1750 Bruce Springsteen at Glastonbury

The weekend and Monday has been dominated by the Boss at the Glastonbury. This is first time Bruce Springsteen has participated in the Festival and to mark the event the BBC is showing for 24 hours non stop an hour long special of part of his two hours and a half show which went to the close on 1 am on Sunday morning at the Pyramid Stage. It is just as well that the BBC has now given priority to showing this special because having waited and waited to witness something of the live performance Saturday evening only the last half an hour was shown because of priority given to the other act on the other stage. Bruce is nearly sixty and shows more energy and enthusiasm for live performance than many a third of his age. I only wish I could remember the lyrics and had the ability to carry tunes to join in in the way that the majority of the tens of thousands attending the concert.

I have been to three live concerts, at Newcastle Football stadium in the 1970’s, at Sheffield in the 1980’s and in 2003 at Crystal Palace. I have many of his records on LP album, music and video tape and CD

The best is the 40 box set of 5 albums of live show recordings 1975-1985.I no one no one who performs with such vigour and enthusiasm creating an extraordinary atmosphere of joy, delight and wonder. You are excited, moved and drained to the point of exhaustion long before he finishes although I must admit most the audience usually end the evening wanting more.

From his first album Greetings from Asbury Park which I have on tape I enjoy Blinded by the Light Spirit in the Night and It is hard to be a saint in the City with the latter on the live albums

From his second release The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Band my favourite is Sandy, 4th July Asbury Park. Rosalita is also on the live records. I have the LP and a tape.

It is from next four albums that most of his established anthems were created. The third Born to Run includes Thunder Road and Born to Run (both on the Glastonbury BBC set) which together with Backstreets are on the album. I also like Meeting across the river and Jungleland.I have the record ans the tape.

I especially enjoy the River 2 LP set and on record and a tape with Independence Day, Two Hearts, Hungry Heart, Cadillac Ranch as well as The River on the live album and where Out in the Street was in the BBC set, I also like Sherry Darling and the Price you Pay.

I have the Nebraska Album on CD and Tape where Atlantic City is one of my favourites of all his songs, and with Reason to Believe is on the live albums. My Father’s House memorable.

I also have the Born in the USA Album which was his peak in terms of lasting hits with Cover me, I’m on Fire, No Surrender, Bobby Jean. Glory Days, Dancing in the Dark and My home town, all on he live albums.

I also have his next five albums some on CD which come after the live set and which I do feel match his earlier work. From The Luck Town Album I like If I should fall behind and Souls of the Departed. Again he does not play much from the Human Touch where my favourites are 57 Channels and nothing on, With Every Wish and Roll of the Dice From Tunnel of Love Album I enjoy When You’re alone, All that Heaven will allow and Walk Like a Man. From The Rising CD I like into the Fire, Lonesome Day, and Waiting on a Sunny Day together with the title song. I also have the CD Ghost Town of Tom Joad with My Best was never good enough and Galveston Bay and Youngstown.

Some of the later numbers are included in his unplugged album which includes Better Days and Darkness at the Edge of Town.

I have not acquired his more recent albums Devils and Dust, We Shall overcome the Seeger sessions, Magic and Working a dream but I was able to listen all of Seeger on the Springsteen site at one point.

Glastonbury of course is Glastonbury, the institution, festival of all festivals in Europe with four main stages and a several dozen others including circus acts, the Jazz stage, Dance with DJ’s for new groups, mild erotica groups, films, environmental and the weird and the wonderful.

I have not been a Lily Allen fan but I enjoyed her set as third end of bill on the Pyramid stage on the first night, but the night was stolen by the extraordinary Lady Gaga with the most outrageous costumes and sounded OK. I am not a Neil Young fan or of the Specials. I listened to Kasabian and Blur, Enjoyed Status Quo Rocking all over the world which opened I was there Live Aid and also the Madness set. Tom Jones was very wicked which sixty year olds can be. Tony Christy at Glastonbury, shows how the event has changed but everyone appeared to know the word of his recently revived number. I’m on my ay to Amarillo

Lady Gaga’s appearance was on the Other Stage on Friday Night appearing before the Tings Tings who three years ago were watched by under 100 people on the introduction stage and last year had several thousand because of the hit know my name or whatever it is called, She is a talented lass who can play instruments as well as shriek out numbers. There were several shriekers this year. I have the first Franz Ferdinand Album and enjoyed their set on Saturday, I must listen to Maximo Park on the I player. I also caught most of Jarvis Cocker on the John Peel Stage. However the great hit this year on this stage is Florence who has admitted the group did not have more to play after doing all their first album. She will be moved to the Pyramid next year such was the enthusiasm of the audience. I caught the Black Eyes Peas on the Jazz stage but not Rolf Harris!. They did not show Ray Davies or Georgie Fame from the Acoustics stage and I will need to check if they are on I player. Will Young and the Blockheads made one of the Dance stages. The big disappointment was the Basement Jacks of Jazz because of the loss of the loss the lead singer and where was Reverend and the Makers whose performance last year was great?

1731 Britain's Got Talent and Corrupted Politicians

The weather has become the best of the best, blue sky, hot sun and a cooling breeze. Several days are promised with more to come over the rest often summer. On Friday morning, Friday, I concentrated on the planting and with the two new long and wide containers and all the available pots I found a home for all the plants purchased two days before. I then cleaned the patio flagstones and chip pieces, cleaned the drains and swept the garage area floor. Everything is almost ready to paint the walls in stages around the plants, but before then the kitchen is to be tackled. With lots of cricket, the fine weather and preparation for departure I am unlikely to start of the walls before the next trip and it will require a major effort to sort out the kitchen but I am set on a sort out an rearrange which will be of use if the end of self aware consciousness comes sooner than later.

I rested over the lunch time I enjoyed a kipper, then two pieces of white fish and half a melon and coffee. I finished off the garage and washed the kitchen floor. It was then time to prepare for the evening’s cricket at the riverside. I took with me three rolls filled with coleslaw and luncheon meat, a pecan twist, coffee and cold water. For the 20-20 and larger crowds additional security is employed both outside and inside the stadium. The is a nuisance but acceptable as long as it does not interfere with the enjoyment of the event. The first annoyance is that a decision was taken to close use of my usual car park close the entrance for members until the other two parks were full. This can mean being trapped inside a park for sometime. However a new exit was in use which enabled an even quicker getaway than usual as we had out own traffic line whereas by the usual and to join in with those existing from the next car park to mine.

I got myself an end seat on the balcony of the Member’s lounge to enjoy my early evening meal and read the local paper. I then went for a walk about, meeting a former colleague who I had not seen for over a decade. He is not a member and been brought along by someone who is, so there was only brief opportunity to talk about cricket and the publication of the expenses of one of the two Member’s of Parliament for South Tyneside.

The less said about the game, again, the better. Durham had a disastrous start after winning the toss and electing to bat this time. Smith and Blackwell were out for ducks and Collingwood for 9 after the openers had a bright and positive start. With the score 55 for 5 the game was over, or was it? A spirited end pushed the score to 144 and then Durham’s bowlers contained the opponents Leicestershire so that although they retained their wickets they were behind the run rate needing ten off the last over. The decision was taken for Paul Collingwood, the Captain of England’s one day side to bowl the last over. He was hit for six off the penultimate ball and the opponents scored the wining run off the last ball. What a disaster, The crowd was the best ever except for an international although this also had mixed consequences It appeared that a lot of free tickets or reduced tickets had been passed to Durham University who turned out in number and became a drunken noisy rabble taking little interest in the game. There was even a streaker which disrupted the concentration of the players. This resulted in the security stewards being told off by their boss and they started to stop anyone standing to enjoy the game from the walkways around. Irritating. I was making my way to the gents when this occurred just before the end of the game. I had found a seat in the sun behind the wicket.

