiership football - at least, until the end of the season it is - so there's probably not a solitary player in the side who was born in Pompey. Who cares who the next manager is?"
I think he's still sulking over ol' Harry.
MORE APOLOGIES.
Bankers.
So now it's a bunch of bankers saying how sorry they are that their avarice and incompetence finally rebounded.
My response can only echo the one I attributed to the cannabis users.
Simon's Cat.
Praise be for friends who can put you right. The cat Shadow was a trifle disappointed but agreed that he neither could nor should take credit for being the inspiration behind the moggy shown under the heading Wake Up in my post of January 15.
Our favourite hairdresser and good pal Maxine pointed out that the cat in the animated cartoon is Simon's Cat, the creation of London animator Simon Tofield (Tandem Films). The cartoon is called Cat Man Do and is one of a hilarious series, the others being Let Me In, TV Dinner and Simon's Sister's Dog: we had only seen Cat Man Do as a forwarded email under the heading Wake Up: no mention was made as to the originator.
So apologies to Mr. Tofield, thanks for a little bunch of great laughs and if anybody reading this is as much in the dark as I was and would like to see the entire series, YouTube is the place to look.
And two Simon Tofield illustrated books are to be published by Canongate, one at the end of this year and one for Christmas 2010.
Make great presents - if you can resist hanging on to them.
A LOAD OF BALLS?
Front Page Stuff.
On the front page of The Independent yesterday was the headline: Cannabis linked to testicular cancer. Seems scientists in the United States have been doing their stuff again.
I'm not a user; don't even like the smell of it; but I can hear cannabis users all over the country shouting: "Bollocks!"
TELEVISION.
Demons. (ITV1)
Philip Glenister with Christian Cooke as Buddy the Vampire Slayer. Passes an hour.
Not Going Out. (BBC1)
Written by and starring Lee Mack.
If you don't like him you can always go out.
The Old Guys. (BBC1)
Roger Lloyd Pack, Clive Swift and Jane Asher. Put years on me.
Unforgiven. (ITV1)
When I occasionally moan that reality crap is taking over television I am in truth pleading for more plays like this gem by Sally Wainwright.
We recorded it and watched all three parts on the same afternoon.
An excellent cast led by Suranne Jones (as Ruth Slater who, after fifteen years in prison for the murder of two policemen, sets out to find her young sister) kept us enthralled from start to finish.
So to hell with your kangaroo cooks and gourmand geezers, I'll settle for more of this, please.
BOOKS.
Julie Walters.
I am about a third of the way through That's Another Story, the autobiography. (Weidenfeld & Nicolson.)
No surprises so far but she has only just left school.
Alan Barrett.
Laugh on the Loo presents Wicked Comedy for the Cistern Chapel. (Marks & Spencer)
Highly recommended to everyone except haemorrhoids sufferers.
FOOTBALL.
Goodbye to Tony Adams.
Have just heard the news that Portsmouth F.C. manager Tony Adams has been sacked.
The team has been abysmal since Harry Redknapp left, to be followed like a cruise missile by striker Jermain Defoe, so the sacking comes as no surprise.
Who best to replace him?
I asked the cat Shadow and he said: "It's Premiership football - at least, until the end of the season it is - so there's probably not a solitary player in the side who was born in Pompey. Who cares who the next manager is?"
I think he's still sulking over ol' Harry.
MORE APOLOGIES.
Bankers.
So now it's a bunch of bankers saying how sorry they are that their avarice and incompetence finally rebounded.
My response can only echo the one I attributed to the cannabis users.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
117. Parky and a line up he might have interviewed
BOOKS.
Michael Parkinson.
I enjoyed Michael Parkinson's autobiography, Parky, in the course of which I discovered that as a boy he loved the cinema - so did I: saw himself as Wilson, the superstar athlete of The Truth About Wilson in The Wizard comic - so did I: for a short time became Hopalong Cassidy, a cowboy played by William Boyd (I was Johnny Mac Brown, the star of Flaming Frontiers.) and that he did not go to a university - neither did I.
After that we part company.
He tells how, despite his best efforts, he was conscripted for national service, conned his way into a commission and, inside two years, was promoted to the rank of captain: I, from the age of fourteen until twenty six, was a regular soldier and was once told by a conscript second lieutenant that I made the word sir sound like an insult.
Nonetheless, by the time I had finished his thoughtful and entertaining book I no longer held the same opinion of ol' Parkinson that I had entertained ever since his hit-back-at-my-detractors television appearance of painful memory.
I remember watching at that time, faintly incredulous, as he slated one after another of his critics - few of them as well-known or popular as he had become - until, midway through, I said: "Christ, something's upset Arkela."
At that point I dismissed him as just another vanity case in a posh suit.
Mistake.
His book shows that he has seldom done anything that is not cricket; that his ambition has always been offset by a gentle self-mockery and that, all things considered, by the time he received his knighthood it was well earned.
I gather he is currently some sort of voice for the old. Good on him.
And If ever I meet him - I'm not holding my breath - I might even manage the sir without making it sound like an insult.
But don't bet on it, Sir Michael.
TELEVISION.
Cash in the Celebrity Attic. (BBC2)
Another follow on. Where the simple Cash in the Attic programme has Gertie and Arthur trying to sell a load of household trash at auction to get the money for an air balloon trip around Milton Keynes - a peaceful enough background entertainment while you read the paper - the show has now been revamped to give celebrities the opportunity to show off their homes and auction off their surplus acquisitions.
They, of course, do it for charity.
I sometimes watch, but only if I have the faintest idea who the celebrity is. I have seen Toyah and Lesley Joseph and, this week, the dancer Wayne Sleep.
Some years ago my Leader and I went to see Wayne in a show at Chichester Festival Theatre. Lorna Luft (every bit the singing equal of her mother and sister) co-starred.
He was a pocket dynamo: unstoppable: magic.
By the time the show was over he was exhausted and so was the audience.
We left the theatre marvelling at how he could put himself through such a tough routine night after night. Anybody who dismisses male ballet dancers as fairies has to be retarded.
His celebrity attic takings went to the Wayne Sleep Foundation which provides scholarships for talented young dancers.
Made me wonder why he has not been given a knighthood.
Could it be a backlash from his friendship with Princess Diana?
Or did somebody simply balk at the idea of newspapers describing him as The Shortest Knight of the Year?
Extreme Dreams (BBC2)
Young Fogle is back with more groups of climb every mountain adventurers keen to prove themselves to themselves and whoever might care to watch them.
The first team really did tackle a mountain: Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador.
In the end they didn't reach the summit, but they walked half of uphill South America before getting to the mountain and only narrowly failed to climb it, so they did prove to be a very commendable little bunch of true Brits.
Nice people, too.
The second team also proved to be good'uns. They trekked through mud, muck and rain forest, suffered from heat exhaustion and insect bites, braved the terrain and the elements and still kept a stiff upper lip.
As the Polish ambulance man said to the Indian surgeon, "It makes you proud to be British."
I'm bound to admit that taking a long walk into jeopardy (they always finish up in jeopardy) in order to prove myself is not an undertaking high on my wish list.
And as for being a cameraman... On one of our Ben's jaunts?
No thanks.
Not for all the money in Teleland.
Anyway, it's reality television again.
QI (BBC1)
Perhaps Alan Davies's initial reservations about the transfer from BBC2, doubling of series length and probable change of guests, were groundless.
This, the second of the new twelve part series, was another pleasant programme: guests were Pam Ayres, Sean Lock and Johnny Vegas.
Sean and Johnny quickly developed a smart double act and Pam, nobody's double act, was eventually the winner.
I think ol' Fry was a bit surprised at that.
Well, bless 'im, he wouldn't be the first to be fooled by gentle self-mockery delivered in a regional accent.
Books and covers, ol' lad, books and covers.
Lark Rise to Candleford.(BBC1)
Lovely Julia Sawalha and the rest of ruraltania in the second delicious dose of mar-ing and par-ing.
For all the likeness it bears to reality it might as well be called Lilliput to Blefuscu.
It is outlandish: it is mawkish: it is unbelievable tosh: it is Sunday night fodder... and?
And, so help us, we thoroughly enjoy it.
HOME.
What's New?
On the day after U.S. President Barack Obama was sworn in I left my Leader in the downstairs living room doing the ironing and watching a DVD recording of Come Dine With Me, a reality version of the old sitcom Love Thy Neighbour.
She can iron quickly and competently, watch television and drink tea, all at the same time.
It is a masterclass in the female art of doing more than one thing at a time; even if she does let the tea get cold.
I never learned the trick of quick, efficient ironing (not even in the army) and, as friends know, reality television is anathema to me.
The alternative to the back stabbing dinner party was to watch the two thousandth repeat of Diagnosis Murder starring the world's best ever old bamboo and worst ever cockney accompanied by the entire Van Dyke family.
I stopped watching that at around the forty fourth repeat.
So I came up here with the cat Shadow to stay until I had a request for more tea, or went back down to collect ironed shirts or was given the all clear.
I hammered the computer keyboard and he slept.
What's new, then?
Apart from President Barack Obama?
Not much.
Michael Parkinson.
I enjoyed Michael Parkinson's autobiography, Parky, in the course of which I discovered that as a boy he loved the cinema - so did I: saw himself as Wilson, the superstar athlete of The Truth About Wilson in The Wizard comic - so did I: for a short time became Hopalong Cassidy, a cowboy played by William Boyd (I was Johnny Mac Brown, the star of Flaming Frontiers.) and that he did not go to a university - neither did I.
After that we part company.
He tells how, despite his best efforts, he was conscripted for national service, conned his way into a commission and, inside two years, was promoted to the rank of captain: I, from the age of fourteen until twenty six, was a regular soldier and was once told by a conscript second lieutenant that I made the word sir sound like an insult.
Nonetheless, by the time I had finished his thoughtful and entertaining book I no longer held the same opinion of ol' Parkinson that I had entertained ever since his hit-back-at-my-detractors television appearance of painful memory.
I remember watching at that time, faintly incredulous, as he slated one after another of his critics - few of them as well-known or popular as he had become - until, midway through, I said: "Christ, something's upset Arkela."
At that point I dismissed him as just another vanity case in a posh suit.
Mistake.
His book shows that he has seldom done anything that is not cricket; that his ambition has always been offset by a gentle self-mockery and that, all things considered, by the time he received his knighthood it was well earned.
I gather he is currently some sort of voice for the old. Good on him.
And If ever I meet him - I'm not holding my breath - I might even manage the sir without making it sound like an insult.
But don't bet on it, Sir Michael.
TELEVISION.
Cash in the Celebrity Attic. (BBC2)
Another follow on. Where the simple Cash in the Attic programme has Gertie and Arthur trying to sell a load of household trash at auction to get the money for an air balloon trip around Milton Keynes - a peaceful enough background entertainment while you read the paper - the show has now been revamped to give celebrities the opportunity to show off their homes and auction off their surplus acquisitions.
They, of course, do it for charity.
I sometimes watch, but only if I have the faintest idea who the celebrity is. I have seen Toyah and Lesley Joseph and, this week, the dancer Wayne Sleep.
Some years ago my Leader and I went to see Wayne in a show at Chichester Festival Theatre. Lorna Luft (every bit the singing equal of her mother and sister) co-starred.
He was a pocket dynamo: unstoppable: magic.
By the time the show was over he was exhausted and so was the audience.
We left the theatre marvelling at how he could put himself through such a tough routine night after night. Anybody who dismisses male ballet dancers as fairies has to be retarded.
His celebrity attic takings went to the Wayne Sleep Foundation which provides scholarships for talented young dancers.
Made me wonder why he has not been given a knighthood.
Could it be a backlash from his friendship with Princess Diana?
Or did somebody simply balk at the idea of newspapers describing him as The Shortest Knight of the Year?
Extreme Dreams (BBC2)
Young Fogle is back with more groups of climb every mountain adventurers keen to prove themselves to themselves and whoever might care to watch them.
The first team really did tackle a mountain: Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador.
In the end they didn't reach the summit, but they walked half of uphill South America before getting to the mountain and only narrowly failed to climb it, so they did prove to be a very commendable little bunch of true Brits.
Nice people, too.
The second team also proved to be good'uns. They trekked through mud, muck and rain forest, suffered from heat exhaustion and insect bites, braved the terrain and the elements and still kept a stiff upper lip.
As the Polish ambulance man said to the Indian surgeon, "It makes you proud to be British."
I'm bound to admit that taking a long walk into jeopardy (they always finish up in jeopardy) in order to prove myself is not an undertaking high on my wish list.
And as for being a cameraman... On one of our Ben's jaunts?
No thanks.
Not for all the money in Teleland.
Anyway, it's reality television again.
QI (BBC1)
Perhaps Alan Davies's initial reservations about the transfer from BBC2, doubling of series length and probable change of guests, were groundless.
This, the second of the new twelve part series, was another pleasant programme: guests were Pam Ayres, Sean Lock and Johnny Vegas.
