Artman TV

The Sopranos Season 4 end episodes 45 to 52

2012-01-27T02:34:00.000-08:00

Now to the latest episodes of the Sopranos which brings to an end the 12 episode Season 4. Previously we learned that Tony had acquired an interest in a Horse Pie -O-My (44) which Ralphie was said to have acquired, the thoroughbred begins to win so that Ralphie ingratiates himself by ensuring Tony makes good winnings. Tony became so caught up in the horse that he takes Carmela to see the creature at its stables and commissions a large portrait of himself with the horse. His affection grows to the extent of protesting at the use of the whip in a race despite demanding more and more winnings. He stays up all night with the horse when it becomes ill after Ralphie calls Tony after having not paid the vets Bills. Tony settles the account but becomes more obsessed with the horse. I have given this story top billing because it demonstrates that on one hand we have the ruthless killer and hard man crime boss earning a major living from crime which involves stealing from others yet he is has a soft centre in relation to an animal.

Tony continues to have a volatile relationship with his psychiatrist accusing her of failure when he discovers that his former girl friend Gloria Trillo had killed herself by hanging. He is able to understand the guilt he feels for his treatment of her but not that he will only feel better if he stops his whoring and getting involved with challenging women as well as ending his criminal activities. He has a frightening nightmare about Gloria. However she is soon forgotten when Tony is attracted to the girlfriend of Ralphie and they begin an affair. It is Valentina who persuaded Tony to have a portrait of him with the horse Pie O My painted. She responds to Tony’s advances because she dislikes Ralphie masochistic fantasies which Tony learns was also one of the reasons why Janice threw him out. This is also part of Tony wanting to always t be powerful and in control.

Tony is devastated when he learns that there has been a fire at the stables and that Pie O My has to be put down. He discusses the loss of the horse with Dr Melfi and she comments on his different outward emotions and reactions between the animal and people. In relation to people he becomes angry and goes into denial. He gets angry at this and says going to see Dr Melfi is a waste of time and money.

He announces he is ending the relationship once more at a subsequent session and Dr Melfi expresses concern pointing out the progress he has made no longer having life threatening panic attacks. She urges him to get into contact if problems arise. The precipitating cause of his reaction is her refusal to explain the meaning of a dream he brings to her. He is in a car (Calling all Cars) episode 50, sitting at the back with his wife the Ralphie the driver of his father’s Cadillac and Carmela sitting next to the driver. There is a caterpillar at the back of Ralphie’s head which turns into an attractive butterfly. Sitting next to Tony is Gloria Trillo one of his recent mistresses and then another Svetlana Kirilenko.

Immediately Tony leaves the office Dr Melfi announces to her psychiatrist counsellor that she has been released from her most troubling and personally challenging client. Tony then has another panic attack when on a brief visit to Miami. As with his wife you know that they have become so important to each other than the link with Dr Melfi is unlikely to ever be broken permanently.

While there are moments of affection between Tony and Carmela and they still share a marital bed, under the influence of her priest and having attended individual and joint sessions with psychiatrists she has become more disaffected especially as she transfers her affections to Tony’s driver and hard man Furio who he brought back from Italy after his visit there to take over enterprises previously controlled by Uncle Junior. Carmela encourages Furio to arrive early and come in for coffee, or some home baking when he calls and later when he needs work undertaken on his home. She mentions him when in bed with Tony although Tony does not mention appear to see the significance. She arranges to see Furio for a meal with his girlfriend. Furio calls on her on the pretext of having left his sunglasses.

Her feelings come to the fore when Furio goes back to Italy following the death of his father. Tony remonstrates with him on return for being emotional. Furio admits to Carmela he has nothing in common with his family anymore or his background in Italy and that his future is in the USA. Carmela has talked about him getting a regular job career as a dental technician for example.

She discusses her feelings with her psychiatrist who urges her to take no action but this appears only to act as a spur. She has her haircut to make her look younger which angers Tony because she has changed her appearance without his permission. Furio who has broken with his girl friend senses the come on and backs out. He is shocked by Tony’s behaviour when they make a visit to the native American run Casino and Tony is clearly having an instant relationship with a buxom house girl. Tony had commented to Dr Melfi that he could have bought a fast car with all the money he had spent $300 a session a week and with that he would have a blow job. Tony needs to get back for an important meeting so having spent $15000 at the tables a helicopter transport to the airport is provided and at one point we are led to believed that Furio is about to push Tony into the rotating blades, Furio backs out and when Tony asks what is going on, Furio says he got hold of Tony because he had got too close to the blades. Immediately afterwards Furio disappears and Tony appears is angry on learning that the man has packed up and gone back to Italy, Carmela, fearing Tony is responsible for the departure finds that his home has been cleared of all possessions and she is devastated. She becomes angry with everyone including her daughter Meadow and son CJ as well as Tony, finding fault at every opportunity. Meadow begins to work out the position and in a conversation with Tony where it is evident he does not realise what has happened.

Previously Carmela nags Tony about what happens to her and the family if Tony goes to prison or he is killed and presses him to make official provision. Tony is in fact secreting huge amounts of funds around the property and made other arrangement through his Counsel and a Russian contact for such a situation. He resists the pressure from Carmela after realising his wife and family will benefit from the Trust only through his death and he will not have access to the funds if his circumstances dramatically changed. Eventually going through one of his feeling guilty phases he gives in and signs the papers for the Trust creating a good atmosphere between the two for a short lived while. Carmela discovers where Tony is stashing cash and takes some money assuming he will not notice and which she invests in stocks and shares. When C J comes into the room one day Tony asks if he has been in the backyard alerting Carmela that Tony is aware some of the money is missing adding to the tension which is growing between them. In part this is because she has become aware that Tony is seeing someone when she finds a broken fingernail within his clothing (Mergers and Acquisitions(47))

Their getting into trouble son CJ settled down in a new High school again after his expulsion and threatened sending to an army training establishment after establishing a relationship with an attractive girl Devin with his mother ensuring that the two are not allowed time together when at home. When he visits Devin’s home he finds that her family is even wealthier than his.

C J has revealed to his friends that his father runs a Pole Dance club the Bada Bada and they go off in search but fortunately he is confused about the location and end up elsewhere. He is told off for staying out after the family imposed curfew.

He tries to find somewhere to be alone with Devin through his sister Meadow who has become a leading volunteer is a law/welfare and support, as well as doing well on her courses and making friend with Ivy Leaguers from normal middle and upper class families. She moves into shared accommodation with other Ivy leaguers and Tony and Camilla help with the move and settling in party to meet the other house sharers and their families. One of the parents comments how lucky her son is to have Meadow in the house because she is such a good cook, and is a model because of her work at the centre as well as getting high grades for her work. She knows more about their daughter than they do. Meadow has a new boyfriend who comes for a good family and is going to skiing with him at the family holiday home.

Mother and daughter have their annual birthday meal together and after a good start it develops into an argument. Meadow states that the problem is that she has become everything that Carmela wanted having had to drop out of college to marry Tony and that she now resents her daughter. Tony attempts to be a peacemaker and reminds Carmela that she has created the wonderful human being her daughter has become. This only serves to underline the misery Carmela now feels with the departure of Furio. Worse is to come when C J accuses his mother of treating him as a child and not recognising that he has become a sexual active young adult because she is aging. Tony has suggested to Meadow that he mother is possibly reaching the menopause. Meadow is surprised to learn that her father has been in therapy and also attending joint session with her mother. The impression gained is that she is seeing her father in a new light. CJ remains CJ as a subsequent event will demonstrate. This leaves three members of Tony’s immediate family to cover.

His sister Janice has commenced to take an interest in the widower Bobby Baccalieri and his two children after throwing out Ralphie. Seeing other women take an interest in the loyal gang member with a soft heart and good father she pretends that some lasagne prepared by Carmela is her own. She successfully gets Bobby to return to work for Uncle Junior who gets him to strong arm a union official to fix votes. She hopes this will stop him grieving for his wife. Tony approves the relationship which brings brother and sister together and they remember good family times. The relationship develops between the two

Janice begins to believe she has found a new good relationship unaware that Booby is grieving hard for his wife and visiting her grave daily. His daughter questions what happened to the birthday cake she saw in his car when he collected her from school. Bobby by admits that he buried it alongside the grave and Janice realises he is far from moving on and that her position is precarious.

The Court Case against Uncle Junior is continues to his growing disquiet at the way it is going and how he is being portrayed in the media. When he leaves court one day in (Whoever Did this) (48) he falls down the steps and hits his head. He is anxious to leave hospital as quickly as he can but Tony has the idea that Junior should use the accident to his advantage and claim that mental instability renders him unfit to plead and therefore encourages Junior to pretend he has lost part of his cognitive functions and is confused. He prepares for the various Tests the Court will require before it accepts the position. Arrangements are made for him to have a nurse to care for him and this is arranged by Tony through Svetlana the Russian with one leg who Tony arranged to care for his mother and who had the conflict with Janice who at one point stole her special leg.

As might be expected Tony cannot resist making with the woman but she then decides not to have a continuing relationship because he is likely to be too much trouble. The Uncle Junior plan also goes wrong when the official doctors determine he is fit to continue and the Trial judge anyway insists on going ahead. This causes them to go to plan B which is to get at a Juror.

Tony’s nephew and protégée Christopher backslides on his commitment to live in girl friend Adriana to give up drugs while she is concerned that the live music bar she has been given is being more and more used as an alternative hang out for members of the extended crime family. Having forced to spy for Christopher and his associates by the Feds she becomes paranoid at being found out, hurt and killed but no one has any idea this has happened although with the court case they assume they are being kept under close surveillance. Meadow has taken the lamp to university where the bug was planted to overhear the conversations in the basement. For some reason the Feds have decided not to mount another operation to replace the listening device.

After watching TV Adriana believes that if she and Christopher are married she will not be able to testify against him. A marital lawyer explains that this will only apply after they marry and therefore does not cover what happened beforehand and this has separately been discussed within the FBI who make no objection to the marriage as a consequence.

The most important and far reaching development of the series to date happens when Tony reveals to Christopher, who is full of drugs that he proposes to make him his eventual successor and therefore a confidante above his official number two. He says he wants Tony to bring the family into the 21st century. Christopher is so hyped up he comments that they are already in the 21st century a point which Tony fortunately overlooks. Soon Christopher is called upon to show he is worthy of the trust been shown.

Things go from bad to worse for Ralphie. When he has the care of his son for the day the boy plays with the son of a neighbour who is unsupervised shooting real arrows into the air and asking the son to allow these to fall on a hand held target. Off camera the son misjudges the flight of an arrow and his chest is pierced. Although the child survives he lives in a state of coma which understandably aroused much anger on the part of her ex wife and makes Ralphie feel great guilt to the extent he goes to visit a priest. Worse is come when Tony is called out to the fire at the stables and sees his horse destroyed. When Tony breaks the news that the horse has died Ralphie appears disinterested and tells Tony that his son is showing signs of improvement. Tony believes that Ralphie caused the fire after taking out $200000 insurance and asks if he has been contact with the man who they arranged to set fire to the old restaurant of Artie Bucco to avoid a murderous hit being staged there. The two men fight and in his rage over the death of the horse Tony kills Ralphie and then contacts Christopher who is in a drug haze to help him get rid of the body.

Tony is concerned about the state of Christopher which is not helped when the young man points out that one of their own captains getting whacked could be a problem. Tony tells Christopher that he is the only one who knows and therefore any problem is with him. Tony does not feel as guilty about killing Ralphie as some of his other victims because of what the man did to one of the strippers at the Bada Bada.

In the tradition of the Sopranos end of series it is in the penultimate episode that issues which have been simmering hot up and in some instances explode. We have already had the death of Ralphie as yet one more of the originals gangster crew is killed usually the hands of another members rather than by someone outside or the intervention of the law.

There is no personal concern or regret at the disappearance of Ralphie who it will be remembered alienated h the New York Under Boss Johnny Sacks because of a joke made about his wife and indeed it was Tony attempt to broker peace reminding that conflicts within the families are settled by sitting down and negotiation and not by unilateral action such as Whacking in the episode- The Strong Silent Type (49).

Paulie Walnuts is released from prison full of anger that Tony and his other colleagues have not visited him in prison for fear of being targeted even more than they are present. He ignores the fact that he has been given no show jobs at the new development site which Tony runs in association with one of the New York families. He is not appeased by the coming out party at the Bada Bada

The release of Paulie leads to information coming to the family of a way to defraud the US Federal Government of millions of dollars through buying up run down and inexpensive properties and doing them up for re-letting This leads Christopher into a black ghetto neighbourhood where drug dealing predominates. It also has implications for relationships with the New York family where Sacks lives with his wife in a grand country house within the New England territory controlled by Tony(Watching Too Much Television) (46). Paulie need for more money arises from deciding to place his mother in the top retirement complex where Tony had placed his mother Livia. When Paulie finds that his mother is not going to be able to join regular social activities with former friends who are also in the home, Paulie begins to lean on their children and including the use of his crew to persuade a reluctant son to exert pressure on his mother. He also maintains an association with Sacks who implies to the New York boss is appreciative of his contact and that Soprano is not highly regarded.

There is now a move by the New York boss via Sacks to gain more money from activities controlled by Tony, The first is the housing fraud. When Tony refuses to contribute a portion of the profits, Sacks arranged for the man who does the official property assessments for the government funding application to switch to them or be beaten up. The man is then beaten up by Tony’s crew for not fulfilling his undertakings to them. This is a regular occurrence for anyone who works for the Mafia.

There is also a request for an ongoing percentage of the new Hotel/apartment complex which is progressed with the main structures completed and the fitting out in process so when negotiations fail another union official comes along and calls a full strike from his members because there is no union Labour on site. When Tony is persuaded that a sit down settlement is the way forward he goes down to Miami to see the son of the New York Crime boss Carmine for assistance with the father and Sacks. Carmine and his son play golf with Sacks in an effort to broker a deal. When Tony arrives at the sitdown he finds the New York boss is not present and the terms are the same as before so he walks out. However there is an exchange between Sacks and Tony suggesting that they ought to take action to end the reign of Carmine

Tony has expressed concern that Paulie is not delivering the same weekly tribute as his other captains. Paulie attends a wedding where he approaches the New York boss and finds that he has no special position. He therefore decides to regain the confidence of Tony by breaking into the home of one his mother‘s friends when he thinks she is out. She returns and threatens to call the police so he has to kill her. However he is then able to impress Tony with the amount of his tribute that week.

Tony was at the Bada Bada club when the large portrait of him and the Horse arrives and he orders it to be burnt. When he is not there Paulie says it is worth $25000 and takes it home and hangs it up in his living room. The pictures seems to grow in size which each camera visit and to have a haunting effect on Paulie.

It is Christopher who becomes Tony’s main concern. In a drug and drunken state he sits on Adriana’s dog without realising what he is doing and when she returns she finds the dog has a broken neck and is dead. When she protests he beats her up so she turns to Carmela for help and Tony is furious saying that if Christopher had not been kin he would have whacked him. They bring in a Counsellor who gets everyone to write down the negative way that Christopher has behaved and when he is in a sound condition they confront him with the home truths on the basis they will do this in a non judgemental way. However when Christopher refuses to cooperate they lose their temper and beat him up so that he ends up in hospital.

The Feds have already told Adriana they have arranged a place for Christopher in a rehabilitation centre because in his present condition he is of no potential use to them as a witness. Tony insists he is admitted as a voluntary patient and lets him know that he has one of his men at a nearby motel with the authority to whack him if he attempts to leave before he is considered ready. The sequence is an amusing one. There is a similar light hand aspect when Janice brings around Bobby and his children for an evening meal and insists that C J stays in to entertain the children. Devin comes round for coffee and CJ takes her two his room on their own until Carmela finds out and takes the visiting children up insisting that they play a game with them. C J‘s solution is get out the ouija board and frightens them pretending their mother’s spirit is with them.

This then is the setting for the final episode of the series. (Whitecaps)52 when as is custom some matters are resolved while other are left for season five.

Adriana collects Christopher after he has been declared rehabilitated under observation from Tony’s appointed minder. Also keeping watch are the Feds. Adriana had admitted to Christopher that she is unlikely to have children because of an abortion that when wrong. Christopher had seen marriage as a means for starting a family and is devastated but eventually forgives her. There sis the impression that they are starting out again in contrast to what happens between Tony and Carmela. Everything else is placed in perspective. Things start off well when Tony says he wants to buy a beach home on the Jersey shore -Whitecaps. He takes Carmela and the family to see it saying he is buying as a future holiday home for his children to enjoy and Carmela is thrilled at the development although worries about the cost. There is a further complication in that the house is under sale to someone else and Tony uses the influence of his position to persuade the owner to sell to him and Carmela says it is a good investment because of size and location reminding of her career attempt as a Home sales agent.
The disaster strikes as one of Tony previous mistresses rings Carmela in a disturbed condition and spills the beans on her relationship with Tony. This is Irena who was taken up by another member of the Crew who Tony beat up because the man had dared to have a relationship with the woman even though they had broken up, The beating up caused the man to separate from Irena which was the catalyst for her desperate call to the house and speaking to Carmela. This is the last straw for Carmela so that when Tony returns home he runs over his golf clubs which have been thrown into the driveway and where Carmela is throwing out all his clothes and possessions from upstairs windows, She demands that he leaves and will get a restraining order when he refuses.

He does leave and goes to Irena’s place where he finds Svetlana who explains the background. He goes off and stays at Whitecaps. Tony tries to back out of the purchase because of the changed circumstances but is held to it.

Meadow and Carmela fight over the situation with Meadow raising the relationship with Furio which Carmela vehemently denies. Meadow demands to know why Carmela was prepared to eat shit for years until now and storms off.

Meanwhile Tony has set on forcing the owner of the property to back off from the purchase and return his $20000 deposit. He load his home cinema speakers onto his boat and offshore plays as loud as possible disrupting a lunch party the owners are having. Tony repeats this including at night until they give in.

Tony returns home and tries to exert his rights but Carmela stands her ground. A J helps Tony clear out the pool house cinema so that he can stay there. However this does not work and the couple continues to row going over the history of their marriage and Carmela admits she her only recent happy moments have been the visits of Furio. Tony nearly punches her but punches holes in the wall instead and she calls him a fucking hypocrite. A J pleads to go and live with Tony but Tony says he must now be a man for his mother. Meadow wants them to return to Counselling and thinks over the extent to which she has taken her parents and home for granted. Tony tries to ring Dr Melfi but puts the phone down when she answers. She tries to ring him back but finds the number is now blocked. Carmela and A J watch Tony leave the home. There is something final about this, or so it seems.

Meanwhile Uncle Junior get his mistrial when the threatened Juror fails to agree the verdict. Uncle Junior appears far from elated with the result and takes it out on his crew member Bobby Scalerico whose relationship with Janice appears to have taken a turn for the better. Junior appears to spike this wanting attention from Bobby.

Johnny Sacks admits to Tony his hatred for the way his boss has treated him over the years and Tony tells Christopher to take out a contract on Carmine to make it look like a one of car jack killing.. He arranges for the two men involved in taking his car when he went into their neighbourhood for drugs to do the killing, Meanwhile at the race track Johnny advises Toy that his boss wants to settle so they arrange a meet. They settle for 15% instead of 40% much to the horror of Sacks. Carmine expresses sympathy over the marital break up and Tony commends the man’s son. The behaviour makes Tony wonder if Carmine has got wind of the hit on him. Tony calls off the hit and Chris meets the two men and kills them. Sacks lets his tongue rip about the behaviour of his boss and says Tony can trust him and should not have backed out of the assassination and take over deal. Tony keeps repeating that Sacks should not be saying this now to him. It is possible to read from this how things might go in season six.

Morse as young man and John Thaw

2012-01-06T10:35:00.000-08:00

This week has so far proved a challenging experience commencing with a common cough cold, spending the night being tested at the General Hospital, thought my washing machine had broken down discovering two programmes about the character Morse and one about its actor creator John Thaw, watched on TV the two local Premiers Clubs have brilliant wins, together with a number of films and listening to excerpts of the most the most popular 300 classical work on Classic FM radio formed by amalgamating all the annual public voted lists at Easter for the past sixteen or so years. There were some surprising results and I was able to name a choral work of sublime beauty, heard previously but never identified.

The washing machine problem is the easiest to write about as only a change of fuse in the wall plug was required. Did not panic and was only delay from commencing the weekly wash by a few minutes.

I will only briefly mention a programme recorded on Sunday evening about the life and work of John Thaw, the actor who played the City of Oxford named Detective Morse created by Ted Dexter and which proved to be a great joy, but I will delay writing in depth having ordered an inexpensive biography and also a book written by his second wife about their relationship. John was married to former contemporary drama student at RADA and she admitted they had married too young. He maintained contact with their daughter and this continued when he married his second wife, the actress Sheila Hancock, who had become a widow with a daughter who he adopted. The couple had a daughter themselves and one of the joys of recent times was to experience a programme in which two former wives and their three daughters spoke with such loving affection as well as disarming honesty about someone who continued to have a positive impact on their lives. John was very fortunate to have enjoyed relationships and the company with five remarkable women who will be as much the subject of my writing when additional information becomes available information becomes available.

The only other aspect which I will mention now is that I did not approve of the role which brought him and Denis Waterman International fame as two “act first and talk latter” detectives in the Sweeney (1975 to 1978) although by then he had appeared in five other TV series, made half a dozen films for television, appeared in nine films and nine stage plays including one with Laurence Olivier in 1962. I disliked this form of policing portrayed in the Sweeney in part because had been brought up with viewing the police through the eyes of Jack Warner who filled cinema theatres with his performance as George Dixon of Dock Green in the Blue Lamp and which led to the TV series Dixon of Dock Green in which he ended each episode with “Goodnight All” portraying the ideal community orientated police officer which politicians extol today. The character was very different from Morse who had been an undergraduate at an Oxford College for two years, drove a classic Jaguar car, listened to grand opera day and night, supped pints of real ale and had read widely.

The series came to an end after 13 years because the author of the original novels decided enough was enough and Morse dies. There was a follow up series in which his assistant Lewis was promoted to Inspector and he was joined by a young man who had graduated from Oxford but was also something of a loner. He comes close to a relationship several times but there is always a development which prevented normal progress.

I had mixed feelings about the decision to create a successor series with Lewis but the combination of the seeing the city of Oxford where I lived in five locations in five years and the inclusion of another serious, sensitive and educated man as the Assistant to Lewis meant that by the second series I came to appreciate the work for what it was.

It was only during Monday afternoon that I discovered there was to be a two hour drama to mark the 25 years since the first episode of Morse was aired. It would feature a young Morse arriving to work in Oxford for the first time. There was an excellent article in the Guardian previewing the event although the majority of respondents were horrified at the prospect. I therefore watched more from curiosity than expectation. I was impressed and moved, and the one off ticked all my boxes and wrote to the Guardian expressing the hope that if my reaction was shared ITV would commission a series.

Shaun Evans looks younger than his 32 years and his performance was uncannily a young Morse working as a detective constable in a concrete town who is drafted with colleagues to help the city who were looking for a 15 year old school girl who had gone missing at weekend. He and another colleague are assigned to the city team directly engaged in the search and he is asked to circulate flyers on a door to door search to find out anyone has any sighing of the young woman.

We are introduced to the sights, the atmosphere of academic Oxford and to his love of Opera. We are aware from a scene when he takes lodgings that he had an adult relationship which ended unhappily for him. He also believes from studying the available reports that the missing girl possessed a number of poetry books was of interest and this is reinforced when he visits the household and finds that the books are expensive editions. He also finds crosswords cut from the local paper used as book marks but with only one word completed. This latter aspect is not immediately drawn to the attention of viewers but I noted the clue without appreciating the significance.
Morse concludes from the completed entries that the crossword is being used to arrange assignations in places around Oxford at a time on the Saturday evenings. His theory is ridiculed by the sergeant assistant to the Inspector until the body is found at the destination of the last crossword. His enquiries lead him to speak once more to the close friend of the dead girl at the school, and visit the garage where her boyfriend works without progress being made.

Before the body is found he is asked to investigate the apparent suicide of a student on the banks of the Isis a tributary of the river Thames and this brings him to his former college where he meets up with a former fellow student, now a Don, and on his way to becoming a Professor. He was attempting to visit the young man’s Tutor and on learning that the man is not in college goes to his home where he finds that the wife is a former international Opera soloist whose work continues to mean much to him. When the husband returns he appears shocked at the news, but mentions that the student had been a falling off work over the previous six months. At that point there appeared to be no connection between the missing and now confirmed murdered girl and the student who committed suicide.

We have previously been advised that the girl had been scheduled to go out with a friend from school that refused to answer questions about their relationship and movements and we were alerted that this girl appeared to hang around a garage dealer of Jaguar Cars. The famous Red Jaguar driven by Morse is sitting as a new model on the forecourt and the Detective Inspective also uses a Jaguar which young Morse drives when asked bring in the Inspector one morning because the Detective Sergeant is late in supposedly sick. Thus young Morse acquires his interest in the Jaguar car.

(Morse has also visited the lodgings of the dead student and discovered he shared these with another student from Australia who had also mentioned the change in the behaviour of the deceased over the previous six months).

Once the body of the girl is found the Detective Inspector then takes Morse with him rather than his Sergeant to the mortuary where the pathologist reveals that there had been no sexual interference but the girl had a pregnancy expertly terminated (indicating money and influence) and the Detective Inspector asks Morse to Interview again the friends of the girl at school and also the Local Newspaper who published the crosswords. That there was no sexual interference is a clue because the girl was naked with her clothes around her.

It is necessary to turn a blind eye that young Morse is being asked to undertake inquiries on his own that would have been undertaken by Morse senior, either on his own or with his sergeant present, although in fairness in Lewis the sergeant is given a more independent role than Lewis was given by Morse. Morse at this point is only a Detective constable however.

It is therefore Morse who undertakes the task of visiting the Oxford Mail and asking the editor about the author of the weekly crossword written under the name of OZ. The Editor is played by one of the daughters of John Thaw and comments to the young man that his face is familiar to her. She cannot give the address as the crosswords have been submitted voluntarily and anonymously, arriving by post each week, except for the past week when they were delivered by hand by a young man and unfortunately the person who had seen him was away on holiday. However Morse remembers from one of his visits to see the tutor of the deceased student an artefact with reference to a classical phrase or person, I cannot remember which, under the name of Oz and therefore visits the Tutor again to confront him with the discovery of the relationship between the crosswords and murder. Morse was a noted crossword addict throughout the TV series so this aspect also has resonance.

The tutor admits that he is the author of the crosswords and that he had a relationship with the girl. This came about when he and the former contemporary of Morse at the college were debating the possibility of working class young people being able to enter Oxford if given the right opportunity. The two men had seen the girl at some function and made a bet that the Tutor could not get her into the university Pygmalion/My Fair Lady Style. It was this aspect of the story which struck a chord with me because those of us who attended Ruskin College and Platter Hall as colleges of further education passing an approved Oxford University Diploma were eligible if our examination and tutorial records were good enough to be given up to three interviews at an Oxford College and if approved by a college would be invited to enrol as an undergraduate on a bursary for an honours degree, taken over three years but only required to undertake the second Public examination as the first examination which included a paper in Latin would be bypassed because of the Diploma qualification.

While admitting that he had commenced a relationship with the girl he explained that he had prepared the crossword for positing in the usual way which he had handed to his wife. He had gone to the meeting place arranged for six and waited but the girl had not arrived. It emerged that the girl had a relationship with the deceased student until six months ago when with the relationship with the tutor she had broken the one with the student account for his change in behaviour. It also emerged that the wife had forgotten to post the letter and had given it to the student to take into Oxford for them when he had come to the house for a tutorial. Moreover the crossword which the paper had published was that intended for the following week suggesting it had been removed from the the author had prepared in advance as was his custom. It appeared to be an open and shut case that the student had arranged to meet the girl, murdered her and then taken his own life.

There was another aspect the story which emerged from the interviews with the closest friend of the dead girl. This girl continued to be uncooperative but another girl at the school approaches Morse to say that she was the close friend until the now murdered girl had taken up with a trio of girls who were boy crazy. The unhelpful girl eventually admits that she, the murdered girl and other friends had been invited to a party held at a country house, but the murdered girl had left early to meet someone. The girls at “the parties” are organised by the owner of Jaguar car dealer. The attempt by the Detective Inspector and Morse to get cooperation from the Car dealer is thwarted as he refers to Masonry and influential friends including the head of the detectives. The investigation is further thwarted when they visit the County House where the “party” was held and they are confronted by a government security officer who tells them firmly to lay off this aspect of the case. The story is set at the time of Christine Keeler affair of girls provided at a country house Party at home of Lord Astor at which she met War Minister John Profumo who denied in Parliament having an affair with the girl who also an affair with a senior diplomat at the Russian Embassy and a West Indian Drug trafficker.

The Inspector and Morse get a similar reception when they go to see a well known local criminal who has escaped justice because of influential friends in the past and who appears to be the organiser of the parties. The episode had opened with the party and that an evident influential figure departs immediately for London the girl , subsequently murdered is reported missing.

The outcome of the attempts to block inquiries is that the Inspector makes another visit to the Garage owner, asks Morse to go to the car to collect his tobacco and then when Morse returns the garage owner has been beaten up and is giving two large packets from the contents of the safe. Morse strongly disagrees with the tactics being used. Later Morse is summoned to see the Chief of Detectives; Morse had noticed that the girl in a photo on the desk is that of the close friend and party goer of the murdered girl. The girl cooperates with information on the understanding her father is not told. Now Morse is asked to give evidence against the Inspector but refuses and told to return to his normal duties at his home station. Morse hands in his resignation.

Morse is also upset because his case that the killer was the Tutor has been shot down when a member of the public comes forward to say that he saw a girl wearing the dress shown in photos at bus stop very early in the morning on the road by the woods where her body was found. The time of death had previously put in the evening

On arriving in Oxford Morse was teetotal but under the influence of the Inspector he had commenced to drink beer, now he become intoxicated and goes to visit the former opera singer to say goodbye and to get her to autograph a long play record. He makes a pass which she politely side steps emphasising the love for her husband.

Although leaving he had continued to mull over the case and that the dress found next to the body of the girl appeared smaller than her natural size. He went to phone in his thinking about the dress when it also struck him what had been written on the arm of the dead girl. They had first thought it was the partial number of a vehicle and then a partial address but inquiries had proved negative. Now he realised it was a telephone number although incomplete. He had someone at the party had given the reference to girl.

Back at the office the resignation had been handed back. The Inspector had shown the head of detectives the photo of his daughter naked at the last party. The head of detectives and the Sergeant are also implicated in turning blind eye to the parties, corruption and other criminality through their Masonry association.

The plot thickens as they say. The car dealer is half beaten to death by the older sister of the dead girl. It is revealed that the sister was in fact the girl’s mother who had become pregnant when she a school girl and she had left home and her daughter brought up by the grand parents as their own. The father was the car dealer. He survives the attack but in a vegetable state.

Morse tracks down that the telephone belonged to the London home of an Oxford Member of Parliament and Government Minister but when the Inspector and Morse visit he denies any involvement and throws them out. Later the same security man who had warned them off when they visited the party venue visits the Minister and gives him an ultimatum to resign or commit suicide on instruction from the Prime Minister Harold (Wilson).

Morse had then checked the clothing retailers in the City to try and find out who had bought the undersize dress for the dead girl and his finding shocks and distresses him although why is not immediately revealed. I had guessed the situation already.

The former opera singer is giving a concert for charity at the Oxford Playhouse, attended by her husband sitting in a box and Morse had enquired and been told that tickets had been sold out long before. Now he and the Inspector visit the theatre to arrest the woman for a double murder, that of the girl and that of the student she attempted to frame.

The student and the girl had become lovers but the relationship had ended when she was taken up by the tutors and their experiment bet to do a Pygmalion /My Fair Lady. His wife had realised her husband was then having an affair with the girl. She had first replaced the crossword for the week with the one for the following week which had a different place. The girl had first gone to the party, met the Minister and accepted the telephone number and then gone to meet the tutor. However it was the wife who had turned up and strangled the girl. The following morning she had met the student who was in fact her lover and killed him making it look like suicide. She had stayed at the bus stop near where body of th girl lay the following morning was wearing an identical copy of the dress found by the body of the girl and a wig having removed the original outfit which she later burned along with second dress and the wig. She had stood at the bus stop until she was sure she been seen by a passer by before returning home. She commits suicide in police custody. Morse agrees to withdraw his resignation and take up the offer of a move to the City with the promise of help for accelerated promotion.

While there are moments of questionable credibility the strength of the characterisation of Young Morse is such that I remain impressed and hope there will be a series. In fact this point is made in the Guardian on line during the day and Wikipedia that the commissioning of a series as a no brainer having attracted the second largest number of viewers for the holiday weekend at over six and a half million

I end here to have lunch go and see the film about the life of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

Great Expectations, Downton Abbey, Emma and Mansfield Park

2011-12-31T15:06:00.000-08:00

A feature of television at Christmas is a congestion of times past for the landed gentry who live in fine country houses and this year was no exception with Emma and Mansfield Park, a Downton Abbey Christmas special and from Time to Time. I also include the Dickens Great Expectations.

I have been less of a Jane Austin fan than the Bronte sisters as her portrayals of the superficiality between the landed gentry leave me cold. Mansfield Park and Emma is the same story told with different principal characters in the sense that a man and a woman become close friends over a period of time and only later appreciate that they also wish to become adult lovers and because they are friends there is confidence that their love could be long lasting if not happy ever after.

I have not read Emma the 1815 comedy of manners among the genteel of Georgian Regency England and therefore have been guided by others about the authenticity and effectiveness of the 1996 version with Gwyneth Paltrow in the title role and Ewan McGregor and Greta Scacchi among the cast. A year before there had been a USA set version called Clueless and last year an India film called Aisha. The television productions have been more faithful to the original intentions with versions in 1948, a six part BBC serial in 1960 with another in 1972 and a four part version in 2009. In the same year as the Paltrow the BBC produced a single session film with Kate Beckinsale which should be the one to compare. By coincidence this film featured on ITV in the afternoon so my decision to watch the second part of the Harry Potter finale and then write about the series proved justified in more ways than I had anticipated. The Americans, NBC and CBS have produced three TV versions in addition and there have been seven stage productions, including three musical versions.

Emma is an intelligent young women stuck in a world where she has too little to do other than gossip and match make about which she no talent. She is only twenty one so allowances are made for her youthful silliness.

I am not sure if we learn when her mother died but with the marriages of her sister and her governess she lives alone in the country house with her father who leads his own life and therefore leaves Emma (Woodhouse) to enjoy the country walks, the picnics and dancing with her permitted circle of contemporaries. She enjoys the company of her father’s friend George Knightly unmarried and in his late thirties whose younger brother has married Emma’s older sister. They have five young children and prefer nuclear family life but indulges his wife’s enthusiasm for vacations and visitations. Something which she shares with her young sister who one predicts will follow in similar fashion.

Having decided that she is a good match maker Emma sets her sights on finding a husband for her friend Harriet Smith who is illegitimate, and raised locally and not part of the set until introduced by Emma. When a local farmer and his sister take an interest in Harriet, Emma does all she can to prevent a relationship developing and insists that the girl rejects the offer of marriage from Robert Martin and friendship of his sister because she believes the girl could do so much better.

She targets the new young Vicar Philip Elton but he first sets his sights on Emma and when Emma rejects him, he quickly marries another young woman from out of town called Augusta because of her income of £10000 a year. The woman but lacks the genteel qualities of her new circle and is written as pretentious and boastful and likes to have her own way. She struck me as very suitable for her husband who in the tradition of the Church of England is an ambitious man with only the trappings of Christianity lacking religious sincerity.
There are two other principal characters. The first Frank Churchill, the son by his previous marriage of Mr Weston who has married Emma’s governess of sixteen years and who acted as a substitute mother to Emma, exercising good influence but limited to having been a servant in the household. Frank has taken the name of the husband of Mr Weston’s sister who raised the boy has their own after the premature death of his mother. He was raised in Richmond in Yorkshire but becomes an immediate hit when he visits except for George who becomes jealous when Frank sets his sights on Emma. He appears to be good in his judgement when Frank returns briefly to London for the purpose of getting a haircut.

The other principal character is Jane Fairfax who has been raised by her grandmother and a spinster aunt to be a spirited and sensible young woman of musical and social talents but because she is without fortune to make an appropriate marriage she appears destined to become a governess. She and Frank Churchill became acquainted while holiday in Dorset and where he executed a rescue of the young woman when out on a boat trip which ended in heavy winds and high seas.

Frank arranges a dance at the local Inn at which Mr Elton declines to dance with Harriet Smith who has to sit and watch the others enjoys themselves. Mr Knightley steps in. When Emma and Harriet are walking to her home one day they are accosted by gypsies in one version for their purses and by begging children in another. Harriet who falls to the ground is rescued by Frank Churchill and Emma gets her wires crossed and believes the girl has become infatuated with Frank who appears to be taking an interest in her when in fact she is taken with George Knightley.

There is a strawberry picking tea party at the home of Mr Knightly who owns the great house and estate in the areas. Mrs Elton says he should have asked her to organise the event but he puts her down saying that this will be the responsibility of his wife when he finds her but he remains in control until he does. I was struck by the volume of perfect strawberries on show in the British film version which does not reflect the size of the beds in the kitchen garden where they picks those they plan to take home.

There is a significant difference between the two films in the scale of the picnic to Box Hill which remains an important visitor attraction to this day and which I visited as a child in an extended family outing by bus. I revisited a few years ago and it is possible to park the car at the top of the Hill In the British version film the party includes footman, cooks and maids in their uniforms who transport screens and comfortable chairs as well as setting a table with a full buffet style meal displayed. The Paltrow version the picnic is modest by comparison.