I started to watch a film but became tired and went to bed. The combination of exercise and fresh air meant that I slept well for the great part of nine hours only rising once. This meant a late start for the day, I had in mind to buy a panama type hat and set off to Newcastle mid morning. There were crowds everywhere and Newcastle was impossible. There was a canvas version at Marks and Spencer’s for sixteen pounds but only the design was different from my Slazenger. However in BHS I found a panama which with a sale discount of a fifth only cost £8. It is an extra large size which means not suitable for very windy conditions but other comfortable. I look naff in hats but with being overweight I look naff anyway and with the hot sun forecast I now have a choice for different weather conditions, functions and moods.

For the past eight weeks or so and every night except one over the past week my evenings, apart from the cricket have revolved around Britain’s Got Talent. I am not fan of putting up for public ridicule people who cannot sing or perform but who seek publicity or of eccentric acts put into the semi finals in order create publicity and balance. It is interesting that although 200 acts went through for semi final consideration that the successful 40 were all featured in the audition programmes and therefore many of the 200 under consideration never performed on the TV shows.

The semi finals produced some disappointing performances and half a dozen acts which did not make the final ten might have achieved similar performances to those in the final but, and it is a big but, all merited their place and reflected the innate common sense, fairness and good judgement of the British public. Hopefully UK politicians will note and fear what is to come

Such was the excellence and range of performances that it is impossible to predict how the British will vote. The dark horses could be the father and son comic dancers called Stavros Flatley, an over weight Greek restaurateur and his over weight son who pranced around the stage with bare bellies with a take off Irish dancing and Michael Flatley in particular. I thought their semi final performance was not as good as the first but their performance this evening showed genuine dancing ability. Their honesty about their limitations appears natural. A similar nice act was 2 Grand, a recently widowed grandfather whose voice has become shaky and his Granddaughter who had a good voice but nothing spectacular. The were endearing and merited a place in the final but were not expected to go further. In a similar category I would put schoolboy Aidan, a self taught dancer similar to last year’s winner who produced an electrifying performance of singing in the rain to out shone the then twelve year old girl Farrer with a mature operative voice.

An indicator of what has happened in the past, the first winner was Paul Potts and man with an operatic voice who had gone on to make a great career including performing in the USA as well as having a successful album. Similarly although 12 year old Farrer did not win and chose to be signed up by a classical record company rather than the commercially minded Simon Cowell, she has had great success while continuing to develop both as a school girl and singer with a voice which needs to be trained. One can foresee a healthy professional career for her although whether she will be become as great as her voice at twelve suggests remains to be seen, probably by others in a decade and little more. The young dancer who won last year has appeared in the West End and released a DVD and will have some form of career although it could be short as the number of male dancers who become household names are few, Wayne Sleep, Michael Flatley. Returning to Aidan given he was self taught practicing in his bedroom he merited the final appearance.

How far those behind the programme assist some with ideas and others not, I have suspicions, and that it depends on commercial potential. In some instances there is only room for one commercial success at the present time.

This was so with the decision not to support the girl violinist and to support the saxophonist, giving him top of the billing last night and which out him into third position. He is nice guy with a family who has struggled to make it for two decades. His image is that of a busker on the London underground and his appeals for public sympathy became something of a whine. The violinist on the other hand was exceptionally talented and visually appealing and I did not understand the put down she received from Simon except that h the quarter from last year playing similar slimed down instruments have gone on to have worldwide success and an album. On Sunday morning I learnt that the saxophonist was already signed to Simon and had an album as well as featuring on other records and accompanying major live acts on the concert circuit. This leaves a nasty taste Simon Watch it.

There were two school age singers Hollie was barely out of primary school and in the semi final broke down but gathered herself and then won the hearts of everyone by successfully continuing. She gave an exceptional performance in the circumstances and I am not sure if the professional stage life is for her or if her voice will also stand the test of time. Shaheen Jafarhholi goes to stage school and therefore already had the background to perform in public. His voice has been compared to that of Michael Jackson at a similar age, and I was surprised he did not reach the last three. He should have a professional career.

Shaun Smith is also a likeable 17 year old who appeared to be an adjusted A level student who also plays Rugby whose pop voice suggests he would have also reached he final stages of the X Factor and may have a career if he is signed up and gets the right record. There is a question mark though as to whether he is significantly different from 100 others.

This brings me to the two Street dance groups, both black and difficult to separate until the final. Flawless from North London produced their third flawless performance, bold, imaginative and energetic. Diversity comes from Dagenham and Leytonstone and Essex, three sets of brothers and four of their friends. They include an I.T> systems engineer, a bathroom installer and one in telesales. The choreographer, Ashley Banjo is a physics university student. I thought their act was brilliant and agreed with Amanda Holden that they had “ blown Flawless out of the water. They were the outstanding act and Simon Cowell said that were the only act to get his ten out of ten.

Susan Boyle was outstanding in her audition performance and fully justified the tens of millions around the world who watched her performance on You Tube singing If I had a dream and which led to interviews on major talk shows in the USA. Simon Cowell is now second to President Obama in terms of being a household name in the USA. However Susan appeared a bundle of nerves in the semi final and looked like a scared rabbit caught up in the headlights. There were rumours that she was considering withdrawing from the show and then she might be asked to leave because of outbursts and reactions to the pressures. On the night she performed the original song again and sang it much better with more passion and intensity, According to the Wikipedia the group Diversity won the audience vote with 24.9% Susan came second and the saxophonist third.

The reference to learning difficulties reminds that on my way to Newcastle a mother brought her son onto the train who had a severe condition and was prone to shout, swear and attention seek. She clearly could not cope and resented having what she regarded as a problem and an embarrassment. One wondered why she subjected herself to the situation without help as clearly what happened was not unusual. It was a very difficult situation for the other passengers. My thoughts were with the mother and with her son but there was nothing I or anyone could do,

I started to watch the film again after the show, it is called casino. I became tired again and went to bed and sleep although waking up early on Sunday morning. The subject of the morning remained that of public manipulation by thee media and politicians

1713 Gentry . A drama suitable for family viewing on a bank holiday

I have decided to call my work Contemporary Primitivism. Technically it should be called Contemporary and Historical Primitivism, as so much of the work is about exploring my past experiences and the past experience of others. I am calling it Primitivism because my work is unskilled and primitive although much of fashionable contemporary art is synthetic in that it is not actual created by the artist concept originator but by commissioned craftsmen.

I watched an important new drama part of the new series of police detective stories with Marin Shaw as Inspector George Gentry. The story appears to have been inspired by the situation discovered last year at the site of a former Channel Island Children’s home. In the first of this four part second series an old man is found murdered, and the story which emerged is dark but all too familiar.

The former head of a children’s home, (not for once run by a local authority but by an independent organisation prior to the creation of local authority Children’s departments in 1948) is discovered murdered and later to have raped and sexually maltreated young girls in his care and encouraged and organised for other members of the management committee to indulge their paedophile inclinations. One of these is a police Inspector who we learn liked young boys.

The similarity with the publicised real event is that there is a basement chamber in which children were raped and repeatedly sexually assaulted and where in one corner there was a bath in which children were immersed in water as a punishment and to gain their cooperation. At one point as in the real life event there is a search for a body although the body in question turns out to be still alive, the former victim of the police inspector, who was adopted by him and become a local police detective and link officer to Gentry and his assistant and who deliberately misleads. Why? Because he is one of the three local survivors. One, a girl, has become a property developer and has acquired the site of the home to demolish it which she does in a symbolic gesture as the film ends. At one point she is harassed by the former head and the film brilliantly communicates the nature and the extent of the hold he once had over her. He is killed by another victim of the police inspector, more out of protection than homicidal intent, a man who was so traumatised by his experience that he has ceased to be able to speak directly and illiterate is he full of frustration except with those who shared his hell.

