Lewis, Vera and Silk

The fictional Detectives Lewis and Vera have in common that I did not immediate take to either series but now they have become part of my essential viewing. It was always going to be difficult for Kevin Whatley, the North East born and proud, actor, to take the lead role in the series which has brought John Thaw lasting fame and which reminds I must read and write about his life following the purchase of two biographies some time ago, including that by his life and that of his wife Sheila Hancock.

The follow on series where university Oxford University colleges and the riverscape have equal top billing reverses the roles  where Thaw was the bookish opera loving red jaguar car owning Oxford University educated detective inspector by giving the Northern actor a sergeant side kick who is Oxford educated and once would be clergyman. The interaction between the two men has developed well, especially as both are bachelors with the original wife of Lewis having been murdered in what was thought to have been a road traffic accident on a shopping trip to London.

I enjoy the interactions between the two men and the sights of the city, where I studied and lived in two spells totalling five years separated by the year at Birmingham University, more than the stories, where like the other John “Nettles” his Midsomer murders, are more about middle class village life than the endless trail of multiple killings.

The most recent episode of Lewis provided a clever plot where the script pointed to one of two men and not the culprit, a woman, and where the sights of Oxford delight the senses and reminds of a time when golden opportunities were all before me. The final lines are about two successful people who buried themselves in their work but end up alone, one dead also has meaning for Lewis and Hathaway as the latter draws attention.

The story begins with an event which only has a loose connection with everything that is to follow. The two men are at the perimeter keeping the media at a distance while a raid takes place on a cannabis growing operation of several acres worth several millions. The head of the plant manages to resist arrest but warned that he is attempting to break out Lewis and Hathaway use police vehicles to ram the getaway 4 by 4 and it is Hathaway who delivers the punch which leads to the arrest before the cameras after Lewis is hit and injured on his face. The two become local celebrities as a consequence and the subject of banter within the local force.

The significance of good publicity is soon placed against  the bad when a Professor of English who once wrote a  book about women not needing men, is found dead by one of her students after someone had posted the video  she in turn had posted on a dating site seeking a male partner. Surely she did not commit suicide because of this?

The facts suggests otherwise except to Lewis who is nor convinced and persuades his colleagues, senior and junior, as the events unfold, who did it as there are several suspects all of whom they discover were undergraduates together two decades before.

There are two principle suspects. She once dated a fellow student whose happiest moments was in a meadow adjacent to one of the colleges which he is now proposing to develop for housing in a deal with the college, who are hesitant about agreeing after a successful campaign against the project by Professor. It emerges that the reason the couple broke up was the outcome of a successful malicious campaign by another student who she had beat to become President of the union.  This individual now runs and Internet site which attacks individuals, releasing confidential information about their lives including home addresses and telephone numbers. He and his team are responsible for gaining access to the video and releasing it on the net.

One of the helpers is a bright young woman/student/former student who Hathaway takes a shine and asks her to help trying to find the link between the deceased, and the two men. The secret is that the man managing the site had put it out that the Professor was sleeping around, taking revenge on his defeat in the   ballot for President of the Union. This young girl is found brutally murdered and this confirms Lewis’s belief that the Professor was also murdered. The girl is the friend  of another young assistant with the site, who has a grudge against the Professor because she was unwilling to give him the kind of reference which would have got him a post graduate post at an Ivy League USA University after his graduation. The two young people with others have paid work recording the works of Shakespeare for the BBC.

A third suspect is a journalist who dated the Professor recently despite being married with children having responded to the Dating site advert and who had also known the other suspects and the Professor as an undergraduate. The police discover that he appears responsible for the over 20 messages left on the answering machine and subsequently wiped off with the recording cassette taken had destroyed.  He had done this after finding the body although it was his wife who had made the calls after finding out what her husband had been up to.

The culprit was none of these but the woman who runs the Dating agency and Internet site and who was a close friend of the property developer and who wanted him but knew it was not possible while the Professor lived. She had also killed the girl after she had worked out what had been happening and why. The episode remains coherent and satisfying.

In the first of the latest series, it is the botanical gardens close to Magdalene Bridge and from where there is pathway to Christchurch Meadow and the Isis and the Cherwell conjoin which is the star and which also has a complicated plot with blind alleys and red herrings.  I do not remember this episode now as clearly as I now should.

A botanist accidentally unearths the body of a recently buried professor who was fixated upon solving a Lewis Carroll riddle which has no significance except to pose the concept that some things cannot be explained. The main deviation from the central plot is in the believed existence of a secret Oxford Society for those of exceptional intellect and character. The programme reveals that the founder and sole member of the club is a Oxford Professor one of whose assistant/students died from a drug overdose, or so it appears and his death and the Professor is pursued by the boy’s mother who has turned her home into a shrine and police style Operations room in her determination to get to the truth. I cannot remember if the young man was a druggie or gambler or both with debts but he died after taking part in a private experiment to find an immediate cure for cancer

The head of the fake genius society would pursue possible members by sending them cards on which was printed statements such as “you have been noticed”, “you are under consideration”, and such like, to create a sense of being important. A student couple become obsessed with becoming members to the extent of claiming they saw something at one point relating to one of the deaths but create the likeness of Lewis and his sidekick Hathaway, such is their obsession with being different and drawing attention to themselves.

All roads lead to the home of the wealthy brother of the dead Professor and his wife where Lewis establishes that pictures are being sold allegedly to keep up with the costs of running the Hall.  When the truth unfolds it emerges that in fact £2 million pounds of paintings have been sold in order to fund the basement laboratory where the brother is trying to find an immediate cure for the cancer his terminally ill wife is suffering. The complication is that husband is having an affair with the Botanist head of the Gardens, in fact with the approval of the wife who does not want her husband to be alone when she dies. He had been using a poisonous plant from the Gardens for his experiments and on which he tested on the student volunteer. I think the brother was eliminated by the botanist because he worked out what had happened. In any event the two killers are taken into custody leaving the wife to die alone.  There is a good walk along the High from Carfax to Magdalene Bridge into the Botanical Gardens and Christchurch  Meadow and the gardens  next to the College and back to Carfax.

Vera can be considered a follow up to George Gentry, police detectives set in the North East of England.  Gentry  was in fact written by an East Anglian author who set  all his many books in the part of the country in which he grew up. Vera Stanhope is also a fictional character from a series written by Anne Cleeves and who appears to have written the books as set in the North East with a separate series set in the Shetlands which is also being made into a TV series by ITV although she grew up in the South West country.

Very is played by the double Oscar winning actress Brenda Belthyn who has never looked fully comfortable pretending to be born and bred in the North East, living in an isolated cottage on the Northumbrian coast once occupied by her father, a man she appears to have dislike primarily because he had an affair and as she discovers in the second series, with a woman who she meets and learns she bore him a daughter.

In the first of the four part two hour slot films  a respected senior social worker, Jenny Lister, is murdered by drowning while swimming in a reservoir a number of suspects emerge from one of social services past cases about an infamous case involving the death of a child drowning in a bath. The child's mother was jailed; a junior social worker was pilloried who lives with her daughter also in an isolated cottage on the coast and where Vera’s visit leads to the woman being outed in the local community. In a dramatic finale the pilloried social worker and her daughter are nearly killed by the murderer. I have failed to remember some of the key aspects of the story because of confusion with another story about a former social worker in a different Police detective series with the socially aristocratic Scotland Yard Inspector Linley.

In this case a woman social worker and wife of a clergyman had disappeared at the same time as a child had disappeared in the London where the woman then worked. The mystery is solved  after the duo investigate the murder of a kindly clergyman where his death was  initially thought to be  one of accidental poisoning after he had died  eating a mistaken fungus and  the hostess had survived after being violently sick. The chief suspect is the sixties with it young housekeeper of the clergyman although attention is also focussed on the daughter of the female hostess.  The complication is the policeman son of the local police detective who had an affair with the housekeeper before turning his attentions to the female hostess.

In this instance it emerges that the up and coming former City based clergyman had buried himself away in the countryside after his baby daughter had died in infancy and then his wife was thought to have committed suicide on a ferry trip to the continent. Her body was never found. By coincidence he had chosen or been appointed to a parish where he discovered his former wife was living under a new name with a daughter who is about the same age as their lost child. It emerges that the woman had faked her death before kidnapping the baby and bringing her up as her own. The story does not cover what happens to girl now a teenager when she discovers that she had a mother living in poverty in London with other children.

In the most recent case for Vera a shoe is found on a Tyne Bridge over a motorway link which is later connected to another shoe of a man found dead in a skip in Portsmouth.  It is later established that the man was attacked and thrown over the bridge or managed to get in the bridge rail and fell onto the roof of a passing transport en route to Portsmouth and a Continental bound Ferry and had been dumped in the skip by the driver determined not to delay his work assignment.

