Downton, Merlin and many more to write about

Sunday late, I am finishing catch up on TV shows while I watch what became the penultimate episode of Winds of War by Herman Woulk

I have watched the first four episodes of Haunted on the BBC a series which has disappointed because it is created by the same team responsible for Spooks. I will write more when the series is completed.

I watched a little of Strictly Come Dancing results show after Surprise Surprise which was a sickly sweet and then the Antiques Roadshow followed by Downton Abbey where I missed part last weekend but have seen all the other episodes.

I was not impressed with the opening episodes of the new series but this changed with the third and subsequent episodes and has become essential Sunday evening viewing despite some well trodden story lines.

The key developments so far have been the death of one of the daughters when giving birth because of the blinkered view of the Consultant who ignored the advice of the family doctor. The father of the child who had to come to Downton for sanctuary from the Irish Independence cause and is former Chauffer to the household is determined to bring up his son as a catholic. Her ladyship appears to have forgiven her husband for his backing of the Consultant against the GP, letting him back into her bedroom.

Bates the former Valet to his Lordship, falsely imprisoned because of the machinations of his former wife who made her death appear murder instead of suicide has a hard time in jail because of the machinations of a prison warder and another prisoner. His wife becomes worried when she receives no letters for several months as does he but this is put right and evidence comes to light which leads to his release from jail and return to the Downton Community,

His Lordship nearly loses the estate because of bad investment judgement and family are forced to consider downsizing. They are saved when his son in law and who will inherit the estate with the death of his Lordship, also inherits money from the family of his former fiancée. He feels he cannot accept until learning that it was the fiancée‘s wish when evidence of a letter comes to light. The Ladyship’s mother comes to visit from the USA played by Hollywood Legend Shirley MacLaine and is feted for her financial help until it is understood her wealth is also tied and she cannot bail the family out.

Having rescued the family Mathew is determined to put the estate on a sound financial footing with new investment equipment and reorganisation and is resisted by the agent and his Lordship. With the land agent resigning after 40 years change becomes a reality and a solution to what to do with the young widower is to make him the land agent for the estate under the supervision of Mathew. The son is christened in the Catholic Church and the Grandparents attend with his Lordship photographed with the Catholic Priest and the Father and his child.

The other daughter is jilted at the altar because of the age difference between her and the suitor and she has written a feminist letter which has been published and the editor wants her to write a regular column much to her father’s opposition. She meets the editor in London who takes a shine and she agrees to become a journalist.

The former maid with illegitimate son gives him up to the grandparents. She has managed an income through prostitution which creates problems with the household and the villagers when she is taken on by Mathew’s mother.

The Housekeeper was thought to have cancer for a time but the tests come back negative. The rogue former Footman and former homosexual lover of a Lord, also war time racketeer thinks as the valet to his Lordship with the incarceration of Bates that he is safe to continue his wicked ways and take a shine to the new footman at the expense of another house staff member who he drops in the proverbials from time to time. However when he misunderstands the interest is reported to the Butler, things now look grim for him much to the delight of her Ladyship’s personal maid who herself has much to answer having been directly responsible for her Ladyship’s miscarriage.

I have watched the episodes of (Young) Merlin, series nine in which Arthur is now King and married to Guinevere the former Lady’s maid to his half sister Morgana who spends all her time plotting to kill Arthur and take the Kingdom. In the two part opening episode Arthur’s Bane he sets off with Merlin to try and find out what happened to his men sent on a surprise attack to rescue other men held from a previous expedition to find out what was going on. They had been betrayed by the daughter of a Druid who was in the service of Guinevere. Morgana was using the men with others as slaves try and find what she thought was an artefact with great powers to foresee the future. What she does not know that the power is a creature who first rescues one of Arthur’s key men and then Merlin himself who the being recognises for his true self. Morgana has a young dragon presumable that from the egg which Merlin had given to the ancient Dragon played by john hurt that previously freed. However as Lord over the Dragons is able to prevent the young dragon doing damage. Merlin is concerned from having a vision in which a young druid who Arthur previously saved will be responsible for the death of the King in a battle. He is a relative of Morgana. When he comes across Merlin and Arthur captured he treats them as prisoners. They manage to escape but are recaptured by Morgana but the young man intervenes stabbing her which allows Arthur and Merlin to survive with the rest of his men. Arthur rewards by making the man a knight but Merlin remains concerned.

