Wednesday 7 April 2010

1908 David Jason, Frost, Fanny Kemble Italian Job and Casablanca

It is time to pay tribute to that excellent British actor, David Jason (White) OBE, and to mark the end of his police detective career as Inspector Jack Frost, with 42 films over 17 years.

Tuesday April 6th became a good but tiring day. I wrote and undertook other artwork activities in the morning and then as the weather improved, managed to begin work again on one of the patio walls, covering liberally with a fungus preventive solution. Mid morning on Wednesday I repaired the damaged areas and late afternoon gave this section its first coat of a light pink designed to enhance the Mediterranean feel of space which I look out on.

The day did not begin well though, and for much of it I was not at my most alert or perceptive. I was not sure, if following the Easter Bank Holiday on Monday, the garbage would be collected in the morning and went, misguidedly, to look for the recently circulated Council leaflet which I could not immediately find, although I did find those for the previous two years. There appeared to be no collection this week and for a few minutes I thought the local council had lost its political marbles, as the General Election was being announced later in the morning and to take place on the same day as those for the Local Authority on May6th. I then woke up to the obvious that the leaflet covers the collection of the environmental and recycled waste such as, newspapers, bottles, cans, and in the future garden waste, cardboard when in June July new special bins are issued with compartments. Silly me.

After completing work on the wall I belatedly set off for Newcastle to buy a replacement Cafetiere. I had not anticipated I would need to do so for several years as the previous unit had a attractive metal cover which I thought would prevent the glass container from breakage. It is still a mystery to me how it broke, but it did and a replacement is required and I knew the previous search, only last year that there was no supplier in South Shields. I therefore returned to T Max or whatever the store is called in the Monument shopping Mall (TK Max after checking) and which can be entered directly from the Monument Metro station. I could not find the item at first, in part because the area for kitchen and household goods had been changed and because the selection was reduced to two types with only a couple on display. I selected one which looked more appropriate for me although the support was in plastic and the better looking one had a metal base, and was chunky and family size. My purchase proved better than I thought because the colour is bright read instead of that shown in the packaging, a dull cream, and has a super top which maintains warmth although I have yet to work out the locking and cleaning system.

My first intention had been to take the car to Hewarth and the Metro from there, returning via a supermarket shop at Azda, but as I set off I decided to go only as far as Jarrow to see if Wilkinson’s had any black work albums in stock. I managed to work out how to get to the nearest car park to the metro station and knew I would find carrying a full back bag onerous on the way back as getting to the station involves a good climb up stairs to cross over the line.

After buying the Cafetiere in Newcastle I could not immediately remember the way to the Wilkinson’s I had discovered just over a week ago before attending the opera relay performance of Hamlet. I decided to try and retrace the route taken on that journey and this was a good decision as on exiting the Granger Market, the three floor store was opposite. Office stationery was at the end of the escalator on the first floor and there were six black albums available and where after collecting I rewarded myself with a cup of hot tea and three fingers of chocolate wafer biscuit for £1.50.

I then made my way back to the Metro station and let the first trains for Pelaw and then for Sunderland pass forgetting I had decided to get off at Gateshead to go to the Wilkinson’s immediately by the station as long as one exists the right stairway. I then went to the wrong end of the platform and was confronted with a steep stairway and a heavy back load and was then faced with a further set of stairs to get the where the store is located after seeking directions from a willing member of staff, I then chose the longer slope in the opposite direction, having to double back rather a third set of stairs which led directly to the entrance of the store, This route took me close to where the famous Get Carter Car Park remains to be demolished although the fencing has been around the area for the new supermarket and shopping development for over a year. The effort was fruitless for although the store had a huge supply of the 20 page albums there were none of the 40 which I use to create three complete sets.

Already weary I made my way to Jarrow and the Morrison’s Toilet before returning to Wilkinson’s which is located close to the car park through the underpass tunnel. There were only two black volumes here but I felt this part of the trip worthwhile. I then went to Azda where I had created a list beforehand. As it was then after 5.30 I thought it was a good time to check if there was any reached sell by date bargains. There were. I bought two packs of smoked Cod fillets which will provide three meals for £5 at a saving of £2. The bargain of the day was two medium size whole chickens, usually £7 for the special price of £4.10. There was also a pack of four Eccles cakes reduced by one third. There were also standards savings with £1 off grapes, another £1 of frozen small meals. Three packs of bacon for £5 and a massive £2 off the vitamins. This resulted in an overall reduction of £13 which was just as well on the monster restocking which included some beef sirloin, pork and lamb chops, Olives, large and olives stuffed, some bacon chops slices, brown sauces, biscuit crackers, mixed bean salad, salami and another Indian and Chinese meal feasts. I enjoyed a few liquorice twists on the way home.

I knew that after unpacking and food I would be sleepy, but there was time for Babylon 5 and a programme celebrating the coming to an end of the series A Touch of Frost before an early for me bedtime.

David Jason is only a year than me and first came to national attention as Del Boy Trotter, the elder brother of Only Fools and Horses which was a noble successor to Steptoe and Son. The series provided the best love moment in all of British TV comedy, has repeatedly voted by viewers in countless polls, when David goes to rest his shoulder on a bar top and finds that someone has opened the to collect glasses and he falls down. Does not sound hilarious but is one of the few times I have roared with laughter given the context in which the incident occurs and the background to the character and the series.

I did not enjoy his role as Grandville, in open all hours, but there was sheer delight in the whole series of the Darling Buds of May, His work both as a comedy actor and in serious drama has bought award after award with four national comedy awards and five national TV award, BAFTA fellowship and a Comedy Lifetime achievement award. To celebrate its 50 years ITV held a poll to find its greatest 50 stars which David topped.

His personal life became the basis for the character of Jack Frost a lonely detective married to his work after nursing his former wife during the period before she died of cancer. This is what happened to David after eighteen years of marriage although he subsequently married again and became a father at the age of 61.

A touch of Frost was produced for the first time by Yorkshire TV for ITV in 1992 and has always concentrated on single story films usually 100 minutes in length spread over 2 hours with the advertisements. There were six short films of 75 mins and the final over two nights episodes. During all the time of series Jack remained his own man, always on the side of the victims of crimes and with a determination to apprehend the villains, but without ever comprising the rights of everyone. His dislike of paperwork of any kind led to a chaotic office, relying in his real life brother ( Arthur White) who acted as head of the records office to remember previous cases which often helped to resolve contemporary mysteries.

