Sopranos, Blue Bloods,Masterchef and American Idol

Having mentioned that Game of Thrones was like Sopranos in Middle Earth, I viewed the real thing last night and after the more introspective recent episodes the series took off as Soprano’s world commenced to collapse around him.

He is called to a meet with the corrupt local detective who advises that one of Soprano’s closest firends and partners in crime, Pussy Bonpensiero, has been wired by the Federal Bureau Investigating Team. He explains that the comrade was picked up while allegedly on holiday when he was pressured into acting for the state as he faced an indefinite sentence because of his previous record. Recently the so called safe joint owned by the criminals was turned over by the Feds who knew in advance that a large stash of weapons was kept under the snooker table. Pussy was then bailed by his wife, something of a surprise at the ease in which this happened especially as he had tried to run away. The other crime partner Jimmy Altieri is only released on bail after his lawyer argues that when the property was purchased the table was already there and therefore they had no idea that weapons were stored beneath the table.

Tony is reluctant to believe that his friend has turned traitor. The programme commenced with the captains visiting one of their brothels and a girl runs in to tell the Madam that a client is having a heart attack to discover that it is Pussy saying his back is out. Later a colleague tells Tony that although Pussy went for medical attention the doctor was unable find any cause of the problems he was having. Tony discusses the situation with his pychiatrist who in general terms agrees that worries and stress can result in physical reactions. She also mentions the presure of keep secrets.

The two other close associates Pauli Walnuts and Silvio Dante also have difficulty in believing that Pussy has been turned informer and press Tony to get evidence. One mentions that they know that the Detective owes Pussy $30000 dollars gambling debts. There is then a raid on brothel while the Detective is enjoying its services. He is suspended and throws himself off a bridge to his death. We suspect that Tony was behind this. The death appears to convince him that the man was right about Pussy and tells Paulie he will deal with the matter. Paulie says that it one of the perks of being boss is that others will do the dirty work. Tony tells him to be sure that Pussy has a wire before he kills him. Paulie invites Pussy to join him in a private Turkish bath session but Pussy declines saying he has been told not experience any kind of heat (which is of course nonsense in his circumstances) but he is not forced by Paulie. After the release of Jimmy, Tony is convinced from his manner that he is traitor. In the last scene we see Tony speculating to himself about who is the traitor and what he is to do.

However little does Tony know this problem is minor is the one about to break over him. Early in the epsidoe Tony and his wife hold open hosue but his mother does not attend, as has happened in the past. His wife visits the mother to express Tony’ disappointment. The woman rejects the fruit pie Carmela had prepared for her and when she rejects this Carmel suggests that her hisband’s brother Junior who she knows visits regularly will enjoy if she does not. Livia takes offence interpreting the remark that she is having a relationship with her husband’s brother. Later she tells Junior how upset she is that Tony has sold her home and Junior is not sympathetic. She then tells Junior that Tony and the other captians have hasd meetings at the residential home together with someone from the New York syndicate. In fact the Capo’s have there when visiting their mothers and because it is a good place to meet without the Feds taking interest. Junior is incenses and indicates that he has to take action to exert his authority. Livia denies wanting to be the cause of trouble between him and her son, thus demonstrating what Carmela said to her that she is a manipulative and controlling woman who likes to wield power. She could have added, wicked, to the point of evil. There is also a scene in which one of Junior, junior criminals tells his woman that he is anticipating promotion within the organisation and that Tony Soprano is on the way down and out. He is either Mikey Palmice or Chucky Signore told by Junior to arrange the death of Tony. So much for honour among thieves!

I decided against going to the cricket on the Thursday although listened to the Sussex led radio broadcast on the Internet. I did go for an early swim returning for the anticipated arrival of four oft he first five already published Fire and Ice series of Gothic novels on which the new TV series Game of Thrones is based on book one. The cricket is reported separately but alas I had to wait in until afternoon before the novels arrived. There was s dense sea mist over the coast as I drove for the swim and which had only slightly eased on the return journey. It did lift a little during the day but in late afternoon it returned and by the close of play had covered Lumley Castle.

I enjoyed Blue Bloods more than expected and on reflection it proved to be one of the better episodes although continues to stretch overall credulity. The main subject is the death of the son of a Little Russia/Odessa crime boss at his engagement party. The father was the subject of a major crime investigation in which the Commissioner played a major part and was disappointed when the man escaped with only a four year sentence. He visits the crime boss to advise him to mourn his son but to leave capturing the culprit to the police. The man ignores this advice and the owner of the club where the party is held is tortured before being killed. The son was found in a part of the club where the CCTC camera had been switched off. The main suspect is a former teenage delinquent who expressed interest in the bride to me when at high school and who pursued the girl against her wishes at the time. He is now working for a Florist. He is blown up shortly after being questioned by the Detective son of the Commissioner and his partner. He survives. Just.

He is not murderer which turns out to be mother who had married one of the crime syndicate men as a young woman but separated/divorced. She wanted to do anything and everything preventing her daughter making the same mistake. The husband to be was very much his father’s son involved in a number of criminal activities and had been persuaded to by one of the guests at the party to accompany her to the planned location where photographs were to be taken in an attempt to prove to the daughter what he fiancée was really like. However the mother had decided that she could not risk this not working and had killed the man. The daughter is distraught. The theme of the week is therefore parents take to protect or further the interests of their children.

Fortunately for the Police Commissioner, the bomb maker is traced with evidence to convict him and he is persuaded to give evidence incriminating the gang leader because of the threat of being treated as a Terrorist and therefore being subject to the dearth penalty or a life imprisonment. The man gives up the crime boss.

There is a similar giving up in the secondary case of the episode. This involves the daughter assistant DA, She is assigned the case of a deputy Mayor or leading political figure in the Mayor’s office for corruption. He was arrested on the limited evidence of an assistant which is not regarded as strong enough to gain a conviction. The father of the Police Chief as well as the number 2 in the D.A’s office who is over stepped for the case to go the Commissioner’s daughter draw attention that the decision is a political move because the DA is standing against the Mayor for his position at the next elections. The daughter is very successful in the case by exerting pressure on an accountant and through her on the main witness to ensure that he provides hard evidence to secure the case. This result in the D.A expressing a personal interest in his assistant, taking her out for a celebratory kiss and insisting on seeing her home ending the evening with a kiss. Oh my. Grandfather makes her amends for questioning the judgement and ability of his grand daughter with a large bunch of flowers.

I enjoyed the semi final of Masterchef in which the four remaining competitors were reduced to three. The programme gave the impression that the decision would rest on the final dish prepared for the two core judges in which instance the lovely Italian lady Sara, now living in York would have been eliminated because he judges valued her dish least, especially against Jackie who pulled out all the stops and drew great praise from the judges, however she has consistently shown master chef skills and cooking for a select group of dinner guests at the Royal Society he dish was the only one which everyone adored without any criticisms and she received a standing ovation when she entered to meet them for the excitement of freezing a sorbet at their tables to the presentation and content of her pudding dish and which indeed looked delicious and worthy of would have been the commercial cost.

Finally the evening ended with the latest round of American Idol, in a season where no one is outstanding in such as Leona Lewis or the lad from South Shields in the British version. Lauren Alaina is only 16 with a southern drawl and could loose a couple of stone and i still trying to find who she is and not someone I expect will win the title, nor do I anticipate the other youngster, Scotty McCreery is 17 from North Carolina and is a natural country and Western singer with an unusually deep voice (Tennessee Ernie Ford) who has a wide following because of his youth and I who I am attitude,

One possible winner is James Durbin 22 from Santa Cruz who wore a tail effect to mark his difference at first similar to a British rock performer whose names I cannot remember. He is a great crowd pleaser and over recent weeks has shown that he is more than a one trick pony. Jacob Lusk 23 has a wide vocal range ands his performances are commanding and moving and could be regarded the one everyone else has to beat. He will command the religious and mum’s vote. Casey Abrahams 20 is a multi instrumental jazz and swing singer who also knows who he is and insists in trying to educate the pop public with good music. He is my outsider. Haley Reinhart is the only other female left in the competition with an undoubted strong voice without being the character of some of the others although she is growing in confidence and gave the performance of her life to ensure she stayed in the competition knocking Stefano Lengone who was never in my top ten and who saw himself as a lady’s man, I suspect without much success.

