Back to my daily diary, working on the art work project and participating in activities outside the home. I wrote this on Sunday morning 12th June 2011 but by early evening I had made a major decision to reorganise the four display units at the top of the stairs to the first floor and in the alcove outside the bathroom and toilet. This in turn led to the decision to move completed project Development sets from one of the four units as a prelude to removing more from the first floor display and storage room. I want to clear at least two of the units in the display room in order to return the partially completed sets now in the upstairs work room and also as space for new completed project Development lever arch files and for other work completed lever arch files.
The activity commenced yesterday evening on returning from a rain abandoned game of cricket at the Emirates Riverside Durham as seeing that The World was still moored across from South Shields at the North Tyneside Cruise line mooring. I wanted to take a phone and found that my digi cam had flat batteries and the recharge failed to work. This led to checking out a sort of free camcorder via Staples gifts which needs batteries as does the other Staples free digi camera and this in turn led to sorting out other digi items including MP3 and MP4 players which I am still to get to work and this then led to the decision to check the electronic stuff shelves outside the bathroom on he first floor half landing, and to set in motion the great sort out, clean reorganise and inventory making. WoW.
The private floating home yacht The World is also WoW territory The Ship is 50 year leased owned by those buying one the 165 units -106 apartment, 19 studio apartments and 40 studios and on most journeys there are between 100 and 400 residents and guests plus 250 crew, including a doctor and nurse. The Top suite has a private veranda with space for tables and a party half a dozen ensuite double rooms, a couple of kitchens as well a loungers for $13.5 or so while a more modest residence at $.6m still provides 2 ensuite double bed rooms. In addition there are significant monthly charges to cover the running costs as the vessel is permanently visiting around the world staying in or off ports for 2 to 5 days at a time said to begin at $5000 a week.
Given that the residents have their own kitchens and like to eat out on visits ashore they are also expected to pay for meals at the in house restaurants. There are facilities to keep active including full size tennis court, a gym, golf simulator, putting Green and jogging track, a casino which is rarely used, boutique, small grocery and delicatessen and I assume cinema. However each suite is Internet and Sat TV organised and the suite are sound proofed to enable 23 hour music and TV watching if that way inclined.
The boat is design so that in warm climates it is possible to swim directly into the sea from a deck at the stern.
This year the vessel has been to Antarctica and South America reaching Panama early March before the West Indies and the USA East Coast in April. In May they reach Europe and Portugal and Spain and the briefly in France before two weeks in the UK. Next they go to the Nordic countries reaching Russia late July back along the European Coast to Spain and Portugal late August and September, then Italy and the Adriatic followed by Greece and Turkey October November the Seychelles and South Africa Christmas into New Year there are then two long sea trips first of 3 days to Mauritius before 8 days cruising to reach Australia in February 2012 and New Zealand in March. April sees expeditions to Melanesia and May Polynesia and a host of islands before Honolulu, Mexico and San Francisco late June. It is Canada time in July Russia and Alaska August, Greenland and Canada September through to October before Boston and New York as the month ends, The Bahamas. Miami and New Orleans in November, Mexico, Central America and the Virgin Islands December 2012 and around the world again. Can’t wait to join in but must will the Euro Lottery big prize of over £50 million to indulge!
On Saturday June 11th 2011 was able to acquire a free copy of the Pavarotti commencing with a poor live recording of Nessun Dorma but contained an excellent example of his work ranging from Verdi to Mozart to Massenet and Donizetti, 20 pieces lasting 75 mins. This contrasted with another free disk acquired several years ago titled Women with work from the Three degrees When will I see you again, Aretha Franklin Walk on by and the Bangles Eternal Flame and three of my favourites Bonnie Tyler Total Eclipse of the Heart and two outstanding singers, Nina Simone Everything Must Change and Billie Holliday, The Man I love. I was lucky to acquire several Long Play records of Nina Simone in a Woolworth sale several decades ago for 20 to 30 pence a record and I have several collections of Billie Holiday including an inexpensive 3 CD anthology. Also on the free disk are Deniece Williams Gladys Knight and 8 unknown artists and their songs.
I do not yet know what to make fo the new Camelot series on Channel Four which struck me as a cross between Spartacus Blood and sand with several scenes of nudity love making and sex, and vicious human slaughtering, matched with some of the epic quality of Game of Thrones. The subject is the same as Game of Thrones, the intrigue and battle for power, questions of legitimacy and ancestry added to which supernatural powers.
Because King Arthur, The Round Table, Merlin, Excalibur has little or no historical reference new writers feel able to play fast and loose with the legend. However I suspect this production will fall far short of the BBC1 series on young Merlin.
I liked the portrayal of the lifestyle of the ordinary people and the impressive setting of Camelot as a derelict building partially completed by the Romans on a rocky coast peninsular. The story is that of King Arthur who is brought up by surrogate parents chosen by Merlin unaware of his birthright because Merlin had enabled the Kind to spend a night with the wife of his enemy before marrying her after bearing the enemy King.
He never gets to see his son but signs a document declaring the legitimacy of the young man to the title shortly before he dies of poisoning by his daughter and Arthur’s half sister. She having killed her father and banished her step mother beds the former King’s main enemy as a means of securing her father’s Kingdom. Arthur takes persuading to leave his loving foster parents and half brother Kay but accepts the challenge taking his brother with him. Understandably the half sister, Morgan and her betrothed are not best pleased when they are summoned to Camelot to accept the new King and the old enemy is further enraged when he finds that Arthur has killed the son sent to do likewise. In retaliation the enemy kills the step mother and then turns on the half sister and would be Queen when she starts to give him orders. He tries various ways to subjugate her with the outcome that she warns Arthur of the form of attack her de facto husband will make. In the battle Arthur’s step father gives his life in killing the rival King and Arthur meet Guinevere who he learns is betrothed to one of his new champions. Arthur has also established himself by removing the Excalibur from its placement in a rock at the top of a waterfall.