In the third episode Arthur’s father returns as a ghost having been unintentionally let out from the spirit world by Arthur’s in search of saying a proper goodbye to his father and seeking the man’s approval. The spirit is opposed to Arthur’s marriage and the way he is running the kingdom and seeks to destroy his son and his son’s wife. With help of Guis, the court Physician Merlin and Arthur are able to send the King back to the spirit world. I watched the fourth episode on Monday on the I player part of the Wii purchase a couple of episodes behind which I will watch on the I player and which followed a familiar pattern with Arthur well motivated but taking irresponsible risks for himself and his men and Merlin still playing the fool of personal assistant, knowing something is wrong which the village idiot would have recognised and allowing Arthur into yet another trap set by the evil Morgana. On one hand the failure to deal with the woman is gross negligence but if they did there would no continuing series.

I am also a couple of episodes possible three behind on Atlantic City the third series which seems more violent, more sexual and without any redeeming features from what I have seen to date. I hope to comment further when I catch up.

I have failed to catch up on the past eight episodes of the final season of the Soprano’s. I did watch the greater part of the Godfather part one recently and was struck was a great film it is compared to most of what has appeared on screens since about the Mafia in the USA,

On Saturday I watched almost all of five episodes of the Mini series of Herman Wouk’s Winds of War with Robert Mitcham and Ali McGraw and Topol have a part as does Ralph Bellamy as President Roosevelt. I was so tired that I recorded what I thought was the final episode only to discover it was the penultimate. Fortunately when I checked the final episode was showing although I missed the greater part but at least saw the conclusion going to bed at 1.30 The six episodes was shown back to back over 12 hours but which long periods of repetitive adverts. The Story is of the Second World War told through the eyes of the character portrayed by Mitcham as a naval officer who is appointed as attaché to Berlin and encounters the Nazi high ups including Hitler. His wife is a political and social embarrassment and serves as a vehicle to illustrative the seductive aspects of the regime. One of his sons baulks the naval tradition and become enamoured with a Jewess, and older woman McGraw who is McGraw torn between the young man and a Diplomat based in Poland. The two meet up through working for an uncle based in Italy and then when she visits Poland to see the diplomat and other family members (Topol) who live close to the German border just before the invasion. They escape with difficulty she to Norway and home to the USA and he to his father in Berlin before also returning to the USA. Mitcham forecasts that Hitler will do a deal with Stalin from his contacts in the Reich which impresses the President who had previously encountered decades before and gets Mitcham to send him private briefings. The series ends with Mitcham going back to sea in command after saying one married son, a naval officer and with the other son in submarine, believed to have been sunk at Pearl Harbour but which turns out to be a mistake. It is not clear if he and Ali have tied the knot or if she has married the Diplomat. His other daughter goes into TV production in New York. His wife seeks a divorce but then changes her mind. The original book has 1000 pages and was followed by War and Remembrance covering the rest. I have purchased both books from Amazon for a total of £12.

I have watched two of the six episodes to be broadcast of Hebburn, which I am finding very funny in part because I know the area well and its people. The series has Vic Reeves as the father and Gina McKee as his wife and is shot on location

There is no time now to write about the Newsroom a brilliant series in style of the West Wing and created by the same team. I will return to this series as I will tot he Sopranos when I move significantly into the new phase in my work and life.

I have come across another film The Thing, A prequel to the 1982 film of the same name. In 1982 an extra terrestrial vehicle is discovered below Antarctic ice by a Norwegian research team. They then discover what appears to be the dead remains of someone from the machine and remove the body into camp only to discover that it is not dead but has the capacity to hide in the bodies of selected human beings in such a way that most people will not detect the transfer.

The object of the creature is to escape from the area and multiply among the general population. Stopping the creature is led by Palaeontologist Kate Lloyd with the detection method to look at his teeth of other unit members as the creature cannot cope with metal fillings and a mouth will reveal this except for those who other forms of fillings, or the absence of any metal implants in their body. At the end of the film when it looks she and other members of team who survive are successful, a dog runs off, implying that he Thing has become the creature. I understand this is how the first film opened. Clever as it will make a number of viewer go to the original film. Not I thought.