This is a pivotal event because Emma humiliates the spinster aunt of Miss Fairfax and is severely reprimanded by George who is disgusted and disappointed her behaviour and she is suitable chastened and remorseful. However the crunch event is when the news arrives that with the death of his aunt, Frank Churchill has announced that he and Miss Fairfax are engaged. They were secretly engaged after meeting during the Dorset holiday but could not disclose further because of the anticipated disapproval of the aunt. With her death the relationship can be acknowledged. Because Mr Knightly had made his carriage available to Miss Fairfax her grand mother and aunt for a musical evening, Emma had thought he was interested in the young woman at one point and that it was George who had provided the sister with a piano for Miss Fairfax who is considered an excellent pianist and singer could play. In fact it was Frank Churchill who arranged the delivery on his supposed mission for a haircut in London. George returns home and visits Emma as soon as he learns of Frank’s deception. The scene leads the two disclosing their long term affection for each other. Meanwhile Harriet had regained contact with the farmer Martin and his sisters and they are also to be married. The film ends with a joint wedding.

Apart from her attractive facial features and body it is difficult to see what George sees in Emma It can be argued that at least Emma does not spend all her time seeking a partner or pursuing a fortune. However she must be condemned for the attachment to class and belief in her superiority over others. She contributes nothing to humanity. Miss Paltrow is excellent without a trace of an American accent and I preferred her version to that of Kate Beckinsale. Mark String is excellent as Knightly and Bernard Hepton as Emma’s father in the latter.

While the basic story of Mansfield Park is the same there is much more substance to the characters with an awareness of the true nature of slavery and the lives of the majority. Fanny Price is the second eldest of nine children whose father spends his time drinking and in an opium haze after being pensioned on half pay as a naval Lieutenant because of disability. While Fanny’s mother has accepted her fate she plots a better life for her daughter and arranges with one of her two sisters that Fanny should be raised at Mansfield Park where their other sister has married the owner. Like Fanny’s mother Lady Bartram (Lindsay Duncan) has retreated from life into her role as a dutiful housewife and it is the third sister, a widow and former wife of the Church of England vicar who comes to greet Fanny some two hours after she has been dropped off at the main entrance of the Mansfield Park in the early hours after the long coach ride from Portsmouth.

Fanny is to be brought up in the main household with four first cousins. The eldest when an adult accompanies his father on a visit to their wealth making plantation in Antigua. The elder brother disapproves of the use of slaves and as drawn the stark reality much to the horror and disgust of his father. He returns early from the trip and then is brought home from London by drinking friends when his money runs out. He is then struck down with fever and nearly dies.

Meanwhile the second son who has been a close companion of Fanny since she arrived in the household has been betrothed to someone appropriate according to his parents. She is Mary Crawford who when the older brother takes ill contemplates the advantages that his death will mean that that her future husband becomes the heir and inherits the estate. She is similar to Mrs Elton in several ways. She has a brother who appears intelligent and superficially charming and at first takes an interest in one of the two daughters of Sir Thomas and Lady Bartram. He also reminds of Frank Churchill. This ends the relationship.

Maria is the eldest daughter of the Bartram’s who is pursued by Mr Rushworth who has £12000 a year but who is also a boring young man. She prefers the brother of Mary Crawford who something of a romantic womaniser. She runs off with Crawford soon after her marriage, gains a divorce but Crawford fails to marry her.

Julia is the youngest daughter who also fancies Crawford but is pursued by Tom Yates, a drinking partner of the eldest son. He and Julia run off together.

For a time Henry Crawford also took an interest in Fanny which Sir Thomas considers to be a good match. Fanny is not interested and when Sir Thomas gives her an ultimatum of marriage or return to her family she chooses the latter. In the novel she is between eighteen and nineteen years. She is pursued by Crawford when she returns to Portsmouth who in the film pays a young man to bring an entertainment of fireworks and a host of white doves to outside her home. When he befriends the family and appears to accept their comparatively low lifestyle Fanny warms to him and briefly consents to a marriage which she quickly withdraws. He goes off in a huff and quickly transfers his affections.

With the two daughters away from home and Lady Bartram wrapped him in her own world it is Edmund who is sent by Sir Thomas to ask Fanny to return when Tom becomes dangerously ill and it is she who nurses the older son much to the gratitude of Sir Thomas and Edmund.

The essential difference between Fanny and Emma and Edmund and Mr Knightly is that neither are natural social creatures preferring to spend their time reading and in good conversation. Fortunately for both they come to realise their adult affection as well as teenage friendship and shared interests. Before leaving home Fanny had developed a close relationship with a younger sister who shows some of the same qualities as her older sister. Their friendship is renewed when she returns home and in due course she joins Fanny and her husband at the Park.

According to my research there is a significant difference between character of Fanny in the original text and the film. There is acceptance of slavery and their family lifestyle in the book which is made into an issue in the film. In the book Fanny is shy and timid where as in the film she is single minded and self confident. She is physical weak and often tired in the text but an extrovert and outspoken in the film What the film version also attempts to do is to suggest that Mansfield Park is autobiographical Jane Austin in that Fanny spends a great deal of time writing from childhood and using scare family funds for paper when she returns home.

In the book she finds Crawford’s attention unwelcome and far from returning for as a punishment goes to escape his attentions. There are various other changes some work but others distort to an extent to arouse hostility from fans of the writer. I like the film version.

And now for something of a very different- A 2011 three part adaptation of Charles Dickens Great Expectations. In my view there had been nothing until now to compare with 1946 film which has John Mills as Pip the young man and Alec Guiness as his friend Pocket. Jean Simmons played Estella the younger and Valerie Hobson as Miss Haversham with Finlay Curry and Bernard Miles also featuring.

In the present BBC production Ray Winston as one of his better roles as Abel Magwitch and David Suchet is Jaggers. The story has become well known as a consequence of the films and TV production although the original text merits the reading. I possess a family edition in the Heron Great Works series but I must confess not to have read but I am placing with the other volumes for reading during 2012. We encounter Pip as a young boy in the care of his married elder sister who husband Joe a blacksmith treats the child as his own.

The various films and series all open with the Pip encountering an escaped convict in chains, Abel Magwitch and he frightens Pip into getting a tool to release him from his enchainment. Pip also brings the man a slice of home made pie. Pip also encounters a man with a scar on his face who is another escapee. Magwitch is captured with the file and pie and the authorities assume that the file has been stolen from the forge which is returned causing great concern to the sister but Joe appears more understanding the situation and Magwitch is struck by their kindness in leaving him the food. The event is pivotal to the story as is the next development.

Pip has an uncle who delivers supplies by trade including to the local great house where the lady of the house is looking for a local young boy to keep her adopted daughter company. Pip is suggested and while his sister sees this as a great opportunity for family advancement her husband is unsure. Pip enjoys the visits despite the strangeness of Miss Haversham, a comparatively young woman who lives as a recluse where the dinning room is laid out for a wedding breakfast from years before. The young adopted girl Estella is unkind to Pip who she regards as inferior until an event which changes their relationship. Relatives of Miss Haversham call with their son but are refused access to Miss Haversham. They are incensed when the find Pip is allowed into the house and upper floors. He is told to immediately leave by Miss Haversham who cannot cope with his visit because of the situation and when he leaves he encountered the son of the visitors who behaves like Estella, the daughter towards Pip but in this instance Pip defends himself and strikes the young man down. This delights Estella because he has made something happen.

When sometime later Pip and his step father are summoned to Hall the sister believes they are going to be rewarded and made up. However Miss Haversham has a different idea and offers to pay for Pip to be indentured as an apprentice Blacksmith. She arrange the formal document with the help of the family layer Jaggers who is another character who is play a key role in the story.

While they are at the Hall the sister humiliates the hired help at the forge and he batters her to near death so she is rendered into a vegetable state for the rest of her life. The hired help makes it plain to Pip that he is answerable to him rather than directly through his step father. Having been given a taste of the life of genteel classes Pip is disappointed by his fate.

Seven years later Pip, now a young man, is summoned back to the Hall and introduced to Estelle now a beautiful young woman who is about to go to Paris to a finishing school before going into society in London to have her pick of eligible young men for marriage. Estelle tells Pip never to come back to the House again although there is an evident attraction between the two. Because Pip has completed his apprenticeship Joe tells the hired help his services are no longer required because the Forge cannot sustain three adult workers. This further antagonises the help who determines to get his revenge.

There is then an event which is to shape Pip’s destiny. Jaggers arrives to say that a secret benefactor wishes to enable Pip to have the life of a gentleman in London society. He will be given a weekly allowance which he will collect once a week from the Solicitor and then if he follows his instructions and guidance he will inherit a fortune when he comes of age (twenty one years). He can make no enquiries about his benefactor but Pip immediately assumes this is Miss Haversham and that the intention is that he should become the partner for Estella. He visits the Hall and the lady says nothing to dissuade him from the notion although she does not confirm his assumption. Pip sets off for London in new clothes acquired with money given by Jaggers to set himself up on arrival.

In the second episode Pip is provided with a guide for becoming a gentleman in the form of Herbert Pocket who Harry encountered at the Hall as the obnoxious relative of Estella. He is a much changed individual in having sacrificed his income and inheritance for life with the young woman he loves. He has to find work in order to marry and for this he needs some capital but in he meantime he is undertaking services for Jaggers which includes helping to become a gentleman. While his influence is positive and he acts responsibly, Pip in his anxiety to be able to impress Miss Haversham and Estella begins to spend way above his means thus gaining the disapproval of Jaggers. The first casualty is his relationship with his step father who has to visit after months of not hearing anything. Joe realises that Pip has become ashamed of his former life and is pretending that he has always been a gentleman.

Pip explains to Pocket his love for Estella and then finds that his friend far from being impressed is alarmed. Pocket explains that Miss Haversham was jilted by her fiancée who turned out to be an adventuring con artist disappearing after she has settled some money on him. Pip ignores the advice to have nothing more to do with mother and daughter and accepts an invitation to return to the Hall to find that Estella has returned from Paris and Miss Haversham wants him to accompany his adopted daughter to London for the social season and finding a husband. Pip thinks that this is an invitation for him to begin a relationship with Estella.

Pip has become a self centred waster of his fortune incurring great debts in anticipation of the fortune he expects to inherit from Miss Haversham. When his sister dies he visits briefly just for the service as there is a dance to attend with Estella that evening.

One day at the office of Jaggers he arrives early and meets one of the other gentlemen looked after by the lawyer. This man is a member of the landed gentry and quickly establishes a relationship with Pip who does not realise that Bentley Drummle is using him and soon admits his disregard for someone without a proper background. He first learns the reality when is taken to an upper class brothel. He tries to warn Drummle off taking an interest in Estella when the two meet at a Ball. Pip remains convinced that his affection is reciprocate after he and Estella have shared a kiss although she later dismisses this as using him to gain practice as was the purpose of the original invitation to Haversham Hall all those years before. When she announces that she is to marry Drummle she explains to Pip she has a cold heart and has been brought up to bring unhappiness to men. This was the aim of her upbringing; taking revenge on men for what happened to her adopted mother.

There is one good streak left in Pip that he arranges a career for his friend Pocket with the help of Jaggers Chief Clerk, promising to pay the balance of fee required of £500. As a consequence Pocket is able to marry and the wedding is a cause for celebration.

Pip then discovers the truth that it was Magwitch who is the benefactor when the man comes to his room with a vast quantity of money, his inheritance. He is horrified believing that the funds are the proceeds of crime. He refuses the inheritance and with the allowance stopped his debtors mount their demands. He goes to see Miss Haversham and persuades her to give him the funds required to pay off the debt incurred in securing a career for Pocket, He agrees never to return and Miss Haversham finding that Estella is returning all her unintentionally sets fire to her self as she burns the letters.

Pip has discovered the truth about Estella and Magwitch. Magwitch was married and his wife was wronged by an individual who in fact is the man who wronged Miss Haversham. His wife had attacked the man giving him a scar and he is also the individual who has escaped from prison with Magwitch. He had not been caught and had made a good living for himself in London society as a gambler. Magwitch had taken the blame for his wife’s action in order to save her and his daughter from transportation to the prisons of Australia. Magwitch believed his child and wife had since died and he had made his fortune from sheep at the end of his sentence. Although he was a free man and the money honestly earned there was a stipulation that he should never return to London on pain of the gallows. Pip discovers the maid servant of Jaggers is the former wife of Magwitch and that their daughter is Estella given to Miss Haversham.

Pip with the help of Pocket before he and his wife leave England to take up a posting abroad with his firm and Wemmick the Chief Clerk Pip helps to hide Magwitch who now has a price on his head placed by the man who wronged Haversham’s and Magwitch’s. The plan is for Magwitch to return to Australia, taking ship once he has left the waters of Thames within the London boundary. However in London Pip is being followed by the former assistant to his step father, the man who effectively murdered his sister. His first intention is to kill Pip but he then learns of the connection between Pip and Magwitch and claims the reward once he had obtained the details of the plan. Pip plans to accompany Magwitch to Australia but the plan is thwarted when instead of reaching the London barrier bell they find their adversary with the authorities waiting. In the fight that follows the enemy dies but Magwitch is injured, captured and taken to prison to await the hangman’s nose. He dies from his injuries before with Pip telling him that his daughter lived and became a beautiful young woman and that she will be loved for ever by Pip.

Back in his room he is attacked by the step father’s former assistant who reveals that he also severely injured the sister. Pip manages to overcome the man who off screen is then taken into custody.

When Pip confronting Miss Haversham her dress catches fire and she dies from her injuries. Pip returns to the home of his step father and apologises for his behaviour. In the film when returning from his job as an estate manager or clerk of some king he meets his uncle who says he is no longer on hard times because Estella has returned to the Hall a widow. Earlier we learn that he husband died from a riding accident for which she thanks his horse! He returns to Hall for a reunion.

Dickens had two endings for his work. In the first the two meet in the a street in London, admitting that because of the suffering experienced during her marriage she had learned to undo the cold heart created by her adopted mother. The final edition of the published work they meet in the ruins of the Hall. However there is to be no life happy ever after for them. They meet and they part as friend but at peace which each other and the world.

I had also hoped to write about Time to Time a 2009 British film which is an adaptation of the Children’s novel The Chimney of Green Knowe. I saw the opening on the morning of my Christmas trip but left for lunch and the return journey hoping to see the rest on the ITV player. Alas it is not included. A thirteen year old boy is sent to the care of his Grandmother at the family country house when his father is declared missing in action during World War II and his mother determines to go to London to try and find news and establish a new life for herself and her son if he does not return. The family have been estranged because his father had married someone who was not approved and Vice Versa.

The film had Maggie Smith as the grand mother and also Hugh Bonneville of Downton Abbey which is not surprising given that they are both cast into key roles in the series by the Director of the film Julian Fellows who created Downton Abbey. The boy encounters ghosts when exploring the house and finding his way blocked by a wall to the wing previously destroyed by fire. The grandmother is matter of fact about the ghosts and the boys is able to travel into past times thus earning the family history and its secrets.

There was a two hour Christmas special at Downton Abbey in which some issues are resolved while others are left open for the next series.

The main developments are that the truth about why Lady Mary is marrying Sir Richard Carlyle comes to the attention of her father who although disappointed tells her not to marry and that he and the family will support her, suggesting that she goes to stay with a relative in the USA and find someone to love and marry there. She also tells the truth the Matthew who under pressure from his mother and the Dowager comes to terms with his guilt about the death of his fiancée and is therefore able to start afresh with Mary, despite the threat from Carlisle that he will expose the family and its scandals.

The second nice development is that Daisy, the kitchen maid eventually goes to see her husband’s father at his farm. He explains that William was not an only child but that all his brothers and a sister had died so after childbirth as had his wife. Daisy is still wracked with the guilt of having married William on his death bed when she did not love him. She visits after cook plays around with a Weegee board used to communicate with the dead and pretends it is William telling her to visit his father. She accepts that she was regarded as special by William and the offer of the father to treat her as a daughter. More and more she has become more than a kitchen maid and is encouraged by a visitor to the household to leave and better herself. The father in law advises her to tell of her complaint to cook and ask to be promoted to an assistant. The cooks is agreeable to this subject to the funds being available.`

The third nice development is that the youngest daughter who married the Irish revolutionary chauffer Branson has become pregnant and the Earl agrees to invite the couple to stay at the Abbey.

However there is no such good news for Sir Robert’s former valet who was taken off to prison accused of the murder of his wife. He is convicted and sentenced to death. Sir Robert uses his connection to have the sentences commuted to life and then promises to continue work to establish a miscarriage of justice. Mrs Bates has planned to leave the Abbey and go to London because of the publicity anticipate as part of the threat from Carlyle. With the reprieve she withdraws her resignation.

The manipulating Thomas is thwarted in his effort to become his Lordship’s Valet to replace Bates and under the continuing influence of O’Brien kidnaps Sir Robert’s dog and locks him a woodland shed aiming to find the animal and get into the good books. The plan misfires and he is unable to get to the animal when the search is called off because of other developments. When he goes out in the morning he finds the shed opened and animal not there. He falls and in a dishevelled state returns to find his Lordship out walking with the animal which was found by a couple of villagers who had claimed the reward. However his Lordship is impressed that Thomas had gone out looking and had had come to some grief in the effort thus signalling that he may well get his wish to function as the valet until the future of Bates is settled.

The events are set at Christmas with the traditional shoot on Boxing Day. This is an event still taking place in country house to this day. The Duke of Edinburgh had organised and planned to lead the Boxing Day family shoot at Sandringham until his was hospitalised for an operation to relieve a blocked artery.

The Boardwalk Empire season two ends

2011-12-28T09:28:00.000-08:00

The Boardwalk Empire is a creation which followed Romanzo Criminale in attempting to marry entertaining fictions with historical events including historical characters such as Al Capone and Lucky Luciano. The second series came to an end with some powerful reminders of the evil committed by many of those in glamorised accounts of the lives of the gangster who profited out of the Prohibition of alcohol years in the United States.

In previous coverage of the second season I explained that the main character Nucky Thompson had resigned from his office as City Treasurer and was being indicted for election irregularities as well as under investigation for various crimes identified by the Prohibition agent Van Alden. His main route for bringing alcohol into his area was being blocked by coastguard and customs and Al Capone had arranged for a hit man to kill him but Nucky has escaped with a damaged hand. He had given his mistress Margaret the impression that he was seriously consideration her suggestion that he should give up all his criminal enterprises and settle down with her and her two children who he asks that they refer to him as their father. However although Margaret is pleased with the development, it far from the truth.

He had attempted to blackmail Van Alden who had a child by Nucky’s former mistress but Van Alden had cut a deal with the Fed attorney who had been sent to proceed with the prosecution despite Nucky’s effort to get political contacts in Washington to ensure that the case was dropped on technicalities.

Nucky decides to go to Ireland with Owen Sleater to meet IRA leaders allegedly bringing with him the body of his father to bury in his original homeland. He has all the appropriate paperwork to bring the coffin into the country without it being opened. This in fact contains repeating rifles and some ammunition which Nucky demonstrates to a group of IRA leaders. He says he can provide 3000 of the weapon in exchange for Irish Whisky. The plan misfires when the results of secret negotiations with the English are announced and prospect of a settlement which will end the killing. Nucky is however able to negotiate a deal with one of the group who own a distillery and had a substantial stock which he is unable to sell because of the conflict with the English. Nucky does a deal which leads to the import of the whisky as peaches with episode 10 titled Georgia Peaches.

While he was away Nucky had arranged for Chalky White to encourage his people to create unrest and go on strike. The focus is on the main hotel in town at the height of the tourist season - The Ritz Carlton. Here the all black kitchen crew work long hours for low pay and are required to eat basic food during short meal breaks. They go on strike during which time Nucky does a deal to sell a large quantity of the imported whisky and then to get the men back to work.

The Commodore and others begin to question Jimmy’s handling of the situation. Jimmy wants to settle the dispute so they can go back to making profits however the Commodore and others what a tough stand and arrange for Nucky’s brother Eli to organise some stick waving strike breakers to confront the pickets outside the hotel. In the melee the former Sheriff while Eli recovered from a bullet wound and back now as deputy is severely beaten up. This proves to be a message from Eli to keep his trap shut after he is interviewed by the Feds.

This then proves counter productive because the deputy is willing to give testimony that it was Eli who carried out the murder of the former husband of Margaret, Nucky’s present mistress. In the penultimate episode the Feds exert pressure on Eli to testify that he undertook the murder on instructions from Nucky, this they say will save him from the electric chair.

Because of the failure to use political influence Nucky has changed lawyers but despite his best efforts he warns Nucky it would be wise to put his financial affairs in order. Then they have a stroke of luck. Nucky has employed a black man during the period of the strike for which he is appreciative. He appears to be hanging around while Nucky and his new lawyer discuss his situation. Nucky is short tempered with the man but the lawyer presses the man to have his say. The man mentions that he attended the local Baptist church and was present at baptism ceremony at which van Alden had drowned his assistant!

Despite admitting his affair and fathering a child which appears to have brought into the good books of the Fed prosecutors van Alden has continued to supplement his official earnings with the cash taken from prohibition raids. He is approached with a proposition to raid a meeting at which Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and other local gangsters are putting up money for an illegal enterprise. It is suggested that a Prohibition raid at the appropriate time would net each of them $150000 and they shake on the deal. However events move quickly after the revelation that van Alden had intentionally killed his assistant to shut him up and when he is about to be arrested at the office and his gun is being taken the Prosecutor’s assistant is wounded and van Alden makes what appears to be a successful run for his life. Another witness against Nucky appears to have been neutralised.

Before Nucky had set off with Sleater to Belfast, the man had a sexual experience with Margaret but on return he keeps his distance. After her rejection by her brother in New York and his refusal to allow her to have contact with her sisters and help them she turns more to the local pastor who has already intervened over the behaviour of her son. While Nucky is in Dublin her daughter contracts polio with the implication that she might be unable to walk again. The girl is discharged from hospital wearing leg braces. The local clergyman is in attendance and he continues to put pressure on Margaret to renounce her dependency on the illegally obtained wealth of Nucky and his general patronage. She is consumed with guilt about everything including the disappearance/murder of her former husband. When she is issued with a subpoena Nucky makes it plain that he will not tolerate her giving any testimony.

However it is Jimmy Darmody and his wife Angela where the main focus of the final season episodes lies. As previously mentioned Angela has discovered that her husband was plotting to kill Nucky Thompson and she has taken up with a new arrival in the community, an authoress with bohemian friends. It was also Angela who had shown kindness to the facial damaged former comrade of Jimmy who had become his assassin.

Jimmy had commenced to deal with a gangster leader in Philadelphia who runs a butcher's which provides opportunity to dispose of the carcase of victims in his pies! Jimmy has an unpaid debt to the man which he ignores in his new status as the King of Atlantic City replacing his former Guardian. When the gangster crosses another of Jimmy’s associates he indicates it will be no loss if the man is assassinated. Unfortunately for the second time in a recent episode the assassination is botched and it is the assassin who is killed and when the gangster finds a match box from Atlantic City in the man’s clothing he makes the assumption it is Jimmy who has attempted to kill him.

He makes his way to Atlantic City and in the absence of Jimmy kills Angela his wife and her lesbian lover. In Under God's Power She Flourishes, the penultimate episode of the series, there are several flashbacks to Jimmy’s relationship with Angela during his time at university when he was yet to learn that the Commodore was his father and that his mother had been procured by Nucky when she was only fourteen years of age. We also learn of the circumstances which led Jimmy to joining up and serving in France during World War I and which led to his son being born during the long absence. The couple have only married recently.

Jimmy’s mother has a solution to the situation in which the child is told that his mother has had to visit relatives in Paris and that he will soon forget the women and regard his grandmother as his mother. There is the suggestion of incest between Jimmy and his mother. Jimmy is horrified at the idea that he and the boy should quickly forget Angela and this sends him into a rage he which he attempts to strangle his mother. His father intervenes and the two men struggle and Jimmy stabs his father wounding him badly but not fatally. It is then his mother tells him to finish the job so he stabs his father again, this time he dies.

Jimmy arranges for the death to be declared accidental and then discovers that under the Will the bulk of the estate falls to the former servant who attempted to kill the old man previously. Jimmy destroys the Will on the understanding that he will inherit and then his son. There is an import clue in this respect.

The final episode of the season begins with Jimmy and his minder raiding a meeting of the Klan and demanding to know the names of the three men that gunned down the workers of Chalky White, the event which opened the season. Jimmy then gives Chalky five thousand dollars for the families of the four victims about 60% that had been asked for and then the three men who we witness being beaten before being tortured to death in revenge.

Jimmy also announces to the remaining conspirators that he proposes to make peace with Nucky by insisting they withdraw their statements against him. His brother Eli is to take the wrap for the vote fixing. With the disappearance of Van Alden and the suicide of another key player the case against Nucky falls apart. He tells Margaret they should marry to prevent also testifying. When Margaret sees the way he is helping her daughter to walk she agrees to the marriage going to confession beforehand.

Everything seems to be going well for Nucky. The case against for the main charges which included murder and ballot fixing falls apart at the initial hearing and Nucky is released. The former deputy is left to carry the can for the murder. The present Sheriff, his brother Eli. is persuaded by Nucky to accept the charges laid against him for ballot rigging which will result in a sentence of two years of which the maximum he will serve is one, possibly less. Nucky promises to look after the wife and the many children.

It is then Jimmy who invites Nucky, accompanied by the Irishman as bodyguard to a talk. Jimmy explains that he was opposed to organising the hit on Nucky which is the truth and that it was Eli and the others who pressed that it should go ahead with what proved a botched operation. Nucky says he will look out for the man responsible for the death of Jimmy’s wife but separately we know that the man who was responsible is doing business with one of Nucky’s crime associates and that this raises a dilemma about what should be done with the toss of a coin being suggested.

Nucky and Margaret have married and she has invited him back into her bed again. He mentions that the government has agreed the money for the new fast road between Atlantic City and New York. He asks his wife to sign over to him the land along the chosen route which he had bought cheaply.

We see Jimmy having a day on the beach with his son and the boy’s grandmother in attendance. We also see him with his friend from the trenches urging him to recover from his experiences. He then insists that the friend remains behind while he goes to meet the killer of his wife who Nucky has telephoned to say has been located. Jimmy says this is something he must do. When he arrives at the agreed meeting place there is Eli on shotgun duty, Nucky and man supposed to be the prisoner. Jimmy is expecting the situation and unarmed. He says that he died in the trenches in World War I. He warns Nucky that after a while the drink, the drugs and whatever does not help and you are left with the guilt and no one to help you cope with it. Nucky appear hesitant about killing his former ward and who he treated as his won son. However he appears to shoot and finish him off. So we lose someone who has been a pivotal character in the series, second only to Nucky himself and perhaps Margaret.

Meanwhile we learn that agent van Alden with his child and the nanny have moved to a new city as man and wife when they are given lodgings. We also see Margaret transfer some, if not all, the land from herself to the church and not her husband. We do not know if she is doing this on her own initiative as her price for the saving of her husband or with his blessing. There is to be another season of this award winning series. We also learn the second seasons of the Game of thrones based on the second book is to being in April.

The Perfect Spy

2011-12-28T03:28:00.000-08:00

The attention given to the Leveson Inquiry led to postponing my further watching and writing about the books, films and TV series of the works of John Le Carré but the Leveson Christmas and New Year break provided the opportunity to engage in some viewing and the 7 hour long episodes of A Perfect Spy which includes a good portrait of his real life father. The great questions are first how close are we allowed to get to the personality of Le Carré the spy? Are we also shown aspects of the personality of David John Moore Cornwall? Thirdly how much of myself do I see in this looking glass?

Spies for whichever country have characteristics in common. At the simplest of levels they are required to lead two lives and they are required to keep secrets from those closest to them. They must also be able to lie convincingly. For those who go undercover whether in the homeland monitoring organisations and individuals or overseas setting up networks and risking the lives of their agents as well as themselves there is need to be able to function in situations of extreme risk and danger.

Spies like soldiers should be able kill their enemies and accept that however much they take care there will collateral damage. A fourth grand question is: Can anyone with the Will and a level of physical and mental ability be trained to be a spy as most people can be trained to become soldiers or factory workers, or do some individuals have the personalities more suitable than others? I suspect the answer is both but that some individuals are more comfortable and find the role easier and will prove the most effective but also the most likely to become double agents. Others will need to believe that God is on their side and will not be able to function if their particular faith is lost.

Midway during the BBC adaptation Magnus Pym, the Perfect Spy faces a government selection panel for MI6 having undertaken bread and butter intelligence work during his university and national service experience for the MI5 and the military. He is asked about his father and argues that he has little contact from choice and then when asked about a Pym who is a successful conman he pretends this is his uncle, an approach he maintains even when a panel member points out that some criminality in ones background is an asset not a handicap.

Because of language ability he is to be sent to Czechoslovakia where he is asked about his willingness to undermine the regime even if his actions result in collateral damage which he justifies in shortening the life of the regime. But it is not his employers who give him the distinction of being the Perfect Spy. This we are to find out later.

I will also add, by way of introduction that knowing something of the story, although I have no recollection of seeing the series, perhaps because it did not feature George Smiley or Alec Guiness, I some apprehension. It was Christmas a time for celebration and being with family. It was not a time for a close examination of one’s failures and failings even if it should be! I have been impressed watching an episode a day over four days when returning to my Travel Lodge room and then cramming three episodes on my return home last night after a challenging drive home with several million others.

As a boy, Magnus Pym grows up in the 1930’s, a few years before me, enjoying being part of the wealthy fast cars and fast women lifestyle of his life and soul of the party confidence trickster father, played by Ray McNally, and an abused mother who tolerated that her husband also enjoyed the company of two young women of easy virtue which it later emerges he ran for profit, with associates who include Tim Healey and who in real life included the Kay twins. Early on Father and Healey are carted off to prison although the police fail to get hold of the filing cabinet in which all the records of his dodgy deals are kept. This cabinet becomes a gateway to freedom, of a kind.

The family lose everything including their home, and mother and son are required to turn to the father’s brother who is a blood and thunder preacher at the local Baptist type chapel. The brother is not just a bully who severely beats Magnus but there is the suggestion that he sexually abused his sister in the past and it is this which is used to blackmail him into given the two a home. The man’s wife is a secret drinker in the teetotal household. Their lives are a front and in fact one of the glaring issues of the series is that everyone leads at least two lives and has secrets with varying degrees of success at keeping them.

When, after his mother is sent off to a psychiatric hospital and at a Sunday school or children’s service someone has a fit, Magnus decides to use the same ploy to get himself out of the household, but the appointed nanny sees through the stunt, so he seeks revenge by peeing over the carpet in his uncle’s study, and when about be caught has another pretend passing it fit which the doctor suggests could be appendicitis and take him of to hospital where he is reunited with his father, Rick and Healey who have been released from prison during the first year or so of World War II. Phew. The context is that this was still the era when children had to been seen and not heard and males saw it their duty to beat their children as they themselves had been beaten to bring about acquiescence and self control.

In real life it is understood that Cornwell was sent to a preparatory boarding school which was bullying and abusive. In the film his father is soon back to his wealthy lifestyle this time exploiting the black market, commenting at one point that Magnus is perhaps one of 20 boys in the land who enjoyed a steak dinner that evening. After the war and shortages became less advantageous for commercial exploitation, his father becomes involved in a scheme defrauding the government by obtaining grants for renewing bomb damaged properties and then a scheme getting wealthy and lonely people to give up their capital for a superior income 10-12% is mentioned together with a return of capital to the estate. Nothing like the promised interest is paid and the capital disappears.

In real life I believe his father went to the USA at one point while Le Carré was sent to Sherborne Public school so he would become an English gentleman and a lawyer to become chief justice. In the series Magnus is bullied at the school because of his tendency to fabricate tales about his father’s exploits in the war. He carves the initials of one bully in the chapel, a flogging offence and this is an act which is to haunt him later. I am not sure the extent to which most parents forget the their acute awareness as children because of the need to move on from their own sinful behaviour and acts of wickedness or if there are those of us, like Magnus who remain haunted be all their experiences, traumas and short comings from the ideal of behaviour that has been implanted in them.

It is however fact that before going up to Oxford Le Carré spent at least a year 1948 1949 in Berne at the University where he made friends with a British Diplomat and his wife through the local English Church. According to a documentary about the life of Cornwall he commenced to undertake courier jobs for British Embassy and to provide intelligence on local extremists at the University.

In real life he also spied on left wingers and trade unionists when at Oxford and was then recruited to home intelligence service by someone who had moved from Sherborne School to the Principal of an Oxford College and on whom the character of George Smiley is based. In this production of the written work I am yet to read it is the contact at the British Embassy in Berne who is to become his mentor and sponsor for his life as a spy. In real life Le Carré was then recruited by MI5 before MI6 which he had to leave after the success of his book “The Spy who came in from the Cold published in 1965 and by which time he had over 25 years of involvement at different levels. He is now in his early 80’s.

In the TV series Magnus goes to Berne with an alleged Baroness Weber who has convinced his father that she is the rightful owner of a treasure box of art and manuscripts worth a fortune. They stay at the best hotel and she runs up huge bills at local stores buying fashionable clothing and jewels. His father has given Magnus a sum of money which is only to be handed over to the contact once Magnus has inspected the contents of the box. The Baroness persuades Magnus to hand over the funds after seducing him and then disappears. Magnus has to do a midnight flit and then undertake a series of manual work jobs as well as relying on charity to survive as his father has also disappeared again.

He then gains a scholarship at the University which brings him into contact with the British Embassy contact and spying on locals but there is no reference to the role as a courier.

He befriends a refugee in the same lodging house who claims to be a poet and they spend hours together discussing life. The man, Axel, is deported after Magnus reports to the British about his life. The suggestion is that he is either a Russian communist agent or a left wing extremist. It is an event which is to govern the rest of the story although it is not signalled at the time. In fact the reality is that he was then a struggling poet, seeking truth and grateful for the friendship of Magnus who he calls Sir Magnus and a refugee without paper but a limp.

In the third and fourth episodes Magnus, now played by Peter Egan for the rest of the series, has returned to England and is up at Oxford, a period when in reality he continued to provide intelligence on extremist clubs, societies and individuals at the university. The series does not cover this period in his life.

The reason for his appearance in the series is the selection of his father as a Liberal Democrat Candidate in the General Election. His father is still surrounded by his former cronies and one suspects that his choice of party was dictated only by his ability to con his way into the confidence of local hierarchy at a time when politics was very local and dependent on the war record or trade union support for the two main parties, before the era of TV campaigning and where local meetings would be well attended and covered by the local newsprint media. Rick is still up to his tricks finding ways to be able to book the Town Hall eve of Poll public meeting which traditionally would go to the sitting candidate or political Party which had won the previous Election.

Before the meeting Magnus discovers as young woman attempting to break into the filing cabinet which years before Magnus has held the key to prevent the police gaining access to the records of his father’s criminal deals. By this time Magnus has learned the art of surveillance and getting into locked places to view records and he does so in order to find the papers about the women’s father. The story goes back to the days of the insurance/income providing scam in which the subject handed over their capital for an income and protection when in old age as well as securing the capital as inheritance for the family. In this instance not only did her father see little of the promised income but on his death bed he had been persuaded to sign over the estate, which included a farm, so that the family was left penniless.

The young woman was spending the rest of her days attempting to bring Rick to justice.

Magnus who has already been placed in the position of endorsing his father’s campaign and which he does with a two edged choice of words, provides the young woman which ammunition to cause his father a major problem at his final public meeting by revealing that Rick has been to prison. Rick however is seasoned at being able to turn most verbal attacks or criticisms to his advantage. He pretends that as a young man he had used postage stamps from the petty cash box as a junior clerk which he had intended to return, an offence which even in the days before the World War II was unlikely to have led immediately to prison as a first conviction. He then uses a parable of the son given a second chance in order to win the crowd on the night over to his side, although he later admits that the headlines in the local paper was the reason why he did not succeed with the electorate in general.

Magnus had become engaged to a young woman of good standing and family background and has provided a cover story about his father being abroad. Somehow Magnus has got to learn of the wedding which he gatecrashes with his cronies, provides crates of Champagne and an expensive limousine as a wedding gift although while he showing the bride his generosity police vehicles are seen arriving in the background. There is then the scene as Magnus attempts to explain why the vehicle was immediately taken away.

While serving in army intelligence during national service Magnus is contacted by his former friend in Berne Axel who despite knowing that it was Magnus who turned him in says that out of friendship he can provide him with great intelligence which will further his career having become a spy for the Communists in Prague. He therefore knows all about the role of Magnus. He reintroduces Magnus to the former secretary of the extremist club at the University in Berne and with whom Magnus has what is suggested as his first sexual affair. She is called Sabina. He had attempted to use her to gain information about the club members although she had resisted his efforts to gain access to the membership list so he had been forced to break into the filing cabinet where the information was held and this had led to identifying Axel as an extremist as well as stateless refugee. She is to be his link and means of gaining the information which is to put him in the good books of his employers and further his career.

We know that in reality that Le Carré worked for MI5 before moving to MI6 and overseas postings but in this series he has moved from the army to MI6 and the relationship with his wife become quickly strained because of absences and the secrecy He is posted to Europe first to Prague and then to Berlin. There is a tense situation before a potential defector is met and who turns out to be none other than Axel with a record of their dealings to date including that Magnus complied with a request to provide low level intelligence for the high level stuff which Axel provided. Now he is to be blackmailed in a one way situation when he is provide the highest level of information in relation while he will appear to have established an excellent network of fictitious and false agents who will appear to provide quality information which will be either false or of little long term value. The only consolation is that his contact will be again Sabine.