Game of Thrones April 2011

I had been looking forward to a new USA Sky Atlantic import called Game of Thrones which someone has described as the Sopranos in Middle Earth, because it featured Sean Bean in a major role, representing the House of Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North in the land of Westeros with his family who all feature in this first episode of what is said to be a faithful reproduction of the first of book of the same name 807 pages published in 1996 under overall title of A song of Fire and Ice. Three other volumes have been published since in 1998 969 pages, 2000 1128 pages and 2005 with 978 pages, the fifth planned for July of this year and two others to follow.

My first impression of head of house Eddard or Ned Stark (Shaun Bean) is that he is a realist as well as a man of hinour and loyalty. He is also satisfied with his role in what appears to be a cold and barren landscape with a loving wife and six children, one of whom by another woman. He is a devout follower of the Old Gods, Gods of the first men, those who live in the forest and the original inhabitants of the Kingdom.

He is a friend of the King with whom he was brought up at wards of a Lord who was ordered to kill the young men after which they launched a rebellion and the Lord is now the chief adviser to King

The series opens with three night guards leaving the city and finding a scenes of violent in the forest which appears to have been caused by White walkers, a kind of undead, and one of the guards flees with the other two are killed. He is then captured by the Bean’s men who severed head for desertion in order establish the law. Although. Although there are signs of wild killings of animals after the other bodies have disappeared, the account of the re-emergence of the undead is not believed, as according to Bean it is thousands of years since they terrorised the living. One of the animals, a wolf has six cubs and there are taken for the children and my understanding is that the creatures will have significance.

Bean insists that his ten year old middle son witnesses the execution. The boy appears not very good at learning to shoot arrows while the youngest daughter appears an expert, tomboyish and a scamp. Not much has registered about the the older brother but the illegitimate son does feature as someone brought up within the household but always an outsider in terms of recognition and position (I know that feeling well).

Bean’s series wife arrives at one of his favourite spots to announce that a raven has delivered a message from the Kingdom’s capital to say that the man who raised them both has died and that the King with his family is on his way to visit. The Queen’s oldest brother suggests he should be the adviser but he says this is not a job he wants. The King and his retinue arrives, greeting each other’s members of the family with the exception of the younger brother of the Queen who has made his way directly to the nearest brothel where he engages in visible sex. The king announces that he wants Bean to be his adviser and later admits he is also concerned at the way their father figure died and other threats to his rule. This persuades Bean to go but leaving his wife and family with the eldest son taking on the role as Warden of the north.

The king also suggests that the 11 year old daughter of Bean, Sansa, who in response to a question from the queen says that she had not yet bled, should become betrothed to the Kings son. The young people like each other and the daughter pleads for the marriage to be agreed so that one day she will become Queen. So far so good.

The scene switches to another kingdom where an effeminate claimant to a throne, Viserys Targaryen whose family once riled the Kingdom, is a guest which his 13 year old sister who has recently grown into womanhood after her body is inspected by her brother and where the family have a tradition of incest line perpetuation. He announces that Daenerys is marry the head of a race of warriors with a force of 40000 who will be used to regain the former lands. He tells the girl he would have given her to all 40000 to be enjoyed if this was needed to regain the kingdom. There are scenes of debauchery and killings at the wedding feast and the girl is graphically taken by the warrior leader.

The ten year old son, Bran, has one skill, that of climbing the walls of the castle much to the horror of his mother who tries to make him promise to stop. Knowing that he has no intention of doing so. The first episode ends with boy undertaking another climbing venture to watch the departure of his father with the Kind. For some reason the rest of the family stay behind and thus the boy catches sight of the Queen and her brother in a comprising situation and she demands that action is taken because they have been seen. The brother pushes the young boy off the wall, presumably to his death, commenting the things ones does for love!

Thus it is a tale of paedophilia, incest, rape, execution without trial, families plotting to take power against each and within families, demons and so on. I can understand why the books became popular and the description of the books as the Sopranos in Middle Earth. I shall view more.

Waking the Dead ends and Lewis is ending

The second Monday of April 2011 has been a day of mixed fortunes commences with a struggle of swim and quick read of the newspaper before going to the supermarket for milk with I then forgot, some meats and fowl as the cupboard had become bare, two made up salads one chicken and bacon and the other prawn layered, some butter scotch for the night and four packs of the £2 for 8 Pepsi.

It was then I could not find the A A credit card last used yesterday afternoon when buying the two pairs of trousers and by mid afternoon I decided it was lost rather than mislaid and cancelled so a second replacement within a month is required with the added problem that I will have to advise the change in card number to the Olympic ticket bid. To day I discovered the card inside the pocket diary but it was too late to change and had to be cut up.

Yesterday there was also a quick return home for the arrival of he boiling servicing although in fact it was after 11.30 one and half hours into the two hour slot and then a brief stay of under 15 mins but it has been done for another year. I then found my day phone that had dropped to the floor in the car and I could settled for the day after a good lunch of a cut of steak and the rest of the tinned and tomatoes and beans from yesterday.

Today after the swim I also made a quick visit to Morrison’s for milk, select your own salad and a kipper topped and tailed. There were two in the pool on arrival and then a couple from the hotel so I sat out read the paper and my current book. After the breakfast I got ready for the dentist who has become a young Polish woman after the previous dentist left for Yorkshire. I needed another appointment for a filling replacement but this has to wait until after a return from holiday. I then went for two more pairs of trousers and decided to park at Asda when someone gave me a paid for ticket.
This meant that I could boy five pounds of food for four pounds. I found the latest location of end of sell by date counter and found two more quiche marked down from £1 to 74p excellent, purchased some strawberries and one other item which I cannot immediately recall. It was midday and then time for food, ah I remember, it was two Thai Fish cakes, already consumed with a compote of vegetables.

Yesterday I was not in the mood to begin Oranges and Sunshine and New Lives for Old- The Story of Britain’s child migration watched the recording of the first episode of the new series of Lewis. Later I watched the second part of the last episode of the last series of Waking the Dead. I have watched one awful film, Wanted, together with Crimson Tide.

I guessed that the Assistant Police Commissioner was a baddie early on in the last episode of Waking the Dead but not the extent of his infamy. A Soho frequenting pregnant prostitute has her aggressively drunk boyfriend picked up by police but he is then beaten to death in cells by a couple of young “beat” police in 1960’s with the help of the duty custody officer who they had visited for a quick drink on New Year‘s Eve.

About seven years or so later the boy becomes an orphan having previously taken the money from punters for his mother using accommodation provided by a Soho based gangster who has taken a shine to boy and then brings him as his own together with his natural son of a similar age.

About a decade and a half later the natural son uses money obtained from his father to buy a closed public house in countryside where he takes central London street boys to torture and terrorise before shooting 16 of them in the head at roughly three month intervals. He has been drawn to his prey by the son of the prostitute who has entered the police force and talks about the number of street children and that no one will miss them. This is not so because a kindly Vicar of a parish in the area has expressed repeated concern to the police over the number of youngsters he befriended and supported and who suddenly disappeared. This disappearance had been investigated by Trevor Eve as his first case on appointment to the Cold Case Unit without success.

At the start of the last two part episode, Waterloo, Trevor Eve is told that he can either retire or take up a training post with promotion. In his anger Trevor decides to reopen the investigation of the missing street boys before he leaves, securing support from the bewildered team until he discloses he is being forced out because of his unacceptable and at time illegal methods.

Early on in the investigation they discover that one of the boys died in a road accident along a stretch of motorway and they suspect he had been held somewhere within a two mile radius having accessed the motorway at junction points because of the gradient either side. Most of the area is owned by a farmer but the pub was purchased at auction 1978 purchased by a Henry Holmes who Sue Johnson immediately realises is the killer because it is the name of a convicted serial killer in the United States about 50 years before. An investigation of the site reveals the bodies of the street boys and an early appearance of the Assistant Chief Constable to offer his congratulations and support and the offer to appoint Trevor in charge of solving the case for as long as it takes. Given that the site is in the area of another police force the visit of the ACC and his direct involvement is unusual and therefore a big clue, one which Trevor and his team do not immediately pick up.

The boy who died in the road accident in 1982 had only disappeared two weeks before and according to Sue Johnston the psychopathic control freak of a killer would have become angered and frustrated by the escape and premature death and would need to immediately find a replacement victim. This leads to a review of Met records from that time. This results in a report of an incident involving the attempted kidnap of a street boy and that as a constable, the ACC was one of two police who investigated the incident. Moreover the vehicle involved is same colour and make as seen by a local farmer at the pub when visiting to report a farm vehicle had broken down and access to the main road would not be possible until a repair had been completed. Eve understandably wants to know why the ACC omitted to mention this before and did not pursue the case at the time especially when the witness died shortly afterwards without making an official statement.

