It is 12.40 Friday 24th June 2011 and the penultimate of these writings which include long notes on cultural and sporting experiences.
In future I will diary in contemporaneous notes but only if the first draft can be completed immediately after an event. I have sorted out in my head the construction of the major writing for traditional publication which I will commence in earnest when I return next week from a trip to Merseyside to watch Durham play Lancashire in a vital match for the 2011 championship.
I have had a good swim but no sauna this morning and been into South Shields centre for some cherries and inexpensive indigestion tablets at Wilkinson’s which has been redesigned with new a new set of cashier point too great success. I am most impressed as the store has an upmarket feel. I also check out that the Computer stores does not do Lexmark 100 cartridge clones but before then I did see there are less expensive opportunities on the Internet Ebay and Amazon which I shall explore further when I return, having committed myself to the Brother for a little longer having purchased black sets from IJT. I also rang them to enquire about the failure of the batteries and blank CD disks to arrive, but these are now in the post having been out of stock.
Over lunch of lamb chops and Chinese and Indian snacks (Wow) and half a glass of Rosé I shall complete this writing and watch some tennis where two British women are playing and expected to lose in the second round. My Olympic account is back on line with my allocated tickets listed. In addition tot he ticket I will get a free travel card when they are issues for greater London which is a bonus.
14.35 Thursday June 23rd June. I have prepared for the next three trips with first the journey to the Travel Lodge, until recently Innkeepers which is located opposite the Liverpool Cricket ground with a Toby Carvery next door. I have down loaded some vouchers so if I can find someone interested to participate in the voucher deal a cooked breakfast is available for £2 50 and the carvery for £5 or alternatively a free ice cream with the full price carvery on my own. I have also worked out the location of the nearest Cineworld, Asda and Morrison Supermarkets and the location of the Tate Modern in the city as well as water trips. There is a direct bus service into the city centre and takes about 15 mins, so if the day is wet or the match goes badly I have the options to the ready.
It is 9 am Wednesday 22nd of June 2011 and there are gaps in the white clouds revealing blue sky. I have an overnight email which revealed that I had been awarded two single tickets for Olympic Football at Wembley including a men’s quarter final game. It will be just my luck that if England gets through to the latter stages the game will be played at Newcastle or one of the other stadiums outside of London.
The two games are on August 1st and 4th. Worse still is that because of these tickets I have to wait for the next application series after those who obtained nothing, possibly one million people could have taken up the available tickets from Friday. Only after these have been allocated and paid for can I apply for what is left which will be what no one else wants to attend. Hopefully there might be the odd preliminary game at Newcastle available. I will have to win the lottery to be able to buy hospitality tickets.
I am spending today Thursday and tomorrow preparing for the visit to Liverpool for Durham’s game against Liverpool, continuing with this writing and the last episodes of the first series of the Game of Thrones, commencing some housework with defrosting the freezer and then restocking with a major shop to qualify for one or two reduced price fill ups of petrol. I am going to be busy busy but have also watched the latest episode of Blue Bloods (21) which is the penultimate of the first season with a second agreed.
I have also booked a train ticket for the journey to Croydon and London in September, a mid morning journey for £15. I have to wait a couple of days to book the return. I have commenced to restock the freezer and larder having defrosted and also waited until I needed to spend £40 or more, as I had hoped the petrol concession would still be available. It is not. I will go to Asda at six to complete purchases necessary before the weekend. Doing a washing to day but suspect the ironing will wait until to morrow when I will explore getting inexpensive printing cartridges for the multifunction printer as well as the getting some cherries and inexpensive indegstion tablets.
The shopping went well with lost of good deals, the best of which was to spot an assistant marking down some packs of cakes-pastries from 75-84 pence to 10 pence. There were packs of Pepsi at £2 from £2.50. Other special bargains included 3 jars of curry for £3 from £4, so I acquire to sets. More regular deals included three large packs of prawns in shell for £10 from £12, similarly both supermarkets to deals on meats/poultry packs - Steak, Chicken, Turkey, pork and lambs with 3 for £10. There was a lot of the usual from toilet rolls to liquorice twists, vitamin tablets to sardine tins, grapefruit segments and rice pudding and bacon rashers.