When in Berlin he is contacted by the police in the middle of the night and fearing his role has been discovered he attempts to hastily destroy film and other giveaways of his trade. He then discovers it is his father in jail for yet another scam and a police chief who knows and respects Magnus and fixes for his father to be released.

His wife cannot cope with his absences and secrecy and faced with his departure to Berlin, seeks and gains a divorce. Magnus is one of those men who need a wife and family to provide a background cover of stability and commonplace when in reality he craves, like his father for the excitement of trying to beat the odds. In fact it is evident that Magnus has turned into his father. Gregarious, able to make friends quickly wherever he goes, and enjoying the illicit, Magnus like his father enjoys sex whenever the opportunity arises. The immediate employer is always Jack from the Berne Embassy and he takes a fancy to Jack’s woman friend Mary, who Magnus then marries and has a son, Thomas.

We then catch up with Magnus his wife and child in Washington but according to a suspicious associate and new CIA family friend” Grant Laderer he is always on the move all over the USDA talking to officials and getting secret information which he hopes is only being passed on to the UK. On a family picnic the issue of the Criminality of Artists versus the Artistry of Criminality is raised. And the extent to which one has to be a barking psychopath to enjoy their work, which they do.

It is 20 years since his recruitment by Axel who is also in the USA and an Embassy official and believes it is time for them to retire and he later offers Magnus a Dacha in the Black Sea with a chestful of medals. Magnus explains that for him he has become the game. A committee of USA officials led by one Harry Wexler think they know the particular game he is playing having noticed some curiosities in the computer analysis of Magnus and his Czechoslovakian networks.

Celebrating Christmas with his family, Magnus is called out to a bar where he meets his yet again destitute father and Magnus provides him with a steak meal but refuses to invite him home for the festivities making available fresh funds as he has in relation to various American cities where enterprises failed. The Americans insist on coming to London to put their suspicions to senior British intelligence officers but Jack dismisses it all as a Czechoslovakian attempt to frame Magnus. Recalled to London and haunted by his past, Magnus, under a false name, takes secret lodgings with a Miss Dubber (Peggy Ashcroft) at his childhood now desolate seaside holiday centre one of a row of near empty guess houses. He has survived the interrogation about his contacts, including the curiosities thrown up by the computer analysis but the Americans remain suspicious.

More years pass by and the family take a secluded villa holiday on the Island of Corfu. His teenage son Thomas is curious when an eastern European speaks with Magnus at an English cricket match in the capital city. The boy also notices that two youths appear to be watching and later he sees them outside the villa. The stranger is Axel who is again suggesting they retire. When Thomas hears his father telling his mother the man was an English Joe she wants to know why the deception. Several times she says he can tell her anything but she just needs to know. Magnus would like to but keeps his distance, including his escape visits to the Devon private guest house.

Magnus decides to extend the holiday so he can write a novel, with his son returning to school. At the airport the boy again notices the youths but Magnus again dismisses concerns. When he is out his wife starts to read the novel. He is then recalled by Jack to Vienna where he learns of his father’s death. There are those who experience an exhilarating sense of freedom when a parent dies which other become wounded. Over three decades have passed and the original two girls his father ran, now old women, explain they do not have the funds to arrange a funeral and cover his debts, Magnus provides a good cheque.

He then goes in search of Sid and the filing cabinet which Sid is reluctant part but Magnus says he will arrange for collection and later this is transported to his flatlet in Devon. The death of his father means that he wants to settle his account and next he tracks down the former pupil at prep school whose initials in carved in revenge and which led to a flogging. Magnus is having a category one break down and disappears to his Devon hideaway.

When Magnus fails to return to his wife in Vienna she calls Jack who visits Mary in Vienna and begins to interrogate her. Jack learns that Mary was asked to keep a joint Diary in which there are several meetings with someone called Poppy. He also discovers a document camera hidden in the chimney breast with film made in a communist state. Magnus has also shown interests in Jack’s wife in the past. She had been about to admit something when her husband had been called away because of the death of Rick. Now she reveals that early on she had removed a couple of sheets of information from the security file and which concerned the role of Sabine and her connection with Axel. Jack’s worst fears, given the way he defended Magnus against the Americans come to haunt him. He accuses Mary of knowing something was wrong for years. Jack arranges for Mary to watched day and night for some indication of the whereabouts of Magnus but it is Axel who contacts her at mass and says he knows how to get in contact by sending a coded message on the Czech radio similar to that which the UK to contact agents throughout Europe during the Second World War.

Members of Magnus network go silent. Jack realises Prague is rolling up the fake network and the extent of Magnus’s betrayal is finally revealed. Magnus also senses his time is up and it is evident he is preparing to take his own life writing long letters for his son, his wife, Jack and Axel. He has become a close friend with his landlady and buys her a present before effectively saying goodbye.

Jack has taken Mary with him plus a local armed special squad as Magnus is known to have with him a service revolver. They hear one shot and Magnus is found with half his face blown off.

The key scenes occur earlier especially between Magnus and Axel. Magnus shows his appreciation for the way he and Jack ran him but he wishes his life had been different and that he had not been set on the road to so much betrayal. When sleeping with Jack’s wife, or may have been Mary she tells Magnus that he had never loved any woman which Magnus had to concede and we learn that he uses the same love making expressions as he had with Sabine four decades before and likely with his two wives other women. He says that the creation of his son is the only worthwhile thing he has done outside of being the Perfect Spy, an epithet awarded to him by Axel.

Romanzo Criminale season one ends

2011-12-21T15:02:00.000-08:00

Romanzo Criminale takes my award for the most interesting and realistic portrayal of gang culture in the 70’s and 80’s albeit it in Rome because of the mixture of fiction with historical reality. I still find it odd to describe events during my life as historical. It is not my serial of year which goes to the second season of Tremé.

I write this having lost the draft which was written in preparation for the season finale last night after I gone to bed but for once there is not usual frustration at having lost the work possibly by overprinting a second piece of writing. I did not know the outcome of the season unlike the second season of the Boardwalk Empire which is shown a week earlier in the United States before the broadcast on the splendid Sky Atlantic channel.

Previously I explained that two gangs of small time Roman criminals came together as a collective to kidnap a wealthy businessman and then used the ransom to commence a drug distribution network across the greater part of the city. Originally they were supplied by an established criminal group who also demanded a percentage of the profits but later they eliminated the leader and cut a deal with the Mafia for supply and who were willing to leave distribution to the new arrivals. The gang gradually took over all Rome through a process of intimidation except for one sector which remained under the control of someone who had raped the girl friend of one of the leaders. Eventually the culprit was isolated and murdered.

The former Leader of one of the groups Liban or Libanese had lived with his mother who throws him out because she feared he would be killed one day because of his criminal activity. He lives in an isolated a caravan until the money begins to roll in and he first buys an expensive apartment and eventually a city villa. Returning to the caravan he finds contact from the girl who was raped and has a romantic interlude but quickly learn that she had been put up to this by her boyfriend who steals his flash car and cleans out his safe before attempting to disappear. They are found and killed as the body count mounts. One episode closes with Liban sitting on the beach where he had the relationship past and present with the girl, on his own wrapped up the fur coat bought for his mother but rejected by her.

Libanese is never satisfied with the position of the gang and branches out to a casino where the gang members lose mini fortunes to the house. They also invest in stock market speculations and other legal enterprises to build up funds for their rainy days.

The gang is pursued by a young senior police detective with an old and wiser associate who work to a judge/magistrate. He has a sister who has become a revolutionary socialist at the time when the official communist party had gained considerable influence in Italy to an extent that a former Primer Minister Alberto Morro planned a deal which would bring them into power.

This was anathema to the right wing who still mourned the departure of the regime of Mussolini. Just before the end of the twentieth century I made a visit to Italy staying outside of Rome but making two visits to the capital city for the first time in some thirty five years. I was part of an organise tour where the guide, born I suspected in the 1970’s was a devotee of the Duce pointing to the successes under his regime and showing contempt for Italian politicians and their post war history of frequent changes.

Alberto Morrow was kidnapped and executed by a left wing brigade although there was evidence at the time that government supporters, especially in the Italian Secret service, were unenthusiastic about finding him alive because of his political intentions. The government had contacted the criminal underworld for information but then changed its mind but the link was made.

As the first of the two seasons of this Italian made and language series approached its climax there is the second historically accurate development included, the terrorist bombing of the train station at Bologna on 2nd August 1980 which killed 85 people and wounded 200 others. A right wing terrorist organisation Nuclei Armati Rivolutionari was implicated with some 50 member’s arrested and eventually several leaders were imprisoned after long process of investigations and trials which went until 2004 when a man who had been 17 years at the time received a 30 year sentence for his role and upheld as recent as April 2007. He had been charged with the assassination of Judge Mario Amato in June 1980. However the two leaders persisted their innocence after trials and retrials with stretched from 1988 through to 1995.

It is also alleged the organisation received direct help with weapons, explosives, hideaways and passports from the real Romanzo Criminale. A cash of NUR weapons was found in the basement of the Ministry of Health and in the series the gang hired the vacant basement of a government department to use as a store at one point and to conduct official business.

In series the man who planted the bomb is killed with a gun which is traced back to a gun used in the original kidnapping which enable the gang to enter into drug distribution. His body happens to found in the district where the senior Detective who had been investigating the Roman crime gang had been posted. Previously it emerged that the Italian Secret Service had been keeping watch on the Detective in part because of the activities of his sister. Senior officers of the services with right wing political links had established contact with the gang via the Mafia at the time of the search for Alberto Morro. The same individuals appear to have been involved when crucial evidence, a tape recording which linked the gang to the original kidnapping disappeared and resulted in their release from prison when they had been held for a bank robbery which they did not committed and which had led to the deaths. Because of his ongoing inquiries the detective had been blackmailed into resigning and moving to another job outside of Rome. His assistant had been moved into archives and the judge/magistrate who had overseen their investigation had received a warning about his future after he had been given the papers which the Detective and his assistant been working on.

The detective now discovered that the murdered young man on his patch had a train ticket which indicated he had arrived or left the Bologna train station before the explosion. Then a check on the bullet in the victim revealed that it appeared to have been used by the same gun involved in the original kidnapping which appeared to tie in the gang to the latest murder and the bombing. The magistrate/senior officer to whom the Detective was working then advises that the papers are being handed to the investigation team from Rome and then the Detective sees one of the Secret Service men who ordered his departure handed the papers from his latest discoveries.

It now time to remind of a number of other characters in this impressive series and how they have become linked into the fictional and historically linked story. The first is Dandi a young man with a passion for the latest clothes and stylish lifestyle and for the prostitute Patrizia, a woman also of culture and good taste as well as determined commercial brain. Dandi comes to the attention of the police detective because he uses some of the marked ransom money to purchase the favours of Patrizia and the Detective attempts to persuade Patrizia to cooperate with information in turn to protection from prosecution for her occupation and use of the ransom money. He also becomes obsessed with the woman finding it difficult to resist her attempt to corrupt with use of her body. As a skilled actress it has not been clear if she fancies him as much he fancies her. In fact we left the series as the Detective went with another prostitute, a part time woman who worked at a bar frequented by the Assistant to the Detective who first suggested that maintaining contact with a prostitute or two was a good way of building up an information network.

Because of Dandi’s reckless preoccupation with Patrizia Liban and the other former head of the second group who formed the initial alliance, know as the Cold, or Ice decided to finance the establishment of a high class brothel which Patrizia would run and enjoy an income greater than her previous earnings and thus be available exclusively available for Dandi.

Then through their watch on the Detective and their general interest in the gang the two State Security men blackmail Patrizia gay male friend (who was found with an underage age youth) to locate and gain entry to the brothel where they demand a room in order to listen and record conversations with clients. Liban and Dandi with another lay wait for the security men and warm them to keep away. Almost immediately the three gangsters involved are returned to prison and kept apart so they and those on the outside do not know why. It is then revealed that they have been arrested by the Security men who demand that the gang now effectively works for the Secret Service. Previously the hand had come across a policeman who enjoyed gambling and using prostitutes. They do not kill him on the understanding he is their inside man. He comes up with the idea of stealing a stash of drugs from the police. This appeals to Liban and they carry out the raid without knowing they have been set up by the Secret Service men
They explain that they are a collective and they cannot agree to the position without consulting, especially The Cold. They are released on a temporary basis and on the understanding that if they fail to persuade their colleagues to cooperate they will be brought back

Before this Dandi had beaten up the gay friend of Patrizia for leading the Security men to her. While the trio are incarcerated rumour sweeps through Rome that the skids are under the gang.

A feature of all the members of the group is that with wealth and power they have reached the point of being unable to survive without drugs, drink, women and gambling all to excess undermining their ability to function and keep their expenditure below their income. One of the group loses 30000 lire to Dandi who insists on payment. While Dandi is in prison the colleague who is in a drug and drunken stupor most of the time visits the brothel and makes a play for Patrizia. She passes him on two sisters who believing he has passed out and incapable make negative comments which he hears and badly beats up one of the girls and is only stopped from doing likewise to the other by Patrizia with a gun ordering him out.

He then takes on all comers at a local bar he and colleagues frequent and sent away with his tail between his legs told that the whole lot are finished and that the whole of Rome is looking forward to their downfall. On their release although he has offended Dandi it is recognised that they cannot have their authority challenged in this way and the man with Dandi and Liban execute the offender burying where several other bodies have been hidden beforehand. Patrizia insists that Dandi apologises to the gay friend. Dandi visits and insists that if the young man does not want to be beaten up again he must a report to him all that happens at the brothel and what Patrizia says and does.

The story of the Cold has previously been covered and how he detests his father from catching him cheating on his mother when a young man and starting out at a delinquent for a raid on the store/bar of his father’s mistress. He has used a lot of ill got gains to support his brother’s education but then falls for his brother’s girlfriend and her for him. This alienates the brother. In these final episodes of the season his father approaches to say the brother has gone missing and his mother cannot sleep with worry. The Cold arranges for a trusted new friend to find the brother who is located living with some hippies. The brother is persuaded to return home but also the Cold recognises that it is time for the brother to leave home.

The girl friend rejected The Cold because he did not tell her he was a gangster, but not because he was a gangster. This had badly affected The Cold who appears the most intelligent of the trio and at one level the most sensitive and conscience stricken. His new friend is a young loner bank robber who committed crime which led to Liban, Dandi and others being arrested at one point. The young man cooperated to ensure that the gang members were released without identifying himself. He has a passion for fast motorbike rides as the Cold but whereas The Cold will only kill for good reason this young man does it for the thrill. It is at this point and before I attempt to knit the various strands and interests into the grand finale that I return to historical reality. Just before the Bologna bombing a leading Magistrate Mario Amato was assassinated by Luigi Ciavadini then a young member of the NAR. The magistrates had been investigating the activities of the far right.

In the series I think it is the Mafia drug suppliers who ask for a magistrate to be murdered and it is The Cold’s new companion who carries it out. When the Detective discovers that his work on the Bologna bombings has been handed to the Secret service agents he returns to Rome to give the information to the magistrate Judge who had supervised his work and despite the threats to both of them the decision is taken to reunite the Detective with his assistant and to continue their inquiries but this time with the involvement of the Secret services in the Bombing and the protection of Romanzo Criminale very much in mind.

The detective learns that The Cold has decided to cash in his savings and flee the country with his girl friend for a new life. They book the first long haul flight available in a couple of days a one way ticket to Rio. The Cold says farewell by to his friends but he is picked up on a minor possession charge by the Police Detective and held in prison with the offer of release if he explains about the tie up between the gang and the Secret Service.

Liban has become increasingly paranoid and drug crazed himself. He understandably flips his lid when one of his closest associates attempts to kill him because the colleague believes that Liban has ordered the death of his younger brother who was trading in a small quantity of drugs. Liban orders everyone check out for the missing drugs and inspects everyone’s books. There is a complicated trail which I did not fully understand but it appears that another colleague had found the financial pressures from his extended family too great to fund from his drug earnings and had set up a loan sharking service as a profitable sideline. The younger brother had been involved as were two others who carried out the killing and who been caught celebrating the arrest of the trio when also in jail. Liban beats them up and ensures they now work for him, The Cold felt sorry for the colleague who had attacked Liban and releases him. Despite his paranoia, obsessions and bad trips Libanese appreciates the reasons why The Cold wants out and uses his Secret Service connections to get him out of jail and to arrange for a false passport when The Detective blocks his lawful passport to prevent him leaving the country.

As part of his delusions Liban is haunted by a killing and persuades the Secret Service to release to him the weapon involved in a previous killings which he believes will stop the daymares. It is when The Cold presses Liban to also cut and run with his earnings that his colleagues admits he is now tied to the Secret Service which only underlines the need for The Cold and his girl to get away.

There four other storylines indicating the potential disintegration of the gang. As is normal which such groups and a feature of the Sopranos, there is an interest in horse racing and fixing races. There is concern when their supported horse comes second and someone else makes 300000 lire. The source is tracked down! And persuaded to hand over half the winning and 60% from future winnings.

The Mafia suppliers become concerned when the arrests commences and then when there is a delay in making the payment for the next supply. This requires a liquidation of assets at a loss because the current kitty has been extended because of the extravagances of the collective.

Liban continues to be ambitious and becomes interested in a new apartment block which he is told he can purchase at a considerable premium. He is not pleased when the asking price is raised when his interest becomes known. He therefore arranges for some forty families living in squalid conditions to move in. This forces down the price to below what he was originally prepared to pay but he then uses force to evict the squatters. Having turned to him for help Godfather fashion, those involved are very angry.

The fourth strand is down to The Cold, at one level and takes us back to the tie in with the extreme right and Secret Services. Because of the pressure on the gang The Cold requests for some of the guns kept in security, including the Italian made easily concealed Beretta. When the weapons are retrieved those assigned to the task realise that the Beretta(s) have been replaced and because the Cold does not check the horde when they are returned he misses the exchange. It is one of these guns that killed the man who placed the Terrorist Bomb at Bologna station.

Liban becomes more and more crazed and talks in terms of placing everyone on wages thus alienating even more people. He attempts to visit his mother shouting out that he is now the King of Rome and wealthy and that she can now be proud of him. If she is home she does not answer his call. A motorcycle with two young people faces hidden with their helmets approaches and the passenger whose hair and build suggest a girl shoots Liban several times dead in the pouring rain outside the home of his mother. Quickly the news spreads and the rest of the gang assemble one by one to look on. This includes The Cold just before his planned departure and Dandi who has also suggested packing up and moving elsewhere with Patrizia for which she shows no enthusiasm.

The Secret Service men had reported to their boss their concerns about Liban but he had suggested they use him as far a possible. They had decided that with the departure of the Cold they should focus on Dandi.

I look forward to seeing how the story unfolds in its second season.

There is a further footnote on the historical reality. It is true that the Italian Secret Service was implicated without proof in the Bologna Bombing, in the assassination of the Magistrate and the extreme right. What is established that the NUR had close links with the Banda della Magliana which controlled he Roman criminal underworld in the 1970’s through to the 1990’s, Its is also established that the Cosa Nostra and the Camorra and they that were also involved with the Nato secret and illegal anti Communist organisation Operation Gladio which in turn was sponsored by the CIA. There was also involved with the notorious secret Catholic Masonic organisation the P2 Propoganda Due among whose members was Silvio Berlusconi and whose grand master, Licio Gelli was said to be involved in various criminal activities and unsolved matters. A search of his villa produced a document for the rebirth of Italy, a new Constitution and the suppression of Trade Unions. The organisation was involved the Pope’s bank Banco Ambrosiano where it’s Chairman Roberto Calvi fled to London and was then found hanging below Blackfriars Bridge, seen as a warning killing. There is therefore plenty of scope for the second season continuing at various levels.

Merlin Season Four continues

2011-12-02T05:22:00.001-08:00

I am increasingly behind schedule in reporting on the Leveson Inquiry, the publication of the first report of the joint Coalition Government/opposition sponsored inquiry into the August Riots and other current subjects of importance, so writing about a fictional and mythological programme can be regarded as an indulgence but it is part of what I am and therefore in its own way a valid component of my public and private contemporary art project. Today Merlin and then a start on Leveson 8, then Boardwalk Empire, then The August Riots and then Leveson 9.

Previously I only reported on the first three episodes of season four of the BBC I Saturday evening prime time series Merlin and in this piece I intend to cover the next five or six episodes. I broke off at episode three because it marked the point when Arthur became King of Camelot, a kingdom which appeared to occupy a comparatively small area perhaps the size of a medium English County surrounded by a number of other King or Queendoms.

His relationship with the servant girl Gwen (Guinevere) appeared to have become more open although her status appeared left in the air, no longer a servant or was she and if so to whom? The prospect of her becoming his wife as in the legend remained open.

His relationship with Merlin as his man’s servant also appeared to remain the same which was not just odd but is irritating because in no other fictional setting would someone who had saved one’s life several times remain unrewarded in this way. I appreciate how he did this and the frequency mostly remained secret but the script writers have included saying more than one that Merlin had done so. Although programme is scheduled just before the watershed it has become more silly and formulaic.

It is known that Morgause, the bad black arts sorceress, has gone to where bad black arts sorceress go but Morgana, her half sister, and illegitimate daughter of the Arthur’s father, has gone into hiding after killing him with the help of Arthur’s uncle, Agravaine de Bois, who appears to have a position at the court similar to that of a Regent despite Arthur being crowned King. It was evident that the duo would become the threat and enemies in this fourth series with the question how would it possible to achieve ten stories before one or both were dealt with and still have a fifth series in the making.

The other issue which has dominated the series is would white magic become acceptable as the means of combating the black and would the last remaining dragon became acceptable given that Merlin was the Dragon Master and had freed him. To what extent would Merlin be able to develop his powers and become his own man and not dependent one Gaius, the court physician and Merlin’s mentor?

In Aithusa, a character who I cannot remember his origins, comes to Camelot with one of the three pieces of an artefact which will lead to the last known Dragon’s egg and he who releases the dragons controls them. This is of significant to Merlin who as part of his inheritance and panoply of growing powers is a Dragon master having freed the only known living dragon Kilgarragh as part of a deal to save Arthur and fulfil his own destiny which the dragon knows. Understandably the dragon thinking he is the last becomes excited about the possibility that the line will continue reminds Merlin of his duties as well as future power and presses him go save the egg and their respective futures.

Gaius knows of the arrival of the stranger and warns Merlin about getting involved although he does not know about Merlin’s reliance and subsequent control of the dragon. Merlin helps the stranger to gain possession of the second piece of the artefact or it may be the third held within Camelot and narrowly escapes detection. Arthur with Merlin, as the cook as well as personal man’s servant, for a small unit of Knight, the small number of Knights and entourage is always a puzzle given the dangers they usually encounter on such missions, set out to retrieve the missing treasure unaware of its significance.

My recollection is that some druids become involved and that Morgana has an interest in gaining control of the baby dragons for her own purposes but I may be mistaken and according to one reference source, I am.

As the series has progressed the plots have become thinner and more open to challenge, and in this instance the expedition appear to be able to track the villain unaware that he is also keeping an eye on them. He takes the opportunity of poisoning the soup stew of the day while Merlin is absent but Merlin is able to counter the problem and goes off on his own leaving the party to sleep off their near miss with death.

In the final scene Merlin narrowly prevents the egg being lost and is able to hatch and if I remember there are two possibly three baby dragons that go off with Kilgarragh to be raised in secrecy and peace. There is a spectacular explosion. It was this episode which led me to feel watching was not a priority so I record and look at episodes in batches and with the fast forward button to hand.

In the next episode His Father's Son Arthur, despite several admirable qualities, is none too bright, and at times positively stupid, falls into a trap laid by his uncle and against his own instincts and Merlin’s judgement, and executes a visiting King who is up to no good testing out Arthur strength.

The man who is executed turns out to be a neighbouring King which begs the question why Arthur and Merlin did not know and his wife played by the outstanding actor Lindsay Duncan) is understandably angry and upset and organises her army with the help of Morgana. The two hate the Pendragons with the inside help of Agravaine who is even more stupid that that Arthur into believing that his days are numbered as soon as Morgana gains which she believe is her rightful position.

His approach is to drive a wedge between anyone whose influence runs counter to his and his target is Gwinevere. Fortunately before the battle at which Arthur appears to command a large army which makes even more curious his going off with just as handful of retinue presumably to fit into the BBC budget, the knights who have come to the fore in the series express their faith and support which helps to overcome the doubts nurtured by his uncle about his ability to command better than his father. Merlin exerts pressure to find a solution which avoid bloodshed

Arthur bravely goes off to see the Queen and offers for dispute to be settled though a trial by combat which back in Camelot everyone agrees is a good plan until they realise that Arthur is intent on an all or nothing proving of his Kingship by being their champion. With the help of the dastardly Agravaine Morgana charms the Kings sword so that it becomes so heavy as to be unwieldy and thus ensure his downfall and being crowned Queen.

As can be anticipated the champion of the opposing forces is a Goliath of a man but who Arthur is able to match until Morgana uses her spell. Merlin works out what is going on and counters the influence so that Arthur wins fairly, spares the life of the other champion and wins the respect of the leader whose husband he executed.

In A Servant Of Two Masters the issue of Merlin’s role and relationship comes to the fore when they off again into wilds on their comparatively own when they encounter a numerically superior group of baddies. Merlin’s inability to use his powers to foresee has become alarming when he appears to be mortally wounded. The King is distraught and admits to Merlin what a fine fellow he is and struggles to keep Merlin alive and the baddies
running into the mercenaries again

These are no ordinary baddies but in the employ of Morgana of Agravaine and Merlin just about recovers to work out what is going on and creates a rock fall which enables the King to escape but Merlin is captured and Morgana who still does not know who Merlin really is nevertheless wants to used him in her plan to get rid of Arthur.

The King orders a party of knights to go and find Merlin which given all he has said and done is surprising that he does not go off himself with appropriate numbers. The series relies on the loyal viewers who are not watching the X Factor to ignore such inconsistencies. They expedition cannot find the wizard and conclude that there is a traitor in their midst.

Morgana decides on a new plan which is to insert a tiny hydra like creature into Merlin, reminding of a very different level of fantasy series who name presently escapes and I am too lazy in the first Friday dawn of December 2011 to research and whose purpose is to change Merlin into someone determined to kill Arthur.

Arthur who finds a new man’s servant unacceptable decides to this time lead a new expedition in search of the man who continues to risk all to keep Morgana and others from destroying the King and Camelot.

He finds Merlin with neither appreciating what has happened and Gaius do not also appear to notice anything to worry about even when he spots Merlin going off with some poison. Merlin is going to use the stuff on the food of the King. It is only Gwen who spots that Merlin is different, persuades Gaius and the two prevent Merlin from killing the King and bringing him back to normal but only on a temporary basis.

Now it is Agravaine, under pressure from the King who casts the blame for what has been happening on Gaius which results in at last Merlin waking up to the fact that Agravaine has been in league with Morgana. Gaius understands that Merlin has to break the creature in him at its source so the young wizard switches into the 80 year ancient figure that we have seen from time to time in previous seasons as well as the present one. Morgana believes that the old man is Emrys the previously mythical great wizard forecast to be her downfall, not realising that the old man is also young Merlin.

The two engage in the power battle we have seen from time to time in the form of lightening type bolts and eventually the creature inside him is destroyed and he departs leaving Morgana in quite a bad state. Why Merlin does not kill her there and then should be obvious.

It is Agravaine in The Secret Sharer who finds the unconscious Morgana who on recovery reveals that Emrys is aware of their plans which means their priority task is to find Emrys and destroy her rival. She decides that the best way to achieve this is to kidnap Gaius with Agravaine implanting the idea that it is Gaius who has been the traitor inside the camp. Meanwhile appears to have been given an additional post as secretary speech writer.

Morgana had enlisted the help of a new creature who appears to be a cross between a truth obtained by force as well as a truth seeker with insight and knowledge who she bribes to help her. The creature kidnaps Gaius and his disappearance appearing to confirm that he is indeed a traitor. His will is gradually broken down his will until he reveals the truth that Merlin is Emrys.

Merlin is horrified that the King believes the lies Agravaine has spread about Gaius being the traitor and confides in Gwen about the treachery of the Uncle. The two set about trying to find out where Gaius could have been taken while Morgana and Agravaine are also on their way back to Gaius and the creature with the intention of killing Gaius and Merlin once they know the identity and location of Emrys.

We then enjoy a further battle between Morgana and Merlin and where it is her bribed creature that intervenes and not only saves Merlin but fails to inform Morgana, declaring that he know that Merlin is Emrys and offers his fully support to enable the young wizard to fulfil his destiny. However again Morgana is left unconscious to fight on which is a puzzle!

I think that it is in this episode on returning to Camelot that when Arthur apologies to Gaius for doubting his integrity that Gaius take the opportunity to suggest to the king that not all magic, wizardry, sorcery white witchery and such like are forces for evil and which brings awareness there are many around him who are protecting him, whether he knows it or not.

The final episode of this report Lamia is something of an interlude. The wife of the head of a village in Kingdom comes to Camelot to report to Gwen nasty goings on.

This suggests that witchcraft, demons or such like are involved and through Gwen the King is involved and he wants to go off to help taking Gaius with him. But because of major health problem in Camelot Gaius persuades the King to use Merlin in his capacity as a trainee physician.

Merlin quickly discovers that there is something going on beyond his existing powers and sets off to return to Camelot to consult Gaius. At this point the party come across some more bad men who appear to be ill treating a girl who the Knights rescues and then appear to come under her power. She treats Merlin as the enemy turning the rest of the knights against him and insisting they must help the girl rather than help the village.

Arthur with Agravaine, now that Gaius is available, set off to the village to find out what is going on and come across the baddies who have been killed. In the village Gaius confirms Merlin's belief that sorcery is at work. A survivor of the baddies talks about the girl who Gaius works out is a dangerous evil creature called a Lamia a hideous monster who takes the shape of a young girl or vice versa.

Meanwhile Merlin and Gwen have become effective prisoners of the knights and the Lamia as they reach her destination where one by one they fall to the treachery of the creature. Realising that Merlin is different from ordinary men the girl transforms into the creature and they do battle. It is Gwen who intervenes as the King and his party arrive believing that it is Gwen who has saved Merlin which in one sense is true. This does not prevent the King reverting to his usual treatment of Merlin. The village recovers and we await the climactic series ending

The Sopranos season 4 begins

2011-11-28T14:51:00.000-08:00

It is a bright and mild for the time of the year on the last Sunday in November and I am spending my day working on the submitted testimony of victims of the abuse of the power of the print media and catching up in the latest three episodes of the Sopranos. This was the position until about 4 in the afternoon having also listened to the three disk set of a Satyagraha which arrived on Saturday morning and which means I can also complete my writing of the opera seen a week ago

It was just before 4pm that I first learned news that a former Newcastle and Welsh midfield player, Welsh International and present Manager of his national side had been found dead at his home in Cheshire at the age of 42. It was later suggested that he had taken his own life as there were no suspicious circumstances.

I switched over to various news channels and sports football news and live broadcasts and listened to 606 on radio Five Live BBC. There was a moving film of Shay Given his former Newcastle team mate in tears playing for Aston Villa against Swansea and a succession of influential figures from the world of foot expressed their shock and sadness at the news with several posing the question why? The man was married with two sons he adored and a beautiful wife. He had appeared on a BBC programme the Saturday lunchtime talking about the games to be played over the weekend. Everyone agreed that he was a stable and balance individual, who cared for others, football players, sports journalists and football supporters. There had been no previous indication that he was upset, emotional disturbed, depressed or considered taking his own life.

This tragic event and the immediate public reaction merited headline news during the rest of the evening including a statement issued on behalf of the Prime Minister. It therefore can be argued that his death is a matter in the public Interest as well as being of interest to the public.

But this goes to the heart of the Leveson Inquiry. The family have been asked to left in peace and a subsequent statement that they would contribute to celebrating his life at a later date. My response is to not only accept their request but to argue that the circumstances should remain private for the family unless there is any evidence that the police statement that there were no suspicious circumstances must be questioned.

The news has been filled with hours of stories about the man. When he moved from Everton to Newcastle after a distinguished career at Leeds United where with other midfield players he was known as something of a hard man on the field I had my reservations. However he quickly won over the hearts and minds of everyone including myself and when he moved back to the North West after five years with the club here was regret at his moving on, and there is now as his premature death. I had noted that the Welsh team had won the last three games under his captaincy and that he was bringing pride back to a nation where Rugby union has always been its first love as a national sport and where the football team was not supported because of its repeated failures to progress in the International arena.

Returning to the Sopranos I watched the first episodes of season four and begin and end with Tony being angry frustrated and under increasing pressure from within the family and from his associates.

In one of a couple of brief conversations with Dr Melfi in which he has a few moments of honesty, he confesses that his wife has expressed anxiety about what will happen to her and the children if he should suddenly die or be sent to prison for a long period. Dr Melfi suggests that he gives up his career as a crime boss. The cause of his mental and emotional state is best reflected in the lives of his family and “professional associates”. It follows the disclosure at the end of the previous season that his son has inherited the problem of passing out in moments of great stress, something which Tony has also inherited and which in his instance he is in the wrong profession and no amount of psycho analysis or counselling support will make a difference.

In the first episode For All Debts Public and Private his wife Carmela become anxious about her future and those of her children after seeing the wife of one of his former associates who Tony murdered because he was blackmailed into spying for the Feds, handing out free samples at a local supermarket. She presses Tony for information about the financial provision he has made for her and the children should he come to an untimely end or end up in prison for a long time. Tony assures her that he has made secret provision. He cannot provide the normal family trust provision or investments for having to disclose the source of the income. Tony recognises he is indebted to his wife for tolerating not just his criminality but also his way of life. Later when he does not return home for the evening meal she has prepared she hears of an armed robbery believed to have mafia connections. Tony is elsewhere occupied, on this occasion.

The episode has longer term significance in revealing some of the ways Tony is stashing hundreds of thousands of dollars around the house. His uncle complains to him that organising his defence for his forthcoming trial has cost him over a million dollars and he outlines some of the way that the lawyers continue to demand fees. Tony has told Carmela that there is a shortage of funds for various reasons despite his hoarding of cash. He tells his Uncle the same story and then berates underlings for their failure to increase their earnings from criminal enterprises. Carmela had warned that hiding cash earned no interest a point made in the recent episodes of Romanzo Criminale. Tony then offers to take over a warehouse, a “worthless” site from his uncle for $100000 to help him out when in fact he has been tipped off that he site will needed for a development project worth much more as a consequence.

His mood for parsimony leads to beating up the barman at the Bada Bing for wasting money by throwing away old ice cubes which is just one manifestation of his edginess. Christopher is present and again full of resentment because Tony is using him as his beck and call driver unaware that Tony has significant plans for him. The reason that Tony does not return home for dinner is because he has arranged a party for a visiting New York Crime Boss to discuss the progress of new Esplanade development in which he has a shared financial interest. He takes Christopher to introduce him to the Crime boss. A group of girls dressed as air hostesses (they may be air hostesses) are brought to the party for a sex orgy. Christopher participates but is called away by Tony as the evening is underway.

This is the second purpose and the main cause of the title. He takes Christopher to a roadhouse where he explains that the police officer responsible for his father’s death when he was only a child is holding his retirement party. Tony had though his father’s killer had already been dealt with long time past but Tony admits they have kept the corrupt police officer on the payroll because he had been useful but now with his retirement the account could be closed. He gives Christopher the man’s home address where he lives on his own. Christopher waits and attached the man to the stair banister with handcuffs. The first denies involvement and then attempts to bargain. Christopher turns up the volume of a gangster movie and shoots the officer dead using the man’s own gun so that it looks like suicide. He visits his mother who has remained a widow and a drinker and talks about his father. Before he leaves he pins a 20 dollar bill he has taken from the killer’s wallet to a shrine of pictures and memorabilia in the room.

The new season opens with Tony going out to the gate of his domestic property to collect the local paper. Tony always starts each new season going out to the gate of his home for the paper and what he wears indicates his mood. His is dishevelled in a dressing gown and boxer shorts.

He then enters the breakfast room only to find Carmel going through a pile of papers with AJ for a school project. AJ has just started at the new school following his expulsion and persuading his parents not to send him to army school. Tony complains about the boy’s bad grades so AJ comments that he has not been enrolled long for any grades to be issued. AJ is off the radar for most of the rest of the three episodes.

It is Meadow who causes both parents concern. The daughter spends most of her time in bed or lounging at the family pool with female friends. She walked out of internship and makes excuses about getting any form of summer job. She then announces that she is going to miss a college year and go to Europe with a friend, paying her way with casual work and also participating in a film being made by a contact of her friend in Demark. Dr Melfi suggests that the girl should talk over problems with a professional counsellor because of depression following the murder of her boyfriend despite having dumped him because he was cheating on her rather than his criminality.

When the counsellor presses her about the family interests she clamps down on appearing to confirm that her father is involved with the Mafia. However she later informs the parents that she is still going to Europe with the blessing of therapist and that she can do what she likes as she is eighteen and storms out of the house. The parents think she had gone to Europe as threatened. They do not know that she had gone back to College and as warned finds that all the popular courses have been filled. She takes one under Philosophy which includes morality and social responsibility. The parents do not know where she is after a stand up row with her father.

Carmela attends a monthly social event organised by the Catholic priest for Italian wives and girlfriends and they take along Christopher’s fiancée Adriana. The speaker gains repeated applause by going through various stereotypes about Italian women to establish a sense of Italian pride and then broaden this to stereotypes about all Italians being part of the Mafia. She makes the point that only a minority are part of the criminal fraternity. This incenses one of the party of wives and girl friends who exclusively involved with Mafia criminals. She berates the priest for allowing the woman to make such comments given the position of Carmela and the amount of money the crime family donate to the church.