I am writings separately on this week’s episode of Game of Thrones but Sparta us continued hopefully to the point of his historical famed rebellion. In the meantime his sly, cunning, ambitious and murderous slave school master has recovered the Thracian’s wife sold into slavery but then has her killed on the advice of his more cunning, sly, ambitious and murderous wife. This is designed to get Spartacus into a more single minded mood to continue as the lead Gladiator working to achieve his freedom. Spartacus attempts to make his own way to find the find the killers and is reluctantly persuaded to participate in the re-enactment in the arena when a famed Roman General killed half a dozen Thracian leaders to establish Roman rule over their country. Understandably the proud Thacian Spartacus baulks at representing the Roman general and killing fellow citizens for the gratification of the son of the hero and the Roman masses and as the episode closes it looks as if he has decided to mess up the occasion by letting himself be killed by his fellow countrymen.
Meanwhile the Gladiator Trainer is beginning to doubt the authenticity of the story that one of his star men was able to purchase his freedom from the money previously saved and recently won by betting on Spartacus to defeat the previous undefeated arena champion. What happened is that the school owner had found out who was behind the attempt on his life and sent the Gladiator to kill the man and his family including his son. This had been carried out and the assassin had returned to gain his master’s pleasure, his winnings and to gain freedom for himself and his young male soft hearted companion for whom he had purchased a number of tame doves. He had told the young he had let the child live. Meanwhile the Gladiator bookmaker, anxious not to have to pay out his winnings had arranged for someone to tell the School Master that the boy had survived and been seen. The Slave Master had become so angry that that despite being told the truth he had the assassin killed, having got the young lover to admit he had been told the boy survived. The young man is then taken over by another ruthless gladiator already an enemy and rival of Spartacus who in one moment of rage after the young man commits suicide hurtle the rival off the walls down to his death on the rocks below. Meanwhile the former School Champion Crixus is slowly recovering from his wounds with the administrations of his mistress personal slave who he is having a secret affair. The Mistress in turn has a vested interest in bringing back to full energy her slave lover.
The other ongoing story is the friendship between Spartacus and the free man Roman who voluntary joined the Gladiator school in order to earn sufficiently to clear his debts. Full of guilt at the way his gambling and poor investments had reduced the circumstances of his wife and son he had told her no direct contact, or letters until he had fought successfully or died in the attempt. However the death of the wife of Spartacus’s wife had affected him to the extent that he had written and his wife then pays a personal visit with his son to advise that she has become pregnant after being raped by the man who had offered her financial security during the absence of her husband. Her husband turns away from his wife in the circumstances.
Having discovered that Morrisons and Asda are selling the packs of platters I have been trying out the available selections except the huge selection of sweets, puddings or afters. Each pack costs £5. Over the weekend I enjoyed 15 King Prawns wrapped in filo pastry wrapped in crisp tempura batter; 15 in Breadcrumbs and 15 in Coconut breadcrumb. I can these providing a regular fish experience with providing three portions over two weeks unless mixed with others which is my present inclination. I also finished the first Tex Mex platter and started the second today which has 20 Breaded Onion Rings, 15 Breaded Garlic Mushrooms and 15 Spicy Potato Wedges plus 10 hot and spicy buffalo chicken wings. The Chinese Platter has 20 Chicken Wontons, 20 Prawn Toasts and 20 Vegetable Parcels, The Indian Platter 9 Chicken Tikka Samosas, 17 Bombay potato fritters, 17 onion bhaji and 17 sag aloo bites.
These beat tinned carrots, peas and corn which I grown tired of recently as I did of the simple salads of lettuce, tomatoes, sweet peppers, cucumber and beetroot slice, but not olives or coleslaw which are included in the self select salads. The prawn pasta lettuce and the alternative chicken and bacon also need to purchase now and again. I still enjoy a mixture of baked beans and whole or chopped tomatoes with a chop or fish cooked in batter.
After losing to bottom of the table Derby on Friday in the cricket 20 20 competition, Durham looked for revenge yesterday. It was sunny when I sent off but there was strong evidence of the rain sweeping up and across from the West. I therefore headed for an end of row seat on the Balcony of the Member’s Lounge, had outer coat and inner jacket and a full size umbrella. I was not wrong as the rain commenced midway during the Derby Innings and although Durham‘s bowlers kept going it was evident that the surface water was building up to make bowling and fielding dangerous. I was not surprised when at the interval the wicket was first covered and then the outfield. No other game in the country had started so every match ended in a 1 point each no result tie.
I had to have a large strong coffee to keep going having purchased pastries at Lidl’s who have opened a fresh bakery. I had gone for four packs of the breakfast cereal. Enjoying the second pastry now with my second cup of coffee of the day.
The unexpected sporting event of the weekend was a win for Jenson Button in the Canadian Brand Prix in what many consider the drive of his life in a rain affected event which led to the safety car being used four times and a long delay which meant that all 70 laps of the shortened race from 75 were fitted in with less than a minute to spare. It was only on the last lap that leader from the start, Vettel, made a mistake although there are those who will argue that Button would have taken him in any event use slip stream and the latest technology as he had been lapping as the fastest car in the conditions. He had survived several unexpected pit stops which saw him in last position at least once, after his team mate had attempted to overtake on the inside and they had collided leading to the retirement of Lewis Hamilton who some claim is attempting more and more dangerous manoeuvres to get back on equal terms with Vettel who has stormed into a 60 point lead ahead of Button in the championship.