New Tricks Series 9 four episodes

On October 25th I caught up on Monday night’s edition of New Tricks after making notes on the episode the week before and just about recovering from the loss of James Bolam from the series and not too sure about his replacement Steve McAndrew played by Dennis Lawson. The episode last night was scheduled for next week and the BBC decided to pull the planned episode because irony of ironies it covered under age sex in a children’s home in Glasgow and would have been shown half an hour before the Panorama special on Jimmy Saville.

I was uncertain about the continuation of the series until two strong stories in two weeks has made a significant difference to my original view following the departure of one of my favourite TV actors and character actors of all time, particularly because of his performance in the Beiderbecke tapes.

Two weeks ago I was fully engaged with the Blue Flower. Papers were found in a lock up which related to a man whose killing by a knife would was unsolved five years before. The man was an East German who had come to the UK as soon as the Berlin Wall was removed and was still looking for his daughter some 15 years later.

He and his wife had attempted to enter the West a couple of years before wall came down and they were caught at the wire fence, although with only a sufficient hole to pass their baby through to the waiting helpers, and organisation called the Blue Flower whose members attempted to infiltrate government organisations in East Germany, including the secret police, in order to undermine the regime. While the Wall divided Berlin the boundary between East Germany and West Germany in general was fortified but not as by a wall.

The papers found in the lock up garage suggested he had access to personal documents and his work had been at a local refuse centre as a picker someone who checked the contents of bins on a conveyer belt in order to remove any documents such as bills which were then shredded. While this line of inquiry had outcomes it did not prove central to the main story. When the team visit the Refuse centre they are met with hostility by the manager and by the person in charge of the conveyor belt system. Jerry takes the opportunity while the new man engages the head to check out the office of the man controlling those on the conveyor belt and discoverers a store of personal data confirming the involvement with Data theft. However the team are warned off because a special squad are investigating an international Identity theft operation which the Refuse centre is providing with info. They have a man working on the team. Nevertheless two of the team members attend a club having found a note of a meeting that evening. This proves to be an arrest sting by the special squad who are no amused at the continuing interest of the UCOS, who are helpful apprehending the Manager when he attempts to evade capture. It is therefore evident that the death of the East German is not related to his work at the Refuse centre.

The East German man had spent a couple of hours every day close to the centre of Shepherds Bush, near the Market at the busiest time, before going on to work hoping to catch sight of his daughter. although how he obtained a current photo was never explained. She had been adopted but comes to the UK and had got into trouble. It is through this, that her DNA and her location are traced, although it is not clear how such a link was possible. What I question is that given the skills of the father as a former member of the State Secret Police that he was unable to find or that his talents were not taken up by a private security or detective agency because as it transpires he was one of the good guys.

In fact at first UCOS had no inkling about why the man was standing on a street corner for 2 hours and the background to his activity until they went to the scene at the same time he did and encountered the mother of a boy who had played chicken with a friend and been knocked down and killed by a passing taxi cab whose driver had no opportunity to stop. The mother had visited the site of his death every day then as she had continued to do, delivering flowers from the nearby florist where she worked as manager and despite her tragic story she became my number one suspect,

Examination of the records concerning the death of the son confirmed that the driver was no responsible, a verdict which the mother continued not to accept. Contact with the driver reveals him to be good man haunted by what happened. What emerges is that in fact the East German man had not been after the Taxi driver as a friend of the mother but he had had become concerned that she was set on revenge while her balance of mind was understandably disturbed.

Too late the team appreciate that their investigation has rekindled the mother’s inability to accept that the boy’s death was self inflicted. They find she had stabbed the Taxi driver who remains fighting for his life at the end of the programme. She has taken an overdose but insufficient for her to be taken in to police custody for the assault and the death of the East German man who she admits was stabbed accidentally by her as he attempted to take the knife from her that she intended to use on the Taxi driver.

The team have located the daughter but she runs away having become hostile to all authority figures. The find a memory stick which reveals that she is responsible for a Blog on the activities of the Blue Flower the organisation which enabled her to be brought up in the West.

All the available evidence to the Team and to the daughter indicate that her father had been responsible for the arrest of his wife as she attempted to escape with the child to west as the girl urgently needed medication not readily available in East Germany at the time. As a consequence of his action as a member of the secret police his mother, who had become a member for the Blue Flower organisation had died in custody.

