The Tropic of Cancer continued

It looks as if I have missed out on the fourth of Simon Reeve’s six programme circumnavigation of the world along the Tropic of Cancer. The country visited was India about which I know something of its history, people and the challenge of improving the welfare of its way as part of internal capitalism. However Simon Reeve has a unique style which captures the essence of a nation, its people and its problems, concentrating on the gulf between rich and poor, the extent to which the people are free or oppressed, the impact of climate change and the affects of population growth and economic development on the animals, birds and fishes.

Whereas I have a basic knowledge of India and Pakistan, that of Bangladesh was limited, especially that its population is over 160 million, the seventh most populated and one of the most densely populated countries in the world. While successive democratic governments have made progress in reducing the numbers in poverty it remains one of the poorest countries. We think of the British Islands as over populated with concerns that the total could rise to over 70 million, yet in Bangladesh 160 million live in an area smaller than England Wales and where over 50% of the land area floods every year, with 700 rivers including the upper reaches of the Ganges.

Simon went the capital city of Dhaka by boat, a city with 13 million now but expected to double. On the way he stopped to watch a riverside village attempt to stop the erosion of its land, erosion which is making one hundred people homeless every year and which Simon argued was being caused by climate change from the melting of the polar icecaps. It was in the city that he experienced the reality of life for children, with thousands living on the streets searching through waste for discarded tins, plastic and other materials which they can sell to recycling shops in order to buy food.
He was then shown a small recycling furnace in which broken glass was converted in small glass bottles in which the young boys assisted the operation working in 40 C plus temperature in order to earn a small bag of rice for their families a day. The United Nations Children’s organisation UNICEF has had to compromise and instead of insisting that children are not employed, arrange for them to have a few hours off in which to attend a centre where they receive a nourishing midday meal, are able to shower, play games and given simple instructions. Before leaving Simon endeared himself to a local community by joining in the national sport of wrestling.

This was an interlude before embarking on his most dangerous visit of both series. His contact was a young Burmese woman living in India because at home she had a price on head from the military junta. Burma was a British colony from 1886 after Rangoon, the capital, and Southern Burma had been incorporated in 1853. Burma was granted self government in 1937 and then became independent from the UK in 1948. In 1962 nearly 50 years ago there was a military coup d’etat and aspects of society- business, media and production were nationalised and brought under government control using a Revolutionary Council. In order to try and legitimise their power an attempt was made in 1942 to create a single party political system in which the military resigned and stood as civilian candidates. Some 300000 Burmese Indians were forced to leave the country and this was followed by hundreds of thousands of Burmese Muslims. There was a further military coup in 1988 in which thousands of people were killed and the country changed its name to Myanmar, not recognised by the UK the USA, France, Australia and Canada.

The main concern remains the lack of basic human rights with the large army using sections of the population as slave labour, estimated at 800000 by the International Labour Office and with reports of major brutality, including rape and forced prostitution. Resistance from Buddhist monks in 2007 was ruthlessly put down and the leader of the opposition to the military has been under House arrest for the greater part of the last decade and subsequently charged with politically motivated offences. Britain and the USA have led pressure for tighter sanctions on Burma but other countries, particularly India have resisted and it is known that India has been selling arms to the Burmese dictatorship. This I find extraordinary.

Because of isolation and mismanagement the country remains one of the poorest in Asia with life based around the village outside of the capital city. Simon Reeve made his way through northern India crossing a river into the country when he walked along tracks to reach an isolated village where a community help organisation was bringing health checks and medicines. There is no road structure in the area. He had to leave during the night following reports of approaching interest by the military who it has to be presumed have established a net work of informants to gain information about indications of opposition or the presence of outsiders.

The last Programme proved just as moving and challenging. The Tropic of Cancer cuts through Southern China but Simon and team were refused admission and forced to travel through Northern Laos. This was a smart move by the Chinese Government as it enabled Simon to reveal that the United States of America had dropped millions of tons of bombs including the infamous cluster bombs which cover a 30 metre radius and which given the population meant each individual had to avoid hundreds of tons of explosives. If this was not bad enough hundreds of thousands of the bombs and other munitions now lay unexploded killing several hundred men, women and children every year. An international organisation does defuse the bombs when they are detected several decades after they were dropped, but why the USA did not set about demonstrating its peaceful attentions by sending teams to make the ground safe should be beyond comprehension. Alas it is not.

At the end of the film on a deserted Hawaiian Island beach to which Simon had been taken by helicopter we were shown the extent to which the sand was becoming colourful plastic. The spot was miles from human habitation and the islands are thousands of miles from mainland’s on either side the biggest ocean on the Earth planet. Given that the plastic is primarily a twentieth century product, the series ended on a pessimistic note.(Cellulite products were developed from 1855, Bakelite pre second World War, Polystyrene and PVC and then the various developments of recent times including recyclable and biodegradable material). A major theme of the series is the extent to which humans in the economically developed nations have created the problem through pollution and climate change and making other changes to the natural habitat

In the programme Simon visited the independent island people of Taiwan about a third of the size of the Britain in terms of area and population but which now has one of the best standards of living in the world having effectively cornered the High Tech production industry with the production of lap top computers the best known example. It also boasts one of the best education systems with an emphasis on maths and sciences according to Mr Reeve. I must admit that I had no understanding of the position until seeing the programme and undertaking some research. It is a country head and shoulders from all the others visited along the Tropic and which as Mr Reeve pointed out usually comprise undernourished peasants and slum dwellers, many illiterate and in ill health, the subject of corrupt and ruthless governments and criminal gangs. He claimed that the ordinary people of Taiwan were richer and freer than and everyone looked happy as they went about their business with his visit to the Tropic of Cancer school a great delight.

