Sunday in October 2013 watching TV

I just about managed to get down in time to watch the start of the Sunday Marr Programme where he asked Eric Pickles if David Cameron should give Andrew Mitchell his job back to which Eric replied he had always believed Andrew and would welcome back as a Cabinet colleagues saying decision was that of the Prime Minister, He also confessed that although he had once declared his opposition to the Leveson recommendations, in politics, compromise was the name of the game and therefore he supported the Coalition Royal Charter solution, adding that if papers did not sign up to it that was there prerogative which was not the kind of ringing endorsement I wanted although what he said I had feared,

Before this there was an exchange over the papers review which include Dr Mark Kermode following his appointment as the film reviewer for the Daily Telegraph after the departure of the man who had held the position for three decades. I cannot remember the other with both echoing what everyone else has been saying although a recent poll indicates that support for the police has remained strong around 60-65% of population despite the various cases that have undermined public confidence recently and since the sixties. The sting in the tale came later in the programme with the interesting government comment that one solution was for Chief Police officers to be drawn from outside the force if the possessed the right skills and background something designed to chill them further and perhaps ensure that the Police chiefs approach their inquisition at the Commons with the right spirit of regret and promise to make amends,

Something of what they will say as then revealed in an exchange between a former senior police officer and a writer from the Mirror over the question was there just a few rotten apples in the barrel or worse. The third Andrew of the morning ( Neil) Sunday politics show set the scene well by first showing CCTV of police beating up a young House of Commons researcher which led to his acquittal and compensation, Apparently the Chief Constables not only signed off the amended report but have formally admonished the officers in an attempt to close the case and presumably do so quietly which then explain even more clearly why the IPCC took the unprecedented step it has. I thought the former senior officer did an appropriate job in trying to place the catalogue of incidents in context and perspective, saying that it was only a small group of senior police officers who systematically altered the statements of the police who had given honest and accurate statements of their experience attending the disaster at Hillsborough, Everyone including Andrew referred to the recent Police Bravery Awards dinner although the sting in the tail of what office said is that he blamed politicians and the media of getting the situation out of proportion Hmmn. If they can dish it out can they take it when applied them? Perhaps Wednesday we shall see.

14.30 About to get myself ready to go for some milk and salad thingies while listening to a Sky Arts programme about the career of Roy Orbison with the Gibb Brothers Barry and Robin, Robert Plant, KD Lang, Bernie Taupin, and Bono with all the favourites sang in full, Pretty Woman now, starting with Only the Lonely, Running Scared on what appears to be an early Top of the Pops and then Crying, The programme poses a challenge because I already have his greatest hits recorded and I have so far restricted myself to one programme with the others so far Joan Baez, Nina Simone, Bryan Ferry and so many other come and gone including the Stones, Beatles, Billy Holiday, Queen and Bob Dylan record and I am nearly out of space after recording a Phil Collins programme and a long over two hour programme about the Moody Blues last night all to view later today when I get back, Golden days while I write on Your baby does not want you anymore. Its Over (The title?). Walk on, if she would meet. Blue Bayou as Taupin states switching from the passionate to the most vulnerable. Time to get myself ready and go out if I am going to make it today although I want to stay.. Walked to Morrison on what was a nice afternoon, no wind, not cold and some sunshine for milk, lettuce, cucumber, a small tin of crab meat, some, salami, some luncheon meat and as an experiment some salad dressings all for salads, some liquorice 3 bags for £2 and one of the more expensive at £1.38, was a £1 and before that £1.98. Returned for a drink of cold Pepsi Max, finished listening to the Orbison which I shall not keep while playing Patience aiming for 270 games but reached a block. Must sort out the rest of the chicken.

Flog it Sheffield basket £220 estimate £180- £250, reserve set at £200. Clock work cars £60 star selling at £90 although estimate £100- £200 auctioneers discretion. Gold Cigarette case reserve £350-£500 93 grams £600 start and went at £640. Water Colour £200-£300 bought for £80 not sold. 10 p bric-a-brac sale Moorcroft not perfect condition honesty pattern reserve £150 £ 440 with bid in the room as well on the books that is just incredible divide up between a lot of children. Hornby Train for £500 estimate £200-£300, Apprentice piece Chest of Draws with a range of veneers £100- £150 first bid at £100 No reserve on some watches I am confident around £150 going to see for what it is worth. Art Deco £ 100 start over £200 finished at £210. Aboriginal Art split whole lot up £170 first item £ 10 last one £ £210. £ £180 fourth lot £170 last lot £ 620 on online a spear £1530 to be divided between Salvation Army and Water Aid brilliant.