The florist who had killed him does inform the UCOS team that as he died he had uttered a phase in German which translated means the Blue Flower. The team had examined his former residence in a hostel type block which is now empty awaiting demolition. Nothing had been found at the time or since. They make a separate visit and work out that the dimensions of the room suggest not just a hidden compartment but a significant storage area, reached by pressing a flower on the wallpaper behind a wardrobe which has been coloured Blue. That he was able to construct the room and has amassed a vast quantity of material is not questioned by the team but from photos on display and from the journal they learn the truth. Both had been members of the Blue Flower organisation but having only been able to ensure the child was rescued it was the mother who had the idea that the husband should arrest her and therefore protect his position and be able to escape, find his daughter and tell her the truth of what happened.

The team are therefore able to show the daughter the room and his work as well as the photos so she can reappraise her views and feelings about the man. Despite some of the flaws in the storyline the episode had the feel of authenticity, because it was so sad, with the man dying before completing his mission. He had been able to trace the girl to Shepherds Bush and had stood close to the Market entrance for an hour or more before undertaking his work shift in the hope of seeing the daughter presumably having gained a recent photo, although this was also not made clear. He had done this for year upon year in all weathers. At the end she has the new understanding to comfort her but as with many such stories in real life there was no happy ending

The latest episode Part of a Whole ticked many boxes of interest and in terms of storyline about the machinations of the Secret Service and their engagement with criminals for political purposes.

Stephen Fisher an urbane and apparently cold heated senior figure in the British Security Services has from time to time intervened in the activities of UCOS and until now appeared to have some kind of hold over the Deputy Assistant Metropolitan Commissioner, DACC Strickland, one of whose functions is to supervise the activities of the UCOS team under the Unit Leader played by Amanda Redman and to set their priorities and work programme.

As the episode begins Fisher returns to his bachelor flat and senses and spots something is wrong to exit quickly before it is blown up leaving the assassins to conclude he has died, something which the media accept was a gas explosion death. Strickland summons the full team to meet him at an out of town shopping centre car park to explain that their involvement while concerned with the death of a Journalist several decades before not only directly involves Fisher but himself as they had been part of a team assembled to undertake an illegal break in for their country to find out what the Journalist had known. The contents of the files had been photographed in relation to his work uncovering something related to Terrorist organisation in Northern Island and a well known crime boss in London although at the time they had known very little about what they were doing except it was in the national interest.

The Journalist had been killed in a hit and run in the presence of his then nine year old daughter who had never accepted that the death was accidental. When recently preparing to put a home on the market the daughter had come across a set of papers from those days, spreadsheets full of figures with one page missing. When older she had gone to a fellow journalist friend of her father about her concerns and he had promised to investigate but had never come back to her. She had more recently gone back to the police an somehow, I cannot remember how, the information had come to the attention of Stephen Fisher who understandably had commenced to make inquiries of his own and this had ignited the touch paper for the past to intrude on the present in such a dramatic way..

When interviewed the journalist first pretends ignorance and substantiates the original story but when interviewed more formally he confesses that he was aware more of the investigation that had been undertaken at the time but had become scared on learning that the principal target had been a major London Criminal of his day.

Meanwhile Strickland has set about contacting the other members of the unit that broke into the home of Journalist for the government. He finds that one has already died in an alleged accident and the second appears to have died from a heart attack. At this address he finds Fisher there, The find that a another colleague was at a Security Service safe house having received the warning message from the man who had alerted Fisher and Strickland to meet her with Fisher going in and Strickland waiting outside in the car,

Meanwhile Jerry and the new man have leaned on a snout who admits that it was the Crime boss who hired the hit men that placed the bomb in the flat of Fisher and who would appear to be responsible for the other deaths. The criminal is also identified from the papers provided by the daughter and he is visited by the team and shows contempt for their interest revealing that he remains a Secret Service Asset. This explains why suspicion since the death of the Journalist that the Criminal was involved in Drugs Prostitution and people trafficking and various other criminal activities but was never charged.