It is then discovered that the man in his early forties was living with his mother who did not report he was missing for three days. It transpires she had been away or a trip with a local doctor also to the continent from the North Tyneside based overnight Ferry service. It also emerges that the young man had developed an early drug habit and his mother had used her inheritance, re-mortgaging the property and establishing major debts to a drug supplier in order to maintain he son’s habit and where she also kept detailed of records of how much she spent and also in the periods when she had been successful in getting him to stop.

There is an involvement between the man and a young woman and also an elderly dying homosexual man with whom the young man had established a relationship and was intending to leave his mother to live with and who was also to inherit the man’s property. During the fist part of the story it is made to appear that the mother was responsible for the death of her son. The “who done it” is in fact the mother’s boyfriend, causing the unintentional death of the son from the best of intentions and also that of drug dealer is found dead on a beach. The woman owed the dealer money and had gone to Amsterdam as a courier for him.

I have also been watching the second series of Silk with Maxine Peake playing Defence Barrister Martha Costello and Rupert Perry Jones as Clive Reader fellow Barrister and Neil Stuke as the Chambers Senior Clerk Billy Lamb. The first series centres on he ambition of both barristers to become leading Counsels Q.C’s and the machinations of the senior clerk to get them “briefs” commission’s from solicitors to represent their clients. He deals with a solicitor who represents a well known villain and it is this relationship which concentrates the first episode of the new series. There are two defendants. The first the crime boss walks because there is a lack of evidence to continue to the hearing but the fall guy is a man of low intelligence and high dependency who did carrying out part of the instructions to destroy the five senses of the victim, going as far as blinding him but then calling an ambulance which saved the man’s life. Although as a consequence of a powerful speech, the client is found not guilty (diminished responsibility) despite a steer by the Judge to the jury to the contrary, he is then tortured and killed by crime boss.

In the second episode Martha is asked to defend an Army officer charged with being responsible for the death of a member of his team by disobeying orders not to leave their compound in Afghanistan. The man refuses to go into the witness box, to explain his actions or have a senior friend speak for him. A side story is the potential relationship between Martha and the friend who arranges the representation.

The story that emerges is a moving one in that the dead colleague was a trained sniped who had unintentionally shot a child used as a shield by the enemy at distance when they had been attacking the compound. They had attempted to save the child but the death had haunted both of them especially the man who shot the child and who became unstable and unreliable. Facing a similar situation he had agreed to the young man going out to investigate leading to his death rather carrying out the orders and putting all the team in jeopardy. He had not wanted to reveal the truth before the parents. While the officer is found guilty of disobeying orders and is penalised the chairman of the Tribunal expresses the wish that the man remains with the service and continues to display the courage he has previously shown on the field of action and in the court.

Sopranos Season 5 ends

Having watched the last four episodes of the penultimate season of the Sopranos I was pleased that I remembered the main outcomes. As the in past I commence with relationship between Tony and his wife Carmela, his son and daughter, his uncle and his cousins, Christopher and Tony B.

Tony continued to live at the home of his mother but appears to have established a regular and satisfy relationship with a young woman Valentina with the ability to cook and book keep. She catches her kimono on fire when cooking him some food after having sex. She is burned especially on one arm, losing her hair but not secondary degree and will fully recover in time without the need for skin grafts.

While she is in hospital Tony hires a stateroom with Butler in a top hotel overlooking Central Park. Although he spots Dr Melfi also staying there on a trip tot he city he keeps out of her way and everybody, During this time he has a young woman call to his room, has meals in his room and relaxes but the sense of being in a bubble away from the world in particular, without a woman and family is also highlighted. This I suspect is a frequent feeling of men alone away from their families, friends and regular work environments in hotel rooms all over the world; He makes a decision which is to change his life once more.

In Cold Cuts one of  the main subjects in anger, at first the anger of his sister Janice when she beats up the aggressive abusive mother of a child playing against  her step daughter in a football (British)game at school. She is arrested and charged and Tony insists she goes on an anger management course. It is the reaction of her husband which causes her to accept the course after the step daughter explains how embarrassed she is by what has happened and puts his foot down saying either she takes action or their relationship will end. She finds the group therapy sessions difficult at first but typical of Janice she appears to respond well after deciding it is good for her.  In the past she has thrown herself into everything and every one with disastrous consequences.

Tony beats up and sends into hospital an employee just for saying a word out of turn

Tony discusses the situation with Dr Melfi who points out his own similar tendencies suggesting they link back to their background and their mother. When Tony visits his sister and her new family for a meal he goads her about her son and his lack of contact with her. Previously he has reminded her of the temper which led to the death of her previous lover and which he had to sort out for her. He is successful in driving her into a rage thus demonstrating the shallowness of her conversion. It could also demonstrate the effectiveness of his own therapy in gaining him insight, at one level helping him to function more normally as a human being however it is also being used to help him become a more effective and powerful, murdering, terrorising and thieving maniac. The humour of the series sometimes creates the atmosphere in which the unthinking or casual viewer can like this monster of a human being.

In The Test Dream while is in the hotel Tony he calls the wife of his friend and restaurant owner Tony Bucco. He does not speak and the scene suggests he has done this before, phone and not make the next move. This can be interpreted as another indication of his insight that attempting to have a serious relationship with a woman other than his wife always ends disastrously. It is as this point he arrange the call girl, although it is also odd that he does this given the previous  availability of the Bada Bada girls and that such an organisation will also have a financial involvement in the whole range of sex industry interests without needing to use  a public offered service.

It is after having sex with girl (which is Tony’s instance always appears successful) that the rest of this episode takes the form of protracted series of dream sequences. It begins with meeting the dead Carmine Senior who dies of natural causes and who tells him how lonely he is on the other side missing being with his wife. This is what is at the root of Tony’s personal life predicament now that his mother is dead and having gone over and over with Dr Melfi his relationship with his mother and its impact on his relationship with other women, and the way he has treated his wife yet was able to sustain the relationship over two decades despite his continuous adultery.

His sense of having a family yet separated from it is then covered in a conversation between himself and his previous relationship with Gloria Trillo who plays the part of Dr Melfi and who confides that she dies too young to have children of her own. She asks if he is ready to do what he has to do.

He is in a car driven by his father and among those in the vehicle with him are several of those who we know he killed or had killed or was involved in their killing, Pussy Bonspiero, Ralph Cifaretto and Mikey Palmice.  When Tony asks where they are going he is told he is bring driven to his job, task in hand, and they pull into his home drive which open every episode and where at the beginning of each season he has gone out for the delivered newspaper, or driven over it.

Some sequences I did not understanding including one which involved Annette Benning playing a mother of someone his daughter (?) is dating at a restaurant dinner party. Throughout this episode and the previous Tony’s fascination with old films, particularly those involving  fictional   gangsters  is constantly brought to our attention as is the influence these films have on his behaviour. Small human beings, pathetic human beings, uneducated human being all trying to be what they are not and seeing slights when none are intends aspiring to be regarded as the  tough and powerful people being portrayed. It all reminds of those I encountered among the criminal classes in those six traumatic months in 1960.

In another sequence we learn perhaps what we already knew that Tony had a sexual relationship back in High school with Artie Bucco’s wife and then in a contemporary set sequence he is having passionate sex with her while Artie is close at hand coaching him. The coach aspect is also part of another dream when he goes to kill his former football (American) Molinaro who advises that he does not have to be a criminal with all the conflicts and the stress this involves. When he goes to kills the man the gun slips from him with the bullets falling out and then disintegrating when he attempts to put them back.

Tony phones his wife after waking with a start and tells her about his latest dream with the coach and she guesses correctly from previous experience that the advice given is that same as before. What would be interesting to know is if he had the dream and the advice before his session with Dr Melfi in which she has attempted to provide him with the insight that his life threatening panic attacks relate to the conflicts and stresses of his criminal activities and if he gives them up he can live a more normal life. “One cannot undo the past but one can learn to live with it in a positive and constructive way.”

In Long Term Parking Tony realises what he has been running away from. He needs Carmela and his home and calls her and they have dinner at the Nuovo Vesuvio. He promises to be faithful. Carmela who is the eternal optimist and would be devout Catholic is however realistic about the reality of this. She wants Tony to provide the funds to build a new home on some land she has acquired with a view to selling for profit. He agrees.  His live in at his mother’s house girlfriend is ready to leave hospital and Tony gores to the hospital to take her back to the house, saying that he will continue to meet all her private health bills and to provide for her, but he is not staying with her and returning to his wife. She is understandably devastated and angry at the development, especially as we know Tony had told others of his intention to settle with the woman who ticked all his boxes in and out bed.  When Tony arrives at the house with his luggage AJ his son greets him and asks where it should go indicating he has not been told his parents have got back together.