Plan to miss out on Strictly Come Dancing dance off where the standard yesterday was all round good and with several improving their position. It is unusual to see 9’s given at this early stage with 3 in instances and 2 in another I was also impressed last night with the X Factor show which I part recorded in order to watch the start of the latest Montalbano finishing earlier in the afternoon. The song chosen by Sam Bailey which opened the show was not as great as it should have compared to the young powerful show ending number by the black teenager always in tears of joy mist remember her name who cannot still believe she is as good as is with other teenager the young Scottish schoolboy also singing from the heart about love which he admitted he has never experienced, the black mother with a daughter was also impressive, two of the groups less within having to participate in the sing off and where the third group did not perform because the pregnant member was unwell. I have also not recorded that I had watched Les Miserables once more which has come to Sky Films but cannot recorded must view live so to speak. I have recorded a wonderful performance of Verdi’s requiem mass Sky Arts from Venice which some glorious shot of the city and which was first heard live when I was sixteen seventeen half season Promenade concert at the Royal Albert Hall over nearly sixty years ago but just like yesterday.

19 20 enjoyed three small home baked rolls filled with a Dutch cheese after stripping the remains of the chicken into a bowl for a Thai Stir Fry on Monday perhaps with noodles and then a Balti curry and brown rice on Wednesday. Good second exercise session to 43 mins. Now have on the recording of Phil Colin in Paris looks like Olympia. Had intention of turning to Montalbano but instead will some registering of completed work after checking out on email and deciding whether to use voucher or book ticket for Captain Phillips tomorrow.

Watched an OK Downton Abbey which still does not seem to have a focus beyond a succession of stories which do not appear to leading anywhere. As anticipated the wife of his Lordship’s valet is not pregnant after the rape but the daughter of the house who spent the night with her editor lover before he went to Germany to gain citizenship and marry her and disappeared from the radar, visited a Harley Street doctor so as expected guess what, The childhood friends who professed love and marriage to Lady Mary has announced his engagement but a new face has arrived conducting work for the Ministry about the survival of the country houses with his boss and both are to stay at the house. Meanwhile the son if a tenant who has died with significant debt of past rents unpaid has done a deal to farm the patch showing that his Lordship has a sense of the past and a heart which pleases the socialist inclined son in law who wonders about his future and is considering going to the more egalitarian America. A boy is placed as a trainee gardener at the home of Maggie Smith against her better judgement only to believe he has taken an important paper knife. One of the footmen fails his attempt to become a cook at a top London Hotel (Ritz) much to the delight of one of the kitchen maids who hankers for him in silence. The notorious senior footman is up t his tricks arranging for a relative to come as laundress complete with an electric sewing machine which brings her into the servants hall as this is where there is an electric point and her Ladyship also pressures the nothing new fangled cook into accepting one of the new refrigerators to replace the ice box.

The key story I suggest is that his lordship’s valet pressurises the housekeeper into revealing that his wife was raped although she attempts to cover up by whom fearing the husband will take steps to kill the man involved While all is well between the couple and she moves back from the house to their home in the village, he advises the house keeper that the matter is not ended and he will find out and deal with the so called stranger no matter how long it takes.

Later still I watched The Wee Man a film about a man who found not guilty in one of the longest and mst celebrated murder trials in that nation and has written books and claims to have turned his back on his life of crime. More on this another day

The Newsroom and a question of truth and integrity

20.00 The Newsroom is a series made by the same team that created The West which I watched most of the episodes over 7 seasons and plan to do so again this time on The DVD is which I bought at bargain price. The series has all the same fast moving talk and interactions and centre on a 24 hours channel which sets very high standards for integrity In this second season I am not sure for how many episodes we have been building up to the most recent viewed as recorded in which the Editor/ Controller in Chief. The Director and the News Front Man tender their resignations because of a set up by an influential source and the falsification of a crucial interview by a new man seeking a permanent position led the team after an investigation lasting nearly year that USA troops had used a chemical weapon when extracting two wounded individuals and which had killed uninvolved inhabitants.

At least two episodes with a third dealing with anther story but also covered the interrogation by the chief lawyer for the company plus other layers in playing the devils advocate in defence of a law suit by the instantly sacked man for £5 million dollars claiming he was the scapegoat for institutional negligence. The owner of the loss making anyway company, a female tycoon with several companies refused to accept the resignations or settle the law suit and brings in her top lawyer and this end the programme an explains the three previous ones n which she ad her team quiz the positions of everyone in the editorial team who participated in the decision taking about the story over the year before it was screened,

The important government source who had provided the station with confirmation on a number of important stories in the pat had a son who was hired by the company at one point, but was hired and then died of illegal drugs and the man blamed the company and his head and plotted his revenge which was to confirm a story he knew to have no official foundation. The man who edited a film to give the impression a retired general had said differently from his qualified statement came with a chip on shoulder about USA involvement in the war and government behaviour and when the assigned assistant was not allowed in the room by the former general the took the subsequent opportunity to edit and was only found out after the story fell apart when the programme director realised there was a time gap in a TV showing football game.