The next breakthrough is the discovering of a bullet used to kill one of the boys and this is of the same weapon used to kill a retired police officer, the officer who was in charge of the shortly to be father beaten to death by him and the two other policemen. The team visit the house which is occupied by the man’s son who does a runner, because of majurana plants in an outhouse.

The Det Inspector formerly of the anti Terrorism force and now attached to the unit reveals to Sheila and then to Eve that she may have caused his retirement because of saying to her former boss that she had thought him unfit because of the risks he placed Sheila in. Eve is outraged. She had admitted her likely involvement in his demise because she was summoned to see the ACC who attempts to blackmail her into spying on Eve for him, especially about the unsolved killing of the policeman, or he will reveal to Eve her report about his suitability.

In order to regain the confidence of Eve she keeps watch and follows the ACC who goes for a meeting with someone but she is spotted observing, so the ACC manages to get in her car with a gun before she can escape. However she deposits a surveillance device in the car.

The son of the murdered policeman reveals when put under pressure that his father admitted to him he had killed someone in custody and this leads to the discovery of who the man was and that his then unborn son became the ACC. It is then discovered that the man who took him in after the death of his mother was a notorious known criminal who somehow managed to evade capture and conviction despite strong evidence against him on a number of matters. The two other policemen involved in the killing also died, allegedly by criminals, although this was so we later can assume it was by the foster father of the ACC on information from him. We learn that the foster father gave the boy gun to shoot the officer who had killed his father about the age of seven years but he had then finished of the man as the frightened boy was a poor shot who had then wet himself.

We learn that when the ACC had gone to the assistance of the attempted kidnap of the Street boy in 1982, he had immediately recognised the kidnapper as his foster brother and arranged for him to knock him down so he could escape. The foster father had then bought a farm in Africa for his killer son which explained why the kidnaps had ended.

The car of the missing Detective is found in a crusher which the forensic specialist investigates in secret discovering samples of blood. The ACC appoints two of his staff to investigate the case of the missing detective whose body is found in the garden shed of Eve after he is found not to be cooperating with the ACC in a proposed deal and cover up.
What seals the fate of the ACC is that finding that the FBI had been called in to help the police in the African country when the son had become a farmer after 50 African boys had gone missing over a period of time. The son had then been killed in yet another unsolved crime. It is then found that the ACC had made a short visit to the African country at the time of the death. Eve reveals this information to the man’s foster father who has him killed. Eve, Sue the Forensic officer and the other member of the team meet up under Waterloo Bridge to make the closure of the case and the series. Underpinning this episode is the loss of Eve‘s son, a drug addict street boy whose father son difficulties and whose murder was covered in an earlier series. Another chapter closes.

I missed the first episode of the new series of Lewis, the Oxford based Detective investigations which continued after the death of the actor who played Morse, the work of Colin Dexter and where episodes are continuously played on one station or another since its untimely end in 2000, having runs annually from 1987 to 1993 with specials from 1995- 33 two hour shows with adverts, 90 minutes in actual length, which I have come to know by heart as most feature my beloved Oxford city and county. His Assistant Kevin Whately took over the key role together with an academic former theology student played by the upper class public school Lawrence Fox.

The first episode has connections with the last episode of waking the Dead because the murder occurs at the last all female college in Oxford which has just voted to admit men for the first time. The murder occurs at a special meal and social gathering at which a number of former graduates return. The occasion is also designed to mark the move of a Professor to the USA. She is an internationally know feminist and celibate who invites the brightest and best to share her home.
The case has difficult echoes for Kevin who several years ago had commenced the investigation of an assault on a young visitor, the sister of a student at the college who remains in a coma since the event. He had left the enquiry after his wife had been killed and it was taken over by another officer with the help of the then female assistant to Whately.

As with Waking the Dead I worked out the villain -the Professor on her way to America. The motive for the murder is related to her evangelical feminism and the student son of an exceptionally wealthy family who before his disappearance was notorious for approaching every female within his immediate orbit for sex.

What emerged is that he had affairs not only with several of the bright ones taken under the wing of the Professor, played by Juliet Stevenson, but also with her and at the party attended by the 15 year old sister of an undergraduate, he had set his sights on the new arrival. The Professor had killed the young man and later disposed of his body in a farm building at the former USAF base at Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire. She had knocked out the young visitor to prevent identifying disclosure and the girl had developed a coma from which she had not recovered.

Kevin had retained a feeling that although it was established that the young girl had been attacked by the young man before his disappearance there was something more about the case that he had been unable to unravel before personal tragedy had led to his further direct involvement. He visits the girl in hospital and meets her sister who visits every morning before work and afterwards most days talking to her, hoping that she will recover. He also makes contact with his former partner who now runs a small boat yard and I sensed that she was somehow involved beyond her immediate failure to remember the case until reminded by Whateley. Later when there is a further murder at the college she visits him to enquire about progress, to go out with him for a drink, to ask why he had never approached her sexually when they were partners, to give him a good night kiss and to say she would like to see him again. She is then found murdered too.

The police then find in her office the kind of crime analysis board used in Waking the Dead as if she has been re examining the original case herself. It is established that she had started to blackmail the Professor although if it was clear in the film how she was able to do this I cannot now remember. There are other aspects which I do not remember the links although two of the female members of the group had their lives significantly adversely affected by one of the others who reported back ground information in such a way that it led to the break of a marriage and loss of direct care of her children in one case and to being passed over for an important promotion in another. What is understood is that his present assistant knowing that his boss had an issue about the original case at the college staying up all night, piercing together all the photographs that were taken and held by the investigating police in a time line which eventually leads to a query about the owner of one of the costumes. Fortunately, and amazingly, some will say, the girl comes out of the coma and when she begins to regain her strength she is hypnotised in order to remember the events of the that night and what she says adds to the certainty that the owner/hirer of a particular costume caused the injury. It may be my lack of immediate memory or that my mind wondered to the young woman who I had know at one of the then all female colleges and to other aspects of my time at Ruskin and in Oxford that this is a far from satisfactory note on the episode. Although it remains available to be viewed again it is not something I now wish to use time doing. Oddly rather than disappear to the Sates the professor goes to where she hid body and then dousing herself in petrol, burns herself to death.

The second episode of what I suspect is also a last series of four programmes proved more satisfying, possible because it communicated more of the flavour of the Oxford College city that I remember although also like the Midsummer Murder series there are just too many bodies too frequently for the series to have the kind of integrity of Wallander, or the first Morse based on published novels.

The crime in the second episode is the murder by drinking poisoned wine of a visiting Female Bishop from the USA attending a conference at a small college “Christian” teaching college called St Gerard’s, funded by an aristocratic Italian woman played by Sian Phillips and her daughter who is having a passionate affair with a college servant.

The major red herring issue of this episode is the election by the college Fellows of a new head. For some reason never explained although the college is for the teaching and training of Friars and is a traditional Christian establishment two of the four contenders for the position of the retiring head who hash plans to open and run a facility in Italy, are women, who have gained positions with the college. Moreover one has an extraordinary past in that as a child she left people to die in a burning property without raising the alarm. She had been convicted and sentenced to youth custody and given a new identity and is now in an ongoing relationship with a former criminal who has become a successful detective story writer to whom she has not revealed her past which I find unlikely in the particular circumstances.

The cause of the subsequent deaths and the near death of what proves to be the successful candidate in the election is that the college servant is in fact a close relative of family who died in the fire and has been plotting revenge for years. The murdered bishop was a mistake because he had left the poisoned wine for a room rather than a person and the hotel had switched rooms before the arrival of the two guests. The intended victim was the retired policeman in the original case that had come to Oxford although I cannot remember why.

The second red herring was the only other survivor of the four was an arch traditionalist opposed to females having any role in the church. However his sin was to steal bottles of the special vintage wine available only to those resident in the college and to sell to a third party. While the who dun it aspect of this series is always a consideration of greater and lasting significance in the series has been the relationships and truths about relationships and life in general. In this episode Kevin has noted the adverts for early retirement and voluntary redundancy and his sergeant has also noted his interest.