Sean and Johnny quickly developed a smart double act and Pam, nobody's double act, was eventually the winner.
I think ol' Fry was a bit surprised at that.
Well, bless 'im, he wouldn't be the first to be fooled by gentle self-mockery delivered in a regional accent.
Books and covers, ol' lad, books and covers.
Lark Rise to Candleford.(BBC1)
Lovely Julia Sawalha and the rest of ruraltania in the second delicious dose of mar-ing and par-ing.
For all the likeness it bears to reality it might as well be called Lilliput to Blefuscu.
It is outlandish: it is mawkish: it is unbelievable tosh: it is Sunday night fodder... and?
And, so help us, we thoroughly enjoy it.
HOME.
What's New?
On the day after U.S. President Barack Obama was sworn in I left my Leader in the downstairs living room doing the ironing and watching a DVD recording of Come Dine With Me, a reality version of the old sitcom Love Thy Neighbour.
She can iron quickly and competently, watch television and drink tea, all at the same time.
It is a masterclass in the female art of doing more than one thing at a time; even if she does let the tea get cold.
I never learned the trick of quick, efficient ironing (not even in the army) and, as friends know, reality television is anathema to me.
The alternative to the back stabbing dinner party was to watch the two thousandth repeat of Diagnosis Murder starring the world's best ever old bamboo and worst ever cockney accompanied by the entire Van Dyke family.
I stopped watching that at around the forty fourth repeat.
So I came up here with the cat Shadow to stay until I had a request for more tea, or went back down to collect ironed shirts or was given the all clear.
I hammered the computer keyboard and he slept.
What's new, then?
Apart from President Barack Obama?
Not much.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
116. New stuff on the box
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Series 9).
Here we go again. Dear, likeable Warrick Brown, played by Gary Dourdan, shot at the end of the last series, breathed his last at the beginning of this.
It was harrowing, beautifully acted by the entire cast, left Grissom saturated with blood that ill-matched the new colour of his hair, beard and moustache and left everyone else close to tears. There are twenty four parts to the series. Don't know about you but we can stand that.
Relocation, Relocation.
I like Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer, so I feel a trifle guilty when I find myself saying: "Oh gawd, not that Relo-bloody-cation again!"
Well at least, I tell myself, they occasionally get a couple of their clients to buy something, even if the publicity seeking misfits do drop out as soon as the camera is off them.
Same can't be said for that lovely Pompey girl Amanda-lamba-landa-lamba-Lamb (A Place in the Sun), who I also like. Her alleged property seekers exist only to wander around in the sun, admire Amanda's soon-to-be-a-mum figure and depart with the we-won't-be-buying-now-but-we'll-be-back-in-the-future line that nobody believes, not even them.
I suppose it is a good living for these pleasant presenters. They are dealing with some thoroughly tiresome twits - not to mention estate agents - so there has to be ample compensation.
Trouble is, I don't give a twopenny damn who does or doesn't move, or where to, so long as it's not around here. Too many old buggers have come here to avoid the rat race and succeeded in bringing it with them.
But that's another story.
Ice Road Truckers.
Those supreme lunatics Alex, father of eleven children and seven grandchildren, Hugh, the polar bear, and Rick and Drew, the uncertain finishers, are back.
This time they are driving those thumping great loads over hundreds of miles of frozen ocean. It's a thirteen part series and we shall miss none of it.
WAKE UP!
"Been a quiet start to the year," I remarked to the cat Shadow, more by way of making conversation than anything else.
"Too quiet if you ask me," he replied. "Makes me wonder what shenanigans you're up to when it's this quiet."
"I have no idea what you are talking about," I said loftily.
"Oh yes you do. This time it's that little animated wake-up film. You're hoping to put it on the blog, aren't you."
"I've still no idea what you're talking about," I said, less convincingly.
"Never try to bullshit a bullshitter," he said. "You'll have to tell them it isn't me."
"And you think they'll believe me when I say it isn't you? It's you all over."
He thought for a moment: "Yeah, it is a bit, ain't it," he said smugly.
(Judge for yourself, click here...)
wake-up.wmv
That's a good enough note to finish on.
Here we go again. Dear, likeable Warrick Brown, played by Gary Dourdan, shot at the end of the last series, breathed his last at the beginning of this.
It was harrowing, beautifully acted by the entire cast, left Grissom saturated with blood that ill-matched the new colour of his hair, beard and moustache and left everyone else close to tears. There are twenty four parts to the series. Don't know about you but we can stand that.
Relocation, Relocation.
I like Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer, so I feel a trifle guilty when I find myself saying: "Oh gawd, not that Relo-bloody-cation again!"
Well at least, I tell myself, they occasionally get a couple of their clients to buy something, even if the publicity seeking misfits do drop out as soon as the camera is off them.
Same can't be said for that lovely Pompey girl Amanda-lamba-landa-lamba-Lamb (A Place in the Sun), who I also like. Her alleged property seekers exist only to wander around in the sun, admire Amanda's soon-to-be-a-mum figure and depart with the we-won't-be-buying-now-but-we'll-be-back-in-the-future line that nobody believes, not even them.
I suppose it is a good living for these pleasant presenters. They are dealing with some thoroughly tiresome twits - not to mention estate agents - so there has to be ample compensation.
Trouble is, I don't give a twopenny damn who does or doesn't move, or where to, so long as it's not around here. Too many old buggers have come here to avoid the rat race and succeeded in bringing it with them.
But that's another story.
Ice Road Truckers.
Those supreme lunatics Alex, father of eleven children and seven grandchildren, Hugh, the polar bear, and Rick and Drew, the uncertain finishers, are back.
This time they are driving those thumping great loads over hundreds of miles of frozen ocean. It's a thirteen part series and we shall miss none of it.
WAKE UP!
"Been a quiet start to the year," I remarked to the cat Shadow, more by way of making conversation than anything else.
"Too quiet if you ask me," he replied. "Makes me wonder what shenanigans you're up to when it's this quiet."
"I have no idea what you are talking about," I said loftily.
"Oh yes you do. This time it's that little animated wake-up film. You're hoping to put it on the blog, aren't you."
"I've still no idea what you're talking about," I said, less convincingly.
"Never try to bullshit a bullshitter," he said. "You'll have to tell them it isn't me."
"And you think they'll believe me when I say it isn't you? It's you all over."
He thought for a moment: "Yeah, it is a bit, ain't it," he said smugly.
(Judge for yourself, click here...)
wake-up.wmv
That's a good enough note to finish on.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
115. Another Year Gone
LET'S START THE NEW YEAR RIGHT.
Here we are, almost a fortnight into the New Year, seasonal decorations down and packed away, forgotten which classic film repeat we most eagerly avoided over Christmas, kids back to school wearing new outfits and shoes and the cost of it all, if seriously considered, more than enough to have us wheeled into Intensive Care.
As Bing Crosby sang in Holiday Inn: "Let's Start the New Year Right."
BOOKS.
Paul O'Grady.
I have just finished reading Paul O' Grady's autobiography At my mother's knee... and other low joints which surprisingly finishes when he reaches the age of eighteen years: i.e. before he found and lost his famous alter ego Lily Savage.
He was clearly the sort of young man he would find hard to tolerate now.
I know that feeling all too well.
Other than that, a working class background and both being childhood duffers at maths is all we have in common.
I do hope he keeps writing, though.
His story, as you might guess, is full of wry humour and a sensitivity he would probably (vehemently) deny.
Frequently funny and at times very moving. I look forward to the sequel.
Arthur Grump.
No, of course that's not his real name, he'll be keeping his real name under wraps for fear of being traced by Gordon Ramsey or the Gallagher brothers. Arthur Grump may even be a pseudonym for all the contributors to the Grumpy Old Gits programmes on television.
Whatever, his book One Grump or Two had me laughing from first page to last.
Loved it.
Then it dawned: he has appropriated most of my blog material for the next three years.
And been paid for it.
Bastard!
TELEVISION.
The Devil's Whore.
This lively bodice ripper, set in the days of the English Civil War, was a four part C4 series. Andrea Riseborough impressed in the leading role, John Simm was splendid as her most ardent supporter and the story reminded us yet again that all they got when they beheaded the appalling Charles 1 was the even more appalling Oliver Cromwell.
Survivors.
This was a six part BBC1 retake on the series of the seventies.
It starred Julie Graham and Max Beesley.
Ended just before Christmas. Should be back,
Like it or not it demands a follow up.
Midsomer Murders.
This turned up on Christmas Eve, for a change was not a repeat, had Barnaby and Jones being dragged off an unwelcome training execise to investigate an explosion, set the scene for future encounters with one of those infuriating high flyers who grace the top posts on every tele police force and, in case you missed it, will surely be shown again and again.
Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death.
Nick Park again. This was a new one for Christmas Day.
Of course they're great.
But they'll have to watch it.
They're in danger of becoming the replacement for Eric and Ern.
Jonathan Creek.
Good to see Alan Davies back in this barmy but beguiling load of tosh.
As a change from QI it was nice for him to be the winner, too.
I know it was supposed to be a one-off, but I hope another series is in the offing.
Above Suspicion.
This two-parter provided the opportunity for Jason Durr to prove that he is more than just that good looking bloke on the motor bike in Heartbeat. He has (according to Wiki) performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was certainly on his mettle here.
Kelly Reilly and Ciaran Hinds were fine as the duo of typical Lynda La Plante coppers hellbent on bringing him to justice.
The 39 Steps.
Rupert Penry Jones, apparently dispatched to a previous life by the explosion in Spooks, turned up here as the John Buchan hero, Richard Hannay.
Read the book at school.
Have seen the films starring Robert Donat, Kenneth More and Robert Powell.
Don't remember much about it.
Certainly don't remember the spy girl, Perhaps she was a reincarnated spook, too.
Oh, for good measure there was a touch of The Lady Vanishes thrown in.
Anyway, it filled up an hour and a half of prime time tele and hurt nobody.
NEW SERIES.
Dexter. (Series 2.)
More lethal logic from the murderers' murderer, Dexter Morgan.
Sgt. Doakes doesn't find him at all funny and I am still in a bit of a quandary about whether I should.
QI.
Alan Davies is reported to have doubts about whether the move to BBC1 and expansion to a 12 part series is entirely a good thing. Well, he may be the constant loser in this Stephen Fry showcase but he's nobody's fool.
He could be very right.
NCIS. (Series 5)
Hurray! They're back! Yeah, the lot of them: Jethro Gibbs and his acting haircut; lovely Abby; beautiful Ziva; nice guy Timothy; dear old Ducky and trouble magnet Tony who just can't wait to have his head smacked.
That's our Friday nights booked for a while.
AND FINALLY, A LESSON LEARNED (WITHOUT APOLOGY).
Last year we were regularly promised that lessons will be learned or apologies will be made for one thing or another.
The lessons to be learned were invariably lessons that should have been learned long ago.
They weren't then and...guess what...they never will be.
As for apologies, I make no apology for believing they are mostly feeble attempts at avoiding litigation: cynical cop outs.
They are seldom made by those who should be making them.
The real culprits in this world never apologize lest it be construed as a sign of weakness. The real culprits come in a variety of guises to cover their greed, spite and vanity.
They are without exception treacherous, paranoid, power-crazed and surrounded by sycophants. They rush mankind headlong into wars for which there is no reason and from which there is no return. They ignore disease and starvation.
They are national leaders.
Here endeth the lesson.
"And," as Dave Allen used to say. "may your God go with you."
Here we are, almost a fortnight into the New Year, seasonal decorations down and packed away, forgotten which classic film repeat we most eagerly avoided over Christmas, kids back to school wearing new outfits and shoes and the cost of it all, if seriously considered, more than enough to have us wheeled into Intensive Care.
As Bing Crosby sang in Holiday Inn: "Let's Start the New Year Right."
BOOKS.
Paul O'Grady.
I have just finished reading Paul O' Grady's autobiography At my mother's knee... and other low joints which surprisingly finishes when he reaches the age of eighteen years: i.e. before he found and lost his famous alter ego Lily Savage.
He was clearly the sort of young man he would find hard to tolerate now.
I know that feeling all too well.
Other than that, a working class background and both being childhood duffers at maths is all we have in common.
I do hope he keeps writing, though.
His story, as you might guess, is full of wry humour and a sensitivity he would probably (vehemently) deny.
Frequently funny and at times very moving. I look forward to the sequel.
Arthur Grump.
No, of course that's not his real name, he'll be keeping his real name under wraps for fear of being traced by Gordon Ramsey or the Gallagher brothers. Arthur Grump may even be a pseudonym for all the contributors to the Grumpy Old Gits programmes on television.
Whatever, his book One Grump or Two had me laughing from first page to last.
Loved it.
Then it dawned: he has appropriated most of my blog material for the next three years.
And been paid for it.
Bastard!
TELEVISION.
The Devil's Whore.