These three represent the victims, about five are shown in a photograph kept in a file held by the county archives of the whereabouts of the children when the home was closed,

Although in the cause of good drama within a 90 minute slot the reality of such situations and the investigation is shortened it contained all the essential ingredients and raised all the essential issues.

Some two thirds and more of the police forces in the UK have investigated allegations of rape, physical and mental violence and cruelty by former children in residential care during the period 1948-1997 when the investigation period commenced on a large scale. As it is several years since I studied the published information I do not know if any quantative study was undertaken of the total number of individual complaints, the number of former children traced, the number who requested contemporary investigation of their complaint and who were willing to present their recollections to the police for a formal investigation with a willingness to go to court if the public prosecutor thought there was likelihood of a conviction or one of the perpetrators or colleagues was willing to give evidence against others. Similarly I have no information on the number of alleged perpetrators named, the number of homes, the number and percentage brought to a criminal trial and convicted. I would be surprised if the number did not accumulate to thousands of children, thousands of alleged perpetrators and only a few percent of convictions. The number of civil actions is likely to have been similarly small because although the evidence test is less, in addition to believing or not the testimony of former victims evidence was required that the managing authority or agency had received complaints at the time and had not effectively investigated them or had been corporately negligent in some way in failing to detect and report the crimes to the police.

A reoccurring issue in the media and in at least two published enquiries has been the allegation of some organisation involving the head of the home or other senior and experience staff and outsiders, influential individuals who were allowed to commit crimes against the children. None of these claims have been substantiated in terms of the reported criminal proceedings, yet they persist as was the situation in this fictitious episode.

A similar claim has been made about cover up and pressure put on individual investigated historical allegation to either drop the investigation or limit their work. In this episode it is the fictitious chief constable orders Gentry to stop his investigation once he has identified the most likely suspect for committing the murder, even if with the absence of motive or evidence it is unlikely that a conviction will be obtained. Gentry persists and the Chief Constable is appreciative yet the outcome is the same as there is no prosecution and therefore the available evidence does not become public and surviving individuals shamed if not brought to justice, and the community in which they live, rather like the holocaust. Obviously the scale is different but the sense of people knowing and doing nothing while children were marked for life, becoming general criminals, spending periods in psychiatric case, committing suicide, and indeed becoming abusers themselves.

However the reason given in the drama why the matter did not go to court is a good one. The Identified victims were either unable still to talk about what happened to them or did not want to face reliving the experience, recounting the experience to investigators and prosecutors and reliving in open public court in the presence of the media. There is also the problem of witness credibility and corroborative evidence unless there is some record of the complaint being made at the time and of the investigation or subsequent lack of it.

Understandable the film concentrated on three individuals or were currently and immediately available. The police aided by central and local government went to great length to track down former children and former staff. Central government and not local authorities had the responsibility of registering and monitoring non local authority establishments and for monitoring local authority establishments until in the 1980’s local authorities commenced to establish their own formal inspection and complaint monitoring systems. One Labour Health Secretary of State went on record to say that were it legally possible the government should have been prosecuted for parental neglect, and the man did not survive long in a government post afterwards.

However there is also good reason for these matters being investigated and dealt with outside the public courts and media watchfulness. This concerns the impact of media attention on all the victims past and children in care at present. I am only too well aware of the impact, the feeling different from other children and of being made to feel different and in addition to having to admit to being in care or known to be in care children then have to suffer the taunts about being abused and bearing stigmata which affects their applications for employment and personal and family relationships in the future. I still remember the sense of embarrassment and humiliation at filling in an application form for a job, at a bank in the city of London as I was about to leave school at sixteen years and knew afterwards that asked about the occupation of father I had written father diseased instead of deceased and father as father.

Yet the dilemma is that without public exposure the risk is that further crimes are committed and individual perpetrators are allowed to continue.

There are also thousands of men and women with a deep sense of having lost their childhoods, having been betrayed and with a burning sense of injustice.

On the bright side that the overwhelming majority of crimes against children, other than driving crimes, and in a time of war, are committed by individuals known to the child: parents, extended family relatives, siblings and friends, and other carers, step parents and step relatives, foster parents as well as residential home workers, means that almost all children are safe from strangers, either the serial paedophile, the lunatic at large or the opportunistic and random attack or abduction. With this knowledge it is understandable that the police and other authorities always focus on those closest to a child rather than on the probability of stranger.

It was interesting that this episode was shown on a bank holiday weekend when families were likely to be watch the TV together.

Sunday had been a glorious Midsummer’s day whereas Monday was freezing cold and wet in places. On Saturday I enjoyed a Greek salad full of feta cheese and green and black olives with a small baguette followed by a good coffee. In my motel room in the evening I enjoyed two salami filled rolls with mustard after a society cuppa soup and followed by strawberries and an apple turnover with coffee. I awoke early as planned on Sunday having a chocolate croissant. Lunch there was a tasty fish starter, Roast beef and York pudding followed by a lemon and vanilla cheese cake. There was more cake for tea and in the evening a concoction, the remaining Salami roll with mustard, a small tins of baked bean cold, a Danish pastry and coffee. On Monday there was three more salami filled rolls and coffee and for tea an apple turnover and the rest of the coffee. For a later evening meal there was vegetable stir fry and a small piece of steak with strawberries. It was all enjoyable but did nothing for my weight loss intent

The two flasks bought for £5 have had had a mixed christening. The Blue one used for cold served its purpose well but the red used for hot turned out to be a dud. On my way home this morning I stopped at a supermarket and bought a smaller version of the traditional vacuum flask which fits better into my back pack but still provides two normal size cups of coffee which is the most I will drink during a day before it cools. There is usually a solution for every problem although these usually involve additional expense.

1710 American Idol Semi Final, National Politics and a shopping expedition to Mid Tyne

As forecast the weather around the country has changed with long periods of rain overnight and continuing in places.

Yesterday the government suffered an unexpected defeat in the House of Commons as a number of Labour backbenchers voted for a Liberal Democrat, Conservative supported motion against their approach to allowing retired Ghurkha soldiers and their families to have an automatic right to live in the UK should they wish. A number of others abstained bring the total discontented on the government supporting Party benches to 100.

The government side party administrators were clearly stunned by the result. This morning the Daily Mail said the Home Secretary was blamed for underestimating the opposition and a government member tried to explain that the problem was opposition from within the Ministry of Defence. I thought the Minister of Defence and the Government ran the country not the military brass or Civil Servants at the Defence Ministry. What a pathetic response if accurate from a government Party in charge for over a decade.

Usually in such a situation irrespective of its merits the House of Commons Party managers know in advance who is likely to abstain and vote against and has prepared a series of concessions to announce as the debate progresses if the vote looks like being lost. It appears that this time the concessions were circulated too late and individuals who might have reacted were not informed. Others suggests that the rebels were not interested and sensed blood. This suggests incompetence or does it? I tend to see something more Machiavellian here as a warning shot to the Prime Minister that he does not have the clear run into leading the Party into the next election as he might want to believe.
That the government has got itself into a corner over the claims of the Ghurkhas is extraordinary and does reveal either incompetence in not understanding public feelings or shameful bloody mindedness. It is true that previous administrations were reluctant to make changes to the situation because of the financial and political implications of allowing the Ghurkhas and their families any right to come and live here when their period of service ended. With the regiment now based in the UK this means that without settlement rights the whole family is required to leave unless they meet the present and recently proposed revised criteria.

The government has improved the position and proposed to do so again after a legal judgment that the present situation was unfair and should be immediately changed. However what it has failed to recognise is the immorality of the position that people who are prepared to die for this country should be given not just equal rights to everyone else but should be better treated. The situation is even more extraordinary given the rights of anyone from any of the members states of the EEC to live and work here and is again different from members of the Commonwealth who have also fought alongside the UK.