Kevin explains that he is about to become a granddad and his daughter has suggested he moves to their area (if not with them) and he is tempted. His first reaction is to assume the sergeant is considering his prospects as a consequence but the response is to say that if Kevin goes he might also because he is unlikely to find someone else who understands him. For the sergeant this episode raises his past as having entered a seminary to become a priest/vicar but then leaving for reasons he has never disclosed to Kevin. He is offered a post at the college by one of the other candidates who do not survive. The future of both men is uncertain which partly why I suspect that the 19th and 20th episodes will be the last of Lewis. Lewis was far crying from Morse with a reverse relationship Morse the intellectual versus Kevin the Geordie so that it became Kevin ad Kevin with Laurence the cultured thinker. The two worked well together but the Oxford setting could not mask the roughness of some of the stories.

Treme, series end of Broadwalk Empire, Sopranos and Blue Bloods

I ended the last piece of writing with a summary of the penultimate first series of Boardwalk Empire which launched the Atlantic channel on Sky. The series is intended as a history of how the Mafia organisation developed into the national crime incorporated and last night I stayed up to watch the last episode of the series in which two scenes summed up the organisation and morality of the series.

Margaret who is an archetypical leader’s wife asked how he could be sensitive caring man and a ruthless killer and received the response that being an adult is deciding how much sin you can live with. Hmmm.

In the previous episode Margaret had gone away unable to cope with aspects of his reality especially his enjoyment of any woman available when he felt the need for one, She had become a replacement for his wife who could not cope with the loss of their son only after a few days his birth, while breakfast with her and the children assuaged some of the guilt he experienced knowing that he had been to busy at the time to appreciate how ill his son was becoming and how desperate was his wife at the loss. The moral is therefore killers, rapists; gangsters are human being too, as if we did not really know!

Margaret reappears towards the end of this episode looking more sophisticated than ever and it is quickly evident she has decided to become his partner again which he willing accepts despite the threat she poses in knowing his personal vulnerability as well as having seen the crime books.

The second structural aspect of the series was underlined in a scene in which Chicago’s Mafia boss Torrio accompanied by the new serious Al Capone meets with Nucky and Jimmy from the City and Rothestein and Lucky Luciano from New York to do a deal creating a truce between their competing and warring national ambitions. Nucky agrees to arrange for Rothestein not to be indicted for fixing the World Series baseball series result in return for $1 million and the whereabouts of the D‘Alessio. Family. The barely veiled aspect of the meeting is that all three assistants are planning take overs of their masters.

Nucky has the least idea of Jimmy’s intentions given his preoccupation with the Republican Party retaining control of the City through his nominee Mayor. His gives Chalky a new car and an invitation to the all white election night party for delivering the Black Vote, Margaret worked hard to win the new female vote before her departure and Nucky’s master stroke is to first to dismiss his brother from the job as city justice controller and appoint the deputy and then to claim responsibility for bringing to justice the rest of the killers of the five bootlegging gangsters after first blaming Margaret’s husband as the leader of the assassins. This all helps to defeat the anti crime and corruption Democratic Party rival.

What Nucky fails to appreciate is that his brother, married with eight children, deeply resents the way he is treated and has opened a dialogue with Jimmy’s father who is recovering from the attempt on his life using arsenic The Commodore plays on the fact that Jimmy is upset that it was Nucky who found the 13 year girl for the Commodore although his mother has no regrets saying she was languishing in a child care institution at the time. Jimmy also appears to be working at re-establishing relationship with his wife although she has received a card from Paris saying sorry for running off in the way the lesbian lover did.

The Republican Party on Election night continues until Warren Harding is elected President. His young concubine is expecting that she and her child will return to having a major place in the man’s life.

Van Alden, the Prohibition FBI agent is back in the good books of his superiors after discovering the Still which Nucky had revealed to his deputy Sebso in an effort to re-establish Van Alden’s confidence in his deputy who remained suspicions at the events which led to the death of the witness who could have sent Jimmy and Al Capone to the electric chair. Instead of finding the Still they encountered a baptismal gathering of an evangelical preacher among the black population and Van Alden had been much affected by what was being said given his recent fall from grace. In this episode he forces his deputy back to the site after he put in a request to leave, and shoots the man in front of another baptismal group claiming the deputy was killed by bootleggers. He then decides to leave the force himself much to the horror of his wife and buy into a business opportunity offered, unless he has some sign from God to stay. He does so in the form of the gangsters tart he fornicated after his drinking binge at the club. She arrives to announce he has made her pregnant. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, so it is claimed.

The episode- A return to Normalcy ends with Margaret and Nucky surveying their empire from the Boardwalk.

The ninth episode of the first series of the Sopranos, Bocca is concerned with hypocrisy and double standards. Tony’s daughter is a goalie in the High School British style soccer team and her best friend is the leading striker who is going through some kind of crisis, slashing her wrists at some point. Tony and two other members of his fraternity all have daughter’s involved with the team are much impressed with the progress under the coach and after one winning game take him back to their pole dancing and drinking club where he is offered a free session with one of the girls which he rejects being a happily married man with children. Hmmmn

When they find that he is leaving to take up a better paid job at a University they attempt a mixture of bribes and threats to make him stay. The mood changes when Tony learns from his daughter that the attempted suicide is because the coach had a relationship with the girl who fell in love and became suicidal after he said he would not leave his wife. Tony and the others talk of murder until the girl’s father pleads for a legal solution and the man is arrested. This happens after Tony has visited his psychiatrist, Dr Melfi who queries why he feels such a responsibility for the rights and wrongs of society.

Meanwhile Tony finds he has a hold over Uncle Junior on learning details of his sexual behaviour towards his long time mistress after the return of the couple from a long vacation in Florida to get away from the attention of the Feds who are closing in. Because Junior has two previous prison convictions he faces the strikes and indefinite imprisonment if he is successfully indicted as the head of the DiMeo crime family. Other captains congratulate Tony on his manoeuvre to put Junior in charge. Meanwhile Tony’s mother is attempting to poison the relationship between Tony and Junior suggesting his visits to the psychiatric are endangering the family.

Junior’s woman is so thrilled at his willingness to address her individual sexual needs that despite his warning that talking about his approach endangers his position she does so on return to her hairdresser and this is overheard by a friend of Tony’s wife. This results in Junior beating up the woman after being taunted at length by Tony.

I enjoyed Blue Bloods After Hours much more than last week where the theme was marital fidelity and the impact of the job on relationships. The detective son Frank is called to a murder outside a night club where the doorman is shot after refusing entry to someone where his female escort is permitted. I was reminded of my time over fifty years ago when demand to get Cy Laurie and the 100 club was such that even if you arrive early entry was controlled by someone with whom it was important to become a familiar and trusted face. By coincidence I learned that a classical guitarist was performing at the 100 club in Oxford Street and that the Wetherspoon’s in the Charing Cross Road (105) had been the home of the Marquee club after it had transferred from 165 Oxford Street where I had attended the opening night with the Johnny Dankworth Band in April 1958. The club had moved to 90 Wardour Street with a tiny stage in 1964 when the Trad Jazz and jazz in general waned and rock and roll came to the fore with the Rolling Stones have their first London gig at the club with Led Zepplin, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Flloyd among those who played there. The club moved to the pub site in 1988 and this lasted only 8 years after which there have been several attempts to revive the club including by Dave Stewart in Islington, then in Leicester Square and then St Martin’s Lane. Each time the ventures were shortlived, I assume the difficulties of getting good bands and audience to make the venture financially worthwhile.

Returning to Blue Brothers, Frank is pursued by the owner of the club a more alluring and seductive creature than Joan Collins when she starred as the predatory cougar in a couple of films promoting the expensive social disco night club fashion. His wife immediately senses the threat on seeing a photo of the notorious celebrity owner in the press and when he then buys her a fashionable sexy top. The investigation takes a couple of twists, first when it appears the doorman was doing a deal to help open a new club with a rival and the owner becomes the prime suspect. Then an enhanced security camera film reveals that the doorman was killed by a ricochet and was not the prime target which appears to be the club owner and at the end it is reveals that the the assassin was the doorman‘s pregnant girlfriend after she learned that he was also having a relationship with the club owner.

