Gods of the Arena

Finally Gods of the Arena the Prequel to Spartacus Blood and Sand came to its Bloody end and in fairness the story does have coherence and serious acting and would have been watchable without the graphic cartoon quality of the blood splattering violence and the full frontal nudity and animalistic sex.

The original series Spartacus Blood and Sand, tells how the hero became a slave because of the ambitions of a young Roman Commander with his beloved wife also sold into separate slavery. At first reluctant to train and become a Gladiator Spartacus is persuaded to perform on the basis that the master will find his wife be reunited. Unfortunately the Master’s wife has other plans and persuades her husband to arrange for the death of the woman when she is on her way to Spartacus who has become the toast of the town. Spartacus seeks revenge but meanwhile the Master is gaining his revenge on those in the city who have thwarted or challenged his rise as head gladiator school as well as his social and political ambitions. He gets rid of his former friend and rival Gladiator team owner by framing him for the murder of the Magistrates who had also failed to meet his demands for social promotions.

His wife meanwhile had been conducting a sexual affair with a Gladiator who makes her pregnant which she pretends is the child of her husband. The couple are sexually promiscuous in terms of using their slaves for pleasure although in this instance the couple share the female slaves, although homosexuality is practiced between the male gladiators and between visiting dignitaries who come to enjoy the reputation of the villa for open and free sexuality. In the grand finale Spartacus leads the revolt of the Gladiators and the Slave Master and his wife are killed.

In prequel although called Spartacus Gods of the Arena the six part production explains the events which led to the arrival of Spartacus but also explain something of the background relationships which contributed to subsequent events.

In the provincial City of Capua, Quintus Lentulus Batiatus is the manager of his father’s Gladiator training school at a time when there is just a small dilapidated arena and another school dominates competitions in the city and region. Batiatus takes the opportunity of the absence of his father on health grounds to pursue his ambition of turning the school into the major establishment and which in turn will lead to his main objective which is to achieve political and social power. His wife beautiful wife, Lucretia is just as ambitious and (as in the main series) to be more ruthless and a better schemer. The House has one card to play Gannicus, the best Gladiator in the city and whose reputation has commenced to spread.

Gannicus is close to the former champion Oenomaus who has been allowed to have a slave as his wife and she is exempt from the attentions of Batiatus and visiting guests. Batiatus also invests in a new slave Crixus whose ambition to become the greatest is ridiculed but he attracts the attention of Lucretia.

The “ battleground” for power is set when the city power man Tullius and builder of a great new arena in the style of that still standing in Rome determines that his friend and Training school owner Vettius should have Gannicus. The opening event is planned as a grand occasion and Batiatus is promised an involvement if he sells Gannicus.
In order to pursue his ambition Lucretia and her social well connected separated wife who seeks hospitality waylays a visiting dignitary on his way to meet with the rivals. The House offers to provide anything he wishes for entertainment and this includes watching Gannicus have sexual intercourse before the assembly with the wife of Oenomaus Melitta who Batiatus has appointed Doctore or Gladiator Trainer. Afterwards it is agreed no one will speak of what happens especially to the new Doctore. His wife feels guilty and Gannicus also guilty nevertheless falls in love with the wife of his best friend and is also attracted as a consequence of their enforced and public intimacy. Just when things are beginning to look good for Batiatus his father returns and takes charge once more and agrees to the sale of Gannicus and to elevating Crixus who has immediately commenced to prove his abilities in the arena.

In Beneath the Mask, the use of Masks is a feature of he main series to disguise individuals participating in the sexual orgies, the visiting dignatory demands another session and murders the friend of Lucretia who arranged the meeting, again repeating a situation which occurred in the main series. In this instance the father returns early and reads the riot act to his son, taking over everything himseld, selling Gannicus and generally making life unbearable for the couple who face leaving with as little as they commenced their life together.

In Reckoning Batiatus cannot go through with a plan to kill his father and take full control of the Ludus. However Lucretia has been slowly poisoning the man and gives him a lethal dose in wine which unfortunately Melitta also take and dies when she is having a final goodbye with Gannicus before he is sold.

In the Bitter End Batiatus lays a plot with a friend who pretends to reveal the plan to the opposition as a means of tricking them into a trap. The result is that Tullius is captured and walled up alive in his own stadium while Vettius is offered his life if he cooperates and explains that the owner and organiser of the great opening event has been called away on urgent business and that after the games he is also retiring to live elsewhere and has sold (given) his Ludus not to Batiatus as planned but to Batiatus friend, who becomes a rival in the main series and which in turn leads to his downfall.