While there is a strong anti ECC and foreigners mentality among British workers and the trade unions this does not apply to fighting men or the Ghurkhas in particular.

Later on Thursday it emerged that the Government has indicated it will respect the views of the Commons although one suspects formal implementation will be dragged out. Hilary Benn on Question Time attempted to place what has happened in context but all he did was damaged his own standing and reputation as well as digging a bigger hole for the Prime Minister. Whatever he does now it will be difficult to remedy the damage. There is a death wish emerging.

There was the prospect of further humiliation and embarrassing difficulties during Thursday when the House considered proposals of the Prime Minister for changing the situation of expenses payment and second Home allowances in particular. The background is illuminating. The Prime Minister was hostile to the whole issue of the details of Parliamentary payments being disclosed and his solution has been a single payment for those living outside Greater London who attend, again without Members having to disclose the details of how the money is used. This smacks to me that he knows that the Government is going to have a series of major embarrassments when the details of receipts for the past few years are released over the summer and papers, lacking the usual political in fighting to report because of the recess will study every document in the hope of finding anything on which to attack politicians over their gravy train. The Conservatives also appear to have reluctant agreed to the disclosure of incomes form sources outside employment within the House of Commons. One Shadow Minister on Question Time admitted that four months ago he started to received £24000 a year for attending Board meetings as the non executive director of a business which he did not identify arguing this was because he wanted to learn at first hand the problems which business faced. The incredulity on the faces of the audience was a joy to behold. One presumes the invitation would not have been made had the business in question not felt they would be getting value for money in establishing links with someone who was likely to be a member of the next Government. It is customary for all such links to be severed once a member of the House becomes the member of at the links, the contacts will have been established and it is unlikely the Minister would then ignore requests for a meeting or personal telephone calls after any Ministerial appointment, or perhaps a holiday or visit to the Opera or some sporting event. Was he serious suggesting that the firm were shelling out 24 grand a year in order to giving him information about current business issues?
It was evident that the Government Minister and the Conservative Shadow Minister still do not get it. The public has had enough. Both main parties should find this out at the next Euro Elections this month, the public are like to demonstrate their contempt by a vote strike and the Liberal Democrats, anti EEC candidates and others will be the beneficiaries. On the bright side Labour Party Members of the House of Commons realising they are doomed to lose their jobs at the General Election will start to vote according to conscience.

There was no cricket Thursday morning which meant that in theory there was opportunity to attend to other matters.

Priority was my feet where the skin has become rough and I had been intended to apply some special cream in the hope that at the end of the course the position will be improved. I have the tendency to go about in stockinged feet such is the quality of the carpeting and since covering the kitchen tiles with wood flooring. About a week ago I clattered my left big toe into the exercise bike which had been moved from its usual position in order to find something in the unit cupboard adjacent. It has been painful, and awkward to avoid pain when in bed. I have gone out wearing sandals which have more comfortable than show although required due care with the exposed damaged toe.

I was right about the cricket in that there was little play, fortunately everywhere, so that most teams playing the fist division will only draw. I was also right that it would be difficult for Durham to repeat their success on Wednesday and Marcus Trescothick and James Hildreth added nearly one hundred runs to reach 170 runs without the loss of their wickets.

In the evening I enjoyed American Idol where there were some stunning performances of ballad type numbers with Jamie Foxx the tutor. On Friday evening the result of 45 million voting calls was announced Throughout the series Adam Lambart has produced spectacular numbers highly theatrical and confident and reminding me of Rhydian who has gone on to have a career on the West End stage and to make an album to-date. He is appearing at the Apollo Hammersmith this Sunday and last minute discount tickets are available! The surprise was that Adam was not in the top two and finished fourth to Matt who had been saved by a judges vote towards the end of the series and had been in the bottom three before.

Adam is aged 26 and grew up in San Diego California and attended Mr Carmel High. His main interest was the theatre and becoming an Actor although he sang in the choir and played in the school jazz band. He moved to Los Angeles to further his career and before beings elected for the American Idol series he had moderate success. He has been the best supported of all the last ten by all four judges and therefore his relegation to being an outsider in the final came as a shock to many.

Not a shock was the placement of Danny Gokey in the top two this week. First his performance Come Rain or Shine was outstanding and showed a stage presence not revealed before and where the role of Jamie Foxx appears to have been crucial. There were two other reasons why he is evidently commanding votes in their millions. The first is his personal story Danny grew up in Milwaukee party of a large family with four sister and one brother. At the age of 17 he met his future wife and they had a long engagement before their marriage in 2004. He was aware that his wife had congenital heart diseases and had required several operations and four weeks before the first audition for American Idol his wife unexpectedly died from a routine operation. Thus through his performance he has communicated a man who has known great sorrow. The other reason si that Danny is not just a strong Christian but has been an active member of the Faith Builders International Ministry and is presently Worship director for his evangelical church. One suspects that Danny could sing the phone book badly and still command significant support. However he is a brilliant singer and open forecast he will have a great career, tinged with sadness.

The second surprise of the evening is that eh shared the top two spot with Allison Iraheta who has just turned 17 years. Although also living in Los Angeles she is of Salvadorian descent and ahs already own a talent show with a monetary prize and a recording contract when she only 14. Her voice has a maturity way above her years and Simon in particular has been critical because of lack of confidence and super star stage presence. He predicted she would not survive this round after her performance. In addition to gaining the non white vote and the youth vote she has been the only female among five, then four and now three males.

The fourth finalist Kris Allen is also an evangelical Christian who has undertaken missionary work in Burma, Morocco, Mozambique, South Africa, Spain and Thailand although he is only 24 years old. He self taught himself to play the guitar at thirteen and can also play the piano, viola and the ukulele. In the autumn of last year his married a long standing girl friend. He had recorded three songs with limited success before appearing on the show.



There was also an interesting new Taggart in which one of the team finds out the hard way the peril of mixing business with pleasure as to villains, one a big villain are shot in the head by a besotted but vulnerable casual bed partner. Such is life.

Friday started sunny and warm and I decided to undertake a shopping expedition in search of a replacement Cafetiere and a travel alarm clock as well as more black folders. Originally I was just going to Morrison’s at Jarrow but then decided to take the Metro to Gateshead Interchange centre where I found the Get Carter car park surrounded by hoardings but not yet demolished. The visit was a great success finding a six cup Cafetiere in an attractive stainless steel holder for £10 and then as a bonus two new thermos in steel but with a two for £5 offer with one having a blue and the other a crimson red attractive covering. One of my existing ones had become smelly and he other did not function as I liked if used for and these two cost less than one of the originals. Now I shall use the original for cold which appears to work and one of the new for coffee and the other for soup with perhaps a fourth later for tea. I also obtained four of the black set folders. However I forgot to look out for a simple travel alarm clock but made a note to call in at the Jarrow Wilkinsons which I would pass on the way back.

At Gateshead you enter the bus station to reach the Metro station which is two flights of moving staircases below and I spotted a number 27 bus calling at Jarrow. However instead of taking the main route through from Gateshead Town centre passed the Gateshead Stadium we went South and then on a parallel Road to Howarth Interchange which I have used in the past but where most of the older terraced housing running down to the Metro line has been demolished without any sign of replacement building. From there we took the expected route by Pelaw until the outskirts of Hebburn where instead of continuing the bus turned South passing the Hebburn branch of South Tyneside College and the Catholic senior school. Hebburn is a mini Northern Ireland in reverse where there remains a strong traditional and predominant Catholic community which never elected a non Catholic to the Borough Council for years. The Hebburn Catholic Club which I have visited was a large modern building whereas the Conservative and Unionist building was much smaller and dilapidated. Today it is unashamedly the Orange Order Club.