The younger brother reveals that his girl friend has taken up the offer of an six month job in London and is consoled by his father (Tom Selleck) who in turn is under pressure when he is thought to be recommending a colleague for promotion much to the disgust of his own father. The subject “took” two bullets intended for Selleck the early days of their career when they worked as partners on the street, On the anniversary of this event the two have a meal together and it was during this year’s event that the officer now the head of a unit raises the possibility of gaining promotion. Selleck’s father is opposed to man because he left his wife and children for a younger model. Selleck not only decides against the appointment but requires his friend to take early retirement on learning that the man had been cooking the figures by classifying major crimes as lesser to the detriment of the victims.

As usual the TV treat of the week is Treme with the episode All on Mardi Gras. I can understand the enjoyment of those who use Mardi Gras as the opportunity to get drunk, high on drugs or to have casual sex. I also understand that some people like dressing up in costumes and playing roles different from their usual personalities and life experiences. I am less convinced of the value of Mardi Gras carnival as family entertainment.

In this episode everyone is focus on proving something to others as it is the first big carnival since Katrina. John Goodman as the voice of thinking New Orleans takes his daughter on a visit to destroyed areas of the city to put the day in perspective and reminisces with his family over previous experiences. They dress up in a vivid and garish blue outfit with the daughter looking attractive, the wife looking OK and John absurd. They eat out at the street side kitchen operated by Jeanette. John feels less and less like celebrating and returns home alone to make a morose rant for You Tube and then gets drunk on his own and sleeps off among sheets of completed typescript. He is told to sober up by his wife when she finds him in such a state in the morning.

Jeanette get drunk after a hard day’s work from which she makes a lot of money and appears to be at risk as she wanders aimless around the city as it begins to quieten down.

Her casual lover Davis visit his parents who are celebrating the festival with a garden house party and he then goes off and finds the busker violinist Annie on her own and they have an enjoyable day together in which he shows her the fun side of carnival. She has reunited with her lying and cheating drug taking boyfriend only to learn in the morning of the day that he is going out on his own. She still dresses up and goes out on her own until she meets Davis having uttered a few words about the behaviour of the boyfriend Sonny. Sonny ends up enjoying drugs, drink and sex with a woman who is impressed by what he has to say of himself.

Another pair who enjoy an illicit encounter is bar owner LaDonna who struggles to keep her silence over finding that her brother is dead until after the festivities, both missing out on family meals of Gumbo, the southern states dish brought from Africa comprising stew of shellfish or fowl with Creole and Cajun variations. She meets up with the lawyer who represented the city opposing her requirement for action to reveal the whereabouts of her brother. The lawyer hopes there are no hard feelings as she was doing her job and hopes the brother will be found.

Madonna’s partner in crime is Antoine who she meets after he has played at a gig. The episode ends with La Donna outside a Funeral Parlour although it is not clear if she has yet told her mother. Antoine had met up with the Asian man who gave him the new Trombone so he feels obliged to explain that he had recovered his own Trombone and gave the gift to his teacher who has since died. Antoine is impressed that he man was aware of the death and also expresses approval on being told that the Trombone had been passed down to the grand son of the former teacher. Although it is evident the two have a romantic encounter it is not clear how far this develops given that on leaving the home of his partner and daughter Antoine checks on the parameters of his freedom for the day and the partner is firm about the limits.

This just leaves Albert in jail after his protest over the failure to open the State controlled housing project. His son who is staying at a good hotel with the band and bails his father out but only after the Carnival Day. Delmond is impressed by a group of half naked female “Indians” to whom he throws necklaces of colourful beads (made in China) traditionally thrown by those participating in the main parade each day of the two weeks season in New Orleans along with fake Doubloons, decorated plastic cups and small toys for the children. I am assuming that the episode attempts to communicate the flavour of the events, the parades, the masked balls, and parties of various forms and sizes.

Treme and trhe Boardwalk Empire

As events unfold in Libya it is difficult to concentrate on the everyday, or matters of enjoyment and pleasure. I watched the Sky Atlantic first showing of the 80 minute pilot episode of Treme which deals with the impact of Cyclone Katrina on the City of New Orleans.

Of all the cities in the USA New Orleans has always been the one which interested me since becoming a devotee of New Orleans Jazz and I became familiar with many of the streets from numbers such as Basin Street Blues, Canal Street Blues, North Rampart Street, St Louis and Bourbon Street .

Then I quickly learned of the prostitution, drug taking and criminality perhaps no different from other cities, but made more colourful by the participating Jazz musicians who came to international attention and openly referred to their experiences of playing in the “cat” houses and getting “high” to do so. It was later that I also learned that the America system of crime bosses originated in the town, leading to the participation in the assassination of President John F Kennedy. Amazingly inquiries said there was no evidence that the crime boss at the time was a mafia lord or with having the Mayor, politicians and police in his pocket as was the custom for decades.

The reputation of the city from crime and vice may have been one factor in the failures of the city to deal effectively with Cyclone despite having been given adequate and appropriate warning. Their legitimate defence was that they were to know that the badly rebuilt flood defence system would fail in the way it did.

The show Treme concentrates on one of the working class neighbourhood immediately off the French Quarter, called Treme bordering Canal, St Louis and Rampart Streets and containing the Armstrong Park centre, although he had no direct connections with the area, His music, especially the Blues can be said to have been borne out of the slavery of the deep South and where musicians such as Alphonese Picou from the early days of the music through to Louis Prima and Alex Chilton once lived through until last year. The area produced a succession of street marching and playing brass bands around which the pilot film is based.

The production also brings out that the cyclone was not the primary caused of the destruction but the failure of the levees. This is brought out vividly by John Goodman who plays a university English professor together with his Civil Rights Lawyer wife. His character is based on a real life Blogger. His wife takes up the investigation of what happened to the younger brother of a woman who owns and runs a tavern in the community. Another young woman runs a restaurant which is struggling to keep going especially as her casual boyfriend tries to drink and eat any profits. He appears a self centred part time disc jockey and musician but who also campaigns against injustices, mainly directed at himself or so was my impression from the first episode. He comes across as more of angry young man that John Osborne’s character although a Rebel with a cause!

Significantly more appealing is Albert, a Mardi Graz chief who returns to find his home uninhabitable but insists or staying in the bar of an absent friend, a decision opposed by his daughter who brings him down and then his son who has made a home for himself in the New York Jazz scene. Albert wants to reassemble his group one of whom is earning a fortunate trucking out debris for the Federal Emergency Agency. Another musician is the estranged Trombonist husband of the Tavern owner who returns destitute, having lost his car, borrows money for taxis and pleads for paid jobs. Many contemporary musicians and bands feature in the first episode and series. What interested me and made the programme an essential future viewing was the issues being raised.

1800 people lost their lives in the Hurricane with just under 1500 of these in New Orleans. Responsibility for the failure of the flood protection system has been laid squarely at the door of the Army Corps of Engineers as the designers and builders of the system but despite the commencement of a law suit the problems was that the Federal Agency could not be held financially liable because of immunity granted under a 90 year old piece of national legislation.

The way the catastrophe was handled has also been the subject of formal criticism including of the Federal Agency Management Committee, State and Local government officials and the New Orleans Police Department leading to the effective sacking of principals. There are vivid pictures of the police preventing some trapped citizens from moving to safe areas from the Gretna and Crescent City and of the over crowding and lack of measures to pass on ten of thousands of refugees who congregated at the Superdome and which required an expenditure of $140 million to bring back into use. There were similar problems about provide sleeping, food and water and adequate sanitation at the Convention centre. A major problem was to find locations for the refugees to be rehoused. The overriding impression was the lack of appropriate action was due to those involved being predominantly black and poor. It will be interesting to see how the first season of ten shows handles these issues. A second season is already in hand.

Talking of the role of the Mafia in American city society, The Boardwalk Empire continues to confirm my impression of a long term linking of crime, politics and the trade unions, the police and judicial system, and the inability of the Federal government to bring about fundamental and long term change. The programme while centred on Atlantic City also connects with the rise of Al Capone and the fictional character of Jimmy.

In Atlantic City Nucky is busy planning his surprise birthday party. He is becoming more and more aware that his concubine is ignorant and self centred. Margaret the woman whose husband he has murdered by his brother as the patsy for the murder of the New York Mobsters and who he has got a job in the classy dress shop, is asked to deliver a dress to the party for the concubine to wear after her surprise, jumping out of a large fake birthday cake. Margaret appears not put out to find much drinking and celebrating going on but is evidently jealous of the position and lifestyle of the concubine. She has a dance with Nucky while she waits for the surprise to take place and is introduced to some of his friends and he is impressed by her ability to converse compared to that of the concubine. She steals clothes from her employer.