I have been for two swims this week and intend to make two more visits over the next three days.`I have also spent time on the patio garage garden transplanting plants to one of the containers where the planting had been sparse and secondary quality . I moved from three of the hanging baskets and replaced with plants that ahd progressed in other containers and propose a furether check and good watering on Saturday with top up on Sunday morning.
I have prepared a lap top for the trip and transferred work location information from the top floor to the desk top central filing system. This confirms that I have not noted the contents of the two shelf free standing units moved in here earlier in the year and provides the opportunity to reorganise how these are placed in the room.
I will also note the contents of other boxes placed in build in shelving unit.
I still cannot connect this lap top wirelessly to my network and will have another attempt on return. I can connect with cable but the use of machines with cables seems to slow the system. I also checked out the two wireless mice and confirmed they are not working. I have then connected another mouse to desktop with a standard connection. The Tate BT mouse which I won in Tate site competition in 2003. I will therefore take the USB mouse with me on the trip together with headphones and speakers so I can catch up on Sky provided programmes. For a while I could not find the third internet link cable until it was located tucked in a draw where I keep lap tops and the cameras.
The Durham game ended in a draw against Yorkshire on Tuesday despite having an almost full day of play. I decided to delay attending to see if progress was made, waiting for five wickets to fall by early afternoon. It did not happen with one opponent making over 100. Durham had therefore to be satisfied with 11 points rather than 26 from a win. Attention was directed to the game between Notts and Lancs with Notts making a good start with nearly 350 runs and Lancs in trouble on two occasions but then later order batsmen rallied so that their first innings closed 20 runs behind. Alas Notts had one of their top order collapses or more accurately two collapses losing 4 wickets before lunch and three within a few balls immediately after luncheon interval. There was a rally by the lower order to set Lancs some 225 runs to win. They batted carefully with a whole day and rain not expected, winning by six wickets. Lancs are now 7 points behind Durham with a game in hand. This total is 1 point less because of a poor over rate. With Warwickshire beating Somerset and Notts losing even if these teams gain the maximum points with their game in hand they cannot overtake Durham as the situation stands. Sussex with two games in hand will also be 20 points adrift should they win both these games with maximum points. York’s and Hampshire remin the perilous position at the bottom of the table, along with Worcestershire. However with the weather uncertain and only half the season played these positions can dramatically change with a good or bad run by any of the nine teams in the division. There is an England 20 20 game tomorrow followed by the next Durham 20 20 against Lancs likely to be an omen for next week. This after I kept one eye on England’s women’s first 20 20 game in a series which includes, New Zealand who they bowled out in under 20 overs and scored the required runs early with 8 wickets in hand, Australia and India are the other two teams with Australia having a convincing win over India.
Wimbledon has required the roof over the Centre Court to get some games played because of the changeable weather. Murray started slowly losing his first set but won the mtrach 3 sets to 1 followed by 3 sets to 0 in the second round. He also plays tomorrow; I enjoyed a three hour contest between a 40 year old wife and mother from Japan and Venus Williams returning from injury and a six month of competitive inactivity. The Japanese lady reached the quarter finals over a decade ago and then retired from the game encouraged to play once more by her husband she was within a couple of shots of winning the match have taken the first set and playing some jaw dropping tennis as in fairness did Venus. This evening I had hoped to watch the former Wimbledon Junior champion, then aged 14 okay a second round match niw aged 17 years. She needs to do well this year if she is going to fulfil promise and expectation. Although the ladies with Anne Jones 1969 and Virginia Wade 1977 have carried the British singles flag over the past three decades with Jamie Murray, John Lloyd Jeremu Bates, Anne Jones and, Jo Durie having success in the mixed doubles.
Case Histories concluded its first series of three double episodes in a most satisfactory way. The series features an ex detective policeman turned private eye who uses his emotional loyalty links with his a former assistant and now senior detective to gain inside information and cooperation.
He is a man consumed with the memory of the murder of his sister and finding a relative having committed suicide by hanging themselves from the stairs, (we only see the lower part of the dangling body). In this two parter we begin by seeing the murder of a woman and child by a young man on a beach and another child, a girl, running away and hiding. We see men (police/army) searching for her and finding her as she continues to hide.