One of the complaints of his father against Batiatus is that not only was his wife Lucretia a commoner of well known easy virtue but she remained childless. In order to try and placate the father Lucretia devised the plan to mate with Crixus but in the main series she not only become dependent on the relationship but is successful in becoming pregnant by him. Gannicus is also successful in the arena and is given his freedom which means he can avoid admitting to Doctore the extent of his misery with the death of Melitta. Thus it would appear almost everything goes well for Batiatus as the mini series ends. However before his death by walling, Tullius issues a curse, a curse which comes to fruition with their deaths at the hands of Crixus and Spartacus at the end of the main series and which is repeated.

A special word for the actor John Hannah who plays Batiatus and who gives the performance of his life throughout both series.

New Tricks

As I have said on previous occasions the main joy of New Tricks is the composition of the Unsolved Cases Unit and the their interaction:- Alun Armstrong, Dennis Waterman and James Bolam led by Amanda Redman. I shall miss the familiarity of faces of my generation although heartened that if I am here in a year’s time, so will they, or at least two of the three because a question mark could hang over one, according to last episode of the series of ten which came to an end yesterday.

In the Gentleman vanishes the team are asked to investigate the missing husband by his wife after she receives a series of emails from a firm in Switzerland who continue to work on the concept of cold fusion on which her husband worked and had claimed a breakthrough before his disappearance.

A feature of the series is the explanation of the technical aspects of policing work and as in this situation of a highly technical subject which could have been the cause of the disappearance. For the record Cold Fusion was a concept introduced by two scientists in 1989 who claimed that on a table top experiment they had in effect created the potential for a cheap source of energy replacing dependence on the need for a continuous supply of oil and gas. That one of those involved was a world wide recognised authority in his subject aroused the interest of government as well as the scientific community but their discovery was quickly consigned to pathological science with accusations of flawed experimentation and impossible difficulties in achieve the objective.

Cynics and conspiracy theorists continue to claim that such would be the impact of the discovery that not just existing energy producers would oppose and seek to silence such a development but the present nature of the world economy and therefore state power would be turned upside down that the G20 powers collectively would seek to stop development or equally individually seek to gain control.

In the programme the scientist disappeared on a train to Paris during a brief period of four seconds as he walked to the buffet car to buy something for a blind man seated across the gangway and who had engaged him in conversation. He or someone had taken up the hotel booking in Paris but had not turned up for the conference he was attending as replacement for his collaborationist whose home had been broken into and among the possessions taken was his passport. As became revealed when his wife was interviewed he was a man increasingly absorbed in his work, disliked confined spaces such a as planes and tunnels, hence to the use of a standard train from London to Dover and Ferry, coping with arrangements and household activities. His wife who would have usually accompanied me on such a venture had been unable to do so because of the short notice. There are several flaws in this aspect of the story as there are in every story line once time is taken to examine the plots. This never matters.

What happens next is that the officer responsible for the Team is approach by a former colleague, old school friends and all that in the supermarket and invited to a meal at his club/restaurant to enjoy Beef Wellington and Baked Alaska and then casually, as one does, offer official advice which is open to interpretation as a warning off, or an official interest in finding an answer, and this included giving the name of an individual which the team quickly find appears to have no record or no connection with those identified with the missing Professor. There is a delightful moment towards the end when the unit head confronts his friend who admits he is involved with UK intelligence that most of what is done is pointless. I think not.
As is the custom the team gradually unravel what actually happened going through several twists and turns and red herrings. In this instance they make progress after discovering that the blind man is a confidence trickster, now in prison, and who is consequently persuaded to disclose that all he was asked to do was to pose as a blind man on the train and at an agreed time engage the professor in conversation and ask for something to be obtained from the buffet. He was then asked to pose as the Professor at the booked hotel and then come forward as a witness once the disappearance was reported in the media. The second flaw is that given the circumstances and background of the Professor he would have been met at the railway station in Paris and then taken to the arranged Hotel and looked after until the presentation of the Paper. It would have become immediately known that he never reached the Continent

The con man received instruction dropped at his home in the middle of the night as was the payment in cash. When he is forced to reveal who recruited him for the job the man named is murdered at the public house just as where two members of the unit have approached to question.

The team have also interviewed the research assistant who worked with the Professor but had lost her job when the unit was closed following the disappearance. She appears to be in a relationship with an older woman who shares her flat and is anti police because being an environmental activist she opposes the police approach to past activities. She is also a computer expert. Clue.