This lively bodice ripper, set in the days of the English Civil War, was a four part C4 series. Andrea Riseborough impressed in the leading role, John Simm was splendid as her most ardent supporter and the story reminded us yet again that all they got when they beheaded the appalling Charles 1 was the even more appalling Oliver Cromwell.
Survivors.
This was a six part BBC1 retake on the series of the seventies.
It starred Julie Graham and Max Beesley.
Ended just before Christmas. Should be back,
Like it or not it demands a follow up.
Midsomer Murders.
This turned up on Christmas Eve, for a change was not a repeat, had Barnaby and Jones being dragged off an unwelcome training execise to investigate an explosion, set the scene for future encounters with one of those infuriating high flyers who grace the top posts on every tele police force and, in case you missed it, will surely be shown again and again.
Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death.
Nick Park again. This was a new one for Christmas Day.
Of course they're great.
But they'll have to watch it.
They're in danger of becoming the replacement for Eric and Ern.
Jonathan Creek.
Good to see Alan Davies back in this barmy but beguiling load of tosh.
As a change from QI it was nice for him to be the winner, too.
I know it was supposed to be a one-off, but I hope another series is in the offing.
Above Suspicion.
This two-parter provided the opportunity for Jason Durr to prove that he is more than just that good looking bloke on the motor bike in Heartbeat. He has (according to Wiki) performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was certainly on his mettle here.
Kelly Reilly and Ciaran Hinds were fine as the duo of typical Lynda La Plante coppers hellbent on bringing him to justice.
The 39 Steps.
Rupert Penry Jones, apparently dispatched to a previous life by the explosion in Spooks, turned up here as the John Buchan hero, Richard Hannay.
Read the book at school.
Have seen the films starring Robert Donat, Kenneth More and Robert Powell.
Don't remember much about it.
Certainly don't remember the spy girl, Perhaps she was a reincarnated spook, too.
Oh, for good measure there was a touch of The Lady Vanishes thrown in.
Anyway, it filled up an hour and a half of prime time tele and hurt nobody.
NEW SERIES.
Dexter. (Series 2.)
More lethal logic from the murderers' murderer, Dexter Morgan.
Sgt. Doakes doesn't find him at all funny and I am still in a bit of a quandary about whether I should.
QI.
Alan Davies is reported to have doubts about whether the move to BBC1 and expansion to a 12 part series is entirely a good thing. Well, he may be the constant loser in this Stephen Fry showcase but he's nobody's fool.
He could be very right.
NCIS. (Series 5)
Hurray! They're back! Yeah, the lot of them: Jethro Gibbs and his acting haircut; lovely Abby; beautiful Ziva; nice guy Timothy; dear old Ducky and trouble magnet Tony who just can't wait to have his head smacked.
That's our Friday nights booked for a while.
AND FINALLY, A LESSON LEARNED (WITHOUT APOLOGY).
Last year we were regularly promised that lessons will be learned or apologies will be made for one thing or another.
The lessons to be learned were invariably lessons that should have been learned long ago.
They weren't then and...guess what...they never will be.
As for apologies, I make no apology for believing they are mostly feeble attempts at avoiding litigation: cynical cop outs.
They are seldom made by those who should be making them.
The real culprits in this world never apologize lest it be construed as a sign of weakness. The real culprits come in a variety of guises to cover their greed, spite and vanity.
They are without exception treacherous, paranoid, power-crazed and surrounded by sycophants. They rush mankind headlong into wars for which there is no reason and from which there is no return. They ignore disease and starvation.
They are national leaders.
Here endeth the lesson.
"And," as Dave Allen used to say. "may your God go with you."
Monday, December 22, 2008
114. The Seasons Greetings Again!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Yes, it's Christmas again and our little house is alive with goodwill and greetings cards and (mostly Father Christmas) decorations. If you're passing, pop in; if you're not, let me take this opportunity to say
MERRY CHRISTMAS, DEAR FRIENDS, AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
READING.
Alan Bennet.
I finished Alan Bennett's Untold Stories with mixed feelings.
Heartened yet faintly saddened best sums it up.
Can't say why.
Greatly respect the man. He impresses as a decent human being. He is well regarded; an intellectual; a talented playwright; a man who has twice been offered a knighthood and who, deep down, probably regrets at least one of his principled decisions to decline it.
My mixed feelings about the book were not helped when a friend enthused that she had read it twice and enjoyed it even more the second time because she had then picked up on things she seemed to have missed earlier.
Once was enough for me.
Don't think I could take all those churches and graveyards and encounters with celebrities a second time around.
Perhaps I'm just too godless.
J.K.Rowling.
Maybe it is the mood of the moment but I finished reading The Tales of Beedle the Bard with mixed feelings, too.
I can, and doubtless shall, read it a second - even third - time.
It's tiny enough.
But somehow I came out of the first encounter wondering whether these little tales served any other purpose than as a collection box for the Children's High Level Group charity.
Doesn't really matter.
It is obviously a very worthwhile charity and it is still the J.K.Rowling who, so far as I am concerned, can walk on water.
I just feel she may have got her feet a little wet this time.
HEALTH.
That magical damn cold.
I have had that damn cold again.
Coughing and oozing and thinking of applying for the number of handkerchiefs I could fill in one day to be added to the Guinness Book of Records.
So how did I come by it this time?
Wasn't difficult.
Grandson Ellis, who carried it around for a few weeks, decided the time had come to pass it on. At the same time he discovered the CD game Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to be played on my computer with me as his assistant.
He simply said: "Expelliarmus!" and my immune system was disarmed.
Cough and cold transference was effortless.
Perhaps I should have said "Specialis Revelio!" to identify the ingredients or enchantments in his potion, but I didn't.
I didn't think to say "Finite Incantatum," which stops any current spells, either.
What? Oh, if it bothers you just look up Harry Potter - Spells: Veritaserum Book 7 on Google.
TELEVISION.
Maigret.
Have been watching the French Maigret, Bruno Cremer: very good in a Rupert Davies sort of way.
Georges Simenon was such a superb writer of detective fiction and to be given the chance to play his main character must be an actor's dream equalled only, I would suspect, with being offered the role of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell was the definitive) or Leslie Charteris's The Saint (George Sanders was never bettered).
Incidentally, Michael Gambon has played both Maigret and Philip Marlowe, but his Marlowe was the Dennis Potter version (Marlow) in The Singing Detective.
European detectives have been the vogue on British television of late starting with:-
Wallander.
A Swedish Maigret character played in a recent three part English tv series by Kenneth Branagh who looked, for the most part, as though he had just woken up and had slept in his clothes.
The unwashed, unshaven, tangle-haired look did quite suit him though.
Henning Mankell wrote the books and proved to be an interesting interviewee in a subsidiary documentary.
Simultaneously the BBC screened two Wallander films from Sweden good enough to make me forget I was reading subtitles. Swedish actor Krister Henriksson was a much less dishevilled version of the detective.
I enjoyed both depictions and will now buy the books which, I have to confess, had so far eluded me: the Swedish representation in my elderly library of thrillers runs to just a couple by Sjowall and Wahloo. Time to correct that.
Time, too, to look for Andrea Camilleri's books about:-
Montalbano.
Inspector Montalbano is a fictional Italian detective based in Sicily.
Played by Luca Zingaretti he swam onto our screens in Excursion To Tindari (BBC4) and immediately established himself as a thoroughly decent Maigret type and worthy bookshelf companion for Wallander.
I really must increase my crime library - though not so loudly as to alert my Leader of my intentions.
There's never enough shelf space for the books we already have!
DANCE.
Strictly Come Dancing.
I nearly gave this a miss. Not the programme (which surely had millions hooked) but writing about it.
You should never read the observations of someone like Carrie Dunn (Organ Grinder Blog) before you do your own thing. She will be way ahead of you.
Not only that...she'll be right. Dreadful girl!
At the risk of losing friends, here is an excerpt from my computer diary of the 20th December:-
In the evening we watched Simply Come Dancing - the final - which was won by an actor called Tom Chambers from the Holby City Hospital programme.
Second, and the better dancer, was singer Rachel Stevens.
Third was model and television presenter Lisa Snowdon (also a better dancer) who lost the viewers' sympathy early on with a tendency to tears which clearly disconcerted her professional partner, the talented but touchy New Zealander Brendan Cole.
So, by whatever means it was fixed, the tossers with telephones finally had their way.
Tom came across as a nice enough lad, though, and his final dance was quite a show stopper.
I just wish ol' Forsyth and the rest of 'em had refrained from comparing him and Camilla Dallerup with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
The artistry of the latter pair will never be matched and they must be pirouetting in their graves!
LAST WORD.
Apologies.
If this year is to be remembered for anything much it will have to be for the number of apologies bandied about, mostly by the police and the BBC, in the (surely mistaken) belief that by saying sorry and admitting you were wrong you will probably be forgiven.
Latest - and hopefully last - grovel this year was at the weekend when Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick was required to retract comments he had made that the Conservative Party tried to undermine a Whitehall leaks enquiry.
I know nothing of A,C, Quick's private life. His wife's business affairs are no concern of mine and, since I don't read the office boy press, I shall remain blissfully unaware of them.
But if he says that any politician, of whatever party, is a corrupt rascal, he will be but telling the truth.
There should be no need to apologise for that.
Yes, it's Christmas again and our little house is alive with goodwill and greetings cards and (mostly Father Christmas) decorations. If you're passing, pop in; if you're not, let me take this opportunity to say
MERRY CHRISTMAS, DEAR FRIENDS, AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
READING.
Alan Bennet.
I finished Alan Bennett's Untold Stories with mixed feelings.
Heartened yet faintly saddened best sums it up.
Can't say why.
Greatly respect the man. He impresses as a decent human being. He is well regarded; an intellectual; a talented playwright; a man who has twice been offered a knighthood and who, deep down, probably regrets at least one of his principled decisions to decline it.
My mixed feelings about the book were not helped when a friend enthused that she had read it twice and enjoyed it even more the second time because she had then picked up on things she seemed to have missed earlier.
Once was enough for me.
Don't think I could take all those churches and graveyards and encounters with celebrities a second time around.
Perhaps I'm just too godless.
J.K.Rowling.
Maybe it is the mood of the moment but I finished reading The Tales of Beedle the Bard with mixed feelings, too.
I can, and doubtless shall, read it a second - even third - time.
It's tiny enough.
But somehow I came out of the first encounter wondering whether these little tales served any other purpose than as a collection box for the Children's High Level Group charity.
Doesn't really matter.
It is obviously a very worthwhile charity and it is still the J.K.Rowling who, so far as I am concerned, can walk on water.
I just feel she may have got her feet a little wet this time.
HEALTH.
That magical damn cold.
I have had that damn cold again.
Coughing and oozing and thinking of applying for the number of handkerchiefs I could fill in one day to be added to the Guinness Book of Records.
So how did I come by it this time?
Wasn't difficult.
Grandson Ellis, who carried it around for a few weeks, decided the time had come to pass it on. At the same time he discovered the CD game Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to be played on my computer with me as his assistant.
He simply said: "Expelliarmus!" and my immune system was disarmed.
Cough and cold transference was effortless.
Perhaps I should have said "Specialis Revelio!" to identify the ingredients or enchantments in his potion, but I didn't.
I didn't think to say "Finite Incantatum," which stops any current spells, either.
What? Oh, if it bothers you just look up Harry Potter - Spells: Veritaserum Book 7 on Google.
TELEVISION.
Maigret.
Have been watching the French Maigret, Bruno Cremer: very good in a Rupert Davies sort of way.
Georges Simenon was such a superb writer of detective fiction and to be given the chance to play his main character must be an actor's dream equalled only, I would suspect, with being offered the role of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell was the definitive) or Leslie Charteris's The Saint (George Sanders was never bettered).
Incidentally, Michael Gambon has played both Maigret and Philip Marlowe, but his Marlowe was the Dennis Potter version (Marlow) in The Singing Detective.
European detectives have been the vogue on British television of late starting with:-
Wallander.
A Swedish Maigret character played in a recent three part English tv series by Kenneth Branagh who looked, for the most part, as though he had just woken up and had slept in his clothes.
The unwashed, unshaven, tangle-haired look did quite suit him though.
Henning Mankell wrote the books and proved to be an interesting interviewee in a subsidiary documentary.
Simultaneously the BBC screened two Wallander films from Sweden good enough to make me forget I was reading subtitles. Swedish actor Krister Henriksson was a much less dishevilled version of the detective.
I enjoyed both depictions and will now buy the books which, I have to confess, had so far eluded me: the Swedish representation in my elderly library of thrillers runs to just a couple by Sjowall and Wahloo. Time to correct that.
Time, too, to look for Andrea Camilleri's books about:-
Montalbano.
Inspector Montalbano is a fictional Italian detective based in Sicily.
Played by Luca Zingaretti he swam onto our screens in Excursion To Tindari (BBC4) and immediately established himself as a thoroughly decent Maigret type and worthy bookshelf companion for Wallander.