Jerry and he new man have been keeping an eye on one of the men of the Crime boss at a cafe and manages to learn by subterfuge that two men on a motor bike are going to an address which they follow and which happens to be the road where the safe house is located. As luck and good scripting would have it the killers arrive as Fisher is leaving the house and he is shot twice in the chest but not mortally. One of the two men is hit and injured by the vehicle of Jerry and the new man. The other escapes. The injured is chased down to a car park where he is about kill Jerry but fortunately one of the other original unit members who has also been trailing UCOS team members is on hand to kill the assassin before he can shoot Jerry. The team then pull a stunt which gets the phone off the man who had received the tip off call that led the assassin to the safe house indicating that the tip had come from within the service.

Strickland had visited one of the original unit members and his wife. It was a challenge for him to make the visit because he had a serious affair with the wife although it was not clear of this was before or after they had married. Since leaving the service the man had become a successful investment banker and very wealth and well connected. It then transpires that the phone call came not from the man but his wife who had been in the security services since recruited direct from Oxford.

The reason why Strickland was sure this couple were involved in the break in, in seeing the missing secret document, in the death of the journalist and in subsequent and more recent attacks and deaths comes from Brian working out that the missing papers of the inquiry team into the death of the had been hidden in another file. When this file was looked at it appeared to reveal nothing as the witnesses were unable to identify anything about the car however what they did say prompted the team to revisit the daughter and she recounted how she had been pulled back from the car by a woman who had sat on a park bench said she would return but never did. Although it happened decades before she might remember the woman from her eyes and who had spoken she remembered the woman talking to another man on the scene. Other witnesses had seen the woman before that day one at a cafe where the father had taken the daughter for some food. It all suggested that the woman had been following.

The story that unfolded also had a ring of potential authenticity as had the Blue Flower. The criminal had been used as an informant on the terrorist group in Northern Ireland through selling those drugs and whose information had contributed to the eventual peace process. He had therefore been protected since despite his continuing criminal operations. The husband had seen the missing document which provided him information which tied the payments being processed for the trafficking involved. The journalist had been taken out by the criminal without the approval of the Secret Service but the couple had been protecting him since. And provided the information when Fisher started to ask awkward questions which led to the attempts on his life and those of the other members of the team.

Strickland was able to blackmail the couple into upping sticks and departing these shores with their ill gotten gains and at the price of the criminal and the other assassin and crime gang’s members being “give” to the police for prosecution.

This still left UCOS with a sour taste although Fisher was intent on doing some of his own sorting when he returned after recovering from the bullet wounds.

The other two earlier programmes proved less interesting. One concerned a poet whose body had been found burned and where a loan shark who was imprisoned always claimed he was not guilty. Jerry was hostile to poetry until he discovered it could be effective as a means of engaging young women in conversation and turning their heads. Woman are throwing themselves at the best friend of the dead poet who had since become a nationally and internally known name and wealthy. A kind of John Betjeman of his day!

The crux of this case was that the poet in question did not die but was secreted away for decades and which solved one of the mysteries of someone who went missing at the same time and who could not be found. His accomplice was someone who was viewed as a suspect, commercially successful contemporary poet whose work had suddenly taken off with the death of his friend and where the finger was pointed out by someone who recognised some of her former boyfriend’s personal experience in the latest published volume which the author could not known have about. The reality was that because he was officially dead the poet had passed his continuing work to his friend to be published as his so they were both able to make a good living, one in comparative seclusion although it amazes me how people are supposed to be able survive in such ways without needing a doctor, dentist, bank accounts and other services where accurate personal information and proof are required in the first instance of registering.

The other story was about tennis and the suicide of a brilliant young tennis player shortly after she had lost an important game to her rival. There were suspects galore in this, a separate/divorced addict of a father with gambling debts who had asked the girl to lose to stop him being beaten up. The girl’s agent because she had said she was going to leave, also her main rival and the rival’s mother. The culprit was the girl’s own mother in terms of a manslaughter charge after her daughter had lost the match upset with news that her younger sister had gained a scholarship position with the tennis coach who had abused her and groomed others and where the mother knew but did not want to jeopardise the financial success which would have come from both talented daughters. The girl had lost the crucial game and confronted her mother after learning her young sister had been given a scholarship to work with the coach and the mother had then visited the daughter to prevent her going to the police leading to the girl toppling from the roof garden of her flat. The rival to the girl had been in the flat in the toilet at the same time and knew somebody had been present and told her mother who had persuaded her not to say anything. Although the two girls had been rivals on the court they had been friends of it contrary to popular understanding which causes UCOS to commence on the wrong track. The episodes could have been called Mothers or Some Mothers more accurately.