The team go back to his wife because they believe that there is something which she has not revealed. She admits that she had met an on line contact through a web site she had some responsibility and because her husbands aversion to normal social activities she had enjoyed drinks and meals with the man and this had led to sex. She is confident this had nothing to with the disappearance of her husband. I cannot remember in which order she mentioned that he had broken off the relationship shortly after the husband had gone missing but after they had spent a night together on the day when her husband was scheduled to be in Paris that she had tried to get into contact but found the telephone number disconnected and the email returned. That she did not put two and two together is another flaw in the story line. It is when they asked for information about the man that she reveals his name, the same name as given by the Government Intelligence man.

Their suspicions are confirmed when on visiting property in the name of the individual and a shell company they find a camera above the bed and an coaxial cable down to the basement where they also find a metal chair fixed to the ground which the obvious conclusion that the man had to watch his wife commit adultery shattering his whole world resulting in his giving the information wanted and then he was killed and buried in the garden. The aspect which again flawed the story was that having gone to the trouble of removing furniture and television they had not removed the camera the cable or the chair or more effectively buried the body.

Jack, I think it was, leans on a former computer hacker who he had previously saved from prison and who therefore owes him and who had established a business advising firms how to be secure against hackers to find out who had sent the emails and if they were genuine. He is able to confirm authenticity but using methods which cannot be used in court. He advises that only one individual could have entered the computer system of the Swiss based firm and redirected the emails to the wife of the Professor. Someone with the handle Nail Tails who could do the job. This leads them back to the computer friend anti police of the former assistant to the Professor who admits her friend has left and admitted she had lied about everything told her. They find in effect a confession and a photo of missing suspect. What happened is that she had been recruited because of her environmental interest with a view to securing the information so that it would be used for the benefit of everyone, such was also the view of the Professor and she had been on the train to pull the communication chord to take the man off. However she had no idea the intention was to torture and kill him and had gone into hiding to plan her revenge.

Confronting the Government Intelligence man again the unit chief learns that the wanted man is a rogue agent who had gone private and that he and the accomplice on the train who had murdered the recruiter in the pub would be arriving at St Pancras from the continent in the morning and the unit is free to pick them up. However the rogue agent is executed by Nine Tails who gets her revenge. The Intelligence man had mentioned his interest in ancient mythology which turns out to be a fox with nine tails and the name under Nine Tails was known to her flat mate was A Fox.

As I have said many times the joy of the programmes are the three male characters that form the unit of rehired former detective Alun Armstrong plays an obsessive recovering alcoholic, former Detective Sergeant, with the skill is connecting the dots in ways which others only come to long after- if they ever do. In this programme the picture painted of the professor is that of a man continuously living within his own world with only his wife able to influence and who provides security and domesticity. This could be Brian with Ester his wife having expressed at times her frustration, loneliness and unhappiness as she feels she is acting more as his mother than as lover and partner, something which the wife of the Professor also expresses in this episode.
PS and it is a big one. In the series the Cold Fusion idea for which the Professor is murdered does not work. At least that is consistent with reality.

In episode 8 of the series- Only the Brave, a young woman comes to the Unit seeking help to prevent her boyfriend from killing someone as required for his initiation ceremony into a criminal Biker gang called the Braves, not to be confused with the aging bikers who haunt country lanes on Sunday afternoons in their Harley Davidson’s as someone mentions. In this instance rather than present the episode as it unfolds I shall begin Team unit leader, the adorable Amanda Redman whose character Sandra has just about coped with the suicide of her policeman father when she was only 24 years of age, following corruption allegations. Her personal relationship with men suffered as a consequence so she remains married to her work and the Unit. She was once regarded as the bright star in the policing firmament destined for greatness and not for managing the unit however good their work in solving cold cases. She is brought to face her situation, clearing up the mess of others inferior to her, by a former junior to her who is heading a major crime unit on the track of the Braves who are part of an International Drug trafficking network with Biker gangs in Holland and Scandinavia. He taunts her about her present situation, especially when he asks her to drop the investigation because it could compromise his long investigation and she readily agrees.

She is willing to do so, in part, because Jack, who now plays her confidante father figure, was against commencing the investigation because of the lack of evidence and in part because of professionalism in not wanting to undermine the work of her former colleague. Obviously she would pass on to the current crime investigations unit the allegation that a named individual was out to kill a member of a rival gang...... (with in mind the decision to stop and arrest an individual in Tottenham a month ago because of information he was on his way to undertake a similar crime, and which in that instance proved the catalyst for a criminal insurrection).