The marrying of communist and capitalist enterprise was also evident in Laos where along the Mekong River there are a growing number of Chinese traders following the role of the 19th century British merchant adventurer. Simon was taken to a new hotel and casino complex costing £80 million as the first part of the development of a one hundred square kilometre site by a group of Chinese entrepreneurs. The Las Vegas of the Jungle!

I was disappointed with the visit to Vietnam and Hanoi although the two examples of life he picked out may represent what the country is becoming. He was taken along by his guide to one of the many new golf courses where membership could be bought for $18000 dollars for twenty five years and then to a street in Hanoi full of those keeping bears in small cages in order to farm their intestine bile which is used as part of natural medicines. He then went to a rescue centre where the animals are being given medical treatment before being helped to live more naturally in a protected environment.

The theme of series has been the plight of the ordinary people, of wildlife and the environment. In Laos known as the land of a million elephants the number is rapidly diminishing with some 700 to 1000 in the wild and 500 harnessed into working as slave labourers in logging where they are worn out and unable to build up their strength and allowed to have the time to produce offspring. On Hawaii Simon visited a bird sanctuary which is attempting protect a number of endangered species and where the laying of an egg was treated with acclaim and is followed by night and day after care when the egg is hatched. If only all humans could be given such attention in most of he countries which Simon visited. It is good that so far all the three major political parties have been given commitments to keep present public expenditure on international Aid. Well done Simon Reeve and the BBC. Hopefully his previous series will be repeated and a new venture planned.

1922 Wallander and Lewis Durham and Sunderland

After a quiet Saturday I looked forward to Sunday with several choices in the afternoon for Television, radio and the internet sport. Sunderland’s game against Manchester United was on Sky with Liverpool home to Chelsea. While there was little in the game for Sunderland other than pride, if Liverpool could hold Chelsea or do better then Man U if they won would be ahead and in the driving seat. I was also interested in the other televised game commencing at 1pm between Sheffield Wednesday and my boyhood club Crystal Palace. If Sheffield won they would remain in the Championship and Crystal Palace would be relegated and vice versa. A draw will see Palace safe. Durham are also playing at Kent in their second 40 40 game with commentary on the Internet and Newcastle are away to QPR at lunchtime.

Sadly Durham’s game at Kent was called off because of rain and Chelsea beat Liverpool which means that all Chelsea has to do is win next week to secure the title and assuming that Man U get all three points at Sunderland, and which is by no means certain.

In an exciting and tough game Crystal Palace secured their position with a 2.2 draw, Sheffield having equalised twice. Manchester United then won at Sunderland by one goal in the first half and had opportunity to score one or two more. Sunderland put up a brave fight and did not capitulate although as the game progressed the overall difference in technique and class was evident.

In the evening I watched the latest Wallander, called The Priest, having previously watched the remaining missing episode from this series called The Thief. The Priest was a classic whodunit with the most likely suspect being framed for the murder. The priest, a title usually reserved for the Catholic clergy, applied to a heterosexually married priest in the Swedish Church who was having an adulterous affair with the wife of the idealistic director of company selling used hospital equipment to South Africa. The couple were drawn to each other because of unsatisfactory marital relationships. The wife of the Priest had become a member of contemporary non conformist where is appeared she was having a close relationship with a young new female convert. An overheard conversation appeared to confirm suspicions that she could have been behind the shooting and framed the accused, especially as she had taken the decision to turn off the life support system when her husband was declared brain dead. It was never clear what their role was except to arrange for a photo identifying who her husband was with and passing that information to accused.

The accused had a strong case against him after photographs taken of his wife together with the priest were found at his home together with his camera, and then the gun which shot the priest twice as he was leaving the scene of a tryst and where both had decided it was time reveal their relationship to their partners and plan a new life together. The husband was a guilt ridden perfectionist who took life very seriously. The culprit turned out to be the company financial Director who was making money on the side and who also arranged for an employee to provide supporting evidence against his boss. The relationship between Wallander and his divorced boss appears to be blossoming.


In the episode before the Cellist, called the Thief, the subject appeared to be vigilante action going wrong as three men beat up a suspect who they believed was responsible for a spate of burglaries in their area. They are right in so far that the man was responsible for the break ins and thefts but he was killed, not from the beatings up, but from subsequent action by one of the three, a doctor whose wife was said to have left on a visit to see a relative.

The wife had fallen and broken her neck in argument with her husband, saying she was leaving him. Her body had been discovered by the thief who then blackmailed the doctor into stealing 20000 krs from the local boys football club raised from a raffle and other ventures. The two bodies were then buried in soil above which a new all weather artificial turf pitch was laid. Wallander had found himself at odds with his boss and other members of his team when no bodies could be found. As with other Wallander series there was a sub plot of the racism which appears to have developed in Swedish society over the past fifty years. When I visited in 1963, staying in a Folkhighschool but also made a visit to the University at Uppsala having been invited by a student psychiatrist who we had met in Stockholm, how I cannot remember, perhaps when I went to see a public relations officer for the local authority about the operation of their welfare services. The two and other experiences provided many opportunities to talk with educated Swedes and one can gained the impression of a strong traditional conservatism alongside the liberalism of the capital and university.