The bus continued southward towards the road heading for the AIM when by a splendid sport pub restaurant it turned into the adjacent Housing estate. I know the pub well because for many year I would often call in for a meal before or after watching Newcastle play at home. They had an excellent menu full of 2 for the price of 1 offers and a large screen to watch whatever match was being shown by Sky.

I knew of the estate and many of the names including the main road of Finchale Avenue. It is a wide avenue and there are plenty of open space giving a very different perspective to the former Borough in term a of being a former local authority owned and managed housing estate. I had never had cause to visit this area as we had no establishment located. The road back, having travelled in a large oblong took us past the former Council Borough Council offices where we had an Adult Training centre which continues to exist and the second major swimming pool in South Tyneside. There were public bather in Jarrow but these are long since closed and demolished. Not so Palmer’s Memorial Hospital which I was asked to supp0rt the campaign to keep open when the District health Authority became an enthusiast for centralization. Now brand new purpose designed health centres with day surgery facilities are springing up all over the place.

I found an inexpensive alarm clock and bought two more packs of Strawberries and one of grapes at the green grocers where I called in a couple of days before and then faced the Morrison‘s shop which was packed out, presumably because of a Bank Holiday on Monday although it may be like this every Friday. I was able to purchase everything on my list. On the way out I had called in at Lidl who had advertised a sale of alarm clock among their special offers and which had triggered the idea of getting one when I found the offers where scheduled to start on Monday.

The skies darkened as I returned and it commenced to rain heavily. I thought this was a bad omen for the cricket and I was not wrong.

1710 Television Past and Present

Over the decades my viewing of television has changed. A relative made the first TV set within the family for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip and we sat on a makeshift tiered seating so everyone in the household could view.

It may be difficult for today’s young viewer to comprehend that with the multiplicity of channels and programme choices and households having more than one set to accommodate different family interests, we managed with just one channel, BBC1 and where there was limited broadcasting time with intervals where the Potter’s wheel was look forward to despite being repeated at some point during every week, if not days. Few if anyone of my generation had a concept of how things would change in practice except those part of creative and imaginative household or who came to read 1984

There was also a period when I first left school through to marriage and a family when I scarcely watched television, anxious to be involved in the direct activities, involved in studies and making my way in the chosen profession. The exceptions were programmes about the arts and drama. There are those today who on principal do not own a television set and prefer the radio for newspapers and the newspaper and to attend concerts and plays rather than the cinema.

Later, frequently overwhelmed with the pressures and stresses of the responsibilities of my occupation, I enjoyed the mid evening soaps and later still the early evening ones designed for teenagers. Nothing demanding application of the intellect or too emotionally challenging was the order of the day. As I believe it was TS Elliot or one of his characters who said human beings cannot stand too much reality.

The spread of the family in terms of age range meant two eras of watching programmes for the every young through to the young teenager and my mother over her last years in her later nineties enjoyed programmes which showed babies and pre school children in particular. In my childhood I longed for the film cartoon adventure although several had greater impact than the adult orientated pictures I saw with family at the local cinema every Monday and Thursday evening in addition to those at weekend, I have in mind the frightening aspects of the Wicked Witch and the death loss of the mother in Bambi. There was disappointment if we missed the short cartoon film sandwiched between the main and B features along with the newsreel. There are now some thirty channels for children including those aimed for babies and for teenagers, including round the clock Disney and cartoons, cartoons and cartoons. Through this revision to television intended for children and adolescents I relived my own experienced and filled in some of the missing gaps.

The arrival of Satellite TV was a significant dimensional change but not as significant for me as the word processing programme computer and however inadequate I had a means of expressing myself without the frustrations of the typewriter because of my inability to learn to touch type, my poor memory regarding spelling and the rules of grammar. What others take for granted or think nothing of television and the cinema and all the other arts widen individual horizons and my own.

Before the digital conversion commenced I enjoyed picking up European stations and staying in Holland I enjoyed the ability to watch a screen of mini screens. Now those who wish can have a bank of screens each showing different channels, as well as live and catch up TV through the internet, on lap top and mobile phone. Television is no longer restricted to the box in one corner of one room.
One development which must be singled out is the arrival live news programmes from the United States and then the spread of English speaking transmissions from Russia, China, France, India, the Middle and Far East as well as Europe. Associated with the news programmes but now a separate sector are the 30 documentary channels covering the natural world, science and history and crime. A feature of this development is the live broadcast, again something which was once unique I remember the first exchanges with television stations in France, the USA and Australia, the first sporting events shown live and for free and the first cameras in individual as well and the first webcams and close circuit television. I can claim to be one of the few who first predicted that a surprising large number of human beings would pay to watch other human beings doing the ordinary and the basic of life which I put forward when attending an unintentional management course in 1985 and suggested that the video (the DVD was still under wraps) would have a commercial significance to change lives.

The 24 hour reporting of news, the constant discussion and review of political matters together with significant improvement in the provision of further education, has had a major impact in public understanding and approach towards politicians and politics at home and abroad. In my youth at general election more houses displayed posters in their windows coloured blue or red and a few yellow than those whom did not, now it is rare for someone to declare any party political allegiance but after Profumo and Watergate, Sleasegate, the public perception is that Parliament comprises at best those awash in the gravy train with their snouts buried deep in the trough and with many corrupt, fraudsters and charlatans. This has been the contribution of television replacing the reporting quill of the past. Have things really changed from the days of the rotten boroughs, but do we need a second Oliver Cromwell? Perhaps the greatest change of all is our attitude to the Monarchy, accepted because of the Performance of Queen Elizabeth but will anyone else be tolerated after her, given what we now know and understand? These two transformations in public perception has ripped through the approach of the middles classes towards authority. The lower classes never took the alleged Victorian values seriously and the upper classes always knew how to act in public and disregard their espoused Christian and moral values in private, or at least away from the public eye.

One sector of channels which has had the greatest impact on the greater number of lives is sport. When I first subscribed the film package costs more than sport which was available at first free and then for £3 a month where as now it is £4.50 a week with the growing Satanta another half as much on top. The result is that some important national sporting events are no longer available without subscription, although many more have become available whether the sport has national popularity or is a sectional interest. I got to appreciate American Football and supported the Chicago Bears, and then the San Francisco 49ers after I was given the shirt of the latter as a Christmas present one year and they played a pre season
game at Wembley.

On downside is that with all the Football now on TV, I have never adjusted to the change in football going from Saturday at 3pm to Saturdays at lunch or tea time and Sundays likewise. There had also been a change in what people are prepared to accept on the terraces and which rightly has become all seating, in terms of the quality of performance and overall value for money. Hundreds of thousands see no point in consistently turning up to watch the favoured team lose, and yet hundreds of thousands also continue to do so, paying more and more for the privilege of expressing tribal loyalty to a team of international carpet baggers who have in fact no loyalty to them. Television has exposed the organisation and extreme politics which has become part of football as it has the use of drugs although the extent of corruption in sports has remained forbidden territory for some reason. Similarly it took a large number of deaths of the innocent to understand the nature of the violence associated with football.

I have occasionally switched on to the Religious channels of which there is a dozen and today I was delighted to find there is one provided by the Catholic Church. It is a false perception to regard Satellite religion as the preserve of evangelist and the organisers of the orgasmic and ritualistic ceremonial as there is also the cloistered reflection and the traditional praying.

I sometimes flip through the sixty odd international channels, that is channels in a language other than English to be reminded of the wider cultural variation and wider commonness but regret that only one of these is in Spanish and one in French, although I enjoy Bollywood from time to time before Bollywood came to the local cinema.

Then there are the money making sectors, the forty shopping channels, the dozen gaming and dating channels, which people continue to squander their incomes never realising that the human nature being what it is and digital technology what to has become, few individuals stop when they have won something, continuing until they are loss, then continuing in the mistaken belief that they will get into profit, such is the way the odds can not be skewed with publicised winners part of the organisation, perhaps now after billions and trillions have been gambled by governments, bankers, and professional speculators the penny will drop.