On Friday I watched what many regard as the most convincing win by Andy Murray in a major round of an important competition when he defeated Andy Roddick in a semi final match at the pre Wimbledon Grass competition at the Queens Club in Hammersmith, West London, a private club recently sold to its Members by the Lawn Tennis Association for £35 million. Fortunately in terms of being able to watch the final live, play was washed out on Sunday and played to day just before 1 pm. The opponent was Jo-Wilfred Tsonga from France known as someone who throws himself fearlessly around the court and with a powerful serve but presently only 20th in the world compared to Murray 4th
First blood went to Tsonga as he broke the Murray serve in game six to go on to win the first set 6.3. The second set went with service to 6.6 but wining the tie break game gave Murray the momentum. He takes the sixth game to go 4.2 up in the third and then in the 8th game and 40 love ahead he does a trick shot through his advancing legs with an angle volley across the net. The crowd erupt, the commentators speculate whether this will wind up his opponent and from this the match ends with each winning their service games. This is the first time a British man has won the champion twice since 1925. Murray was delighted but realistic about the significance. The media will now whip up expectation for Wimbledon.
The Rugby League championship went against expectation with the two leading clubs Warrington and Huddersfield losing, the latter to bottom of table Wakefield. Wigan and St Helens also drew so everyone stayed in the same positions at the top.
And now to the cricket as I should record the scores with Derby 183 for 3 at home with opener Guptill 60 and Madsen not out 53. Breese was the only Durham bowler with good figures of 2 for 27 from his four overs. Durham although they put on 88 for the first wicket did not score quick enough and at the end needed 70 runs from 30 balls. They put up a good fight which omens well for subsequent games reaching 178 for 5. Gordon Muchall did well with 62 and new man Miller was 26 at the close not out Durham losing by 5 runs. Yesterday Guptill continued when he left off and scored 44 and Madsen 54. The team reached 169 runs for 5 at the 20 overs and Collingswood 2 for 24 from 3 was the best with Onions 1 for 18 also doing well. Rushworth was hit for 4 fours in his first over and 17 runs from the 6 balls. Then it rained and rained.
I have been keeping one eye on the Chicago Code which covers the usual range of official corruption and tribalism. This time the corrupt Alderman had bought the unofficial Mayor of Chinatown and allowed him free reign as long as the qualified electors continued to show their appreciation by voting for him and those he nominated for other offices.
As previously explained the head of the division is a woman, more over a let’s clean up our act, woman, who fights a lone battle with the Alderman her number one target. She has one supporter, a senior detective. He cannot forgive the Chinatown Mayor as a few years back a member of the community found his wife and children murdered and the evidence was that the Chinatown Mayor had warned the murderer to leave the country. Now a young member of the black community has his hand chopped off and killed because locals believed he was responsible or part of a gang committing burglaries in the area of the community. In fact he was a devout Christian on a mission to bring the word to others.
The police chief blackmails the Alderman into getting the support of the Chinatown Mayor by threatening to reveal a lack of cooperation to the black community who are significantly more influential that the Chinese. It is revealed that the Mayor had been responsible for ordering the killing, a mistake, after the police capture those responsible. In order to gain a reduction in his sentence the Mayor reveals what happened to the previous murderer to the still grieving widower and father. The man had not been allowed to escape but had been killed and his body dismembered. The Alderman finds someone else to be appointed Mayor of Chinatown on the understanding that this time the man will consult on everything before acting.
As is customary in this type of programme there are sub stories. The police chief finds herself faced with a moral dilemma when she finds her brother in law has been selling access to her for substantial sums. She forces the man to own up what he has done in exchange for promising to keep him out of jail. Her sister finds this unacceptable and deprives of her access to the nephew and niece.
The detectives maintains contact with the young officer who has gone underground with the task of infiltrating a major crime gang and this involves a level of participation; in this instance creating a technical fault resulting in a property burning down so an insurance claim can be made to the benefit of those organising the crime and the property owner. However a dead body is removed from the premises that was alive when the property was set on fire according to the subsequent findings. The young officer wants out and the detective explains he has come up against the realities the job.
I also enjoyed this week’s two episodes of Case Histories which is the 3rd and 4th episode of 6 of what I believe could be the first of several series. Each double episode is self contained with the various separate stories coming together but there are also several ongoing themes. The main one is the relationship between the Detective and his daughter about to go for a year with her mother to New Zealand. His ex wife has acted rashly accepting the job, renting out her home and booking tickets before getting the required parental consent to take his daughter out of the UK. Understandably he is reluctant to sever contact and the daughter is also unhappy at potentially not seeing him for a year. She goes to his home and waits outside while he is dealing with his work but when she goes missing he works out where she is likely to be and she says she is not going because she knows he has become sad. This has the positive effect of helping him to understand he must let her go, as perhaps the only way of re-establishing a relationship with his ex wife if she returns as promised. There does not appear to be anyone else in her life although if the reason for the divorce was given in the first two episodes, I missed it.
He remains fixated, full of guilt over the death of his sister when a child and also the death of someone else, I am not sure who, someone he finds who has committed suicide in what I assume is the family home.
There is also the relationship with the actress from the first double episode. Their relationship was established as a physical one without the expectation that it would last or develop into something more substantial. However she yearns for an all consuming single minded lover so when his work prevents their relationship developing she spends the night with a one man show Comedian appearing at a neighbouring Theatre and who has a more significant role in the main storyline. The Detective and the Actress appear to part company at the end of the two parter, while the relationship with his former colleague and now senior policed contact, divorced mother with young son has several twists and opportunities but his determination to solve the cases he is working on prevents their relationship from developing, for now! In any event I believe he is working out that the way to gain back the love of his ex wife and bring up his daughter directly is not to engage in serial promiscuity.