It is Jack who insists that his colleagues stay back at the office and work out the solution to the mystery when Sandra is put under pressure and willing to walk away from further involvement. Jack is played by former When the Boat Comes, Likely lad and my favourite character of all as the school teacher in the Beiderbecke Tapes-- James Bolam. He is the head of the trio having been a former Chief Superintendent of Detectives, the same rank Sandra.

The girl who approached the Unit is the daughter of a motor cycle parts supply business one of whose major clients is the Braves although the owner is not a willing participant in their criminal activities. The boyfriend is the son of a man who the police and everyone connected to with the Braves believes was the victim of a fight with a member of a rival gang. The serious crime squad unit head reveals that because of the placement of an uncover officer with a rival gang; they were not responsible for the death although this information cannot be used for obvious reasons to prevent the boyfriend completing his initiation assignment. There is a clue in what he says.

What emerges is that the boy’s father had discovered that the police informant within the gang was a senior figure who had named and killed someone else as the “grass”. It is not just the Cosa Nostra which insists on the vow of silence. This other colleague was also supposed to be killed in a gang fight although it took place outside a pub used by the Braves and just across from their base and which in normal circumstances would have led to a major fight between the gangs involved.

The main twist and red herring in the story is that the wife of the murdered father had set up home with head of the Braves a man who had got away with several crimes because of the intimidation of witnesses. The daughter had witnessed the couple coming out of a room months before the killing whereas the couple claimed they had only got together a couple of months after the death. One assumption was that the father had died either confronting the former friend about the affair or he had been murdered in order that the couple could live together openly. When the Unit visit the former wife they find she is a nasty piece of work and later she is responsible for scarring the face of the daughter for having asked the unit to intervene, but where did the leak come from? What is only discovered at the end, separately by the trio and Amanda is that the police informant is an undercover police officer which is why the serious crimes unit head is unable to believe that he is responsible for either of the killings, until he works out that he advised his officer that the daughter had come to the unit and that it could only have been his officer who informed the former wife and mother of the girl’s boyfriend. None of them realised that the deputy head of the Braves was a police undercover man had become a criminal murdering others to protect himself. Such indeed is reality.

The consequence of this is that any information obtained from him could not be used in court and therefore the major investigation has been wasted, and for which there will be an inquiry and although the serious crimes unit head was not implicated it happened on his watch so his career will be damaged.

The reason why the team was able to crack the case is that they visited the daughter in hospital and saw the father again. It is she who takes the initiative in being willing to give evidence against her attacker and her father is then is willing to give evidence against the undercover police officer. Separately after the team work on the son he has an arm badly burned by acid and kicked out of the Braves for questioning the past and has threatened Sandra with a gun for not protecting his girlfriend. He had been a tearaway in the past and known to the police but he had turned the new leaf because of the relationship with the girl. Sandra by various means escapes from the young man who is also willing to testify.. It ends well with villains captured and the young able to start ona new life together. Ah!

In the third mystery Half Life a man is found dead in an alley by a hotel, discovered by a staff member from the restaurant going out for a quick smoke while waiting to clear a table where a customer sat drinking cups of coffee as if waiting for someone. (Big Clue) The girl has seen a car which she thought was dark blue but otherwise was vague on all aspects.

Alun has developed a sleeping problem which is upsetting and disturbing his wife who demands that he does something about it, as does the unit leader, Amanda Redman because he is arriving at work tired and continuing tired during the rest of the day. The others suggest remedies from hot milk with honey and sunflower and sesame seeds to baking clothing in the microwave until hot and wrapping these around one to create a sense of warmth and comfort. None of these work so he is forced to go to the “quackery” of a hypnotist. This works and he has the idea of using the hypnotist to see if the hotel worker could remember anything and she is able to remember the full number of a car.

Before this it had emerged that the dead man had been in a witness protection programme after giving evidence against a former associate drug dealer who continues to serve a long prison sentence and who had sung from the dock the Vera Lynn song We’ll meet again. The Unit had suspected he was being hidden when they found out that he had moved into the area just six weeks before his death and allocated a three bedroom Council property to himself. The disappearance had not been noticed by the police at the time.

The case had become a cold case investigation when someone had identified who the dead man through a Web site trying to locate missing people or people to be identified. The Unit had been had been able to find out that he had been give a job as a mechanic for a local garage/car dealers firm where the owner and his wife who worked in the office claimed they knew little about the man or his background.