There has been little about the children during the latter part of the series season. Carmela is frustrated with AJ’s lack of application to get into a good college or about anything. Tony comments that Meadow has done well and takes after her mother, He observes that his son is taking after him. Carmela draws attention that he is her son as well. During the final episode All Due Respect A J organises a party for High School friends which is a success and makes a profit. Tony notes that his son is watching a film about a man who make a good living as an event planner and he and his wife comment that perhaps their son has find something which interests and can build a life on, especially when they find out he has been making inquiries about a college course which would for the basis for such a career.

The situation of his young cousin’s Christopher and his live in partner about to marry, Adriana, now reaches its climax. It will be recalled that she was blackmailed into spying on Christopher and his associates after being trapped through a drugs offence which would have given her a jail sentences of five years. The situation begins with the FBI viewing CCTV tapes of the rear of the road house club Christopher arranged for her to manage which features live bands. She places something in the dumpster and then changes her mind moving it into the boot of her car.

They bring her in for questioning over the finding of the stabbed body of someone who disappeared after visiting the club. Under instructions of Christopher and in order to ensure the club is a safe venue for members of the crew to meet and use her office area, drugs has to be sold out the venue although Adriana has a soft spot for the main seller.  It was odd that in the previous episode when she and Tony were on the verge of having an affair and needed drugs they needed to take a long drive which led to the accident rather than turn to this contact, albeit the situation occurred very late after the club had closed.

I digress, on the night in question, the drug dealer asked if she would make the exception and let him use the phone in her office and cell and packed up and she agreed. When going through the club he is spotted by someone with a genuine beef about the impact of the drug on young people and threatens with a knife. The man is killed and she helps in the cover up. The Feds now give her an ultimatum. She must bring Christopher to them or face a life sentence as an accessory to murder. When she tells Christopher the predicament his reaction is to beat her but after calming down he appears to agree to their going into the witness protection programme to give up Tony and his associates.

Just when she is ready and packed one of his associates arrives to say he has been involved in a suicide attempt and will drive her to him. As the journey progresses she senses what is to happen before turning off the min  road through the  forest which has been the subject of several previous episodes.  She is killed. We see Christopher later dispose of her case and leave in car in along term car park hence the title of the episode. He then goes into hiding. Later Tony talks to him in effort to satisfy that their position has not been compromised. Christopher appears OK about the killing of his woman and tells Carmela that they have broken up and she has left him. He also tells Tony of his disappointment that although he was convinced she loved him she was not prepared to take the initial jail sentence for him rather than spy on them.

Tony has become uncertain about Christopher and his crew became of him. The cause of this has been the simmering problems with the Carmine Crew and the feud between the Miami based Little Carmine with whom Tony has had a good close association and Johnny Sacks the former under boss who lives within Tony territory. Tony intervenes when he learns that a smuggled consignment of Vespas has been taken by Sacks when it should have been divided. Sacks denies the action and reminds that he still not convinced that Tony’s cousin, Tony B was not involved in the murder of Joey Peeps.

Tony decides to get his cousin out of the way by asking him to go and live with the elderly brother of his father to has lived in an upstate farm with his wife and there three bodies have been buried over the years, The farm has a new owner and the decision has been taken to move the bodies if their bones can be found. The uncle was a soldier in Uncle Junior’s crew who was allowed to be retired because of health problems.

On top of this outstanding problem and the murder of Johnny Peeps, his cousin Tony B has learned of the murder of one his former prison cell mates. We learn that the cell mate was gunned down by Phil and Billy Leotardo brothers and members of Johnny Sacks crew and where one of the brothers has just been brought into operations, In the following episode Christopher visits Tony when he is in Central Park overlooking hotel to report that Tony B has gone missing and is believed to be after the Leotardo brothers killing one and wounding the other. In part of the dream sequence of this episode, Tony is warned that he needs to have his cousin killed.

The death of the crew member results in Little Carmine deciding to withdraw from the battle with Johnny Sacks but to the dismay of Carmines associates. This leads to Tony having a formal sit-down with Sacks and the family of the dead crew member. They are not satisfied that Tony does not know the whereabouts of cousin. The suggestion is made that he should offer Christopher as the alternative and that unless he resolves the issue all out war will break out.

Tony arranges via a contact in the phone company to put a trace on the phone in the building where his cousin is camping out enjoying the services of calls girls. Tony visits and explains why he has protected his cousin over the year because of why he dropped out of the crime for which his cousin was sentenced. His cousin asks Tony to protect his two sons.

After an attack on a former driver of Tony which leaves the man badly injured in hospital and dissensions among his crew that he is sacrificing them for his cousin. Among these is Paulie who Tony visits for the first time since the problems when the man was released from prison. Tony sees the painting of the horse he had commissioned up on wall and not destroyed as he had ordered. Paulie tries to explain that he admired the way Tony looked in the painting as a commander and that the painting was valuable and of gallery standard. Tony takes in down and to a dumpster but before departing thinks further about what had been said to him about being a general.

Tony realises that the future of everyone is at stake. He visits and kills his cousin. He advises Sacks about the location of his cousin but on finding the man dead Phil Leotardo is upset at not being able to exact revenge and Sacks advises Tony that the death did not solve anything. He arranges a meet with Sacks at his home and offers to cut Leotardo into percentages of financial actions as compensation. Sacks invites  Tony in for coffee but Tony sees armed men approaching a makes a hasty retreat, getting wet and cold as he travels cross country in the  heavy snow wintry conditions. He arrives home and Carmela expresses concerns at his condition. We have seen Johnny Sachs being arrested by Fed agents.   Tony calls his lawyer to find out what has been happening and is pleasantly surprised to learn that one of Sacks men has been cooperating with the Feds of year and now been able to five up the whole crew. Tony is not mentioned in the indictment and the season ends with everything appearing to be going for him once more.

Montalbano.Sopranos, Spartacus Vngeance and Luck

Now for a television review commencing with the latest Montalbano. The latest episode shown on Easter Saturday April 7th proved to be the most thoughtful. The citizens of Vigata are in uproar because they invested heavily in a company offering 20% interest. The young man responsible came from Milan and had disappeared.

Montalbano becomes involved when one of the investors, an 80 year old, holds the secretary to the company at gun point. Montalbano pretends the conman has been captured and the money is safe to persuade the man to give himself up. There are no leads about what happened to the conman so Montalbano and his team concentrate on the three members of staff.

One young woman is a business graduate taking her final examinations. She lives at home with her parents where the father is deaf. She is something of a vamp tease and has been to bed with the Casanova Deputy who afterwards admitted that he was engaged to another. She has little information to give at first but later remembers little things which help Montalbano towards a solution.

The second assistant is a financial graduate and has also disappeared. He has a rented flat but is also having a beach house built close to where Montalbano lives. He is incensed when he discovers that in order to build the house a large old olive tree has been up rooted. It appears that the man arranged to travel to Germany but over time it is established that he did not do so. His scooter has disappeared along with the car used by the conman when in the city.

The third member of the staff is a very loyal secretary who is convinced the boss will return and explain why he is has been absent. She appears to be the key to unlocking the mystery.
There is only one clue which acting on advice of his number three Montalbano ignores. A crank who has previously seen flying saucers and other amazing phenomenon claims that he saw the vehicle of the missing conman near to where he lives late one night, the night before the young man was scheduled to fly to Germany.

During the episode his deputy Mimi, visits just when Montalbano is about to eat a late evening meal with wine. Mimi is having one of his doubts about getting married to Beba although the date has been arranged in less than a week and Montalbano is to be a witness with Livia travelling for the event. The deputy goes through all his doubts as well as positives, drinks lots of whisky and goes to sleep on Montalbano’s bed while he wakes up having gone to sleep on the couch without touching the meal. The wedding is postponed because the father of his fiancée has a heart attack.

The other story line is that the Judge has been looking at some of Montalbano’s old cases before he was appointed. He challenges the action taken over the orphan boy who he was to have adopted with Livia but then places with the sister of Mimi and the boy said he wanted to stay. So sadly the couple had agreed and the boy had been adopted by the sister and was now part of their family. The Judge also raises the issue of the deposit account which the mother had possessed and the boy inherited when he came of age. Fortunately Montalbano had not kept the pass book but had given it to the Notary for safe keeping and had the official receipt. This he sends to the Judge.

He also checks that the money was still safe and not invested with the conman. He visits the sister to explain about the money. The boy is thrilled to see him and shows him that he can ride on a pony given to him by his adopted father who he now refers to as father. He tells Montalbano that he has decided to become a policeman when he grows up.