The private detective is on a traditional assignment of checking up on a wife who is having an affair with someone at a country house party. On his way back his car breaks down on a cold winter’s day before Christmas.
We also see a sixth form age young woman living in a small block of local authority flats arguing with her brother and finding his stash of drugs which she takes and leaves at the home of a former teacher who is helping the girl to study for A levels at her countryside cottage home. The girl quickly becomes the star of the whole series, resourceful, skilled, fearless and caring she is a delight in every respect and credible.
As the visit is unplanned the woman has to leave in her car leaving the girl continuing to work in the property after first warning the woman that she should not be driving because of her condition (we later learn a brain tumour) and the vehicle crashes onto a railway line in sight of the private detective as he is walking to find the nearest garage. He goes to assist the woman.
Fortunately, for him and the passengers on a train, the accident is n a corner with a 20 miles per hour speed limit so although the train hit the car, which we do not see and travels some distance before coming to a stop, with passengers told to move forward, we quickly see that the private detective either jumper from the car or was sent flying from the upturned vehicles and has hit his head and is laying at the side of the track. We see a male passenger leave the train and go in the opposite direction and then exchanges documents with the private detective. To add dramatic interest and effect we later see the man on a beach similar to where the private detective sometimes jogs and where he appears to have some connection in the past with the murder of the young woman and one of her children (presumed), It is only later that we learn that the man was the killer, released from prison, after two decades on a residential parole which he has broken.
The crash occurs within earshot of the young girl still at the cottage and she goes along the line with her bicycle to investigate where she finds the private detective barely alive and she works at resuscitating him and later she is at his beside in hospital waiting to have confirmed that he has recovered. She and the authorities know him by the driving licence found on him (that the killer had and kept up a driving licence is one of those questionable features and coincidences we reflect on later).
The detective is not fully conscious and is having visions of his sister grown up at the same time as a visit from his former colleague so when he calls out to the sister that she loves her, the police detective thinks he is referring to her and leaves the bedside rapidly emotionally challenged by his words.
We have most but not all of the ingredients for unravelling the principal story. The missing element is that girl has also got a job as a nanny for a young married woman whose is not at home when she calls as arranged and notes that the baby’s comforter is still in the room. Something which his mother would have taken with her wherever she went and for whatever reason.
Having saved the life of the detective and finding out what he does she asks him to help her find out where her employer is. The other ingredient is that the policewoman detective has gone on a date with a surgeon at the hospital when the calls come about the crash. He is a nice man who has treated the private detective, a widower of three year on his first date and she is genuinely interested in having a relationship although her difficult geeky son poses a problem.
We learn that the young girl’s brother is a drug dealer where the stash belongs to a couple of tearaways on the estate who trash the flat. The Detective persuades them to leave the girl and the flat alone, but the brother comes a looking and the girl decides to send him away and out of town when the private detective is present and saying she has choice and can hand over the drugs if she wishes.. Later she is at her brothers open coffin and places the drugs under his body. We learn that her mother had left her and the brother to go on holiday with a male friend and had drowned in the hotel pool after her hair had caught in some workings. Academically talented and of independent mind and idealistic she had attempted to keep the family and home together. She is brilliantly played by an actress I hope we shall see more of
Understanding his debt of continuing life to the girl he investigates the disappearance of the girl’s employer checking where the husband says she has gone to visit and finding this is a false trail. Eventually they find that the husband is at best an adventuring business man who owes money to heavies from Glasgow who has kidnapped his wife and child pending settlement of the debt. The detective persuades the man to insist on gaining proof that his wife and child are alive before agreeing to sign over his businesses in lieu of the debt. This enables the detective, with girl in tow, to trail the men after their visit to where they are keeping the woman and child prisoner. Meanwhile she stabs one of the two in the eye and then takes a knife she has spotted and stabs the second just as the private detective arrives to rescue her. My understanding is that the detective then puts petrol over the bodies the two men and sets fire. The girl had previously told the police of her concerns about the missing employer and child but now the police are told that the woman has been in a terrible state and cannot remember precisely where she has been and where she has stayed but is now recovered and all is well. This fits into the private detective applying his own sense of justice and in a way in which the audience always approve.