The Unit speaks to a workmate who had some contact outside of work limited because while he was married with a family, the dead man was something of a ladies man. ( Big Clue) I cannot remember the sequence of events which led the team to finding out that the man had a relationship with the daughter of man he sent to prison through his evidence. She presented as a hardened young woman grateful that she had not become over involved but remarkably cool about his betrayal of her father and his death. This added to the belief that although in prison her father had arranged the murder

The team tracked down one associate who had become a club bouncer doorman and found out that he had visited someone else in the same prison as the main suspect. He admits to giving the message that he had been approached by the dead man asking if he was interest in getting involved in drug trafficking via former contacts in Holland. He had not wanted to get involved but had wanted to let his form boss know his position in case it became known he had the contact and had not reported.

The hotel waitress had been shown photographs of a Dutch man who had stayed at the hotel at the time of the death and was known to be part a of Dutch trafficking gang but she recognises the man as the individual sitting at the table drinking coffee. He therefore had to be eliminated from the murder inquiry.

Through the number plate the vehicle is traced to that of a teacher but was originally issued by the garage where the man worked and where the car had been taken to the garage for service on the day of the death. The flowers are reported to have been left at the grave of the man since he had been identified and a description of the woman appeared to be close to that of the wife of the garage owner. She had originally claimed to have known nothing about him but is forced by the evidence to admit she had a brief affair. She had been away at the time using the only car owned by the couple. This was the great flaw in the episode given that her husband was a car dealer. The other twist is that had he not intervened it is likely that the Dutchman had been sent to kill the man via the man from prison! He would have been the trouble and prison.

The team become anxious about the national police cuts in expenditure and fear for their future. Sandra makes inquiries and is reassured that at present management has not included the unit on any of their lists.

I cannot remember in which episode Dennis Waterman visits an ex policeman and finds him living in a house with gardens way beyond his former pay grade and this immediately raises suspicions. The property came with the wife that he married. For Dennis Waterman married several times in real life as well as in the series he comments about missed opportunity and that perhaps it is still not too late. Sandra comments that he is such a great catch now. Dennis was a former Police Inspector in the series. And therefore not the wide boy he played in the Minder series with George Cole.

This brings to the final show of the season Tiger Tiger. A zoo keep had been mauled and eaten by his favourite Tiger but then blood had been found in his accommodation which indicated that he had been killed and then put in the animal enclosure.

The whole team visit the zoo and are met by the experienced female public relations officer with a plum in her mouth, instantly dislikeable, covering up and an immediate suspect, but I thought not.

A fascinating story emerges of a group of young people who formed a double dare club drawing straws with matches of different sizes as to who should undertake the dangerous exercise of the day, The young man who died has a Spanish mother who has kept some of things in a box and this includes a USB drive which includes clips of some dares and a photo of a naked couple making love on a balcony. The young man in the photo is tracked down as a dare devil doctor who died in a delayed parachute opening jump. His girl friend is tracked down and she has also become a doctor but denies any knowledge or involvement although her story is eventually broken down and the truth revealed.

Before then there are a couple of twists! The lion had died shortly after the incident and the blade of a knife had been found inside and to be Spanish made blade. The murdered young man had been to the running with bulls in Pamplona. The murdered man also frequented a DVD hire store and the big clue comes when a member of team points out that someone must have been taking the films and photos that as yet remains unidentified. The shop also sells high quality film camera equipment

In relation to the team members the focus is on Jack again who is told thatis to receive a Commissioner’s Commendation because of his intervention in two situations where his life was at risk. Jack is not pleased with the award and shows every indication of missing the black tie dinner award ceremony.

Jack has the case on his mind because the man identified as the security guard at the zoo is someone Jack knows who was a member of the force and it appears that Jack somehow protected him. He has no respect for this man and is therefore suspicious when the man claims to have no knowledge of what happened on the night of the death. Later when the case is solved Jack discloses that the man is his brother in law and that he saved the man from disgrace because the event coincided with the death of his wife and he had not wanted to add to suffering of his former partner. The brother in law admits he had taken a bribe to let the dare devils in so the remaining members are brought in for questioning.

It is revealed that the murdered man got the short straw (match) and gone into the cage but instead of the animal being asleep it had woken up and gone for the man before he could get out of the cage. One of the group, the owner/manager of the store, had used a knife to stop the animal in its tracks but their colleague had been injured. Everyone had run off but one of the group had gone back, the shop man.