This is the story of what happened to the two missing men. It emerges that the conman was gay and had a relationship with the assistant who helped him to move the investor’s money to various offshore accounts. The Assistant had been paid 350000 euros over a period for work on the beach house. When the man started to default on the interest which investors had expected and they started to demand the return of the money, the assistant had got into panic and demanded that the conman arrange for him to leave Sicily and Italy by a route which could not be traced. He had packed two suitcases and left his home cancelling the accommodation and paying in lieu of notice. It is only later that the landlady confirms that he also had with him a brief case and a lap top which he always carried around with him.

Montalbano visits the man who reported the car and finds that he is not the crank which others had said about him. The man takes him to the place where he saw the car and Montalbano takes a launch with his deputy and goes diving, locating the car and a body. It that of the missing assistant shot in the head. He works out that having arranged to meet the assistant he had then shot him and dumped the car and scooter over the cliff. But where was the conman? Why was there no trace of him?

Arising for work undertaken by his assistants, Montalbano goes to see a relative of the Secretary. He finds that she is the daughter of a wealthy family who was so shocked when the second of her parents died that she had not reported the death for several days unable to accept the reality of what happened. She was a teenager when this happened. Separate comments had been made about her inability to accept that her boss was a conman.

The woman is in such a state that she has an accident and accepts the invitation to be driven home where on arrival she insists on showing him the part of the large house in which she lives alone. In the guest bedroom he sees the decomposing body of the missing man. He arranges for a doctor to visit and gives the woman a sedative to keep her asleep for several hours. This provides the opportunity for the body to be removed.

Montalbano works out that the man had gone to her after shooting his assistant and his lover. He was a conman and not a murderer and had gone to pieces following the killing. Not wanting him to be exposed for what he was she had shot the man with the gun he had used on his assistant and then left the body oblivious that it was there or what she had done. Fortunately the lap top and papers in the brief case were retrieved and therefore the investors got most of their money back. Everything is OK but is Montalbano/ He spends time at the cliff top where the car entered the sea. We see nothing of Livia.

It is an interesting coincidence that the Italian mother of Tony Soprano was called Livia and his relationship with her and his father continues to dominate his life and becomes the focal point of the next three middle series towards ending of the penultimate season.

During the episode Camelot while attending a funeral he sees a woman sitting at the graveside of his father. It is the elderly former beauty who was his father’s mistress and who Tony met on one occasion. They become friends and visits learning about her life and her relationship with his father.

It is not all friendly. He becomes angry when she reveals that she continued to smoke during the last period of his father’s life when breathing was a problem. The aspect which upset him most is that as a boy he had a dog which his mother did not like and his father told him the animal had to be put down. At the apartment of the woman he sees a photo of the dog with her son. It is never made clear who the parent of the son was and the timescale is confusing because although she says the dog was with her son for 10 years until it died the photo is that of a teenager. The main point is that Tony realises that between them his parents had betrayed him.

During an early visit the woman shows him a handkerchief with the initials JOKE and a smudge of her own lipstick. She had been invited to a White House Party and JFK and kept her back when everyone else left. He had said they would have other times together but they had not materialized. Later Tony boasts that the woman, who had come to identify more as his mother than his own had a relationship lasting three years and that the President considered leaving Jackie for her.

She had been promised his father’s interest in small motor racing track and although she had been given $500 and other amounts she had not been given the holding as promised and which because of the nature of her relationship could not be included in the Will. Tony criticises the close associate involved who kept the holding for himself. The track is in the process of being sold and Tony arranges a sit down meeting to discuss the positions and accept a payout of $40000 from the sale. Tony gives the woman some money saying it is an advance on sale without disclosing he full amount. We assume he will keep the major part for himself as in previous similar situations.

When there is a delay in payment there is an incident in their respective cars which results in the other man having a crunching hit into the back of a stationery vehicle. Tony accepts that it is his responsibility to arrange for the vehicle to be repaired and arranges for it to undertaken a garage previously owned by Pussy. The man claims that the work is unsatisfactory and demands more and more. In the end Tony sends his cousin, also called Tony to supervise the handover. The man continues to be dissatisfied and the situation appears unresolved.

It will be remembered that his cousin had intended to lead a straight life as a Masseur for which he professionally qualified when he left prison but following family life pressures he had fallen out with the man funding his proposed establishment. He had started to undertake some minor paying work for Tony. He is approached by representatives of Carmine’s son who is involved in a three way battle for control of the interests after the death of his father. They want him to kill am associate of Johnny Sachs and his woman, the former Under boss who lives in Soprano territory. At first he turns the offer down but later when he feels he is not appreciated by Tony and his family he accepts the commission and is run over on a foot when carrying out the executions (Marco Polo).

Tony has one of his panic attacks on the golf course where he hears from Sachs whereas about the unknown assailant being wounded in the leg and confronts his cousin. Tony is upset because the man interfered in the situation he was helping to sort out and because he had gone to others rather than Tony for more work and money. He tells the cousin of his continuing high regard and wish for him to be more involved because of his IQ at 158 he would be of value to the business and puts him in charge of a small casino enterprise.

When Sachs following a tip off tells Tony that the cousin was responsible for the death, Tony defends and gives the man an alibi. Sachs reluctantly accepts the situation warning Tony that if he finds out he is lying there will be repercussions. The fact that Tony had a panic attack related to his cousin is explored during an important session with his psychiatrist therapist Dr Melfi. (Unidentified Black Males). It emerges that Tony has had several similar incidents all related to his cousin and begins to have an attack at the session. She helps Tony to control his breathing while he is able to admit that it all relates to the job which Tony failed to attend and which his cousin stepped and went to prison. Tony discloses that following a family incident he had an attack and had feinted. This was something he could not share with his cousin or could afford for his associates to know for it would lead to his being the laughing stock and undermining his authority. He comments that that getting the truth is like having a difficult and painful shit. Dr Melfi says it is more like giving birth.

His wife is arranging a surprise birthday party for her father and decides that given their situation it would be better that Tony did not attend. However when her father learns about the party and that Tony is not coming he is upset and demands his daughter changes the situation. Tony attended and is a good host giving his father in law a specialist Beretta gun usually only available within Russia and at a premium. His wife has a major row with her mother over their way of life, the relationship with Tony and involvement in crime. After the guests have departed Tony his wife and the children have an enjoyable family time.

Tony becomes amorous and he and Carmela end up in bed. Carmela looks fondly on what happened but Tony appears to treat as if nothing has happened. Carmela decides she is not prepared for the situation to continue as it without and agreed financial settlements and contacts her lawyer for action. She then finds that lawyers and investigators needed to unravel Tony‘s financial worth for division become hard to impossible to find for various reasons.
She realises that gaining a formal divorce/settlement is going to prove difficult to impossible. Meanwhile her daughter is also finding that a relationship with a straight guy from a wealthy family is also thwart with difficulties, especially when he says he says he is not returning home for the long vacation and she arranges a job at a no show building site where he encounters several members of Tony’s crew. He finds that he is treated as no show when they learn he is dating Tony’s daughter but he realises he is out of his depth when a perceived slight between two of the no shows leads to one beating up the other and the young man decides he wants out. This is underlined when first Tony meets him for a dinner with his daughter and he attempts to take the tab, Tony makes it plain that when the young man eats with his daughter’s family he pays and vice versa. Then one of Tony’s crew invites the young man provides tickets to a game where they support rival teams and insists he attends. This is the incentive for him to go home to his parents.

Uncle Junior devises a scheme to break the monotony of house arrest by getting approval to attend a family funeral. He then scours the newspaper for death notices of Italians and persuades his lawyer to obtain a series of concessions however by the time of the fifth or sixth funeral the situation gets to him and he breaks down.

Christopher is also resentful of the attention given to Tony’s cousin feeling that his position is in jeopardy as a consequence and because of having been to rehab. He attends a recovery group where he assists a Hollywood script writer who he met in the rehab unit. They act as mutual supporters. The friend becomes addicted to gambling and get himself into substantial debt by attending one of game involving crew members. Christopher bails him out but on the basis of paying interest. When the man fails to keep up payments, because he is using again, Christopher has a crew member beat up the man and forces him to sell his expensive car to him cheaply. He passes this on to Sachs who admits his wife has difficulty in getting in and out of the sport car although he appears thrilled by the purchase/gift. The three episodes suggest a build up to another spectacular finale to the season.

Spectacular could be ascribed to the final three episodes of Spartacus Vengeance which appears to bring the three gore and full frontal sex series to an end.

Gannicus having captured the wife of Glaber the nemesis of Spartacus brings he to the rebel camp for Spartacus to kill her and bring his obsession to and end. Ilithyia, pleading for her life and the life of her unborn child, reveals to Spartacus that the child she carries is not Glaber's, but his own child, conceived the night that Lucretia tricked her into sex with Spartacus. Ilithyia tries to convince Lucius to send word to Capua of her whereabouts; however, Spartacus enlists him to deliver a message to Glaber. Mira attempts to save Spartacus the burden of killing Ilithyia, but is stopped short by Spartacus.