On the evening it was the first of a new series of Lewis, the follow up to Morse and the brilliant John Thaw. The programme designers hit on the idea of keep Geordie actor Kevin Whately, having jettisoned his wife and children to create a character fixed on work and living otherwise alone as with Morse, Frost and Foyle. In a reversal of roles his assistant is the bright one, fast track Oxbridge Laurence Fox as DS James Hathaway. In this fourth series, one of the best to date, the focus was the background of James as much as the murder in hand. While the majority of the Morse and Lewis programmes feature Oxford City and college life, or the lives of students and staff there also have been several films on the landed and upper class gentry in the surrounding area. This time there is quickly found to be a connection between a dead academic found and a shooting and wounding during the enactment of a battle in the grounds of country estate. This is the estate where Hathaway grew up and where he played with the first daughter of his Lordship and the boy who became the butler head of household to the Lord and his second wife.

We learn that Hathaway and daughter Scarlet, had a thing going and that she hoped he would return after going off to university a decade before. She had married, divorced and is about to marry again the son of Mediterranean business partner of the Lord who has fallen on hard times with the failure of his bank. We then learn that the Lord married his second wife when she was 17 but they have not shared a bedroom since she produced a son and heir, a sixteen year old lad with a motorbike who appears to be having an intimate relationship with the daughter of the estate manager who has brought up the young woman since his wife departed, believed to have run off with someone when she was only eight years old. The Lord has been kind to her allowing her to use the family piano and thinks the world of her father.

It transpires that the man shot at the enactment is the lover of the second wife of his Lordship. It also transpires that the killed academic had been taken a great interest in the estate and was murdered in the chapel from where he was moved. He was on the search of missing treasure and following clues provided in a picture part of a collection being sold by the Lord to raise funds and which has been added to including a painting in of the Folly which was created 100 years after the original painting. Living in the Folly is a young Jesuit priest. When the estate manager is found having appeared to have committed suicide the theory emerges that the estate manager has found out that his wife ran off with the academic, and who had then ran off again, the estate manager had killed the academic and then turned the gun on himself leaving his daughter suicidal. The second proposition is that the Jesuit had killed the academic when it is discovered and a few years before when a student the Jesuit had pushed his friend both drunk out into the roadway where the academic had knocked and killed the student. The Jesuit says he blamed himself. Hathaway and the police boss, also a woman as with Wallander, think it is an open and shut case, but Lewis instinctively knows better.

When Hathaway encounters Scarlet again. the day before her wedding she makes a play for him , admitting she is only marrying for money to save the estate for her father and they spend the night together, she offering to continues their relationship in much the same way as the second wife of her father. At the same time as seducing the Police Detective she warns that he should keep away from her and her family. He is going through a troubled time having discovered the remains of abducted ten year old and learning that the culprit is pleading diminished responsibility. When Lewis finds out about the relationship he places the assistant on involuntary leave and the assistant in turns says he intends to hand in his papers. Lewis does not want this and consults the forensic doctor who says that people do not know how one is feeling unless you tell them. This we feel not just applies to Lewis and his assistant.

Then the truth is revealed. It is correct that the academic was on the search for missing treasure when Lewis finds out what he was studying at the Bodleian University Library which as a student I was sent to read for essays and made me feel a serious student for the first time. He had arranged to view the painting where the Folly had been added and on going to the roof of the folly they find astrological symbols and between two there is a view to a sundial which in the painting is not reflecting the light from the adjacent candle. On going to the Sundial they see it lines up with where there is now a statue and once former fountain in which Hathaway and Scarlet threw coins and made wishes before he left for University. In the climax Lewis goes to the estate having received a message that he should meet up at the Chapel. Hathaway has also received the same message while at the wedding reception and has worked out that the letter sent to the academic was written by Scarlet and not he runaway wife. Before he goes to the Chapel, Lewis has arrived and finds head of household there and out to kill Hathaway who independently of Lewis has also commenced to work out what has happened.

The Lord had a liking for young girls and had “violated” the daughter of the estate manager. Her mother had found out what was going on and had been killed and her body hidden in the base of the statue replacing the fountain. The academic and the estate manager had been killed to prevent the body being discovered, the academic having contacted the estate manager to arrange for the excavation under the statue. The boyfriend of the second wife had been shot at random as several of the hostel had been loaded with live ammunition to create a diversion so that the body of the academic could be moved off the estate. While the head of household has been doing the dirty work he had been acting with the knowledge of Scarlet. In the melee the second wife’s boyfriend is killed and Scarlet and her father are arrested for their part in various crimes and attempted cover ups. Confused. Well anyway Lewis and Hathaway decide they make a great team so we have the rest of series filmed in the summer of last year.

It is nearly fifty years since going to Oxford to attend Ruskin College and proved to be one of the great choices which I made, taking up the place rather than as Secretary for the London region CND. I have planed to send a few days there later in the year and last night found the Alumni association has an online web site which I registered until into the early hours after wondering what happened to my close friends from that time, especially that final week when we returned for the result, had a picnic at Blenheim Palace and went on a punt on the river.

I am still not sure what to make of the remake of the Prisoner which has a strangely out of date 1950’s post war feel about it!

I did watch a great chunk of the Chronicles of Riddick a science fiction nonsense akin to Dr Who which continues to go downhill from the serious heights reached with the previous two Doctors. I also saw a large chunk of Oceans 12 and other time fillers unremembered.