In the next episode she wakes to find barrels of beer being delivered to a nearby property. She reports the development to the Temperance League and goes with the leader of the group to see Nucky to report the development. He promises to sort it out. When nothing happens and a further quantity is delivered she confronts those involved and finds the organiser is James Neary, City Alderman and local party executive who she was introduced to at the Party. She dresses up in the clothing stolen from the dress shop and goes to Nucky. She is ignored and then sees the Alderman go into Nucky’s suite. Feeling jilted she destroy stolen underwear when she returns home and then turns to the government Prohibition enforcer who initially shows no interest overwhelmed by the extent to which prohibition is being ignore in the city and which has also become a distribution centre for imported and local manufacturing. However she gets his attention when she is able to identify the location and the involvement of the Alderman.

The focus of the episode in Atlantic city is preparations for St Patrick’s day. and in particular the evening celebration of civic worthies, Masonic style in which local midgets are employed to perform as leprechauns dancing and bringing baskets of goodies, bottle of whisky but no beer because of an earlier raid. Nucky’s police chef brother insists on making a speech in which he attacks the British and appeals to the nationalism of those in the room. This however leads to a rowdy argument between those who were born in Ireland and came to the USA after the revolution and Independence, and creation of the six counties of Northern Ireland, and those who were born in the USA of Irish parents/grandparents who came over previously. The speech has to be cut short by Nucky who makes jokes to calm things down. Previously Nucky has pressed for Federal funds to improve the road structure north and is told by a senator that he cannot expect to have everything. The Federal Enforcer then arrives to arrest Alderman Neary. Nucky then goes to see Margaret to find out what she is up to and wants. We know that she wants him and the life style he can provide her and her children.

In contrast Jimmy’s former partner appears to be remaining loyal to him and refuses the offer her mother to give up her son to her and lead a new life as a single woman. In the previous episode Nucky has pressed his brother for action in relation to the hanging of a black employee of his partner running the local distillery. A Ku Klux Klan meeting is raided and the leader taken into custody and tortured. As a consequence the police are satisfied that the Klan was not responsible for the lynching.

In Chicago Al Capone plays a prank on Jimmy while in bed with a whore at the brothel which Capone’s boss has a financial interest. Jimmy is damaged in one ear after Capone shoots a blank cartridge. Capone and Jimmy visit a bar in the territory of the rival Mafia group and beat up the owner after he refuses to switch to them. There is a meeting between Capone Jimmy and the rivals in which they appear to agree on a 50 50 split of interests in the contested area. However the rivals were only playing for time and one of the gang visits the brothel and sleeps with Jimmy’s favourite and slashes her face from the forehead destroys an eye and cut her mouth to chin. Jimmy remains loyal to her but is under pressure to make up the loss of earning power at $100 a day. Pressure is also exerted on her by the other girl’s for putting off the customers. The girl then takes her own life.

From Mad Dogs to American Idol and Saigon 's Year of the Cat to Question Time

I begin with a film which I presume was made for Television called Saigon: Year of the Cat starring Judy Dench as a senior official in a bank in the capital who appears to have been there for years if not a decade or more and establishes a relationship with a USA embassy official over the last year before the abandonment of the capital to the north led communists. To date I can find no reference to the film on the Internet despite being written by David Hare and with Dame Dench. I am not surprised because it is an odd film, British colonial in style, perhaps intentional, in which the principle characters live in their own world, playing bridge at the club, insulated against the reality of the war and the life of the majority of the people. You feel that the character portrayed has been living a better life than she would have experienced at home and that she is experienced in serious physical relationships with men.

Her lover in this instance prepares a report on the situation in the south which indicates that the war is effectively lost and that every effort should be made to o take to safety all those who have assisted the USA. The Ambassador sits on the analysis because defeat and withdrawal is not an option and he believes that the provision of more funds will turn the tide and secure the south.

There is an excellent account of those last few days and hours as panic spread in the city. There is a shot of records of contacts being left in the embassy as the staff rush to exit taking basic personal possession with them. There is also a shot of someone who was promised to be picked up, still waiting but getting no answer.

The scene however was brilliantly exploited theatrically in the stage musical Miss Saigon which I saw in London three or even four times. I must check sometime. At one level Dame Judy does not appear have the figure and personality of someone to have passionate all absorbing sexual based affairs with men, married or single but I return to my experience where as a young social worker I was asked to deal with the children left behind with a severely disabled mother after the husband had run off with the wife in another family. The running away couple were a most unlikely pair in terms of their physical appearance and lifestyle. In terms of my own experience when I was a young man in work at sixteen there was a secretarial office worker ten to fifteen years older than myself who was known to be having a relationship with a much younger man working in the same office. Nine years later when I went into the staff restaurant at an East Anglian local authority where I was commencing a summer practical work placement of three months, I met the same individual who in today’s jargon, hit on me offering the use of her car on hearing that I was getting about the large county using public transport. I did not take up the offer, although with hindsight this was more because I did not fancy the woman rather than any morality question.

I was more engaged by the second episode of Mad Dogs, a Sky new drama contribution set in the extractive Spanish Island of Majorca which I have visited once and had a memorable time.

Four middle aged friends, two declared married with children, one a corporate lawyer and another a financial adviser, a third a lecturer in psychology, the fourth unemployed, accept the invitation for a short holiday with a fifth who has an isolated villa with grounds and swimming pool. Interestingly they accept the invitation without their partners or families. The five go off into the city centre for a night out clubbing during which one of the four, married, with children brings back and spends the night with a holiday maker. His behaviour angers one of the four our of proportion to the behaviour suggesting the man has significant problems in his own life. In fact all four emerge as having problems in their lives in the UK and being unsettled which goes some way to explaining their willingness to participate in such a gathering. The reason for the holiday is that the fifth (Ben Chapman) is giving up his Spanish Mainland property development business to live a life of pleasure on the Island. There is no reason given why he is on his own.

They go off on a fishing diving trip on a yacht which only after departing does it emerge has been borrowed, The Yacht is left in as isolated cove under the cliff and they use a dingy to go ashore and then hike back over the hills to the villa. They realise their host is up to something and using them and they demand explanation after the evening meal

A height challenged man enters wearing a large face head mask of a grinning Tony Blair and shoots Ben in the head splattering blood over those closest and all over the table when the man falls across.

The killer, who is wearing white gloves then uses the weapon to establish one of the four as the killer with his DNA and goes off in a siren sounding police vehicle. The four react to the situation in accord with the personalities revealed so far revealed, some saying they must go to the police after contacting the British embassy, some pointing out they will be implicated in the killing and the stealing of boat. They decide to bury the body in the grounds and remove all traces of the killing in time for the arrival of the cleaner housekeeper who they say is not needed for the day. Another police car arrives this time with a young attractive police woman seeking the whereabouts of the villa owner. They say he was suddenly called to the mainland. She is evidently suspicious but departs.

They then decide to remove traces of their presence from the yacht but while there another group arrive with £3 million Euros in exchange for the on board heroin. They are rebuked for no being at the agreed rendezvous and told to do better on the next run. Back at the villa a local dog disturbs the surface of the shallow grave so they decide to take the body to the Yacht. In the midst of this the police arrive again seeking to interview the four because of the owner of Yacht has been murdered.

The four men are interviewed separately providing inconsistent answers about their knowledge of the villa owner. One admits he had met with the owner when he visited the UK the previous month, a fact not revealed to the other three. Another, the financial adviser says he wants a lawyer present when asked if he has ever given financial advice to the Villa owner.

Earlier they had agreed a plan to hide the moeny in a hire car left at the airport. The female detective, or is she, spots the keys of car and asks where it is, it is said to have been left in town on the night out before the alleged party at the villa.

Although they deny knowledge of the boat the police detective returns for her glasses, and they allow her to enter a room unaccompanied and she has time to look at he video camera to see them joking about going out for the day on the boat trip.

As she arrives they pretend they cannot find the keys to open the gates during which time they try to hide the body in the freezer, finding they need to cut off the feet or the head to do so. A task for the next episode.