In both programmes a number of individuals could be expected to be sent to prison as part of justice system involvement.

Romanzo Criminale second series episodes 3 to 5

It was a good decision to separate the first two episodes of the second and last season of Romanzo Criminale which entered a significant new phase with the third shown on Tuesday evening October 2^nd in the UK. A feature of this series is that there are few good people. The time setting of the series coincides with the discovery of Roberto Calvi

’s body found hanging under a bridge in London, the then Chairman of the Italy’s largest private bank which collapsed and was known for being the Bank used by the Vatican, the Mafia for laundering money and infamous Masonic Lodge P2 regarded as a state within a state with the most prominent and well known figure the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Burlosconi, one of whose publications was behind the criminally obtained photos of Duchess of Cambridge while she and her husband were on holiday.

The episodes open with men from the Italian security services filming a prominent Italian Member of Parliament enjoying a bondage and sadism session at the brothel operated by Patrizia the woman companion of Dandi, one of the key figures in the Rome drug distribution gang. This coincides with a raid by the Police Commissario whose purpose was to put pressure on its manager to yield the dirt on Dandi and other gang hierarchy and to yield to him. The discovery of the Member of Parliament being filmed enabled the Government officers to be arrested and charged with attempted blackmail and the tape of the session held as evidence. When the Member of Parliament requests the tape and the Commissario refuses despite the offer of being made a police chief, the girl involved changes her story and says the film was being made by the subject for his private use, this part of the case has be dropped and the film handed over. We know that the girl was offered a significant amount of money to change her story and the same again if the outcome was the return of the tape. However it does not lead to the release of the security men who are told they will stay in prison for a time by their immediate boss so as to keep below the radar.

The holding in custody, a feature of the Italian system without bring to trial for up to a year is one to perils of travel in that country/ Patrizia is stripped and examined on arrival in custody and Dandi keeps his distance. When her only visitor apart from the Commissario is her faithful assistant who presses Dandi for news about getting her out of prison and if he has a message for her. Dandi says she is always in his thoughts which the Commissario says means she must fend for herself. Dandi is prepared to abandon his woman when the Mafia make doing so and finding himself a proper wife a condition of their intention to make him head of the Rome drug distribution. When the Inspector decides that she can be released on bail and Dandi goes to meet her she tells him to get rid of the flowers he has brought and then drives of in the car he has travelled. She then calls on the Inspector and takes him to a hotel for sex. She is not yet done with Dandi.

Meanwhile Dandi is apprehended by the former Drug distribution king for a major part of Rome who still provides the Gang with their Cocaine supply, Sardo, of the Sardinians who supplies via the Comorra of Naples and area, Mafia like but with a single hierarchical command. He demands a doubling of his take and control of the area previously operated by the assassinated Lebanese. He tells Dandi that their problem is Freddo and demands that Dandi helps them get rid of Freddo by bringing him to them. Dandi who I think is tempted by the offer, given the likelihood he would be taken out if he refuses is also approached by the rest of the gang who had previously waited in his home uninvited to express their discontent that a woman and someone previously unconnected with them had been put in control of the sector previous controlled by the Lebanese. Dandi tells the other members he has a solution.

Freddo arrives on his motorcycle separate from Dandi in his expensive racing type car and while Freddo is frisked for a weapon Dandi is allowed his because of Sardo’s intention they should take Freda out. Instead Dandi shoot Sardo dead in the head while the rest of the gang have come through woods and fencing and take out the guards. The price for Freddo release is Lebanese’s sector which is to be shared. Freddo tells the girl offering her to manage his area. She refuses. Suggesting that he is no longer in charge.

Whether it arose from his night with Patrizia, the Commissario gets a warrant to inspect the offices of the Ministry where at the ground level with an external door and locked armoured door behind which is the arsenal of the gang. The security man, paid to the keep door closed. is able to identify that all the members of the gang used the facility but they are tipped off and disappear before they can be arrested. They go in hiding to a place used by Sardo where they are contacted by the Comorra and invited to the meeting with the head to discuss business; Instead he demands to know what happened to Sardo or who was responsible for his disappearance. They have two days and they take Freddo as prisoner who will be killed if their concerns are not resolved.