One of the group rushes off, the wife of gangster Bobby Baccalieri, to get a new tooth crown fitted. When her husband a call from their son to say his wife has asked if he can buy some food on his way home, he moans at this in part because of major traffic hold up which he learns is not only from a car accident but an accident in which his wife is killed. He is overcome with remorse and guilt for having told his son that his mother can be a real pain sometimes. At the usual flamboyant funeral wake attended by the crime family he is distraught and inconsolable and has the sympathy of the women folk because he not taken a mistress as is the custom and considered to be faithful.

Carmela who has so far become emotionally attached to a Parish Priest and to the handyman friend now turns her attention to Furio the killer hard man with a pigtail who Tony brought to the USA after his visit to the Southern Mafia to arrange a new deal on one of the enterprises he took over from Uncle Junior. Furio has bought a new house in the area and that he remains unattached becomes the subject of gossip within the women and of the extended “family.

It will be recalled that in the previous season Tony had a counter productive and destructive affair with another patient encountered at the office of Dr Melfi. He had one previous affair which also was related to the relationship with his mother and her relationship with his father.

This cycle of destructive relationships is also the record of one of Tony sisters, Janice who has accidentally killed one of her destructive affairs among several. She attends a family dinner organised by Carmela and who also invites Rosalie Aprile with her live lover Ralphie. Ralphie and Janice have a quickie which continues with a passionate affair kept in secret until Ralphie decides that he does not want to cope with Rosalie’s negativity and decides to move in with Janice without advising her of his intentions. She is also in receipt of analytical counselling and her need for approval from her brother through a succession of negative relationships. She throws Ralphie out of the house just as he is moving in.

In No Show Paulie Walnuts has been arrested and is in prison on a gun charge. Paulie had previously indicated his support for one of the New York bosses whose underboss Johnny Sack now has a home within the area under Tony’s control hinting that if there is to be a move on Tony’s it will have his full support. He is angered that Tony and his former associates have not kept in constant contact with him so he rings the underboss to express his dissatisfaction with the situation.

Tony has to keep low because of the imminent trial of Uncle Junior and he is aware that the Feds have been trailing members including himself. The family has a celebration to mark the birthday for made man Albert Barese at the Vesuivio where attention turns to the allocation of no show job at the Esplanade building development. These are official paid work jobs where the appointed individual does not have to work but spend the day on site lounging in chairs and enjoying chat with other given positions. Paulie was the Capo responsible for oversight of the site and he is allocated the first no show hob while he is in prison. Christopher is given the overseeing role held by Paulie while Furio and Paulie’s son are also allocated no work jobs hence Furio no longer being available to drive Tony. Tony who was not at the dinner alienates Barese who is a longer established made man than Christopher and Ralphie who has organised the dinner and subsequent meeting makes a joke about the wife of Underboss Johnny Sack who is significantly overweight.

Later Paulie is told the joke which he regards as bad taste and passes the information back to Sack’s who when discussing the Esplanade projects demands an increased share of the profits and also a share of the profit Tony has made from buying Uncle’s warehouse building as the information came for one of Sach’s associates. Tony does not understand why the Underboss is tetchy or cuts Ralphie.

There is also trouble on site when during a supervisory visit Tony finds out about the value of Internet fibre optics cabling and the no show crew and site manager believe that Christopher is giving the nod to steal and reselling the cabling for a side profit. Tony is not amused because such losses affect the profitability and completion date for the contract. Christopher apologises and takes it out on the crew. There is further trouble when Silvio Dante who is also in bad humour at the sudden rise to position of Christopher arranged for a lorry load of tiles to be stolen. Tony is enraged and comments that the load will be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Silvio hands over a wad of $2000 he has with him and promises the rest. Tony makes the point by adding “by the end of the day“.

The main story during the second show is the role of the Fed agent who has befriended Christopher’s girlfriend. They have become very close which annoys Christopher when he always finds her home when he returns for a drug injection. The girlfriend is giving up drugs and is trying to persuade Tony to do so. He promises after a final getting high following his promotions. He is suspicious about the undercover agent although on the basis that he thinks she is an male minded lesbian. Before this the agent thinks Adriana is about reveals secrets about Christopher and the mob family when in fact she wants to tell her that she had an abortion as a consequence she may not be able to have children which she dares not tell Christopher who has given her a fabulous diamond bracelet and said she would one day replace Carmela as the first lady!

In the third episode Christopher which covers Columbus Day as well as the fortunes of Christopher Moltisanti the Feds decide to cut their losses when under pressure Adriana breaks with her best friend so they arrest Adriana who is sick all over the interviewing table when told she has a choice between charged with possession for distribution of drugs after a search of her home which carries a maximum 25 year penalty or agrees to provide them with up-to-date information on the activities of Chris and his associates.
She does not have to wear a wire. Christopher had built up homes of marriage and of replacing Tony as the boss in future.

The main reason for the title is that native Americans are staging a protest about the attention being given to Christopher Columbus. This leads to various conflicts. Tony and other members visit a stud and racing stables where he has an interest in a horse and where the owner is Jewish and takes offence when a Columbus critic says he behaved as badly towards the indigenous population as did the Nazi in the Holocaust. Those from Southern Italy also do not rate Columbus who they regard as a man representing the hated North. However the majority of the Crewe see the criticism as personal to them and confront protestors assembled at the Columbus statue leading to arrests and violence.

Tony operates a different approach and attempts to blackmail the lead protestor by threatening to reveal that one of their leading hero’s was not in fact from a native Indian family. Tony is also introduced to another wealthy native American who runs one of he new casinos. When they make a hospitality visit they find the purpose is a quid pro quo arrangements getting a national Italian background singer to perform free for a week at the Casino. Worse still the man rings Tony to say that the appeal for restraint has failed.

The trial of Uncle Junior begins with the knowledge that the Feds had placed someone undercover at the hospital which had been used for Tony and other’s to meet with Junior while he allegedly went to see his doctor who had been bribed to facilitate the meetings. The undercover agent appears to be a nurse who Junior offered to take a trip after the court appearance was over, He warns Tony that the woman will have gained information on their meetings and who was there although she was never present inside the room and he had not disclosed damaging information to her. Tony continues to be concerned about his future with considerable justification.

Blue Bloods and Romanzo Criminale

2011-11-26T13:06:00.001-08:00

I received an Income Tax notice on Friday which claimed I had underpaid tax by about a third and which as all my income is PAYE deducted was surprising and even more so when it appeared my income was significantly greater than the official notice from my occupational providers who supply the notice for end of year tax purposes. I understood how the mistake had been made but the task of getting an immediate correction proved time consuming and possibly a substantial telephone bill. I spent hours in spells trying to talk to someone being told to wait for an advisor. Eventually I got fed up and rang my occupational pension provider and got another automatic response revealing that the notice was a mistake and should be ignored as there was blunder at the Inland Revenue which was being investigated to find out what had happened. Thinking this was just a regional problem I mentioned to a London based family member who said that another relative who is not a pensioner had a similar experience. Does this mean those who have got an overpayment notice are to be disappointed?

Before continuing with the Leveson Inquiry it is time to catch up on some entertainment TV as the programme bank is nearly full so I will do some cops and robbers 21^st Century style and three stories from Blue Bloods the series based on the NYPD. They are entertainments based on communicating the difficulties confronting an NYPD police officer similar to its predecessor Hill Street Blues but with the added twist of covering a family where five members are hold present or in one instance past ranks from Police Commissioner to Rookie, Street Co Detective or Assistant DA. While this is a device to demonstrate that despite the challenges it is possible to have a married life with extended family lunches around the Sunday dinner table there is a strong dose of reality medicine within the sugar coating.

Tom Selleck is Francis "Frank" Reagan, the USA style Police Commissioner and widowed father of Danny, Erin, and Jamie. His role is more like that of the present London Commissioner working to a Mayor than the elected Public Interest supervisor to be introduced into the UK next year. It appears that Frank is a personal appointee as are the other Chief Officers and once a new Mayor is elected, possibly of a different political party all the chief officers offer their resignations enabling the Mayor to accept any from those he dislikes or seek a major policy change which it is felt the individual opposes.

There has already been a I am a Black Mayor you are a middle class White Cop prejudice start to the new Mayoral reign. This raised its ugly head again in the second episode of three now covered as the second season draws to its close as “Black and Blue”, An outspoken local clergyman and long time friend of the Mayor allowed two of “henchmen” to throw Will Estes as Jamison "Jamie" Reagan, rookie police officer and former Harvard Law graduate, Frank’s youngest son, down a flight of stairs together with his sergeant who is badly injured and hospitalised.

The Clergyman then arranged for a line of male parishioners to prevent the police gaining entry to the building and commenced to harangue them with multi channel TV news crews in attendance and a larger crowd of parishioners all black with the majority of police white. Frank attends the scene as does the Mayor and Frank ignores pressure to commence talking and orders his men to move the non violent civil disobedience blockade of the building and finds that the two men have escaped through the rear. It is amazing this was no planned for but this is the kind of series where it is best to go with the flow and not question too much.

The Commissioners then increases his popularity stakes with the Mayor and Black Community by arranging a search of the Church premises, undertaken by his middle son Daniel "Danny" Detective Reagan played by Donnie Wahlberg together either his sister, Bridget Moynahan as Erin Reagan-Boyle, Assistant District Attorney and single mother or Danny’s female partner Jackie Curatola (Jennifer Esposit). Once on the premises Jamie having been injured, goes along to assist identification of the culprits that could have ended the career of the sergeant is able to confirm the two attackers from named photographs on a wall and this quickly leads to their capture.

Meanwhile Frank has been checking out the Pastor with various interests and established that there has been official interest for sometime arising from the misuse of government funds and this also leads to his arrest. It gets the Mayor of the hook who admits that he had his reservations about the lifetime contact which led to him keeping the man at arm’s length long time back but the man had political clout so as a politician he had to go along with the situation.

Jamie also features in the main other story of the episode named Medicade when as an uncover officer working the clubs he is contacted by the son of the local Mafia boss (also under investigation by the Feds) whose life he saved when he overdosed on some bad drugs and Jamie took him to casualty and then departs to protect his position. The Feds had been hoping for this contact wanting James to go under cover again for them but because of the danger this is optional and Jamie has his doubts about maintaining a legend during any ongoing relationship required with involvement in such a family.

Jamie agrees and attends a large family gathering at the son’s restaurant where he is first quizzed by the mafia boss who appears satisfied with the explanation why he did not stay with his son at hospital. Jamie is also warned off the attractive daughter who is rehearsing the song Hallelujah and insists on accompanying the two young men when the Mafia son announces he is off to pay his respects to the drug dealer who gave him the bad stuff. Jamie has been advised that he is to observer and report but not give himself away or actively participate in any criminality. He manages to get out of cutting the man after he is forced to take a lethal cocktail of snorted drugs. James finds the experience unpleasant and not his cup of tea when he is forced to leave the man without medical and quickly returns to uniform street duties. One suspects this is the start and not the end of this particular story line.

This is a grey area where it is evident that on both sides of the Atlantic it is unrealistic and impractical for undercover officers not to participate in unlawful activities to a degree especially in situations where the idea is to gain the confidence of ringleaders and gain access to membership lists and representational meetings with other groups nationally and internationally. In the recent real situation discussed at some length the individual became confused, to put it mildly, commencing a serious long term relationship with one individual and over the eight year period getting to like and have more in common with them than his only family, friends and colleagues.

The episode is called Medicade because of an insurance scam in which there is prior arrangement for a vehicle to be driven into the back of a stationary one, enabling an individual make substantial personal damage claims. What goes wrong is that the person making telephone contact is killed when taking off his seat belt to retrieve the phone which has slipped out of his hand. Danny solves the case. In the story Danny and his wife are having a romantic weekend with an evening meal and hotel stop over away from their two sons who are having a boys out with their dad and great granddad Henry Reagan, retired Police Commissioner, played by Len Cariou who is in fact only five years older than his actor son in real life and therefore requires some aging make up to justify the age difference of father and son.

The boys are taken out for a meal, do some fishing and watch a western until they sleep. They experience a similar time to that which Frank had with his father and grandfather when he was their age and remains a lasting memory. The boys are told to enjoy their food out because when they grow up they will find there is a time when starting their own homes and families they will not be able to afford to eat out which strikes the boy’s as unfair. The story thus making the point of the important role of grand parents and great grand parents can have in passing on their experience (for better or worse).

The romantic evening goes badly at first when Frank is called out but after he returns the evening ends on a high note.

In "Lonely Hearts Club Jackie Danny’s partner goes undercover as an escort Internet site girl when she and Danny track down a serial killer who is murdering prostitutes in hotel rooms.

We see the first part of the latest murder when the girl bribes the reception clerk for a room to meet her client who asks her to turn round and it appears he then strangles her. This is correct but first he has injected a paralysing substance into her neck. The body is washed with surgical spirit as is the room to remove DNA. Later there I a record of two other similar killings and the three girls all have same build and appearance as Danny’s partner who has already had a narrow escape from being raped in an earlier episode. Danny is concerned but the girl is confident about doing the job she has trained for.

Danny interviews the bereaved mother only to find that she has become estranged because of her daughter’s way of life and says that she is not surprised by the death as she assume it would be a matter of time. I saw her behaviour as suspicious noting that we had not seen if the murderer was male or female. Despite having cameras and audio in the room things go awry and the assistant just about escapes with her life again. Danny rescues to find that the murderer(s) is in fact the interviewed mother and her son who believe they are doing God’s work.

Assistant DA Erin Reagan is still concerned that her teenage daughter Nicole "Nicky" Reagan-Boyle wants to join the force and is forcing her on a tour of artistic experience including the Met Opera which she enjoys more than anticipated and a contemporary art centre where she has considerable misgiving. She attributes certain qualities to one picture which her mother pooh pooh’s only to be supported by an attractive man who says he is an art agent who has direct knowledge of the artist. This provides the opportunity for mother to commence yet another romantic engagement. The daughter wears teeth braces to promote the notion that doing so does not make a young woman unattractive.

There is one other story line. Frank is facing union problems because of the political tax cutting budget and the union leader is proposing a pay freeze for a year but no job cuts and no out sourcing. Frank arranges a meeting at which the various departmental head outline their proposals to the union boss. One quip is the threat for the police to develop Blue Fl, mass sickness leave because of the inability to strike.

One of his retired father’s function is to arrange an annual sports event and meets one of his former deputies who boasts he is working for a private security corporation that had contracts in the USA as well as abroad. They want the grandfather onboard because they believe he will carry weight in their bid to take over some non policing functions. He declines because of expensive suits he will have to wear and a long tiresome train journey and not being available for the family as much as he would like especially his weekly Sunday roasts.

The things always ending well or relatively well is not so when looking at Cops and Robbers Italian style 1970 and based on true events when several collectives of young gangsters combined into one collective providing the whole of Rome with illegal drugs in Romanzo Criminale an Italian production with English sub titles. While the comparatively young handsome Police Detective, a kind of middle ranking senior officer with some independence reporting directly to the judicial system on the management of individual investigations, knows that members of the Collective were responsible for the kidnapping and death of someone early on, for several brutal gangland killings since and for the drug racketeering he is unable to gain sufficient evidence for a successful prosecution, although in one instance he did and higher ups arrange for the evidence to disappear.

His is also compromised in two ways. The first is repeated interventions to prevent his communist sister activist from arrest and imprisonment and in the latest two episodes viewed he arranged for her to leave the country to Paris as the situation becomes too hot following the kidnapping and execution of the former Prime Minister. He is photographed although we do not know who by. He is also attracted to the beautiful and confident upper class prostitute girlfriend of one of the senior members of the racketeers who repeatedly offers herself to him in exchange for not being asked to spy on her gangster lover. By the end of the two episodes the Detective has gone with another call girl who as a day job working in a bar.

His previous target Dandi whose a third lead member in the gang continues to cause his colleagues concern so they devise a plan to set up a brothel with his girl as the Madam so that she can become the full time official girl friend of Dandi. There is a complication during the two episodes when a punter dies from a heart condition and in order not to attract attention they get rid of the body unofficially. This causes two problems. The first is that the deceased was a friend of a friend recommended to the brothel because an Asian girl was known to be working there and the family is concerned about the disappearance. The major threat comes when the girl panics about the implications of covering up the death and makes contact with the police. She is silenced by money and threats, just before the Senior Detective arrives.

The focus of the first of the two episodes covered is the wish to get rid of the Gangster Terrible who has continued to control a major part of the city separately from the collective. He attempted to get rid of the leaders and take over their rackets and plans an assassination attempt. This fails and the two assassins are captured and forced to join forces with the Collective and enable the gang to enter the stronghold. However Terrible and escaped and gone into hiding. When this is discovered t Libanese is persuaded to let the leader of the original other gang to take a small group to take their rival out including piercing his heart with Libanese’s knife

The killing takes places on the big celebration of the wedding of the gang member who has got the school age girl pregnant. There are complications because of the need for the gangster to covert to Catholicism before the wedding takes place. The priest is given a large bribe of donation to the poor to expedite matters to enable the wedding to be organised early. Before the happy day there is an indication of the growing wealth of the syndicate in that there is a debate about which style of suit the young man will wear and they settle for a St Laurent.

Meanwhile a bank robbery has taken place with a death and the Detective chief believes he has evidence to pin the robbery on the man who killed Terrible and locks him up. I believe the individual has the nickname as the Cold. He is the one who had a regular girlfriend who had been going out with his younger brother who did not tell abut his life as a gangster until he was arrested in her presence and they have not had contact since. He is introspective and longs for a different life and has become moods and aggressive in his otherwise calm and sympathetic manner acting as brake on some of Libanese rasher moments. It takes time for others to find the man who had stolen the motorcycle of Libanese used in the robbery. The Motorcycle is placed outside the police headquarters while the Cold is in custody thus confirming that there is no real evidence. This all takes time meanwhile some of the friend wondered if The Cold had committed the robbery and this has filtered to him while in prison. Worse was to come when he is discharged and finds that by a majority the decision had been taken to open a casino.

There is more to the coolness between the two men. Libanese has become very ambitious. They had been invited to a lunch meeting with the Mafia who offer a deal to provide all the drugs allowing the new group to keep all the profits without requiring a cut from these. This only serves to increase money and the Mafia offer advice in going into business venture including property and investment speculation. The Cold hankers for keeping things small and for the past relationship. At one point the senior detective visits the small dingy club type haunt where they spend hours together playing pool and card games as well as a crime HQ. After his release The Cold makes friends with the young man who committed the bank robbery and who is more interested in the thrill than the money which to some extent meshes in with the Cold as well as sharing his passion for fast motorbikes so they go off and look at the stars and philosophise about star sign personalities. The Cold has told Libanese that the higher you rise the harder you fall.

Tremé second season ends

2011-11-17T08:49:00.000-08:00

For the past two days I experienced an arthritic kind of pain in my right leg which was crippling in its impact at first. Sometime ago I experienced a similar reaction and obtained a gel from my general practitioner which worked like magic and fortunately I had more than half a tube left and so far it is working just as well although after just over a day usage there is still a lingering sense that all is not as it should be,

I begin a late catch up after spending the greater part of the day listening to the editor of Guardian present a powerful condemnation of the News of the World and the section of the printed media whose behaviour had led to the inquiry being held. However his thoughtful introduction which included observations and suggestions for the future which clearly had the ear of Lord Leveson was an introduction for the presentation of the QC representing 51 victims who are to give evidence to the enquiry. He launched a blistering assault on the behaviour of the whole genre of tabloid journalism which suggests it is going to be an import week as the can be described as he fight back begins. However it is important not be carried away demonstrated by the media who briefly referred what he said in of the first witnessed to appear and to some of the others. It may be they have taken cognisance of the of the plea that in giving evidence they should not be revictimised by the processes of giving testimony or by the media reminding of the circumstances which provoked the hounding.

I have watched the last two episodes of Tremé in succession and note that they completed a series which was not as good as the first but which improved as it progressed.

The series ended with an episode focussed on the New Orleans Heritage and Jazz Festival which covers one three and one four day weekend with a three day break in between and has the hallmarks of Glastonbury except for its emphasis on Jazz and Folk, including New Orleans foods. Last year there were seven music stages with and five performance tents plus exhibitions. Some main liners perform the whole range of jazz from traditional, blues and marching bands to mainstream and modern. This is a very different kind of event to the Mardi Gras and other similar events which are designed for riotous living. This event has a performance schedule from 11 to 7 each day although wine, beer as well as soft drinks and water are on sale.

Antoine Batiste (Wendell Pierce): The trombonist does not have a good end of season as his band falls apart which for me is not surprising because he plays neither one thing or the other music, He puts more time in for the pre High School band and in particular the trumpet players and a few finds who have formed themselves into a group and do a street gig as the New Orleans Heritage and Jazz festival approaches. He is a spectator at the event.

LaDonna Batiste-Williams (Khandi Alexander) continues to suffer the effects of the rape and physical beating and when her husband puts the foot down she agrees to sell the bar and remain in Baton Rouge with her husband and sons. Following Counselling she commences to have marital relations although her anger with everyone, especially men continues and comes to a head when she visits another bar to see if they are interested in acquiring some of the equipment from the bar. He she spots one of the rapists sitting and drinking. She calls the police and has the young man arrested giving him a good kicking at the same time. Accompanied by her husband she visits the police/court house where they apologise for the error which led to the release.

She gets her spirit back and her husband says that she should not sell the bar and that he and the boys will move into the City so they are together.

Antoinette "Toni" Bernette (Melissa Leo. She continues to be frustrated with the lack of progress on the death of young man who came as a visitor and stayed but her enquiries suggest that there has been a cover up with missing file information. Unbeknown to her friend has moved in homicide as number two to try and get the evidence to bring the end and those involved in the conspiracy to cover up what during the flooding and subsequently. Because of his apparent lack of cooperation with her investigation the two are no longer on good terms.

Her relationship with her daughter Sofia (India Ennenga): Toni changes as a consequence that the Mayor where she works as an Intern three day a week after school is found to have taken kick backs. Sofia comments that people one trusts and admires key one down and her mother realises she is talking as much about her father as the Mayor. She is able to admit her anger at the suicide and this brings about a reconciliation with her mother who she is also appreciates is looking out for her in relation to the upcoming court proceedings. She rejects an invitation to smoke a piece of weed with a regular young man who fancies her.

Nor is it a surprise when Janette Desautel (Kim Dickens) seriously considers moving back to New Orleans when the opportunity comes of managing a restaurant. Her move to the top notch counter restaurant is a successful one as she begins to provide New Orleans-Louisiana dishes

I have head of Jambalaya. The first and most common is Creole jambalaya (also called "red jambalaya"). First, meat is added to the trinity of celery, peppers, and onions; the meat is usually chicken and sausage such as andouille or smoked sausage. Next vegetables and tomatoes are added to cook, followed by seafood. Rice and stock are added in equal proportions at the very end. The mixture is brought to a boil and left to simmer for 20 to 60 minutes, depending on the recipe, with infrequent stirring. Towards the end of the cooking process, stirring usually ceases. Some versions call for the jambalaya to be baked after the cooking of all the ingredients.

The second style, more characteristic of south-western and south-central Louisiana, is Cajun jambalaya, which contains no tomatoes (the idea being the closer to New Orleans one gets, the more common tomatoes are in dishes). The meat is browned in a cast-iron pot. The bits of meat that stick to the bottom of the pot are what give a Cajun jambalaya its brown colour. A little vegetable oil is added if there is not enough fat in the pot. The trinity (of 50% onions, 25% celery, and 25% green bell pepper, although proportions can be altered to suit one's taste) is added and sautéed until soft. Stock and seasonings are added in the next step, and then the meats are returned to the pot. This mixture is then simmered, covered, for at least one hour. Lastly, the mixture is brought to a boil and rice is added to the pot. It is then covered and left to simmer over very low heat for at least 1/2 hour without stirring. The dish is finished when the rice has cooked.

While an upmarket Jambalaya may be something which Janette would cook I suspect she is not into the Po Boy or
Muffulettas.

Looking at the list of 100 food outlets at the Heritage and Jazz Festival there were Po Boy’s Hot Sausage, Roast Beef, Crabmeat and Soft Shell crab meat, Paneed chicken, Fried Shrimp Turkey Guiariniera, Louisiana Crawfish, Cajon Duck Cochon du lait, which at one level is no more than a hot sandwich. The muffulettas are more my cup of coffee as a traditional muffuletta consists of one muffulettas loaf, split horizontally. The loaf is then covered with a marinated olive salad, then layers of capicola, salami, pepperoni, emmentaler, ham and provolone. Although some restaurants will do their own take on these ingredients, a proper muffuletta must always have an olive spread and never contains cream cheese. The sandwich is sometimes heated through to soften the provolone. The size of the muffuletta is enough to feed more than one person, and many stores sell quarter or half-muffulettas. Described a round Sicilian bread it resembles Stotty here in the Northeast the Barm cake in Yorks and Lancs

The olive salad consists primarily of olives, along with celery, cauliflower and carrot, found in a jar of Guiariniera. The ingredients are combined, seasonings such as oregano and garlic, are added, covered in olive oil and allowed to combine for at least 24 hours. Today, the Muffuletta has become the signature sandwich of New Orleans

I also liked the sound of Sausage Pecan Catfish Meunière but expensive; Fried Crab Cake with Smoked Tomato & Jalapeño Tartar; Alligator Pie and the Louisiana Crawfish Etouffée or Remoulade.

Jeanette returned to New Orleans to stand bail for her former deputy Chef incarcerated because if immigration problems and they are on the own and into bed soon after. It is not clear if she gives her booked flight and restaurant due session a miss or comes back for the Heritage and Jazz festival where she is very much an item.

Albert "Big Chief" Lambreaux (Clarke Peters) the Mardi Gras Indian chief gets his way in two respects as first his son agrees to finish recording the album mixing modern and traditional sounds in New Orleans and which leads to doing an afternoon set at festival and then he raises the $20000 cash from family and friends to enable the chief to undertake a DIY repair on the his property shell while they wait for insurance government money.

His son Delmond Lambreaux (Rob Brown) gives up his flat to returns to New Orleans to help his father with the work and this appears to become a permanent move when his white girl friend understandably rejects his suggestion that he moves his things over and stays there whenever he needs to be back in the city. This could pave the way for a relationship with Jeantte in the third series.

Alas Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn) is one of the characters worse off at the end of these series than the beginning although his relationship with Annie goes from strength to strength. His record independent label record financed by his aunt is a great success except that his band take over and have no place for him except for his novelty rants while his aunt also sells out for $40000 of which he only gets just over $4000 after expenses have been deducted,

He does help to comfort Annie Tallarico (Lucia Micarelli): who was present going home from a gig when the leader of the band is shot dead. The penultimate episode opens with a meeting, singing and playing in the adjacent part of his closest friends followed by the discovery of relative who admits the long bearded southerner was something a fraud having grown up in middle class Washington. She has got hold of some incomplete compositions of her mentor and with Davis encouragement she starts to complete the pieces. Davis does a red eye set at the old radio station hoping to get back in the good books of the station owner.

Sonny (Michiel Huisman) Anni‘s former lover continues in his new life and seems to have given up playing his guitar as well as drugs for work with the fishing fleet. He meets Annie and Davis and she mentions the exhibition photo of him rescuing the baby during the flooding. He takes an interest in the daughter of the Chinese shrimp boat fisherman and she says he has to ask her father if they can date. The father arranges for him to go on a fishing trip on his boat before giving consent. The trip provides an opportunity to show the extent to which the bay is being overrun by oil exploration and the ongoing contamination from leaks.

This just leaves Terry Colson (David Morse) who moved from being a lieutenant for the NOPD to deputy at their homicide division where his refusal to hand over papers to Toni to help in her investigation is a cover for his own work to find the evidence to expose the head and those within the team who have covered up their involvement in deaths that occurred during the floods. This story is carried over to the third series.

The other story lead is that of second season newcomer Nelson Hidalgo (Jon Seda) the politically connected developer and venture capitalist from Dallas, who becomes involved in the renewal efforts in post-Katrina New Orleans, he has a penchant for fast women, getting drunk and for dodgy deals as well a developing love for the culture which he explores at every opportunity. He is challenged by his brother to say what he creates or contributes. He is also busy buying up properties at above market prices in an area because he has been told there are plans for future redevelopment. However he gives the impression of being affected by the comments of his brother,

All the music videos are available on the official site.

Strike Back

2011-11-12T03:14:00.000-08:00

I could not sleep after going to bed at 1 am on Wednesday November 9th 2011 and decided to get up and watch television and after flipping through the various channels came across the first episode of a series which had recently completed two seasons, watched and was sufficiently impressed to then spend sometime the following morning trying to find out if it was possible to continue viewing and after checking Sky Anytime and the Internet went back to Anytime and checked the individual channels and discovered the full first series and was immediately able to complete the second of the opening double episode and then the remaining four episodes of the first season.

On the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a Special Forces unit takes part in an operation to release a hostage, during which, John Porter disarms a boy named As'ad wearing a suicide vest. After the hostage is found, two soldiers are killed and one is left in a vegetative state. Believing the boy was responsible, and that Porter did not kill him, he is dishonourably discharged from the service and which creates a gulf between himself and his daughter and subsequently with his wife as he unable to find suitable employment or settle into civilian life. He is wracked by guilt and that his closest friend remains in a coma.

Seven years pass to so that the series is based on the world of 2010 when the series was given its first airing, A former colleague (Hugh Collinson) who was involved in the 2003 successful extraction has become head of a unit at MI6 and he has obtained employment for Porter as a security officer to the building.

In Iraq the daughter, Katie Darmouth, of a former government Minister, and front line news reporter, is kidnapped outside of Basra by a an organisation called the "Sword of Islam"; A young man was spotted by Katie observing her prior to the kidnap and when she sees the same young man participating in the kidnap she is able to capture his picture on her phone which is passed to the MI6 Unit. The picture of the young man is circulated and is seen by Porter who recognises him as the young man in the photo. He visits Collinson and pleads to be reinstated to assist in the rescue of the hostage and capture the young man who might be able to establish that the soldiers were killed by another. He is refused in part because he has suffered from post traumatic stress.

The former Minister is insistent that action is taken to find secure the release of his daughter and on learning that Porter is convinced he knows where the girl could be held, he presses the authorities to reinstate Porter who is subject to psychological and physical testing. The clinical psychologist, an attractive young woman, has sex with him because as it is later reported it was evident that the lack of a sexual relationship was the only thing holding him back!

The situation becomes intense when the kidnappers uploaded a film of the woman demanding the release of someone held at Belmarsh Prison. Upon realising one of the kidnappers is As'ad, Collinson accompanies a field unit managed by an MI6 HQ female officer Leyla Thompson who has reservations about using Porter. When they think they have lucky break and able to trace the location of the last broadcast the unit is killed as it is a prearrange bobby trap with only Leyla surviving.

The disaster leads the Government under pressure from the former Minister to seek to negotiate with the consequence that the captors claim their demand is not being taken seriously and chop off one of the woman’s hands at her wrist. It is at this point that Porter attempts a one person rescue in defiance of the Government‘s unwillingness to risk further personnel. He has been equipped with the latest tracking device inserted into a tooth cavity. He has a two part plan. The first is to get him captured and taken to where the woman is being held and to play on the Muslim commitment that having saved the life of the young man he is indebted to his saviour. He also hides a small blade in a contained in his anal cavity. He persuades the woman to trust him and this includes being beaten on her back and his plan nearly does not work as she is about to be decapitated on camera when he breaks out of where he is being held and rescues her. The captors have checked and removed his tooth tracking device but they manage to get out a Satellite phone location and escape with the help of the young man. However although a helicopter reached the trio in times, orders have been given by Collinson not to bring back the young man who has sworn that he did not kill the soldiers.

Back home, Porter learns from the woman that the young man had sworn he had not killed the British Soldiers and that they had been killed by another British Soldier. Porter guesses correctly that it was Collison. He is reunited with his family.

For the second two parter the action switches to the Capital of Uganda Harare where a Former S.A.S believes he is being hired by the British Government to kill the President and Dictator Robert Mugabe. It is in fact a body double and agent is captured and placed in prison. He is to be put on a show as a means of rallying opposition to British campaign against the Ugandan President. This would be every embarrassing for the British government so the MI6 special unit are instructed to arrange to get the man out of prison and the country although there is also the suggestion of a fall back position of the man being killed so he cannot talk.

Porter has been offered and accepted a field operative appointment with MI6 and he is selected for the mission with Leyla Thompson, appointed his liaison officer on the ground. His task is to get himself arrested and into the same prison as the would be Mugabe assassin, to make contact and get him out.

Leyla goes first to South Africa and from there into Uganda under a false identity posing at a South African official seeking the extradition of Porter. She visits to advise him that the man is to be moved early for trial early and she undertakes to have a vehicle waiting outside the prison on the morning of the appointed day for the break out.

Porter has prepared for the breakout by undertaking a prize fight for money as the champion of a prison guard who gains significantly financially from the side bets on the outcome. He persuades the guard to arrange another contest at dawn in which he offers to fight two men and thus increase the odds for the Guard. With the prisoners and guards focussed on preparing for this event he stages the breakout and persuades the would be assassin (Masuku) to trust him. Leyla is ordered by Collinson to abandon her involvement in the mission and get herself out of the country leaving Porter and Masuku to fend for themselves after they managed to escape.

They hotwire a car which Porter drives into the countryside to an off road location where the car is hidden in the brush and Musaku finds that Porter has prepared a grave for him under orders from London. Musaku is able to convince Porter that he was set up in that as just with the break out the Colonel Tshuma had crack security troops waiting for him kill the Presidential double.

In fact London has worked out they have a traitor and discover that the link man in the Embassy in South Africa is in the pay of the Mugabe administration and Collison makes his way to South Africa to confront the Embassy official who his team has discovered lives in fine style with substantial funds in offshore accounts.
Porter and Masuku attempt to make it out of Uganda to South Africa on foot chased by Colonel Tshuma with the help of an indigenous tracker. At one point the two men are nearly capture but manage to escape by jumping off a cliff into a river.

They come across a young girl being raped at a one nun orphanage and on intervening find that some bandits are using the children as hostages as part of a alleging helping to get people over the border for payment. The group are in fact killing the people they are supposed to help but they are able to rescue two of the children although a fire fight follows. As it no longer safe for the orphanage to remain the nun takes the children on her own over the border while the two men hold off the Colonel and his men until the British S.A.S unit arrives. The Colonel is killed in the battle and Masuku, who was previously a trained S.A.S operative elects to stay in the area. Collinson is thwarted in bringing the Embassy traitor to justice as the man commits suicide.

Porter had upset his daughter by having to cancel a weekend home not knowing that his wife was due to go into hospital for an operation which was not considered life threatening. Because of complications the woman dies understandably leaving the daughter shocked and distressed. Collinson breaks the news to Porter while he is in South Africa recovering from his injuries and he is able to talk to his daughter via computer video link.

The final two parter of this first series is set in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan on the border with Pakistan. British planes called into assist American patrols fighting on the ground are called in to assist with air rocket fire only to find that at the last moment the rockets are deflected and his patrols they are attempting to help with understandable alarm on the part of the USA.

It is discovered that former British computer technology specialist called Baxter had disappeared and turned up in Afghanistan and is believed to be behind the incidents. The story is a complicated one. It appears that Baxter was recruited by the CIA and his wife and children fast tracked into the USA and provided new lives and identities. Baxter has joined a warlord with a base in Pakistan who has a plan to take control and bring stability once Foreign forces leave and part of the plan is to bring disunity between the British and USA force to get them to leave sooner than later. Unbeknown to Baxter who is an idealist the Warlord who is an educated and cultured is being supported by the USA government via the CIA to take over the country when they depart.

Porter is sent to extract him but the CIA lean on Collinson to leave them to their fate when they are captured by as USA patrol unaware of the background or involvements of the CIA and MI6 interests. The CIA wants the world to believe Baxter was a rogue British agent and nothing to do with the USA.

Porter and Baxter escape and Porter who has posed as a guidance system arms dealer offers to provide the codes for the latest rockets coming on stream and is taken by Baxter to meet the Warlord Zahir and then tells the warlord that Porter must be SAS from his behaviour and Porter is then tortured to reveal intelligence information on the location of British forces which of course he does not know. He eventually is able to persuade Baxter that that the Warlord is working with the CIA and that the death of two men is being exchanged for more arms and intelligence. They manage to escape and make contact with the HQ.

Throughout the second and third stories the question of who killed the two British soldiers in Iraq leaving the third in a coma has remained to be answered. Porter has established a sexual relationship with the clinical psychologist who passed him fit to return to active duty and the Leyla has also had her suspicions about the behaviour of Collison ever since refused to allow the young man who had helped Porter and the TV Journalist to escape. When the third soldier dies the two women combine to get the evidence to clear Porter and reveal the truth of Collinson. With the death of the third soldier arrangements are made for the bullet in his body to be removed and tested and it is found not only to have been fired by a British weapon but the one which had been used by Collinson.

When Collinson yields to the CIA pressure to abandon Porter and Baxter Leyla blackmails him into assisting and he goes to Afghanistan and uses a jeep to locate the two men and then arranges for an air extraction. Unfortunately Baxter is killed by one of the Warlord’s men so Porter, having been advised of the situation has to confront Collinson about what happened alone. At first Collinson denies liability and gains control of the situation proposing to kill Porter, saying that he will also be to show that in fact the weapon in his possession originally belonged to Porter. Porter then gains control and Collinson admits that he had also seen the boy with a weapon but he, as Porter, had hesitated, about killing him. He had then heard further noise and movement and opened fire killing his own men.