In order to cope with the stress of the past and the pressures of the present he goes jogging early morning or late at night, possibly both and spots a body floating off the shoreline. He swims out but is unable to bring the body ashore which disappears from view. He was sufficiently close to see a Russian Cross around the girl’s neck and may have seen a similar cross Tattoo on the underside of her arm close to a hand. The senior police officer he calls in unwilling to seek authorization for a team to go immediately in search of the body which is put down as just another suicide rather than a murder which his instincts tell him is the situation. He is determined to try out more about the young woman, especially when he sees someone who looks similar in the distance in the city.
When out on the beach close to where he believes the girl may have entered or been placed in the water he finds a card which with the help a personal assistant appears to be that of a Cleaning company and he locates one of the young women workers who is also Russian and has on her under arm close to a hand a cross Tattoo similar to that he had seen on the girl in the water. This girl is evidently too afraid to speak to him and is found dead after a drug overdose shortly afterwards and while he knows she has been murdered the police remain unconvinced in true stupid copper tradition. He also locates the office used by the company but within a few hours of everyone have left and key appears taken except for a coded book.
It at this point I need to introduce the second storyline. The Detective is about to leave a town centre multi storey car park when he observes a situation where two vehicles collide and one of the men takes a baseball type bat and starts to beat the other man senseless. The scene is observed by two others. A writer of airport and train station bookshop crime novels and the teenage son of the female police chief. The crime novelist throws his lap top at the man using the baseball bat and this drives him away while the boy picks up a wallet and a USB data carrier which contains the latest novel before publication. The boy disappears. The Detective calls in the police but leaves the scene as is wont, telling the crime writer to give the police the car registration of the departing villain writing this on his business card. He tells the man to get himself checked out at hospital as he is evidently in shock. For some reason the crime writer does not give the information immediately to the police.
He has with him a friend of his brother who is an obnoxious sponging bullying type of individual who steals his watch and uses his clothes without asking. He is also the one man show Comedian who hits of the actress lover of the Detective and with whom she has sex when the Detective fails to arrive for a meeting. Meanwhile the crime writer is persuaded by the hospital to accompany the injured and concussed man who insists on discharging himself to his hotel. The hospital is concerned about a delay reaction occurring during the next 24 hours. The victim consents to this because he had been saved by the action of the writer throwing his lap top at the assassin. In the hotel the writer accepts a drink if pure whisky and stays awake while the other man goes to sleep. He had carried the man’s overnight bad from the hospital which was exceptionally heavy. We know he examines the bag and find’s an assassin’s gun in a case. We are not immediately shown that he takes out and keep the gun replacing it with a similar weigh object from the hotel room. He then wakes up the following morning having been drugged and the victim has departed, presumably without checking his overnight bag for the gun.
From the outset he had asked the Detective to protect him until what appeared to be more than road rage or more accurately multi-storey car park rage was sorted. Now after the incident in the hotel room he insists that the detective protects him and our hero agrees on the understanding that he waits in cars or at the office while he investigates further. The crime writer has no actual experience of what he writes about and has gone along with the situation despite his cowardly nature in order to gain first hand experience.
It is now necessary to introduce the third aspect of the main story line. An over sixties corpulent business man type is brought into hospital by an attractive young Russian woman after the man has a heart attack. She encounters what appears to be the nice long suffering wife who finds out that the young Russian is a call girl who has been catering for her husband’s needs to be tired up, gagged and beaten. She insists they did not have sex. She tells the woman that from her experience the man will not survive. This appears to release the wife from her bondage and she burns some of the man’s clothing and their bedding, changes pictures around and gets together a considerable amount of cash. This is the image she projects when the Detective visits her after discovering that the husband owned the cleaning company/ call girl racket as well as being involved in various other companies including dodgy housing development building. At this point the Detective does not know that that the look alike girl he sees in the street to the one in the water worked for the hospitalised owner and had met his wife. Things then develop apace.
The Detective is assaulted in the street and nearly killed by the man with the baseball bat in the multi story car park. The Comedian is found with his face smashed unrecognisable at the home of the crime writer who at first the Detective and the Police think is the crime writer. The man also arrives at the home of the man in hospital and demands to know where her husband is as he is owed money. We earn that the wife knew the man as an employee of her husband. She has been telling everyone that he husband is away on business. To get the man off her back she says her husband will meet him at a club he uses and she then contacts the Detective to ask for his help. He goes to the club but meets up with the Russian girl also on her way there. The Detective, the Crime Writer in tow and the Russia girl go to the home of the wife and join forces with the writer having decoded the dairy book to reveal names of girl passport payments and such like. The girl has also USB data device from taken from the husband after his heart attack and the decision is taken for the girl and the wife to take off having transferred money from his various accounts to a new account which they can both draw on; The girl having, of course, worked in banking at one time and knows how to do this once they have worked out the password entry into the husbands existing accounts. They are nearly thwarted in this with the arrival of the Baseball bat man who nearly gets the better of them until the Crime writer shoots the baseball man dead. He then waits until to two women complete their work and flee and calls the police while the Detective goes off again to say goodbye to his wife and child as they take a taxi to the airport.
Before this the police chief has discovered that her geeky and neglected son had kept and not mentioned to anyone that he found the USB data transfer and the wallet to the writer. She then turns to the Detective to talk about the lack of reaction on the part of the son to witnessing the baseball bat attack. When she returns home after being refused the offer to get drunk etc with the Detective she finds her so surrounded with little lighted floating candle (which she of course had a supply of or had been able to go out and buy several dozen having an emotional breakdown from his recent experience). The Russian girl in water? Her body was found and she turns out to be the kid sister of the other surviving Russian girl. So we have two dead Russian girls killed by the baseball bat man who is himself killed in self defence and a fourth body that of the unfunny and sleazy one man show comedian. There is one further twist in that the victim of the baseball bat man in the multi storey car park was a paid assassin and we see him turning off the life support equipment for the husband in hospital and as he does so he says- “ Present from your wife.