Previously on being first approached he had disclosed he was previously known to the police having helped out in a case, a case of where someone was found dead with a couple of digits missing. Inquiries were made and two other deaths were discovered with what appeared to be small body part souvenirs taken. While holding the man at the police station the Unit does a thorough search of the shop and accommodation above without finding anything incriminating. Then someone notices four video cassette boxes and these are found to contain the souvenir body parts.

Jack explains why he did not want to attend the awards dinner and concentrated on solving the case. Since the death of his wife he had not felt continued living worth while and longed to be able to join her in the afterlife. In the instances of the award events he had acted without disregard for his life accordingly and he could not promise not to take the similar approach again. Embarrassed by his failure to attend the ceremony the Commanding officer questions if Jack is up to the job anymore, suggesting he may not be available for the next series, or perhaps his health is in question and this paves the way for an untimely departure

New Tricks

It is appropriate to spend more than a passing reference to the TV series New Tricks because it is about the kind of Creative Unit I have stressed is at the root cause of the News of the World Scandal and the golden rule that such units need to be closely managed and its members removed from the organisation when they cross the line are caught and their misdeeds cannot be covered up.

The joy of New Tricks now coming to the end of its 8th season has always been the strength and interaction between the three old codgers who form the unsolved crimes unit headed by Detective Superintendent Sandra Pullman (Amanda Redman) who was put in charge of the unit as a punishment but despite her ambitious married to the job nature has become addicted to keeping the trio out of serious trouble as they solve every mystery brought to their attention

67 episodes have been created of which two remain to be shown and the series has progressed from 6 to 8 and now 10 episodes a season and to be shown in 20 countries including the USA where there is a home grown product, and in Norway and Uruguay.

Gerald "Gerry" Standing (Ex-Detective Sergeant) is played by Dennis Waterman whose professional career as sidekick to John Thaw in the Sweeney and George Cole in Minder, brought him public recognition and over a dozen film roles as well as other TV performances. He has been married and divorced three times in real life and in the series continuing to have good relations with all the women who have meals together with their children now adults. Gerry continues to have a roving eye and although his role in the series reminds of a former Assistant Police Commissioner embroiled in the News of the World Scandal Gerry’s reputation is based on having been incorruptible but with a tendency to break or use the rulebook to the job in hand. Not that the former Assistant Commissioner was corruptible but his performance before the House of Commons Committee was that of Jack the Lad


Gerry is Jack the Lad personified, risk taker and gambler which nicely bring me to Geordie James Bolam who cane to national TV fame as one of the Likely Lads but whose best series for me has been his role as the traditional Jazz loving teacher in the Beiderbecke Tapes although he is also still widely regarded for the first of the great series based in he North East as Jack Ford in When the Boat Comes in. In this series he plays John Alan "Jack" Halford (Ex-Detective Chief Superintendent) He still speaks to his deceased wife Mary in the memorial garden at their former home after she was knocked down by a villain although the crime was solved a series or two back, her death is once more brought to the fore by the latest cases they are asked to investigate that of a run down cyclist who has lost his memory although recovered his physical strength.

The third member is the wonderful actor Alun Armstrong not that the other two are also not wonderful but Alan is exceptional with nine years with the Royal Shakespeare Company and is another man from the North East, in this instance County Durham. He also appeared in the Sweeney, in Get Carter and in Our Friends in the North. He has appeared in forty films and an even greater number of TV and Stage shows. In the series he plays Brian Lane (Ex-Detective Inspector) bookish with instant memory recall he clings to the same clothes and habits, lacks all social abilities, a recovering alcoholic and obsessive compulsive he is saved by having a loyal loving wife whose patience is frequently tested beyond

In the episode last week they are asked to investigate The death of Kathy Green, who ran a popular market stall, and whose death is thought to be linked to a current series of drug rapes. In fact this is not so although they are able to put the suspect behind bars as a result of dogged analysis of all the reported crimes by Brian Lane. He works out that the criminal must have experimented with the dose of the drug which he administered via coffee from his roadside stall and this leads to an analysis of reported road traffic accidents in the immediate area of the stall in a two year period before the first established but unsolved crime. The investigation of the death does confirm that the woman took her own life because of the pain she felt at having given up an illegitimate daughter for adoption and because of other problems in her life. The daughter is traced and Amanda Redman helps the girl to understand and accept that although placed for adoption she was loved throughout with a box of recovered letters never sent and also learns why having contacted her birth mother she was sent away. Another aspect of the plot is the relationship between the deceased woman her husband and son of the marriage and the Market superintendent who has had a series of jobs working undercover for a corrupt politician gangster. The Market Superintendent also goads people into attacking him and then claiming damages with the help of an expensive legal team provided by the corrupt politician.