He admits that he had the opportunity to tell the truth of what had happened but decided not to do so. He had then covered up since but also tried to look out for Porter and his family. He is badly wounded as they come under increasing fire and he then provides cover for Porter to escape.

The episode ends in a cliffhanger, as a Delta force elimination team is given the green light by the CIA to intercept and kill Porter, on the grounds he is a rogue officer heading for Iran.

The second and third stories did not have the same authenticity as the first although both contain moments which one suspects are close to the reality. The series is a success because of the inclusion of two outstanding British Actors. Porter is played by Richard Crispin Armitage (born 22 August 1971) known for his roles as John Thornton in North and South, Guy of Gisborne in Robin Hood, and Lucas North in Spooks. He is currently cast as Thorin Oakenshield in the two-film adaptation of The Hobbit.

Collinson is played by Andrew Lincoln (born Andrew James Clutterbuck; 14 September 1973) is an English actor, known for his roles in the TV series This Life, Teachers and Afterlife, and the films Love Actually and Heartbreaker. He currently plays the lead role in AMC's television series The Walking Dead.

Sopranos season three ends and Romanzo Criminale continues

2011-11-09T17:03:00.000-08:00

I begin Crime report with the series featuring Mafia life within past decade or so and the last two excellent productions of the third season of the Sopranos.

The main character Tony, the Mafia New England area boss is persuaded to take back Gloria Trillo as his mistress; the car dealership executive who he meet at the office of his psychoanalyst Dr Melfi where there was a double booking. Dr Melfi had suggested that Tony was attracted to women who possessed similar characteristics to his mother, and in this instance of her patient someone with self destructive tendencies, warning both that the affair would end badly, potentially for both of them.

By coincidence Carmel has a car leasing deal with the same dealership so when it is necessary to take the vehicle in for work and Gloria overhears the situation she offers to drive Carmel home and pumps her about her family and relationships on the journey. She then phones separately one evening to suggest a new model and when Carmela talks over the call with Tony he grasps that the woman has gone out of her way to get to know his wife so he breaks the relationship and warns Gloria what will happen if she makes any further contact with his family. When she phones him in distress later he visits and nearly strangles her. He arranges for an associate to frighten her about the consequences of attempting continuing contact and this appears to have the desired effect. Later in discussing with Dr Melfi, Tony goes as far as he is ever has before in admitting that she was right and that part of the attraction his need to prove himself and gain the love of his mother who had rejected and betrayed him and which he had failed to admit and accept. While not breaking her professional commitment she indicates Gloria’s self destructiveness which the woman continues to refuse to deal with.

The important aspect of this second similar relationship in the three seasons so far is that Dr Melfi suggests to Tony that he will never leave Carmela because she is the one good person in her life. When he returns home he looks upon Carmela in a more appreciative way.

Tony has business problems centred on Jackie Aprile Jnr in the first instance. He is pleased to learn from Carmela and that the relationship with their daughter Meadow has ended. Jackie Jnr and his partner in crime intervene when three other young punks disrespect the owner of a cafe they are in and they fight and kick them out as Christopher arrives and he gives them a talk’in to for the damage caused. Afterwards they comment on the fact that although young Christopher is a made man. Later they discuss with Ralphie Cifretto who has moved in with Jackie’s Jnr’s mother their wish to get ahead and he tells the story how Tony and his father got themselves fast tracked made by doing a major job involving an associate and although they had to pay back most of the money it singled them out as young ‘Turks’ to be reckoned with.
This inspires them to raid a poker game involving Christopher and others resulting in the organiser of the game being shot and a fire fight in which one of the trio is also shot and the second executed after being caught by Christopher and one of the others. Furio, the hard man Tony brought back from his visit to Italy is wounded in the leg and requires private medical care to take out the bullet and dress the wound. He subsequently walks with a stick.

Jackie Jnr goes on the run and into hiding with a black crack dealer living in a Housing project. Christopher demands satisfaction but Tony tells him to hold off and leave it to him to sort out. Christopher is angry and upset and while continuing to respect in the sense of accept Tony’s authority, he says he withdraws his love and Tony notes to himself that this means trouble.

When Tony speaks with Ralphie and superficially appears to accept the man‘s reluctance to have the boy killed because he is living with his widow. Tony had tried to keep the boy away from crime as his father had wished. When there is a delay in the matter being resolved Tony reminds Ralphie that he has been made up to a captain and that indecision is a bad example and reluctantly Ralphie arranges for Jnr to be executed, shot in the head when he goes out of the hideaway,

The death is presented within the Family and to the media as drug related and when the family arrange the usual mafia style funeral with an open coffin with seating for everyone to pay their respects, mass, high display of flowers followed by wake it is daughter Meadow who sees the hypocrisy. She agrees accepts her father’s insistence it was drug related and nothing internal to the extended crime family. For use outside the Family. When Jnr’s sister speaks out about the situation to a friend it is Meadow who reprimands for speaking to a stranger and insists that the family is concerned with the waste disposal business but the business in such that they come into contact with gangsters but that does not mean they are the same. However later she gets drunk at the house of bereaved and then attends a separate gathering at the restaurant. Uncle Junior is celebrating because his lawyer has got him freed from house arrest and he is persuaded to sing the Italian song ‘Core nratgo’ which he sings remarkably well and brings most present to tears but not the drunk Meadow who says the whole thing is bullshit and throws bread rolls across the room. When Tony goes to remonstrate she runs out and dangerously across the road to get the bus home.

The couple are also having problems with AJ who with a friend steals the exam papers so they get high marks which alerts the school head to cheating. Both have urinated from nerves in the out office and the head says they have been able to match their DNA which as Meadow says would have taken six weeks and therefore they have admitted unnecessarily. He is expelled which angers Tony who decides to send him to military school which horrifies the young man when he learns the nature of the regime. When the boy is dressed in the uniform of the school and looks in the mirror he fells humiliated he pleads with his father not to be sent to the establishment and then has a passing out fit as he did when appointed the defensive football captain. Tony is able to admit that his own condition as that of his son is heredity.

This only worries Tony more about his wish for the two children to have a different life. He talks about this for the first time with Dr Melfi and his fear that his son will follow in his footsteps. He was given no choice but to follow his father. He wants A.J. to have the maximum choice and this is why he is pleased Meadow is away from the family at College in New York and away from his life.

His wishes are clearly genuine which endears him to Dr Melfi but when she had talked of Gloria attracted and needing to be with danger she could have been speaking of herself.

Carmela has also become ambivalent about her life as the wife of a crime boss. She goes to confession and then has a chat with the new priest who has come from Africa or is an African American. He does not share the previous advice that she should leave Tony having made her marriage vows but he advises she should take all steps not to profit from his illegal gains so she hides and then stops wearing the gaudy expensive ring which Tony had bought for her. She is seen studying a text book on the examination to become a registered Estate Agent. The priest also advises that she concentrates on the good side of her husband and his life. This has come about because when visiting an art gallery she becomes emotional on seeing a picture which a baby and child, The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Jusepe de Riberia. Later she bursts into tears watching TV and then realises it is a commercial for dog food. She worries about her health especially if she has ovarian cancer and this raises questions about her life with Tony.

There is an incident which Tony has to deal with that also suggests something of the way subsequent seasons may develop. Paulie Walnuts is upset because he provided information which enabled Ralphie and his associates to pull a job which yielded $100000. He thinks he should have half. He wants this because his mother needs residential care and he takes her to the established where Tony had placed his mother and which is the most expensive in the state and costs $8000 a months and $40000 up front. Paulie demands a sit down meeting with Tony as arbiter and after hearing the case Tony rules that Ralphie should pay a fee, an eighth at $12500.

This angers Paulie and when he meets one of the New York Underbosses who has a home in the area he has a beef about Tony and his admiration for the boss, Carmine Lupertazz, which the Underboss says is reciprocated. Paulie says meaningfully that if there is ever anything he can do for the boss they just have to ask.

There is also an indication Tony is likely to come under renewed pressure from the Feds who have been affected by the removal of the listening device in the lamp in the basement which Meadow took to college. With Uncle Junior in remission from his cancer they are able to proceed with RICCO trial hence the lifting of the house arrest. Now they decide to concentrate on Christopher and his fiancée. They propose to target Christopher by appointing female Agent Deborah Ciccerone on an undercover mission to befriend Chris' fiancée, Adriana La Cerva, and report back on whatever information she can find. She is required to have a new hair do and clothes in a similar style to Adriana and then befriend her when shopping at her favourite store. Shortly after this Christopher is arrested at the funeral of Jackie Junior together with Silvio for illegal gambling.

I now move back to the 1970’s in Rome and the attempt of young petty criminals to use drug distribution to create and city wide crime controlling gang Romanzio Criminale.

The funds acquired from combination of two gangs to kidnap a Baron had provided the basis for the take over attempt. The group then intimidated the majority of dealers to accept the new regime in return for a stipend of 10% of their previous income. One who used force was subsequently eliminated. However it was necessary to accommodate one group who supplied the drugs and another who had their own territory.

They had not escaped the attentions of the authorities although this has two conflicting consequences. A Police Commissioner was correctly convinced that it had been members of group behind the kidnap and this led to establishing that a beautiful upmarket prostitute Patrizia and become the paid girl friend of one of the group with the nickname of Dandi. He has used marked notes to buy time from the girl who had then spent the money. The Commissioner now attempted to persuade Patrizia to confirm his suspicions and give evidence, but this she refused and he became more and obsessed with by her beauty, sexuality and personality.

The Commissioner gets a breakthrough when he receives anonymous tip about the location of the body which proves correct and he persuades the presiding judge to agree to the arrest of the ‘Crew’ and to search their known premises in search of evidence to justify charges. The five or was it six leading members of the two crews involved return to one of the jails where they had previous experience as youngsters and some reflect on the incidents which led to their subsequent adult criminality.

Dandi for example was a young waiter no more than a boy who dreamed of sexy women who were well known personalities. One day a famous woman comes with her man, for a drink and he is allowed to present the bill and seek an autograph taking the opportunity to stare into her cleavage noted by the older male companion who gives him a large tip to save as he will need much money if he wants to have a woman like this in the future. The companion is called Dandi, a name which the young waiter adopts as his hero.

We also learn why The Cold hates his father. As a youngster he discovers that his father has a mistress who runs a local store and becomes defiant and gets and gun and robs the store.

He discloses to his brother that he is now with the girlfriend and understandably the brother is angry and wishes to have nothing more to do with him. Just when he finds the courage to tells the girl he is a criminal he is arrested when they are together.

The Libanese continued to live alone in the caravan in a field since being asked to leave by his mother. He has now rented an expensive modern apartment In the first report I left him feeling sorry for himself on a seaside beach with the rejected fur coat wrapped around him for comfort,

He returns to the caravan to find a note with the necklace he gave to his girlfriend before she was raped by the Terrible and his men. He finds her working at a beachside restaurant where the owner has died two years before. She appears to want to get together again saying she did not understand why he had not contacted her since the incident. He said he was ashamed to look her in the eyes. She returns to his flat where they make passionate love. In the morning he finds that she has gone, having emptied his safe, his wallet and taken his car. Returning to the restaurant he finds she has left saying she did not need the job anymore and went off with her boyfriend. He uses his men to track the couple down and kills the boyfriend. Later the girl kills herself in the posh flat. They weigh the body with rocks and push into a lake as I presume they also did with the boyfriend. The Libanese returns to get rid of the caravan setting it on fire and just after this the police arrive to arrest him.

The big event of the last report was the real life kidnapping of the former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Morro by the Red Brigade. As I understand what actually happened the authorities approached the Mafia and other crime heads in Rome to see if they could help in finding the Minister with the offer of concessions. The Mafia invite the new Kids on the block to a meeting with a shadowy figure who appears to have links with the Government and the police/security services who seeks their help which is agreed. However when after the first efforts fail they have a lead which they report they are told there is no longer interest because it is believed he has already been killed. The authorities are grateful for their efforts.

On remand in prison the group find that the prison is controlled my a mafia boss from the south and that one his protectors is the remaining brother of three who were supposed to look after the kidnapped Baron and who the group killed so they could not be identified after one the trio killed the Baron. Their lives are under threat after refusing the offer to work for the Mafia boss. With the help of a prison guard an attempt is made on the life of Libanese but it is foiled. He pays to bring in a knife but then the cell is raided and the knife is found and he is placed in solitary with the other inmates who takes the rap because he is inside for double life.

While in solitary one of the others works out a way to get a weapon, a cross from the chapel with one end fashioned into a sharp weapon. The Libanese works out that someone must have disclosed the whereabouts of the body and one of the groups admits that he got drunk one night with one of the men of the Terrible and boasted to him the location. Thus they know that it was Terrible who had acted against them.

First on the agenda are the Don and his protectors. They elect the one who got drunk to do the killing of the main thug and who threatened Libanese and then strip the Don of his authority and then arrange for him to be shifted to another prison in the South.

The case against them falls for lack of evidence. They do not know that the tape recordings of their individual interviews when they refuse to answer questions and make fun of the interviewers had a double purpose. The tapes were then processed and checked against the one of phone call made to the Baron’s family requesting more money. The process takes time but as the end of the remand period approaches there is match with one of those on remand. However just before they present the proof to the judge the original tape is removed and another corrupted tape put in its place so the inquiry team think it is a technical malfunction, at least at first, and with no copies made, the case cannot continue. The Judge insists that the prostitute gives evidence but the Commissioner says this is not possible so the Judge works out he is having some kind of relationship with the woman.

The rest of the second episode covers their release from prison where they all picked up by loved one or other relatives with the exception of the Libanese. Even the Cold finds his brother waiting. He goes to see the girl who says that she may have accepted him had he told her beforehand.

Dandi goes to see Patrizia who is with a client who he beats up badly telling her that she is his woman and will obey him.

The member of the gang who used his teenage school girlfriend to hide the guns for the kidnapping was told never to come back by the father is now told that his daughter is pregnant so he visits to ask her what she wants to do.

The Libanese returns to his new flat and finds the original copy of the convicting tape at his bedside with a note that he owes a favour. The body of Aldo Morro has been found as directed by the Red Brigade. The Police Commissioner
Is upset by the news and the failure to get the gang and gets drunk.
On returning to the police station the following day he finds Communists have been rounded up for questioning including his sister who he gets out by vouching for her but not disclosing the relationship. She is not grateful saying she has an ideology and expects action to be taken by the authorities and that her brother must decide if he is for change or the status quo and cannot sit on the fence.

The final scene to be recorded is the conversation involving the mysterious old one who requested their help and then said it was needed and appears to confirm that some political and other interests decided it was better for Morro to die and they were behind getting the new Roman mob out of jail but to be used for some other purpose in the future.

Next I turn to Prohibition time and the Atlantic Boardwalk and then to New York’s finest and Blue Bloods and the perspective of modern day cops.

Downton Abbey second series ends

2011-11-08T15:43:00.000-08:00

Downton Abbey has now ended its second season and has become a favourite upper class versus the people soap. After my criticism of the first part of the new season the last three episodes did pick up and achieved a good mixture of resolution and matters to be resolved in the Christmas special and the subsequent third season.

It is fitting that the series ended on the Sunday before 11th hour of the 11th day as the story covers the announcement of the armistice which the family with all the staff mark in the big hall at the appropriate time. Most of the characters in the series know and believe it is good that things will change after the War although the Dowager Countess states that she has no intention of changing either her lifestyle or her beliefs and attitudes. The Earl is the most uncertain about his future role, hoping he will be able to return to the place in the order of things as before.

A threat to the anticipated future of the estate came in the third to last episode when in November 1918 a Canadian officer, badly disfigured by burns, asks to be brought to the Downton Hospital, stating that he is related to the family. Robert agrees, assumes he is some distant relation, sharing common ancestry. He appears disappointed that Edith does not recognise him and then reveals that he is Patrick Crawley, who has been declared dead in the disaster of the Titanic and led to Mathew becoming the next in line.

His story is that he survived the Titanic but suffered from amnesia so he was unable to identify himself and lived as a Canadian until a wartime experience restored his memory. Most of the others vehemently deny the possibility even though he appears to have a good memory of his childhood visits and then as young man. During a conversation with Lord Grantham he does a gesture which appears to confirm his identity but Grantham is unwilling to accept this as substantive proof and refers to his lawyers to undertake investigations. Patrick had been engaged to Lady Mary as a marriage of convenience so as the eldest daughter she would have her place in Downton on the death of her father. Otherwise her father would be unable to provide substantially for her because in addition to the house grounds and properties, the heir would get the major part of the remaining capital after death duties. The position of his wife and the present Dowager Duchess would also be affected in terms of their rights to visit let alone at Downton.

It was Edith who loved and wanted to marry Patrick and it is Edith who believes his story and quickly grows attached to the man despite his significant disfigurement. The lawyers are unable to substantiate the story because what happened to the individual who was pulled out of the sea by one of male crew members remains unknown. There is also the news that a close friend of Patrick had emigrated to Canada and therefore would know from Patrick a great deal about the family and the childhood contact. He sudden leaves with the note left for Edith leaving open ended if he is the real heir or was attempting a fraud to gain control of the family estate and also Edith .This issue is therefore unresolved.

There are two developments which also affect the Earl and his wife. The two have been leading increasingly separate lives. The Earl experienced the greatest loss of identity of all the members of the aristocratic Household during the World War Years with his wife and Edith finding important and satisfying roles. He takes an interest in the latest housemaid the war widow whose son attends the local junior school but is sufficiently bright that the headmaster has entered him for a scholarship to Ripon Grammar. The Early says he is on the board of the school and will mention his interest in the boy to the headmaster. When the boy gains a place the widow is understandable grateful to the Earl and sensing his loneliness and unhappiness the two are drawn to each other emotionally. And the possibility of something developing grows when the Countess is one the household who get Spanish Flue and appears at death’s door. She survives, commenting when she does, we are alright aren‘t we to her husband.
The house maid leaves and the Earl gives an endowment to her to secure the future of the boy.

The quartet of relationships involving the existing heir, Matthew, and his Lavinia and between Lady Mary Crawley and the new money newspaper Baron Sir Richard Carlisle reaches a crescendo. In the previous episode Matthew becomes wheel bound because of his spinal injury and without any sensations in his lower body cuts himself from Lavinia banishing her from having any contact with him. He is however cared for in part by Lady Mary cementing their closeness much to the concern of Sir Richard. Understanding that she will feel the loss of Downton he purchases for her the biggest estate house in the area and Downton neighbours which he says he will modernise the interior with central heating and ensuite bedrooms which the Earl responds that it sounds like making the place into a hotel.

The event which upsets the apple cart comes when Matthew begins to feel something in his legs and then at a moment of crisis stands up and everyone celebrates what appears a miraculous recovery. His GP admits that the consultant had queried if instead of a permanent breakage the spine had suffered a sever shock. He will recovery over time but require a walking stick.

Concerned of the growing dependency and intimacy that had developed between Matthew and Lady Mary, Sir Richard had first laid the law down with her and then asked the senior housemaid Anna and future wife of Bates to spy on her. Anna tells the housekeeper and Carson the Butler and traditional head of the household staff. Carson had been offered a trembling of his income to become head of the new household at the property to be the country home Sir Richard and Lady Mary and after consulting the Earl and Lady Mary decides to accept out of loyalty to Mary who he has known since childhood and wanting to ensure she has a household established in the tradition fitting for her background. However when he hears about the request to spy he withdraws his acceptance. Lady Mary is also advised of what happened.

Sir Richard also arranges for Lavinia to return to care for Matthew and she takes day and night care for which he understandably feels gratitude and loyalty and when he recovers says he would like to marry her again which she is all too willing to accept. This development affects Lady Mary and the Dowager, scheming as always to get her original way, advises Mary that she should declare herself and she also tells Matthew that he should decided which marriage is likely to work best for them in the long term. She is right of course that marriages based on duty, and a sense of honour, are rarely happy and satisfying to both parties even if they last. It looks as if they are to have a happy ending when circumstances contrive to bring them together; they dance and kiss something which Lavinia witnesses as well as hears what they say but immediately pretends not to notice although she does take an opportunity to offer to release Matthew from his further commitment to her.

Then Lavinia is also struck down with the Spanish Flu and she does not survive. This ends all immediate prospect of a relationship between Matthew and Lady Mary as he realises from what she said to him that she had given up fighting for life through a broken heart. Lady Mary also recognises this and at the Funeral when Sir Richard asks if he may walk her back to the House she says that she wants him so. What they feel now is one thing but clearly what they will feel in ten or twenty year’s time is another.

The relationship between the political and democratic orientated Lady Sybil and the Chauffer Branson also develops when he is offered a job in Ireland as a political journalist and he gives her an ultimatum to come with him when he departs. They elope to Gretna Green but she is brought back by her sisters before the marriage take place. She and Bransen, the Chauffer, are insistent and are warned that if they go they will be cut off from the family. The Earl attempts to buy Bransen off with cash. As a consequence of all that happens when he sees them at the funeral he gives his blessing. He says he will give his youngest daughter a small allowance and consider attending their wedding in Dublin. The Dowager is also supportive of this development saying that it is best to avoid a scandal and that they have relations in Ireland who can keep and eye on the couple. This paves the way for the couple to be involved in the uprising and struggle for independence.

Thomas, the rogue former footman finds his position as chief nurse and administrator of the convalescent unit no longer required with the end of the war. He continues to live at Downton hoping no one will object until he is able to set himself up in the post war black market. He rents storage in the village in the belief that his investment in unattainable goods via a contact in a pub will give him the stake to set up in more conventional business. He then finds himself penniless when the goods are found to be fakes with sugar sand for example and worse he is told to leave the Abbey. He is saved when the household goes down with the Flu including Carson and he becomes indispensable once more.

The even more wicked personal maid to her Ladyship O’Brien is full of guilt as the countess appears to be approaching death and she nearly confesses about putting the soap which led to the loss of the child. Any remorse is short-lived because she continues to be as vicious towards Bates and Anne as she has been.

Bates is shocked to find his divorce threatened by Vera who has told the judge that he paid her to leave him and he goes to London to makes another attempt to settle matters with her. He tells his Lordship that she wishes the woman was dead. However, upon his return, he receives the news that she is dead by suicide without a note. He is further alarmed that she appears to have died from the poison her bought for her when they were together to put down some rats. A conversation about this is overheard by O’Brien.

Fearing he is going to be arrested the couple decide to take the opportunity of her death to marry and are given temporary leave of absence for the day, They return to find that the daughters of the household have arranged a guest bedroom for them for one night together with flowers and candles. Their happiness is short-lived as the series ends when two policemen arrive to arrest Bates for the murder of his wife. The implication is that O’Brien has reported the overheard conversation to the police,

There are two other storylines. The parents of Major Bryant ask to visit Downton where their son convalesced during which time he made one of the house maids pregnant and where he subsequently denied all responsibility for the mother and her child. She now survives in the village largely on charity from the housekeeper and cook at the big house. The son has return to the front and been killed.

The housekeeper mentions their arrival to Ethel, suggests she comes to the House on the occasion of their visit and she will try and get the wife to see her and the child. When the husband wants to keep the visit brief and goes straight into lunch Ethel decides that her only opportunity is to gatecrash the meal. While the grandmother is understandably interested her husband storms out of the Abbey and away. His wife explains that he is still unable to grieve for the loss of his son. Ethel is then surprised to learn that Major Bryant’s parents want to see her but the grandfather father wants to take her child away permanently and raising him as a gentleman pretending that his mother had died from Spanish Flu. He refuses all suggestions that she joins their household. Eventually she determines not to let him go as a mother's love is more important than a wealthy upbringing. This may provide an opportunity for her to regain employment at the Hall

This leaves the house maid Daisy who against her feelings and conscience consented to the death bed marriage with the former footman William who became Matthew’s batman and was fatally injured in the same incident which appeared to cripple Matthew. She refuses advice and information to claim for war widow’s pension and other benefits as he had wanted and to have contact with the man’s father who she sees visiting her son’s grave in he estate cemetery at the same time as the funeral for Lavinia. There is appears to be the possibility of development she accepting the opportunity that the footman wanted to give her.

Tremé season 2 Mardi Gras

2011-10-30T05:44:00.000-07:00

In the middle of last night I watched the latest three episodes of Tremé season 2 as a third season has been agreed Ne"Carnival Time", "Can I Change My Mind?" and"What Is New Orleans?"

It is Mardi Gras in New Orleans and the first episode of the trio has the story of the central characters against the background of the carnival weeks which is up to its traditional tourist attracting liveliness and colourful spectacular which next year covers 11 days of parades, balls and much drinking and eating and much else! There are over 50 organisations called Krewes who organise parades or participate in parades and some of these can involve 5000 participants.

On some days there are parades from mid morning until early evening followed by partying in the bars as well as major events by invitation only. Significantly the main parades do not go through the French Quarter because the streets are too narrow but here are events also in that area. There are stands and premises which provide viewing platforms as well as buffet type food throughout a day for around $100 although drinks are extra and hotels tend to double their standard rates for the occasion. The population of the city doubles during the period from 1.25 million to 2.5 million.

In Tremé there is an excellent attempt to feature several facets of the 11 days including floats distributing thousands of chains of glittering beads, these days manufactured at a fraction of the old price and special traditional gifts. In one series of scenes Toni and her daughters and Davis and Annie are featured as street watching participants anxious to get not just more strings of beads to hang around their necks but the special gifts of mini female shoes similar to the main floats in the particular parade while in another it is highly decorated coconuts with those painted in gold the most prized and with special creations given as souvenirs to famous visitors and public figures. The event takes place over the period leading up to Lent before Easter and therefore occurs at some point the month February March each year and the schedule of these is already on the official Mardi Gras site (Fat Tuesday) until 2025.

I select Antoinette "Toni" Bernette (Melissa Leo), the civil rights lawyer and her daughter Sofia (India Ennenga) to begin this report on the trio of episodes as they face Carnival week without husband and father who has committed suicide and which Sofia has only recently discovered after having been told by her mother the death was accidental. The daughter breaks away from mother during the celebrations and goes to a bar where she is seen by Davis the rebellious song write and DJ who takes her to his home where she is found in the double bed alone without her top, Davis watching in a chair when Annie returns from her day celebrating with Cajun Culture Mardi Gras.

He had chosen not check the pocket of her jeans for a phone which Annie does and calls Toni who has been beside herself with worry and unable to get an answer from her daughter. Davis explained that he had to remove the top because the girl had been sick in the taxi he had ordered to get to get her home. My only story integrity issue is that he said he only had the work number and therefore had been unable to call Toni, but he had previously in season one given Piano lessons at her home and therefore the rational action would have been to take her in the taxi home and only if Toni had not been there, then take her to his place.

Toni had wanted her daughter with her when she joined the group participating in the annual scattering of the ashes of loved ones onto the river from the bank (Down by the Riverside) but I always think she constantly smiles too much and wearing the mask and dancing about somehow does not square with her everyday image, although admitted she and her husband smoked pot as appear to do the majority of characters in the series.

Worse was to come when the daughter goes joy riding with another underage friend and two youths who picked them up in a stolen car. There is there sight of her in ankle chains and handcuffs being led into juvenile court with her mum. She remains defiant full of the bravado of her father and his expletive ridden tirades on You Tube type which she appears to have stopped since finding out that her father had committed suicide. She is first given a good talking to by the Counsel mum hires warning that without a change of attitude and behaviour she risks a custodial sentence. She gets a similar fatherly talking too by the Mayor who has taken her on three evenings a week after school as an Intern. It is after the court appearance that the penny drops when Toni breaks down and explains that she is just as angry and guilty about the suicide going though everything over and over again to work out if she could have said or done anything differently to have prevented her husband’s action. Mother and daughter embrace in their respective tears suggesting that this begins the healing if not the closure. Toni has hired a professional private investigator to pursue what happened to the out of town young man who was shot dead, possibly by the police and with his help they makes progress. It is evident that one of Albert "Big Chief" Lambreaux (Clarke Peters): friends did report an incident to the police and subsequently was told to forget it or his extended family would come under the closest police scrutiny.

Albert’s son comes home to New Orleans with his wife/partner to witness his father chief in his new costume of feathers and beads and together with his entourage and friends as they dance from his neighbourhood into the mainstream Mardi Gras procession, followed by a people carrier in case the individual oldies get tired on the day long activity. He is filmed by the documentary maker from New York.

On reaching the main area the modern jazz playing son hears some modern jazz from a radio against the traditional jazz sounds of the city and the chanting of his father and realises he has the basis for an album of music in which the two forms of jazz are combined with the Big Chief sounds. He creates a new group combining some of his current combo with traditional playing musicians and persuades his father to travel to New York to participate in the recording session. During the visit he is taken to a museum of African antiquities and shown an indigenous African wearing a headdress with many of characteristics of the those created by the Chiefs. While they make progress in the recording Albert continues to find faults arguing that they record the session in New Orleans.

LaDonna Batiste-Williams (Khandi Alexander) also continues to have a bad time coping with being raped and physically beaten up by thieves who broke into her bar where she lived above in a flat. She has now made a good physical recovery and it looks that with the latest victim prepared to give evidence in court and the attackers pleading guilty her written statement will be used as only part of the formalities.

However she is in no mood to return to New Orleans for Mardi Gras so the husband goes with her sons and seeing La Donna’s ex husband and the boy’s father Antoine Batiste (Wendell Pierce) with his partner and baby daughter he asks if he will take the boys and return to Baton Rouge where’re he lives and works as a dentist so that he keeps La Donna company. The boys have a great time although Antoine’s plans to play away from home are thwarted when his partner says he can also look after the baby girl for the day so she can enjoy herself.

La Donna is further cheered when on her latest medical check at the hospital she is remains clear of any HIV or STD and is told no further visits are required. However as he still cannot not bear the physical touch of any male including her husband and she is resistant to attending counselling because she has not told her partner she was raped. When she is called back to the police to confirm her statement her partner insists on driving and accompanying and thus he learns the truth of what happened and reacts badly more because she felt unable to share this with him than the actual rape. Worse is to come for La Donna because the other woman drops out so she is needed to give her evidence in person to a court, The husband gives her an ultimatum to either go back and work in the bar living in a central area hotel or sell it and become an active mother in the community for the boys rather than remain an unhappy depressed recluse unable to communicate with her family or friends the pain she continues to feel. She considers going back but cannot face going inside the bar and returns to Baton Rouge saying she will give it up.

Antoine meanwhile is continuing to give music lessons at the local middle school and takes a large number of the class where he is assistant music master to watch one of the parades which includes the best Middle/High School bands to show what they should aim for and this has a positive effect. One of the boys is showing signs of becoming a great trumpet player and he successfully gets into a bar one evening to hear his mentor play.

Antoine’s group is making steady progress and I begin to like some of his music, usually when he has an actually well known guest singer or player participating with adjust the style of music. Sonny is back playing with the band having been sacked. One of the instrumentalists who and been through the same state decides to take him in hand and does a deal in which he will ensure he gets his place back if he hands over all responsibility and earnings to the man and who then insists that he leaves the city centre for the Mardi Gras period and goes to stay with his friend on a New Orleans style fishing vessel. During one scene when they take some fish in a container to a restaurant Sonny who now has sharp contemporary beard is attracted to an Asian young woman with a resemblance to Annie. Begins to play regularly with the band and enjoys his drug free lifestyle.

Janette Desautel (Kim Dickens) the Chef has returned to New York but misses New Orleans especially as Mardi Gras approaches and on Fat Tuesday the boss gives her the day off and agrees that she can have a meal in the restaurant with a friend. She starts the day with puff of pot and some traditional breakfast food and enjoys the meal but this only reinforces her sense that something is not right. One of her flat sharing friends works at a new restaurant which had been created a counter diner but serve organic food prepared to the highest standards of cuisine and she gets a free loan transfer so to speak with a return of this does not work out for her.

The two characters who most enjoy Mardi Gras are Davis and Annie, the air who seemed to me ill suited and unlikely to last but there is evidence of a growing bond between them. On one of the festive period days, Annie is invited by the traditional Creole beaded group leader to participate in the tradition Cajun celebrations and music in the Bayou which involves an extraordinary but attractive dressing up in a colourful patch work outfit which includes a Klu Klux Klan type of headwear also patchwork multicoloured and a fine mesh face mask also decorated. The music here is great although Annie is uncertain about aspects of the opening ceremony for new initiates and decides not to play but listen although is eventually persuaded to join in. There is a scene where bedecked group attend a local cemetery where it is traditional to pay respects to those who created and handed down the Cajun culture

Davis was expected to also participate in the event but hated the idea of wearing such a costume and finds the excuse when his father has made up with his former band members and has agreed play a set at a bar/club as part of the festivities and Davis feels given his usual estrangement from his father that he should go in support. It is as a consequence of being on his own that he sees Sofia in a bar being eyed up and pawed by men twice her age and steps into rescue.

Davis continues to work on his new album mixture of hip hop and other contemporary sounds and is rather put out when his new found friend and hip hop artist has a track played on the radio. Davis and his friend are interviewed about the album by the radio station where he worked and from which he was sacked much to annoyance of the former boss when finds out.

Also enjoying Mardi Gras is the young smooth and fancy dresser out of towner politically well connected white young man and deal maker. He has made friends with the demolition work gang master who he has sub contracted for one of the contracts gained. He is introduced to one of the local social and pleasure clubs associated with the festivities as a way of getting himself into the black community and being favoured for city contracts with the black mayor. In order to gain a contract he offer to put in a tender several points below competitors until he realises price is not the issue but kick back. The particular social club have a float on which they dress up with blacked faces, golliwog hair and grass skirts which he is persuaded to join in and has the time of his life especially when a young black woman in the crowd is attracted to him, makes him take off his head gear so she can take a proper look at him and exchanges mobile phone number afterwards meeting up for a two person celebration.

Toni continues to develop her association with the local police commander where we see festivities through his eyes and those of his command. They celebrate the fact that the season ended with only one death and that was not associated with the festivities. He does spot someone carrying a gun who they arrest. He suddenly finds that he is transferred to homicide and working as deputy to the homicide chief or senior manager who he reported for the earlier situation when a murder was said to be down as a domestic when in fact there had been a violent break in a short while nearby just before which was not investigated. It appears that the force superiors are concerned about several aspects of the work of the Homicide and have posted the Commander so that he can sort out the squad and its head by getting the evidence to take to his superiors. He is not looking forward to the assignment. When Toni’s investigation points to irregular and possible illegal behaviour by the squad and its leader she realises she has information which will be of mutual interest to her commander friend who has confided his misgivings about the posting.

Annie on her way back from a gig with her Cajun friend they are challenged for their instruments by two gun carrying young hoods. Her friend appeals to one of the gang to think again before it is too late and one of the youngsters takes offence and shoots her companion, which appears fatal as the episode ends.

Hidden

2011-10-28T12:42:00.000-07:00

From time to time writers have speculated about those in British Society who have plotted a formal right wing coup involving use of the army and the police and there are anecdotes that there have been plans if not attempts, notably surrounding the 1970’s organisation set up by Stirling, the founder of the SAS in the UK to ensure the continuation of public services in the event of a general strike but which he abandoned because of the involvement of extremists who wanted to use such a situation for a military backed based coup.

The main protagonist for many of the secret mission groups is a former MI6 officer who from a cursory examination of his writing seems to have confused the existence of legitimate private international and national organisations with missions to bring about change within a democratic framework with those who undoubtedly exist on the extremes of right and left politics, religious and economic interests who seek to gain and maintain ascendancy through force of arms and dictatorship. He lists such groups as the Bildenbergers, the Committee of 300 and The Club of Rome who are part of former than the latter category.

It is also true that private armies do officially exist with Sandline International the most well known in the UK for their involvement in New Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. However one Internet site brackets this registered organisation with Control Risks which although has 2000 employees with agents in 100 countries is the top of range advice group on how to trade in dangerous places without taking unnecessary risks.

This is by way of introduction to the latest BBC drama series Hidden which has a clandestine group who plot a military backed take over in the UK with the unwitting support of a substantial number of Members of the House of Commons because the current Prime Minister cannot reform a Coalition government and is attempting to operate as a minority government with resultant political instability and economic chaos. I found the four part series riveting and convincing and more compelling that Spooks. More on a work which could vie for honours with Spooks in a moment.

However in addition to my preoccupation this week with Intelligence past and present I have attempted to grasp the implications of the European summit on euro funding crisis and the House Commons E Petition debate on Monday in which without a three line Whip issued by the three main political Parties a motion to hold a referendum on the future UK relationship with the European Economic Community could have passed at the most inopportune of moments.

As a young man I supported the United Nations Association and its various branches to promote health and cultural developments. The disappointment has been its lack of intervention to prevent wars between nations and its failure to prevent genocide within countries and imprisonment without the rule of law. Its support for intervention in Libya to protect massacres was welcomed initially but then increasing question in the manner of the intervention as the situation progressed. It is evident that further interventions will require the approval of China, the USA and Russia, Brazil in South America, South Africa in Africa, India, the Arab States and the emerging United States of Europe as the latter develops its own Foreign Ministry, creates and Economic Minister and proceeding with greater political integration over the next decade. .

Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair recognised that if the UK was to continue as a world power it had to also establish closer ties with the United States but also open and develop economic links with China and Russia together with ongoing trading links with the Commonwealth which is meeting in Australia to day.

Independent self Government is OK as long as you can maintain and develop living standards for the majority of the population and maintain a military (including air and sea force for self defence and to protect economic interests which will because of the size of population, lack of ongoing natural energy sources, have to be global. We also have to take account that sometime over the next twenty five years Ireland will reunite into one political and economic self governing entity and Scotland much sooner. The reality if such developments is that that England and Wales cannot afford, and I pick my word carefully, not to be part of United States of Europe with a Single economic and financial policy based on a single currency. This is where The Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary both Euro sceptics are now trapped between a Rock- the increasing majority of their Political Party, a Hard Place- a Coalition in which their Partner recognises the need to remain at the centre of the European Development Movement, and economic and political reality.