Throughout the series, the bane of his series life was Superintendent Mullet, played by Bruce Alexander as a rather stock figure looking after his own back, playing golf with some who were major suspects, a conformist and media conscious. He had support from his colleague Detective Sergeant George Toolan, played by John Lyons who for the past five years had played on stage in the world’s longest running play- The Mousetrap. Married, George had a life outside of the police which Frost had become resigned to not having one again. For one series Frost took under his wing a young police detective and they shared a home together. However in a dramatic end of season moment views were left wondering if Jack, the Young Man or the villain had been killed as of camera two shots were heard in a stand off. The young man did not survive.

Jack came lose to having a serious heterosexual relationship at least once, but the problem was always the nature and hours of work and the need not to disclose information ion current cases which remains a barrier to those not in the police now and forevermore.. He was in this respect like Morse, always coming close to a relationship but something always intervened. In an end of series review Jason explained that everyone knew that if he did marry his main character would change and the programme would also fundamentally change, mentioning Midsummer Murders as the best example of a married lead investigating officer.

Unaware that there was be a final two part programme I watched the first part on the i player and was surprise that the opening focus appeared to be a raid on a dog fight. This did not immediately seem to me to be the stuff of an end of series finale. However it proved to be linchpin pin in more than one way. The raid had come about with the assistance of the local RSPCA team manager who and struck a warm relationship with Jack.

The raid was a failure in that by a stroke of luck the owner was delayed and he and his son and sons friend from next door arrived after the raid has taken place, They suspect the police was tipped off by a former friend from school, Brian, who been taken to a previous fights, had walked out and became a volunteer with RSPCA as a consequence. The father of one of the two boys turns out to be a professional villain whose main income is from illegal drug importation and distribution. He has a smart lawyer and lawyer/barrister girl friend who is also having a relationship with another member of the legal firm.

This father tells the boys to rough up their 6th form former friend and in the melee a knife is pulled and Brian is killed, launching a murder inquiry for which the boys are arrested having been identified by the unit manager. In one of a several twist the young who possessed the knife wants to own up but his father bullies him into pleasing innocence as he also bullies his wife and the parents of the other boy who has gained a place at an Oxford College.

As merits a final story in a series which has aimed at presenting the reality of contemporary policing are number of other story lines. A woman is knocked off a bicycle by an apparent youth and this is followed by threats to Jack with the tyres of his car slashed and a brick thrown through a window. As this coincides with threats to the manager of the animal rescue centre the audience is quick to assume there is a connection. There early indications that this is not so with the mugging have echoes in a case twenty years before and attacks on his home also having chords with what happened previously. Eventually through the collar of a cat found at the scene of another crime the criminal is found to be the daughter of a former colleague and family friend of Jack who he reported for fixing evidence and which had resulted in the conviction and imprisonment of innocent people. Her mother had died broken hearted by what had happened and her father had also recently died after spending years trying to bring down Jack with complaints about his behaviour and attempting to get back his career and reputation. In a roof top scene the girl pulls a gun and it she is who is shot and not Jack in this instance.

A little girl is knocked off the back of a bicycle ridden by her mother early one morning by the apparent stolen car of the solicitor who defends the drug dealer in relation to the operation of the dog fight, and his son and friend in relation to the death of their former school friend. She is in hospital in a coma. There is a small amount of cocaine in the boot of the car and this is traced through CCTV to having been bought from an employee of the drug dealer, which a man at the Met police has a major interest in, and who is identified as being responsible for setting fire to the animal rescue centre from which the manager is rescued as requires brief hospital treatment. In order to receive sympathetic attention from the police the solicitor discloses information about the distribution centre operated by the drug dealer. He also admits that he was alone when he returned home after a mixture of drugs and drink and remembers nothing what happened until the following morning. A post delivery van had passed the car stopped in a lay-by while the driver had been sick and because of this he had been unable to identify the individual except to say that there had been a female passenger in the vehicle. It is established that the female friend and the other legal colleague had called to collect their portion of the cocaine and finding their colleague beyond waking they had borrowed his sports car for a joy ride. The woman admits that she was the driver at the time the accident occurred.

The information supplied to Frost was passed on to the Metropolitan Police, the Drug squad and Interpol and they mount a joint operation on a farm which the drug dealer uses to intercept the arrival of a shipment.

Meanwhile driven by guilt the son of the drug dealer hangs himself and his mother leaves her husband never wanting to see or speak with him again. The friend who caused the manslaughter pushing Brian not knowing that the other had pulled out a knife, tells his parents that he is going to own up his part to the police believing this will end his place at Oxford University (this is not necessarily the position as his parents evidently have the means to pay for his place without state help). His parents should be prosecuted for their participation in the cover up whatever their motivation and the pressure from the drug dealer.

There was one additional story in the final film. This is the relationship between Jack and the manager of the animal rescue centre. She is a divorcee with two teenage children living in a cottage type house is a pleasant rural community. They go out for a meal and it is quickly apparent that they are attracted to each other. Their relationship is severely tested. She is nearly killed in the fire, she is threatened as are her children Jack is also nearly killed and their relationship also comes under scrutiny from the ex husband who has maintained a good relationship with the children and a relaxed one with his former wife since going on the wagon. He also has a penchant for anyone in a skirt. The realization that his former wife has found someone herself and that this will alter the relationship with his children drives him back to drink and he rams the car bringing Frost and Toolan to the Church just as they were getting out to be given buttonholes by Superintendent Mullet. Just as with EastEnders a number of different endings were filmed with only the writer and producer knowing which was to be used on screening day. In the alternatives Frost, Mullet and Toolan are each killed and in the final version shown, it is Toolan who has a heart attack and cannot be revived. Therefore everyone is able to shed a tear at his passing and the series ending. There is a final situation in which he explains to his new wife that Toolan had felt sorry for him because he knew that the reason why Frost put everything into his work is that he had nothing else in his life of value. Frost says that this was true but no longer. His life will now change for the better.

In the post series programme David also revealed that he was not retiring and that a new programme was already being planned, in production or even completed, he did not say which but that a new programme was coming. This is good news

There was opportunity on Thursday to view a film about the life of Fanny Kemble, the 19th century actress who married a Southern US Cotton, Tobacco and rice plantation owner believing he respected her views about independence and personal freedoms. Alas she quickly found out that he was a liar and fully supported the slavery system in operation on his estates, even if the life he provided was less brutal and savage than many others. The film concentrates on her growing awareness of the actual situation, her work for better conditions for the slaves and support for an escape route to the North. The film ends with bringing her double life to an end, separating and divorcing from her husband and returning to stage in the USA to support herself.