It looked as if the Gods were going to be unkind towards Durham County Cricket Club for the second day in succession as they travelled from Kent to Leicester and the opening was delayed because of rain and then a further interruption reduced the number of overs from 40 to 26. Durham managed a creditable score in the circumstances with Blackwell, Ben Harrison and captain Will Smith all scoring some important runs. Then the scorer made a blunder and set the target which Leicestershire had to reach 5 runs lower and because this was not noted until after the game commenced it had to stand according to the rules. Then there was a catch which the umpire ruled against as did the third umpire. Batsmen edged missing their stumps narrowly and for a brief moment it looked as if Leicestershire would take the day. However the bowlers and fielders rallied and with wickets falling Leicestershire fell behind in the run rate so that Durham won comfortably in the end and head the table, important because only those heading one of the three groups are guaranteed a semi final place to be played on September 11th with the final at Lords the weekend later.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1907 Simon Reeve around the Tropic of Cancer Part one

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1882 Amy Williams Day, Eastenders 25th and Lost

Saturday February 20th, 2010 will be remembered for the rest of their lives by the Williams family of Bath, because the daughter of the Bath University Professor became only the second British woman to win a gold Medal in the Winter Olympics. There were only 9 previous winners. The first was the Men’s Curling Team in 1924 followed 12 years later by the Men’s Hockey Team. Jeanette Altwegg became the first woman to win a gold medal as a figure skater in 1952 that is 58 years ago and Robin Dixon Lord Glentoran and Tony Nash won the two man bobsleigh event in 1964.

It was then the turn of the skaters again with John Curry in 1976, Robin Cousins in 1980 and then the most memorable of all Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean in 1984. It was another 18 years before the 9th medal when the Women’s Curling team won in 2002.

If the reactions so far this morning are an indication of the what is to happen from now on the name of Amy Williams will become the most famous of all because of 24 hour media and the British need for success in sport. In this instance there is the added dimension of the courage required to hurtle yourself approaching 90 miles an hour head first on a small flat sleigh, especially as a fellow competitor in the bob sleigh was killed going off the course while in practice. The other dimension is that she is evidently an unassuming young women who has spent the past eight years in hard work, living out of a suitcase travelling to international competitions on her own, away from family and friends.

She has a brother and a twin sister whose excitement and proudness is also evident as they were interviewed at her home of Bath where there someone somewhere had the foresight to create a 160 metre concrete track so that those interested in the sport can practice the running starts. In this respect that she was in her youth a county running champion in the 400 metres is a factor. She is also an artist who hopes one day to run her own gallery, and I imagine now she can chose how and where she wants to spend the rest of her life. It will take Andy Murray to win Wimbledon to prevent her becoming British Sports Woman of 2010 and the Queen will be expected to give her some honour in the Birthday honours if not before. It was a great start to the day.

I cannot let the event pass without commenting on the unsportsmanship of the Canadian hosts who did everything possible to ensure their competitor, the current world champion had the advantage by allowing her unlimited training using the circuit while limiting the opportunities of other competitors including Amy. They were rewarded with only fourth place after their champion messed up on her fourth run and in second place, given the two German skaters the sliver and bronze. The Canadian followed with a protest about eh helmet which Amy was using, a helmet for which she had obtained approval in advance for all her equipment and clothing from the managing body. Shame on you Canada.

Friday afternoon and evening were fully occupied except for an hour around six pm when I planned to visit the supermarket for a weekend shop and then as was my expectation found that the battery was flat and the visit had to be postponed. This was my fault twice unless of course the property has a poltergeist or someone decided to get onto the garage roof down a drain pipe and into the garage to explore what was in the car, or use it to escape from the cold. The more likely explanation is that on my last visit to the supermarket I forgot to close the rear door having removed one of the new two handled bags for life, so that the battery slowly drained as a consequence of the inside light remaining on. Having realised this had happened the following morning, I had settled for Oh no do I have a flat battery, but not in the mood to open the garage door in order to test the battery and then attach the battery charger it was not until Friday evening it was flat as the pancake I did not have on Shrove Tuesday earlier in the week.

I charged the battery for several hours before going to bed but decide against doing so over night. In the morning I double checked that I had the correct charger and the leads had been correctly connected, I know I should have done this the night before and will leave for several more hours before checking around Lunch time again in the evening and if necessary leave over night and then if the red light does not change to green I will have to consider plan B.

I drove the car along the sea front and coast to Seaburn and the roundabout which I was able to view from my home of thirty years previously and then returned via Whitburn Village and Cleadon before undertaking the shop. I was struck by the number of people out an about, enjoying the fun of the fair in Shields and walking the sands at Seaburn. There were some sitting outside over a cup of tea, later afternoon fish and chips or for a smoke. It remained bitter cold with snow on the higher ground and some roofs. Hardy folk in these parts.

I was in a good mood by 5.30 yesterday as England had an unexpected win against the World 20 20 Champions, Pakistan at the magnificent stadium in sports city Dubai. Admittedly Pakistan were with out their best player Shahid Alfridi and who will return for the second match this afternoon and they had shaky start to their innings, but overall the win was comfortable. The English bowlers had an early success when Pakistan opened the batting taking wickets when the score was 9, 20, 26 and 39 with only the fifth wicket partnership adding more than 20 runs, 47 in total, and will Malik getting the top score of 33. Swan 2 for 18 was the best of the bowlers with Broad 2 for 23. The disaster struck as facing a low 130 runs to win total, Denly and Trott were out for 10 and Collingwood, a fast runner between wickets misjudged a return for a second run so we were 18 for 3. Pieterson, who has no been in good form, got his down and was still there on 43 with the magnificent Eoin Morgan who showed he required mixture of caution with flair strokes who was undefeated on 67, having struck 4.4,6 off the first three balls of the penultimate over to secure the win. It is becoming a great weekend of sport. By one of those coincidences of fate I had been thinking about the summer of cricket to come while reflecting on the cricket summer of 2008, transferring Myspace Blogs written in June of that year to Google.