I really must increase my crime library - though not so loudly as to alert my Leader of my intentions.
There's never enough shelf space for the books we already have!
DANCE.
Strictly Come Dancing.
I nearly gave this a miss. Not the programme (which surely had millions hooked) but writing about it.
You should never read the observations of someone like Carrie Dunn (Organ Grinder Blog) before you do your own thing. She will be way ahead of you.
Not only that...she'll be right. Dreadful girl!
At the risk of losing friends, here is an excerpt from my computer diary of the 20th December:-
In the evening we watched Simply Come Dancing - the final - which was won by an actor called Tom Chambers from the Holby City Hospital programme.
Second, and the better dancer, was singer Rachel Stevens.
Third was model and television presenter Lisa Snowdon (also a better dancer) who lost the viewers' sympathy early on with a tendency to tears which clearly disconcerted her professional partner, the talented but touchy New Zealander Brendan Cole.
So, by whatever means it was fixed, the tossers with telephones finally had their way.
Tom came across as a nice enough lad, though, and his final dance was quite a show stopper.
I just wish ol' Forsyth and the rest of 'em had refrained from comparing him and Camilla Dallerup with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
The artistry of the latter pair will never be matched and they must be pirouetting in their graves!
LAST WORD.
Apologies.
If this year is to be remembered for anything much it will have to be for the number of apologies bandied about, mostly by the police and the BBC, in the (surely mistaken) belief that by saying sorry and admitting you were wrong you will probably be forgiven.
Latest - and hopefully last - grovel this year was at the weekend when Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick was required to retract comments he had made that the Conservative Party tried to undermine a Whitehall leaks enquiry.
I know nothing of A,C, Quick's private life. His wife's business affairs are no concern of mine and, since I don't read the office boy press, I shall remain blissfully unaware of them.
But if he says that any politician, of whatever party, is a corrupt rascal, he will be but telling the truth.
There should be no need to apologise for that.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
113. A cute picture and a few words
A-A-A-H!Our friend Jan Bennett forwarded us this Picture of The Year.
Don't know who first sent it or to whom.
And I'm not much of a believer.
But it's a gem, ain't it.
NOVEMBER AGAIN.
Yep! November again. The little front garden and the rear courtyard full of holy leaves from the nearby church, educated leaves from the school opposite and neighbourly leaves from further along the terrace.
Me sweeping, cursing, roundly objecting that I have no trees and fully aware that I am back to my autumn (US: fall) Groundhog Day.
Ah well, there are plently of poor old devils who cannot walk around their garden unaided, let alone sweep it.
I count myself lucky.
MAGIC FOR 75p.
My Leader came across it quite by chance.
It was hanging alone on a peg at the end of a sale line in M & S.
It was a Spiderman helmet/mask which had apparently lost its outfit and it was priced at 75 pence (which I think is currently 1.11 USD).
It was presented to Grandson Ellis (3) who is obtaining wicked enjoyment from it.
We now have Spiderman leaping from behind doors; crawling on his belly across floors which have imaginatively been transformed into the walls of skyscrapers; firing web strands at us from between the first and little fingers of each hand and happily answering to the name Peter Parker.
He has the full outfit - the pyjamas too - but never mind that: best of all he has what he cheerfully refers to as "My hat."
Oh, every now and then he pulls it off to reveal a beaming face and tell us, like LeClair in Allo Allo, "It's me!"
We look suitably surprised. Gosh! It's not Peter Parker!
75 pence worth of magic.
I MISS THIS SOFTLY SPOKEN ASSASSIN.
Some time ago Stephen Fry, who presumably only appeared for the money, explained why he disliked critics and persuaded Paul Merton to consign the outspoken critic and poet Tom Paulin to Room 101.
Even if he heard about it (and doubtless some unwell wisher will have told him) I cannot imagine that Dr.Paulin was unduly concerned.
He has faced far worse.
Since then, though, I have seen him but once on Newsnight Review (BBC2).
I wonder why.
Is he too busy at Oxford?
Has he felt that he must slow down?
Has he been declared persona non grata by some pillock in power at the BBC?
Whatever.
I miss this softly spoken assassin's amiable appearance at eleven o'clock of a Friday night.
His fellow critic Germaine Greer is seldom seen now, either.
Pity.
They could so be relied upon to disagree.
TWO SPECIAL SCORPIOS.
Last week my Leader reached the age of 65 and became entitled to monotonously moan about everybody and everything: forever.
Today our granddaughter Jess is thirteen and entitled to sulk for England for the next six years.
Neither of 'em will do any such thing of course.
Not in our house they won't.
THINGS PEOPLE SEND.
Jokes, pictures and trivia still arrive in my email as the above picture shows.
Most of it is amusing, some of it touching, a little of it irksome.
I am seldom shocked and quite often intrigued.
Try this if you have not already seen it:
Click Here:
Unusual Puzzle
And as the comedian Jimmy Wheeler used to say, "Aye aye, that's your lot!"
Sunday, October 26, 2008
112. Diary type stuff and that...
PONDERING PEPYS
"Have you thought about my diary idea for your blog?" asked the cat Shadow.
"Not really," I said."Now that I've read Alan Bennett's Diaries 1996 - 2004 in Untold Stories I don't think I'd have much to say."
"What, because you don't go pottering around churches or hobnobbing with acting luminaries?"
"Something like that, yes."
"OK, so you're not a church spotter and, as for actors, your man's a playwright so he's going to know plenty of them. It's like when you were in the NHS you knew a lot of doctors and other professionals. Bloody'ell, the only difference between church spotting and train spotting is that churches are marginally colder than railway stations."
"Oh, come on, how would you know that?"
"By popping up the road to St. Johns of course. There are people there who think I'm the church cat. Sometimes on a Sunday they bring me treats. Even the most mean little Christian can be quite generous if you look pious enough."
"I never know when to believe you," I said.
"Does anybody?" he said. "Just get on with the writing..."
25th OCTOBER.
Suddenly another year gone and time again for the AGM of the Flu Jab Club.
The club has a limited membership consisting of my Leader, and I and our friends Wendy and Mo.
This year, in keeping with the times, the surgery did not send out reminder letters but relied on us to read the County Press or make a phone call to find out when they would be administering whatever causative agent may currently be in vogue.
It was to be this Saturday or last and as Matt, son of Wendy and grandson of Mo, was home from University for the first time last weekend, the AGM was set for this weekend.
We are old hands by now and waft through the needle puncturing procedure like partying jet-setters half our age.
Afterwards we ignore the "sit fast for ten minutes" advice and repair to God's Providence House (so named because the plague of 1584 failed to claim its inhabitants) for tea or coffee and marvellous cheese scones.
We exchange family news. We have been friends for nearly thirty years and when we part company we may see them no more than a couple of times before next year's meeting.
It matters not.
Time is a sprinter.
Last year was yesterday. Next year is tomorrow.
26th OCTOBER.
This morning on The Politics Show (BBC1) there was a documentary about a new library/cafe/conference centre at Winchester, allied to discussion on whether a comment by Culture Secretary Andy Burnham (who?) that libraries should be about coffee and chatter carried any weight.
Viewers were invited to email or text their views on whether enticing people, by whatever means, into a place where they could encounter books, was necessarily a good thing and to text with what they thought would be a good title for a book on the "Future of Libraries."
I instantly thought of a title - "This Happy Read" - but didn't text it.
My wife and my daughter and my granddaughter and all their friends, they text.
I don't text. Don't know how.
Seldom remember to take my mobile phone when I leave the house, either.
I'm danger enough on the roads without fiddlin' with an effin' phone.
My Leader liked the "This Happy Read" title, though.
Who cares that it missed the tortuous texting?
27th OCTOBER.
The big sports news is that Harry Redknapp has left Portsmouth FC to become manager of Tottenham Hotspur.
It was very sudden and has left Pompey in a state of shock.
In lieu of any comment from the cat Shadow, who highly rates ol' Harry, I shall have to rely on the personal view that he took a struggling side, made something of it, and was probably never going to better the FA Cup win of last year.
Now he has returned to his London origins, will certainly be paid more than the million-or-so a year he was getting with The Blues and stands, if he stays lucky, to go out on an enormous high. Good luck to him.
28th OCTOBER.
Today was Spycatchers' Lunch day.
I was lucky enough to be invited to join this Island group just after I retired in 1989. We meet for lunch once a month, usually on the last Tuesday and at a different pub each time.
We have a pretty darned good idea which pubs are currently serving the best food and which to avoid.
It makes for a pleasant two or three hours and it hurts nobody.
29th OCTOBER.
Somebody has finally found the excuse they have been looking for to curb the lewdly ebullient Jonathan Ross and oust the constantly outrageous Russell Brand.
Their sheer bad taste was presumably proving too much of an embarrassment to somebody up there and a foolishly teenage kind of non-joke involving phoning the actor Andrew Sachs about his granddaughter's sexual activities has provided the opportunity to kill off two highly expensive birds with one sanctimonious stone.
I think it's the same sort of daft reasoning that saw off Greg Dyke.
Neither of these lads is my sort of broadcaster (you have to be a bit elderly to remember Alvar Liddell, Stuart Hibberd and Bruce Belfrage) but at worst I can only regard them as a couple of tiresome tossers.
And now the Prime Minister has had to butt in.
Why?
Because he hopes to take our minds off the economy?
30th OCTOBER.
"What do you think?" I asked the cat Shadow, recumbent on my Epson printer."Reckon this diary thing works?"
"It's all right," he said unconvincingly. "Bit like your usual, but with dates instead of headings. Y'know, I think we may have had this conversation before."
"It's not easy writing currently about current affairs" I said. "And Ross and Brand were well covered by Peter Tatchell - for want of a better way of putting it - in The Guardian this morning."
"Yeah, but your views are free Nobody has to pay national newspaper prices for them."
I sighed: "Nobody would pay ten quid to read them in paperback, either."
"Never mind, mate," he said. "You've mentioned a few celebs, all you need now is a church or two. Why not pop up the road to St. Johns?"
AND A BIT OF LIGHT RELIEF.
Friends Sheila and Anonymous John have sent us the following Fw from a friend of theirs.
It has a decided charm in an Always look on the Bright Side of Life sort of way.
It is certainly worth the couple of minutes or so of viewing/listening time.
Give it a try:
http://dingo.care2.com/cards/flash/5409/galaxy.swf
"Have you thought about my diary idea for your blog?" asked the cat Shadow.
"Not really," I said."Now that I've read Alan Bennett's Diaries 1996 - 2004 in Untold Stories I don't think I'd have much to say."
"What, because you don't go pottering around churches or hobnobbing with acting luminaries?"
"Something like that, yes."
"OK, so you're not a church spotter and, as for actors, your man's a playwright so he's going to know plenty of them. It's like when you were in the NHS you knew a lot of doctors and other professionals. Bloody'ell, the only difference between church spotting and train spotting is that churches are marginally colder than railway stations."
"Oh, come on, how would you know that?"
"By popping up the road to St. Johns of course. There are people there who think I'm the church cat. Sometimes on a Sunday they bring me treats. Even the most mean little Christian can be quite generous if you look pious enough."
"I never know when to believe you," I said.
"Does anybody?" he said. "Just get on with the writing..."
25th OCTOBER.
Suddenly another year gone and time again for the AGM of the Flu Jab Club.
The club has a limited membership consisting of my Leader, and I and our friends Wendy and Mo.
This year, in keeping with the times, the surgery did not send out reminder letters but relied on us to read the County Press or make a phone call to find out when they would be administering whatever causative agent may currently be in vogue.
It was to be this Saturday or last and as Matt, son of Wendy and grandson of Mo, was home from University for the first time last weekend, the AGM was set for this weekend.
We are old hands by now and waft through the needle puncturing procedure like partying jet-setters half our age.
Afterwards we ignore the "sit fast for ten minutes" advice and repair to God's Providence House (so named because the plague of 1584 failed to claim its inhabitants) for tea or coffee and marvellous cheese scones.
We exchange family news. We have been friends for nearly thirty years and when we part company we may see them no more than a couple of times before next year's meeting.
It matters not.
Time is a sprinter.
Last year was yesterday. Next year is tomorrow.
26th OCTOBER.
This morning on The Politics Show (BBC1) there was a documentary about a new library/cafe/conference centre at Winchester, allied to discussion on whether a comment by Culture Secretary Andy Burnham (who?) that libraries should be about coffee and chatter carried any weight.
Viewers were invited to email or text their views on whether enticing people, by whatever means, into a place where they could encounter books, was necessarily a good thing and to text with what they thought would be a good title for a book on the "Future of Libraries."
I instantly thought of a title - "This Happy Read" - but didn't text it.
My wife and my daughter and my granddaughter and all their friends, they text.
I don't text. Don't know how.
Seldom remember to take my mobile phone when I leave the house, either.
I'm danger enough on the roads without fiddlin' with an effin' phone.