In real life she had already written and published a diary about her experiences among Northern US society. Pierce Butler was the grandson of one of the original settlers and the empire he inherited was vast, selling over 400 slaves at one auction after his business failed following the Civil War and the ending of the slavery. Fanny paid a high price for her opposition to her husband’s way of life losing custody of her two daughters until they reached the age of 21. She was 23 when she first travelled to the USA and 25 when she married. Divorcing and returning to the stage when she was 38. She continue to write, diaries and memories including Residence on a Georgian Plantation, and two plays, Her eldest daughter married the writer and author of the Virginian. The youngest daughter tended to support her father’s approach to life and wrote a book about her experience of their way of life. She married clergyman and their daughter was at the bedside of her grandmother when she died at the age of in England at the age of 84 where she had returned for the last years of her life. She became a friend of the then young novelist Henry James who wrote Washington Square based on family story she had disclosed to him.

Earlier in the week I saw the original Michael Caine version of the Italian Job. Although it has become classic with the three Mini car chase through the streets of Turin I found the film outdated that portrayal of criminals and the prison regime embarrassing and misleading. Noel Coward as the toff top criminal Bridger was hilarious although unintended, and Benny Hill played his favourite role as a dirty middle aged man. There are a few magic moments but the film could have been title Alfie goes to Italy.

I also saw my 101 showing of Casablanca one afternoon recently. This demonstrates that some films never date and remain enjoyable no matter how many times they are experienced, even if one becomes word perfect. I enjoyed every second and still get emotional when the Marseillaise is sung or when Bogart explains that in the great scheme of things their relationship is not worth a hill of beans, You must remember this, of all the gin joints in the world you walk into mine.............

The General Election was announced on Tuesday and the last Prime Minister’s Question Time of Parliament took place on Wednesday lunchtime. While the politicians are behaving as they have the past at such a time, refusing to give direct answer to specific question it is evident the media is not going to accept this and we have already seen persistent and insistent questioning which exposed the dishonesty and attempted manipulation of the politicians. This time the public is not going to be fooled and unless there is an immediate change in the approach there are going to be surprises and shocks on election day.

Tuesday 6 April 2010

1907 Simon Reeve around the Tropic of Cancer Part one

I did not see the first two series of earth circumnavigations by Simone Reeve, the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn, unfortunately, and I only watched the first three episodes of the third series, Tropic of Cancer, after noting that the 4th episode was to be shown on Monday evening.

What I have just said is inaccurate because I have a vague notion of having watched individual episodes from the earlier series and watched the House of Saud in 2004, but somehow the importance of the man and his work has escaped my attention until now. This I will remedy by keeping an eye for further runs of his previous work

I am impressed for several reasons. Although as is evident Mr Reeve has a BBC camera crew, production manager/editor and trip organiser with him, presumably with an advance team paving the way, identifying issues and making contacts with televisual people et al, you are always aware that he is personally undertaking the travels in hostile environments of nature and of man, and that, as the locals are evidently aware, if there is something that merits reporting he and his team will do so without fear or favour. He does not appear to be the principal centre of attention as someone like Alan Wicker, Piers what’s his name Michael Palin and such like and he seems to get immediately to the heart of the matter he is bringing to our attention, in a casual off beat manner which works so well. You do not feel lectured at or being manipulated in holding a particular view or called upon to make a particular judgement. The programme editors have introduced the recent annoying habit of telling you in advance what is to come at the end and the beginning of advertisement breaks having grasped that for the majority what is being said does not register and remain in our attention unless the key points are hammered into out ongoing consciousness.

The other aspect which struck me after looking what Wikipedia has to say about Simon is that he is approaching 40. I would not have said he was over 30. He has been around the world three times and visited 90 countries. I have no information about how he came to embark on his dangerous investigative life or the details of his background other than he was brought up in West London and rarely went abroad until he started work. He also appears to have been uncertain about his future with jobs in a supermarket, a jewellery store and a charity shop before commencing as a postboy with a newspaper. This appears to have led to investigative journalism about nuclear smuggling, organised crime and terrorism, all subjects involving governments, unofficially, of course, as well as the most deadly of criminals on the earth planet.

His first book published in the later 1990’s was called The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef Bin Laden and the future of terrorism and he disclosed the existence of al Queda, known to the authorities but not to the public until them. The book became a best seller which only underline the enormity of the failure of USA intelligence in not being able to forestall 9/11 the kind of attack which Reeve forecast would happen. Why is it that all the great nations of the world turn out to also be rotten at their core? His second work studied the Munich massacre and after this he commenced to visit the obscure and troubled parts of the world for the BBC.

In the first of the Tropic of Cancer episodes he visits Baja in the most northern of Mexican states in the Gulf of California where United States criminals of various kinds hang out with the media and personality famous and the legitimate rich, paying exorbitant prices of around £5000 a night for a stay in spacious luxury accommodation with spectacular seascapes, with their own security ferrying them from and back to their yachts. It looked sterile as does Dubai although it was not the objective of Reeve to go in search of the drugs and sex which are the essential ingredients of such places as long as it not revealed in public or to the media, although in fairness as Reeve also subsequently reported their are old fashioned Muslim states as well as the terrorising fundamentalists, with the Arab upper classes have been coming to European capitals and other less publicised fleshpots for their sin.

Reeve appears always to be objective and attempts to see the other side which was apparent with his visit to the gold mining company’s demolition of a mountain immediately by a village. His first contact was with a local protestor opposed to the impact of the mining upon his community and environment. The problem is that the company offers good work for the locals as an alternative to the millions who leave to try their luck in the USA as cut price workers in absence of the Green Card. The company denied responsibility for the attacks on him and his home which they put down to employees and their relatives. It so much reminds of Spanish peasants coming to work in Gibraltar for the military and civil administrators of the British Empire.

What Reeve then revealed was how corrupt Mexico remains today in a situation where the America policy is clear, one does not openly criticise friendly countries with whom one is doing good business. He visited the city of Culiacan in Sinaola which is dominated by the drug barons supplying the USA and where their chains of operatives are forever murdering each other and anyone who gets in their way, especially the police who fail to take bribes or yield to intimidation. The Federal government put on a good show allowing him to travel around with the heavily armed state police used to impress the locals that the government is seriously trying to tackle the problem. We were shown enough to indicate the truth of badly equipped forces, facing superior weapons supplied by the United States.

The reality was brought home when the mini convoy arrived at a small town in the middle of nowhere and the vehicle in which Reeve was travelling was deliberately rammed by a taxi driver, whose mates then surrounded the visitors in a hostile and threatening way demanding compensation. The police were called and immediately showed they were part of the problem and Simon and his party were only able to leave by paying up. Their driver said he was ashamed that the rest of the world would see the reality of his sham USA propped up state.