The other major event of the weekend was the 25th anniversary live edition and finale to Who killed Archie Mitchell last Christmas. There have been 10 story lines covering possible murderers. There was one of his daughters(1) who in the live episode last night confessed that he had raped her when an adolescent. There was Peggy Mitchell(2)l his wife who he had bullied, and driven out of the Queen Vic and her son Phil (3)who had persuaded his girlfriend to give him an alibi and to get rid of a blood stained shirt. There was Archie’s most recent conquest Janine Butcher(4) and has a history a nasty, vindicate young woman, capable of murder and lying. When Archie throws her out after gaining control of the Old Vic with her help. She is one of the obvious suspects. Her boyfriend is another(5). Ian Beale(6), the longest cast member being in the first programme, and approaching 3000 performances. He slept with Janine and was blackmailed by Archie and as with Phil entered the pub on the fatal night to steal a lap top. The third person to be in the pub, who came to blows was Bradley Branning(7) the lover of bipolar Stacey Slater(8) who Archie had also raped and who she believed was the father of the baby she is carrying. The couple chose to have a quiet wedding on the same day as the wedding of Rickie Butcher and Bianca Jackson for the second time in their young lives Bradley‘s, father(9), and his uncle, a police detective(10), and Stacey herself are all other suspects.

There was a small circle of programme makers who had kept the secret for more than a year and even the cast did not know until the closing minutes of the live show, when Stacey was asked to reveal the truth in the closing moments after her husband has fallen to his death from the roof tops when chased by the police, calling out her name.

This is not the occasion to review the past 25 years of the programme and which I have watched almost continuously for years at a time, but not over recent years. The Who killed Archie series was over drawn out and over the top, although the umbrella description of soap opera is appropriate given the implausibility of most opera stories. I was pleased to learn that Alfie Moon, played by former pop star Shane Ritchie and his wife Kat played by Jessica Wallace. There was also a performance of Dennis Watts the original publican with his wife Angie.

I am expecting much from the last series of Lost based on what the programme makers have promised and what they have achieved so far. I had not anticipated the two dimensional opening of the double first programme of the new and last series which opened last week. I am impressed with how the approach was continued in the second week, third episode of the last series this week. I forgot that there is a new episode night of Friday at 9 am and had a preferred programme on Saturday night so watched on Sky Player around midnight

In the first dimension the plane does not crash and Jack’s belief that detonation of the thermo nuclear device when he and Kate, Hurley and Sayid and Sun returned to the Island with Ben and Locke in his coffin, would achieved this, is proved correct. My informed guess is that all the main characters would interact after their return to the USA, was also proved right so far. In the second episode the primary focus commenced with Kate.

Last week Kate returned on the plane with her minder, who in the original crash is killed. In the continuing plane journey without the Island Kate manages to escape while going to the toilet and with one handcuff around a wrist she manages to get out of the airport with his handgun and jumps into a taxi in which 36 week pregnant Clare is going off to see the couple who were adopting her baby and who had arranged to meet her at the airport. The cab driver bails out at the first opportunity and Kate drives on to a point where she leaves Clare at a bus stop taking her money and possessions with her. Kate uses the available cash to bribe a back street auto repair yard to free her from the tell tale handcuffs, after which then examines Clare’s possessions, realises that she is pregnant and that bag contains preparations for the birth. Guiltily she returns to where she dumped Clare and finds her still there and agrees to take her to the house of the couple adopting the baby and agrees to go with her into the house only to find that the husband has left and his wife is no longer wanting to go ahead with the deal.

Clare goes into premature labour at 36 weeks and Kate takes her to hospital where Clare decides that the doctors should attempt to slow down and stop a birth taking place although it would be possible for labour to proceed given the length of the pregnancy to date. While Kate is in an adjacent office, the police arrive to question Clare having tracked down that wanted Kate was with her, but go off accepting the story given by Clare without much ado, which was the only dubious aspect of this episode. Kate and Clare have become bonded and it is evident that the relationship is to continue.

In the alternative or parallel dimension Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, and Jin have been captured by the Temple dwellers with the dying Sayid after he has been shot. The effect of the thermo nuclear devices, has been to time shift their presence of the island to the present day. Although Judith initially survived the bomb blast she dies from the wounds received when she fell down the drilling shaft, and Sawyer’s rivalry with Jack turns to hatred. When the opportunity occurs for Sawyer to escape from the stronghold of the Temple dwellers he is soon followed by Kate and Jin. Jin goes off in search of Sun while Kate follows Sawyer to the DHARMA Initiative accommodation compound and to the bungalow where he lived with Judith. She then follows him to the landing stage where Sawyer admits he blames himself for Judith’s death because he persuaded her not to leave the Island on the submarine when she had the opportunity.

Back at the Temple the leader of the dwellers insists on seeing Sayid on his own and appears to be torturing him with electrodes and then placing a hot poker on the heals wound of the gunshot. An assistant says he has passed the test and then admits afterwards that he has not. The Temple leader then gives Jack a capsule to give to Sayid. Sayid is willing to take this if Jack asks him to and then Jack presses for information about the capsule and the leader explains that it was a poison in an attempt to cleanse Sayid because he had become infected, like Clare

Jin, who went off to find Sun and decides to return to Temple but runs into two of the guards one of whom does not believe his story and decides to kill him when he gets caught in an animal trap trying to escape a second time. However the two guards are then shot by someone unknown who transpire to be Clare.

Thus we have progress in the stories Kate and Clare but the two are not the subject of the third episode, views this Friday and where the focus is on Locke, in his three dimensions, having returned home, dead in the coffin, back on the island, and as the Smoke Monster, having shaped shifted into his body form.