In Moving Target" Samantha Gerson comes to UCOS to conduct a study of older men in the workplace. She asks the team to investigate the hit-and-run accident that left her brother Darren Gerson with a brain injury and memory loss. She wants the team to reassure her brother it was just an accident but he believes that he was targeted for a package he was carrying and the team quickly arrive at the same conclusion and assume that drugs are involved when they find out that he was asked to take a package from an Import firm to an address of someone he had visited on a regular basis. The man has JLS tattooed on his arm which another courier says was the initials of a girl friend they argued over.

It emerges that the owner of the Import firm established an uncut diamond smuggling racket with the person where the packaged was to have been delivered and who has since left the country. They eventually discover that the owner organiser of the courier service was responsible for the hit and run and for the subsequent murder of the cyclist during the episode because he was being cut out of the racket after the cyclist commenced to have a sexual relationship with the owner of the import firm. She turns Queens Evidence after being caught retrieving the diamonds from the last package held in a bank deposit box. The sub plot is that JLS stands for an organisation of cyclists who carried out a score of traffic jams in central London because of the way motorists treat cyclists in the capital. The knocked down cyclist had been the leader of the campaign assisted by a girl friend and others but had wanted to take the campaign further acquiring explosives from his cut in the diamond racket with a view to blowing up cars.

The interest of the team only occurs because of the visit of the psychologist who after observing the trio and interviewing them concludes that as creatives they are atypical and therefore does not form a valid study group for the project, which she should have known beforehand. The series has also provided work for a large number of guest performers so long may it reign and so says all of us and them.

Spartacus, Sopranos and Blue Bloods

I caught up writing on some TV shows experienced recently commencing with the lurid Spartacus. To recap in this version Spartacus is motivated to become an effective gladiator to regain his wife who has been sold as a slave when they were both captured. In episode three the main aspect is the man’s arrogance and stupidity thinking he can defy and knows better than the trainer at the Gladiator school, resulting in him being sent down into the shit hole to learn the error of his ways.

The other development, anticipated from previous episodes is the attendance at gladiatorial games by the wife of the Roman general responsible for the plight of Spartacus and his wife. We are led to believe that protected by her husband from visiting gladiatorial schools or the social events attached to gladiatorial contests she was ignorant of their sexual abilities and availability until being groomed by the wife of the gladiator school master. So far in we have learned that that the wife and husband use slaves to get them aroused before they indulge in matrimonial hanky panky and in this episode we learn that she is also partial to private sessions with principal gladiator Crixus. She notes Viva Bianca’s interest in her man and takes her away to witness Varro, the Roman citizen who sold himself to the arena in order to win money to get his family out of debt, service a slave twice in succession before other guests at the reception.

The low point of the episode for Spartacus occurs when after provoking Crixus into a brawl at the reception the two are chosen to fight the main bout at the end of the gladiatorial contest. Spartacus is soundly beaten by Crixus and with the crowd and principal guests baying for blood he begs for his life which is granted by Lentulous the Training school master and contest entrepreneur. However there is a price to pay for this which Lentulous exerts at the commencement of the fourth episode on Monday evening which I viewed on early rising on Monday. Having lost favour with the crowd he is sent to fight in the pit which is a kind of semi legal games fought to the death for lower classes but which is also subject of betting by others, Lentulous pressed by his creditors decides to speculate in favour of Spartacus and forcing him to kill several men over a few days while the odds are favourable.

Whereas the third episode is well described as lurid with the now obligatory nudity and sexual athleticism obligatory the fourth episode was dominated by blood lust. There was time for Crixus to serve his mistress and express his affection for her principal slave woman but as with the previous episode it is evident that the story is being padded out with gore and bore which after the initial wow losses all appeal.

This is not so for the Sopranos with the second episode of the second series Do not Resuscitate. This has Tony visiting Uncle Junior in prison and advising that he will still have some income but that he taking over most of his earning activities. Junior is released because of his heart condition but under restrictions. Junior tries to convince Tony that his mother was not responsible for the attempt on his life and that the owner of the nursing home is saying that Tony attempted to kill his mother. The owner is dealt with.