They made a stop in Mexico City where he attended the local World Wrestling style pantomime performed by women in a huge arena where the locals could vent their frustrations and aggression without harming anyone directly. For me the his visit confirmed my long standing view that your average Mexican is caught between the rock and the hard place, staying home and finding yourself out of work, terrorised by drug dealers and other criminals or cross the boarder as a slave labourer and hope for something better, for ones children, at least.

The highlight of this first adventure was the stop over in Havana where he concentrated on the environmental movement to grow fruit and veg in the unlikeliest of places. Reeves casually reminds that Cuba used to be the gambling, drugs and vice capital of the USA which then looked to the soviet union for support against the might of the USA capitalists determined to crush the Castro regime by any means despite the country having one the best effective education and health systems on the planet. The ex Cubans, supported by the mafia and the international capitalists form an important political force in the USA which tends to drive USA foreign policy.

After a stopping in the Bahamas, another play ground for the rich and famous, money laundering and tax evasion reputedly, where he finds he slums created by fleeing Haitians and the local fishing decimated by predator devouring escapee’s from USA aquariums, called Lion Fish.

In the second programme his journey across Africa began with exposing the invasion of western Sahara by the Moroccans and the lengths they are going to prevent the local people from challenging the assimilation of their country Nazi and Stalin style. He then spend days on a train through the harsh desert landscape across the Sahara to see life at first hand in the Algerian refugee camps where more than 100000 Saharawis from the Western Sahara live, and then he broke freshly cooked bread with a Turaeg nomad and saw the Saharawis army train one side of the UN monitored truce line. He then met up with camel traders of Algeria where the beasts are used for meat than travel and entered the previously hidden world of Libya, once a training ground for terrorists, and now trying to join in the new world of international capitalism. His escort minder was a distant relative of the dictator and he was able to contrast the beauty and tranquillity of the oasis lake Al Gabroun with the dried up remains of Mandara, an urgent reminder of man’s mismanagement of environment one way or another. He then visited a part of a huge network of waterway tunnels being built to outside the coastal cities to enable population movement and development arising from the oil revenues. The programme communicated the vast emptiness, the areas of natural splendour, the comparative primitive poverty of many and the problems leaders face of engaging with the corrupt capitalist system which nevertheless has provided significant improvements for the majority. That is the irony and dilemma.

The first part of his third programme looked at the impact of the Assam dam project on the lives of the Nubian people who lost their homes and their heritage under the waters of the Nile but which provided the cities and towns of North Egypt with electricity from the 1960’s following the creation of the 300 miles Lake Nasser which makes the few miles of Lake Kielder appear a pond. Reaching the Red sea he sees at first hand the extraordinary beauty of the coral reefs and speculates on the wisdom of the Egyptian move allow the development of the area into European holiday resorts. He meets up with the owner of one luxury site with accommodation for 200 who has been offered fortune a fortune to sell up because the government believe that the resort could provide accommodation for 2000 and wants to create a change of such resorts along the red sea sands and coral reefs. This is the dilemma which Simon meets time and time again. On one hand there is the call to preserve the natural wonders of world which usually means they are only accessible to the few who are rich enough to buy their way with the security and provisions to sustain their life style or adventuresome enough to pack back their way and live as the people do at constant risk of disease and starvation, with the additional risks of capture and slavery, one way or another. Egypt is struggling to remain a predominantly secular state with tourists constantly under threat from terrorist outrages unless they are heavily guarded by the state.

The perspective immediately changed on crossing the Red Sea into the modern Muslim state of Saudi Arabia. The team was only allowed in with an invitation from a handpicked educated Saudi young woman who destroyed all his accusations about the subordination of woman and the strict code of behaviour with great feminist skill and charm. The problem the Saudi young men face because they cannot openly drink, gamble, take drugs or fornicate, let alone go out with girls before the arranged marriage, is that they only way they have to let off steam is to drive around aimlessly in soupped up cars with night club standard audio blasting equipment in their boots, or become active fundamentalists determined to inflict their way of life my or your grand children.
He then visited Dubai and exposed the situation of the migrant workers mainly from the Indian sub continent, promised fortunes in earnings, but have to mortgage their homes and take out loan shark loans to make the trip for the benefit of their families, only to find themselves marooned in slave conditions and without funds as the building boom has slowed with the collapse of international capitalism. I still do not understand why anyone would want to go and live in this make believe Middle eastern Las Vegas although I fully understand the driving necessity which has always attracted those who go in the hope of achieving better for their children.

I tend to agree with the people of Oman to try and keep things are they are almost ignoring the wealth of the oil except to try and protect their natural environment. I liked the idea of the woman owning the goats with the men selling them for a commission. They appear to have got their values the right way round although we were not given much opportunity to find out what the people thought and how they would react if they were given choice. I look forward to learning about the rest of the journey around the world to India, Bangladesh, and Laos, Vietnam, Taiwan and Hawaii. In the meantime I turned my attention to the last even Frost detective programme spread over two nights.

Monday 5 April 2010

1425 Christopher Eccleston is 10th Dr Who and more cricket

It has been a poor night. I cannot say it has been a terrible night in that I was ill, I was not in pain, hungry or in distress, I just did not sleep well going to bed about 1 am rising three if not four times before getting up half asleep before five am and then getting myself awake with a cup of coffee and losing at Hearts and winning a few games of chess. I felt ready to finish my writing of last night, putting off making toast, and to further dissatisfaction, discovered I had wiped out the almost ready writing and saved the last few words without reversing the process to save to the point that I had reached, It had been that kind of day.

Although disappointed with the cricket, I still had hopes of going to Lords in mid August through Yorkshire who were playing in the second semi final at Essex anther team which has done well in the one day game and who Durham beat last year at this same stage. However I had forgotten that it is Essex that has Napier, he who scored 156 in the 20 20 game hitting six sixes. We have Mr Morkel who had performed so badly when it mattered most, but this was not to be the situation yesterday. Essex were clever concentrating on building up a solid total without losing early wickets and then allowing their middle order to achieve a good total, scoring 100 runs in the last ten overs with Mr Napier getting sixty of them. Sky would have liked him to have been put on earlier but wiser heads prevailed at Essex, knowing that Yorkshire's strength this year has been its bowling, but as at the Riverside, the way to approach a good playing surface on a warm and sunny day was to sue spin, good spin, which Durham lacked to control the flow of runs, and frustrate the batsman into making inappropriate and wicket losing strokes.