Off the plane, the electrics fail on his wheel chair as he exits his specialist vehicle when he reaches home where he lives with the woman he met at the therapy sessions, and he is shortly marry and has been planning the event. Locke took official leave to attend an important business conference in Australia, but instead attempted to go on a ‘I can do it’ outback adventure which he was refused participation because of being committed to a wheel chair.

His deception is found out on returning to the office and his refusal to explain his actions leads to him being fired, added to which he cannot get onto his vehicle because someone had badly parked. This turns out to be Hugo, a confident Hugo no longer believing he is the Jinx lottery winner and who owns the company and tells him to contact someone who will get him a job within the Hurley expanding business empire. The contact appears to be a human resource agency who helps Locke to accept that he is not going to be able to return to being the site foreman on a construction site. He is then seen as an agency supply teacher at a High school, taking basketball training and a class on reproduction biology. The idea that one can switch into such a post seems ludicrous, although it might be possible in the USA. He takes the position after admitting his reception over the conference to his wife to be, and his realization of having to adjust. The supervisor at the human resources unit is none other than Rose Henderson, one of the supporting travellers on the original flight with six months to live and has gone on the holiday visit with her husband, a dentist and who were seen in passing returning home on the continuing flight.

Back on the Island the island the story continues from the point where the Smoke monster in the form of Locke had killed Jacob, and then puts Jacob’s former sidekick Richard, over his shoulder with him, leaving a bemused Ben behind. The leadership of the remaining group who crashed on the adjacent Island include Sun Kwon and the pilot who was to have originally flown the plane from Australia, is taken by Llana, someone who only appeared later in the series but where this episode is to reveal that she is to have a major role in the rest of the series.

Llana is a bounty hunter employed by the family of an employee of Charles Widmore who has been killed by Sayid. It is Llana who captures Sayid an puts him on the second flight to the Island and it is she who raises questions about Locke and now insists that they journey to the Temple, where she confidently tells Sun she will learn about Jin. They bury Locke before departing, and in the makeshift service Ben admits that he killed Locke. Was Llana who has knocked out Richard for failing to answer her questions.

As they journey across the Island, it is not clear why the Monster in the form of Locke is carrying Richard away from the encampment of the survivors of the second plane crash. When he stops and Richard recovers, Richard takes the opportunity to leave despite Locke explaining that eh is taking him to where he will be able to find out what the Island is all about, something which he admits was never discovered by Jacob. He advised, more a warning that he will soon see him again. Locke then reaches the former DHARMA accommodation compound where he persuades Sawyer to accompany him to learn the answers to his questions. He agrees, drowning his sorrows in whisky. On the way he see a young boy who warns Locke not to kill Sawyer and thus we learn that there are other powerful forces on the island. Locke is impressed that Sawyer can see the boy. They reach the top of a tall and steep Cliffside over which there is a vertical makeshift ladder in three sections down to a cave. Sawyer nearly falls as one section of the ladder collapses. In the cave the Locke monster shows sawyer the ceiling on which there are the names of passengers of the original flight and presumably others who have featured in the series. Locke, now described as the man in Black crosses out the name of Locke. Each name has been allocated a number and we are shown five names which have not been crossed out: Hugo Hurley Reyes, James Sawyer Ford, Sayid Farrah, Dr Jack Shepherd and Kworn covering Sun and Jin. It is significant that these five names together with Locke have the numbers of 4,8,15,16, 23 and 42, the same numbers of Hurley’s lottery win and the number on the entrance to first DHARMA underground centre which was discovered during the first season. Of particular note there is no reference to Kate.

1880 Inglorious Basterds, British Islands and a mislaid phone

What a day Wednesday 17th February 2010 has been so far. I stayed up last night watching on Sky Box Office having invested the princely sum of £3.99 for the privilege, Inglorious Basterds, the latest Quentin Tarantino film, and had intended to write about the experience, completed the notes on Martin Clunes visit to a handful of the 1000 islands which surrounds the British main island, and completed the boxing and display shelving reorganisation of completed sets, together with identifying the 50 to 75 incomplete volumes of work in hand into some order for action.

Having switched on the computer and checked my mail in box the screen stuck momentarily then went to Luxor Majong which was not my intention, but where I had reached the last stages of the game for the fifth time in succession, and although having lost a couple of lives, I did not anticipate overtaking the highest score to-date, I hoped to get close to indicate the improvement in visual acuity and prolonged attention which I have sharpened as a consequence of the game and my work activities in general.

It will be evident that the intelligent and worthwhile thing to have done is to have closed the game and continue with planned activity, however the interaction with my existing operative system and programmes is that it continues to run in the background but without my usual ability to reopen until I restart the computer which takes time. Before playing the game therefore I decided to make my I am alive daily text but could not find the phone. Given that I had made the call yesterday morning and had not been out of the house it should have been a simple task to locate the phone which is usually on the desk, which admittedly had become cluttered, being charged behind me on top of some lever arch files with sets in the making, and sometimes falls between, or at the back of them, or is one of my outside coat pockets.

It was not at these places, and I would have sworn an oath before a magistrate or judge to this effect. I then made a quick search of everywhere I had been in the house the previous day. I then made a quick search of everywhere I had been the house the previous day, which included two rooms on the second floor, three rooms of the first, the bathroom off the landing as well as the areas of landings themselves, together with all four rooms on the ground floor as well as the hallway. No it could not be found, so much for improved visual acuity but a lot of dust and need to tidy was evident.

I spent a good hour on this task, used the land line to make the call and completed the Luxor Majong, reaching 16 million points for the second time only, made a chicken salad lunch which I did not enjoy, while watching the tale end of bargain hunt and then found the phone on the cleared desk under my nose. I did not consider the stupidity a complete waste, but they did changed from that planned. Freedom is the ability to change plans at a moment’s notice.