I kept an eye on Question time where there was brief reference to the developments in the Middle East in terms of the need to the UK to continue to sign up to Human rights and the European Court which was set up to act as beacon for those primarily in countries overtaken by Communist dictatorships at the end of the Second world war. The reason was the he decision that those added to the Sex Offenders Register in the UK should have the right to appeal against continuation on the register after completion of judicial punishments if they can show that they have changed their lives. The decision is the right to appeal not to be automatically removed from the register. As with some other serial crimes whose nastiness is such that the possibility of reform appears remote, I share the anxiety of many, I suspect with the majority that any reduction of monitoring and surveillance carries with it great risk. no principle can ever be absolute in the sense that some exceptions can never be justified. However in the balance between removing all risk and giving up basic freedoms I veer on the side of taking risks. I feel this about the threat of international and national terrorism. It was in my view an odd choice of first subject.

There has been a lot happening this week politically. The most significant decision was that the House of Lords pulled back from the brink to agreed to let the Alternative Vote Referendum be held on May 5th. While the Labour Party is split and the Conservatives overwhelmingly against, the championing by Nick Clegg means that the no vote is likely to predominate without the inclusion of a minimum 40% of the electorate voting. I was delighted that the 40% required was dropped because all that would been required is for the no votes to abstain to win as even with a 75% turn out in a general election government have not achieved 40% of eligible electorate in recent years. Given Labour’s success together with the extreme right wing in turning Nick Clegg into to the chief villain, his championing of the cause could be counterproductive. Much as also been made of the decision to drop the proposal to sell off some government controlled forests, notably the Forestry Commission held Kielder here in he North East as a means of raising money and reducing public management costs, Labour had done so quietly over the past decade without ensuring protection of public use and rights of way. Michael Heseltine made the good point that if a government never changes its mind under pressure it is attacked for being too tough and if it does respond to pressure it is then attacked for being too weak. The programme also confirmed by prejudices against Yvette Cooper who appears never to give an inch to the Government on any issue, finding fault in everything it does. There was praise in unusual quarters, Nigel Farage for one for Ian Duncan Smith’s plan to scrap the thirty benefits which cover the unemployed with a single assessment and payment system will ensure that it always pays to work if available than live on benefits. His measures will take two Parliaments to fully implement but it is to be hoped his will be one proposed change that worked. I cannot remember if it was during Question time or this week that the point was well made that only about one in five major change reorganisations work out well as intended.

Now for something very different. I have been fast forwarding through American Idol the present series without Simon Cowell after nine years in preparation for his new series based on the British successor. Randy Newman is still there with two new faces, Jennifer Lopez and the less well known Stephen Tyler, rocker looking led singer, song writer and instrumentalist of Aerosmith. No more the delicious Paula Abdul. I fast forward the auditions just to listen to those who can sing and from whom there is the possibility of finding the three or four who will eventually complete for the title. I take similar action with the Hollywood round now underway, avoiding the group singing stage because it tends to show the worst side of people and while it can eliminate some of those whose basic anti social traits were kept hidden, the consequence can be on others who will need protection for their talents to flourish. I guess this segment is showing that you have to possess considerable commercial potential to cope with the demands required by the corporation machine industry that developed. Over 300 went to Hollywood where the week’s events conclude on British TV tonight with 60. These sixty were then taken to a single destination Las Vegas to sing Beatles song to be reduced to forty. The judges then reduced this number between themselves to 20 which this year is going become a sudden death audience selection for the final teen, the five most successful male and females. It will be interesting to see if any of the excellent 15 year olds are successful.

Board Walk Empire and Blue Bloods

I am delaying my writing about events in Egypt and neighbouring nations as the situation worsens until there is a clear indications of what will happen. I have spent this week watching and listening to the various news channels but not exclusively

Sky Atlantic is a new drama channel which opened on Tuesday evening 1st of February 2011. The channel has exclusively acquired some current highly regarded drama series from the United Sates together with the re-showing of other favourites from Sky channels such 24 and the excellent Soprano’s.

I recorded to view later two of the most heralded new series and report than one has so far proved a major disappointment while the other, although geared for mainstream USA has potential because the focus is on one family of law enforces who have been written and acted as real people. Interestingly both series feature men affected by their involvement in war, one in the trenches of the first world war and the other in Iraq.

I begin with the best of the two, Blue Bloods, subtitled, New York, Finest, featuring Tom Selleck as the Police Commissioner who is widowed but has been spotted appearing with a date by one of his surviving three children. One a son has been killed, apparently in the line of duty, but the suspicion is that he was investigating a secret vigilante society within the service which has some 35000 officers with additional auxiliaries and school safety agents which brings the combined total to 45000. The Commissioner, unlike his counterpart in Greater London is expected to make press statements on the hoof although similar to police chiefs on both sides of the Atlantic they are subjected to continuous political scrutiny and pressure.

Unlike the Boardwalk Empire the Police Commissioner appears dedicated and uncorrupted whereas the police boss in 1920 Atlantic City is hand and glove with his criminal brother who is also the city Finance Chief. More of that later.

On Blue Blood a second son has returned from Iraq and his father suggests he needs counselling for his anger and use of illegal methods to catch criminals. The third son, the youngest, is the brightest who has been to college and has a girl socialite girl friend from a wealthy and influential family who approved of the relationship because the young man is a graduate of the Harvard Law School. However the situation is reported to have changed with his decision to become a basic grade trainee in the police force. The series opens at the training graduation ceremony presided over by his father and watched with pride by his fiancée. The other family member is an assistant District Attorney whose function is to prosecute those apprehended by her brothers. To add to the dynasty, Selleck is following in the footsteps of his father who from the first episode appears was forced into retirement as Police Commissioner for reasons yet to be disclosed.

In the first pilot episode we are introduced to family, wives, children and girl friends but the main story centres on a nine year old Latino girl who is snatched on her way home or to school. Does any responsible and sensible parent let 9 year olds go anywhere unescorted by an adult these days? The added problem is the girl requires a daily insulation injection and will comatose and die if she is not found in less than 24 hours. The major flaw in this story line is that not only does the kidnapper leaves the doll he used to attract the attention of the girl as she passed his white van by the roadside but inquiries reveal that this is a prototype test doll where only three have been sold in the state of New York and therefore the addresses of he purchasers are known. The odds on this be true are as good as my winning the national lottery.
They eliminate two and find the wife of the third who says she does not know his whereabouts and is divorcing him, having moved to the state from Miami Florida. The camera lets us know that she plays with a gold cross when talking and doing so in a somewhat guilty fashion. When they track the man down to a rooming house they find a blue van outside were a little scrape shows it has been repainted from white. That the kidnapper was able to arrange or do this himself within the time frame is also questionable. When the Detective son and his partner finds the man in a rooming house adjacent to the parked van he sends his partner out to radio in the arrest. He then water boards the man in the toilet, a feat unlikely to be possible in British made toilet bowls.

He is successful in finding out the location of the girl and she is rescued alive and reunited with her mother after a medical check. The mother visits the police HQ to deliver a cake with the girl to give their thanks for saving her life comparatively unharmed. The Detectives had found a communion dress and candles in their investigation. There is a scene where his assistant prosecutor sister berates him for the action which in addition to an Internal Affairs inquiry is bound to result in a failure to convict because evidence obtained under torture is inadmissible in court.

A district judge then gives the police the weekend to establish additional evidence to justify holding the man in custody in view of the allegations of torture. In attempting to help his son, Kelleck raises looking at cold cases across the country to see any similar characteristics as a 50 year old does not suddenly get the urge to kidnap a girl and act on it with such calculating organisation.

There is a family lunch at which the tensions between family members of the three generations emerge.

The new son policeman is at a dinner with his girl friend and two others and she becomes upset when he tells about his day which brings vividly to her the risks of injury and death he faces every day. They become quickly reconciled on his desire to be a policeman although this is a reality which all families of police, fire, and military personnel have to face when they are on active duty..

Later the son is approached by a secret FBI team investigating the secret vigilante organisation within the force and after rejecting their interest he reconsiders on being told that his brother may have been killed by these criminals within the present day force. In the Boardwalk Empire senior police offices are responsible for beating up before killing and framing an abusive husband for murders committed by a relative of the local crime lord.

Selleck also visits his father to report on professional and family matters and gain advice.

Colleagues going through cold case files come across the death of a nine year old girl in Florida with similar characteristics to the situation prevented in New York. On examining the files he sees a missing cross worn by the girl which looks similar to the one worn by the estranged wife of the kidnapper. On the reverse of the cross he finds the name of the murdered girl. By implication this means their will be a conviction for murder in Florida at which the kidnapping in New York will be taken into consideration thus reducing the pressure on the Detective regarding water boarding. It raises the issue of complicity on the part of the wife which is not raised in the episode.