Although the weather was fine in Essex, at Chelmsford, a ground which I am yet to visit, here it changed and became dramatically, overcast for the morning when up to 2000 young people were descending on the beach for a sandcastle competition followed by a small parade to make the official start of the summer festival. It is not a crowd attracting parade other than Saturday shopper's and the families of the younger participants, which in this instances was just as well because it not only rained, but it was a hard rain. Usually at this time we have prolonged period of one form of weather, rain rain rain, or sun sun and more sun but this mixture makes planning days ahead difficult to impossible. Hopefully the weather would revert to that of Friday for the opening show by Lulu in the park on Sunday afternoon, but it did not feel that this would be so. The day had the feel of the two occasions of longer holidays in Scotland and one in Cornwall when it rained at some point almost every day, during the day time and remained overcast at other times and is why the two week holiday in Spain, Greece, the South of France, and Italy is so popular.

The absence of any incentive to go outside my home meant that I was able to work hard sorting and scanning photographs and should finish phase one of this project in terms of the subject matter later today, although creating DVD's may take a few days more.

There was also the second part of the Dr Who series finale which I hoped would prove as good as the first. I will go as far as saying that it should be regarded as the major TV event of the year and perhaps the best piece of non fiction broadcasting for sometime. I have yet to remember anything better constructed, engaging and satisfying in its conclusion.

Dr Who is a British phenomenon although it does has a good fan base in the USA through the science fiction channel and in Australia and Canada and is being shown in a number of other countries. It commenced in 1963 and ran until 1989 without a break, with audiences for new episodes varying between three and ten million, at times second only to the soaps. It was then briefly resurrected in 1996 and the developed of computerised special effects since the Millennium enabling the present series which commenced in 2005 and produced by BBC Wales to be planned as a more contemporary programme, but still aimed at an early evening family entertainment but after the youngest of children have been put to bed. Altogether there have been 751 episodes from the original low budget black and white, many of whose episodes have been wiped or lost without having been replaced such was the previous disregard for the history of the programme, to the present day cinema theatre quality with imaginative cleverly constructed scripts, great actors and expensive special effects.
However the format has remained the same although for the current runs each of the thirteen episodes is self contained with overall links, usually through the special companion or companions of the Doctor. As With the Doctor who has to change physical form from timer to time, the companions cone and go leaving him an essentially lone traveller, bearing the accumulative pain of all that he sees and feels. This does not mean he does not become very attached to his companions but he always as to do the right thing for them and their families as well as the future of the earth planet for which he has a special affection.

There have been ten Doctor Who's with those who watched every series having their favourites although those whose parents watch the series first with them, usually regarded that Doctor as special. My own are John Pertwee1970-1974 better known for his enactment pf the scarecrow Worzel Gummage and the softer performance of Peter Davidson, 1981-1984 but outshining them all is the present Doctor played by David Tennant who is showing a depth of performance even grater than Christopher Eccleston.

Throughout the forty five years of broadcasting the trade mark has remained Time Travelling with the TARDIS a police box on the outside but cavernous inside rather like my car and the outside appearance of my home. For many of not the majority of present day viewers the police box will be a curious concept whereas in my child hood it was a common feature on many a street corner alone with the AA and RAC boxes as dedicated phone line systems in addition to the red telephone boxes that were common on the streets of towns and where every village had at least one. The idea being that the time travel machine could land on any British Street and not provoke attention. A second consistency as been the major alien baddies, the Cybermen and worst of all the Daleks, preposterous as frightening or threatening creatures but always almost successful in enslaving the world. The third consistency has been the theme music devised Ron Grainer and realised by Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic workshop.

Thirty five actors and actresses have played time travelling companions and one of the significant aspects of the 2008 finale is the bringing together of everyone who has been a companion or assistant together and devising a way in which Rose played by Billy Piper could have a one heart and therefore mortal Doctor look alike to live with in her parallel universe. I have previously commented that at first I thought that Catherine Tate was great in the one off 2007 Christmas special but found it difficult to become the girl next door character which has been a feature of the programme and enables audience identification. As this series progressed I thought Catherine Tate stopped being Catherine Tate and became a believable Donna Noble and last night he scriptwriters brought the two together in a performance which should win her awards, revealing her to be an extraordinary actress as well as a brilliant comedienne. So why the rave review and commendations. It was at this point I went to bed last night, from tiredness rather than lack of an answer the posed question. The story, although complex with its constant twist and turns was credible, fast moving and funny. It was also sad and realistic an where the special effects added to the overall effectives but were never the objective and because it tied everyone and everything thing into the last episode in a show of getting together faced with a common enemy which was also a message to the nation at large.

The previous day I had written about the timely showing of Fallout about the knife murder of a black school boy by at black gang member from the same school and neighbourhood. Yesterday the police announced that the government were requiring them to make the war against street crimes of this kind the number one priority.

1422 Our Song, the Cazelets and Photo scans

Yesterday, Tuesday, July 1st not making better use of the warmest day of the year I re experienced the feeling of missing out and remembered all those times past and recent when this was so. It also ended on a mixture of high and low notes.

The process of scanning photographs also reminds of past times, many no longer part of my every day consciousness. This is being a positive and healing experience with moments of sweet sadness of times which cannot be repeated, and yet I am still able to relive them as the past becomes more important than the present. This is the nature of being old and adjusting to the situation

I am also in awe of the basic software which recaptures the original colours of photographs faded from exposure to sunlight and which also enables separating individuals in groups and making enlargements from the smallest of photographs to seeing for the first time individual faces and viewpoints in close up.

I have so very few photographs of my childhood and so I rely on films to remind me of those times. By accident I came across a series covering the second world war which have no recollection of seeing when it was first shown in 2001, called the Cazelets. This is a perspective on the war from the viewpoint of a privileged family living in a country house in Sussex who also have a London town house.. When the war comes the family congregate at the country home to escape the blitz and although everyone is affected the quality of their lives only changes marginally.

This contrasted so greatly with what happened to my birth and care mothers and their sisters who had been a family of some standing through the work of their father for the inter war British navy and then the British Army and their involvement with the Catholic Church and which effectively influenced what had become the indigenous predominantly population. Suddenly they found themselves nobodies, in a dark cold work, having worked in factories by day and huddle in fear in the air raid shelter at night. While food had been basic and simply prepared it always been plentiful and now everything was scare, and there was even difficulty in getting hold of the materials to make the family clothing.

There are four entwined branches of Cazelets, grandparents, the central interest generation and their children, each with contrasting personalities and interests to provide a broad canvass of experience at this time.