I made a note to buy a second inexpensive phone to cover for this periodic event and completed the boxing and sorting on the second floor for the day, having almost completed this phase of the task overall before moving onto completing the fifty to seventy or so albums and files of work in hand. A cup of coffee and a few liquorice twists and I was set to begin writing or was I?

It is now 2.20pm and I feel tired but will press on if I can. I remind myself that I can change my mind and decide to finish the sorting in hand papers in this room, and check the TV watching over for the rest of the day after perhaps forty winks on the settee. Quentin Tarantino and Martin Clunes can wait.

It is six pm afternoon after a relaxed afternoon with some working followed by a High Tea of chicken drumsticks, a diet coke and a mix of green and red grapes. I did not enjoy the meal as much as I have in the past.

I am still not sure what to make of Inglorious Basterds a violent fiction film about the second World War. I begin with the story.

SS Colonel Hans Lander, brilliantly portrayed by Christoph Waltz, has been assigned to located known missing Jews and calls upon a farmer and his three teenage daughters previously investigated by the local forces because of rumour he was hiding one of the four known Jewish families in the areas. The man exudes charm and Bonhomie and also shows his a clever and cunning persistence. He slowly forces the farmer to identify where the family is hiding below the wooden floors of the house in exchange for the lives of his daughters. One of the daughters of the Jewish family escapes and although she is seen fleeing across the field Landa allows her to escape.

Somewhere else a group of ruthless Americans, headed by Brad Pitt, have assembled to kill Nazi’s behind German lines after the allied invasion is met with resistance. Pitt wants each member of the group to acquire 100 scalps, literally, He also marks all the victims with a Swastika on cut out in the forehead.

In Paris, three years after the murdering of her family, the daughter who escaped, Shosanna, is the owner of small cinema in Paris which she runs with her partner who is a negro. She is pursued by a young German private who is holidaying in Paris after becoming a hero of the Third Reich, a sharp shooter who manages to kill some 300 American soldiers before they give up and bypass the town he is defending.
Dr Goebbels, Minister of propaganda, has made a film of the event with the private playing himself the her. The film was to have had a premier in the main cinema in Paris attended by the Nazi Top brass but at the suggestion of the private, Goebbels is persuaded for the event to take place at the cinema run by the disguised Jewess.

One of several farcical aspects of the film is that there are two plots to destroy the Nazis attending. The first is by the Jewess owner whose partner is to lock the auditorium when the visitors are inside and also ignite all the available highly inflammable nitrate piled high film behind the screen at the point when an addition to the film is interposed in which the Jewess proclaims who she is and what is to happen.

Back in London Churchill agrees to a plan for a German speaking Englishman to attend the premier with assistants to blow up the cinema with dynamite. The assistants will include Brad Pitt and some of his group and they will gain entry via one of Germany’s leading film actresses who is working for the Allies.

For one of the many improbable moments in the film they meet in cellar bar where there is much drinking of snaps by a group of soldiers and their friends who are celebrating the birth of the child of one of their number. The internationally known actress has joined them and is playing a parlour game. She leaves them to join the English agent and two of Pitt’s German speaking assistants who are to enter the cinema with her. She is asked by the celebrating soldier for an autograph which she gives but the young man is drunk and keeps pressing his attention so that the English agent demands that he leaves in an accent which arouses suspicion of the soldier and a member of the SS also in the bar. His explanation of living on a mountain village with a unique accent and being the escort of the actress is accepted until he signals for three more drinks raising his fingers the English rather than the German way. There is a standoff as the two men and others brandish weapons followed by a fire fight in which everyone in the bar is killed with the exception of the actress who is wounded in the leg. She is rescued by Brad Pitt who at first is suspicious that she has survived but convinced he arranges for the coup to continue, especially after the news that Hitler has also decided to attend.

Unfortunately they do not take account of Landa who is given the job of providing security for the event and his investigation of the scene in the bar yields not only one shoe of the actress but also the autograph. However his approach is to allow the action to continue although it is evident that he knows what is going on when speaking in fluent Italian to Pitt whose knows a few words in an atrocious accent. He demands to see the actress privately, and strangles her after revealing why he knows she is an agent. He arrests Pitt and they leave the theatre with his two assistants still in place with high explosives strapped to their bodies,

He explains to Pitt that he knows the war is lost and will agree to the bomb plot continuing if he can secure American Citizenship, wealth and position in the United States. This is negotiated via a radio with London. Meanwhile the boyfriend of the cinema owner has secured the entrances to the auditorium and is about to set fire to the film behind the screen waiting for the moment when the owner tells the audience on screen they are to die. Unfortunately she cannot make her escape after switching the reels because the film star enters and demands her favours because of the honour he has done her by arranging the Premier at her theatre. In an exchange of gun fire, both die. Meanwhile in the Theatre, Hitler, Goebbels and Goring are enjoying the spectacle of the private systematically killing the American soldiers accompanied by a cheering audience. By brilliant timing the remaining two bomb plotters have left the main auditorium, disarmed the two guards outside Hitler’s Box just as the screen ignites into flames. After killing Hitler’s and his companions the open fire on the retreating no where audience and then the cinema explodes. Landa then drives Pitt to the advancing allied lives and surrenders to him. Pitt who is committed to the deal, nevertheless carves a Swastika into the forehead of Landa.