Glaber and Ashur scour the town for clues about where Gannicus has taken Ilithyia, laying waste to every brothel, Ashur collecting goods from every corpse. Lucretia tries to bring to bear with Seppia but gets nowhere, and turning to Ashur for help she also gets nowhere. The message from Spartacus is that in exchange for a wagon filled with arms and armour, the Rebels will release Ilithyia. Glaber appears to agree to the terms. At the agreed time and place, Glaber meets Spartacus with the wagon. After a heated exchange it is revealed that wagon is filled with Ashur and his mercenary band, and a full-out battle occurs. Ashur men are defeated but he escapes with Glaber and without Glaber’s wife. She is released when it is understood that Glaber has no intention of saving her.

In the penultimate episode Monsters Spartacus finds anger, resentment and mistrust in his ranks and must see old wounds healed if the Rebels are to stand against the might of Rome. Ilithyia returns home to find that an unwilling Seppia has been taken by her husband as his woman. From Ilithyia's information on the Rebels' location, Ashur pinpoints the site of their temple base, and as reward he is promised freedom after the defeat of Spartacus. Glaber males it plain to his wife that his child is only of interest to him.

However, Lucretia is quite happy with the situation and tells Ilithyia of the latest happenings and of Glaber's murder of Seppius, and Ilithyia and Lucretia set young Seppia on a path of vengeance.

Spartacus organises friendly games to create a sense of unity among the rebels which appears to have some success.

Ashur reveals to Lucretia that as well as freedom, Glaber will give Ashur the ludus and his blessing of marriage with Lucretia if Spartacus falls in the upcoming battle. Lucretia is angry at this loss of her husband's legacy and plots a different outcome. Her first effort is to persuade Seppia to make an attack on Glaber’s life. This appears to about to work when his wife steps in and kills the girl thus re-establishing a relationship with her husband but this remains part of a grand design.

Against the orders of Rome who have summoned him home, Glaber launches the might of the available Roman army against the rebels at their Temple site and facing the use of a catapult they escape via tunnels to Vesuvius. Glaber and his men lay siege knowing that cold and lack of food will reduce the capacity of the rebels to resist. Lucretia and Ilithyia travel to Mt. Vesuvius. I to join Glaber who they convince that Ashur was working with Sepia to kill him, and Glaber asks Ilithyia to murder Lucretia. Glaber bribes Ashur's soldiers to betray Ashur and then forces him to go on a suicide mission to prove himself, confronting Spartacus and his followers alone and bargaining for their surrender.

Ashur's offer is declined when he reveals that Spartacus will be killed upon surrender and his followers would once again become slaves. Ashur begins to depart when Crixus suggests that they execute him. Spartacus agrees with this and Naevia convinces Crixus to allow her to fight him. After a protracted duel, Naevia decapitates at the end of a desperate fight which she looks to lose several times.

Spartacus comes up with a plan to ambush the Roman encampment. They weave rappelling vines and Spartacus, Agron, Crixus, and Gannicus descend down the mountain behind the Roman guards. At the bottom of their descent they take control of the siege weapons to set fire to the camp and leave the legion in disarray.

The battle between Glaber's forces and the rebels rages on and Oenomaus and Gannicus battle the Egyptian gladiator. Oenomaus is fatally wounded and dies in Gannicus arms and Gannicus kills the Egyptian mercenary. Spartacus has a sword fight with Glaber and eventually kills him. He warns that Rome will avenge his death. The rebels celebrate their victory although the price has been high the Spartacus’s woman killed saving his life. S he is burnt on a funeral pyre.

Back at the ludus Ilithyia is about to push Lucretia from the ludus' balcony when her waters break. Lucretia takes Illithyia's new born son after killing her slaves and commits suicide by jumping off the ludus' cliff with the baby in her hands. Ilithyia, witnessing all this, collapses and dies. So the series end with lots of vivid gore. Amen.

There have been several episodes of Blue Bloods which have been OK without remaining memorable.

The first season of Luck has come to an end. This is the new series which stars Dustin Hoffman as Chestwr "Ace" Bernstein, Nick Nolte as Walter Smith and Michael Gabon as Michael "Mike" Smythe that is three A listers. The subject is horse racing, owners, trainers, gamblers, the gangster element and centres on one of the world’s famous courses the Santa Anita

I am using the Wikipedia article for this out of laziness and a desire to move on.

“Chester "Ace" Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman), a lifelong mobster, has just been released from a three-year prison sentence. Gus (Dennis Farina), his long-time friend and driver, has become the owner of "Pint of Plain," a promising Irish racehorse. Ace immediately begins making plans to take control of the Santa Anita racetrack in Los Angeles, while simultaneously plotting revenge against the ones he holds responsible for sending him to prison.
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In his late 60s, Chester "Ace" Bernstein has had a long and apparently profitable career in organized crime, primarily in gambling, and has just finished serving a three-year term in federal prison in California. Ace's long-time driver and factotum, Gus, picks him up at his release. On the drive to Ace's home in Los Angeles, Ace confirms that Gus has become the registered owner of "Pint of Plain", a promising Irish racehorse whose purchase was arranged by business associates of Ace while Ace was in prison. The horse is being trained at Santa Anita Park by Turo Escalante (John Ortiz), a successful trainer whose career Ace has quietly followed for many years.

Ace visits his former business associate Nick DiRossi (Alan Rosenberg) to discuss a plan to gain control of the Santa Anita racetrack in order to introduce casino gambling there. It soon becomes clear that the real purpose of this plan is to strike back at the people Ace holds responsible for his prison term. These people include DiRossi, Isadore Cohen (Ted Levine), a casino executive whose company Ace wants to handle gaming at the track, and Michael "Mike" Smythe (Michael Gambon), Ace's former business partner; it appears that Mike's unauthorized use of an apartment owned by Ace in New York to stash a large quantity of cocaine is what led to Ace's prison term. (Ace taking the rap to prevent his grandson staying in the apartment have a criminal conviction and going to prison).

Simultaneously, Marcus (Kevin Dunn), Lonnie (Ian Hart), Renzo (Ritchie Coster) and Jerry (Jason Gedrick), a group of "railbirds" (habitual gamblers and hangers-on at the track) are planning to make a killing by pooling their money to bet on a "pick six" that could pay the winner over $2 million. Jerry, a brilliant handicapper of races who is perpetually broke due to his addiction to poker, has selected the six bets. The key to maximizing their chances is focusing on one horse that is a longshot in the 4th race - "Mon Gateau." Jerry knows that Mon Gateau has been trained by Escalante, who he believes has been hiding the horse's true quality in order to manipulate the odds and profit by betting on the horse. Leon (Tom Payne) is Mon Gateau's rider, a "bug" or young jockey who is just beginning his career. Leon knows nothing of Escalante's machinations, but merely wants to win the race so that other riding opportunities will come his way.

Jerry's hunch proves accurate when Mon Gateau comes from behind to win the 4th race, and the four bettors find themselves splitting more than $2.6 million. The impecunious railbirds must now deal with the attention and the temptations that come from winning a large sum of money. Escalante, meanwhile, quietly collects his own winnings of more than $30,000 from placing bets on Mon Gateau.

Walter Smith (Nick Nolte), an elderly trainer/owner from Kentucky, is training his own horse, "Gettn'up Morning," at the track with the help of young Irish jockey Rosie (Kerry Condon) but so far has not entered any races. Few people besides Walter know that Gettn'up was sired by the famous Kentucky thoroughbred "Delphi" and has the potential to win the highest honours in the sport. Unknown to Walter, however, Joey Rathburn (Richard Kind), a jockey's agent who is always at the track looking after his clients, has seen Gettn'up on a morning practice run and also has an inkling of its tremendous potential. Joey begins scheming to have his client Ronnie Jenkins, a once successful jockey who is struggling with alcohol and drugs, ride Gettn'up in place of the neophyte Rosie.

Gettn'up's sire Delphi had been owned by Walter's late employer in Kentucky, "the Colonel," and trained by Walter. Ronnie runs into Walter at the track during Gettn'up's morning exercise; the two men know each other from their years in Kentucky, so Walter asks Ronnie to drop by his barn later for a chat. In a conversation overheard by Rosie, Walter tells Ronnie that when the Colonel died, the man's heirs killed Delphi in order to collect on a large insurance policy. Walter is angry and bitter about the incident, but hopes to find success with Gettn'up, Delphi's colt. That evening, Rosie tries to persuade Walter to let her ride Gettn'up in his first race. Walter gently and sympathetically refuses, telling her that she is too inexperienced. Shortly afterward Walter asks Joey to arrange for Ronnie to ride Gettn'up in the colt's first race. Joey, delighted, agrees. Walter officially enters Ronnie as the jockey for the race, but days before it is to take place Ronnie is injured during another race and is ruled medically ineligible to ride for weeks. Walter now asks Rosie to ride the colt rather than choose a jockey who doesn't know the animal. Although Gettn'up gets off to a bad start, he comes from far back to win the race easily, astonishing everyone with his speed.