There are also sixty adult channels divided between phone me for a private chat and pulp porn, another reflection of the changing nature and openness of our culture from the days when I would feel guilty about seeing an x rated film even when an adult.

There is also the miscellaneous specialist sector, from the pub channel, to one for teachers and two pay for psychic readings and with the standard rates for adult and psychic chat is around £1.50 a minute. When I attended Ruskin College and others the likes of Platter Hall, we were but a handful of those with untapped abilities who had missed out during the normal education system, and television and the Open University, and programmes designed for schools, began to widen the opportunities for further learning for those still not able or willing to attend night school. However we appear to have gone full circle as despite the large numbers entering further education it has become an occupational and commercial conveyor belt, rather than the opportunity for lifelong learning and more importantly lifelong understanding.

I have left until almost last the music channels where I expected much and have been greatly disappointed. I spent my early teenage years trying to find Radio Luxembourg on the radio because was the only station where it was possible to listen to the contemporary popular music of the day, traditional and big band Jazz, the crooners and the female equivalent. While there is the full range of video music with some thirty channels for the young available, the one of classical and contemporary orchestral and chamber music and choral disappeared within a couple of years. My objection to the existing range is the extent of advertisement and interruptions. Better are the recordings of concerts which appear on other channels.

Last there is the television film. For many years the Christmas Treat was the showing of one of the latest blockbusters while television caught up with the back catalogue of B Westerns and early comedies and low budget crime thrillers. I was able to relive and recreate the years spent going to the local cinema every Monday and Thursday for the change of programme, to the Saturday morning children’s show and with extended family relatives sometimes on a Saturday or Sunday night to watch he latest film on a general release after it had played for months in London. When Satellite TV commenced I resisted the film channels because I knew they would quickly dominate my life at the expense of time taken to find the “art films” especially the serious films in languages other than British and American English. It is only over the past couple of years that this aspect had been remedied, first with Film Four TV Channel Four films, now a free channel with the digital system and then with World Films. There is still the tendency of these channel to acquire a comparative small stable of films which are then shown in cycles and this is understandable given the limited public interest and the availability of the surround sound High Definition DVD and Internet and Mobile Phone download.

It is not surprising that with the growth in the availability of channels award programmes for TV should have increased and the prestigious British Academy splitting those for Film and TV into two nights. As with the award programmes for music this tends to mean an award for everything. Unlike those for film I had seen few of the programmes and performers nominated for awards..

I missed those for the best Actor and Actress although I had seen The Curse of Steptoe and Hancock and Joan, and Margaret Thatcher, The Long Walk to Finchley. I had also missed June Brown’s nominated performance where she was the only character in a half an hour length episode of East Enders. June served in the Wrens in the later stages of World War 2 was married at seventeen but her husband committed suicide after a period of depression. She was then happily married for 45 years until the death of her husband. She had six children one of whom died after sixteen days. It is this experience of life which she brought to the character of Dot Cotton, a chain smoking busy body with a great religious faith and a wicked son who tried to kill her and who then found happiness later in life with another O.A.P. and who in real life is recovering from a stroke.

June joined the cast of East Enders in 1985 and was an important member for eight years. She had a break of two and then has been a regular ever since although now in her eighties. She has had a varied career since the 1970 when her children reached secondary level or were in their last years in junior school. During the years she also appeared in major productions on stage and films as well as on TV including the Duchess of Duke Street.

I was however pleased that Wallender with Kenneth Branagh won the drama series although I would have been just as happy had it gone to Spooks. Dr Who was also in the running.

I was pleased that Jonathan Ross was not successful and the Entertainment award went to Harry Hill. The X Factor won another of the Entertainment Awards.

The surprise was that Lewis Hamilton Winning the Brazilian Grand Prix was the Sporting event choice and not the Olympics. One reason may have been the loss of the contract from ITV to the BBC.

The one omission noticed is an award for a programme intended to be of an educational nature and was there an award let alone awards for programmes deigned for children and for adolescents?

Few comedians have been made Fellows of the Royal Academy with the last being Eric Morecombe and Ernie Wise, Jenifer Saunders and Dawn French have now been added.

There are similarities between the two Comedian duos in that a feature of their seven series over a twenty year period from 1987 was the appearance of guest celebrities such as Alison Moyet, Roy Castle, Michael Grade, Jules Holland, Harry Enfield, who got an award for the first time on the same night, Joan Armatrading, Joan Bakewell, Toyal Wilcox,, Ben Elton, Kirsty McColl, Lenny Henry, Lulu, Robbie Coltrane. Jerry Hall, Kathy Burke, Eleanor Bron, Felicity Kendall, Julia Sawalha, Ruby Wax, Brian Cox, Denise Van Outen and Amanda Holden.

And again similar to Morecombe and Wise they appeared in various charity shows together for Comic Relief and once for Amnesty. However Morecombe and Wise never established separate career while one was alive. Jenifer Saunders won a BAFTA in her own right for her role in the series Absolutely Fabulous and as a consequence she joined Rosanne and Friends, became the face of Barclay’s Bank and BBC America, while Dawn French established a role as the Vicar of Dibley with a penchant for eating chocolate and in Lark Rise to Candleford for one season and for the Chocolate Orange Adverts.

They are perhaps best loved for their Christmas Specials and after tours in 1999 and 2000 have again appeared live on stage in 2008 which they have or are taking to Australia. Their single feature shows have also achieved international recognition with for many the Silence of the Lambs the most memorable. For others it would have been the Sound of Music, Gone with the Wind Thelma and Louise and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. As with Morecombe and Wise, their work can viewed time and time again still appear fresh and funny. They were worthy new additions to the Fellowship which has not always been the situation in recent years.

1708 An amazing cricket day and Ballykissangel

I awoke sufficiently early to attend to several activities before settling down to divide my day between watching Durham at Somerset and undertaking some work at the computer or photographing completed sets.

In contrast to yesterday the morning was bright and temperature reasonable. After washing up and washing me, and completing my notes on Helen Keller and the fictional Esther Costello I made my way to Jarrow, to visit Wilkinson’s to see if they had any of black coloured set volumes which I need for the completed MySpace and Google not writing. This was a success with five bought as well as two more red and three bluish.

On the way I discovered that work on the second Tyne Tunnel has commenced creating additional problems on reaching the present entrance area which has to be negotiated before be able to take the road into Jarrow centre and Morrison’s Car Park. The work should be completed during 2012. The second tunnel similar to that on Merseyside has become essential but how effective it will depend on improvements to the approach roads and to the paying of Toll facilities at the North Tyneside end or start depending on which way you are travelling.

On my return journey I forgot to position myself at one junction with the consequence of then having to take a different route which brought me one end of Fredericke Street where the former Plessey Factory and then site of the replacement electronics factory and which once employed over 2000 people has been cleared in an attempt to rejuvenate the area. By coincidence I had written about the factory and the shopping street in December 2007 and only last night transferred the writing from MySpace to Google. I found the connection between the mistake and the recent work interesting.

On return the first interest was the news of those selected for the Test Matches against the West Indies at Lords and then Durham followed by three one day matches where the side for this is to be announced later as well as for the World 20 20 competition. Michael Vaughan former Captain and a centrally contracted player, as is Steve Harmison have not been included. However Graham Onions has been selected for his first cap in the 12 and is likely to play with two spinners in the selection. This means he will not be travelling to Brighton for the Sussex game but Steve will. Liam Plunkett will be available to take his place after appearing for England against the West Indies Touring side.

There was an extraordinary change in the county game with new Batsman Mustard joining not Blenkenstein and struggling to get any runs as Somerset had sharpened up considerably over the previous day. The immediate task was to increase the total to over four hundred runs to gain the final and fifth batting point. I misunderstood the situation yesterday in that it is only possible to gain 3 bowling points making a total of 8 bonus, with four for a draw and 12 for a win.