The woman, the woman who employs the girl as a nanny (another unexplained and implausible quirk) is in fact the girl who survived the murder attack on her mother and sister on the beach two decades or so before. The dodgy businessman husband was unaware of this background. The man/father committing the murder had just been released from prison on parole. It he who has left the train and exchanged documents with the Detective at the Trackside. Because he uses the man’s driving licence to hire a car at one point the uniformed police who stop the car beat him up believing he is the murderer on parole who had not reported in to probation prison after care as required. He has been driving the car one handed with the girl operating the gear levers!
The murderer is found to have shot himself on the beach at the spot where he committed murder. In prison he had converted to Roman Catholicism but had stopped practicing after a visit by the girl who has escaped him, one moth before his release, a development which it is presumed she had been notified by the authorities in advance. Thus we and the police were led to believe she had gone in hiding from the man and therefore her story was acceptable to them although he account of where she was is accepted only because the woman detective knows there is more to it and trust her former boss to have made the right judgements.
From the moment of meeting the Detective for the first time the woman says he seems familiar and at he end we learn he was the person who had discovered the frightened hiding girl alive two decades before, Having saved the girl once and he is protecting her from the involvement in the kidnap, covering up the affairs of the husband in so doing. There is more some good and some not so good.
The husband whose wife he had followed quickly becomes an obsessive pain in the backside with the private detective quickly switching sympathy to the wife protecting her location. She calls in the police when the husband finds her location and is visited by the new assistant to the police detective who has crossed swords with her former boss several times previously. He misguidedly gives his mobile and responds when the husbands returns and makes a scene in the roadway outside the property demanding that his wife returns to him. The private detective also arrives at the scene concerned at the state of mind of the husband and tries to prevent the policeman involving himself. The husband thinks the plan clothes detective is his wife’s lover and shoots and kills the officer who dies in hospital.
Throughout the two episodes the Detective adjusts to his daughter being in Australia, communicating with photo links on the lap top he presented to her as a going away present. She is learning to surf with the help of a new friend of her mother. Jealous and concerned at first he tries to learn more the new situation but sends her a surf board as a Christmas present. He visits his young saviour who is spending Christmas with her employer, husband and child to exchange Christmas presents but declines the invitation to stay for the Christmas dinner.
Following the incident at the hospital when the police woman detective had assumed he said he was in love with her she had left a message on his mobile when finding he had discharged himself from hospital. Having got his mobile back following the discovery of the body of the man who had attempted to switch identities, he had called at the home of this former colleague late one evening when she was entertaining the surgeon from the hospital for a meal and drinks. He had been sent packing. On Christmas Day he calls to ask her again what he is supposed to have said at the hospital and she tells him and he responds by saying that was about right and she says that is alright with her. He says he will return later and then goes off for a long run overlooking the city where they live. There is therefore the door left opened for a second series of programmes. There are questions about the situation with his daughter and ex wife half way across the world and the relationship with the his former assistant, and most of all there is what happened in elation to his sister, the young man in the car and the person who had committed suicide. At the same time there has been closure of a kind in saving the same person twice, as a potential murder victim and then as a kidnapped woman and mother. He tells her it is time to move on especially as the murderer has taken his life. He is also telling himself the same advice, accepting that his ex wife and daughter have a new life and appearing to begin a serious relationship with his former assistant.
Spartacus has taken an interesting turn with the purchase of several new recruits last week and persuading the wife of the Roman Commander who enslaved Spartacus and his wife to sponsor one of the men of her choosing and exceptionally masculine endowed individual. She tells him that if he obeys her in all respects she will ensure that he becomes free. The task she sets is to kill Spartacus. He survives with the help of Crixus and the new man is severely punished with the Gladiator school boss being suspicious at the turn of events but required to accept what happened in view of his desire to improve their social status by ingratiating himself into the top society through the wife of the Roman commander.
Crixus having clashed with Spartacus following his loss of authority over the other Gladiators becomes concerned with talk of being sold. The two clash in front of the Gladiators and Crixus still suffering from the effects of his injuries is badly beaten. However the saving of the life of Spartacus should change their relationship. Spartacus meanwhile has been encouraging his friend the roman citizen gambler to forgive his wife because of what happened to her.