Tony’s sister visits her mother in hospital and a nurse asks if they should attempt to resuscitate if Livia needs to be kept alive artificially. A J, Tony’s son, hears Janice discussing this with Tony who offers Janice the opportunity to use her mother’s home to look after her if she wishes. Meadow, Tony daughter has passed the driving test and seeks permission to take a family car to visit her grandmother with A J. This is a pretext to meet someone leaving A J to visit his grandmother on his own. He asks her about DNR and if it anything similar to DNA. This convinces Livia she is in danger from her family and Janice in particular, and she reacts negatively when Janice announces she is going to look after her in her family home. Junior slips in the bath room and badly injures himself and calls one of his officers who in turn alerts Tony who carries his uncle to the car to take to the hospital emergency.

There is also a secondary story about the extent which construction workers and their union are part of the mob business. One of the firms is having problem by employing only whites and Tony is involved in breaking up the demonstrations against this by making a financial deal with a local civil rights campaigner who appears to be strengthening the protest but is turning a blind when the demonstration is broken up by violence.

The main development of the episode is the revelation that Pussy Bonpensiero has been working for the FBI for sometime but feeding them false information.

The latest episode of Blue Bloods covered the perils of communicating on line and the arranging to meet someone with whom one has established an emotional attachment. The action commences at an international upper class social event where debutante dressed in white evening gowns dance with eligible young men before being officially presented. One of the 50 girls jokes with her partner that none of them are virgins and suggests they go outside to get high on a smoke which she has in her purse. Outside in the back yard of the hotel they find the body of a young girl who cannot be identified as she has not been reported missing and there is no other record to help. Eventually by some clever detective work, of course, she is identified as the daughter of a responsible couple who believed she was on some official activity.

From her lap top they work out that she appears to have been in communication and making an arrangement to meet with one of the young men attending the debutants ball. Although he and his father are obnoxious and uncooperative it becomes evident that neither was involved and that the culprit was the tutor of the young man.

The are two sub stories, The daughter of the assistant DA is having meal with her uncle talking about her interest in joining the force when she older while getting him to tell her stories as part of a school project. She then persuades him to let her go in the car to the crime scene and gets out to see what is appending only to traumatise by the sight of the dead girl. Understandably this upset her mother but the main worry for the teenager is that she is not tough enough to become a cop. A talk with her grandfather persuades her that if she wants a career when she is older the reality of the work is something which she will be tough enough to cope with.

The Mayor wants to make Regan, the Commissioner of a Police, into a media hero to help his re-election campaign but he is resistant although his father and other members FO the family suggest it is an opportunity to move from the past and enjoy himself with the attention.

In a third secondary story, the youngest son and his senior partner are summoned to look at the shutter of a city centre store which has been decorated with caricature of the shop owner. The work is signed and they are able to identify the individual responsible and where he is lives and discover he is a talented young artist on his way to college. The Sergeant shows he has a good heart in deciding not to prosecute the offender on the basis they are not called out to deal with a complaint about his work again. A short time afterwards they are again called by the owner of the store to see the handiwork of the artist. This time there is a full size coloured mural showing the police men with a giant slogan, Thanks. Both are thrilled.

Monday was a mixture fo a day with a good swim first thing and then the decision to experience a documentary on the life and loss of Dr Woo the remarkable 36 year old mysteriously executed in Afghanistan along with nine others from the USA and Europe who were on a medical and social education and help mission to a border area in August of last year when they were all killed. The programme upset me greatly and later I devoted the afternoon to reading about her life from material available on the Internet. I will devote my next writing to her.

With visiting various parts of the house attending to the art work project last week I noted that the property is in desperate need of a good clean and yesterday morning I concentrated on the kitchen with good effect. Later I commenced to view recorded episodes of the Game of Thrones which I will continue if time is available during to day although my primary attention will be on the first day of the game between Durham and Warwickshire at Edgbaston. I made a quick shop at Morrison’s on the way home from the swim buying a kipper which enjoyed this morning, three jars of curry, a medium salad made up from a good selection of high value items that were available, feta cheese, black olives, spicy salami , some prawns and some ham pieces as well as lashings of coleslaw. The main purpose of the visit was to buy a stir fry to accompany the remains fo the chicken breast from yesterday’s lunch and which I enjoyed in the evening after a lunch of the second made chicken and bacon layered pasta salad, I also could not resists a few crackers with jam from little pots given at Christmas.

The day ended without being affected by the storm force winds which had swept from the west across Scotland felling some trees and causing the death of one woman driving her car as a consequence. In the USA a freak Tornado of sudden great force devastated a town with its half a mile wide force, killing some thirty people. The scene afterwards was similar to that of a Tsunami, earthquake or bomb. Nature rules.

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.