Leon, meanwhile, is having trouble "making weight." After a long spell in the sauna for that purpose, he faints, hits his head on the floor and suffers a concussion.

Escalante enters Mon Gateau in a "claiming race," in which all horses running can be purchased by bidders who file their bids or "claims" before the race. Escalante's purpose is to continue raising the odds on a horse he clearly believes has much potential, but his plan backfires when two bidders file claims to purchase the horse. One is Renzo, one of the four railbirds, who wants to present the horse to his three partners because its victory in the 4th race was the key to their "pick six" success. Another is Mulligan, a rival trainer. Mulligan's bid prevails and he takes ownership of Mon Gateau after the race. The railbirds, represented by Jerry, negotiate a deal with Mulligan to buy the animal and, having purchased it, hire Escalante as trainer.

Ace moves ahead with his plan for gaining control of the track by ordering his investment company to purchase stock in the corporation that owns it. During a board meeting at his company, Ace notices Nathan Israel (Patrick J. Adams), a young, brash and obviously intelligent money manager. He summons Nathan to his hotel for a private meeting, grills the young man, and then offers him a huge salary to work directly for him. His intention, unknown to Nathan, is to use him as a go-between with the former business associates he is targeting for revenge. He then meets with one of those people, his former partner Mike, on Mike's luxurious yacht. Mike wonders whether Ace is still angry about the situation that led to his prison term, but Ace assures Mike the racetrack deal has nothing to do with it and Mike agrees to participate in the deal.

At his hotel, Ace encounters Claire Lechea (Joan Allen), who is there to ask for a contribution to her foundation for the care of former racehorses. Impressed with her charm and good intentions, Ace decides to get involved - both with the foundation and with her.

Marcus, the "elder statesman" of the railbirds, is hopeful that buying Mon Gateau will give Jerry something to do that will keep him away from the poker table. That hope is dashed when Jerry agrees to a private high-stakes game at a restaurant owned by Leo Chan, a canny Chinese poker expert who enjoys taunting (and beating) him. Jerry is in danger of losing the bulk of his winnings from the "pick six" to Leo when the other railbirds show up and persuade him to quit the game by pretending that Marcus is deathly ill and needs his help. Although he realizes that his friends tried to trick him, Jerry thanks them for intervening.

When Gus informs Ace that Escalante has entered Pint of Plain in a race without telling him, Ace decides to go to the track to confront the trainer. Leon has been listed as rider for the race; Ace, once a bookie himself, realizes that Escalante has listed the inexperienced Leon as rider in order to lengthen the odds on Pint. He demands that Leon be replaced by the most experienced jockey available and gives Escalante $5,000 to compensate Leon. Escalante reacts angrily, confirming Ace's suspicion that he was planning to profit by betting on the race, but finally submits. Ace invites Claire to watch the race with him and Gus in Escalante's box. During the race Pint's leg is injured when another horse throws a shoe, but Pint goes on to win. Ace is delighted by the horse's performance but worried about the mishap. When told that the full extent of the injury won't be known until tests can be run the next morning, Ace insists on spending the night in the barn watching over his horse.

Escalante gives Joey the $5,000 provided by Ace to compensate Leon, and promises that Leon will ride Mon Gateau again in his next race. Leon is pleased to learn he will ride Mon Gateau, but becomes upset when he finds out it's a consolation prize for being replaced as rider of the far more prestigious Pint. Ronnie, Joey's other client, has begun drinking again while sidelined by his injury. After an argument with Joey, he tells Joey he is moving to another agent.

Ace meets with Santa Anita's CEO to make an offer for the track and is received hospitably. Meanwhile, he sends Nathan Israel to meet with Mike, DiRossi and Cohen on Mike's yacht. The ostensible purpose of the meeting is to inform Ace's three partners of the details of the offer he is making for the track. The real purpose is to see if they will try to suborn Nathan, which they do by offering him a "second paycheck" to provide information on Ace's activities. Nathan accepts the offer and tells the three men that Ace is counting on the cooperation of California's Indian gaming lobby to get the state's approval for his casino gambling plan. Nathan, who remains loyal to Ace, tells him everything that happened after the meeting.

Walter Smith, who is preparing for Gettn'up Morning's second race, receives a letter from an attorney claiming that he owes $145,000 to the inheritors of Gettn'up's sire Delphi for stud fees and other expenses, even though the Colonel had waived those fees as a bequest to Walter at the time of his death. In Gettn'up's second race, Rosie disobeys Walter's instructions and uses the whip to urge the horse on. Gettn'up wins by six lengths, setting a new track record and drawing attention that Walter would rather avoid. Rosie apologizes and Walter is forgiving, but soon afterward one of the Colonel's heirs shows up at the barn to assert a claim to Gettn'up.

Joey Rathburn is depressed by the loss of his star client Ronnie and by his ex-wife's coldness when he contacts her to suggest a reconciliation. Alone in his dingy apartment he picks up a pistol and points it at his head. When a minor earthquake rattles the area at that moment, he is startled and fires elsewhere; the bullet ricochets and injures his cheek. After the wound is treated in a local emergency room, Joey finds that his constant stammer, which has made him a figure of fun to people at the track, is now gone. He treats the event as a sign that it is not time for him to give up on life.

The four railbirds attend the track to watch their horse, Mon Gateau, in his first race under their colours. Ridden by Leon, the horse wins convincingly, but because it bumped against another horse during the race the track stewards put the result on hold while they interrogate Leon about what happened. The stewards ultimately decide to confirm Mon Gateau's victory, and the railbirds celebrate at their hangout, the Long Shot bar. They give Leon a handsome tip and promise that he will always be their choice as rider.

Ace spends an afternoon visiting the horse farm where Claire's foundation is caring for old and injured racehorses and what he sees confirms his good opinion of her and of the project. Meanwhile, Nathan has another meeting on Mike's yacht. He tries to persuade Mike, DiRossi and Cohen that Ace is sincere in wanting the racetrack deal to go forward and to benefit everyone. Mike remains suspicious, however. When he concludes that both Ace and Nathan are trying to deceive him he explodes, clubbing Nathan repeatedly with a heavy glass ashtray. Nathan collapses in a pool of blood while DiRossi and Cohen look on, horrified. On his way back from the farm, Ace meets briefly with the chief of an Indian tribe who is expected to support his plan for the track. One of Mike's henchmen is following Ace and photographs the meeting - but Ace and Gus are well aware of this. Returning home that evening, Ace is concerned that Nathan never called to report on the meeting with Mike.

Rosie is anxious to find out whether Walter will let her ride Gettn'up again after her mistake with the whip. She asks Joey to talk to Walter about it and agrees that he will become her agent. Ronnie has resumed attending AA meetings and has recovered from his racing injury; he goes to Walter to ask to be considered once again as Gettn'up's rider. Walter, who has just enlisted the help of a lawyer to defend his ownership of Gettn'up, tells both Ronnie and Joey that he will decide on a rider shortly. Later that day he meets with Ronnie again and promises that if he remains sober and makes weight, the mount will be his. That evening, he tells Rosie of his decision and she takes it with good grace. But within hours of receiving Walter's good news, Ronnie has started using again.

Dr. Joanna "Jo" Carter is Escalante's veterinarian - and his lover. While a workman is disrupting the routine in Escalante's barn by installing a Webcam to allow Ace to look in on Pint of Plain from time to time, she asks Escalante to walk outside with her to discuss something. Before she can begin they encounter Eduardo, a young Mexican-American boy from a family of migrant workers, near Escalante's barn. She strikes up a conversation with the boy, who is fascinated by the horses and jockeys, but Eduardo's brutish uncle, who is in the training area to make a delivery, demands she pay $10 to talk to him. Escalante wants to throw the boy and his uncle out. To his annoyance, Jo pays the uncle and takes the boy on a tour of the barn and track. Later, she takes him to watch a race in which one of Escalante's horses, "Niagara's Fall," is running. When the filly is injured during the race she goes to help and gets Escalante to take charge of the boy. Unable to find the boy's uncle, Escalante gives him a ride home. Escalante drops Eduardo off in his neighbourhood, which is little more than a shantytown; something about Eduardo clearly reminds Escalante of his own past as a penniless immigrant, so he gives the boy his contact information and tells him to get in touch if he needs anything. When Escalante and Jo get together again that night at his home, she tells him what she had meant to say earlier that day - she is pregnant. Jo is surprised when the normally brusque and undemonstrative Escalante reacts with tenderness and love.