In the Chicago Code the team get the opportunity to apprehend a billionaire drug baron only find they have no evidence to hold him and Federal Bureau wants to take over and offer him a deal to get access to others. The Team discovers that the reason for his visit is that his son has been kidnapped and he arrived with the ransom money. They persuade the Billionaire to cooperate in finding the son and eventually recover the boy after discovering he had been kidnapped by Nigerians with the help of one of drug bosses own men. They work out a deal which gives everyone a good result. The drug boss will stand trial for those crimes where the police now have evidence because of the testimony of the man who helped in the kidnapping under plea bargaining arrangements. He will also cooperate with the Feds on the basis that they will place his wife and son in a witness protection programme. He will not see them again. Meanwhile the undercover agent trying to gain evidence to convict the district Alderman is stressed and considering leaving the job because of his involvement in the death of a man where he was asked to torch a property for insurance money. He is then asked to act as chauffer for the Alderman for a couple of days while the Alderman visits the families of recently bereaved members of his community. This includes a visit to the home of the widow of the man who died in the fire. Thus the Alderman signals that he knows about the incident and in a telling moment asks whether the young man is up for the job and in. He says yes and also reports to the police chief that far from wanting to leave, he now wants to bring down the Alderman more than ever.
In the latest episode of the Sopranos D Girl the main interest is with Christopher who has an affair with the young female film executive in the Company of his film Director distant relative. The relative is interested in the reality of Christopher’s life as a gangster and adjusts his latest film project with a true story revealed by his relative much to Christopher’s subsequent anger, especially has the girl and the director reject Christopher’s script. When Tony learns of Christopher’s exploits and that he has written a script he expresses the same kind of concern which others including Christopher expressed when they heard that Tony was seeing a psychiatrist.
Christopher returns to his girl friend, a decision which the detective in Chicago Code also appears to make after re-establishing a relationship with his ex wife and caught leaving the family home by his teenage son at 3 am one morning. She seeks clarification of their relationship after the detective says he cannot bring himself to bring off from his fiancée who is growing anxious at the lack of time they are spending together. At the end of the episode it looks as if the Detective is going ahead with the marriage.
Tony and Carmela are having problems with their son AJ who damages his mother’s car while joy riding with friends. He has developed a melancholy philosophical view of life centred on the awareness that every life ends in death. Tony discusses the issue with his therapist who attempts to get him to talk about his relationship with his parents, and mother in particular, about which Tony remains resistant. Christopher agrees to be confirmed as a Catholic while the FBI force Pussy to wear a wire when attending the Conformation Party at Tony’s home and where Pussy has sponsored AJ and gives the boy advice! He is torn between his regard for Tony and being blackmailed by the FBI. Tony tells Christopher to give him 100% loyalty and attention and give up the writer nonsense.
Previously in the Happy Wanderer Tony hosts a high stakes gambling game in which tries hard to discourage a friend via the same high school as attended by their children from participating. When the man presses to join in Tony relents only for the man to lose heavily. Tony uses force to insist that the man pays him before his other creditors and take away the man’s son’s car in part settlement which he takes and gives to his daughter thus destroying the relationship between the two young people. She appears on her own in the high school concert.
In future I will diary in contemporaneous notes but only if the first draft can be completed immediately after an event. I have sorted out in my head the construction of the major writing for traditional publication which I will commence in earnest when I return next week from a trip to Merseyside to watch Durham play Lancashire in a vital match for the 2011 championship.
I have had a good swim but no sauna this morning and been into South Shields centre for some cherries and inexpensive indigestion tablets at Wilkinson’s which has been redesigned with new a new set of cashier point too great success. I am most impressed as the store has an upmarket feel. I also check out that the Computer stores does not do Lexmark 100 cartridge clones but before then I did see there are less expensive opportunities on the Internet Ebay and Amazon which I shall explore further when I return, having committed myself to the Brother for a little longer having purchased black sets from IJT. I also rang them to enquire about the failure of the batteries and blank CD disks to arrive, but these are now in the post having been out of stock.