The significant of the settlement reached by the EEC members with a single currency is that within the next three to five years we shall see a single Economic and Financial Ministry with clout so even if the Union falls short of declaring itself a United States of Europe this is what it will be in all but name as there is already a President, a Foreign Secretary and a Defence Minister is also planned. The danger facing the UK is that in the present mood of the majority of the Tory Party and the printed Media, to less extent visual and audio media is the wish to exit the present set up let alone join something more integrated. The question to be asked is who will the Chinese, the Russian, the Americans, The Indians, the Brazilians want to do business with first in 25 year’s time. A United State of Europe or an England and Wales as presumable by then Scotland and a United Ireland will be within the new European structure while England and Wales is without?

Now back to The Hidden with the excellent Philip Glenister, David Suchet and the less well known Anna Chancellor, Thelka Reuten and Peter Guiness. A mysterious lawyer Gina Hawkes(Thelka Reuten) hires Harry Vann(Philip Glenister( a solicitor) to represent a low life in prison Stevie Quirke who tells Harry to find Joe Collins who will provide an alibi and his lap top has the evidence that will clear Quirke of the allegations against him.

Harry is divorced/separated but maintains contact with his adolescent and rebellious son and is on good terms with his ex wife/ wife.

Harry is haunted by guilt and hunted by a Police Detective because of what happened 20 years before. Harry was persuaded by his elder brother to drive him and an associate to the home of a family where they kill the parents and shoot the son who is crippled. They then turn their guns on two security police who stop at the waiting vehicle at the entrance of the grounds. The elder brother is wounded in the shoot out and dies later having been taken to hospital, The other associate also dies. The detective responsible for the case is convinced there was a driver and that the driver was Harry. Harry’s father has never got over the death of his eldest son and relationships with Harry have reached breaking point especially over the break up of the marriage

Harry is bewildered and uncertain about the assignment he has been asked to undertake especially as he cannot f trace of Gina among British law firms. We the audience know she is also haunted by what happened to her mother, who was stabbed in a Paris Street and by the death of her father in a questionable road accident on the same day.
Later we learn that following the death of her parents she was brought up by the kindly David Suchet who plays, a leading Judge, Sir Nigel Fountain, with whom she retains a strong emotional attachment. When Harry meets up with Fountain he finds him protective and supportive of Gina and anxious that Harry keeps in touch, but he also gives the impression that he is not sympathetic to her preoccupation with Quirke or finding Collins

Running alongside Harry’s investigation we the audience are party to the situation that has developed within the political system. The existing Coalition has broken down and the Prime Minister is attempting to continue in office as leader of a minority government. There is financial as well as political instability given the banking crisis, the economic and euro crisis with protests and rioting on the streets. Another politician, the series is careful not to identify individual political parties and allegiances is open in his criticism of the Prime Minister and is supported in this by the Owner of a daily paper akin to the Daily Mail or Express Elspeth Verney by Anna Chancellor whose extraordinary upper class political and artistic background fits her into the role perfectly and who acts with a wealthy country house owning tycoon and others and as we learn later with Sir Nigel Fountain.

At first they appear only involved in a normal political coup pushing one politician in and another out and getting hold of damaging information for the purpose without any direct connection to the pasts and present concerns of Harry and Gina. The connecting link first becomes Jason Styles played by Peter Guinness who comes to Harry’s attention when he is seen at the prison where Quirke is murdered by an inmate before he can provide Harry with further information.

The seedy office where Harry and his Assistant work is blown up with the explanation of a gas leak although we know better. As part of attempting to work out who Gina is, Harry turns to a private detective who has saved from prison a couple of times and who breaks into the practice of a private medical doctor where the big clue is the portrait of a Battle of Britain fighter pilot who died several decades before. The man’s ideas and ambitions appeared to be shared by the Cabal behind the political coup being plotted.

Henry then follows the elusive Gina to Paris where she appears determined to keep him at arms length and give him the slip. Fortunately for her he has the ingenuity to keep track and saves her life as she goes to confront the recently released man from prison she believes killed her mother. The significant finding and establishment of the link between the two is when Harry discovers that one the assassins sent to kill Gina is the associate of his elder brother involved in he killing of he parents of the wheel chair bound Ben Lander two decades before..

It is only in the last of the four episodes that the various leads are knotted together to an extent. Sometime in the 1970’s before his death a Battle of Britain Ace and friends created an organisation with an intelligence and enforcement arm to ensure that the UK remained a Monarchy, independent, powerful and capitalist. They will have been the kind of individuals who resented the granting or accepting of independence by the colonies, the close involvement with Europe and the opening of he borders to migrants from what they would regard as alien religions cultures and races. In effect the kind of people who gathered with David Stirling the SAS founder and War Hero who formed GB 75 to combat the kind of strife which occurred in the Winter of Discontent in 1979 when the rubbish remained uncollected and bodies unburied.

In the series the organisation which the Fifhter Ace led continued waiting for the opportunity to take Britain back from those they regarded had destroyed the old order and ruined the position of the UK in the world. The political instability in the face of economic chaos of a Coalition failure provided that opportunity, just as there are politicians on the right now who are determined to ensure Britain does not enter a political union in Europe and they are backed by various interests in the UK who believe likewise. They are known to be working to unscramble the coalition as early as possible before the schedule next General Election and fight that Election on the issue of the retention of national sovereignty versus the existing or closer integration with Europe.

In Hidden the opportunity arises with the collapse of the coalition and the rioting together with obtaining a dossier of information to the discredit of the Prime Minister. The ostensible plan is for the chosen replacement, a family man with impeccable background and a media friendly personality to make the disclosure before the media of the world and then address an organised public rally and lead them on a march of protest to Parliament to force the Prime Minister to resign and for the chosen one to be called upon to form a government with popular acclaim and with the support of a substantial number of Members of Parliament.

However those behind the coup have a different scenario. They plan to assassinate the chosen politician as he is about to speak to the world’s media which they will therefore witness and with evidence then made available to suggest he was assassinated by the Prime Minister or those in his behalf inciting the assembled crowd to riot at which the sympathetic units of the military and police already in place to restore order.

Harry only becomes aware of this when he locates the missing Joe Collins hiding at a hotel at Heathrow and secures the lap top from him in exchange for funds to escape, although because the phone of Gina is bugged Styles and co are in hot pursuit and kill Collins.

This is the fourth time in days that Gina has narrowly escaped death. After the Paris situation she turns to her guardian for help and he says he will arrange for her to be taken to somewhere safe but fortunately she recognises the escort as Styles. Suchet has been reassured that she will be held until the coup has taken place but we the audience know Styles has been given instructions to kill her. She escapes and join Harry on his way to visit Lander and the private eye. After visiting Lander Gina insist on going to confront the guardian that her parents had been assassinated, that Sanders’ parents had also been killed to order and not the subject of a robbery break in that went wrong and that her knew she was to be killed. She agrees to meet him at one of the tropical houses in Kew Gardens and at the point when he is willing to answer her questions he suddenly spots the marker of riffle on her so her bends forwards and hugs and he is assassinated and she escapes. After the escape at the Heathrow Hotel she stays with Harry at the home of his wife before going to somewhere safe until after the day of days.

Harry has to wait for his computer friend to arrive at the store he operates in order to get into the computer and before he can view the contents he notes the arrival of the never giving up Detective called in by local police who have spotted the registration number of the car and commence a shop by store check. He hides in a dry cleaners and is able to read the last communication on the computer which provides information via a telephone number and various password and code checks to confirm that the assassination of the chosen candidate is active and that the chosen assassin is his dead brother. There has been the suggestion that his brother was still alive to the extent that Harry had checked with his father that the he was certain that the body was that of his son.

In the finale Harry fails to gain entry into the press conference so in desperation he calls the Detective Inspector as he is about to removed from the scene by security police. He is able to persuade the Inspector that there is an assassination attempt being made and that he can identify the would be killer. However he cannot do so and is therefore unable to prevent a security guard from drawing a weapon that has been handed to him and shooting not the chosen politician but the accompanying tycoon. The assassin then escapes sufficiently long to kill Styles before also being shot. Harry is then interviewed in custody by the pursing detective for the original murders of the Landers but when Harry maintains his non involvement he is charged. Gina then turns up as his lawyer confident that she can defend his position but cannot immediately arrange bail. Shortly after arrival in prison he is placed in the same waiting where Quirke was murdered only in this instance he is confronted by his brother in the uniform of a prison guard who has come to get him out of jail and presumably become part of he ongoing organisation behind the brother for the past two decades. Harry thinks about it but decides to remain in prison despite the presence of an open door to immediate freedom saying he has a good lawyer.

There are a considerable number of story holes and unanswered questions which on a different day I might have enumerated, but for once I chose not too. It was not that kind of experience and I need to move on.

There are a couple of good films outstanding Route Irish and Casino Jack to report and I am tempted to go to the cinema to see The Help and the Ides of March. There has been the sporting week and my every day activities including a Safety recall for my car which has a Twist. There is another batch of Tremé episodes to catch up but these will be covered sometime over the week’s after I engaged in other work activity and some correspondence and then back to the Riots, the Hacking Inquiries and Leveson where the available online records and transcripts continues to mount with several hundred pages of material.

Atlantic City Season 2 and Romanzo Criminale begins

2011-10-27T14:45:00.000-07:00

After the spies comes the criminals of the prohibition era and recent times Rome and then it will back to rioting and the future of journalism in all its facets as I prepare for Halloween night but avoid thinking about Christmas.

Three weeks ago saw the return of the Boardwalk Empire which links the prohibition rackets of Atlantic City and the world of Nucky Thompson with Chicago and a young Al Capone and New York and with Lucky Luciano and their respective bosses

From the first three programmes there is the sense of the old order fighting to keep the new order from squeezing them out and not minding how much harm they generate. It is difficult for those who age to relinquish their position, their identities, and their involvement in the present beyond their immediate lives.

The oldest generation is portrayed by Commodore Louis Kaestner based on the real life character the German Hotelier and Politician Louis Kuehnle. He was the actual power in Atlantic City in the latter part of the 19th century and early part of the 20th effectively being first Republican boss of the boardwalk holiday resort with its gambling, prostitution and drinking which continued throughout prohibition making more money than ever. These were complicated characters who also undertook valuable social benefiting ventures although in the series he is also portrayed as being a sponsor of the Klu Klux Klan which appears to have the support of the entire Christian based middle and working white class. He narrowly escaped being poisoned in the last series, now dyes his hair but shows that he has the physical strength of men half his age.

He was the mentor of Nucky Thompson who branched out on his own and became the elected City Treasurer and also a controlling and funding politician for the Republican Party and is based on the real life character Enoch L Johnson who had power throughout prohibition through the control of rackets until his successful prosecution and imprisonment with the outbreak of World War II, serving 4 years after which he appears to have led a quieter life until his death in the late sixties. He lives the life of a gentleman with a personal manservant and wears the latest clothes with an apartment in a hotel but he now also has settled into life with Irish immigrant Margaret Schroeder whose violent husband he arranged to swim with the fishes and who he has now set up in a fine house with a personal maid, a house maid and a cook and where he plays the kind father to her children. Margaret is no innocent and is fully aware what a crook her husband is and over the series has become his protector.

The Commodore has become angry with Nucky and has arranged for him to be charged with election fraud, which is amusing since in reality it was he real life Commodore who was investigated for election fraud but where indictments were not achieved against any of the principals which can also be assumed will be the outcome of the present dramatic series in relation to Nucky, especially as Margaret sneaks into his apartment while law enforcement officers are turning it over for evidence and removes his records ledger and cash stash from under their noses while he is in prison. She burns the book and says he will have to learn to keep his dealings in his head. Nucky like his real life mentor arranges to fix political offices in the city and ensures employee loyalty by insisting that everyone contributes a slice of their wages to the Republic Party funds.

The two city founders and leaders also bribe and blackmail their way into lucrative state and federal contracts and in the present series Nucky is part of a consortium who has been buying up wide tracks of useless dirt land where it is known a new state highway connecting the City to New York is to be built.

One of the ways the two men in reality were able to maintain power was to persuade the local black community leaders they were on their side as long as they did nothing to antagonise the Klan.

Nucky has befriended Chalky White who runs the Black rackets and acts as a Godfather using part of his wealth for social purposes. One of his operations is to manufacture diluted whisky and at the commencement of the second series this is raided by the Klan using a machine gun to kill four workers but they fail to assassinate Chalky who manages to kill one of the attackers as well as severely wounding another. He is held in custody at the instigation of Nucky to prevent him being lynched. There are an amusing couple of scenes where Nucky first delivers a political type sermon from the pupil of the black audience church in which he promises to avenge the deaths while at the same time delivering as passionate a sermon to the white congregation about needing an iron fist to keep the blacks in their place.

In the jail Chalky is kept in a separate cell from the other blacks until a white man is arrested and he is moved with the other blacks who which includes an out of town loud mouth who starts the ridicule the fine clothes and manner of Chalky who in fact lives in a big house with a middle class family whose son goes to college and is a pianist among many talents. When the loud mouth goes to far the other blacks who regard Chalky with awe beat the stranger to pulp.

In fact the raid on Chalk’s distillery had been primed by the former ward of Nucky and for a time his hard man, Jimmy Darmody who is in fact the love child of the Commodore and the young promiscuous Gillian who was only fourteen years of age when Nucky pimped her for the Commodore. Jimmy wanted to kill the Commodore at first but is now under his wing and the move to regain power by ending that of Nucky.

Jimmy was in the First World War which has affected him greatly and made him a cold and calculated killer as well as racketeer who with Al Capone killed and stole the alcohol being imported by Nucky for a distributor to set themselves up. Al Capone had to flee to Chicago where he lives in a whorehouse and works for the current Chicago Mafia crime boss Johnny Torrio. Jimmy has recently married and set up in a coastal home with the mother of his children. Although he has branched out from Nucky he still has fond memories of the days when they went hunting and fishing together and has commenced to do likewise with his young son. The mother of his children had social ambitions and nearly ran off with the wife of the local photographer to Paris and with whom she had a lesbian affair in a ménage a trios while Jimmy was in Europe. She now battles with Jimmy’s mother when she visits given the proximity in ages between the two women. Among his mother’s affairs is one with Sicilian born Lucky Luciano of New York who works for the Jewish Mafia boss Arnold Rothstein.

Two other characters remain central to the story. The first is Nucky’s brother Eli, who is married with a brood of children and care for their senile and demanding father. He is full of resentment for his brother having done some for his dirty work in the past as city Sheriff, having to care for their father and being dropped when he was badly shot when collecting funds for Nucky, Eli has also thrown his lot in with the Commodore as has all of Nucky’s closest allies in the City with the exception of the Mayor who he planted on the electorate and one other individual who appears to be trying to keep a foot in both camps.

The other central character is Nelson Van Arden the previously Protestant fundamentalist Federal Prohibition Agent who fell as they say for a whore who is now in the last stages of pregnancy and is kept as a recluse by Van Arden. When his partner worked out that his boss was using funds for his own purposes he was murdered by Van Arden whose wife is even more zealous than he. She comes for the weekend to Atlantic city to celebrate their wedding anniversary and is shocked by the licentiousness all around especially when one of her husband’s staff gives her a booklet advertising what appears to be things to do on a visit for Christians, except this is in fact lists the gambling joints, brothels and gin houses. Nucky first met Margaret when he was addressing the local temperance league which he financially supported. Van Arden takes his wife out for meal in a local hotel and she is shocked when they are offered their choice of alcohol to accompany the meal. Later he traps the head waiter into offering them celebratory champagne and this is the signal for a violent raid on the establishment which he closes down and confiscates the till, part of which he uses to fund his prostitute mistress.

The second series commenced in 1921 when New Orleans was also in its drink, drugs, gambling Prostitution heyday covered in the film Pretty Baby recently reviewed. In the first episode Chicago gangster Torrio is offered a great deal with a Canadian Racketeer and sends Capone to tell Nucky he no longer wants to trade with him because of the better deal. Capone combines the visit to settle the affairs of his father who has died and visits Jimmy for cakes and coffee. In the second episode Ourselves Jimmy goes to New York to do a deal with Rothstein and is told to negotiate with one of his younger officers Meyer Lanski. Luciano taunt Jimmy about his relationship with Jimmy’s mother. Jimmy does not take his enforcer on this trip. Richard Harrow who has lost half his face in the First World War and who Jimmy also uses as an assassin. Eventually Lanski offers Jimmy a deal in which Jimmy supplies the alcohol while Jimmy agrees to start a heroin distribution which is going to be bigger money earner in time.

Released from prison Nucky arrives back in time for a meal and meeting with a visiting IRA fund raiser. He has brought with him young cocky IRA hood who he asks Nucky to find a role as things have got too hot for him to return to Ireland, The young man flirts with Margaret and one of the maids takes a great shine to him, Lucky at first rejects the offer from the young man to use his talent for stopping people who get in the way until he learns that in another move the Commodore has leaned on he Coastguard to raid the ships smuggling in the alcohol.

In the third episode "A Dangerous Maid" Nucky takes Margaret out for a meal as a reward for her support and finds the Commodore with his cronies including his brother. He declares all out war including on his brother who he gives one minute to come back into his fold. Nucky calls on the new White House Justice Chief to intervene on the election fraud case brought against him, reminding that the man owes him a big favour.

There have been four episodes to-date of the famous 22 episode Italian gangster series, Romanzo Criminale based on a book written by judge and which is said to chronicles the development of a disparate group of petty Roman criminals in the 1970’s into a major crime gang which dominated the capital’s underworld for over a decade independently of the Mafia. I have seen the film previously but this is the first time series has appeared on UK TV.

The scene is the Magliana District of Rome which over the past century has become occupied by migrants from other parts of Italy and the rest of Europe. The forty thousand or so population live in substandard and illegally constructed tenement owner occupied flats on the bank of the Tiber River below flood safety levels and represent one of the poorer areas of the capital which has led to crime and political activism Italian style.

The TV series opens in the District in the present day when a middle aged Lebanese man is mugged by three young thugs. Soon after the man locates and shoots dead the leader of the trio reminding everyone of who he was in the past. The series then begins proper in 1977 when known as the Lebanese (Liban) led a small band of petty criminals with ambition. He lives with his mother abandoned by his father and dreams for wealth and power and is the brains for the take over Rome plan when their latest undertaking goes wrong. They steal Olivetti Typewriters from a truck by prior arrangement and instead of splitting the profit decide to buy a consignment of guns from a major player in the Rome underworld with Mafia links. He orders his men to keep an eye on the young punks to find what they are up to and do not upset his interests. They want the guns to carry out their first project into the big time the kidnapping of Baron with the help of an inside man, a member of staff at the stables whose main income is from illegal gambling and fixing race results.

The car in which the guns are stored is stolen by another group from the man made hill district of Testaccio an area which these days has changed from being similar to Magliana into a more prosperous centre for restaurants and nights clubs used by Italians rather than tourists. As consequence the two gangs team up to kidnap the Baron and ransom him for a large sum. The Baron is looked after by Lebanese contacts of Liban and is unintentionally killed. His minders are also killed for messing up the situation.

Leading the investigation is a young police Commissioner who is known as the Communist because he criticises police tactics used in breaking up a political protest in the district in which his estranged sister is spotted playing a leading part. Commissioner Scialoja intervenes because the police brutally kill one of the demonstrators; the student Georgiana Masi and Scialoja becomes anxious about the welfare of his sister when the protestors come to the police station to vent their anger

The Commissioner comes unstuck with his plan to find the Baron and capture kidnappers when his loses the money en route to the kidnappers. The case is handed to another young and ambitious Commissioner. Scialoja believes the kidnappers are Roman based on finding the same brand of Menthol cigarette at the scene of both the trick robbery and the kidnapping. The presiding Magistrate does not believe any of the Roman interests are involved and suggests the Sardinians based the Tuscany region. Scialoja‘s view appears confirmed when he learns of the movement of a Rome registered motorbike which failed to stop in Tuscany on a route leading to the Baron‘s family home about the time they had received the latest ransom demand.

Liban then persuades the majority of the two gangs to “bank” the haul with a view to buying drugs and control the distribution in Rome on similar lines to the Mafia of Sicily and Naples. There is only one condition that they do not form a hierarchical band but accept each other as equal partners or spend any cash until it is laundered as the notes are marked

The second episodes starts in an amusing way in that two members of the Testaccio gang bury the bodies of the killed minders in a shallow grave in the grounds of Pine Forest unaware that the land has been sold for development and then finding out by chance they have to return and break into the site which is now fenced off to retrieve the bodies and bury them elsewhere.

The Magistrate has decided to pass the kidnapping case to a young rival of Scialoja Commissioner Rizzo, an officer well-liked by his superiors. The two police Commissioners cross swords when Scialoja refuses to give up the case and goes to investigate the remains of man in a burnt out vehicle also in the Pine Forest area but it is not that of missing Baron. Scialoja’s number two, Inspector Canton has been through the entire Baron’s staff and found out that one has a record. This is Satana who was the informant for the kidnapping but who decided to take his share of the money and go on his own.

The efforts to buy drugs from the Sardinians on an industrial scale does do not go well as they demand a high percentage of the revenue for their role and Liban refuses. They can mark time as the notes are marked. They are then approached by the Gun seller with Mafia connections for a deal which is again refused. Liban with associates The Cold of the Testaccio firm and Dandi his friend talk over the situation on learning that instead of slamming the door he should have negotiated a compromise offer. They go back to the Sardinian and agree a 50-50 profit sharing arrangement with the caveat that if they fail he will kill them all.

Dandi is told about a new beautiful prostitute in town called Patrizia. He takes her roughly and quickly without attention to her needs and then asks if it was good. She tells him the truth and that he needs to learn how to treat a woman. She agrees to teach him for an appropriate fee and he falls in love and become possessive. He uses some of the marked notes.

The head of Testaccio gang is called The Cold and is estranged from his father because of the man’s treatment of the mother. He is protective and supportive of his younger brother who is at college and has an attractive girl friend and does not know the life The Cold leads or how he manages to give his brother a new Scooter. When the brother has an accident he meets up with his father in hospital and then offers to take the girl friend back to her home. They are attracted to each other but both hold back.

The episode ends with Commissioner Scialoja being advised that marked notes have been traced to shops in one area selling quality female goods.

It is with the third episode that the action gains pace and the two gangs of eight individuals begin to take off in their ambition to control Rome but as with all such undertakings they are too prove only as strong as their weakest link.

In order to sell their first consignment of drugs and meet their obligation to the supplier, the Sardinian, they divide Rome into districts so that in pairs they take responsibility for organising the distribution chains taking over existing pushers and their clients by a process of individual and collective intimidation.

On of these, the Chinaman is resistant. They conclude that if they allow him to opt out having offered him a retainer of 10% of the income on his patch the other half of Rome they are yet to control will refuse to accept the new set up. They kidnap the Chinaman, torture and hurt, and then take him to a site with a ready open grave where he begs for his life. They urinate on him and then take him back to his district dumping him on the road outside the haunt of his associate after he has accepted the deal.

In order to have brought the Chinaman into line they need their guns, which one of the group has told his school girl friend to keep under her bed. While his mate waits in the living room the other commences to have sex with the girl only to hear her father returning home unexpectedly. The two depart through the bedroom window without the guns. They return and one breaks in through the window after being refused entry by the father. Father discovers the gangster and makes him pay a small amount for the window and for the trouble before letting him take the bag containing the weapons on the understanding that he never has contact with his daughter again.

One member of the gang Buffalo is not required to organise a district but asked keep watch on one of the others. The anxiety appears to be well founded when he finds the man, called Puma, having contact with the provider of the weapons Terrible the boss of the Centocelle territory which for the moment the new order decided to leave alone with that the area of Sardinian who is also at the meet. Puma explains that he had not been able to organise the distribution and sale of a quantity of his allocation and had attempted to deal with Terrible but it had not come off. He warns that having done the hard work of creating a Rome wide system of distribution the intention of Terrible and the Sardinian is to push the new order out.

The weak link is Dandi, using marked to buy time with the girl who then buys herself a new wardrobe. Scialoja is having a drink with his Inspector in a bar who observes that the waitress has caught the eye of his boss. He advises that the girl earns extra money as a whore and recommends that every good Commissioner should have his whore informant. Scialoja thanks the Inspector for his brainwave working out that one of the kidnappers has been celebrating and asks for information on all the whores who have been arrested in the district recently and of these selects Patrizia as the most likely and keeps watch. He sees Dandi leaving the residence with the young woman, Dandi having given her what is required to spend the day with him and he takes her racing where he follows the couple and photographs them together.

This is also the event where Buffalo has been keeping watch on Puma and he reports the whereabouts of Dandi who is missing when they sort out the Chinaman in numbers as well as force. They catch up with Dandi buying presents at the store unaware their colleague is being watched by the Commissioner. As they leave the Commissioner is able to photograph the three and then tail them for a while before the driver thinks they are being followed and slows down so the Commissioner drives on to the office to develop film and consult his Inspector. The Inspector is sceptical because Dandi is regarded still as petty criminal along with his associates and unlikely to have the means to have engaged in the kidnapping. The Commissioner announces that the next step is to visit Patrizia and make her his whore.

Dandi in order to compensate for missing the confrontation with the Chinaman offer to take responsibility for warning the Sardinian (Sardo) that they are aware of his games and he has to stop. He kidnaps and drives him into the middle of nowhere takes his expensive shoes and leaves him to make his way home in his stocking feet.

Scialoja breaks in and examines Patrizia’s apartment after waiting for her leave but remains until she returns. She immediately tries to seduce the Commissioner who is tempted but sticks to his mission and asks her to name the individual who has been given the money she has been spending recently on a new wardrobe. Thinking she has got her man she says Dandi adding she will not give evidence before a judge whereupon the Commissioner leaves.

Meanwhile there been yet another change of Government with the Communists being given a role. This is said to cause another shake up in the criminal underworld where they have links with the previous or the new order thus introducing the fact of extensive political corruption between politicians and the broader Mafia underworld in Italy.

Meanwhile as well the new criminal order have acquired 2000 sq metres of storage space available in a government building together with a caretaker who has got into gambling debts which they have paid off.

It is with the fourth episode that we come to the real life event which is at the core of the book, film and series, the kidnapping of Aldo Morro former Prime Minister of Italy 1963 to 1968 and (1974 to 1976) who as leader of his Party was kidnapped in 1978 by the Red Brigade and was killed after 55 days in captivity. But I am in advance of myself and the episode.

The gang have gone from strength to strength and the decision taken that having doubled their original capital and the money successfully laundered it is time to start distributing the profits on an equal share basis. Before the share out is completed, Liban calls on several comrades to help unload a vehicle which has arrived and reluctantly they go out to find that it full of young and not so young ladies of the night for the party that he has been planned. There is a riotous night of drink, drugs and sex although Liban himself remains detached from the festivities.

He instigates the move on the territory of the Terrible, the supplier of the guns by offering a new deal to one of his main drug pushers. His agent in this Scorcio is asked to return after consideration has been given to a deal and falls into a trap in which he is severely beaten and given a message to pass to Liban in private. His injured body is dropped in the yard outside their hangout and is rushed to hospital where he survives. Alerted to the hospital admission the Commissioner and the Inspector go to the hospital coincident with the visit of the partners in the two gangs and Scialoja manages to overhear the private conversation by listening through the wall of the ladies toilet.

We learn that the message relates to an incident many year ago when Liban had crossed Terrible in some way and had been overwhelmed when in his car with his girl friend. He had first made to watch as sexual acts were forced on the girlfriend and then he had his arm deeply slashed and cuts on his legs. Reference to this means that Terrible is saying if he wants war he will get war.

There is then a conference with the Sardinian supplier and his top men arranged by Puma and it is agreed that there has to be a deal negotiated, for now. Reluctantly this is agreed although Liban is incensed and vows vehemence when they are stronger. The three meet with Terrible to insist on getting a significant cut of the rest of Rome wide operation.

The Cold sees his bother’s girl friend who has been baby sitting over night to pay for her college fees where she is training to be a teacher, They have breakfast at a cafe close to her flat and the proprietor immediately knows who The Cold is. He returns later with a gun to ensure the man does not reveal how he earns his money. The man reminds that the girl is a nice young woman. Later The Cold meets the girl as she leaves from her college and he attracts admiring comments from her friends. They go to the fair for the afternoon and she says she had a great time and on dropping her off at her lodgings she goes to kiss him but he withdraws. Reminding of the relationship with her bother and other reasons. The brother then comes to see him without notice because the girl has broken off the relationship without explanation. The Cold promises to spend time with him as soon as he returns from a commitment. He promises to fix things for him. He goes to see the girl who says she does not want his brother but him. They kiss passionately.

The Commissioner breaks into the prostitute’s flat once more before she awakes ostensibly to warn her that war is to break out involving Dandi. She dismisses this and comments that there is always war breaking out between the different factions but they always settle on a handshake, thus imparting the knowledge of what has happened. She thanks the Commissioner for his concern stroking his cheek before he leaves.

He feels he has enough evidence to prove to the Magistrate that he should be put back on the case of the missing Baron, mentioning that there is now an alliance between all the criminals’ networks in the city. The Magistrate says he is too busy to give the matter any attention as the former Prime Minister has been kidnapped after his guards were shot dead and is believed to be in the hands of the Red Brigade.

However later when senior police officers and in conference with senior politicians they report that there is now a city wide criminal alliance.

Liban returns home and hands a mink coat at the end of his mother’s bed while she sleeps. Far from being delighted and impressed she is horrified asking him to leave home because she cannot bear to have him with her knowing that he will shortly be dead from his criminal activities. We see him sitting on a beach at the coast wearing the fur and crying.

Now the best dramatic serial of the season, surpassing Spooks. Next piece of writing though.....

Tinker Tailor BBC Production 3

2011-10-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

Episode five of Tinker Tailor begins with Jim Prideaux ((Ian Bannen) allowing one of the school boys to drive his Alvis around the sports field supported by other boys who it is evident he has taught to drive in the past. Jim draws attention to someone at the edge of the field pretending not to be looking at them which raises his suspicion because the man is not a master or someone from the village. He says in a tell tale phrase that we cannot have a JuJu man going around and he asks the boys to report if they see him again or any other stranger.

Later at night we see Jim in his caravan check the dressings on the wounds on his back where he was shot. He then goes out and digs up a package which proves to be a revolver and this is seen by Jumbo Roach, a small wimp of boy wearing glasses who Jim identifies as someone who like him is a loner and keen watcher and observer. The boy has taken to heart to be on the look out for Jim and sees him dig up the package and uses the caravan door stepping stool to see what is happening through slightly opened curtains. He falls and injures himself so Jim explains that like the wound in his back the gun is a souvenir from his life as soldier and his secret to be respected by Jumbo who he trusts. Jumbo says they nearly decided to call him Bulldog after Bulldog Drummond but chose instead to nickname him Rhino because the creature was bigger and more suitable for how they viewed him.

Smiley goes to see Sam Collins, who is to feature so much in the Honourable Schoolboy, at the gambling club where he works. He wants to talk to him about the night Jim Prideaux was shot and explains that he has been called in by Lacon with the Minister’s approval as the case has been reopened. Jim has returned to London from three years in Tokyo and was about to go for a holiday in the South of France when Mendel, Control’s Minder, called him to act as Duty officer for the night.

He had found the condition of Control a shock. It was like opening a coffin lid and he did not waste time on pleasantries. Control explained that he had officer on an important mission which could change everything. Sam had to bring any message by any means to him direct by hand but waiting to ensure the coast was clear. Afterwards he is not telling anyone anything including Smiley, Haydon or Bland.

During the night suddenly everything happened with contact from the Foreign Office and then approaches or reports from the media including Reuters that someone accused of being a British agent had been shot. Sam had gone to see Control who appeared stunned and speechless by the news. He had said that whether the man was shot or not they could deny they were not involved. He asked for Smiley who Sam reminded was out of the country. Control said it did not matter Sam should fine someone, anybody. Control asks for Mendel to get him a taxi and Sam reminds that Mendel was sent home. He contacts Mrs Smiley just as the communications officers reports that that the man has been named.

Haydon arrives and Sam assumes he was advised by Mrs Smiley as a family friend. Haydon says he heard about the shooting party on the ticket tape at his club. Sam reports that the man is Prideaux accused of trying to kidnap a General in a forest near the Austrian border. There are reports of tank and troop movements. The Minister and Lacon have been in contact wanting to know what has been going on. He has sent out calls to Smiley, Alleline and Brand. Haydon takes charge and tells Sam to contact Esterhase to pick up the two Czech students at the London School of Economics they had their eyes on and lock them up. Jim is worth more than these two but it is a start. If Jim is dead he will strip the staff of Czech embassy to the bone and pass that on to his master (Control).

Sam praises the way Haydon handled the situation including the Foreign office press statement which he dictated. Sam had then had a good breakfast at the Savoy and gone for two great months in the South of France. On return he had been called to Alleline who was acting Chief. Wanted to know how he came to be duty officer as someone called Masterman was on the rota. Sam had denied Control’s involvement saying he had needed the extra cash for his trip to France. They had sacked him for alcoholism because he had taken five cans of beer to get him through the night and there was a standing Order against drinking while on duty. Smiley explains he had also been sacked because he could not convince them he was not involved.

Sam offers to help in anyway so George points out that it was too late for the ticker tape at the club and that Haydon had been with Smiley’s wife Anne. She had kicked him out of bed and he had come in but Sam had not told him about Czecho yet Bill knew all about Czecho.

Jim goes to meet George by prior arrangement outside the school but nearby. George explains that he does not have access to the papers because he is black balled by the Circus but he has got some information from Lacon including a reference by Haydon to the man at Oxford who recruited Jim. Haydon had said Jim has that heavy quiet which commands. He is my other half- Between us we make a marvellous man. He asks nothing better to be in my company or that of my wicked divine friends. He’s a virgin about eight feet tall and built by the same firm as Stonehenge. Jim comments that they were then children.

They go to a motel. Jim says he came round in a hospital where they patched him up after a fashion and in a prison cell. He worked out a campaign to survive and tell a story which would convince leaving out what they wanted to know. So he commenced with the cover story given by Control so he could keep away from the subject of the Mole and Control and keeps his networks which he was the first to establish in that country. However they knew it all, the networks and the names, Controls briefing in St James, and Tinker Tailor. They knew about his flat but did not know about the charts, until later. Smiley tells him that all his agents were shot and the story is that he blew them to save his own skin but Smiley knew this was not true. Jim is sick and they go for walk when he tells about what happened after capture and the use of electrical torture. He was always on the move and once in a plane in which was hooded. He thinks he was in Russia part of the time. He hoped he would go mad but they knew how far to go before the long interrogation where he broke because he ran out of stories.

He told them all they wanted to know and the interrogator was a frosty bearded man who smoked powerful cigarettes non stop. He asked about Circus title tattle and re Smiley he explained how he had got the lighter with the inscription and then added that after Bill Haydon’s involvement Smiley might like to change the inscription. Smiley says that Haydon was one never to use the regulations while Jim added you were one never to see him straight. Smiley mentions that Haydon did all he could to get Jim back but poses why there was never contact between the two afterwards. He moves on to what happened at the debriefing centre and if the interrogators were sympathetic or hostile.

Jim says that he was left alone and eats, drank and slept a lot until Esterhase arrived in a new suit and gives him £1000 on top of his gratuity. Tells him Circus had nearly gone under and Jim is number one leper. Toby knew the whole story about Tinker Tailor and Smiley asks how did Toby know that. Jim says that is what he had been doing obeying orders and leaves but as with Sam Collins George has been sowing the seeds which should eventually get back to those involved that he knew what had been going on.

Part six begins with Smiley meeting Jerry Westerby the Honourable Schoolboy of the second book in the trilogy played by Joss Ackland and who in judgement does not fit the concept of Jerry the Honourable Schoolboy novel. Not Ernest Hemingway enough for my liking.

Jerry is now a journalist drinking heavily and at the margin of financial stability, sounds like Le Carré father. Smiley mentions that he destroyed the letter sent to him after the Prideaux fiasco but he not acted upon it as Jerry might have suspected.

Jerry elaborates what was in the letter he had undertaken what proved to be his last job as a courier for Toby Esterhase, delivering a package and had to go to Prague for his official newspaper role when what he came across was by accident and nothing to do with Tobe. He was in a bar in Prague with a crowd at a corner table when a youth with a military haircut shouts in the ear of Jerry after realising he is British: does he want to know the truth about the English spy that had been caught. The big point was the Russian contingent full works with a big car load of sinisters. The Russians are after a British Spy who was kidnapping a General. This was a day before the event so they knew what was going to happen. Big story so he took it back to Toby. Big story. Bad for Chief bad for tribe. His reaction was thanks a million, at first. He would go and POW WOW with the top and the following morning Toby rants at him says he is so plastered these days and is in cuckoo land. Toby says the boy was plant to sell a false story to the Circus.

Jerry says he will sell story to his paper although not the bit the advance information. He was called in by the Editor who had been told to keep Jerry off the story and make no further reference as to so would not be in the National Interest. He had sounded off to Smiley and thought it was Smiley who had then contacted the Editor. He had felt bad about this when Smiley had got the heave ho.

Jerry comments as they eat their meal and drink beer that Toby was rum just as he had thought something was odd about the reaction to what he had been told and passed on. He ends by asking his love to be passed on to Ann- one of the great marriages which leads Smiley to say out with it and for Jerry to say some tale which he told Toby to stuff up his silk draws

We now go back to the school where the headmaster (John Wells) is upset because Jim has taken off on leave because his mother is dying. The headmaster is on the rugger field as the school is losing. His mother comments that at least it is not an excuse Jim can use again. Wells comments that he will ask for a medical diagnosis next time. Jumbo Roach reassures the other boys that although Jim has taken the Alvis because he would not trust other forms of transport, he is coming back as he has left the caravan and has not said goodbye.