Meanwhile the Detective does more jogging.
The activity commenced yesterday evening on returning from a rain abandoned game of cricket at the Emirates Riverside Durham as seeing that The World was still moored across from South Shields at the North Tyneside Cruise line mooring. I wanted to take a phone and found that my digi cam had flat batteries and the recharge failed to work. This led to checking out a sort of free camcorder via Staples gifts which needs batteries as does the other Staples free digi camera and this in turn led to sorting out other digi items including MP3 and MP4 players which I am still to get to work and this then led to the decision to check the electronic stuff shelves outside the bathroom on he first floor half landing, and to set in motion the great sort out, clean reorganise and inventory making. WoW.
The private floating home yacht The World is also WoW territory The Ship is 50 year leased owned by those buying one the 165 units -106 apartment, 19 studio apartments and 40 studios and on most journeys there are between 100 and 400 residents and guests plus 250 crew, including a doctor and nurse. The Top suite has a private veranda with space for tables and a party half a dozen ensuite double rooms, a couple of kitchens as well a loungers for $13.5 or so while a more modest residence at $.6m still provides 2 ensuite double bed rooms. In addition there are significant monthly charges to cover the running costs as the vessel is permanently visiting around the world staying in or off ports for 2 to 5 days at a time said to begin at $5000 a week.
Given that the residents have their own kitchens and like to eat out on visits ashore they are also expected to pay for meals at the in house restaurants. There are facilities to keep active including full size tennis court, a gym, golf simulator, putting Green and jogging track, a casino which is rarely used, boutique, small grocery and delicatessen and I assume cinema. However each suite is Internet and Sat TV organised and the suite are sound proofed to enable 23 hour music and TV watching if that way inclined.
The boat is design so that in warm climates it is possible to swim directly into the sea from a deck at the stern.
This year the vessel has been to Antarctica and South America reaching Panama early March before the West Indies and the USA East Coast in April. In May they reach Europe and Portugal and Spain and the briefly in France before two weeks in the UK. Next they go to the Nordic countries reaching Russia late July back along the European Coast to Spain and Portugal late August and September, then Italy and the Adriatic followed by Greece and Turkey October November the Seychelles and South Africa Christmas into New Year there are then two long sea trips first of 3 days to Mauritius before 8 days cruising to reach Australia in February 2012 and New Zealand in March. April sees expeditions to Melanesia and May Polynesia and a host of islands before Honolulu, Mexico and San Francisco late June. It is Canada time in July Russia and Alaska August, Greenland and Canada September through to October before Boston and New York as the month ends, The Bahamas. Miami and New Orleans in November, Mexico, Central America and the Virgin Islands December 2012 and around the world again. Can’t wait to join in but must will the Euro Lottery big prize of over £50 million to indulge!
On Saturday June 11th 2011 was able to acquire a free copy of the Pavarotti commencing with a poor live recording of Nessun Dorma but contained an excellent example of his work ranging from Verdi to Mozart to Massenet and Donizetti, 20 pieces lasting 75 mins. This contrasted with another free disk acquired several years ago titled Women with work from the Three degrees When will I see you again, Aretha Franklin Walk on by and the Bangles Eternal Flame and three of my favourites Bonnie Tyler Total Eclipse of the Heart and two outstanding singers, Nina Simone Everything Must Change and Billie Holliday, The Man I love. I was lucky to acquire several Long Play records of Nina Simone in a Woolworth sale several decades ago for 20 to 30 pence a record and I have several collections of Billie Holiday including an inexpensive 3 CD anthology. Also on the free disk are Deniece Williams Gladys Knight and 8 unknown artists and their songs.
I do not yet know what to make fo the new Camelot series on Channel Four which struck me as a cross between Spartacus Blood and sand with several scenes of nudity love making and sex, and vicious human slaughtering, matched with some of the epic quality of Game of Thrones. The subject is the same as Game of Thrones, the intrigue and battle for power, questions of legitimacy and ancestry added to which supernatural powers.
Because King Arthur, The Round Table, Merlin, Excalibur has little or no historical reference new writers feel able to play fast and loose with the legend. However I suspect this production will fall far short of the BBC1 series on young Merlin.
I liked the portrayal of the lifestyle of the ordinary people and the impressive setting of Camelot as a derelict building partially completed by the Romans on a rocky coast peninsular. The story is that of King Arthur who is brought up by surrogate parents chosen by Merlin unaware of his birthright because Merlin had enabled the Kind to spend a night with the wife of his enemy before marrying her after bearing the enemy King.
He never gets to see his son but signs a document declaring the legitimacy of the young man to the title shortly before he dies of poisoning by his daughter and Arthur’s half sister. She having killed her father and banished her step mother beds the former King’s main enemy as a means of securing her father’s Kingdom. Arthur takes persuading to leave his loving foster parents and half brother Kay but accepts the challenge taking his brother with him. Understandably the half sister, Morgan and her betrothed are not best pleased when they are summoned to Camelot to accept the new King and the old enemy is further enraged when he finds that Arthur has killed the son sent to do likewise. In retaliation the enemy kills the step mother and then turns on the half sister and would be Queen when she starts to give him orders. He tries various ways to subjugate her with the outcome that she warns Arthur of the form of attack her de facto husband will make. In the battle Arthur’s step father gives his life in killing the rival King and Arthur meet Guinevere who he learns is betrothed to one of his new champions. Arthur has also established himself by removing the Excalibur from its placement in a rock at the top of a waterfall.