The uncertainty about Durham position was reinforced when Mustard was run out for 4 and the score had changed from 284 for 3 to 382 for 7 and where the run rate had halved. Then Ian Thorp added 32 in 53 balls with Blenkenstein steadfastly moving towards 150. Young pace bowler Mitchell Claydon also showed competence with the bat and he and Blenkenstein moved the score forward quickly once more with Claydon 38 in 33 ball and Blenkenstein looking at 175. He was out at 181 with Steve Harmison 10. The total had reached 543. Today their Captain said it had been the right decision to put Durham into bat and the outcome would have been different if the four or five catches had not been dropped.
The task facing the Durham bowlers was to take the ten Somerset wickets before they reached a total of 393, thus making them bat for a second time in succession. Given that Somerset had scored over 600 runs in their last game on a similar wicket this might prove a difficult task although it was to be hoped that Harmison would set out to show that the selectors had been wrong to overlook him and Onions that they had been right to choose him.

What happened next was beyond anyone’s wildest dreams as Durham on of their greatest days bowing against one of the strongest batting sides in the country on a batting sympathetic wicket.

When the score was 12 Onions clean bowled a surprised Marcus Trescothick and then Captain Justin Langer one fo the great opening batsmen of all time seemed to have the situation under control although the other opener Suppiah looked as if he was finding the pace of Durham’s openers a challenge. Then for Somerset the sky fell in. Suppiah was caught and bowled by Onions for 12. Hildreth who had scored 303 runs in the first championship match of the season was out leg before wicket also to Onions and the score was 39 for 3. Only one run later de Bruyn was caught behind by wicket keeper Mustard of the bowling of Steve Harmison for 0). Only nine runs later Nieswetter was caught Thorp off Onions for 0. Then Thorp replacing Harmison had his finest ever spell bowing Trego caught Di Venuto for 4, and bowling Banks for 2 and Stiff for 0. It was 66 for nine with Captain Langer standing bemused and helpless at the other end having scored half the total. Onions got his sixth wicket when Captain Smith caught Willoughby for 0 and Somerset were all out for 69 giving Durham record lead of 474.

The bowing figures were

Graham Onions 14.2 overs 4 maidens 31 runs and 6 wickets

Graham Thorp 6 overs 2 maidens 5 runs and 3 wickets

And Steve Harmison 8 overs 2 maidens 29 runs and 1 wickets.

Sky’s commentary team were universally ecstatic advocates of quality pace bowling and Sky had a memorable television event after the boring and disappointing Test draws over the Winter in India and the West Indies. Durham’s reputation was considerably strengthened and the Sky team were speculating that only Notts might be in competition with them for the Championship this season

It was not to be expected that the rout would continue as Smith continued with the bowlers who had ended the first innings. However the batsmen had found new resolve and determined not to repeat the humiliation and the bowlers had understandable lost some of their fire. Somerset ended the day 83 for 1 with Claydon getting the wicket of Suppiah but Trescothick and Hildreth looking strong. However Hildreth was dropped and one possibility two LBW decisions were not given when they should probably making up for two dodgy decisions which contributed to the Somerset batting debacle earlier. Such days rarely come and joy was to be able to watch rather than listen or read about later.

I enjoyed using pat of the chicken from Sunday to make a Korma curry dish on Monday and yesterday used the remainder for a stir-fry. To day I had the rest of the stir fry and Thai sauce for lunch and then two salmon fishcakes with cold baked beans for the evening meal. There were fresh strawberries for lunch bough from green grocers in Jarrow where I purchased four giant plums the largest I have ever seen. Grapes, bananas and melon have provided fruit over the week so far. I have discovered some thin salt and pepper crackers which are enjoyable on their own or with anchovies, for a snack this afternoon, or with a slice of salami previously.

I missed the third series of Ballykissangel when it was first produced, upset with the departure of the two leading characters. The third series has been that much more enjoyable because my expectations were so low. It was an effective recreation introducing several new characters while retaining the strengths of some of the originals.

The first was the arrival of the son (Sean Dillon played by Lorcan Cranitch ) of a deceased man hated for having created his wealth and built up his farming land at the expense of his neighbours. There were several notable episodes in which he featured with the arrival of his daughter Emma, when he makes his peace with his neighbour (Eamon Byrne- Birdie Sweeney) Birdie was given his nickname as a child because of his ability to mimic birds. Growing up in a poor family of ten he did not turn to acting until in his 50’s. He had 8 children all of whom are now said to live in Philadelphia. The son of his brother also arrives to create a second teenage interest Danny- Colin Farrell who has since had a developing major career in films and TV, culminating with his award winning appearance in In Bruges one of the funniest films of many a year, black, clever and beautifully shot in the City which I have visited. He establishes a relationship with Emma.

Other memorable episodes are when the town forgives him for the his father’s past actions after a tree partially destroys his home and they rally to make the house habitable again.
He establishes a relationship with Niamh the daughter of Brian Quigley after she has married dull and respectable Policeman Ambrose and borne his child. Hit by the death of her close friend Assumpta Fitzgerald she finds the stability of marriage and the demands of motherhood are not for her because of a sense of having missed out on life and the world. When Ambrose dies having discovered the blossoming relationship with Eamon Byrne, she is consumed with guilt and resentment.

The new priest plays a less significant role than before and in contrast to his worldly predecessor has been cloistered in a Monastery for a decade. As the idealist he is counterpoint for Father MacAnally who schemes and enjoys the good life playing golf and drinking whisky, but also is wise and compassionate. He was in his sixties when appearing in 52 of 58 episodes of the series and has continued working into his late seventies. One interesting note is that both the curate priests appeared in the series Father Ted which was religiously watched by my birth and care mothers.

The arrival of the curate priest’s sister provides a friend for Niamh and then for a fiesty relationship with the man who rescues her when the balloon in which she is travelling with Brian Quigley crashes into the sea. For a time it looked as if there would be a relationship with the older Brian who is her kind of strong and adventurous man, As tenant of Padraig for time and who operated the garage she break his heart as well as fancying Eamon Byrne. She is the free spirit running amok in what appears to be a tranquil and traditional Irish community.

The shock of the series is when school master Brendan has a fling with the vet Sioban and they have a child, eventually marrying and living together. We also learn that Kathleen of the village shop who plays the church organ and disapproves of all things modern and of change meets her beau of twenty five years ago and who before going to London to make his fortune, with money given by Kathleen promised to call for her to join him when he was established, but never did.

Brian Quigley continues in his role as the local wheeler dealer acquiring the golf course but shows compassion and understanding when his daughter begins the extra marital relationship and when her husband dies. He also shows hidden talents in the care of her son. The local Doctor is the star of one programme as the winner of the annual horse race on the sands. He appears in 38 of the 58 episodes.

Only two characters appear in every episode and surprisingly this is the pair of self employed workers mainly for Brian Quigley, Donal and Liam. In the latest episode they discover a hurriedly discarded crate of stolen best caviar selling for £80 a tin which they give to the cat before being told what they have. As usual the scheme to sell the find falls apart.

Two established film and TV actors also make appearances. James Nesbitt appeared as the estranged husband of Assumpta Fitzgerald, before making his name in Cold Feet and Murphy’s Law. James Ellis plays the eccentric Uncle Minto in 4 episodes. James had some 50 mainly TV credit shows and series which he has continued

It was a good day but two in a row is not expected

1705 Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour and Daniel Craig

Yesterday I had an unexpected treat. There are 15 films in the wonderful Daily Mail War Movie Collection with several, the most outstanding films of the post second World War period. There was one which I thought I had not seen before as I failed to immediately recognise the title, The Sword of Honour.