She and also concerns that she had led one of the other witnesses into confirming something he did not know and where it emerged he had sustained brain damage and memory loss for a subsequent incident about which he had been decorated, claiming he had for the award fir a different incident. Thus once the story was shown to have been false despite all the month of investigation and proofs the belief that the institution had failed rather than just the young man who had wilfully and dishonestly mislead, also gained ground..

22.00 There was also time to watch a programme screened previously to mark the 70^th birthday of Mohammed Ali someone who is regarded by many in the UK as the greatest sportsman the world has seen both in terms of his ability with lightening fast reflexes as well as a personality with came to endear me and where he developed a support affection for the USA because of the loyalty and support which was maintained during the period when he was not allowed to box by the USA because of his political and religious view of being converted as a Muslim and changing his name from Casius Clay.

He is the only great sportsperson I have met albeit in passing when he came over to the table I was sharing with others and shook his hand at the Town Hall South Shields during a dinner reception to mark his visit to the Town where his marriage to his third wife was blessed at the Mosque attended by thousands of people who came to see him and given their support. His visit was in the same week that the Queen also visited as part of her UK tours to mark the 25th anniversary of coming to the throne and while she too was given a great reception at a gathering at the local stadium Gypsies Green however the natural charismatic charm of Ali had an effect on everyone that I have never witnessed before or since. It was not surprising that he was chosen to be one of those who stood with the Olympic Flag at the 2012 Olympics along with the other International figures selected.

I also went on to watch Question Time and This week where Diane Abbot was back to be reported next writing and also and watched the second health programme in which the need to stand and walk was emphasised to compensate for all the sitting down I do as well as how help someone who is choking.

Andrew Marr October 2013 Sunday and The Balcklist Begins

0012 Daily Notes 2013 12^th October 10.35 after a good sleep with one break and lots of vivid dreams which if I had time I would consider , especially if I made notes on waking. But rising just before 9 after 8.2 hours SP machine, average 8.3 and listening to Andrew Marr cover a wide range of subjects I have washed up made coffee and will shortly exercise, session one, having also played Patience to 125 consecutive wins and 1689 games after the previous 1300 plus achievement although not as much as the 1500 plus prior to that. I had not tidied my hair or shaved for the second morning and with the skies darkening and the news of a great wind I am not sure I will venture out later although there is need of milk.

Andrew’s guests included a dreadful woman from the Sunday Times continuing the pathetic free press mantra beware when the political parties are in agreement as if consensus in a democracy is to be feared, feared by the press barons and their commercial interests and the jobs of scum hacks I guess so and good. David Mellor made a surprising cautious response to the rampant defence of the indefensible saying he was not A Hacked Off man pity that David you remain a curious mixture, sill hoping for a political come back? But I agree if an impasse has been reached then unless the governing politicians are confident the rest of the news press will come round if they remain firm, a bit like Obama and the budget in the USA against the reactionary bullying extremes of the republicans, then comprise is the name of the game by both parties although in this instance something is not better than nothing.

 

The retiring from office Chief Prosecutor who has done a great job re historical sexual and other forms of violence against children and young people rightly defended his recent statement on the present law when an abortion agency has to take into account the health risks to a woman of a continuing pregnancy as well as other factors irrespective of sex of the embryo and the recent fuss has to be seen in relation to a story of concentration type camps in North Korean and babies being skinned and eaten so alleged Huffington Post He had just received the papers re Plebgate and the issue of how long the police had taken was not a matter for him.

Malala was interviewed at pace by Marr himself pressing her views about Education, the distortions of the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan and in relation to the Muslim faith generally and her intention to complete her education and one day enter politics in her home country while pursuing her charity work for the education of girls everywhere.

Labours new Opposition Education Minister Tristram Hunt was introduced as an impressive young articulate historian and commenced the process of rewriting Labour Policy on quality as well as quantity education, the need to progress quality teaching, the new approach to free schools back to technical colleges and putting Mr Gove in his place and a possible new Labour leader emerges.