Toby is called out by Peter to meet a prospect, a Pole in the Fur trade who could be a courier only to be confronted by Smiley, Guillam and Fawn, Smiley thinks there is someone in the street, a shadow, perhaps, and sends Fawn down the street to check. Toby says that if he had brought baby sitters there would have ten or twelve individuals walking up and down.

George tells Toby what he thinks happened; how someone sold Merlin and Witchcraft to Alleline saying all the right things which would feed into his aspiration to be become Control. Esterhase who starts defiant becomes more and more anxious as George reveals the inquiry and meeting is official with the backing of Lacon and the Minister and that far from sending chicken feed in return for gold dust they have been giving away the crown jewels. He then explains to Esterhase that in order to demonstrate to Moscow that they have a Mole with in the Circus that would have had to create a legend...a history of someone who was not the real Mole and the obvious choice was Toby because it was he that delivered the packages of information to Merlin and kept him supplied with film to photograph documents within the Embassy. If things went wrong as they now had, Toby was the fall guy at which Toby offers all his support including that of his Lamplighters although he would have to see Lacon personally to get his authority. George says all he needs is the address of the safe house which they use to meet with Merlin which he readily gives whereupon he told he will be kept secure for a few days and will have to provide a convincing cover for his absence to the Circus and to his wife.

There is one fascinating aspect of the address where Toby is taken to meet the fictitious Fur Trader, Lexham Gardens and which I visited for meetings during 1961 some fifty years ago although these were not of clandestine nature.

After the meeting George walks back from Lexham Gardens to the Hotel in Paddington which he has made his headquarters and from where he had come for the confrontation with Guillermo acting as his baby sitter and Mendel keeping watch on both of them. This is a fair walk from the Cromwell Road in Kensington going up to Kensington High Street and then paralleled along the Western side of Kensington Gardens into Bayswater and the Hotel to meet Lacon for an update meeting, one presumes sometime later after Lacon had consulted the Minister.

Smiley is given the green light with Minister through Lacon pleading to avoid anything messy such as the Russian boasting how they got all the secrets for years. He comments that what the Russians achieved would be beautiful in another context.

He would arrange something to cause panic and force Gerald have a crash meeting with Merlin alone at the safe house. To achieve this Smiley sends Ricki Tarr to the Paris Office where he forces his way into the Circus station communications office and send a message to Alleline saying he has evidence vital to safeguarding the welfare of the service. Alleline can be assumed to consult with Haydon and Bland now that Esterhase was out of the frame.

The seventh episode is the grand finale when most viewers should know who the villain is even if they have not read the book or now seen the film for such have been various clues.

At the start of each episode there is a short reminder finale of the previous and then the opening credits with Russian multiple doll indicating the layers or levels of the story to be unravelled.

Smiley with Guillam prepare Merlin’s safe house by putting two milk bottles out to indicate safe entry. Guillam shows the new recording system which is voice activated to save in recording tape. Mendel has positioned himself outside the Circus to report the arrival of the trio and to try and spot who leaves first for the crash meeting with Merlin. George still has the sense that they have been followed by one individual on their recent movements. He goes out for a brief walk while waiting admitting that he is nervous about what is to happen.

In order to maintain dramatic momentum we are not immediately a party to the recorded conversation between Haydon and the Russian. We have to wait for this until Alleline and Bland are summoned, Lacon called and Esterhase brought from his location and the recording is played with us hearing the key moment when Haydon asks the Russian to get Karla to get him out.

Smiley suggests to Alleline that they do a trade with Karla over Bill in exchange for as many of their agents in the field whose cover Bill has blown. They have professionally ended their usefulness hence in the Honourable Schoolboy there is great excitement when the Station on the hill suddenly closes and all the electronics of the day dismantled, as they are elsewhere in the world. This is all mater of fact except for Peter who strikes at Haydon and demands to know how many agents he has been responsible for their deaths 200, 300, 400?

To rub Alleline’s nose in it Smiles suggests that he gets cracking right away with the Russian who is after all his direct link to Karla, Lacon agrees saying that he still the official head of the Service, for the time being. The inquisitors arrive to take Haydon away. As he goes Haydon calls out- All the best Percy! Fawn goes with Haydon while Peter and Smiley walk back to Smiley’s home this time. They are being watched by Jim Prideaux s they leave.

Peter apologies for striking Haydon expressing his disappointment at the downfall of the man he regarded as a hero. George thanks him for his important contribution

Jim is now keeping watch on Haydon at his holding in a military style camps with large huts with a simple see through wire fencing around the compound. George visits Haydon who moans about the quality of the interrogators who imagine he knows the names of the other moles Karla has placed around the world. It is evident that through Lacon Haydon has asked to see Smiley to press for the exchange and to answer his questions. Smiley says why, when how? Haydon laughs saying you ask that why, because it was necessary, someone had to. He refers to their recruitment and role as freedom protectors and service to the great cause and then breaks down in tears.

Do you know what’s killing Western democracy George Greed and constipation moral political aesthetic? I hate America very deeply. The economic repression of the masses institutionalised. Even Lenin could not forsee the extent of that. Britain Oh dear no viability in world affairs. I suppose that is where it began When I saw how trivial we’d become as a nation say in the forties. By 1950 I was slipping Karla occasional gifts of intelligence carefully selected morsels to help the Russian case against America. At that time I was scrupulous not to give Moscow anything harmful to ourselves, against our own agents in the field. I still believe the secret services are an expression of the nation‘s character. Until the mid fifties I still had hopes of what we represented. Self delusion of course. We were already America’s street walker. I was granted soviet citizenship twelve years ago. They have given him a couple of medals. Smiley listens to all this impassively.

When he reports to Lacon he wonders what medals? He hopes they will get more information from him of substance George echoes Bill’s observation about the laxity of arrangements where he is being held and where noone patrols the perimeter day or night. Smiley is concerned about Haydon’s safety. Lacon says George is being melodramatic. He can only go to Russia and we are sending him there.

Lacon also wants to know why Percy Alleline was put in charge and not Bill. Bill explains this directly to George saying it was better Alleline was the front man attending to the admin, the dinners, the meetings chewing the cud in Whitehall which would have bogged him down. He had Bland an Esterhase to run around for him. George says never happened to Control. Haydon explains that Control was a natural recluse (he could have added like you George). I could never have got away with it.

Later inside the detention room Haydon admits that Control had got close, did well which and surprised Karla given that Control was so ill. The offer from the General which caused the near death of Prideaux had not been a genuine one. He had been confident Control would send for Jim, someone outside of London station because of background. It had to be someone who was old Circus to bring the Temple down a bit. It was the most famous partnership the Circus had the iron fist and iron glove. I got him home didn’t I? Yes says Smiley, that was good of you.

Bill adds the thing with Anne was Karla’s idea. He said you were the one threat and that if you were preoccupied with what we were getting up to and if it was well known around the place I was her lover it was bound to look like personal vengeance. Karla said not to strain it but if possible join the queue. Presumably it was n Karla‘s instructions you were with Ann on the night of the shoot out, as insurance. Oh yes he was adamant about it. Lacon has discussed with George the need to tell Anne about Haydon and to ensure she report any form of contact in the future, Smiley said he had proposed to tell her anyway as a kind of balancing.

Before Smiley leaves he agrees to pas on a cheque and note to female friend of Haydon and to arrange £200 from the reptile fund for a boy, not an angel but a Cherub.

Jim who has been staking out the situation, seeing Jim clothes be collected for a cleaners visits and this enables him to get a message to see Haydon. After questioning about what happened he breaks Haydon’s neck.

Jim returns to the school and helps Jumbo Roach with a reading in the school chapel. Smiley holds a meeting with Alleline, Brand and Esterhase with Peter and Lacon present. He speculates how Haydon died via a message with his suit delivered from the cleaners; He announces he has been asked to look after things for the time being and that everyone should take leave after which there will be some redeployment, for those who wished to remain in the service.

Smiley presses his wife with the question did she love Bill which she says no, poor George. Life is still such a puzzle to you. She had previously suggested that Bill enjoyed being a traitor and she was glad his life had ended because he would not have enjoyed retirement.

Tinker Tailor Soldier BBC production 2

2011-10-26T03:41:00.000-07:00

How the story of Scalphunter Ricki Tarr and his relationship with Irina is portrayed in the BBC production and the film Tinker Tailor also illustrates the gulf between the two. In the cinema film Tarr has what I describe as a James Bond type encounter in which he becomes emotional attached to the subject of his sexual entrapment. I accept that it is not as superficially glossy as the Fleming based cinematic creations but yet another instance of pandering to the theatre audience. In the BBC production the depth and intensity of the relationship is explored, the use by Ricki and also by Irina of each other for their individual purposes, but also the strength of love and Bond on her part because she has embraced Christianity and seeks at different way of life something which also attracts Ricki.

He explains that he was sent help the local Circus man Tuffty Thessinger (Thorley Walters) who had his eyes on subverting one the young local Russians into defection because the man was exhausting the local lamplighters with his fleshpots nightlife, club eating drinking and making merry despite having an attractive wife. Ricki whose role is to find something to blackmail Boris but quickly assesses that the target is a Moscow Central trained hood and according to latest edicts from the London Centre, Lacon and Government Minister, he is no longer allowed to try and create a double agent. But the man’s behaviour interests Ricki so he decides to break in and take a look at the man’s accommodation, only to encounter the wife, Irina (Susan Kodicek).

Ricki pretends to be an Australian self made business man who is after Boris because of stealing his girl friend after drinking on his wallet. Irina reveals she knows Ricki to be a spy in part because of his placement of door wedges and arranges to meet the following evening. She explains she is also a highly trained operative with a textile cover and restricted in talking to others unless when on a mission. He says that Boris is not a good spy because he did not spot Ricki and she asks if Ricki is good to which he replies in the affirmative and says try me. She had been put together with Boris whose role is to entrap business men.

She wants to continue to call Ricki by the first name used of Lawrence, calling him Colonel Lawrence of Arabia. She is troubled and fearful. She is impressed with Christians and is studying the bible in secret. She accepts his invitation to share a room on the coast, quiet and safe. She wants to be a team with Ricki and taken to the UK and has on offer her knowledge of a Mole in London, which she will only reveal to Alleline, one of the biggest secrets ever she says which will make Ricki famous. She dreams of going to Scotland which she regards as a perfect place.

They arrange to meet at a cemetery the following day, and she is pressed by Ricki to tell something more to interest Alleline. She says that the information had come from a former lover in Moscow Circus, who had worked as a driver in London whose cover name was Lapin and who had been the right hand man to a Russian military officer who in London was known as Polyakov a Cultural attaché. The British mole was code named Gerald. Ricki says Alleline will take some persuading. He catches Tuffty leaving the office and they return and send a message Flash, maximum security, for the duty officer only to pass the Alleline. There is no immediate response. When the reply comes it is a stall asking for more information. It is not immediately clear how much information he has already given to Alleline but he goes to see Irina but she does not turn up so he goes to the agreed message drop in the cemetery,

He finds her diary which says she wants to give him her life, but if they take her before she gets to see Alleline then the diary is her gift of love to him. She goes into details about the operation in London and that the information provided by the mole is so good and voluminous in audio tapes and also unprocessed film that it is overwhelming the Moscow London contact. The Gerald-Merlin link had been established by Karla who operates independently and whose role is secret to most in the Soviet hierarchy. She fears for the safety of anyone employed by the Circus because of Moscow’s inside knowledge. She asks if he has been indiscrete and told London more than he should. She wants to know if they will let them live in Scotland. She used to think the secret world would free her but God has shown she had only to step outside to be free. She is being closed watched.

Ricki goes to the airport and finds out about an unscheduled Russian plane which had arrived to collect a woman in a coma. He then found that Irina and her husband had left their hotel.

Peter who remains suspicious of Ricki Tarr argues that there would have been no opportunity for London to alert Moscow in the time scale, a view held by Tarr thinking that their affair had been spotted or Irina and said too much to Boris, and fearful that his part had been identified Ricki had jumped ship and gone visit a mistress and his child in Istanbul until he felt it was safe to come and tell his tale.

Lacon takes George into the grounds as morning arrives after a long night to argue that it is George’s role to sort out the mess quietly so that the Circus and Lacon’s reputation are protected. George is upset that even Ricki has known the gossip about Anne and Bill Haydon, Lacon comments that Haydon had been close to Prideaux who Lacon felt had been too old to be sent on the mission by Control.

George says he will need Control’s chief factotum Mendel who in turn uses Fawn and who sets up George on the top floor of an apartment hotel near Paddington station because of previous associations with the owner. He impresses that no one should be told about the presence of Smiley and that no one but Smiley and himself will have access to anything stored in the Hotel safe. At a meeting at the Hotel with Lacon, George asks Peter to break into the Circus to find out what happened to the information which Peter sent to the Circus at the request of Alleline. Lacon says he can only get material via his office and not direct from the Circus. There is also a request for information on the whereabouts of Jim Prideaux. George says he will be making a trip to Oxford in the meantime.

The third episode begins with Peter’s visit to the Circus after George has warned him to be extra careful. He is met by Lauder Strickland (Frank Morrey) and they first bump into Bill Haydon who expresses surprise at the visit with Lauder explaining that Peter has come to arrange with “Banking” funds for a Scalphunter and Peter reassures the paperwork will be already on his desk confirming his entry into the Circus and the fifth floor. Passing the open door of Bland’s office that has Esterhase with him, they ask Lauder if he has seen Haydon as they had put out an urgent call for him. They then spot Peter at the door and both express surprise adding that they like to keep the fifth floor secure to themselves these days. We are yet to learn why Peter is out of favour.

The scene switches to George’s visit to Connie Sachs (Beryl Reed) the former head of research and a walking encyclopaedia of knowledge who was also pushed out because of her drinking and fanciful notions to return as an Oxford College Don where he interrupts a tutorial with a male student.

Connie is able to give the date and place of birth and full description of Polyakov from memory. She comments that from the day he arrived he had army written all over him and a Moscow centre trained hood if ever there was one. But she had been told by Alleline and Haydon that she would have to pack her bags if she persisted with her claims. She had then come across a photo of him with medals attending a state parade and went off to Esterhase proclaiming that he was a gold plated hood running a Mole and was told to report to Alleline and then got a letter sacking her saying she had lost it, was living in fantasy and needed to go back into the real world.

Back at the Circus Peter completes the official business and then breaks into a safe to get the manual register of Duty officer information only to find the page cut out with a razor blade. No Irina, no Tarr and all inquiries to Head of station in the hand writing of Toby Esterhase. Connie’s information confirms that of Tarr, George tells a meeting with Peter and Lacon at the hotel. Lacon has provided a makes reference to Operation Witchcraft and Merlin but Lacon refuses to answers questions and argues that Witchcraft and Merlin are not connected with the issue of the Mole. George presses him to find out the whereabouts of Jim Prideaux and after Lacon leaves, George tells Peter that the two matters interlinked and that Control had gone on the same journey and had nearly arrived at the conclusion until the two bullets in the back of Prideaux. There are three of them, he meant Alleline Haydon Bland or Esterhouse, the men who invented or developed Witchcraft or perhaps are the marionettes.

We then journey back in time to when Control called George to support him against Alleline who had produced a report of a most recent Soviet Sea Exercise which the British Admiralty longed to know about. Smiley agrees that any topical information is always suspect by the Admiral friend of Alleline had congratulated Control saying he believed the report gold dust and wanted to share with his other Sea Lords but Alleline said he had to wait two weeks. The information had come from Merlin of Witchcraft where information was restricted to Alleline and a small group of trusted colleagues within the Circus who were horrified at the recent failure of the organisation and determined to change its reputation, too many scandals to many agents blown and attacking Control directly. Percy Alleline would sell his mother for a knighthood and seat in the House of Lords.

This was followed by a meeting with Lacon at which all the top staff were there with Control facing sideways and Alleline looking smug and Haydon congratulating. He had arranged a special reading room at the Admiralty for customers to have reading rights for Merlin information and to have access only through Percy’s Janitor to which Control explodes, but Lacon intervenes to say that given that Alleline has the wizard the janitor will be modest staff. Haydon says at the meeting and afterwards to Smiley that the information is pure gold and nothing like his activities has produced before and that Alleline will get his reading room and restricted access and after that anything will be possible. He says Control will not accept the development as genuine and that will mean Smiley will take the same position, excluding himself from the new inner circle. Haydon tells Smiley to cut the strings.

After that Control went into himself and Smiley could not get into see Control until after he went to Hong Kong which I presume was for the affair of the Honourable Schoolboy. On return George expresses concern because Control will not read the Merlin product saying he has no the time. He needed time to sort out which of he four was the Mole and he orders George to sweat them, question those involved and of course George had this knowledge when he is first taken by Peter to see Lacon and therefore was not surprised by the development.

We are now privy to his attempt to help Control with an interview first with Toby Esterhase (Bernard Hepton) whose daughter is in medical school and son is at Westminster. The excuse for the visit is that reports on the working schedule of Esterhouse department are two months late. He asks if his staff have been used for special jobs which are not on the books. Toby responds that to do would be illegal to which George suggests not if required by Percy Alleline. Esterhouse says he does like the service and wants to stay in it and his problem is the absence of promotion given his seniority when young fellows ask him to take orders defining young by anyone above him. George says perhaps Control will be able to move him up a couple of rungs to which Toby says he is not sure Control is in a position to do this anymore and asks George if he is sure this is not so.

George then goes on walkabout with Bland (Terence Rigby) who asks what the deal is. Smiley says the present situation is unhealthy and he would not want to see Roy caught up in a cabal. Bland says he wants £5000 cash probably worth £100000 to day plus a House, a car and his son a place at Eton. George who knows Roy’s background with his father a communist and having got himself to grammar school and Oxford asks what would the man’s father say. He says no deal then Control can get stuffed. Bland says has paid his dues although he is not sure what he has bought given his experience of living and working in various soviet countries post world war but during the worse conditions of the Cold War.

He says if he is going to the bad George is to blame because he brought him into the Circus and tests George to name the authority of the aphorism, an artist is a man who can hold two fundamentally opposing views and still function. Adding that Scot Fitzgerald knew a thing or two and that he is definitely functioning - as a good socialist I am going where the money is and as a capitalist I am going with the revolution because if you can’t beat it spy on it. He continues, don’t look like that George. It is the name of the game these days. You scratch my conscience I’ll drive your jag. Smiley says no doubt this came from Bill Haydon, one of his jokes about materialist England Pigs in Clover society. He says of course there are acquisitive and competitive aspects of Western society but they are offset by other concerns (free speech, freedom to as well as freedom from) which you will not find in places and Roy recites the places he endured for the cause.

Roy then claims England has become like conditions in the Soviets- George all you have to do is look out of the blood window. George’s parting shot is to say that Roy has been seen frequently with Bill Haydon these days to which Bland says jealous George, you have his Job as Control’s High Chamberlain, adding-for as long as it lasts. This exchange is clearly an expression of the kind of thing Philby would argue about the changing place of the UK after the loss of Empire still hankering for its former day power and glory, clinging to its aristocratic hierarchy, racism and suppression of the working class.

He then arranges to interview Haydon suggesting that he writes the Merlin reports which Haydon says means that he is saying Alleline won’t do and that if Witchcraft had been Bill’s it would have been acceptable to Control and therefore to Smiley. Bill adds that if he had acted alone he would have been given a medal by now and a pot of Jasmine Tea. He bemoans the vulgarity of the way things are done and that in the old days Smiley would not have been sent snooping around. Bill confirms George’s point that Alleline is on the make who wants to be head boy with Toby and Roy wanting his job which is natural.

They have been out for a meal and drink and go back to George’s home so Haydon asks after Ann, if she had been sent out to play while he is interrogated. George wants to now who is running Alleline to which Haydon jokes Karla of course, as a middle class bloke with upper class ambitions must be a bounder. George says meant who is Merlin what is going on is. Bill says if anyone’s nose is out of joint it is his given the failure to deliver information. Because of the systems and attitudes

George defends control saying that the chief is opposed to the glamour boys who hog the budgets and Bill retorts that it is a pity he does not have same opposition to failure. He says the problem is of Control and his to some extent is that the networks have not been good enough. Bill suggests control has gone potty and dying and it depends which comes first.

George then tells Peter that Control died of old age, a little early. Testify destroyed his functioning which was a form of murder. After explaining all this to Peter, he admits he does not have enough information on Testify and asks Peter to return to the Circus for the file.

The fourth episode begins with Peter returning to the Circus for the file and which mirrors what happens in the film as he gets hold of the file and is then called to the telephone re his car and takes the file with him but needs his case for the telephone number and switches the real file for a dummy one and then arranges for the bag to be sent to his office at Brixton while he called to the inner sanctum to be quizzed by Alleline.

Mendel is concerned that Peter sounded edgy and too loud. George despite his high standards has great empathy for the frailties of the human condition within limits says he trusts Peter will be Ok. Mendel asks George if he knew what happened in the North Africa affair and George says that Peter met his match and all his agents were hanged. He adds that such an event took time to get over and he would not trust anyone who was not affected, hence Peter being outposted to the Brixton Scalphunters.
Alleline wants to consult Peter where he is given the third degree in front of the rest of the new team after what appears to be a friendly welcome. The new head of research is also there- Mo Delaware. He is offered to be brought back to the Circus if he reports on his contact with Ricki Tarr. Roy asks about Tarr’s daughter who Peter says is called Danny. He says that Tarr’s woman with his daughter has come to the UK via information from an ultra secret source. Alleline calms down and advises that Ricki gets any information about Tarr, the woman and her daughter to let any of the grown ups around the table know. He gets Peter to sign a keep secret declaration at which Haydon mutters that Percy gets more insufferable everyday. Peter says he wouldn’t know.

On returning George takes Peter to see Tarr. Peter is furious with Tarr for not disclosing that the daughter and woman were on their way to the UK and tells George that the declaration stated he would speak to no one about Merlin and Witchcraft. George says he is pleased with Tarr who can be forgiven for not revealing the whole story because it is now certain that Merlin works to Moscow Central because that is where the information about Tarr’s woman and daughter must have come from.

On arrival Tarr’s minder is quizzed and says Tarr did mention the daughter a little at first but he talks more of Irina and living with her in a place in Scotland after an exchange with Moscow when the Mole is caught. He will see the minder alright get him promotion. He has not been out or attempted to phone anyone. Tarr’s distrust causes him to go for Smiley who is defended by the minder and Peter when George works out the measures taken to protect the woman and his daughter. Ricki had exchanged or got rid of the two additional escape passports issued to him and had acquired two new ones using his original to come to back to England which led Moscow centre to advise London he was back in England and alert the Mole to try and locate so he could be eliminated.

Ricki had then booked flights to London for woman and her daughter which would put the Russians of the scent of where he had hidden the two, probably Marseilles suggests George which lit the fuse. Ricki tells George that he should look after his woman and leave Ricki to look after his.

Smiley takes Peter out for a meal on the way back to London. Peter takes the opportunity to ask about Karla who was in England during the War. He tells Peter than he met Karla once when had been used to travel the world interrogating and advising back on those who wanted to defect or were being considered for subverting. Karla had been held on an immigration charge. He had been to San Francisco organising a network which was rolled up the day he left. He had stopped over in India on his way back to Moscow having been sent that way officially when in disgrace and would be shot on return or sent to one of the camps. It has been agreed with the Americans that they would round up the agent and the UK would give him the invitation to defect, Karla had remained silent throughout showing no emotions but had accepted a cigarette ones that he usually smoked and the use of Smiley’ s lighter, the one with the inscription from Anne.

Smiley said told Karla he was not offering money or women and they both were aware of the faults of each other’s system, but this was a way out from the alternatives facing him. He asks about his wife saying she will have to make a new life. Does her have a good friend someone he wants to join him. He says nothing and gets up to leave and Smiley knows he has failed and then realises he has lost the lighter but makes no effort to get it.

Smiley Peters that his boss was shot not Karla who survived and thrived. Smiley confides that whenever he questions anyone they raise his marriage failings, taunt him with it. He also praises Fawn’s intervention and use of Karate. Peter says that Karla is therefore fire proof and George says no. He is a fanatic and the lack of moderation will be his downfall, one day.

On the journey Peter notes that Karla and George have in common their dislike the use of the radio and radio men and the other thing they have in common is the cigarette lighter from Anne. George says that after this is all over Peter should take three months holiday which he had been given by control when he got back from India with no option. Having criticised Peter for driving like the clappers previously he now asks if the handbreak is on! He says they are nearly there, meaning proving the identity of the Mole.

On return he studies the Testify file and then with Lacon present explains that developments confirm the connection between the Mole, Polyakov Merlin and Karla. Lacon says how is going to explain this to the Minister who is thrilled with everything coming from Merlin. Smiley with a hint of glee says that he should make the point that everything the Americans provide in exchange for their access goes straight to Moscow.

The Minister provides the file on there whereabouts of Jim Prideaux. He also says that have evidence that in March the Soviets had executed three of their own with one a woman. Smiley says Ricki most not know because they may still need him. Guillam suggests that Tarr has no such feelings given his behaviour and that he has a woman and daughter aged 12 years. George tells Peter not to underestimate the ability of the agent to have links which bind for whatever reason and something which again comes to the fore in the Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People.

George, and presumably Le Carré, understand that given the personalities and roles of the field agents, it is inevitable they will form relationships some professionally required, other that come their way in additional to letting off steam in brothels or casual picks up, a feature of Jerry Westerby as the upper class Honourable School boy and who we are yet to meet. Just as Bland talks of the functioning ability of holding opposite positions there is also functioning ability to have more than one genuine relationship as the same time as well as to have the genuine alongside the casual. Smiley understands this from his relationship with Ann however much he wishes it were not so.

Tinker Tailor Soldier BBC porduction 1

2011-10-25T07:40:00.000-07:00

It is Tuesday October 25th 2011 and I am at my home on the hill overlooking the entrance to Tyne river at South Shields having enjoying a weekend with spies past and present, fact and fictional.

Spying, the obtaining of information by covert means, is an essential part of national security and intelligence gathering and the more politically and militarily powerful a nation, the greater its need for an effective and ongoing intelligence gathering system which must also include a watch on those within the state who could threaten its stability and security as well as from enemies and potential enemies without.

Having a democratic government with priority given to the Rule of Law are complications because totalitarian regimes and dictatorships have the advantage in not needing to have concerns about whether what they do will be challenged while the regimes remain in control. For democratic nations those who manage security have to live in a moral no man’s land, while the operators live with the possibility of being disowned and imprisoned if things go wrong at home in addition to the dangers when working overseas.

Moral ambiguity is at the heart of the writing of David John Moore Cornwell (John Le Carré), and Graham Greene and behind Callan of the 1960’s 70’s with Edward Woodward and Spooks which came to an end for good on Sunday and which I reported at length yesterday evening. While Ian Fleming, like Cornwell was employed by the national security services for a time, his books and particularly his films have little or no moral uncertainty and bear little relationship to reality.

The highest compliment which can be paid to Cornwall comes in the documentary biographic interview which accompanies the two DVD disc seven episode BBC TV production of the first of the Smiley Karla trilogy which arrived the weekend and which I marvelled at its brilliance throughout Saturday, ending well after midnight. A former East German Soviet counterpart praised the authenticity of his descriptions, and that in relation to the classic work which made him internationally famous:-The Spy who came in from Cold, he was able to communicate the conflict then going on in East Germany between those responsible for internal security and those engaged in covert operations abroad.

The inclusion of the biographical interview changed my planned piece of writing which was to have been restricted to Tinker Tailor and Spooks into something wider. I had already planned to continue with my reading of Le Carré, first with the Mission Song which I acquired sometime ago but have not complete despite the central character having a father who was a Catholic Priest until his death. I then planned to read the other novel in my possession The Russia House, made into a cinema film with Sean Connery and released in 1990 which I have ordered today on DVD together with The Spy who came in from the Cold, The Deadly Affair. The Looking Glass War, the Tailor of Panama, the Constant Gardener and Smiley’s people because my home video version is so poor and all for a total of under £30.

The first impact of the experiencing the BBC production was to confirm why I disagreed with the critics that the recent cinema production is a great film worthy of awards although I accept that the acting is good but not in the same class as that of Sir Alec Guiness and the rest of the team, many of whom also played the same roles in the TV production of the third and concluding volume, Smiley’s People, where I have also reread the book and watched the video, as well as reading the second book, the Honourable Schoolboy, which has not been made into a film or TV series, but is included in the BBC production, the Complete Smiley and which is available in audio disks covering the eight works that feature him to greater or lesser extent. I will leave an attempt overview all three books and the two BBC serials the Karla trilogy until listening to the radio serials.

The second impact yesterday’s experience is to also reread the novels of Graham Green, or at least the ten volumes I posses before embarking upon the planned reread the Strangers and Brothers series of CP Snow of which I posses eight of the ten volumes, and the Anthony Powell’s twelve book series, A Dance to the music of time of where I have nine books, having lost one compendium of three books on one of my UK travels.

These four writers cover what I now describe as my once hoped for life which arose from the experience of studying and living in Oxfordshire during five of six years it was 1960’s although it was the life of an Oxford Don for which I hankered rather that of the spy for although I possessed many of the characteristics defined as essential by Cornwell, several were beyond me: the ability to use violence, to lie and to speak in other tongues.

There have been two instances in my life when I speculated if my potential to work for an Intelligence service was being assessed. I was twenty and in the midst of my work for international peace by non violent action when a stranger called at the family home one evening without prior contact and referred to my having attended a closed meeting of a notorious Trotskyite organisation. My instinct at the time was that the organisation which would had no previous knowledge of me had called to assess my suitability for further involvement and we entered into passionate arguments about Christianity and non violence with the consequence he departed and there was no further contact. But later I wondered if I had misread the situation. The second instance was some three decades later when I received a letter with a telephone number to ring if I wanted to earn several times my then substantial employment income. I did not immediately respond and later when I did I was advised that the contact was in Africa and would be so for several months but if I was interested arrangements would be made and a date, time and location at a hotel was arranged but I decided against going because the aspect which had been disclosed was travel to Eastern European countries and this was only with a couple of years of the Berlin Wall be taken down and had implications which I decide not to test out. Again there were other possibilities which I had learned to always consider and not settle on one without proofs acceptable to me.

I believe I have seen the Cornwell documentary before as I also believe the play about life with his father, or at least extracts of it, although it appeared fresh because of the more penetrating lens of life which I seem to have acquired over the past years of concentrated self analysis, looking backwards, together with a sharpened critical examination of the works of those I admire and who have contributed so much to making me the person I have become.

The documentary begins with the observation that while the confidence trickster, gambler and actor play roles similar to the security and intelligent agent they can also switch into their other selves other whereas the agent has always to be their working selves which over time impacts on their inner perception as well as their outer face to others.

He described his father as a confidence trickster and racketeer always on the run from creditors and getting his son to lie about his whereabouts and passing on message which were known to be untrue when they were made. His mother disappeared when he was five and from the Wikipedia Biography there is no reference to what happened to her which suggests, given his onetime profession that either she had disappeared from the records and never made contact when he became famous, or he did undertake a search and has kept secret what was discovered. With the Spy being the master of half truths and disinformation one has to judge what he said about himself and his life with caution. It is consistent with the personality and checkable that his father attempted to become a professional politician, was adopted as a candidate and fought a General Election, echoing one of the Yes Prime Minister episodes in using the same speech adapted for each occasion.

His father had also talked his way out of the accusation of having been to prison at one election meeting and then pretended to his son that the office had been a minor of borrowing from post petty cash when in fact he found out later his father had been sent to prison four years. The consequence of his background is that Cornwell became secretive as a way of coping with his family situation, something which I know from my own childhood only too well as well as creating a distinctive inner life, becoming a keen watcher and observer and feeling separate and different from the rest of society.

As a reaction to the High church Christianity of Sherbourne School and the rackety criminality of his father he fled to Berne to a German speaking school in Switzerland which is itself an extraordinary development which I parallel my entering the world of traditional jazz and Soho life at the age of sixteen from my independent Catholic School and church middle class and claustrophobic suburban world. With the consequence that while he returned to England and a patriot he had always felt distant from it.

His story is that to keep in contact with England and its language he attended a small C of E chapel which was used by staff at the British Embassy and where the church goers invited him to their homes and this led to being recruited to undertake small delivery and collection jobs within Switzerland as a kind of courier. Although not precise for obvious reasons it appears that he was recruited when undertaking National Service although I am unsure if her did this before or after he went up to Oxford. He got into to Oxford via his former Master at Sherbourne and by the time he was subsequently recruited by MI5 he had married and his wife had to be interviewed and advised of her future conduct and what marriage to a Spook was going to be like. He had been an informant while at Oxford writing and associating with the left wing on the look out for the attempt of the Soviet Union to subvert knew undergraduates in the 50’s as they had successfully in the 30’s. His wife said that she was aware he had run informants who she thought were mainly trade unionist that had been or were communists but become disillusioned with what happened in 1956 and the uprisings.

He had started to write on the hour long train journey from where they lived into London which means that he did so via first class travel as it would have been impossible to do so on the commuter trains from my experience travelling for thirty five to forty minutes into Victoria Station between 1955 to 1957, unless one had a table and space. At one level I am full admiration that he was able to switch attention from his paid work to writing fiction in such conditions, but then of course the gulf between his work and his writing was not as wide as he pretended to the media until long after he had left the service.

When their second son was born he suddenly announced to his wife that he had moved from MI5 to 6 which he passed off saying that it would mean living and travelling abroad and great fun. He had gone into deep cover which meant his role was not disclosed even when placed in the country of ally.

The most revealing comment made about his writing of the Spy Who Came in from the Cold that it was evident from the papers which came across his desk how close the world was coming to another World War and he had written the book to make the point: A plague upon both houses. It is at this point the former Counter Intelligence chief from East Germany said he had obtained a copy of the book and was astonished at the depiction of the contradictions between the two leading characters from national security and counter intelligence in the books and he had always wanted to ask Cornwell if he had received intelligence about the actual situation inside the Ministry of state security or has guessed correctly. He said that the methods of interrogation were the same worldwide and that they would have a file of detailed background information and you would have someone who understood the individual and their motives while the other was hard and that in GDR physical methods was not allowed so they used psychological and these were akin to a form torture and were painful.

The Spy was published in the autumn of 63 just about when Kennedy was assassinated and by January 64 he had Life Magazine putting him on the front cover. Things hoted up so quickly that his office politely asked him to leave. His had a worm’s eye view of the secret world which he developed when he left the Service in his early thirties and which became a metaphor for the human condition.

He had not been in the spy world long before George Blake was unmasked and then in Bonn for a few months when Philby was found out and the shock was not which operations had been blown, but these were Gentlemen, men like us! He could not accept the duality of the life Philby had led recruiting and training people to go to Albania, saying it would be dangerous but was in the cause of a free Albania and then giving the information to the Russians so the agents would be picked up in arrival and executed dying horrible deaths under torture. Philby knew about what was happening in the Soviets and their planned genocide of the middle class. The East German said he had great admiration for Philby because he acted from belief rather than for money, sex or because of blackmail. A former KGB agent compared Philby to Cornwell and Sir Alec Guiness and said they were alike as men of intelligence and Gentlemen. Enough to make one still believe in revolution if it were not a Gentleman I would still be.

Now it is time to concentrate on the BBC TV production of the book and which brought out all the characterization, the nuances and tensions which the film failed to do. The start is brilliant with a shot of Cambridge Circus with four of the top men assembling for a conference and Control (Alexander Knox) saying- Let’s begin and then moving the titles with the Russian egg figurines.

At his home Control explains to Jim the mission called Testify with Mendel, the former Policeman, acting as guard (babysitter) outside from a telephone box. The reason for the mission is that the potential convert says he has Treasure in exchange for his escape to the West, the name the Mole- code name Gerald that he learned when working in Moscow Centre. Control names the top group involved which Jim can scarcely believe: Percy Alleline his Director of Operations as Tinker, Bill Haydon the Director of Personnel with access to who is where is assigned Tailor, Roy Bland, the Director of Iron Curtain networks is Soldier, Toby Esterhase the Head of the Lamplighters (Surveillance and Couriers) is Poor Man and his “devoted” deputy Smiley Beggar Man.

The difference between the BBC production and the film is summed up in these opening moments as in the production we get to know the immediate inner reflections and personalities of the main characters as well as the nature of the activity. Control has the files and the pictures of his immediate subordinates pinned to a notice board which fits into his academic systematic approach and not the gimmicky attaching of small photos to chess pieces which is not his style however clever an idea.

The contrast between the way the BBC production portrays what then happens to Jim compared to that in the film is another example when one works and the other does not. The production communicates what travelling to a Soviet country was like at the time and the caution which spies had to take. In this instance Jim changes top clothes with his taxi driver escort and sends him forward to meet the General and triggers the trap prepared for him. He tries to back the car out of the forest but the extent of gun fire is such that he is unable to retreat before getting out of the vehicle before it blows up and then we know he is either shot, captured tortured or dead? The scene in the film is too staged glossy and has Karla, the Russian head of special counter Intelligence with the lighter borrowed from George Smiley at their only meeting in India before Karla became the powerful and dangerous man of the day.

I also liked the full meeting and meal between George and Roddy Martindale of the Foreign Office, a life long professional contact, which is designed to bring the audience up to date with the new set up at the Circus with Alleline in charge instead of George because of the Jim Prideaux Scandal and following the death of Control. Roddy suggests Control is still alive, in South Africa, but George knows better, he knew Control was dying over those last months when he became a recluse from the rest of team as he worked to find out the Mole at his table and he had died from premature old age provoked by the death of Jim and the failure of the mission.