My Leader liked the "This Happy Read" title, though.
Who cares that it missed the tortuous texting?
27th OCTOBER.
The big sports news is that Harry Redknapp has left Portsmouth FC to become manager of Tottenham Hotspur.
It was very sudden and has left Pompey in a state of shock.
In lieu of any comment from the cat Shadow, who highly rates ol' Harry, I shall have to rely on the personal view that he took a struggling side, made something of it, and was probably never going to better the FA Cup win of last year.
Now he has returned to his London origins, will certainly be paid more than the million-or-so a year he was getting with The Blues and stands, if he stays lucky, to go out on an enormous high. Good luck to him.
28th OCTOBER.
Today was Spycatchers' Lunch day.
I was lucky enough to be invited to join this Island group just after I retired in 1989. We meet for lunch once a month, usually on the last Tuesday and at a different pub each time.
We have a pretty darned good idea which pubs are currently serving the best food and which to avoid.
It makes for a pleasant two or three hours and it hurts nobody.
29th OCTOBER.
Somebody has finally found the excuse they have been looking for to curb the lewdly ebullient Jonathan Ross and oust the constantly outrageous Russell Brand.
Their sheer bad taste was presumably proving too much of an embarrassment to somebody up there and a foolishly teenage kind of non-joke involving phoning the actor Andrew Sachs about his granddaughter's sexual activities has provided the opportunity to kill off two highly expensive birds with one sanctimonious stone.
I think it's the same sort of daft reasoning that saw off Greg Dyke.
Neither of these lads is my sort of broadcaster (you have to be a bit elderly to remember Alvar Liddell, Stuart Hibberd and Bruce Belfrage) but at worst I can only regard them as a couple of tiresome tossers.
And now the Prime Minister has had to butt in.
Why?
Because he hopes to take our minds off the economy?
30th OCTOBER.
"What do you think?" I asked the cat Shadow, recumbent on my Epson printer."Reckon this diary thing works?"
"It's all right," he said unconvincingly. "Bit like your usual, but with dates instead of headings. Y'know, I think we may have had this conversation before."
"It's not easy writing currently about current affairs" I said. "And Ross and Brand were well covered by Peter Tatchell - for want of a better way of putting it - in The Guardian this morning."
"Yeah, but your views are free Nobody has to pay national newspaper prices for them."
I sighed: "Nobody would pay ten quid to read them in paperback, either."
"Never mind, mate," he said. "You've mentioned a few celebs, all you need now is a church or two. Why not pop up the road to St. Johns?"
AND A BIT OF LIGHT RELIEF.
Friends Sheila and Anonymous John have sent us the following Fw from a friend of theirs.
It has a decided charm in an Always look on the Bright Side of Life sort of way.
It is certainly worth the couple of minutes or so of viewing/listening time.
Give it a try:
http://dingo.care2.com/cards/flash/5409/galaxy.swf
Sunday, October 12, 2008
111. Decidedly not a celebrity diary.
WHY KEEP A DIARY?
The cat Shadow has found an unchallenged armchair in the dining room where, free from the inconvenience of casual visitors and slightly suspect small admirers, he can sleep the day away. As a consequence our recent conversations have been limited.
Today, however, he did open one eye as I headed for the stairs.
"I'm going to do some blogging and I know I'm late again," I said defensively.
"You should do it daily instead of your computer diary, mate," he muttered, and sensibly went back to sleep.
Perhaps he's right.
I have thought about it.
Of course I have.
But mine is not a celebrity diary.
Mine could never boast throwaway lines like: Met Maggie Smith in Tesco today and we talked about... or...I thought Albert Schweitzer would be impressive and when I came across him in 1953 I was not disappointed...
No, my diary is more your: Went down to Somerfield in a drizzle...shouted a hallo to that nice little bloke Oz in the chip shop as I went by...and...One of those lovely women from the card shop asked Ellis: "Is Granddad looking after you well today, then?" and was haughtily put right with: "He's not Granddad, he's Boo."
Which reminds one that, even in the kindest way, a three year old should never be patronised...
Anyway, nobody would want too much of that.
I seldom look back in my diary and nobody else is encouraged to read it.
So why do I bother?
Dunno.
But sitting on a park bench doing nothing would bore me daft.
Even on a beautiful day like today.
Today the sun is shining, the temperature is mild, pretty girls wearing short-sleeved tops and skimpy shorts are strolling past the house.
It's marvellous.
So bugger worrying about global warming.
That's a diary entry worth making on Sunday 12th October, 2008.
I may read it again and again.
BOOKS.
Clarissa Dickson Wright's autobiography Spilling The Beans was a jolly good read.
There was quite a lot with which I did not agree and plenty that did not agree with me: but equally there was much to admire.
There is certainly more to her than an English upper crust tendency to pronounce out and about as eight and abate.
She comes across as a good friend.
My late father would have described her as a big party with a big heart.
I have read again Lee Harper's American classic To Kill A Mocking Bird.
For an English child of the nineteen thirties, this wonderful depiction of life in the Deep South at that time - sensitively portrayed through the eyes of the little girl Scout Finch - is a fascinating, moving and at times hilarious insight into life in another world.
Loved it first time out. Still do.
I finally came to the end of The Silent World Of Nicholas Quinn by Colin Dexter.
Saw the television adaptation again, too. Very good.
All the Morse stories converted well to film, though.
It is my problem that I preferred the films to the books.
Anyway, all I have left to finish now is Untold Stories by Alan Bennett.
My Leader will kill me if I don't finish it soon.
Turns out she has been patiently waiting to read it. No of course I didn't know.
She's the mind reading one in our marriage: I'm the one who is surprised by nothing.
TELE.
ITV1 recently screened The Island, a 2005 film starring Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johanssen and Sean Bean, a futuristic fantasy.
It was somewhat Soylent Green in concept, with the added attraction of wonderful action scenes. We enjoyed every minute of it.
Have been watching The Lord of the Rings on C4. Glorious locations in New Zealand, excellent casting which included Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, and a splendid array of fellow stars.
Immaculately directed by Peter Jackson, this is a trilogy to be savoured over and over again.
I shall do just that.
I have the DVDs.
What? No, you can't borrow them. Buy your own.
My leader and I enjoyed Lost in Austen, a brand new slant on the classic Pride and Prejudice. Amanda Price (Jemima Rooper) was transported (via a magical door in her bathroom) into the novel to transform it in a way that really must have had Jane Austen spinning in her grave.
It was beaurifully acted tosh and great fun.
When it comes to tosh, we are also enjoying the new series Merlin on BBC1.
This Saturday night warm up for Strictly Come Dancing so rewrites Arthurian legend as to make Merlin roughly the same teen age as Arthur.
Never mind, it has Richard Wilson, Anthony Head, the Voice of the Dragon provided byJohn Hurt and a pleasant couple of youngsters in the leading roles.
Everybody seems to be having a good time and all it lacks is Sgt. Joe Friday coming in at the end to say: "The story you have just been told is a rewritten legend - only the names have not been changed..."
Another short series of Agatha Christie's Poirot has been running on ITV1.
All right I suppose, but I think he should by now be doing something about the mysterious disappearance of Captain Hastings, Miss Lemon and dear old Inspector Japp.
When all's said and done, these people were his closest television companions.
If he has not yet missed them what sort of a bloody sleuth is he?
By contrast, Patrick Harbinson's adaptation of Val McDermid's Place of Execution cleared up a few questions.
For example, what really did happen to Stan Shunpike (Lee Ingleby) after he was pulled off his bus conductor job in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and unfairly imprisoned?
Well, it seems that, at Harry's insistence, he was released to re-invent himself as DS John Bacchus, assistant to George Gently.
That worthy kindly saved him from further ignominy and he moved up the police ladder to reappear in Place of Execution as DI George Bennett whose older self, ex Chief Constable Old George Bennett, is also (wake up, Poirot!) former Chief Inspector James Japp (Philip Jackson).
Don't you just love the complexities of cop show casting?
Whatever, this was a darned good mystery yarn perfectly acted and directed.
Last Thursday that amiable and commendably outspoken little chap Ian Hislop presented a documentary on BBC4 about the demise of British railways.
Ian Hislop Goes Off The Rails told how, in the early sixties, the benighted Richard Beeching, installed by the manipulative Ernest Marples, closed so many so-called 'unprofitable' branch railway lines that the rail network was virtually halved.
Motorways were then constructed to be quickly transformed into clogged up miles of unattended cones.
Gawd bless far-sighted government.
WRITERS.
ITV3 had a corker of an idea for rehashing old programmes with its Crime Thriller 2008 competition.
The awards ceremony was shown on Monday 6th October.
The writers who somehow came to be in contention were Colin Dexter, P.D.James, Lynda LaPlante, Val McDermid, Ian Rankin and Ruth Rendell.
Nothing wrong with that.
The eventual winner was Colin Dexter, however, and I felt there was something vaguely wrong with that.
In my computer diary I wondered why none of the (decidedly more compelling) top women writers had been chosen and added:- When the result was announced, Ruth Rendell and Val McDermid exchanged "would you fucking credit it?" looks that said it all. I think dear old P.D.James probably felt it less, but she had been suitably compensated with one of those "all time great" sops that showbiz dishes out to anybody old enough to be considered suitable for sainthood.
Oh, the programme was presented by Alan Davies and he did an excellent job.
N.B. More Jonathan Creek, please, David Renwick.
AND LASTLY, POLITICS.
Well. as my friends will appreciate, nothing comes more lastly to me than politics.
Together with all the other aliens, however, I am finding it quite impossible to ignore the final lap of the race to become President of America.
Why, I find myself asking, despite constant exhortation, should I barrack Obama? I don't even know the man.
As for this fellow McCain; the oven chips, if they are his, are OK, but they are no more impressive than those of Aunt Bessie.
(Sorry America, I think that's a British Joke.)
Frankly, I don't think the appointment of either gentleman is going to benefit the rest of the world.
And I happen to live in the rest of the world.
(Sorry again, America, but until one of your leaders has it completely wiped out, it does exist.)
The cat Shadow has found an unchallenged armchair in the dining room where, free from the inconvenience of casual visitors and slightly suspect small admirers, he can sleep the day away. As a consequence our recent conversations have been limited.
Today, however, he did open one eye as I headed for the stairs.
"I'm going to do some blogging and I know I'm late again," I said defensively.
"You should do it daily instead of your computer diary, mate," he muttered, and sensibly went back to sleep.
Perhaps he's right.
I have thought about it.
Of course I have.
But mine is not a celebrity diary.
Mine could never boast throwaway lines like: Met Maggie Smith in Tesco today and we talked about... or...I thought Albert Schweitzer would be impressive and when I came across him in 1953 I was not disappointed...
No, my diary is more your: Went down to Somerfield in a drizzle...shouted a hallo to that nice little bloke Oz in the chip shop as I went by...and...One of those lovely women from the card shop asked Ellis: "Is Granddad looking after you well today, then?" and was haughtily put right with: "He's not Granddad, he's Boo."
Which reminds one that, even in the kindest way, a three year old should never be patronised...
Anyway, nobody would want too much of that.
I seldom look back in my diary and nobody else is encouraged to read it.
So why do I bother?
Dunno.
But sitting on a park bench doing nothing would bore me daft.
Even on a beautiful day like today.
Today the sun is shining, the temperature is mild, pretty girls wearing short-sleeved tops and skimpy shorts are strolling past the house.
It's marvellous.
So bugger worrying about global warming.
That's a diary entry worth making on Sunday 12th October, 2008.
I may read it again and again.
BOOKS.
Clarissa Dickson Wright's autobiography Spilling The Beans was a jolly good read.
There was quite a lot with which I did not agree and plenty that did not agree with me: but equally there was much to admire.
There is certainly more to her than an English upper crust tendency to pronounce out and about as eight and abate.
She comes across as a good friend.
My late father would have described her as a big party with a big heart.
I have read again Lee Harper's American classic To Kill A Mocking Bird.
For an English child of the nineteen thirties, this wonderful depiction of life in the Deep South at that time - sensitively portrayed through the eyes of the little girl Scout Finch - is a fascinating, moving and at times hilarious insight into life in another world.
Loved it first time out. Still do.
I finally came to the end of The Silent World Of Nicholas Quinn by Colin Dexter.
Saw the television adaptation again, too. Very good.
All the Morse stories converted well to film, though.
It is my problem that I preferred the films to the books.
Anyway, all I have left to finish now is Untold Stories by Alan Bennett.
My Leader will kill me if I don't finish it soon.
Turns out she has been patiently waiting to read it. No of course I didn't know.
She's the mind reading one in our marriage: I'm the one who is surprised by nothing.
TELE.
ITV1 recently screened The Island, a 2005 film starring Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johanssen and Sean Bean, a futuristic fantasy.
It was somewhat Soylent Green in concept, with the added attraction of wonderful action scenes. We enjoyed every minute of it.