The good brother is loving to his wife and to his daughter and their tragedy is not the war but the illness and death of the wife from cancer. Too often these years are seen only in terms of those who fought and died or were injured directly caused by the war. There were many heroes such as this family, the woman who suffered greatly but tried to protect her family and the family to tried to protect their mother and all with great love. However in this instance the family could afford the best local and London medical, nursing care in the kind of the situation where the consultant personally sees the patient to their waiting car.

Then there is the family where the father goes to sea and becomes stranded in in France after helping out at Dunkirk. He had a young family and his boarding school son finds it very difficult to cope. Everyone thinks he is dead except the teenage daughter who writes to General De Gaulle hoping to be told that her father is alive and working as a spy. In order to keep busy and despite having a baby, his wife tries to help by visiting the severely wounded in hospital and befriends one severely disfigured man where an inevitable relationship develops, innocent but emotional. She can have this involvement because she has the help of a nanny and although domestic service ended for the majority of the middle classes in the fifties and sixties it has returned with both parents actively working in the contemporary job market and because of the increasing provision of help in the home during old age.

Then news comes that the husband is alive and being hidden in France and everything changes again, although in terms of the relationship between husband and wife we know it can never return to the position it was before.

The next family is the core family in that the wife appears to be in control of the household but not her husband. A headword where Jimmy McCardle of Brookside is the odd job chauffer gardener with a story of his own. Unhappily married his wife running off and setting up a new home, admitting she married because of pregnancy where her son was not his. He is able to come to an understanding with the housekeeper as the war progresses and his wife' seeks a divorce. This couple observe the rules of behaviour required bur rarely followed by the middle and upper classes of the day and are an example to them. However not so the husband of the lady of the house, a squadron leader responsible for the management of an air base at Hendon who uses the London home for not one but two extra marital relationships. He is close with his daughter who wishes to become an actress rather than go to Oxford. She discovers the infidelity when in London part of the social scene where she has met and caught the eye of a well known portrait painter and minor aristocracy and where in what I believe is the end of the TV series. as I have only found a synopsis of five episodes, the couple marry. There is a fourth family where the son visits and becomes a conscientious objector and has an emotional break down inevitable given the behaviour and outlook of his father and then acquiescence of his mother.

I was struck by the contrast between their experiences and my own. The physical contrast in life style although at the time I had no idea that our experience was not everyone's. This changed as soon I began to cinema two three and four times a week and immerse myself in the adult fiction after moving from preparatory to the senior school.
The one difference which strikes me now is their possession and use of motor vehicles throughout the wartime, when I recollect seeing so few vehicles and where only one relation came to own a car in the late 1940's. The second was the cultural and recreational experience of our respective families. They are created as the quintessential English family with servants, nannies, and an overall sense of decency and doing the right thing (marital behaviour excepted. It was my good fortunate when I left school at sixteen years in the mid 1950's and went to work in a local government office in central London to be attached to a section of six men, one who had fought and lost part of his leg in the first world war and five who had served in second, one at sea, and at least one in the air and something of their lives, their dissatisfactions a decade later and their good wishes that my experience would be better than theirs. They influenced me greatly although I was only there for two years, they influence me still.

This morning I needed some bread and milk but went into the town centre to the bank and to the greengrocers below the station in the search for quality cherries.. There was a mature street musician with a pleasant voice guitar and mouth organ, so I sat on nearby public seating and enjoyed two and half songs, including Let it be, and the war past and present was along way away. I continued to notice the number of mobility vehicles including one lady who whizzed along behaving as if she was still driving a car. There were also two groups of three in pushed wheel chairs with disabilities and a number using disability walking sticks as well as conventional walking supports. I had also noted this mixture when visiting Beverley but there was also the contrast in the dress and physical appearance.

Last night I watched another film on World Vision. The lack of audience appears to have already reduced the amount of time when films are shown from midday to early evening and with the same films being recycled including Travelling Light which is being shown every day. There are several films I wish to see but either they are too late or there are greater interests. I am not sure of my reactions to Our Song a film about Afro Hispanic teenage Americans because the culture is so different from my experience although I did work within a west London West Indian Community for over three years and had subsequent experience of the problems of those of one race or mixed face brought up in a different race or culture.

The interesting aspect of Our Song directed and written by Jim McKay (his first film on a similar subject was Girl's Town) is that being black or mixed race is not the governing issue and the story has a documentary feel which I believed to be authentic. It is the story of three girls who suddenly find their world turned upside down when their school closes because of asbestos and they are individually required to find new schools. Such as situation would not occur in the UK or be tolerated by any of the major political parties and by the community in general. The state through the local education authority involved would be expected to make alternative arrangements and where each young person and their families would be consulted and advised to ensure there was the minimum disruption.

The second interesting aspect is the girls were not controlled or governed by either a religious/moral framework or their parents in the way which young people used to be until the 1970's here in the UK and to a major extent still. They were surprising "mature" about some aspects of life. The one big influence in their lives which required dedication and commitment was their membership of a 60 a strong marching band, the like of which we do not have in the UK although there is the more sedate bands of drums and kazoos with baton wavers in the northern counties of England. Most children almost without exception attempt to steal something from a store such as Woolworths as a dare, to be part of a group, or to test themselves. In the same way that going to parties, discussing boys and their sexual experience was also part of their lives at one time the film did not suggest that these were other than events and therefore my impression sit hat three were intended to represent normal teenagers albeit from different family background experiences, one when the father is in prison, one separated and one together and understanding. So the culture was different but I felt there were truths and realities about growing up. I also felt sad and angry because it seemed to me that the odds were already stacked against all three and that they would have to have exceptional drive and be exceptionally lucky if they were not quickly to find themselves prisoner of their social cultural conditions. My impression is that girls and women are even more unequal in black communities in the USA and Muslim communities here in the UK as their white counterparts.

I am drinking a wine from Argentina this week and the teletex today announced that Newcastle has signed an Argentinean player Gutierrez. I will mention that And Murray was outclassed and humiliated by Nadal in the Quarter final at Wimbledon so his reign over the British need for the hero (covers heroines) was one of the shortest in living memory. He had to put up and do down fighting. He did neither and for that rather like Gordon Brown the British public are unlikely to forgive unless he can do the impossible next year and win. Brown and his present Cabinet never appeared to grasp that Tony Blair won a third term as did Margaret Thatcher despite their personal popularity Interestingly it was those of significant lesser ability who brought the two leaders down, not the British public.

1906 Easter 2010 TV and work Ashes to Ashes and Dr Who.

For the past weeks, when not on trips, I have woken full of enthusiasm for writing, resenting the basics of getting up, washing up and washing me, ignoring a house requiring use of the vacuum cleaner and kitchen and day room floors needing a good wash, ignoring emails and snail mail. The consequence has been some satisfying time researching and writing.