Dandi first uses the girl friend of the “Kid“, killed in the attack on the Deputy chairman for the Mafia in relation to the P2 and Bank scandal. She is tasked to contact the child of the security guard who continues to go to school while his father and mother are in protective custody. She gives the boy a message whispered in his ear which had the desired effect. He retracts his statement alleging that the only person with whom he had contact was the Lebanese. He is released on bail but will still go to prison because he provided the place for the weapons for significant payment. However this means the rest of the gang are able to return to Rome without fear of immediate arrest.

However the security officer is not off the hook because those examining the weapons discover that the gun used to kill Leban is one of those found. As the Inspector tells the security guard, how is it the weapon found its way back, by a ghost? Someone must have asked the security guard to open the door!

Dandi approaches the Mafia to see if they are willing to help secure the release of Freddo. They ask him to do a favour via a third party. This is to kill Nemo, one of their mutual associates and weapons expert. They do not tell Dandi but Nemo and the Kid were responsible for the taking out of Lebanese for the Mafia. They tell Nemo to disappear because the gun has been found as well as the gun used in the attack on the deputy bank manager and other killings. Dandi appears to decline because he does not know who the third party is. He gets Nemo to arrange an immediate fresh gun supply in exchange for new identity documents which he pays a source exceptionally well to deliver quickly.

Nemo secures the required weapons from a Professor a Fascist who has accumulated weapons for an uprising, They pay him 2 million lire despite his wanting 4. Dandi insists the young man accompanies them on an arrange exchange for Freddo. The rest of the gang and Nero are under the impression they are about to go to war with the Comorra to get Freddo back. However Dandi is showing himself worthy of being groomed to be the new King of Rome by the Mafia. He shoots Nemo in front of the Comorra saying the man was responsible for the death of Sardo.

He suggests to the Don, the head criminal, that surely it would be better that the gang is allowed to peddle their drugs throughout Rome than engage in war. The head recognises how ruthless and single minded Dandi has become and accept the deal releasing Freddo.

They return to the Sardo hideaway where news comes that the security has changed his story and they can return to Rome in time to witness the last moments of the World Cup 1982 in which Italy beats Germany 4.1 leading to wild celebrations throughout Rome. Dandi gives the rest of the gang the explanation why he sacrificed Nemo without making reference to the Lebanese, although Nemo had admitted that he had pulled the trigger for the Mafia. He sends Freda home knowing that he has saved him twice from death recently.

He calls on the girl to thank her for doing the set task and she says it was a test because he suspected she had said where their guns were being held. She tells Dandi to look closer to home, suggesting to us that she knows it was Patrizia, Dandi leaves saying that Freddo is home and alone without anyone to celebrate the World Cup win. He seems to now be in control of the girl.

Meanwhile the Inspector has recognised the girl in two photos associated with surveillance of the gang and starts to keep personal watch seeing Dandi arrive and then leave. He then tails the girl as she makes her way to the home of Freddo and through a window sees the couple begin to have sex. Dandi meets the Mafia and wants to know why Lebanese was killed. He is told that Lebanese had become mad and out of control. In any event he was taken out to make it easier for Dandi to become the new King of Rome a title which they now officially crown him. He asks, “what of Freddo,” and the reply is that this is for Dandi to decide. It is a night for celebration and not for questions.

In the fifth episode the disintegration of the original gang and the elevation of Dandi in terms of personal wealth and potential power under the direct control of the Mafia continues. He is offered a land deal which involves the purchase of a substantial area of farming land which will yield tremendous returns when Italy gain the World Cup and which they did in 1990 thus suggesting the Mafia money was behind the decision and also the selection of sets including new ground developments. Over the series we have seen the private accommodations of the gang members and their associates improve exponentially in terms of locations, sizes and quality of furnishings including original artwork. This was the era when internationally the Mafia and other criminal networks and known to have intensified their move into legitimate business in which to launder their criminally obtained money primarily from drugs, gambling, prostitution and human trafficking.