At the direction of Mike, Isadore Cohen meets with the chief of the Indian tribe with whom Ace has been working and offers the chief an envelope full of cash to induce him to do business with Mike instead. The meeting is recorded on video by the chief's people, who then present Gus with a disc showing everything.

Ace and Gus receive an email purportedly from Nathan stating that although he believes everyone involved in Ace's racetrack deal is acting in good faith, he does not wish to continue "serving two masters." The email states that he is resigning his position and leaving town. Ace immediately understands that the email is a fake and that Nathan has been killed by Mike. When DiRossi arrives at Ace's hotel to "take the temperature" of the deal, Ace invites him to accompany Ace and Gus to the track to see their horse. Once there, Gus takes DiRossi to a disused room in Escalante's barn and makes it clear that DiRossi is not going anywhere until Ace has a talk with Mike.

With Gus keeping DiRossi on ice, Ace drives himself to Mike's yacht. He tells Mike that he knows about Nathan's murder but that he will take no action - other than cutting Mike and the others out of the racetrack deal. He presents Mike with a copy of the disc Gus obtained, conveying a warning that the authorities will find out about Cohen's bribery attempt if there is any more trouble from Mike. Mike is noncommittal with Ace, but when DiRossi returns to the yacht Mike lets him know that it is Ace who will be cut out of the racetrack deal, not him.

Dr. Jo Carter arrives at Escalante's barn for her morning rounds, bringing with her the boy Eduardo, who now works there. While removing a shoe from one of the horses she is kicked and suffers a bad fall. After telling Escalante she is fine, she has her assistant take her to the hospital out of concern for her pregnancy. An initial examination shows no serious problem, but while spending the afternoon in a hospital room for observation she experiences some symptoms of a miscarriage. When Escalante learns what is happening, he rushes to her side.

The Western Derby, a race for three-year-olds with a total purse of $1 million, is approaching, and both Pint of Plain and Gettn'up Morning are entered. Ronnie Jenkins is to ride Gettn'up. Another race will be run on Derby Day with lesser contenders and a smaller purse, and the railbirds' horse Mon Gateau is entered in that one. When it is decided that the weight limit for Mon Gateau will be 112, Leon, who can't seem to get below 117, is told by Joey that he will not have the mount. Instead, the mount will be given to Rosie, who can easily make the weight. Leon and Rosie have been seeing each other off the track and Rosie fears this news will complicate their relationship, but despite his disappointment Leon reacts graciously.

On Derby Day, Ace and Gus are looking forward to watching Pint run when three things happen that complicate matters considerably. Gus sees a news article about the discovery of a body near Marina Del Rey, where Mike's yacht is docked, and realizes that it may be Nathan. Gus detects that Ace is being stalked by a contract killer hired by Mike. Finally, as Ace and Gus are preparing to leave Ace's hotel, Ace's grandson Brent shows up, having received a plane ticket and invitation to the race that he thinks were sent by Gus; Ace and Gus immediately understand that the ticket was sent by Mike as a message to Ace that Brent is within Mike's reach.

Warning Brent to remain in his suite rather than come to the track, Ace and Gus visit the morgue to view the body that was found near the Marina. Recognizing Nathan at once, Ace is shocked by his body's mutilated condition and feels a heavy weight of responsibility for getting the young man involved with Mike.

Before heading to the track, Ace and Gus stop for lunch at a restaurant Ace frequents. While they are eating, Gus notices that a man he recognizes as a "spotter" for Mike's hit man is in the restaurant. Using a stratagem they have clearly employed before, Ace and Gus fake a loud argument to draw the spotter's attention. Gus appears to stalk out of the restaurant angrily; Ace gets up from the table and walks toward the men's room. The spotter signals the hit man, who goes to corner Ace in the men's room. When he enters the men's room he is immediately assaulted by Gus, who has been waiting for him. Gus kills the hit man in seconds. Gus and Ace, who was never in the men's room at all, then leave the restaurant together.”

In the last episode the trackside group gambling syndicate and horse owner build up to the great day and also plan one of their multiple betting ploys. The former poker gambler now has pneumatic girl friend to provide the sexual interest and another of the group has invited his mother. They will the race and in addition to the prize money there are substantial gambling winnings of over $100000 each. They are philosophical about their success knowing that it will end soon and they will go back to being penniless. There is talk from moving out of the motel where they have adjacent room to buy a place of their own where they can all live. They have been generous in their winnings having placed a bet for $500 on the Jockey who did not make the weight

Then the Western Derby take place and the horses are neck and neck over the last couple of hundred meters to the finishing line. It is a photo finish. Hoffman‘s horse wins narrowly and Smith is philosophical commenting that the two horses will confront each other again.

But the situation is not all success and champagne. Escalante visits the hospital having lost contact with his lover only to find she has lost their child. He comforts her.

Mike is at the race course with his associates taunting Ace as well as congratulating him on his success in winning the race. The grandson could not sit in the hotel suite watching on TV. Ace sends cuts to protect the boy and keep him close to them. Ace contacts the woman who runs the centre for retired horses which is now fully running because of the generosity and interest from Ace. He has also told her to stay away from the race but phones to hear the sound of his voice. She is welcoming in every sense. Watch this space for the second season.

Montalbano Titanic and Upstairs Downstairs end March 2012

On my way to the theatre on Saturday afternoon I tripped and fell forward onto the pavement springing my right wrist and banging by left knee. The wrist is improving although turning the top of a bottle of milk or using the hand to carry weight when rising from a sedentary position is difficult and not helped by the inability to use the left knee to counterbalance and take the weight. It is reminder of the need to take greater care and that I have had another lucky escape.

On Sunday the latest episode of Inspector Montalbano, a new four part series on the sinking of he Titanic and the latest episode of Upstairs and Downstairs together with Newcastle winning away having watched Sunderland’s win against QPR on first choice and Warrington winning just at Widnes on the Friday evening. The second Formula I race was a disaster for Jenson Button.

A blind man appears to have committed suicide but the death troubles Montalbano. The story provides the opportunity for the Inspector to visit one of the islands off the Sicilian coast. This is where the sister of the dead man lives with her husband and children running a small hotel devoid of the tourists which had been hoped for. At the heart of the story is a dog, the dog of the blind man.

The son of the man who formed an organization to help the blind in Sicily uses the association as a means for promoting his illegal activities notably drug distribution and selling. He has used the blind man to bring back drugs from the Island via a fisherman who collected them off shore and then brought a quantity back in a hollowed walking stick each weekend when he visited his sister and her family. Montalbano is suspicious of the fisherman when he visits his home learning that the two men were “friends” and notes communications equipment. He also notes that the fisherman has no fish to sell him claiming not to have been out to sea because of weather conditions. On the ferry the dog recognises a crew man who would provide an on deck seat for the blind man rather than attempt the steps to the passenger area. On a journey back to the mainland soon after arrival with his mistress after taking her to the island allegedly for a holiday, the Inspector learns from the crewman that in one instance the blind man has lost his stick over side and had become agitated until the crewman had fished it out of the water for him. This had led Montalbano to the idea that the stick was used to carry drugs.

He had been invited by the wife of the blind man who was too upset to talk about her brother when attending the funeral. He had no divulged the main purpose of the visit to his mistress when invited her to spend a few days there on holiday. Before returning to the office he persuades his reluctant deputy to go to the island to keep his mistress company. The deputy has become uncertain about his engagement and forthcoming marriage after being attracted by another woman he sees.

There is one red herring trail which the Inspector follows when a message is found in an attractive pottery wine urn with classical proportions purchased at the local market by the desk officer at the station. This contained a hand written note pleading for help to be rescued similar to another which had turned up elsewhere several months before. The investigation takes him to the urn seller who buys them wholesale but as it is the weekend it is not possible for the Inspector to make further enquiries until the firm reopens.

At the home of the seller he finds the man hostile and his wife who invites the Inspector into the house is told to go inside and for Montalbano to leave. Later he receives a message from the wife to visit the home after midnight. She reveals the story which Montalbano has partly discovered in that the man had received a warning for an assault on his wife who had not pressed charges. He had beaten her because of jealousy whenever she was in the presence of another male, in the latter instance because of a salesman who had called. She had placed similar notes in five of the urns a year before.

Since the birth of their son her husband had changed in his approach to her although he discouraged male visitors to the family home and now she was in fear her husband would find out what she had done hence arranging to see the Inspector at her home when her husband was away attending a market elsewhere to plead with him to take no further action.

At the start of the episode we had seen the blind man leave his home and another man enter and appear to tamper with a drinking glass by the bedside. The cause of death appeared to be gas poisoning as a ring on the stove had been left on and the gas cylinder was empty. Montalbano visited the company which supplied the gas and the delivery man explained that the gas was not strong enough to have caused the death and that in event it would have been low as it was within a couple of days of the regular delivery. Checking the house again Montalbano had confirmed that the cylinder in the house was not one provided by the company. What happened is that the man had a heart condition and had been affected by the sedatives placed in the glass beside the bedside while the blind man was out of the house. This enables the murderer to return at night, let the dog out of the house and change the cylinders.