While I have also worked steadily on the ongoing project, progress has been average, reaching the minimum 100 completed new sets target only during the first couple of days of this month and allowing the number of volumes to be photographed to accumulate. Over the past few days the inclination has been the other way round, with two writings about Babylon 5 waiting and one for Lost, the continuation of the EastEnders story among the items outstanding. As a consequence I have upped the output to four new sets a day after discovering that I had not printed out the Google Blogs since mid April. I need to spend two or three days this month copying published summer 2008 MySpace Blogs, then reviewing, correcting an updating for publication on Google with the intention of completing the backlog before the new year.

This weekend is also one of TV watching, sport, some I player catch ups and some current programmes. First the sport. Towards the end of the week I enjoyed watching an Indian Premier League 20 20 cricket game, learning that Kevin Petersen was in the team and where he made a creditable half century. On Saturday morning I watched Abe Morkel participate in the second highest IPL partnership of 150 runs as their team made the highest total ever with a scorching blitz of sixes and fours in the intense heat of the city. Morkel made an excellent 50 with his partner an amazing 100 for the Chennai Super Kings. I hope Morkel is able to reproduce his current batting form for Durham’s 20 20 season and with the New Zealand Taylor I might revise my intention not to take a season ticket, given, being away, a TV showing and the likely indifferent weather conditions.

I was so engaged with work and other things that I forgot to listen to either the Sunderland or Newcastle games on the radio and where both teams had important wins. The Newcastle result had the greater significance when they won at Plymouth 3.2 and reached 86 points, Notts Forest with their draw can not also only reach 86 if they win all their remaining matches and Newcastle fail to take any points from theirs. Notts Forest play again on Monday early evening and anything less than a win means Newcastle are promoted back to the Premiership at their first attempt. Whatever they do all changes again if Newcastle then draw or win in their televised game in the evening. It will be a special party at St James Park and it will be interesting to see if the owner signals his intention to try and sell the club again or hopes the success will enable him to remain in control of the club. As Sunderland found winning the championship is hard but enjoyable, staying in the Premiership or having an impact is a different matter without a fortune, good management and luck.

Sunderland made themselves safe from relegation by an amazing home win against Spurs in a match which I then saw in its entirety in the evening on Sky. They won 3.1 but the amazing aspect in that they were awarded three penalties of which Marcus Bent was only able to score once with the other two stopped. This means he has taken four penalties this season against his former Club and only converted once. He scored one of the two other goals two goals in the opening 60 seconds and Zenden scored a brilliant volley to ensure the three points just when it looked that Spurs were making a comeback. There were two other good penalty claims turned down in a match which meant as much to Spurs as it did to Sunderland. Man City displacing them in the fourth European Championship place after a powerful 6.1 win away at Blackburn. Chelsea beat a poor Man United without Wayne Rooney, injured on crutches, to take the lead in the championship with Arsenal also in the hunt with a last second win against Wolves. The championship title is the most open for several years. Chelsea must be the favourites with so many Arsenal key players injured, Rooney is out for three weeks and his contribution to the team this season has been outstanding in terms of goals scored and general play. Fortunately he should recover to be available for England in the World Cup.

I also watched the boat race between Oxford and Cambridge on Saturday for the first time in several years, including the major the 90 minutes build up in which the sporting and academic lives of the rowers and coxes were examined together with a detailed look at the Thames riverside over its four and a half miles in length course to Mortlake. Cambridge won against the odds and for the first time in three years but as always the build up and interviews is more interesting than the actual race which tends to only have one defining moment in its 17 to 18 minutes endurance journey. The boats tends to be half filled with North Americans on post graduate sporting scholarships to Oxbridge.

I watched the practice sessions in the Malaysian Grand Prix as heavy rain resulted in the Ferrari’s and McClaren teams making major mistakes which saw their cars failing in the first session and ending up at the back of the starting grid. This led to some amazing driving on Sunday morning, especially from Lewis Hamilton who charged from the back to finish 6th with Jensen in eighth both securing points in the championships for drivers and constructors. They were helped by Alonso Ferrari blowing up in the last stages, but for the first time this season the two Red Bull Renaults did not, and Vettel claiming the race and his team mate Mark Webber second. Michael Schmacher also retired because of a wheel nut after 9 laps. The race was the most interesting of the three to-date and would have been even more so had it rained at some point. I mean torrential down power of course. As a result only nine points separate the first seven drivers in the championship and four points the first four. McLaren’s are now only ten points behind the Ferrari and Red Bull five points behind them.

The great surprise of the weekend was an email from someone on behalf of someone else who turns out to be a distant cousin. Between 1999 and 2006 I undertook a detailed family history search of the background of my birth and care mothers, since being alerted that her family originally came from the town of Calne in Wiltshire. I was then provided with significant information about the Smarts of Calne through a combination of private family history researches who were able to trace their and my maternal ancestors in the town back to the 1600’s.

In preparation for the 100th birthday of my birth mother, I undertook a more thorough study of the family discovering that her grandfather, and my great grandfathers had been the fourth of five sons born in succession after their mother had produced seven daughters in succession. Large families were common in Victorian timers as were the number of deaths in childhood. In the instance of Thomas and Sarah Smart of Calne only one of their twelve children died in childhood. All five sons married although one died soon afterwards and although I was able to find out something about the seven daughters I was only able to trace what happened to one who married into a family of Blacksmiths from a nearby village and where a member of this family was the only present day relative of all the 11 other brothers and sisters I was able to find. This was frustrating because of my maternal Great Grandfathers brothers and sisters and first cousins, I was able to find descendents in Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Scotland and South Africa. One branch had emigrated to Australia on the first iron clad steamer while another had travelled in a convict vessel. One who went to South Africa became the Mayor of Cape Town. As part of my studies I had visited the towns of villages where the family and spread through marriage, and checked the baptismal records as well as obtaining copies of birth, marriage and death certificates and tracing the origins of the Smarts of Calne back to the 15th century.

There were several highlights. Seeing the original army records of my maternal Great Grandfather, including his medical history, at the National Record’s centre at Kew and then seeing the giant register in which he was awarded a Royal Hospital Chelsea out pension. The other highlight was to look at the Calne Tithe Map before census records commenced in 1841. This map of every property in the town, more a village, was shown with a separate list of every owner and more importantly every family who lived in the properties at that time. From this I was able to find not just the house where my maternal Great Grandfather lived with his parents, but the properties of two uncles, and that of his grandfather and grandfather’s brother.