Over lunch of lamb chops and Chinese and Indian snacks (Wow) and half a glass of Rosé I shall complete this writing and watch some tennis where two British women are playing and expected to lose in the second round. My Olympic account is back on line with my allocated tickets listed. In addition tot he ticket I will get a free travel card when they are issues for greater London which is a bonus.
14.35 Thursday June 23rd June. I have prepared for the next three trips with first the journey to the Travel Lodge, until recently Innkeepers which is located opposite the Liverpool Cricket ground with a Toby Carvery next door. I have down loaded some vouchers so if I can find someone interested to participate in the voucher deal a cooked breakfast is available for £2 50 and the carvery for £5 or alternatively a free ice cream with the full price carvery on my own. I have also worked out the location of the nearest Cineworld, Asda and Morrison Supermarkets and the location of the Tate Modern in the city as well as water trips. There is a direct bus service into the city centre and takes about 15 mins, so if the day is wet or the match goes badly I have the options to the ready.
It is 9 am Wednesday 22nd of June 2011 and there are gaps in the white clouds revealing blue sky. I have an overnight email which revealed that I had been awarded two single tickets for Olympic Football at Wembley including a men’s quarter final game. It will be just my luck that if England gets through to the latter stages the game will be played at Newcastle or one of the other stadiums outside of London.
The two games are on August 1st and 4th. Worse still is that because of these tickets I have to wait for the next application series after those who obtained nothing, possibly one million people could have taken up the available tickets from Friday. Only after these have been allocated and paid for can I apply for what is left which will be what no one else wants to attend. Hopefully there might be the odd preliminary game at Newcastle available. I will have to win the lottery to be able to buy hospitality tickets.
I am spending today Thursday and tomorrow preparing for the visit to Liverpool for Durham’s game against Liverpool, continuing with this writing and the last episodes of the first series of the Game of Thrones, commencing some housework with defrosting the freezer and then restocking with a major shop to qualify for one or two reduced price fill ups of petrol. I am going to be busy busy but have also watched the latest episode of Blue Bloods (21) which is the penultimate of the first season with a second agreed.
I have also booked a train ticket for the journey to Croydon and London in September, a mid morning journey for £15. I have to wait a couple of days to book the return. I have commenced to restock the freezer and larder having defrosted and also waited until I needed to spend £40 or more, as I had hoped the petrol concession would still be available. It is not. I will go to Asda at six to complete purchases necessary before the weekend. Doing a washing to day but suspect the ironing will wait until to morrow when I will explore getting inexpensive printing cartridges for the multifunction printer as well as the getting some cherries and inexpensive indegstion tablets.
The shopping went well with lost of good deals, the best of which was to spot an assistant marking down some packs of cakes-pastries from 75-84 pence to 10 pence. There were packs of Pepsi at £2 from £2.50. Other special bargains included 3 jars of curry for £3 from £4, so I acquire to sets. More regular deals included three large packs of prawns in shell for £10 from £12, similarly both supermarkets to deals on meats/poultry packs - Steak, Chicken, Turkey, pork and lambs with 3 for £10. There was a lot of the usual from toilet rolls to liquorice twists, vitamin tablets to sardine tins, grapefruit segments and rice pudding and bacon rashers.
I have been for two swims this week and intend to make two more visits over the next three days.`I have also spent time on the patio garage garden transplanting plants to one of the containers where the planting had been sparse and secondary quality . I moved from three of the hanging baskets and replaced with plants that ahd progressed in other containers and propose a furether check and good watering on Saturday with top up on Sunday morning.
I have prepared a lap top for the trip and transferred work location information from the top floor to the desk top central filing system. This confirms that I have not noted the contents of the two shelf free standing units moved in here earlier in the year and provides the opportunity to reorganise how these are placed in the room.
I will also note the contents of other boxes placed in build in shelving unit.
I still cannot connect this lap top wirelessly to my network and will have another attempt on return. I can connect with cable but the use of machines with cables seems to slow the system. I also checked out the two wireless mice and confirmed they are not working. I have then connected another mouse to desktop with a standard connection. The Tate BT mouse which I won in Tate site competition in 2003. I will therefore take the USB mouse with me on the trip together with headphones and speakers so I can catch up on Sky provided programmes. For a while I could not find the third internet link cable until it was located tucked in a draw where I keep lap tops and the cameras.