As soon as it opened I realised this was the outstanding BBC shown dramatization of the three novels by Evelyn Waugh, Men at Arms 1952, Officers and Gentleman 1955 and Unconditional Surrender 1961 (The end of the Battle in the USA) and which was based on his actual experience, however loosely. Given that I continue to regard the 13 part television series of his work Brideshead Revisited as the greatest TV production of its kind ever made, I am surprised with myself for not having acquired any of his other works, especially as early on I became a fan of C P Snow and Anthony Powell and have the majority of their novels. I would like to remedy this situation but suspect time has run out.

The three novels are said to have been fully covered in this 2001 adaptation which lasts over three hours and I have no recollection if I saw the 1967 version with Edward Woodward, although it was the kind of programme I would not have missed. Waugh’s style is to portray the reality of the middle and upper classes with a humorous wit but he is also a very serious writer as I discussed after noting my experience of Brideshead on acquiring the series on DVD.

The idealistic hero of the three works is Guy Crouchbank, upper class with his father with whom he has a good relationship, struggling to maintain the family home and estate. They are both strong practicing Catholics although Waugh himself was a convert, a non unusual occurrence for middle and upper class Englishmen and women who find the reality of life very different from the idealism of their youth. Waugh maintained his respect for English culture and traditions, possessed a strong masculine approach to social order and government and hated what happened after the second World War and would have probably become a revolutionary and he lived to experience something of the changes from 1960’s. He died in 1966 at the age of 62. He was therefore in his mid thirties when the Second World commenced and the first book chronicles his experience of getting a commission and his first expedition adventure to North Africa. The book also coves the failure of his first marriage to someone who needed the excitement of new relationships.

The character in the book is Guy Crouchbank whose wife has married again someone part of the social circle of public school, Oxbridge University, London scene and country house parties, the Gentleman’s club in Pall Mall and the army. In real life because Waugh converted to Catholicism after his marriage he was able to gain an annulment and he remained married to his second wife for the rest of his life with seven children, and with one son Aubron also becoming an internationally known journalist and writer. It is noteworthy that Evelyn’s second wife was a cousin of his first.

In the book he attempts to seduce his divorced wife when he returns for a decade in Italy but she rejects him and then has an affair, one of several, with a charlatan hero who fathers her child. Pregnant, she turns to Guy who inherited his father’s (played by Leslie Phillips) wealth and estate and they remarry. When she is killed in a bombing raid the final scene of the film is his return from the war to get to know and bring up his son.

How far Waugh’s experience of the army is portrayed in the books and films I cannot say but almost none of the fellow and senior officers come out well.

There are two official hero’s in the books and film The first is a press office creation during the period when something was desperately needed to raise public moral. Crouchbank has joined the new Commando brigade after coming home in disgrace from the North African mission, and he nominates Trimmer McTavish, a man who has spent his war to date keeping out of danger and chasing the ladies. He takes up with Guy‘s, former wife when he remeets her again when on leave and we learn that he had been her lover when a steward on an Atlantic liner. The press orientated mission is to go with a small group and blow up a tower on a poorly defended island of the French coast. By mistake they are bought off the French coast by the submarine and there is no tower and only enemy is a French peasant woman with a shot gun. The sergeant with the group has the sense to blow up the railway line before they leave and this is represented as having affected important German transport links with McTavish made into a national hero and used to raise funds by promoting the sale of war bonds. When Guy’s wife falls on hard times she is taken in by the press officer and his wife and he forces her to establish an affair with McTavish if she wants to keep her free board and lodgings. When McTavish is sent on a six month raising campaign to the USA and Virginia finds herself pregnant, she openly admits to using Guy to get out of the situation.

While Guy has no illusions about he manufactured hero McTavish he is fully taken in by someone he believes is a true hero Ivor Clair who is young, handsome and full member of the upper classes. It is only in the last third that Guy realises that the man its not as honourable as he seems as he has disobeyed the order to surrender on Crete and escape to Egypt where he is having an affair with the wife of the Commanding officer and also learns that his original gallantry award was obtained under false pretences.

Covering up military mistakes and individual misdeeds is a great theme of the books as well as the incompetence of the hierarchy. I understand that in the first book Guy who just about managed to get a commission in a ill thought of fictitious corps called he Halberdiers spends a great deal of his time getting on and off trains and ships that go nowhere. When training with Halberdiers he encounters one fellow officer who is equipped with a vast expensive kit for every possible climate and terrain and which includes a portable toilet called the thunder box, coveted by the Commanding officer when he sees it and which is blown up in in tussle between the two over ownership. When they are stopped from the first mission from North Africa Guy agrees to lead a raiding party to capture something although against orders. However Guy gets sent home when he smuggles alcohol to a fellow officer who has become sick and is under treatment in sick bay from an alleged tropical disease from his work in Africa. Guy is told that the man died as consequence of this gesture because he suffered from liver disease.

As a consequence of this he is taken from the front line and made responsible for training until able to join the commandos and after training is posted to Egypt and then Crete before the Island is abandoned. Here because the commanding officer has an accident and breaks a leg while in transit, the unit is led by a rule clinging petty Hitler who lacks commonsense and panic freezes in adversity. Played by Robert Daws, Major Hound, nicknamed Fido is murdered by a Sgt who later with Guy survives an open boat which they take to escape from becoming a prisoner of war on Crete and land in North Africa. Later the same Sgt becomes the commanding officer of a parachute training camp to which Guy is sent and who spends his time hiding in his office from Guy. He has been keeping a diary of his adventures which he publishes as a novel when the war is over.

It is in the final book and section of the film that Waugh switches from lampooning to the very serious as Guy is sent as a one man military mission to Croatia prior to the formation of Communist Yugoslavia. The communist partisans are portrayed as dedicated and effective but also ruthless and he risks the wrath of both his hierarchy and the fledgling state by taking the part of 100 Jewish refugees from the camps. He is successful in getting all but a couple free to travel to a transit camp in allied controlled Italy en route to Palestine. The couple includes a cultured English speaking Italian Jewess whose husband becomes essential to the state because he is an electrician and can keep the allied supplied power station generators functioning. Later they are found guilty of treason and executed on the fictitious grounds of having capitalist propaganda, which includes a magazine provide by Guy when he visits to say goodbye. When Guy protests that the allied command took no action to save the couple he is reminded of overall priorities and the bigger picture. It is the justification which has been used by capitalists governments to justify their deals with fascists and communists states and dictatorships ever since democracy was developed in the USA and Britain.

In the first version of the series Guy has children by second wife who are disinherited by Trimmer’s son because he has been registered as Guy’s. In the published edition but not the film he married the daughter of another old Catholic families but they have no children not to complicate the succession. One of the points of the book is a conversation which Guy has with his father before his death in which his father explains that regardless of the pain and suffering, the disappoints and failures of life, the essence of being a Catholic is the saving of souls, and this is the inspiration for his decision to marry his former wife and bring up the child by a man he despises as his own.

Oddly the film does not explain its title, in that in the third book “a splendid ceremonials word is made at the King’s command,” to be presented to the Soviet Union in recognition of the sacrifices that he Soviet people made in the war against the Nazis.. In reality this was a sword commissioned by the King commemorating the battle of Stalingrad, It was put on display in Westminster Abbey and people queues to look at it. It sums up Waugh’s view that Guy is not impressed or with Stalin and is not tempted to join in the party held for the event and give sup the opportunity to enjoy luxury food for lunch on his 40th birthday.

Guy Crouchbank is played by the excellent actor Daniel Craig who has become more internationally known through taking over the role of James Bond. I especially enjoyed his performance in the TV series Our Friends in the North and also the films the Road to Perdition and Munich. His wide range of roles includes Lara Croft Tomb Raider, a Kid at King Arthur’s Court and the Golden Compass.