I am writings separately on this week’s episode of Game of Thrones but Sparta us continued hopefully to the point of his historical famed rebellion. In the meantime his sly, cunning, ambitious and murderous slave school master has recovered the Thracian’s wife sold into slavery but then has her killed on the advice of his more cunning, sly, ambitious and murderous wife. This is designed to get Spartacus into a more single minded mood to continue as the lead Gladiator working to achieve his freedom. Spartacus attempts to make his own way to find the find the killers and is reluctantly persuaded to participate in the re-enactment in the arena when a famed Roman General killed half a dozen Thracian leaders to establish Roman rule over their country. Understandably the proud Thacian Spartacus baulks at representing the Roman general and killing fellow citizens for the gratification of the son of the hero and the Roman masses and as the episode closes it looks as if he has decided to mess up the occasion by letting himself be killed by his fellow countrymen.
Meanwhile the Gladiator Trainer is beginning to doubt the authenticity of the story that one of his star men was able to purchase his freedom from the money previously saved and recently won by betting on Spartacus to defeat the previous undefeated arena champion. What happened is that the school owner had found out who was behind the attempt on his life and sent the Gladiator to kill the man and his family including his son. This had been carried out and the assassin had returned to gain his master’s pleasure, his winnings and to gain freedom for himself and his young male soft hearted companion for whom he had purchased a number of tame doves. He had told the young he had let the child live. Meanwhile the Gladiator bookmaker, anxious not to have to pay out his winnings had arranged for someone to tell the School Master that the boy had survived and been seen. The Slave Master had become so angry that that despite being told the truth he had the assassin killed, having got the young lover to admit he had been told the boy survived. The young man is then taken over by another ruthless gladiator already an enemy and rival of Spartacus who in one moment of rage after the young man commits suicide hurtle the rival off the walls down to his death on the rocks below. Meanwhile the former School Champion Crixus is slowly recovering from his wounds with the administrations of his mistress personal slave who he is having a secret affair. The Mistress in turn has a vested interest in bringing back to full energy her slave lover.
The other ongoing story is the friendship between Spartacus and the free man Roman who voluntary joined the Gladiator school in order to earn sufficiently to clear his debts. Full of guilt at the way his gambling and poor investments had reduced the circumstances of his wife and son he had told her no direct contact, or letters until he had fought successfully or died in the attempt. However the death of the wife of Spartacus’s wife had affected him to the extent that he had written and his wife then pays a personal visit with his son to advise that she has become pregnant after being raped by the man who had offered her financial security during the absence of her husband. Her husband turns away from his wife in the circumstances.
Having discovered that Morrisons and Asda are selling the packs of platters I have been trying out the available selections except the huge selection of sweets, puddings or afters. Each pack costs £5. Over the weekend I enjoyed 15 King Prawns wrapped in filo pastry wrapped in crisp tempura batter; 15 in Breadcrumbs and 15 in Coconut breadcrumb. I can these providing a regular fish experience with providing three portions over two weeks unless mixed with others which is my present inclination. I also finished the first Tex Mex platter and started the second today which has 20 Breaded Onion Rings, 15 Breaded Garlic Mushrooms and 15 Spicy Potato Wedges plus 10 hot and spicy buffalo chicken wings. The Chinese Platter has 20 Chicken Wontons, 20 Prawn Toasts and 20 Vegetable Parcels, The Indian Platter 9 Chicken Tikka Samosas, 17 Bombay potato fritters, 17 onion bhaji and 17 sag aloo bites.
These beat tinned carrots, peas and corn which I grown tired of recently as I did of the simple salads of lettuce, tomatoes, sweet peppers, cucumber and beetroot slice, but not olives or coleslaw which are included in the self select salads. The prawn pasta lettuce and the alternative chicken and bacon also need to purchase now and again. I still enjoy a mixture of baked beans and whole or chopped tomatoes with a chop or fish cooked in batter.
After losing to bottom of the table Derby on Friday in the cricket 20 20 competition, Durham looked for revenge yesterday. It was sunny when I sent off but there was strong evidence of the rain sweeping up and across from the West. I therefore headed for an end of row seat on the Balcony of the Member’s Lounge, had outer coat and inner jacket and a full size umbrella. I was not wrong as the rain commenced midway during the Derby Innings and although Durham‘s bowlers kept going it was evident that the surface water was building up to make bowling and fielding dangerous. I was not surprised when at the interval the wicket was first covered and then the outfield. No other game in the country had started so every match ended in a 1 point each no result tie.
I had to have a large strong coffee to keep going having purchased pastries at Lidl’s who have opened a fresh bakery. I had gone for four packs of the breakfast cereal. Enjoying the second pastry now with my second cup of coffee of the day.
The unexpected sporting event of the weekend was a win for Jenson Button in the Canadian Brand Prix in what many consider the drive of his life in a rain affected event which led to the safety car being used four times and a long delay which meant that all 70 laps of the shortened race from 75 were fitted in with less than a minute to spare. It was only on the last lap that leader from the start, Vettel, made a mistake although there are those who will argue that Button would have taken him in any event use slip stream and the latest technology as he had been lapping as the fastest car in the conditions. He had survived several unexpected pit stops which saw him in last position at least once, after his team mate had attempted to overtake on the inside and they had collided leading to the retirement of Lewis Hamilton who some claim is attempting more and more dangerous manoeuvres to get back on equal terms with Vettel who has stormed into a 60 point lead ahead of Button in the championship.