The Durham game ended in a draw against Yorkshire on Tuesday despite having an almost full day of play. I decided to delay attending to see if progress was made, waiting for five wickets to fall by early afternoon. It did not happen with one opponent making over 100. Durham had therefore to be satisfied with 11 points rather than 26 from a win. Attention was directed to the game between Notts and Lancs with Notts making a good start with nearly 350 runs and Lancs in trouble on two occasions but then later order batsmen rallied so that their first innings closed 20 runs behind. Alas Notts had one of their top order collapses or more accurately two collapses losing 4 wickets before lunch and three within a few balls immediately after luncheon interval. There was a rally by the lower order to set Lancs some 225 runs to win. They batted carefully with a whole day and rain not expected, winning by six wickets. Lancs are now 7 points behind Durham with a game in hand. This total is 1 point less because of a poor over rate. With Warwickshire beating Somerset and Notts losing even if these teams gain the maximum points with their game in hand they cannot overtake Durham as the situation stands. Sussex with two games in hand will also be 20 points adrift should they win both these games with maximum points. York’s and Hampshire remin the perilous position at the bottom of the table, along with Worcestershire. However with the weather uncertain and only half the season played these positions can dramatically change with a good or bad run by any of the nine teams in the division. There is an England 20 20 game tomorrow followed by the next Durham 20 20 against Lancs likely to be an omen for next week. This after I kept one eye on England’s women’s first 20 20 game in a series which includes, New Zealand who they bowled out in under 20 overs and scored the required runs early with 8 wickets in hand, Australia and India are the other two teams with Australia having a convincing win over India.
Wimbledon has required the roof over the Centre Court to get some games played because of the changeable weather. Murray started slowly losing his first set but won the mtrach 3 sets to 1 followed by 3 sets to 0 in the second round. He also plays tomorrow; I enjoyed a three hour contest between a 40 year old wife and mother from Japan and Venus Williams returning from injury and a six month of competitive inactivity. The Japanese lady reached the quarter finals over a decade ago and then retired from the game encouraged to play once more by her husband she was within a couple of shots of winning the match have taken the first set and playing some jaw dropping tennis as in fairness did Venus. This evening I had hoped to watch the former Wimbledon Junior champion, then aged 14 okay a second round match niw aged 17 years. She needs to do well this year if she is going to fulfil promise and expectation. Although the ladies with Anne Jones 1969 and Virginia Wade 1977 have carried the British singles flag over the past three decades with Jamie Murray, John Lloyd Jeremu Bates, Anne Jones and, Jo Durie having success in the mixed doubles.
Case Histories concluded its first series of three double episodes in a most satisfactory way. The series features an ex detective policeman turned private eye who uses his emotional loyalty links with his a former assistant and now senior detective to gain inside information and cooperation.
He is a man consumed with the memory of the murder of his sister and finding a relative having committed suicide by hanging themselves from the stairs, (we only see the lower part of the dangling body). In this two parter we begin by seeing the murder of a woman and child by a young man on a beach and another child, a girl, running away and hiding. We see men (police/army) searching for her and finding her as she continues to hide.
The private detective is on a traditional assignment of checking up on a wife who is having an affair with someone at a country house party. On his way back his car breaks down on a cold winter’s day before Christmas.
We also see a sixth form age young woman living in a small block of local authority flats arguing with her brother and finding his stash of drugs which she takes and leaves at the home of a former teacher who is helping the girl to study for A levels at her countryside cottage home. The girl quickly becomes the star of the whole series, resourceful, skilled, fearless and caring she is a delight in every respect and credible.
As the visit is unplanned the woman has to leave in her car leaving the girl continuing to work in the property after first warning the woman that she should not be driving because of her condition (we later learn a brain tumour) and the vehicle crashes onto a railway line in sight of the private detective as he is walking to find the nearest garage. He goes to assist the woman.