Have been watching The Lord of the Rings on C4. Glorious locations in New Zealand, excellent casting which included Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, and a splendid array of fellow stars.
Immaculately directed by Peter Jackson, this is a trilogy to be savoured over and over again.
I shall do just that.
I have the DVDs.
What? No, you can't borrow them. Buy your own.
My leader and I enjoyed Lost in Austen, a brand new slant on the classic Pride and Prejudice. Amanda Price (Jemima Rooper) was transported (via a magical door in her bathroom) into the novel to transform it in a way that really must have had Jane Austen spinning in her grave.
It was beaurifully acted tosh and great fun.
When it comes to tosh, we are also enjoying the new series Merlin on BBC1.
This Saturday night warm up for Strictly Come Dancing so rewrites Arthurian legend as to make Merlin roughly the same teen age as Arthur.
Never mind, it has Richard Wilson, Anthony Head, the Voice of the Dragon provided byJohn Hurt and a pleasant couple of youngsters in the leading roles.
Everybody seems to be having a good time and all it lacks is Sgt. Joe Friday coming in at the end to say: "The story you have just been told is a rewritten legend - only the names have not been changed..."
Another short series of Agatha Christie's Poirot has been running on ITV1.
All right I suppose, but I think he should by now be doing something about the mysterious disappearance of Captain Hastings, Miss Lemon and dear old Inspector Japp.
When all's said and done, these people were his closest television companions.
If he has not yet missed them what sort of a bloody sleuth is he?
By contrast, Patrick Harbinson's adaptation of Val McDermid's Place of Execution cleared up a few questions.
For example, what really did happen to Stan Shunpike (Lee Ingleby) after he was pulled off his bus conductor job in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and unfairly imprisoned?
Well, it seems that, at Harry's insistence, he was released to re-invent himself as DS John Bacchus, assistant to George Gently.
That worthy kindly saved him from further ignominy and he moved up the police ladder to reappear in Place of Execution as DI George Bennett whose older self, ex Chief Constable Old George Bennett, is also (wake up, Poirot!) former Chief Inspector James Japp (Philip Jackson).
Don't you just love the complexities of cop show casting?
Whatever, this was a darned good mystery yarn perfectly acted and directed.
Last Thursday that amiable and commendably outspoken little chap Ian Hislop presented a documentary on BBC4 about the demise of British railways.
Ian Hislop Goes Off The Rails told how, in the early sixties, the benighted Richard Beeching, installed by the manipulative Ernest Marples, closed so many so-called 'unprofitable' branch railway lines that the rail network was virtually halved.
Motorways were then constructed to be quickly transformed into clogged up miles of unattended cones.
Gawd bless far-sighted government.
WRITERS.
ITV3 had a corker of an idea for rehashing old programmes with its Crime Thriller 2008 competition.
The awards ceremony was shown on Monday 6th October.
The writers who somehow came to be in contention were Colin Dexter, P.D.James, Lynda LaPlante, Val McDermid, Ian Rankin and Ruth Rendell.
Nothing wrong with that.
The eventual winner was Colin Dexter, however, and I felt there was something vaguely wrong with that.
In my computer diary I wondered why none of the (decidedly more compelling) top women writers had been chosen and added:- When the result was announced, Ruth Rendell and Val McDermid exchanged "would you fucking credit it?" looks that said it all. I think dear old P.D.James probably felt it less, but she had been suitably compensated with one of those "all time great" sops that showbiz dishes out to anybody old enough to be considered suitable for sainthood.
Oh, the programme was presented by Alan Davies and he did an excellent job.
N.B. More Jonathan Creek, please, David Renwick.
AND LASTLY, POLITICS.
Well. as my friends will appreciate, nothing comes more lastly to me than politics.
Together with all the other aliens, however, I am finding it quite impossible to ignore the final lap of the race to become President of America.
Why, I find myself asking, despite constant exhortation, should I barrack Obama? I don't even know the man.
As for this fellow McCain; the oven chips, if they are his, are OK, but they are no more impressive than those of Aunt Bessie.
(Sorry America, I think that's a British Joke.)
Frankly, I don't think the appointment of either gentleman is going to benefit the rest of the world.
And I happen to live in the rest of the world.
(Sorry again, America, but until one of your leaders has it completely wiped out, it does exist.)
Thursday, September 04, 2008
110. CSI: Isle of Wight
And now, for a bit more fun, CSI IW Series 2, preceded by a leaf taken from the tele people:-
(Revised Repeat) CSI: IW Series 1
(A tense change from the original)
Executive Producer: Dennis Barnden
Director; Jessica White.
Episode 1/1: - Crushem Gets The Needle.
Will Crushem and his Isle of Wight CSI team were investigating a messy murder in a seaside apartment which contained a corpse, ample lighting and an in-credit electricity account.
They searched for clues by torchlight.
The victim was a young woman. Her clothing was in disarray and from the lapel of her dishevelled jacket Crushem recovered the pointed half of a needle which he dropped into a plastic bag.
Crushem's GFA (Glamorous Female Assistant) spotted a pink crumb on the four hundred square feet of bloodstained carpet: she recovered the crumb with tweezers and it, too, went into a plastic bag.
Crushem's GMA (Glamorous Male Assistant) watched her admiringly. He was in love with her, but wisely refrained from telling her so on the grounds that same-job relationships were a mistake. He knew, too, that telling her would quite certainly result in her being dead before the series ended.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Looks like pink shortbread," she replied.
"Crumbs!" he exclaimed.
"Well...one, anyway," said Crushem.
(Cue theme song - The Who's newly adapted: Blimey O'Reilly, Who Are You Foolin' Again?)
In her laboratory, Crushem's KFG (Kookie Forensic Genius) quickly reached a startling conclusion: this was not blood- soaked ordinary shortbread, this really was pink shortbread. It was only marketed a fortnight ago and was sold in just one shop.
To date a mere two people had bought it (we were told by the KFG's male colleague who was in love with her) and one of them had been sent to prison a week ago.
So the other was either the victim or the perpetrator...
What fun.
In the path lab Crushem's EDC&F (Eccentric Doctor Colleague and Friend) found no trace of shortbread in or on the vic.
What he did find was a strand of hay in the vic's shoe and the hay (according to the KFG) was particular to one farm in the West Wight.
So now we knew. The perp, not the vic, had bought the shortbread.
Furthermore, the KFG's besotted colleague told us, the perp was known to the shopkeeper who sold said shortbread. The perp was (surprise, surprise) a farmer in the West Wight.
The Team moved in.
They cornered the farmer in his hay barn in broad daylight. They were wearing body armour and helmets with lighted torches affixed to them. They had pistols at the ready.
"She shouldn't 'ave turned me and me shortbread down," he shouted, brandishing a shotgun in their direction. "Cost me a ...king fortune that shortbread did. An' then, when I ate the lot in front of 'er, she called me a greedy pig! Shouldn'ta said that, not when I was carryin' me brand new riphook...I mean, ain't that askin' for trouble?"
So saying he aimed his shotgun at the GMA, fired and (despite the fact that he unfailingly killed game on the run and birds on the wing with a single shot) missed.
There was a hail of return gunfire and he landed lifeless in the hay.
(CU bullets tearing through specially prepared carcass from local butcher's shop.)
Crushem reached him first and plucked the other half of the needle found in the vic's lapel from the sleeve of his tweed jacket.
"Looks like you just found a needle in a haystack, C," said the GFA.
"Half of one, anyway," said Crushem.
(A disclaimer regarding events, characters and any degree of realism was shown. Notice was given that any likeness to any living person should result in that person seeking immediate psychiatric help.)
(New Series)
CSI: IW Series 2
Executive Producer: Dennis Barnden
Director: Jessica White
Characters:
'C'......Will Crushem
Glamorous Female Assistant......Karensa Darling
Glamorous Male Assistant.....Chuck Aspanarin
Eccentric Doctor Colleague & Friend......Rhys K. B. Haver
EDC&Fs Assistant..... Ernest Youngman
Kookie Forensic Genius......Mada Zanatter
KFGs Colleague......Phil D. Fluter
Head Marquise Agent WICIS......Win Bienimenes
HMAs Deputy......Wendi Times-Wright
Corpse......O. Lee Moses
Shady Brother 1......Ed Down
Shady Brother 2......Bern Down
Episode 1/2 :- The Ultimate Sting.
In the early hours a drunk lurches along the esplanade of a small seaside resort.
(CU this proves to be a non-speaking male extra who will spend the next twenty years replaying a cherished video recording of the scene to any of his family who will still watch it.)
His attention is attracted by a lone figure on the beach.
He staggers onto the sand to investigate.
(Zoom to outline of naked male figure doing a perfect headstand but with the head entirely buried in the sand.)
The drunk reels back to the esplanade...
(fade out...)
Crime scene tapes are in place and Will Crushem's team is at work on the beach.
Though the area is floodlit they are working by torchlight.
The corpse has been draped with a sheet bearing the CSI logo to protect its modesty and forestall complaints from any dinosaur left over from the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association.
Crushem's Glamorous Female Assistant, Karensa, is collecting samples of water and sand in vials.
Crushem's Glamorous Male Assistant, Chuck, is holding a camera with which he has photographed the corpse from every conceivable angle and his glamorous colleague from likewise because he is covertly in love with her.
(She is wearing a suit by Karen Millen and shoes thought to have been purloined from Imelda Marcos but actually discarded by Imelda Staunton.)
Crushem walks to the water's edge: stares moodily out to sea: casually adjusts his double bridge metal aviator sunglasses by Marc Jacobs and says: "There's something too ritualistic about this setup. A vic frozen solid and apparently covered in bee stings. Placed here with his head in the sand. Somebody's trying to tell us something..."
(Cue theme song - The Who's newly adapted: Blimey O'Reilly Who Are You Foolin' Again)
"I think somebody's trying to tell us something, Will," says Crushem's EDC&F (Eccentric Doctor Colleague and Friend) later.
"Any idea what, Doc?" asks Crushem.
"Something to do with the Ostrich Syndrome? Who knows."
The supine corpse is on a table in the path lab.
Nearby, the EDC&F's likeable young assistant, Ernie, has prepared it for autopsy.
He is holding a visiting card.
He says: "Either the vic hid this or the perp has a macabre sense of humour."
Doc takes the card and reads aloud: "O. Lee Moses."
He stares at Ernie."I hardly dare ask, but where...?"
"It wasn't in his mouth."
"Thank God for plastic gloves, eh Ern?" says Crushem.
"You think there may be fingerprints on the card, Will?" says Doc.
"That too, Doc," replies Crushem wryly. "Stick it in a bag and get it over to Forensic, Ern. Be interesting to see if whoever disliked the poor guy this badly left any prints behind - for want of a better way of putting it."
"I've never seen so many lumps on a cadaver, C," says the assistant. "What a helluva way to be despatched."
"Bee venom may have medicinal properties," says Doc. "But moderation in everything is the byword."
"Investigating the ultimate sting are we?" says a voice from the doorway.
A tall, slim, attractive woman in a tweed suit and Philip Treacy hat is standing there. Unsurprised (nobody is ever surprised when an uninvited outsider gains casual access to a CSI establishment) the men turn to face her.
Crushem eyes her carefully. "Hallo Win," he says, "what's Wickeds got to do with this?"
Win Bienimenes is HMA (Head Marquise Agent) of the Women's Institute Criminal Investigative Service (WICIS) popularly known as Wickeds, a law enforcement agency founded to deal with crimes involving persons and property associated with the National Federation of Women's Institutes or anything faintly connected with Jam and Jerusalem.
She strolls across, eyes the corpse, sighs: "Poor old O. Lee. One of ours. Good undercover operator. Everybody liked him."
"Except the person responsible for this, presumably," remarks Doc.
"Ah...and that will be somebody who knew he had an acute allergy to bee stings," says the HMA.
"Anaphylaxis!" exclaims Doc. "Of course! But to deliberately cause a death by anaphylactic reaction to insect stings is positively Machiavellian. Who would do something like that?
"Somebody devilish enough to then freeze the body for display?" suggests Ernie.
"Exactly, Ernest. Get that card over to Forensic right away," mutters Doc peevishly.
"We must go, too," says Crushem. "I think you and I had better have a chat in my office, Win."
They leave, passing through the Administration Department on their way to Crushem's office. Chuck and Karensa are busy at their respective desks.
Chuck gazes after them.
"Who is that woman who looks like Meryl Streep?" he whispers.
Karensa shrugs: "Glenn Close?"
(Flash stock shots from films featuring both named actresses)
What larks.
Crushem and the HMA are seated in the former's sparsely furnished and seldom used office. "Now, Win, you obviously know more than I do, tell me what we've got here," Crushem says.
"What we've got is the murder of WI Agent O. Lee Moses," she replies.
"Yes, but any idea who by or why?"
She eyes him speculatively: "Shouldn't that be by whom? Anyway, he has just negotiated a bulk purchase of jam for us. All quite mundane so far as I know"
"Bulk purchase? But surely WI members make their own jam?"