On Friday I watched what many regard as the most convincing win by Andy Murray in a major round of an important competition when he defeated Andy Roddick in a semi final match at the pre Wimbledon Grass competition at the Queens Club in Hammersmith, West London, a private club recently sold to its Members by the Lawn Tennis Association for £35 million. Fortunately in terms of being able to watch the final live, play was washed out on Sunday and played to day just before 1 pm. The opponent was Jo-Wilfred Tsonga from France known as someone who throws himself fearlessly around the court and with a powerful serve but presently only 20th in the world compared to Murray 4th
First blood went to Tsonga as he broke the Murray serve in game six to go on to win the first set 6.3. The second set went with service to 6.6 but wining the tie break game gave Murray the momentum. He takes the sixth game to go 4.2 up in the third and then in the 8th game and 40 love ahead he does a trick shot through his advancing legs with an angle volley across the net. The crowd erupt, the commentators speculate whether this will wind up his opponent and from this the match ends with each winning their service games. This is the first time a British man has won the champion twice since 1925. Murray was delighted but realistic about the significance. The media will now whip up expectation for Wimbledon.
The Rugby League championship went against expectation with the two leading clubs Warrington and Huddersfield losing, the latter to bottom of table Wakefield. Wigan and St Helens also drew so everyone stayed in the same positions at the top.
And now to the cricket as I should record the scores with Derby 183 for 3 at home with opener Guptill 60 and Madsen not out 53. Breese was the only Durham bowler with good figures of 2 for 27 from his four overs. Durham although they put on 88 for the first wicket did not score quick enough and at the end needed 70 runs from 30 balls. They put up a good fight which omens well for subsequent games reaching 178 for 5. Gordon Muchall did well with 62 and new man Miller was 26 at the close not out Durham losing by 5 runs. Yesterday Guptill continued when he left off and scored 44 and Madsen 54. The team reached 169 runs for 5 at the 20 overs and Collingswood 2 for 24 from 3 was the best with Onions 1 for 18 also doing well. Rushworth was hit for 4 fours in his first over and 17 runs from the 6 balls. Then it rained and rained.
I have been keeping one eye on the Chicago Code which covers the usual range of official corruption and tribalism. This time the corrupt Alderman had bought the unofficial Mayor of Chinatown and allowed him free reign as long as the qualified electors continued to show their appreciation by voting for him and those he nominated for other offices.
As previously explained the head of the division is a woman, more over a let’s clean up our act, woman, who fights a lone battle with the Alderman her number one target. She has one supporter, a senior detective. He cannot forgive the Chinatown Mayor as a few years back a member of the community found his wife and children murdered and the evidence was that the Chinatown Mayor had warned the murderer to leave the country. Now a young member of the black community has his hand chopped off and killed because locals believed he was responsible or part of a gang committing burglaries in the area of the community. In fact he was a devout Christian on a mission to bring the word to others.
The police chief blackmails the Alderman into getting the support of the Chinatown Mayor by threatening to reveal a lack of cooperation to the black community who are significantly more influential that the Chinese. It is revealed that the Mayor had been responsible for ordering the killing, a mistake, after the police capture those responsible. In order to gain a reduction in his sentence the Mayor reveals what happened to the previous murderer to the still grieving widower and father. The man had not been allowed to escape but had been killed and his body dismembered. The Alderman finds someone else to be appointed Mayor of Chinatown on the understanding that this time the man will consult on everything before acting.
As is customary in this type of programme there are sub stories. The police chief finds herself faced with a moral dilemma when she finds her brother in law has been selling access to her for substantial sums. She forces the man to own up what he has done in exchange for promising to keep him out of jail. Her sister finds this unacceptable and deprives of her access to the nephew and niece.
The detectives maintains contact with the young officer who has gone underground with the task of infiltrating a major crime gang and this involves a level of participation; in this instance creating a technical fault resulting in a property burning down so an insurance claim can be made to the benefit of those organising the crime and the property owner. However a dead body is removed from the premises that was alive when the property was set on fire according to the subsequent findings. The young officer wants out and the detective explains he has come up against the realities the job.
I also enjoyed this week’s two episodes of Case Histories which is the 3rd and 4th episode of 6 of what I believe could be the first of several series. Each double episode is self contained with the various separate stories coming together but there are also several ongoing themes. The main one is the relationship between the Detective and his daughter about to go for a year with her mother to New Zealand. His ex wife has acted rashly accepting the job, renting out her home and booking tickets before getting the required parental consent to take his daughter out of the UK. Understandably he is reluctant to sever contact and the daughter is also unhappy at potentially not seeing him for a year. She goes to his home and waits outside while he is dealing with his work but when she goes missing he works out where she is likely to be and she says she is not going because she knows he has become sad. This has the positive effect of helping him to understand he must let her go, as perhaps the only way of re-establishing a relationship with his ex wife if she returns as promised. There does not appear to be anyone else in her life although if the reason for the divorce was given in the first two episodes, I missed it.
He remains fixated, full of guilt over the death of his sister when a child and also the death of someone else, I am not sure who, someone he finds who has committed suicide in what I assume is the family home.
There is also the relationship with the actress from the first double episode. Their relationship was established as a physical one without the expectation that it would last or develop into something more substantial. However she yearns for an all consuming single minded lover so when his work prevents their relationship developing she spends the night with a one man show Comedian appearing at a neighbouring Theatre and who has a more significant role in the main storyline. The Detective and the Actress appear to part company at the end of the two parter, while the relationship with his former colleague and now senior policed contact, divorced mother with young son has several twists and opportunities but his determination to solve the cases he is working on prevents their relationship from developing, for now! In any event I believe he is working out that the way to gain back the love of his ex wife and bring up his daughter directly is not to engage in serial promiscuity.
In order to cope with the stress of the past and the pressures of the present he goes jogging early morning or late at night, possibly both and spots a body floating off the shoreline. He swims out but is unable to bring the body ashore which disappears from view. He was sufficiently close to see a Russian Cross around the girl’s neck and may have seen a similar cross Tattoo on the underside of her arm close to a hand. The senior police officer he calls in unwilling to seek authorization for a team to go immediately in search of the body which is put down as just another suicide rather than a murder which his instincts tell him is the situation. He is determined to try out more about the young woman, especially when he sees someone who looks similar in the distance in the city.