The Lib Dem energy minister was on form on why the Miliband freeze wont work and the makings of deal about nuclear power involving the Chinese and perhaps the Japanese as it sounded close putting to parliament. We have made up with China following the little breakdown of Cameron meeting the Dalai Lama

 

22.05 feeling relaxed and would like to go to bed, suck a boiled sweet and read with SL mask on. First a good update with the highlight of the day so far a new series on Sky Living called The Blacklist which was not as expected to do with the Senator Joe McCarthy blacklisting era in Hollywood, the arts or public life but a kind of Bourne style show was some excellent acting although I am not sure about female lead. I downloaded via Sky the first two episodes and was impressed that gave undivided attention and watched both.. Must look to see whose who and particular a look alike for Ingrid Bergman

A former CIA man disappears and considered to be the most wanted man for several decades as a private contractor, fixer behind a number of International crimes arrives at CIA HQ and gives him self up and then maintained in various high security facilities which includes a building vacated after 9/11 and a large ocean going tanker and intentioned in the highest forms of security within such facilities as per the last James Bond film. He has information regarding an imminent major crime but will only talk to a new young female agent and profiler agent just fully trained married and about to adopt a child on the basis we later learn she is opposed to having a biological offspring when there are so many unwanted children in the world. She is off for her first full posting and also had an appointment with an adoption agency last stages before a child is allocated to him. That these two events are incompatible does not appear to concern the programme makers or the audience who become fully engaged.

Throughout the first two episodes she and her employers ponder of the selection of this young woman with the full CIA arriving by helicopter and car in number to get her to where they holding the prisoner for prior questioning and then getting him to reveal where a major incident is going to occur in the city. This is a major train cash which h says is organised by a villain, a contractor who has staged a number of previous assassinations in the form of major accidents and where he claims 3000 people have died collateral damage so speak. He offers to provide the connections which will enable his chosen “partner” to capture the man responsible via his next venture which involves the kidnapping of the daughter of a general and the unleashing of a dirty bomb in the city to avenge situation which had led to the death of his child children family as collateral damage in a central European community. While the child is kidnapped that his plans have become so known leads him to take prisoner and torture the woman’s husband who barely survives. The prisoners suggests that her husband is not all that he seems, a school teacher, and she finds a box under floor boards where they lives, presumably his place from before contained passport identities, money and a hand gun. She keeps this to herself including when questioned under modern lie detector conditions on the advice of the prisoner with a view to finding out the background quietly when the husband recovers and is returned home.

The tension in the pilot episode is when the child is placed wired up in the midst of a zoo but is saved at the last moment by a contact of the prisoner who goes off with the weapon. The perpetrator of the assassinations appears to die rather than be captured and the prisoner is returned to incarceration and handing over to the justice system at the appropriate time but then makes an offer to the CIA which they find impossible to refuse. to make available information about the most wanted mega international criminal, some not even in the CIA top ten list.... Hence the title of the series The Black List.. He will only work with the young woman and wants an open life style leading to immunity from prosecution for past crimes. The female Justice Secretary / Attorney General figures refuses and he is returned to Sea Going captivity.

However as someone who does not use the Internet or Mobile phone he appears able to maintain a network and receive intelligence or at least had stored intelligence which he decides to use when the husband has recovered and the “partner” has returned to her original duties. He comes up with the assassination of an international known woman (the Ingrid Bergman look alike) who rescue young people and children from the International slave trade, to assist the prevention eh requires a return to his former lifestyle staying at top hotels but never the same places for more than a few nights at time and take his partner off to Canada to gain the appropriate information about the net target of the international criminal organisation which he states is the assassination of the International mature Ingrid Bergman look alike woman as a major International function in the city. It emerges that his intention is to kill the woman to appear suicide all along as she is the head of the criminal organisation and a major trader of the young people and children she appears to the world to be saving. Thus the big wigs agrees to using his services although making it plain he will not be given immunity but will be allowed the required level of freedom together with has two personal assistants, an African original man and an Asian origin woman with the CIA throwing one of their oriental top agents and thus after two episodes the scene is set for the series, in keeping with the Bourne, carton capers superheroes and transatlantic Spooks traditions and where the maker of Spooks have created a new series for Sky I. This reminds that the fourth series of the Boardwalk Empire with Lucky Thompson is schedule to appear soon.

I also watched Flog it where there was the usual mixture including man who purchased an item for under £100, where the retailer offered to but it back for several times what he had paid and which he now was selling but insisted on a minimum of £1200 when in fact the market was only just over £1000 within the £800 to 12000 suggested. That is known as being greedy. I also watched part of the Antiques Road Show recording the Strictly and X Factor results show and Down Abbey and downloading for early viewing the film Django Unchained which was one of the top films last award season.