Roddy says Alleline is not up to the speaking of his manner with contempt from having known Alleline and George throughout their time in the Civil Service which has irony because it is evident that that George has as much contempt for Roddy as he has for Alleline. Roddy continues in his usual manner disregarding the response of the other person, suggesting Bill Haydon is bisexual having had a relationship with Jim Prideaux and taunting George about Bill’s relationship with wife Ann and her promiscuity. The laid back show no reaction George explodes calling Roddy a pompous fool, although what Roddy says is all true.

The meeting and meal highlights main failure of the film because unless you have read the books or seen the BBC production most of what happens and why remains a mystery. Ok you grasp the essentials that there is a Mole and George who was sacked is temporarily employed to find out in secret that it is and does so at the end. The ensemble acting in the film is good but I was left greatly disappointed. That is enough of the film which will not be allowed to spoil the satisfaction with the BBC serial and which as with all great works of art can be experienced time and time again gaining new insights.

Before the encounter with Roddy (Nigel Stock) George had seen Peter Guillam outside the bookshop and immediate knew he was wanted and escapes via the rear entrance of the store only to find Peter waiting for him at home having made his way in without a key but leaves his gloves at the entrance so George will know it is a friend. Peter (Michael Jayston) has been sent to escort George to the home of Oliver Lacon played by Anthony Bate. Peter has been outposted to Brixton in charge of the Scalphunters (the licence to work outside the law) which on the journey leads Smiley to make observations about Bill Hayden and which in turn Peter explains the changes to the new set up with the regions, each having a JuJu man controller, abolished, and everything coming directly to London Station and Bill Haydon with Brand his number two and Esterhase their Gofer. The object of the change is to make them more secure to which George responds, a very good idea.

Then there is an exchange which sets the tone of the language and issues of the series beyond the scene setting explanations of the first episode. Peter asks why George, on your last day did you choose me to tell me you had been sacked and then go out and get drunk? The reply provokes Peter to remind George what he said when worse for drink later that night and Peter had asked why George had been sacked. George in his endearing way who always answers a question with a question says: reason as logic? Reason as motive? Reason as a way of life? George had continued “they do not have to give me reasons I can make my own reasons.” This exchange arises after George had asked why Peter had been sent because his answer would give a George a clue about why he had been summoned. It is also the important link which takes Peter into the Honourable School and again as a key character in Smiley’s People.

Ricky Tarr (Hywell Bennett) is at the home of the Cabinet Office secretary responsibility for Circus operations and coordination with the then separate Foreign and Colonial offices, the Ministry of defence and the Treasury. In the background is hard man Babysitter Fawn who is also someone like Lacon who is involved throughout the trilogy. George establishes that Ricki is on the wanted listed and absent without leave. Is presence has been kept secret from the rest of the Circus. George has therefore worked out the reason fro his summons. Why despite protestations that he had retired and established a new and satisfying life, is that George is a man with unfinished business and does not hesitate to give up his immediate existence for the opportunity to finish. He is a classic traditional Chairman leader with completer finisher secondary qualities. As a Creative Shaper leader it was my uncommon completer finisher obsession which so interested Henley and which were to prove my salvation but also my cross.

Rick then begins his tale with the day he was sent to Lisbon, and the start of events which will change all their lives.

Spooks series 10 in perspective

2011-10-24T03:04:00.000-07:00

There are several creators of fictional stories of British National Security, and convert operations whose work has impressed, engaged, moved and become part of my life commencing with Graham Greene, and then David Cornwell, otherwise known as John le Carré, Callan with Edward Woodward and for the past decade Spooks, with Peter Firth as Harry Pierce and where the last episode of the last series came to its emotional and intellectually challenging conclusion on Sunday evening 23 October 2011.

In a documentary about his life and work, included in the Tinker Tailor 2 DVD set of the BBC production, Cornwell explained that he had written The Spy who Came out of the Cold quickly, subsequently editing to what became the International best seller and film with such popularity that it led him to having to leave his main profession as a member of MI6, but knowing that the book was everything he wanted from a creation as a writer.

I felt like that when I embarked upon my Artman 101 project, with the inherent paradox that at present I know the work needs recognition during my lifetime for it to be secured after my death, yet that any recognition before my death would prevent me from continuing to complete the work with the originality and consistency that has developed over the past eight years.

For the greater part of today I have attempted to write about the experience of viewing the seven episode BBC production of Tinker Tailor yesterday following by the documentary in the first hours of this morning, only halting to watch the final episode of Spooks and then knowing that I needed to write this before continuing with the other and that completion of the second writing would only become part of further work in relation to Le Carré and Greene and which in turn puts back but also brings forward the rereading and writing about the CP Snow ten book series Strangers and Brothers and the Anthony Powell 12 book series of A Dance to the Music of Time. I see these works as precursors of what I am attempting to do, to write about the experiences of a life over time.

Sir Harry Pierce KBE (Peter Firth) is no Smiley in that he is unable to detach himself from the pain of his professional and private life, such as it is, and that although he takes horrendous decisions which destroy, sometimes sacrificing, his own and the lives of those he cares about, he continues because he is certain that what he does is for the greater good as well as for the immediate security and individual safety of his fellow countrymen.

Harry is a creative thinker with an ability to use that blend of intuition and previous experience which few possess with the consistency to be trusted with high office whereas George Smiley has methodical academic persistence and thoroughness as had his predecessor at MI6-the Circus, which is not surprising as the character was based on a Master at Sherbourne School and then of an Oxford College with an uncanny resemblance to Sir Alec Guiness, or more accurately vice versa.

But the two men only come fully alive when at their desks or out successfully completing a task but whereas George has his academic and other interests that provide an alternative satisfying life when not required or can be assumed during retirement, Harry has no life, and thus it is when at the end of the series he has lost the only chance left of finding a life outside the work, it is taken from him, although he and we know it would never have worked anyway.

There is also one other fundamental factor which connects much of the work of Graham Greene. Le Carré, Callan and the Spooks’ writers, that the stories however authentic in their construction and believable in their representation of life within MI5 and 6 are always secondary to the moral ambiguity of their roles, protecting life but also taking life, upholding democratic values and the Rule of Law but also invading personal rights and privacy and breaking the law whenever necessary.

The only other continuing member of the Spook’s team is Ruth Evershed (Nicola Walker) who was officially believed to have died at the end in the 2006, but Harry arranged for her to disappear, and she goes to a Greek Island where she established a relationship and brings up a step child. Prior to this Harry and Ruth had become close but knew their relationship could never become official because of their roles and the past. She reluctantly returns after her partner is killed and the child is brought up by others members of his extended family. There is a strong bond between Ruth and Harry and vice versa, which is deeper than most describe as love and beyond physical attraction. They will protect and if necessary cover up for each other and as emerges die for each other, as well as for their beliefs and their country.

Ruth has the same role at MI5 as Connie in Le Carré world, the super analyst who makes sense of vast quantities of information and sees what needs to be understood and this is prove Harry’s and the nation’s saviour in the last series, but alas not her own.

In the 9th series Harry forced the Administration to do a trade to rescue captured Ruth and Lucas North who has cracked from his time imprisoned by the Russians, becomes a traitor, so Harry is placed on gardening leave with a new acting head of service while his conduct is officially investigated by a Tribunal.

The Coalition Home Secretary has continuing doubts about Harry after his years of service to the previous Order and offers Harry a way back on the basis that the Tribunal decision is kicked into the long grass but can be resurrected if he fails to cooperate.

A retired former Spook Max Witt (Giles Havergal) has been killed at his home although the death is first made to look natural. It has emerged that Witt was killed because he knew somebody is posing as Harry using his old coded messages from the Cold War to gain the confidence of a former agent and gain current information about Russian activities.

This leads to learning that a Russian businessman, Government Minister and former KGB hard line officer akin to Le Carré’s Karla (Ilya Gavrik (Jonathan Hyde) is in London within his wife and son on a secret mission for the establishment of a new intelligence and anti terrorism relationship with the UK, and in secret from the USA who appear to want to keep control but distance themselves from issues in Europe. Harry has his doubts about opening up of British intelligence information to the Russians again similar to the situation that arose at the Circus of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and this is shared by his USA link officer in London Alton Beecher (Colin Salmond) who appears to know that something is afoot and warns Harry against such a development.

Harry has another reason for concern which he tells Ruth who is to accompany him as his partner at a reception in the London to begin the forging of the new relationship. Two decades ago Harry converted the man’s wife, Elena (Alice Krige) and the two had an affair and the couple‘s only child is Harry‘s. He arranges a secret meeting at the reception to arrange another meeting so he can warn her that he has not made previous contact and she has been sending information to an unknown third party. Their son Sasha Gavrik (Tom Weston-Jones) is a serving officer in the current Russian security service and is part of the delegation with responsibility to protect his parents on their secret mission to London. The son is waiting for Harry at his home threatens to kill him because he knows Harry was responsible for his mother being a traitor and the young man refuses to listen when Harry tries to reassure him that he had not resurrected the relationship in any form.

An attempt to assassinate the Russian emissary, ostensibly by a Chechen rebel is foiled and the man is killed by the new Director of Operations of the team and is her first kill. She resists the invitation to go out for a drink with a male colleague who says he knows they both lead lonely lives without friends because of the nature of their work, a theme constantly explored in the previous series. In fact she returns to a normal home life where her mother looks after her daughter while she away at work.

In the second episode a member of the team is mugged on his way to a meeting and his laptop containing the identities of five high level assets is stolen, one of which is Martha Ford (Lydia Leonard), an attractive woman who works for one of Gavrik's companies in London

Those behind the taking of the laptop appear to know what they were doing and threaten to release the identity of the uncover officers unless their conditions are met, The Team’s skilled technocrat attempts to trace the origin of the messages and eventually this is tracked to a former disenchanted spy but he has been working for someone else to organised the snatch of the information. The first undercover agent is revealed in the media and he commits suicide.

While the decision is taken to remove from the danger and take Martha to a safe house and offered protection she is asked to undertake one more mission and gain a copy of the hard drive of the Russian’s office computer. She is reassured she will be safe and is nearly caught but is able to leave the building having seen her face on the news on a TV monitor. It is evident to the Team that this is an attempt to undermine the proposed new relationship with Russian intelligence and where no doubt there are those in Moscow who are also unhappy about the new policy.

The Russian emissary demands that the girl is cut adrift as the price for enabling the new relationship to develop. This is a very hard thing for the head of Operations to implement as she has made promises about protecting the young woman who is now terrified about being paid off without the ongoing assistance and protection of the state. Harry is confident that his senior assistant can cope and one day becomes his successor. The betrayal of a promise made in good faith is a frequent aspect of the work of the Scalphunter and their managers.

Meanwhile Sasha tells his mother he is aware she has been a traitor and wants to know why she did it before he agrees to protect her. She explains that her parents disappeared and were killed by old regime because they were kind and wanted help others. One of Sasha’s closest friends and also a member of service begin to track down that there is a traitor within the mission and this forces Sasha to kill him and call on Harry to help in the cover up.

Meanwhile they try to find out who is behind the attempt to derail negotiations on the new relationship. While working at home their computer expert Tariq Masood (Shazad Latif) discovers vital information from studying close circuit footage of the area where the laptop was snatched. On his way to the HQ someone bumps into him and these results in his death from a secret injection. He dies on the steps of the building where he is found about another colleague. Harry meets Elena to warn her someone has been posing as him and he also asks Ruth to check up of the London CIA man Jim Cover (William Hope), believing the is the impostor.

As has been a regular feature of previous series the main story is interspersed with other others and in the third episode the belief that someone Johnny Grier (Mel Raido) is attempting to detonate a dirty bomb in London (as if there is such a thing as a clean bomb). Trace amounts of radioactive material have been found at Heathrow Airport and closed circuit camera film reveals that a well known anarchist and international protestor has re-entered the county and that he has a sister who uses an on line site for relationships. Another new member of the team Dimitri Levendis (Max Brown) is asked to operate a honey trap against his better judgement the sister, Natalie (Georgina Rich), via Internet dating.

She knows nothing which makes Dimitri even guiltier especially she wants more than one night stand. The brother arrives on the scene and is suspicious of Johnny but eventually takes to him which complicates his wanting to get out of the relationship with the sister. It appears that the target of the bomber and his many associates in London is a London based investment company which made millions out of the nuclear disaster in Japan.

The target is taken into custody and because of pressure Johnny reveals that he thought he was bringing heroin in to the UK and no idea a bomb was involved with the intention of killing and maiming. He gives information which leads capture of those in a vehicle reaching the destination building; however it is empty with no trace of the nuclear material. The team realises that Greer was lying and that this was a ploy to enable him to launch a personal attack on the Chief Executive Officer of the company. He breaks the phial over himself so only he is affected, hastening his end after the CEO escapes. He persuades Dimitri to end the relationship with his sister without revealing she was being used.

Throughout the episode there are links with the series story as Ruth goes to meet the wife of the Russian accompanied by the son to reveal that the CIA appear to be behind the sending of messages as if it was Harry underlining their intent to undermine the proposed new relationship between Russian and the UK. The team then find out the reason for the murder of Tariq, he had identified that the individual who stole the laptop works indirectly for the CIA and that she was also present at the party where the assassination attempt was to have been made. This suggests that the CIA killed Tariq

Meanwhile there has been another development which suggests the there is more afoot. The Home Secretary asks that Ruth keeps him informed as she high hopes for her in the future. Ruth goes along with this, we presume to gain knowledge for passing on to Harry. He follows up the first overture by taking her out to dinner.

This is what I had written at the end of the third episode but over the next three episodes everything is stood on its head and then given several twists and shake before the truth emerges in the final episode which I am sure will become the TV drama production event of 2011.

In episode 4 an Islamic extremist leader Zubier Al-Saad (Jeffery Kissoon), has application for release on licence turned down so he instructs two recently released inmates to commit a revenge suicide attack. One of those released, Ashur Mohali (Asif Khan), has been working for MI5 keeping them informed of what is being discussed inside the prison and he agrees to help stop the attack if his young daughter is protected and given British citizenship. Those organising the attack distrust Ashur and kidnap not only his daughter but that of units’ new number 2. Her daughter is rescued and mother pretends it has been no more than an adventure but she seriously considers leaving the service. The other girl is also rescued and the attack foiled but at the price of Ashur losing his life because he had become the instrument of suicide bombing in Trafalgar Square.

Convinced that it is the head of the CIA in London who is behind plans to wreck the proposed deal with Russia, and therefore was responsible for the death of Tarik, Harry with Ruth set up the wife of Russian Minister and his official son as bait to catch Coaver. They spot Coaver’s official car close by and then the woman who stole the laptop approach the car and speak to the driver hidden from view inside. The Car drives off, someone narrowly misses shooting Elena and the independent agent is killed. Satisfied with the evidence that Coaver, the CIA man, was responsible, Harry tells him he is coming after him.

In the penultimate episode, Harry has told Ruth to take the job as independent Security Adviser to the Minister and to take up the appointment immediately because of how he believes the situation will develop. He leads the team in kidnapping the CIA man who then denies as strongly as he can that he was not involved although he had used the independent female agent in the past and had gone to a meeting with her that she had requested but which had quickly come to nothing so he had driven off. Out of loyalty to her new boss Ruth discloses the action taken and his location. A CIA USA Embassy team arrive with instructions for the immediate release of Coaver but then they realise they have been duped as the official release team arrive. Coaver is dumped onto the roadway dying as the unit give high speed chase. He tells Harry that the truth is on his lap top. He was not working against British Intelligence.

Harry decides that it is the Russian Minister who is secretly trying to stop the treaty being signed and he tells the wife of this. The couple have had a frank exchange in which the husband admits that he was aware that his wife had become a traitor and had had set about protecting her and their son. In discussion between Harry and Jim we learn that it was Coaver who had intervened to prevent Elena and her son joining Harry in the West as she had been stood up at the agreed location where they had to wait for him.

The Unit is too late get the laptop from the hotel as it has been removed as part of the personal effects to the USA Embassy storage, and Sasha who has planted surveillance devices learns about the lap top and the subsequent successful attempt by Ruth who accompanies the Minister to the Embassy to discuss the death of the CIA officer and the role of Harry, to gain access to the computer and record the contents of the hard drive. Off screen we learn that Sasha has taken the data transfer stick from Ruth before she can transfer the contents to unit (one of the few weaker moments in the overall plot) and we observe the son finding out that Harry is his father, increasing his emotional turmoil and he smashes his personal lap top although as we know the data probably remains intact. (It is important to remember that Coaver says that the truth was on the lap top).

Meanwhile the Minister tells Ruth he had no alternative but to hand over Harry to the Americans for extradition to the USA. When in custody at the embassy a senior military officer attacks Harry because his own father had served with Coaver. Harry knows that his life as well as his career is now under threat along with the prospect of long term imprisonment. The situation is building up dramatically to a finale and only discovery and proof of who is the lead individual attempting to stop the Treaty can save Harry.

As Harry faces deportation to the United States via a special military authorised flight later in the day. The wife of the Russian Minister and Harry‘s former lover and agent contacts to say she must speak to Harry as a major attack is being planned on London costing thousands of lives to wreck the Treaty which her husband is signing on behalf of the Russian Government in London that morning. We the audience had watched Elena in contact with some in Russia who says they will initiate action and we then see an operative take a device in an attaché case through airport control in Moscow using a coded message and insists on keeping the case at his feet against the advice of a stewardess who keeps observation because of his suspicious behaviour

Two members of the Unit plant devices in the roadway which immobilise the two vehicles ahead and behind that transporting Harry to the airbase and rescue Harry as meanwhile Ruth and a member of the Unit collect Elena who has been with her husband at the Embassy giving a press conference and her son Sasha who has noted developments insists on accompanying them and they all meet up at a former Ministry of Defence site on the coast which has a secure interview room with listening and observation position outside.

It is here that with her son and the other members of the Unit and Ruth listening Elena reveals that she was part of a special Karla type unit in Moscow and that she had been instructed to seduce Harry, appear to become his agent, providing some good material as well as “chicken feed.” When Harry had fallen in love and said she he did not want to use her as an agent (under USA CIA pressure) she had been told to defect with her son although the son was that of her husband, saying he was Harry would add to the emotional pressure for Harry to arrange the defection. This had been stopped by Coaver.

Her group had continued to function following the collapse of the Soviet Union and widened their membership to include leading figures who wanted a return to the former power and status of Russia and therefore the attempt to wreck the Treaty with the UK which the group regarded as retrograde and humiliating. She had sent the messages to herself and help arrange the death of the former agent who was being sent the messages, the attempt to assassinate her husband and then the death of Tarik, the attempt on her life providing details which only someone directly involved would know.

The reason she was now intervening was because she was against the loss of innocent lives as the plane carrying some 400 Russian and UK citizens was going to crash/blow up over or on central London - a mixture of Lockerbie and 9/11 and she was against the loss of innocent lives (this immediate struck me as inconsistent and should have struck Harry as it did Ruth although they were both caught up in the emotions of the moment.

Elena had become aware that Ruth was in love with Harry but that his secret love affair with Elena and its ending through the intervention of Jim Coaver resulting in the separation not just from her but his son was a barrier to his having a viable relationship with anyone else. She tells Ruth she will show what kind of man Harry really is. Elena says that Harry converted her into being a spy by providing documentation which revealed that her parents been tortured and killed by the Russian Regime, but she knew they had been killed in a road accident and that Harry’s story was a fake. Ruth interpreted this revelation different from the way Elena anticipated appreciating that Harry would have emotionally torn apart by having to use the story to convert Elena with whom he had fallen in love and believed her child was his.

At these points she reveals only the British contact telephone number of the agents in the UK who are undertaking the outrage mission with the help of those in Moscow. She does not reveal her knowledge of the man on the plane that meanwhile has killed the inquisitive stewardess and opened the box of tricks which appears to contain radar type positioning screen as well as devices which look like some kind of bomb.

The Unit trace the telephone number to a factory site where they find someone killed in the midst of destroying documentation but one document has all the content blacked out but with a photo of the man on the plane remaining. Elena says he is their top notch operative and they then are able to trace his latest whereabouts as having boarded the particular flight. Harry draws the conclusion that this is a suicide plane mission and on the principle of the American 4th plane it is proposed to destroy the plane and its passengers before it reaches UK airspace. At this point it was evident to me that this was the clever part of Elena and her group’s plan, that is to get the British Government to shoot down a plane full of Russian citizens and then fore not just end the Treaty before it was established but provoke the Russian government into some form retaliation and with the Americans unsympathetic because of what had happened to their chief CIA man in London.

Harry is able to convince the Minister to take action to shoot the plane from the sky but Ruth remains concerned and tell the members of the Unit to recheck the scene at the London centre of the group. Meanwhile Elena’s husband has expressed concern at the disappearance of his wife and son and Ruth tells him where they are and he decided to find out what is happening by driving himself on his own.

The Unit discovers that thedocument shredder had been fixed to stop just before the photo was being destroyed rather than the machine had broken down. It was also not clear why the assassin of the operative had not removed the documents with him or her. The Minister who is attending a meeting of the National Security team is reluctant to abort the mission, especially as it has entered British airspace. It is the Russian Minister who is able to convince the British Minister warning of the retaliation which would take place if he does not abort. Gavrik is convinced that his wife has been lying about her unwillingness to cost innocent lives when Harry warns that he will shoot her son and now someone he knows is not his, if she not admits she is behind the double or triple bluff. She is fanatical in her devotion to the cause that she is prepared to give up the life of her husband and now the life their son.

The Russian Minister agrees to talk to the British Minister only when Ruth gives him the key to the room in which his is being held He enters, locks himself in and strangles his wife to death. The son who is watching and throughout has put the love and respect for his mother above everything else attempts in vain to smash in a window into the room but does so with the help of Unit using heir firearms. They are too late and he picks up a long silver of the broker window and goes off in search of Harry who shaken by all the revelation and shattering of his illusions for the past thirty years is out walking on the beach where Ruth has gone to join him. She had previously talked of a countryside coastal cottage she had contemplated buying when she thought they were going to be together but had not inspected because when she realised the barrier between them. Now she appreciated that it the layers of secrets which each of them up which made them the people they were and the strength of bond between them. She pleads with Harry that they should both give up their Service lives before there is nothing left of their true selves.

At this point the son arrives and moves to attack Harry as he believes it is Harry who gave the key to his father. Ruth intervenes and is stabbed. Other members of the Unit shoot the son. We are not told if the boy lives who is one of the victims of the situation. Similarly we do not know what happens to the Russian Minister but who in the circumstances it can be assumed returns home to sort out the enemy within. It is uncertain for a while if Ruth will survive. She does not.

Harry goes to see the cottage home Ruth had mentioned and he is so upset he leaves. It is not clear if he had intended to buy it and live in but he is too emotionally disturbed. There is phone conversation between Harry and the Minister in which the Minister says he will support whatever Harry decides to do. It is evident the situations created with the Americans has been resolved, In the final scene we see Harry returning to his desk at the Unit after looking at and touching the memorial stone at the centre to which Ruth’s name has been added to the list of all the other agents who have died in service during the ten years of the series. The others look to the room in amazement but the number 2 tells them to go on as normal and asks for a briefing as to what is happening. Someone replies that the baddies are still trying to kill them. Harry’s phone rings, He lets it ring. Harry then answers Harry Pierce letting us know he is back in charge.

I debate if this is really the end of the series. Perhaps it is being held over for the year of the Olympics. Perhaps Harry has some other work in hand or wants to leave. Perhaps they have run out of stories. I think now that everyone is dead or departed who was there at the beginning of the series except Harry it is a fitting moment to end the series. By his way, the individual exchanged for Ruth in the previous series is used by Harry to help sort out the Russian dissidents.

Nicola Walker who played Ruth is a fine actor who commenced serious performing when at New Hall Cambridge she joined he footlights with one of the writers of Spooks and the comedienne Sue Perkins. While at University she played a part in the TV adaptation of A Dance to the Music of Time. She has continued to act in TV and on the stage during her time with Spooks. She is married to an Actor and they have a son who they called Harry, and yes it is named after Harry of Spooks.

Peter Firth who played Harry throughout its ten years was born 1953 but looks older was a child actor who continued into adult roles on TV and the stage including an Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his role in the film version of Equus and has appeared on the Broadway stage as well as several other films, some 30 in total as well as on TV in the USA and Canada. He has been married twice with in the first instance his wife moving on to a relationship with the son of Diana Dors. He has four children by his second marriage. If they do not receive awards for their performances there aint any dramatic justice.

Sopranos season 3 continued

2011-10-23T02:32:00.001-07:00

I have not appreciated the humour of the Sopranos until the most recent three episodes which had me in quiet fits of laughter throughout. They begin with episode 35 in season three on Carmela’s birthday when her son gives her a DVD of the Matrix which dad comments as being right up her alley while the daughter fares no better using her Mother’s credit card to buy them both a gift certificate for a day’s relaxation and beauty treatment at a spa.

The three episodes The Telltale Moozadell (Italian slang for mozzarella cheese and the Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Tell Tale Heart) To Save us all from Satan’s Power (God Rest you Merry Gentleman) and Pines Barrens (Protected New Jersey Wilderness and covers a quarter of the land mass of the state) are spread over either side of Christmas with heavy snow covering the Pines in the third of the series.

Tony begins in an excellent mood buying an expensive but gaudy sapphire ring for his wife’s birthday and who appears to have no inkling that he is having another of his great passions with the Mercedes Motor Sales firm executive, Gloria Trillo, who he met at the Psycho Analyst office when there was a double booking and who in a session with Dr. Melfi and unbeknown to Tony, has a suicidal past as well as a tendency towards having unhealthy relationships. They both hint to Dr Melfi they are in an important relationship and when the doctor works out the two are together they both react with hostility when she reminds them of their history of disastrous relationships. She has one joint session with Tony and Carmela and notes that they both appear able to talk over matters without becoming angry and frustrated with each other which pleases them both but afterwards Dr Melfi fumes to her consultant about patients who lie to her.

Tony denies he is presenting situation is a false one despite being remind what happened in relation to the Russian girlfriend, and who rings him at the boat when Gloria is waiting for him. Using the boat is one indication of how much he is smitten as until now he has avoided visiting because it reminds of when he took Pussy out to swim with the fishes. To Gloria’s amazement he accepts an invitation to visit the zoo forgoing an afternoon of bedtime pleasure although they end up having a quickie under a canopy in the reptile house oblivious to a giant serpent entangling above their heads.

All appears to go well until one evening when he skimps his food at home claiming he had a late lunch because he has promised to have a meal in with the mistress and then he has to leave because of a crisis caused by one of his Captains and Christopher and when she throws the main course at him and trashes the carefully lain table top settings. Tony denies to Dr Melfi that he has an inclination to go for depressed woman who seek to control him and their association with his mother, Livia. Tony is feeling so good that he gives additional fee money to Dr Melfi which she refuses and he tells her to give to charity if she wishes. Her son phones on the cadge for more funds because he needs expensive text books so she swallows principles and uses the criminals stolen money to help her son. She has become another corrupted soul.

Carmela still oblivious to Tony’s behaviour tells a friend that Tony has changed his mind about getting a Mercedes Sport car saying that these are bought by men having a midlife crisis.

Where Tony and his wife agree is over the unsuitability of their daughter’s relationship with the son of Jackie Aprile. When his wife first raises the concern Tony defends the young man but over the three episodes his eyes are opened. He finds the young man in a gambling joint and then when he goes to visit the sex bar of the opposition for a night out with two of the boys he catches the young man fooling around with a topless dancer. He beats up Jackie Junior during which he finds he young man is carrying a piece

Jackie had arrange for a gun after an incident involving one of his associated drug pushers and a new joint The Lollipop Club which has been taken over by Christopher and the mob when its owner fails to keep up with protection payments/gambling debts because the place is dying on its feet. Christopher gives the club to his girl friend Adriana to manage, and she renames it The Crazy Horse. Christopher tells her that she will be the owner-manager and that the previous owner will work for her, as he broke himself financially betting on a football game and had to give up his business as a result. Furio Giunta and Christopher own a percentage as "silent partners"

Christopher also sees the club as an opportunity for the gang to run their business in a safe environment without FBI interference. However, at the opening, a drug dealer named Matush is caught pushing Ecstasy and is kicked out and told not to return. The pusher appeals to Jackie Jnr who is trying to appear a big man with his friends but when he approaches Christopher to make allowances, for a cut, he is told no and instead of admitting his failure he tells Matush he can go ahead but do so outside the club for a couple of weeks.

Matush is then badly beaten up by Furio when caught peddling outside the club and put into traction over the Christmas period. Knowing that if this gets back to Tony he gets his mother’s new man, the gangster Ralphie, to get him the gun. Over Christmas Jnr admits he was sent down from College. Previously he had said he was getting an A grade in literature because Meadow had written his paper. He had given Meadow an engraved necklace saying I will always be true. However it is not Tony’s efforts which end the relationship but Meadow, when she finds Jnr with another girl following a tip off.

Tony sister Janice, has decided that after spending Christmas’s with Carmela over several years, she wants to cook Christmas dinner for the family but when Tony and Carmela go over to help with the preparations they find chaos because Janice is finding it difficult to do anything because of the pain in her arm following the incident when a Russian came over to retrieve the expensive artificial leg belonging to Livia’s nurse. Tony has a list of things to do in his note book and adds The Russian. Arising from his trip to Italy Tony is doing deals with the Russians over the expensive car thefts and recycling and also laundering money by the hundreds of thousand dollars. He asks a favour to locate the Russian who has caused Janice ongoing pain for him but says he will sort the man out when his partners offer to do the damage. They pose as revellers and take the taxi the man has for his official living and later we see a news video of the man beaten up and left and a sleigh in the window of a store in a shopping mall. Janice understands this will have been Tony’s work and is moved by her brother’s gesture despite they way they are constantly at each others throats, verbally.

If Meadow has taxed her parents, their son AJ has driven them to despair. He persuades them to let him have a sleep over with a friend after attending Carmela’s birthday party but later we find him and friends having broken into their high school pool eating Pizza, yes clue to the first episode title. When they are finished swimming, they break into an office and throw papers and contents into the pool, and then they smash the large several shelf glass door covered trophy cabinet. The police are able to trace the culprit through the special pizza order box left behind. The pizza parlour owner is hesitant to reveal the name of the individual for fear of reprisals but after being threatened with police action.
A J’s parent are horrified and say he will be lucky not be expelled and can expect to be kicked out of the sports team. This appears the situation when they visit the Principal with their son. However in part because they have financially contributed to the school, in part because who they are, and that AJ is doing well in class and is an important member of the football team they let him off with a final warning and leave punishment to the parents. They are just as horrified with this thinking their authority has been undermined. They ground AJ for a month and make him do jobs including clearing the guttering of leaves. He has to be shown what a gutter is!

The Christmas Season episode To Save us from Satan’s Power has the mob trying to get one of their number of dress up as Father Christmas and give presents out to local children. The problem is that the role was carried out by Pussy. Tony was already affected when on the New Jersey Boardwalk he remembered sending Pussy to swim with the fishes. At Christmas Meadow gives up one of the singing fishes Big Mouth Billy Bass. Mine sings Be Happy. They select the giant Bobby Bascala because of his weight and finds he can use the outfit worn my Pussy and realise he had been wearing a write hence some of his questions about work on the day of the present giving. Bobby is no good as Santa so they propose to send him to Santa school for next year

In the third episode, Tony asks Paulie and Christopher to collect $5000 from an associate of the Russian mob, Valery, in Fair Lawn. Because Paulie resents being told to do the job when he is otherwise occupied he picks a quarrel with the Russian destroying his universal remote control by dropping it, feigning it as an accident. Valery insults Paulie, prompting him to attack the seated Russian. Christopher had tried to stop Paulie from acting out, but he jumps in on Paulie's side. The three men fight, and eventually Paulie chokes Valery with a floor lamp, severely injuring him and apparently cracking his wind pipe so that he appears dead. The situation causes the two to panic and they wrap Valery in a carpet before wheeling him out to their car. While trying to figure out what to do with the body, Paulie suggests that they take it to the Pine Barrens, as it will be deserted and is in close proximity to Atlantic City. Christopher, who has not yet eaten, wants to stop for breakfast but Paulie insists that business must come first, and will soon be completed.

In the woods, Christopher and Paulie open the trunk to find that Valery is still alive and has chewed through the duct tape. They lift him out of the car, present him with a shovel and force him to dig his own grave. When the pair are distracted, Valery smacks them with the shovel, delivering a brutal blow to Christopher's head and a jab to Paulie's groin before fleeing. Christopher and Paulie draw their guns and give chase, but are amazed when Paulie shoots Valery, clearly hitting part of his head, and the Russian immediately gets up and runs into the woods. They try to track his blood and footprints in the snow but are eventually left with no clues. Still on the hunt, the pair hear something and run, firing some shots. Paulie slips down a slope and loses his shoe. They discover that they killed a deer. They try to return to Paulie's car but cannot find it, and soon realize that they are lost in the woods. Paulie uses his cell phone to call Tony for help, but communication is limited by poor reception, interference and crosstalk.

Tony learns from Valery's boss and best friend, Slava, that, although he has developed substance abuse problems since, Valery was previously in the Russian Ministry of the Interior's Special Forces and once killed 16 Chechen rebels single-handed. However, the poor phone signal between Tony and Paulie results in a mix-up: Paulie passes the message on that Valery killed 16 Czechoslovaks and he's an interior decorator, to which Christopher replies, "His house looked like shit." As the night draws nearer, the lost, shivering pair become more desperate to find their way to food and warmth.

Sometime later, Tony fails to show up on time at a dinner Tony gets a call from Paulie telling him to come and get them as they may be dying of hypothermia, starvation, or even injury to Paulie's shoeless foot. Left with no option, he tells Gloria that he has to leave for an emergency and can't eat, causing her to become extremely angry. She throws a cooked steak at Tony, who suppresses his annoyance by laughing off the situation and leaves to help his associates, as Gloria trashes the laden table setting.

Paulie and Christopher manage to find an abandoned plumber's van, where they spend the rest of the night. For warmth, Paulie rips up the van's carpet and he and Christopher share packets of frozen ketchup and relish from an old Nathan's bag. Later, Christopher is seen clumsily trying to light a fire using sticks. When Christopher, standing outside the van urinating, blames Paulie for the predicament and accuses him of trying to save himself at Christopher's expense, the two have an angry confrontation. Christopher claims Paulie was planning to choke him to death when he slept. Paulie then attacks Christopher and begins choking him, so Christopher pulls a gun on Paulie, saying he thinks Paulie was conjuring up a plan to murder him. He had overheard Paulie blaming the whole fiasco on Christopher when speaking to Tony over the phone. Christopher then angrily says he'll leave Paulie out in the woods. After a few moments of tension, Christopher breaks down in laughter, realizing how ridiculous the thought of their killing each other is, given the severity of the current situation. Paulie tells Christopher to promise not to leave him, and also says he would never kill Christopher.

Tony asks Bobby Bacala, a skilled outdoorsman, to help him find Paulie and Christopher. He shows up dressed far too appropriately, wearing over-the-top outdoor/hunting gear and resents the ensuing ridicule, especially after being called to help at such an inconvenient time. Driving to the Barrens, the two share their first friendly moment when Tony apologizes for making fun of Bobby, and expresses gratitude for his taking care of Uncle Junior. Bobby tries to make a joke but it is embarrassingly juvenile and stale, to the point where Tony can't even begin to feign amusement. Arriving at the woods, they park in the same spot where Paulie and Christopher parked, Paulie's car is gone. Tony and Bobby holler for a response, but realize that they will have to wait until dawn.

In the daylight, Tony and Bobby are out searching for Paulie and Christopher, who have left the van and continue to struggle some distance away. Paulie's makeshift shoe falls off and he shoots it in a fit of crazed frustration. Tony and Bobby hear the shots and head toward their source, calling for Paulie and Christopher. They respond and soon meet up with one another. Paulie and Christopher are grateful they have been found and climb into Tony's Chevrolet Suburban, where there are food and drinks, but Tony is clearly irritated with Paulie for getting him into such a predicament with Slava and for losing the original target of their mission: Silvio's $5,000, which was in Paulie's car.

The four men wonder whether Valery took Paulie's car. When Paulie gives a false version of what caused the fight with Valery, Christopher backs him up. Tony tells Paulie to take responsibility for any trouble created by Valery's disappearance or potential re-emergence, and to make an executive decision about whether or not to further pursue Valery, as Paulie holds the position of caporegime and should have to take responsibility. Paulie decides to give up and head back home to North Jersey.

Valery's fate is unclear. He was possibly killed by Paulie's shot, but as the two men search, the camera suddenly pulls back and up, showing a viewpoint looking down on the two gangsters, possibly implying that Valery is watching them from high up in a tree. Paulie's car is missing and possibly stolen by him. Valery is never seen again (on-screen) for the remainder of the series. David Chase has said in the past that the episode was not intended to evolve into a story arc. HBO's promotional material lists him as dead, although it does so with a question mark.

On the fate of the Russian, Terence Winter said:That's the question I get asked more than any other. It drives people crazy: 'Where's the Russian? What happened to the Russian?' We could say, 'Well, he got out and there's a big mob war with the Russians,' or 'He crawled off and died.' But we wanted to keep it ambiguous. You know, not everything gets answered in life.

David Chase said: They shot a guy. Who knows where he went? Who cares about some Russian? This is what Hollywood has done to America. Do you have to have closure on every little thing? Isn't there any mystery in the world? It's a murky world out there. It's a murky life these guys lead. And by the way, I do know where the Russian is. But I'll never say because so many people got so pissy about it.