Previously Montalbano had demanded that the property be swept for finger prints with the officer protesting because as the man was blind there would hundreds of prints, Montalbano demands that the any prints on the gas cylinder and light switches be checked. These had in fact not been taken and revealed the identity of someone with convictions for violence. The fisherman on the island is also found dead on ashore with his boat capsized at sea. However he is found not to have drowned.

Montalbano had also followed up the position of another blind man who had also died in circumstances of a suicide and where his bank account showed a small fortune.

And the dog the importance of the Dog? Montalbano takes to the dog that brings to his home pending relocation after the man dies. However he becomes quickly attached to the animal despite being warned that the animal had a nasty streak when another dog came in the vicinity. The owner of the charity requests the dog back so it can be reallocated to someone else. When someone comes for the animal Montalbano runs from his home beach side so it cannot be taken away. He takes it with him on the trip to the Island hence the contact with the crewman and also the fisherman with whom the dog is friendly and with the children of the family. However the dog reacts when approached by the dog of a policeman presumably a drug sniffer dog which is why the creature is regarded as special. The dog disappears from his home one day and Montalbano is distraught.

Bringing the various strands and evidence together Montalbano spooks the Charity owner into revealing the whereabouts of the man responsible for the three deaths who he visits with a pay off. Montalbano then dismisses his colleagues leaving him alone with the murderer who he threatens to kill unless he reveals the location of the dog. The animal had previously been used in dog fighting and the team raid a dog fight where they find the creature together with others which had been used for similar purposes.

The final scene is that of Montalbano playing with the dog on the beach at his home together with his mistress. She has another rival although they had enjoyed a couple of days together on the island when he had returned back from the mainland and agreed they would return.

The Inspector had seen the husband of the sister talking to a shady character on the island and for a time we were led to believe he was connected to the drug operation. What emerged is that coming to the island the new wife had established a restaurant as we knew early on that she had worked at the restaurant which the Inspector uses on a regular basis. They had then acquired the property to been used as a hotel although the tourists had not yet taken to coming to the island. The shady man was in fact a money lender and in financial difficulties it looked as if the venture was destined to fail with the bank threatening repossession. This was the motivation for the brother to commence the drug running but having acquired a sum sufficient to pay off the debts and provide for the refurbishment of the building he had indicated his wish to stop hence the decision to execute him. Interestingly while in the UK the money would have been confiscated Montalbano advises of its availability to the couple, solving their immediate financial problems.

The author of Downton Abbey has created a four part work on the Sinking of the Titanic coinciding with a hundred years since the tragedy and the release of a 3D version of the successful film. The approach of Julian Fellows is to tell the main part of the story up to just before the vessel sinks in the first episode and then retelling the same story from different perspectives of those in different classes of cabins culminating in what happens to them at the end of the fourth programme.

The first episode focuses on an upper class titled couple where the wife is a snob of the worst kind with a daughter who is playing the suffragette and a father who decides to take her on a trip to the USA in order to get away from before he cannot rescue her again from going to prison after she is accused of assaulting a police officer.

On board she meets up with the son of a wealthy American couple and after rejecting his advances finds that he has her measure and they fall in love. She is placed in the lifeboat while the young man remains on board. The wife who has behaved in obnoxious fashion insists on remaining with her husband who pleads with her to leave.

On board he meets with an employee in the second class on way to the USA taking some legal papers and accompanied by his firebrand Irish nationalist wife, Much to the horror of the titled lady she is pressed to accompany her husband at a tea with the couple who he brings up from the second class to the first class area She then raises the issue of Irish independence and later gives the titled lady a mouth bashing just before departing to a lifeboat. There is also the interaction with an actress and also the portrayal of someone akin to Molly Brown.

The relationship between the personal maid and manservant of the titled couple is introduced together with that of a dining steward whose brother is a Stoker in the boiler room and also someone who had been involved in building the ship arranges for his wife and children to emigrate to the USA on the ship and appears to have arranged a special cabin facility for them beyond which is to be revealed. The film is only of interest to compare with the blockbuster film Titanic as all the main features of the actual incident have been covered in countless documentaries, books and articles as well as films. Now that the vessel has been located and its treasures brought to the surface it is suggested that the impact of the story will diminish now that the survivors and the first tier of descendents have also died.

I am tempted to leave the latest two episodes of Upstairs and downstairs for one grand conclusion report but having deleted the recordings I fear I will forget the story lines. The signing of the protection pact with Poland makes the war inevitable and the latest episode ends with the lights being switched off as the blackout begins. I have previously reported on my experience of the day when the lights went on again and everyone went out of their houses for the moment when the street lights were switched on and the curtains left open with the lights shining out.

I begin with the stories of those downstairs. The Butler commences a relationship with a housekeeper who is assisting in the organising of the annual servant’s ball held at the Royal Albert Hall in which it is customary for the above stairs to attend for the first dance and then leave. The relationship between the couple blossoms to the point that the Butler has decided to suggest marriage. However she has found out about his conscientious objection during the First World War and tells him of her disappointment on finding out he is not the man she thought he was. He gets drunk and is found by the Lady of the house on the steps down to the servant’s kitchen and dining area. He is so embarrassed that he leaves the property and appears to be living on the street or in the park where the young lad and former borstal boy is taking him food supplies. The master of the house sits on the same bench one day and brings the Butler back to the house where the normal order is restored of a kind.

The young lad gets his medical papers for the call up and is passed A1 fit. He is seen sitting with the scullery maid. Assistant nurse maid former Dr Barnardo’s girl who agrees to write to him when he is away.

The main focus is on the chauffer and the nursery servant who has also combined duties as personal maid to her Ladyship. They have become, lovers after the chauffer had gone into the ring at the Boxing match attended by the King’s younger brother and other members of the household in which the former borstal boy should have fought but run off when he was the subject of a sexual advance from one of King’s brothers’ companions. The chauffer now wants to emigrate to the USA, applies for a special licence after blackmailing the master for £300 and for a reference to gain admission and for getting work on arrival.

The reason he is able to do this is that the master has commenced a sexual relationship with his wife’s sister. At the same time the relationship between husband and wife deteriorates to break point and separation. The starting point goes back to a mutual attraction with the sister in the first series and then to the behaviour of the sister who kisses him on the visit to Germany when she was till the mistress of the German Nazi Officer.

Then his wife becomes the interest of the American business man including nylon manufacturer who attends the dinner for the American Ambassador and visiting son Jack. She accepts an invitation to visit the factory where a shoot was planned for an advertisement and when the actress does not attend, her Ladyship is persuaded to step in and she is such a success that the campaign is extended with a second shoot on the South East Coast. When fog prevents an immediate return and a stay overnight appears necessary, her sister fails to pass on a message to say she had been delayed and steps in to replace the woman at a dinner being held. When comments are made about photos of his wife on London Billboards he puts his foot down about further contact and two agree not to see each other. The behaviour of the husband leads the wife to take her son to stay with relatives during which time the relationship between sister and husband develops coming to the attention of the household.

As war gets closer the Master is alerted at the Foreign Office that there appears to have been leaks about sensitive information which he works out must have come from within his household added to which the clasp on his briefcase has become faulty. He orders an investigation centring on his sister in law. He is warned against holding the investigation by the king’s younger brother who is now dressed in Naval uniform fitting in with the actual wartime service of the Duke of Kent. This again suggests a sympathy with the enemy alluded to in a previous episode. That he ordered the investigation is timely because separately his sister was being kept under surveillance arising from her contact with known London based Nazi intelligence. He breaks of the relationship with the sister and resigns from the Ministry as well as keeping quiet until she is arrested and imprisoned under the latest emergency powers.

Meanwhile his wife has returned and following comments by her personal maid commences to suspect her husband and her sister which is confirmed when a shirt is returned from the laundry with a message that the lipstick on the collar cannot be removed. She then smells the pillow on her sister’s bed and recognises the cologne used by her husband. When she freezes out the sister who is also ostracised by those below stairs, the sister falls and kills herself injuring the personal maid attempting to stop her.

While the couple continue to live in the same household the relationship remains strained despite the wish of the husband to start over again. Shortly before her discovery of the infidelity the American had visited to take his leave delivering a gross of the nylon stockings for her as a farewell present. The Master is appointed an equerry at the Palace.

The accident to the personal made means that she is not sufficiently well to travel to the USA although the special licence has been granted. The chauffer is therefore unable to avoid attending the medical where he is passed fit for service. He returns the money to the Master. Of less significance than previously with their stories having been covered in previous episodes is the housekeeper, the aunt and the former secretary of the Master’s mother.