The film has been ten years in the making with a number of different scripts starting out on a Good, the Bad and the Ugly film noir take on the ending of World War II and hen developed into the Dirty Dozen type of thing. He had completed writing without settling on an ending by 2002 when he learnt that a number of other WW2 were in the making, The film has many guest appearances including Mike Myers of Shrek and Austin Powers fame, and some sixty on line critics heap praise on Tarantino, so again I ask the question what is really all about/ Making money folks, nothing less, nothing more. The young kids who play computer war games will love it. What German cinema audience have, is another question.

Martin Clunes is a likeable middle aged comedy actor who retains boyishness. He came to attention as one of a duo of pathetic characters in Men Behaving Badly, and then in 2004 with Doc Martin as a county Doctor based on fishing village in Cornwall also a programme which never appealed to me. I was interested to see what he did with the opportunity to visit a selection of the reputed1000 islands mostly uninhabited, around the UK. While there continues to be aspects of his personality which I continue to react negatively, the three hour long programmes are interesting and do provide an answer to the question is life on a small island different to that on the main island of England, Scotland and Wales, three countries with their cultural and historical differences as well as the significant variations within each nation, so that the cities, especially London have become unrecognisable and cultural distinct from those of my childhood and youth.

Bruce Springsteen Live In New York : My Love will not let you down; Prove it all night. Two Hearts; Atlantic City; Mansion on the Hill; and The River.

What emerged from the three programmes is that continuous living does require individuals who are hardy, self reliant and can live without the requirement most of us depend on, easy transport, access to a supermarket and entertainment activities from cinema and theatre, to international and fast food restaurants and spectator sports, as well as Television, the Internet and electricity and running water.

In the first programme Martin commenced with the Northernmost part of the UK, the Outer Hebrides, and the lighthouse Rock of Muggle Flugga, no longer manned and with a heady and dangerous vertical 360 steps with unkempt and dangerous handrails. For someone who has a problem with heights, he bravely struggled to reach the top to start the programme.

He then visited the northernmost populated island of Unst which has more in common with Scandinavia than the British main island and were he met the elected Chief Viking and his family. There are the remains of thirty long ships on the island which was under Norwegian control for 600 years thereafter. I may have confused this island with another where the emphasis is on a strongly religious community which until recently had padlocked the children’s playgrounds on Sundays.

He also dropped in on the eccentric southern Englishman from Bromley who has bought a lump of rock the size of a football field and declared independence from the British and Scottish governments the grounds that there is no evidence of the UK or Scotland having been granted sovereignty. You are required to have your passport stamped before setting down on Forvik unless you purchase land or become a full citizen with the price recently educed form £200 to £20. The Island is officially known as Forewick Holm and comprises 3,5 acres or 10000 square metres and is in disputed ownership between the eccentric sailor Stuart Hill who lives in Cunningsburgh in the South of the main Shetland Island and Mark King of Papa Stour. Stuart Hill is known as the former village blacksmith in village in Suffolk for 20 years before trying to sail round the UK in a 15 foot dingy and having to be rescued with 5 separate Life Boat launches and 2 Helicopters at public expense. He has a primitive construction on the island and which in addition to citizenship he is attempting sell small plots at he sea shore entitling owners to have sea access. His main aim is to establish independence for the Shetland whose local administration is therefore kindly towards him

Bruce Springsteen Live in New York: Youngstown; Badlands; Out in the Street; Born to Run; Tenth Avenue Freeze out, Land of Hope and Dreams. Switch to Music player and Jungleland, Born in the USA, Don’t look back.

The main interest of the second programme is the Isle of Man with a population of 80000 has an independent Parliament of 24 with a full range of Ministers and judiciary and local government, its own currency and low tax economy with no inheritance tax, corporation tax, except banks at 10%, stamp duty or capital gains and income tax at 18% together with a ceiling on the maximum which any individual or capital can pay. There are not members of the EEC and have no speed limit on some roads. As with Jersey it is a place which attracts rich tax avoiders.

The other visit which appealed was to the Piel island at one end of Morecombe Bay off Barrow in Furness. It is half a mile offshore and can be reached across the sand at low tide similar to Holy Island here in the North East Coast. It only has one building a pub, restaurant, now owned by the local council and who held a competition to become the new landlord which includes the ancient right to be crowned kind and his daughters to be known as princess and have the right to self style themselves including their bank accounts. The successful couple had visited the island since childhood family outing visits. The 50 acre island is in the shadow of the eight largest inhabited Island in the UK and bird sanctuary of with a population of 13000 in its 13 square kilometres and connected to the mainland by a road bridge since 1908.

For the third programme I thought Martin was visiting the Isle of Wight but this turned out to be Guernsey of the Channel Islands which also has semi independent status followed by Sark with is feudal leadership of some 80 families and where the only motor vehicles are licensed tractors. Interest on Guernsey centred on a multi millionaire who commuters to the city by his private jet at a cost of £2000 a day.

At least Martin did to one Island I have visited, St Mary’s of the Scilly Island. I have observed another closely, St Michael’s Mount in Mounts Bay Cornwall a quarter of a mile off shore by a low tide causeway and with a castle and a small village of employees on this privately owned island in association with the National Trust. The Scilly Islands cover 5 square miles at southern tip of the British Isle with five of the 140 inhabited, mostly rock falls. The journey by ferryboat takes several hours from Penzance and the wealthier residents some 1600 on the main island use planes or helicopters. I anticipate this is the first of a further series depending on what was the original viewing figures. In addition to avoiding the Isle of Wight there was no Caldy in Wales, Skye in Scotland, Sheppey on the south east coast or Holy Island here in the North East.


From My space music player Bruce Springsteen live in New York Land of Hope and Dreams, Tenth Avenue Freeze Out, Badlands, the River, Atlantic City, Prove it all night and out on the Street, Youngstown. Mansion on the City, Atlantic City.