A side story is one of the members of the gang who has invested heavily in a supermarket run by his father in law, Perfumery for his wife and another enterprise but as no elementary business skills fails to keep up with bank loan repayments and is threatened with foreclosures if he does not come up with 200 million lire a modest some say around 100000 euros given the millions of euros involved in the drug trade alone. He turns to everyone except Dandi and then agrees to torch the supermarket but the insurance refuses to pay based on the assessment that the blaze was professionally ignited. He eventually turns to Dandi who agrees to the give him the money but takes two of the premises in exchange leaving him and his wife with the perfumery.

The main story of this episode is the fate of the two gang members in prison because of the failed attempt to kill the man they believed was responsible for the death of Lebanese and when Dandi got cold feet in the get away car and drove off. Freda has a plan well used by others to have is closest ally declared unfit to plead and moved to a psychiatric institution from which he can expect to be discharged within a couple of years compared to the 30 anticipated from the charges. Freddo is confident because the psychiatrist appointed by the court is known for being bribable. Unfortunately before he can submit his report the Mafia decide that he is to be killed for taking money from a number of sources other than they authorise and they ask Dandi to arrange this but Freddo insists that they wait until after the submission. The man is nevertheless found dead and the two gang members are sentenced to 24 and 28 years respectively.

Freddo is incensed and accuses Dandi who denies that he killed the man so Freddo orders everyone to go out and find who is responsible. By this time the girl previously taken on to run Lebanese territory, but removed when Dandi saves Freddo from the Comorra, advises a name in the territory of other gang members where the takings are down 30% allegedly because someone is also selling drugs from a different source.

Freddo then discovers that the man was actually killed by his new girl friend paid for by Dandi who is able to say he did not kill the man himself. Freddo realises that he is no longer dictating what the gang should do, moreover one of the men sentenced effectively to life imprisonment tells Freddo that it was not Gemito and his brother who killed Lebanese as the gun came from their own arsenal of weapons, something which Dandi knew and kept from him and the others.

Meanwhile those controlling the area with the taking down, kill the man fingered by the girlfriend despite being told to bring the man to Freddo, suggesting that it one of the area controllers who in fact as been selling drugs from another source and now covering their tracks. Dandi remains convinced, rightly, that it was Patrizia who revealed the location of their weapons arsenal in retaliation for being left in prison on the orders of the Mafia as he is told to get himself a regular wife and family. He learns that her homosexual assistant and friend has been sighted in Accona and he arranges for associates to lean on the man to reveal the whereabouts of Patrizia. He finds her running a flower shop and expresses contempt for her and her friend. She sends him packing. Back in Rome Dandi is enjoying a new level of company attending “sophisticated” parties during which he meets and beds an attractive woman from Sweden. They are interrupted by Patrizia who had decided to come back to Rome because she misses the highlife. But she warms Dandi that if he betrays her again she will betray him again to the police. The episode commences with Dandi in prison and being stabbed by one of the men he abandoned at the attempted Gemito killing. It is a nightmare. As is the state of the original gang, one dead, two in prison, one sidelined others with major problems and Dandi another instrument of the Mafia and the Comorra. The near becomes more close.

Celia Imrie Who Do you Think You Are?

Celia Imrie Who do you think you are started as a disappointment because she was only interested in finding historical figures of political importance which given the family tree was not difficult.

One of her great grand parents was a leading Whig, Lord William Russell whose family lived at Woburn Abbey and was executed after a famous Treason Trial as the picked Jury believed he had been threatening the King although his concern was against a Catholic Monarchy and the enforcement of the Catholic religion on the people. When the King died and James I came to throne and established a Catholic monarchy the rebellion led to the arrival of William of Orange and the establishment of constitutional monarchy and quashing of the indictment against Russell who was declared a hero and Martyr and the great defender of Constitutional Monarchy as a plaque remains in Lincoln Inn Fields where he was executed.

She also followed up his grandmother who was a member of the Howard family and engaged married when 13 to someone 14 where the marriage was unhappy and annulled by the Archbishop. She married the Kings Favourite and after two years of marriage and the birth of a daughter she and her husband was tried and convicted of involvement in a murder nut then reprieved although serving sometime in jail. Her marriage broke up and she within ten years of leaving the Tower a comparatively young woman having never known happiness since her Early childhood. I went to bed soon after the news headlines and read more of the Snack Thief.