"Traditionally yes, but since the government decided we should strictly adhere to EU regulations it has become almost impossible to present home-made produce for public sale without risking prohibitive penalties under Health and Safety."
"So you're doing away with members' own jams and switching to mass-produced stuff?"
"On a trial basis we're going to supply to the Institutes, yes. Me, I'd be quite happy if WI Enterprises only sold things like President's Brooches..." she indicates the neat silver brooch in her lapel..."and local Women's Institutes continued to do just what they have always done. But the Powers That Be are concerned at the vulnerability of local enterprises now and are looking for ways to nullify the risk."
"Looking for ways to be very unpopular I would have thought. Is this jam to be ready bottled?"
"Yes, everything except the labels. Each institute would add its own labels."
Crushem shakes his head in bewilderment.
"So how has all this brought about your man's death? And how come this man is in the WI anyway?"
"The Powers That Be again.They recommended I recruit him for overseas dealings on the WI's behalf. He was perfect. He'd travelled extensively, had national and international contacts and spoke a dozen languages including Kurdish and Arabic. He was an instant success with the girls, particularly with my deputy Wendi Times-Wright. They quickly became something of an item. "
The intercom buzzes and the voice of Crushem's Kookie Forensic Genius can be heard calling a hallo.
He says: "What have you got, Mada?"
"All is not well, Crushem," she replies. "Doc found a smidgin of raspberry jam under the deceased's finger nails and sent it over for testing. He thinks poison."
"I'll be right with you."
"I shall have to go and tell Wendi all this," says the HMA sadly."You'll keep me in touch,Will?"
"Of course," nods Crushem.
Episode 2/2
"Have we any notion what poison?" Crushem asks Mada in the Forensic Laboratory,
"Definitely one of the deadliest," she says.
"So we're talking Ricin...Tetrodotoxin...Compound 1080 or suchlike..."
"Any of them, yes: or Botulinum or Thallium," she adds.
"And that pair would leave the victim either wrinkle free and dead or bald and dead," says her male colleague. "I expect most of the ladies would prefer the wrinkle free Botulinum."
Crushem eyes him narrowly and he quickly returns to work.
"We have an interesting analysis on the body ice, though" says Mada quickly. "It is made with spring water from a spring on Vectice Company land and used solely by them."
"I know of them," says Crushem."Factory up by Beacon Alley."
"The Vectice Company!" he shouts as he re-enters the Administration Department. "Details if you please."
"Run by the Down brothers, Ed and Bern," proffers Chuck. "Ice Cubes for the Discerning Cocktail Drinker."
"They have a house on the plot alongside the factory," adds Karensa."And an apiary."
Crushem's cellphone rings with the opening bars of Who Are You by Pete Townshend.
Win Bienimenes is on the line: "Bit of a problem. I passed on the news about O.Lee to Wendi Times-Wright. She showed little reaction until I mentioned the calling card. Then she swore and went to her office. I thought she just wanted to be on her own. But she and her car have gone missing now; and she's armed, Will."
"Well first we have a priority to deal with here," advises Crushem. "Have you any knowledge of the Vectice Company?"
"Shady couple of brothers somewhere out Beacon Alley way."
"That's them. We're just off to pay them a visit. I'll be in touch."
Crushem flips shut the phone, grabs a loaded FN Five-seveN Tactical pistol from an unlocked drawer, shouts: "Let's be off, people!" and marches out through the unlocked main door.
(Show shots of Wightlink Ferry, Vectis Buses, Round the Island Yacht Race, The Who performing at Isle of Wight Festival and Power Boats at full speed: none of it will advance the plot but it's better than another old-fashioned fade-out.)
The team enters Vectice factory cautiously, dodges from area to area shouting "Clear!" and is finally brought to a halt by a tall swarthy man holding a pistol to the head of an attractive young woman.
"I think this is stalemate," he shouts. "Put down your weapons and we'll negotiate."
"We don't put down our weapons," Crushem says clearly, "I'm Will Crushem of CSI. I can negotiate. Which of the Down brothers are you?"
"Stuff the niceties," snarls the man. "Put down your weapons or she dies!"
Without appearing to aim, Crushem shoots him between the eyes.
The young woman gives a muffled cry and collapses.
Ahead and above them there is an office fronted by a wooden balcony and reached by a flight of stairs to one side.
In an instant a second man appears. He is holding a Uzi submachine gun with intent to use.
There is a single shot from behind the team: the man gets off a reflex burst into the roof and his inanimate body smashes through a solid wooden rail that has stood the assorted weight of leaning figures for over thirty years.
The team is momentarily paralysed.
Through the door behind them appears the slender figure of Win Bienimenes. She is holstering a Browning Hi-Power Mark III and looking grimly satisfied.
"Two down one to go," she says enigmatically. "I used the master keys and opened O. Lee's desk. Looks like he was a Women's Institute National Intelligence agent who identified this terrorist cell on the Island and reported it to his bosses at NFWI Headquarters in London.
A think tank at the NFWI's Denman College then devised a plan to smoke 'em out, starting with arranging for him to be recruited by me."
Crushem is clearly surprised: "Without letting you in on it, Win?"
"You know Intelligence people, old friend; trust nobody, needs-to-know basis and all that. And, quite apart from the possibility that I - or somebody else in WICIS - could be a traitor, obviously the less people who knew of their master plan the better."
"The jam plan!" exclaims Karensa.
"Bright one you have there," says Win to Crushem. "I could do with her in my lot."
"Bit of a gamble though?" hazards Crushem, "I mean, how was your man supposed to persuade a terrorist group to seriously contemplate, let alone undertake, the mass poisoning of Britain's finest females?"
"I've no idea, but he did it. I imagine he posed as an al-Qa'ida terrorist with an implaccable hatred for Middle England. 'All those toffee-nosed bitches. The whole lot ought to be poisoned.' Y'know, the sort of thing that appeals to extremists. Then he simply arranged for them to get the contract to transport the jam in their refrigerated lorries and left obtaining the poison and the introduction of it to them and their misbegotten friends. Something like that, anyway."
Crushem's cellphone rings.
His conversation with the caller is brief.
"That was Mada," he says. "Jam under your man's fingernails contained Compound 1080. Originally an animal poison. Odourless, tasteless, water soluble, without antidote. Quick but painful death."
"What about the calling card?" queries Win. "Anything on that?"
"Only a part print on one edge, but they were able to match it."
"Praise be for criminal records."
"Or in this case, praise be for staff records."
"How careless of you to leave a print, Wendi," says Win casually to the attractive young woman who, unnoticed, has regained her feet and picked up the Uzi.
"Standing that poor young man upside down with his head in the sand was a senseless, spiteful act. So was the contemptuous gesture with the calling card. What was it all supposed to signify exactly?"
"You've all got your heads in the sand!" the young woman sneers."That arrogant little poser was typical of the lot of you!"
"He spoke so highly of you, too," Win taunts gently.
"He wasn't speaking when we stripped him and threw him on the beehive," retorts Wendi. "Poor young man indeed. You should have heard him scream. I couldn't help laughing."
"You're sick, girl," says Win. "Now put the weapon down on the floor and let's have an end to it."
"I don't answer to you anymore, you old crow!" Wendi shrieks wildly and levels the submachine gun.
Karensa and Chuck, firing in unison, shoot her dead.
Crushem walks carefully to the body, kicks the Uzi away, says: "What a waste. What a shame."
"Yes," agrees Win. "Poor little Wendi. So ambitious. Never happy as just my deputy."
"You knew instantly that she was the mole," says Karensa. "How?"
"Other than me she was the only one who knew about Lee's allergy to bee stings."
"Helpful that she gave herself away with that fingerprint though," says Chuck. "Confirmed it for you."
"There wasn't any print," says Crushem. "I invented it. Seemed like a good idea at the time."
"And you didn't say which staff member it was, either, you sly old dog. Did you think it might be me?" asks an amused Win.
Crushem puts on his sunglasses.
"No way, Win. I leave that sort of thinking to your National Intelligence people," he says gruffly.
Karensa and Chuck depart the scene in an unmarked CSI van.
"You were pretty quick back there," he observes. "Almost as quick as me."
"Marginally quicker I'd say," retorts Karensa. "All the talking had me fed up and I thought you might pull back from despatching a pretty girl."
"What?" he says, "Pull back? Me? After she'd shouted you old crow at Meryl Streep?"
"Glenn Close."
"Whoever."
(Show apologies to Messrs. Anthony E. Zuiker and Jerry Bruckheimer, Mesdames Meryl Streep and Glenn Close, The Who and everybody even remotely connected with the CSI franchise.)
(Revised Repeat) CSI: IW Series 1
(A tense change from the original)
Executive Producer: Dennis Barnden
Director; Jessica White.
Episode 1/1: - Crushem Gets The Needle.
Will Crushem and his Isle of Wight CSI team were investigating a messy murder in a seaside apartment which contained a corpse, ample lighting and an in-credit electricity account.
They searched for clues by torchlight.
The victim was a young woman. Her clothing was in disarray and from the lapel of her dishevelled jacket Crushem recovered the pointed half of a needle which he dropped into a plastic bag.
Crushem's GFA (Glamorous Female Assistant) spotted a pink crumb on the four hundred square feet of bloodstained carpet: she recovered the crumb with tweezers and it, too, went into a plastic bag.
Crushem's GMA (Glamorous Male Assistant) watched her admiringly. He was in love with her, but wisely refrained from telling her so on the grounds that same-job relationships were a mistake. He knew, too, that telling her would quite certainly result in her being dead before the series ended.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Looks like pink shortbread," she replied.
"Crumbs!" he exclaimed.
"Well...one, anyway," said Crushem.
(Cue theme song - The Who's newly adapted: Blimey O'Reilly, Who Are You Foolin' Again?)
In her laboratory, Crushem's KFG (Kookie Forensic Genius) quickly reached a startling conclusion: this was not blood- soaked ordinary shortbread, this really was pink shortbread. It was only marketed a fortnight ago and was sold in just one shop.
To date a mere two people had bought it (we were told by the KFG's male colleague who was in love with her) and one of them had been sent to prison a week ago.
So the other was either the victim or the perpetrator...
What fun.
In the path lab Crushem's EDC&F (Eccentric Doctor Colleague and Friend) found no trace of shortbread in or on the vic.
What he did find was a strand of hay in the vic's shoe and the hay (according to the KFG) was particular to one farm in the West Wight.
So now we knew. The perp, not the vic, had bought the shortbread.
Furthermore, the KFG's besotted colleague told us, the perp was known to the shopkeeper who sold said shortbread. The perp was (surprise, surprise) a farmer in the West Wight.
The Team moved in.
They cornered the farmer in his hay barn in broad daylight. They were wearing body armour and helmets with lighted torches affixed to them. They had pistols at the ready.
"She shouldn't 'ave turned me and me shortbread down," he shouted, brandishing a shotgun in their direction. "Cost me a ...king fortune that shortbread did. An' then, when I ate the lot in front of 'er, she called me a greedy pig! Shouldn'ta said that, not when I was carryin' me brand new riphook...I mean, ain't that askin' for trouble?"
So saying he aimed his shotgun at the GMA, fired and (despite the fact that he unfailingly killed game on the run and birds on the wing with a single shot) missed.
There was a hail of return gunfire and he landed lifeless in the hay.
(CU bullets tearing through specially prepared carcass from local butcher's shop.)
Crushem reached him first and plucked the other half of the needle found in the vic's lapel from the sleeve of his tweed jacket.
"Looks like you just found a needle in a haystack, C," said the GFA.
"Half of one, anyway," said Crushem.
(A disclaimer regarding events, characters and any degree of realism was shown. Notice was given that any likeness to any living person should result in that person seeking immediate psychiatric help.)
(New Series)
CSI: IW Series 2
Executive Producer: Dennis Barnden
Director: Jessica White
Characters:
'C'......Will Crushem
Glamorous Female Assistant......Karensa Darling
Glamorous Male Assistant.....Chuck Aspanarin
Eccentric Doctor Colleague & Friend......Rhys K. B. Haver
EDC&Fs Assistant..... Ernest Youngman
Kookie Forensic Genius......Mada Zanatter
KFGs Colleague......Phil D. Fluter
Head Marquise Agent WICIS......Win Bienimenes
HMAs Deputy......Wendi Times-Wright
Corpse......O. Lee Moses
Shady Brother 1......Ed Down
Shady Brother 2......Bern Down
Episode 1/2 :- The Ultimate Sting.
In the early hours a drunk lurches along the esplanade of a small seaside resort.
(CU this proves to be a non-speaking male extra who will spend the next twenty years replaying a cherished video recording of the scene to any of his family who will still watch it.)
His attention is attracted by a lone figure on the beach.
He staggers onto the sand to investigate.
(Zoom to outline of naked male figure doing a perfect headstand but with the head entirely buried in the sand.)