Against the background of an organised conspiracy of vigilante police there is the issue of the moral justification or not of taking action to prevent the unnecessary death of a nine year girl. What if there a bomb set to go off within a limited time period. What action is or is not legitimate to force someone to reveal its location?
My understanding is that the series is devoted to each episode raising issues of what is right and wrong, how far should or can the justice system be stretched to cover such situations in getting the balance between the rights and interests of the victims of crime and the rights and interests of people suspected of crime?

There is nothing grey about the award winning Boardwalk Empire, directed in the pilot episode by Marin Scorsese. The series covers the commencement of prohibition and its lucrative addition to the wealth of the crime lords in Atlantic City, Chicago and New York.

The first two 90 mins period episodes 50 to 60 mins of actual drama, were hugely disappointing as they add nothing to our existing knowledge of the period and the acting and script is no better than OK. Despite the awards it is third rate Scorsese. Ok there is female flesh, sex and gratuitous violence to entertain, but what else?

In fairness I did some additional information about those times from the research undertaken before commencing the writing.

The story is based on the life of Enoch Lewis Thompson, known as Nucky, the criminal boss who controlled Atlantic City and County, its local government the ruling Republican Party machine, prostitution, gambling, extortion and bootlegging during prohibition. Born 1883 he came to power in the City in 1911 and held on to power until 1941 when he was sent to prison. He died in 1968.

When he was three his parents moved to the County where his father became alternating Sheriff and Under Sheriff living at two locations for two decades. His father and the County Clerk dominated the County and City Government with one other in an unholy triumph rates. There is no reference to their morality.
Nucky became Under Sheriff to his father and the following year, aged 23 he married a teenage girl from one the locations his family had lived. He became secretary of the local Republican Party and when the local political boss was convicted of corruption charges Nucky took over his position.

Atlantic City was dependent on Tourism and to give it the edge the Republican Party decided to allow gambling, prostitution and drinking on Sundays with the operatives paying tribute to the Party. This was his inheritance added to which there were personal payments for contracts and for jobs. Within five years his wife died and unfortunately I have no knowledge of the circumstances but a previous teetotaller he turned to drink. He switched official position according the most profitable and useful including publisher of a weekly paper and a bank director and once established he was approached to get a number of appointees into the State Governorship and US State Senate.

The TV series commences with Nucky established and in full control as Prohibition is put into effect and he speaks movingly to a temperance organisation and affects a pregnant young woman in the audience who unknown to him drinks heavily and beat hers which also distresses their two children. She seeks help and he gives her sufficient money to see her through the Winter. Her husband spots her arrive in the Rolls Royce of the Crime Lord so she gives a cover story but he finds and takes the money from her accusing her of prostitution although she is heavily pregnant.. When Nucky finds him gambling the money he takes it from him and the man goes home and beats his wife to the extent she needs the hospital. Nucky visits her in hospital and when he needs someone to take the rap for the killing of four bootleggers, he contacts his brother who arranges for the man to be beaten and killed and then blamed for the killings.
The real Nucky lived in a suite of rooms at the Ritz Carlton Hotel on the boardwalk, had a butler man Friday and a Chauffer and gave lavish parties. He was also very generous especially to poor voters particular the black community who did the domestic and service jobs

He built a convention Hall so the city could host all round conferences, including of crime bosses such as Al Capone (in 1932) although in the series Capone is a young man about to make his way.

From 1930 the Federal authorities were pointed in the direction of Thompson by the Hearst newspapers, because Thompson had taken too close an interest in the medial mogul‘s steady date showgirl. In 1933 with the end of Prohibition the City lost its attraction and his income fell substantially. His indictment was on tax evasion and he married a show girl ten days before starting a ten year sentence. He was 58 and she 33 years. He was paroled after four years and appeared to live a much quieter life with his wife and living with his brother. When he died the local paper admitted he was a big eater and drinker, womanizer and a lover of all fine things. It described him as political ruthless and amoral as well as remaining popular. There is no reference to responsibility for violence including killings.

In addition to Nucky and the Irish now widow with two children, the third central character in the series is Jimmy Darmody who is a protégé of Thompson and not a relative as I first thought. The effects of World War I service have left him ambitious and prepared to do anything to gain wealth and power and as the chauffer, he requests a greater role. He has a common law wife and child. He is also said in the TV production to be the natural child of Commodore Louis Kaestner : The real predecessor of Thompson who in the series is financial supported by him and appears to exercise power over him.
Nucky has set up a deal to provide a regular shipment of alcohol to other real life characters from New York and Chicago. One became head of the Jewish Mafia in New York, Arnold Rothstein, whose most notorious action was to fix the result of the 1919 world baseball series. His education and cultural style had great impact especially on Lucky Luciano who also features. His interests were gambling, and bootlegging during prohibition. He also controlled the important Maryland horse racing track and the outcome of races.

Rothstein comes to Atlantic City to commence a regular weekly deal on imported alcohol but instead of paying in advance wins $90000 from Nucky’s casino by cheating and then insists on using the money to buy the alcohol and to take the balance in cash. He was a millionaire by the age of 30. He used a corner of a famous restaurant on Broadway to transact business. He was shot dead with several theories that he was killed by or on the orders of his associate Dutch Schultz or because of a gambling debt he refused to settle.

In the first episode, with the same name as the series, Nucky and Jimmy visit a Funeral home where there is also a business making diluted whisky with added ingredients to make it taste original. The owner/manager gives Jimmy a glass of whisky looking Formaldehyde as a joke but Jimmy wants to kill him as a consequence. Later after the establishment of the special Prohibition FBI team they pick up Jimmy and he gives them the Funeral home in retaliation and to occupy their attention while he and Al Capone hijack the shipment of Alcohol intended for New York and which they sell to the Chicago crime bosses.

Al Capone loses his head when a deer comes out of the neighbour woods and they start to shoot Rothstein’s men. Al Capone is still a young pun as they say at this point, another driver general assistant like Jimmy. who works for the Fox - Johnny Torrio, an Italian American. It was Torrio who pressed the idea of a National Crime Syndicate. In addition to profiting from alcohol during prohibition, gambling and numbers, and prostitution, he was also into loan sharking, extortion and drugs. He also advocated conservative dressing and behaviour and the provision of legitimate businesses. An associate was Big Jim Colosimo whose interests were brothels, his restaurant and the voice of Caruso.

In real life Colosimo abandoned his wife and the aunt of Torrio who after the divorce married a young actress and singer These aspects are not in the TV series. He also disagreed with Torrio over the expansion into alcohol. In real life and in the TV series he is assassinated in his restaurant. His killer was never brought to justice.

Two gangs dominated Chicago in the 1920’s and the turf and activity war led to the downfall of Torrio who survived a major assassination attempt. He was watched over by Capone before going to prison when he recovered for Prohibition violations. He returned and went with his family back to Italy. The Turf War led to Capone’s St Valentine’s Day attempt to eliminate the opposition. Torrio returned to the USA to give evidence at the trial of Al Capone. He is featured in various Capone films and the Untouchables.

In the second episode, The Ivory Tower, reporters approach Torrio and Capone at the funeral of Colosimo asking if they are responsible for his death.

A man called George Baxter, I am not yet sure who he is, introduces Nucky to his teenage “clippie friend who so far has not yielded to his sexual advances. Nucky tells her she should enter the beauty competition and her companion is one of he judges. I assume to show another aspect of Nucky’s role as a Godfather

After the raid on the Funeral home Mucky tells the owner manager he is it of business and replaces him with Chalky White, the black criminal boss.

With his share of the proceeds from the sale of the alcohol, after giving Capone and Nucky a share he buys his wife a 100 dollar bracelet, his son toys and provides the family a belated lit Christmas tree. He then give his mother, a show girl (I thought she was his mistress at first!!!!) a necklace similar to one she sold to help bring him up. Nucky tells him that if he is to be his own master gangster he has also to pay him tribute of $3000. He has this amount left less 500 which he tries to borrow from Capone who secretly laughs at him. He then steals back the necklace to meet the debt.

In New York Luck Luciano brings another gangster Frankie Yale to see Rothstein who is convinced that Yale was responsible for the assassination of Colosimo. The fat man and young girl are on the way home when they find one of the Rothstein’s men still alive. The FBI man goes to see the Irish widow with two sons to say that he does not believe her husband was involved in the killing of Rothstein’s men. He was a patsy.