However there was also the most spooky of experiences. I had walked into the recently created Calne Heritage centre one morning to get out of the rain and was asked to sign the visitor book by volunteer who had left talking to a couple older than myself who had been showing then a large framed photograph. Her mouth opened wide when she saw my surname and introduced me to a Mr and Mrs Smart who had lived in Curzon Street for a number of years, same street where my maternal great grandfather had been raised. While I was not able to trace a connection between these Smarts and my own branch of the family the photograph was of another Mr and Mrs Smart from who had run a coffee house the town in Victorian days on Market Hill. A descendent of their branch had passed the photograph to the Town Council who in turn has passed it on to the Heritage centre. I was able to establish that the photograph was an ancestor for a branch of the family where another descendent had provided me with most of the original research in 1999 all the way from Canada.

In the four year since completing the research I was contacted three by those following up their branches of the same family with major links in the 18th and 19th centuries. One of the contact was the only descendent of the 11 brothers and sister of my maternal great grand father that has been identified and they were from the side of a family into which the youngest daughter had married.

It was therefore exciting on Saturday to received an email providing same information about the brothers and sisters and their parents from a relative of someone who was a descendent of a marriage between one of two daughters of the elder brother of my maternal great grandfather who had married two brothers. In 2006 I had been able to mention that in the 1901 census the daughter was living at home and working as a maid. I knew that one of elder sisters had married and I speculated that of the three possibility one I favoured was a signwriter living in Fulham. I was right in my hunch as his brother married the younger sister in 1902.

I have previously explained that apart from my birth certificate I have been able to find to record of existence during the first 10 years of my life as it is appears I had no medical record, nor has my birth mother with her record only commencing when the family doctor retired. I also failed to secure a copy of the medical record of her sister, my care mother where I suspect any medical attention may have been listed. Although my Catholic preparatory remains in existence it moved premises with changes in control and they have no record from before the move. I have also explained why my existence was kept secret from the authorities which adds to the limited record keeping and I will not live until the 1941 national census, assuming there was one taken in the midst of World War two, is published. Therefore I suspect what I have been able to find out about direct ancestors has greater meaning than for most people. It is also a joy to be able provide others with important information about their heritage although as I also stress it is better to make discoveries directly, viewing the original records first hand.

Saturday evening saw the first in the new series of Dr Who with the first production of the new Doctor the 11th played by Matt Smith. He is not as impressive and the previous two men, both exceptional young actors. However where I predict Matt will gain is in his appeal to the young people, for whom the programme is primarily intended Matt is also an established actor with appearances for the National Youth Theatre and the National Theatre. He also was contracted to appear in the film In Bruges, my favourite Black comedy, but his scenes only appear as out takes on the DVD. I immediately fell in love with Karen Gillan who plays his first new assistant. She is not only stunning to look at but played the character as someone with an erotically wicked personality. I have learnt she combines acting with the catwalk and I predict she could become as successful as another past heartthrob of mine and also predicted star when I first saw her in the Darling Buds of May, viz Ms Zeta Jones. Both have the X acting factor.

I also rated the first episode of the new series 9 out of 10 because it combined many of the usual features of self contained episodes with a momentum which left me saying WOW at the end and looking forward to the next episode. The new Doctor crashes his Tardis into the garden of young Amelia Pond who is alone in the house because the aunt who cares for her is away. The girl immediately engages our attention and sympathies and was also played exceptionally well by Caitlin Richmond, another who I predict will become a frontline actor if she chooses. She mentions a crack in her bedroom wall and the Dr investigates and discovers that it is a crack in time behind which a prisoner is being kept. He seals the room but has to leave to fix the Tardis promising to return in a few minutes. Ten years pass and he finds Amelia who likes to be called Amy dressed as a policewoman as part of her career as a Kissogram performer. Unfortunately she lets out the prisoner from the room behind the crack, much to horror of the Atraxi who warn that if the prisoner is not recaptured they will obliterate the human residence which the Dr comes to understand as the earth planet thus reminding of the Hitchhikers Guide and Babylon 5. The prisoner can also shape shift into more than one being, a man and a dog, a woman and two girls, the Dr and the Young girl. The Dr has to use all his ingenuity to save everyone. There is a horde if in jokes and references. He then has to depart to sort out the Tardis once more again for a few minutes, but two years then pass before he returns, and in fact it is the night before Amy is due to marry. Given his inability to accurately time travel so far that is appears unwise for her to agree to accompany him on his next trip after promising to get her back to the same moment. It has already been made evident that her life has been dominated by her first encounter with the Doctor, Amy appears to have two adult boyfriends, one works as nurse in the psychiatric hospital and the other appears to be the son of a neighbour played by the great Annette Crosby. All three have known Amy since childhood and her stories of the Doctor and what happened on that night when she was twelve. The significance of dressing up as a police woman and the Tardis Police box was duly noted.

Less successful, in my view, was the return of Ashes to Ashes. for its third and final series. A young police woman has been shot and lies in a coma and she regains consciousness nearly thirty years before as a Detective Inspector. In the first series she is concerned with what happened to her parents at the time of Lord Justice Scarman’s criticism of the way the metropolitan police were behaving. She is haunted by the Clown from the David Bowie Video from his successful song Ashes to Ashes,

The second series of eight episodes had as its background the Falklands War and dealt with a corrupt police force in which the death of a young police officer is covered up.

In this third series having been brought back to the present, the DI finds adjusting more difficult than she should, commenting that her alleged dream state seemed to her more real than the present. She cannot continue her former life with her husband and daughter until she has sorted out the urge to return to the past. The first case involves a fabricated kidnap of a young girl by the step mother partner having been asked for financial help from her criminal former lover who has faked being in a coma in hospital by switching bodies and getting the girl‘s mother to wrongly identify him. The continuing aspects of the series involves the DI being haunted by the ghost of a young policeman. The series also features Philip Glenister, as the latest in a long line of hard nosed, ignore the rules, think with their manhood Detective Inspectors, Regan and Rebus come first to mind. The twist is that he is under investigation having unintentionally shot the starring DI.

I also commenced to watch the series Tropic of Cancer with an intrepid investigator explorer called Simon Reeves who in a previous series which I failed to see travelled the Tropic of Capricorn. The series is so interesting that I will watch all the episodes to date and dedicated a future Blog to the programme which travels to parts of the world the media only covers briefly during major incidents, meanwhile the leaders and their politicians exploit the rest of the people who live in abject poverty and in fear of the them, the military, other people and will the international corporations waiting to pounce if they can find a way and ensure a stable trading position.