The drunk reels back to the esplanade...
(fade out...)
Crime scene tapes are in place and Will Crushem's team is at work on the beach.
Though the area is floodlit they are working by torchlight.
The corpse has been draped with a sheet bearing the CSI logo to protect its modesty and forestall complaints from any dinosaur left over from the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association.
Crushem's Glamorous Female Assistant, Karensa, is collecting samples of water and sand in vials.
Crushem's Glamorous Male Assistant, Chuck, is holding a camera with which he has photographed the corpse from every conceivable angle and his glamorous colleague from likewise because he is covertly in love with her.
(She is wearing a suit by Karen Millen and shoes thought to have been purloined from Imelda Marcos but actually discarded by Imelda Staunton.)
Crushem walks to the water's edge: stares moodily out to sea: casually adjusts his double bridge metal aviator sunglasses by Marc Jacobs and says: "There's something too ritualistic about this setup. A vic frozen solid and apparently covered in bee stings. Placed here with his head in the sand. Somebody's trying to tell us something..."
(Cue theme song - The Who's newly adapted: Blimey O'Reilly Who Are You Foolin' Again)
"I think somebody's trying to tell us something, Will," says Crushem's EDC&F (Eccentric Doctor Colleague and Friend) later.
"Any idea what, Doc?" asks Crushem.
"Something to do with the Ostrich Syndrome? Who knows."
The supine corpse is on a table in the path lab.
Nearby, the EDC&F's likeable young assistant, Ernie, has prepared it for autopsy.
He is holding a visiting card.
He says: "Either the vic hid this or the perp has a macabre sense of humour."
Doc takes the card and reads aloud: "O. Lee Moses."
He stares at Ernie."I hardly dare ask, but where...?"
"It wasn't in his mouth."
"Thank God for plastic gloves, eh Ern?" says Crushem.
"You think there may be fingerprints on the card, Will?" says Doc.
"That too, Doc," replies Crushem wryly. "Stick it in a bag and get it over to Forensic, Ern. Be interesting to see if whoever disliked the poor guy this badly left any prints behind - for want of a better way of putting it."
"I've never seen so many lumps on a cadaver, C," says the assistant. "What a helluva way to be despatched."
"Bee venom may have medicinal properties," says Doc. "But moderation in everything is the byword."
"Investigating the ultimate sting are we?" says a voice from the doorway.
A tall, slim, attractive woman in a tweed suit and Philip Treacy hat is standing there. Unsurprised (nobody is ever surprised when an uninvited outsider gains casual access to a CSI establishment) the men turn to face her.
Crushem eyes her carefully. "Hallo Win," he says, "what's Wickeds got to do with this?"
Win Bienimenes is HMA (Head Marquise Agent) of the Women's Institute Criminal Investigative Service (WICIS) popularly known as Wickeds, a law enforcement agency founded to deal with crimes involving persons and property associated with the National Federation of Women's Institutes or anything faintly connected with Jam and Jerusalem.
She strolls across, eyes the corpse, sighs: "Poor old O. Lee. One of ours. Good undercover operator. Everybody liked him."
"Except the person responsible for this, presumably," remarks Doc.
"Ah...and that will be somebody who knew he had an acute allergy to bee stings," says the HMA.
"Anaphylaxis!" exclaims Doc. "Of course! But to deliberately cause a death by anaphylactic reaction to insect stings is positively Machiavellian. Who would do something like that?
"Somebody devilish enough to then freeze the body for display?" suggests Ernie.
"Exactly, Ernest. Get that card over to Forensic right away," mutters Doc peevishly.
"We must go, too," says Crushem. "I think you and I had better have a chat in my office, Win."
They leave, passing through the Administration Department on their way to Crushem's office. Chuck and Karensa are busy at their respective desks.
Chuck gazes after them.
"Who is that woman who looks like Meryl Streep?" he whispers.
Karensa shrugs: "Glenn Close?"
(Flash stock shots from films featuring both named actresses)
What larks.
Crushem and the HMA are seated in the former's sparsely furnished and seldom used office. "Now, Win, you obviously know more than I do, tell me what we've got here," Crushem says.
"What we've got is the murder of WI Agent O. Lee Moses," she replies.
"Yes, but any idea who by or why?"
She eyes him speculatively: "Shouldn't that be by whom? Anyway, he has just negotiated a bulk purchase of jam for us. All quite mundane so far as I know"
"Bulk purchase? But surely WI members make their own jam?"
"Traditionally yes, but since the government decided we should strictly adhere to EU regulations it has become almost impossible to present home-made produce for public sale without risking prohibitive penalties under Health and Safety."
"So you're doing away with members' own jams and switching to mass-produced stuff?"
"On a trial basis we're going to supply to the Institutes, yes. Me, I'd be quite happy if WI Enterprises only sold things like President's Brooches..." she indicates the neat silver brooch in her lapel..."and local Women's Institutes continued to do just what they have always done. But the Powers That Be are concerned at the vulnerability of local enterprises now and are looking for ways to nullify the risk."
"Looking for ways to be very unpopular I would have thought. Is this jam to be ready bottled?"
"Yes, everything except the labels. Each institute would add its own labels."
Crushem shakes his head in bewilderment.
"So how has all this brought about your man's death? And how come this man is in the WI anyway?"
"The Powers That Be again.They recommended I recruit him for overseas dealings on the WI's behalf. He was perfect. He'd travelled extensively, had national and international contacts and spoke a dozen languages including Kurdish and Arabic. He was an instant success with the girls, particularly with my deputy Wendi Times-Wright. They quickly became something of an item. "
The intercom buzzes and the voice of Crushem's Kookie Forensic Genius can be heard calling a hallo.
He says: "What have you got, Mada?"
"All is not well, Crushem," she replies. "Doc found a smidgin of raspberry jam under the deceased's finger nails and sent it over for testing. He thinks poison."
"I'll be right with you."
"I shall have to go and tell Wendi all this," says the HMA sadly."You'll keep me in touch,Will?"
"Of course," nods Crushem.
Episode 2/2
"Have we any notion what poison?" Crushem asks Mada in the Forensic Laboratory,
"Definitely one of the deadliest," she says.
"So we're talking Ricin...Tetrodotoxin...Compound 1080 or suchlike..."
"Any of them, yes: or Botulinum or Thallium," she adds.
"And that pair would leave the victim either wrinkle free and dead or bald and dead," says her male colleague. "I expect most of the ladies would prefer the wrinkle free Botulinum."
Crushem eyes him narrowly and he quickly returns to work.
"We have an interesting analysis on the body ice, though" says Mada quickly. "It is made with spring water from a spring on Vectice Company land and used solely by them."
"I know of them," says Crushem."Factory up by Beacon Alley."
"The Vectice Company!" he shouts as he re-enters the Administration Department. "Details if you please."
"Run by the Down brothers, Ed and Bern," proffers Chuck. "Ice Cubes for the Discerning Cocktail Drinker."
"They have a house on the plot alongside the factory," adds Karensa."And an apiary."
Crushem's cellphone rings with the opening bars of Who Are You by Pete Townshend.
Win Bienimenes is on the line: "Bit of a problem. I passed on the news about O.Lee to Wendi Times-Wright. She showed little reaction until I mentioned the calling card. Then she swore and went to her office. I thought she just wanted to be on her own. But she and her car have gone missing now; and she's armed, Will."
"Well first we have a priority to deal with here," advises Crushem. "Have you any knowledge of the Vectice Company?"
"Shady couple of brothers somewhere out Beacon Alley way."
"That's them. We're just off to pay them a visit. I'll be in touch."
Crushem flips shut the phone, grabs a loaded FN Five-seveN Tactical pistol from an unlocked drawer, shouts: "Let's be off, people!" and marches out through the unlocked main door.
(Show shots of Wightlink Ferry, Vectis Buses, Round the Island Yacht Race, The Who performing at Isle of Wight Festival and Power Boats at full speed: none of it will advance the plot but it's better than another old-fashioned fade-out.)
The team enters Vectice factory cautiously, dodges from area to area shouting "Clear!" and is finally brought to a halt by a tall swarthy man holding a pistol to the head of an attractive young woman.
"I think this is stalemate," he shouts. "Put down your weapons and we'll negotiate."
"We don't put down our weapons," Crushem says clearly, "I'm Will Crushem of CSI. I can negotiate. Which of the Down brothers are you?"
"Stuff the niceties," snarls the man. "Put down your weapons or she dies!"
Without appearing to aim, Crushem shoots him between the eyes.
The young woman gives a muffled cry and collapses.
Ahead and above them there is an office fronted by a wooden balcony and reached by a flight of stairs to one side.
In an instant a second man appears. He is holding a Uzi submachine gun with intent to use.
There is a single shot from behind the team: the man gets off a reflex burst into the roof and his inanimate body smashes through a solid wooden rail that has stood the assorted weight of leaning figures for over thirty years.
The team is momentarily paralysed.
Through the door behind them appears the slender figure of Win Bienimenes. She is holstering a Browning Hi-Power Mark III and looking grimly satisfied.
"Two down one to go," she says enigmatically. "I used the master keys and opened O. Lee's desk. Looks like he was a Women's Institute National Intelligence agent who identified this terrorist cell on the Island and reported it to his bosses at NFWI Headquarters in London.
A think tank at the NFWI's Denman College then devised a plan to smoke 'em out, starting with arranging for him to be recruited by me."
Crushem is clearly surprised: "Without letting you in on it, Win?"
"You know Intelligence people, old friend; trust nobody, needs-to-know basis and all that. And, quite apart from the possibility that I - or somebody else in WICIS - could be a traitor, obviously the less people who knew of their master plan the better."
"The jam plan!" exclaims Karensa.
"Bright one you have there," says Win to Crushem. "I could do with her in my lot."
"Bit of a gamble though?" hazards Crushem, "I mean, how was your man supposed to persuade a terrorist group to seriously contemplate, let alone undertake, the mass poisoning of Britain's finest females?"
"I've no idea, but he did it. I imagine he posed as an al-Qa'ida terrorist with an implaccable hatred for Middle England. 'All those toffee-nosed bitches. The whole lot ought to be poisoned.' Y'know, the sort of thing that appeals to extremists. Then he simply arranged for them to get the contract to transport the jam in their refrigerated lorries and left obtaining the poison and the introduction of it to them and their misbegotten friends. Something like that, anyway."
Crushem's cellphone rings.
His conversation with the caller is brief.
"That was Mada," he says. "Jam under your man's fingernails contained Compound 1080. Originally an animal poison. Odourless, tasteless, water soluble, without antidote. Quick but painful death."
"What about the calling card?" queries Win. "Anything on that?"
"Only a part print on one edge, but they were able to match it."
"Praise be for criminal records."
"Or in this case, praise be for staff records."
"How careless of you to leave a print, Wendi," says Win casually to the attractive young woman who, unnoticed, has regained her feet and picked up the Uzi.
"Standing that poor young man upside down with his head in the sand was a senseless, spiteful act. So was the contemptuous gesture with the calling card. What was it all supposed to signify exactly?"
"You've all got your heads in the sand!" the young woman sneers."That arrogant little poser was typical of the lot of you!"
"He spoke so highly of you, too," Win taunts gently.
"He wasn't speaking when we stripped him and threw him on the beehive," retorts Wendi. "Poor young man indeed. You should have heard him scream. I couldn't help laughing."
"You're sick, girl," says Win. "Now put the weapon down on the floor and let's have an end to it."
"I don't answer to you anymore, you old crow!" Wendi shrieks wildly and levels the submachine gun.
Karensa and Chuck, firing in unison, shoot her dead.
Crushem walks carefully to the body, kicks the Uzi away, says: "What a waste. What a shame."
"Yes," agrees Win. "Poor little Wendi. So ambitious. Never happy as just my deputy."
"You knew instantly that she was the mole," says Karensa. "How?"
"Other than me she was the only one who knew about Lee's allergy to bee stings."
"Helpful that she gave herself away with that fingerprint though," says Chuck. "Confirmed it for you."
"There wasn't any print," says Crushem. "I invented it. Seemed like a good idea at the time."
"And you didn't say which staff member it was, either, you sly old dog. Did you think it might be me?" asks an amused Win.
Crushem puts on his sunglasses.
"No way, Win. I leave that sort of thinking to your National Intelligence people," he says gruffly.
Karensa and Chuck depart the scene in an unmarked CSI van.
"You were pretty quick back there," he observes. "Almost as quick as me."
"Marginally quicker I'd say," retorts Karensa. "All the talking had me fed up and I thought you might pull back from despatching a pretty girl."
"What?" he says, "Pull back? Me? After she'd shouted you old crow at Meryl Streep?"
"Glenn Close."
"Whoever."
(Show apologies to Messrs. Anthony E. Zuiker and Jerry Bruckheimer, Mesdames Meryl Streep and Glenn Close, The Who and everybody even remotely connected with the CSI franchise.)
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