When out on the beach close to where he believes the girl may have entered or been placed in the water he finds a card which with the help a personal assistant appears to be that of a Cleaning company and he locates one of the young women workers who is also Russian and has on her under arm close to a hand a cross Tattoo similar to that he had seen on the girl in the water. This girl is evidently too afraid to speak to him and is found dead after a drug overdose shortly afterwards and while he knows she has been murdered the police remain unconvinced in true stupid copper tradition. He also locates the office used by the company but within a few hours of everyone have left and key appears taken except for a coded book.
It at this point I need to introduce the second storyline. The Detective is about to leave a town centre multi storey car park when he observes a situation where two vehicles collide and one of the men takes a baseball type bat and starts to beat the other man senseless. The scene is observed by two others. A writer of airport and train station bookshop crime novels and the teenage son of the female police chief. The crime novelist throws his lap top at the man using the baseball bat and this drives him away while the boy picks up a wallet and a USB data carrier which contains the latest novel before publication. The boy disappears. The Detective calls in the police but leaves the scene as is wont, telling the crime writer to give the police the car registration of the departing villain writing this on his business card. He tells the man to get himself checked out at hospital as he is evidently in shock. For some reason the crime writer does not give the information immediately to the police.
He has with him a friend of his brother who is an obnoxious sponging bullying type of individual who steals his watch and uses his clothes without asking. He is also the one man show Comedian who hits of the actress lover of the Detective and with whom she has sex when the Detective fails to arrive for a meeting. Meanwhile the crime writer is persuaded by the hospital to accompany the injured and concussed man who insists on discharging himself to his hotel. The hospital is concerned about a delay reaction occurring during the next 24 hours. The victim consents to this because he had been saved by the action of the writer throwing his lap top at the assassin. In the hotel the writer accepts a drink if pure whisky and stays awake while the other man goes to sleep. He had carried the man’s overnight bad from the hospital which was exceptionally heavy. We know he examines the bag and find’s an assassin’s gun in a case. We are not immediately shown that he takes out and keep the gun replacing it with a similar weigh object from the hotel room. He then wakes up the following morning having been drugged and the victim has departed, presumably without checking his overnight bag for the gun.
From the outset he had asked the Detective to protect him until what appeared to be more than road rage or more accurately multi-storey car park rage was sorted. Now after the incident in the hotel room he insists that the detective protects him and our hero agrees on the understanding that he waits in cars or at the office while he investigates further. The crime writer has no actual experience of what he writes about and has gone along with the situation despite his cowardly nature in order to gain first hand experience.
It is now necessary to introduce the third aspect of the main story line. An over sixties corpulent business man type is brought into hospital by an attractive young Russian woman after the man has a heart attack. She encounters what appears to be the nice long suffering wife who finds out that the young Russian is a call girl who has been catering for her husband’s needs to be tired up, gagged and beaten. She insists they did not have sex. She tells the woman that from her experience the man will not survive. This appears to release the wife from her bondage and she burns some of the man’s clothing and their bedding, changes pictures around and gets together a considerable amount of cash. This is the image she projects when the Detective visits her after discovering that the husband owned the cleaning company/ call girl racket as well as being involved in various other companies including dodgy housing development building. At this point the Detective does not know that that the look alike girl he sees in the street to the one in the water worked for the hospitalised owner and had met his wife. Things then develop apace.
The Detective is assaulted in the street and nearly killed by the man with the baseball bat in the multi story car park. The Comedian is found with his face smashed unrecognisable at the home of the crime writer who at first the Detective and the Police think is the crime writer. The man also arrives at the home of the man in hospital and demands to know where her husband is as he is owed money. We earn that the wife knew the man as an employee of her husband. She has been telling everyone that he husband is away on business. To get the man off her back she says her husband will meet him at a club he uses and she then contacts the Detective to ask for his help. He goes to the club but meets up with the Russian girl also on her way there. The Detective, the Crime Writer in tow and the Russia girl go to the home of the wife and join forces with the writer having decoded the dairy book to reveal names of girl passport payments and such like. The girl has also USB data device from taken from the husband after his heart attack and the decision is taken for the girl and the wife to take off having transferred money from his various accounts to a new account which they can both draw on; The girl having, of course, worked in banking at one time and knows how to do this once they have worked out the password entry into the husbands existing accounts. They are nearly thwarted in this with the arrival of the Baseball bat man who nearly gets the better of them until the Crime writer shoots the baseball man dead. He then waits until to two women complete their work and flee and calls the police while the Detective goes off again to say goodbye to his wife and child as they take a taxi to the airport.
Before this the police chief has discovered that her geeky and neglected son had kept and not mentioned to anyone that he found the USB data transfer and the wallet to the writer. She then turns to the Detective to talk about the lack of reaction on the part of the son to witnessing the baseball bat attack. When she returns home after being refused the offer to get drunk etc with the Detective she finds her so surrounded with little lighted floating candle (which she of course had a supply of or had been able to go out and buy several dozen having an emotional breakdown from his recent experience). The Russian girl in water? Her body was found and she turns out to be the kid sister of the other surviving Russian girl. So we have two dead Russian girls killed by the baseball bat man who is himself killed in self defence and a fourth body that of the unfunny and sleazy one man show comedian. There is one further twist in that the victim of the baseball bat man in the multi storey car park was a paid assassin and we see him turning off the life support equipment for the husband in hospital and as he does so he says- “ Present from your wife.
Meanwhile the Detective does more jogging.
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