Fortunately, for him and the passengers on a train, the accident is n a corner with a 20 miles per hour speed limit so although the train hit the car, which we do not see and travels some distance before coming to a stop, with passengers told to move forward, we quickly see that the private detective either jumper from the car or was sent flying from the upturned vehicles and has hit his head and is laying at the side of the track. We see a male passenger leave the train and go in the opposite direction and then exchanges documents with the private detective. To add dramatic interest and effect we later see the man on a beach similar to where the private detective sometimes jogs and where he appears to have some connection in the past with the murder of the young woman and one of her children (presumed), It is only later that we learn that the man was the killer, released from prison, after two decades on a residential parole which he has broken.
The crash occurs within earshot of the young girl still at the cottage and she goes along the line with her bicycle to investigate where she finds the private detective barely alive and she works at resuscitating him and later she is at his beside in hospital waiting to have confirmed that he has recovered. She and the authorities know him by the driving licence found on him (that the killer had and kept up a driving licence is one of those questionable features and coincidences we reflect on later).
The detective is not fully conscious and is having visions of his sister grown up at the same time as a visit from his former colleague so when he calls out to the sister that she loves her, the police detective thinks he is referring to her and leaves the bedside rapidly emotionally challenged by his words.
We have most but not all of the ingredients for unravelling the principal story. The missing element is that girl has also got a job as a nanny for a young married woman whose is not at home when she calls as arranged and notes that the baby’s comforter is still in the room. Something which his mother would have taken with her wherever she went and for whatever reason.
Having saved the life of the detective and finding out what he does she asks him to help her find out where her employer is. The other ingredient is that the policewoman detective has gone on a date with a surgeon at the hospital when the calls come about the crash. He is a nice man who has treated the private detective, a widower of three year on his first date and she is genuinely interested in having a relationship although her difficult geeky son poses a problem.
We learn that the young girl’s brother is a drug dealer where the stash belongs to a couple of tearaways on the estate who trash the flat. The Detective persuades them to leave the girl and the flat alone, but the brother comes a looking and the girl decides to send him away and out of town when the private detective is present and saying she has choice and can hand over the drugs if she wishes.. Later she is at her brothers open coffin and places the drugs under his body. We learn that her mother had left her and the brother to go on holiday with a male friend and had drowned in the hotel pool after her hair had caught in some workings. Academically talented and of independent mind and idealistic she had attempted to keep the family and home together. She is brilliantly played by an actress I hope we shall see more of
Understanding his debt of continuing life to the girl he investigates the disappearance of the girl’s employer checking where the husband says she has gone to visit and finding this is a false trail. Eventually they find that the husband is at best an adventuring business man who owes money to heavies from Glasgow who has kidnapped his wife and child pending settlement of the debt. The detective persuades the man to insist on gaining proof that his wife and child are alive before agreeing to sign over his businesses in lieu of the debt. This enables the detective, with girl in tow, to trail the men after their visit to where they are keeping the woman and child prisoner. Meanwhile she stabs one of the two in the eye and then takes a knife she has spotted and stabs the second just as the private detective arrives to rescue her. My understanding is that the detective then puts petrol over the bodies the two men and sets fire. The girl had previously told the police of her concerns about the missing employer and child but now the police are told that the woman has been in a terrible state and cannot remember precisely where she has been and where she has stayed but is now recovered and all is well. This fits into the private detective applying his own sense of justice and in a way in which the audience always approve.
The woman, the woman who employs the girl as a nanny (another unexplained and implausible quirk) is in fact the girl who survived the murder attack on her mother and sister on the beach two decades or so before. The dodgy businessman husband was unaware of this background. The man/father committing the murder had just been released from prison on parole. It he who has left the train and exchanged documents with the Detective at the Trackside. Because he uses the man’s driving licence to hire a car at one point the uniformed police who stop the car beat him up believing he is the murderer on parole who had not reported in to probation prison after care as required. He has been driving the car one handed with the girl operating the gear levers!
The murderer is found to have shot himself on the beach at the spot where he committed murder. In prison he had converted to Roman Catholicism but had stopped practicing after a visit by the girl who has escaped him, one moth before his release, a development which it is presumed she had been notified by the authorities in advance. Thus we and the police were led to believe she had gone in hiding from the man and therefore her story was acceptable to them although he account of where she was is accepted only because the woman detective knows there is more to it and trust her former boss to have made the right judgements.
From the moment of meeting the Detective for the first time the woman says he seems familiar and at he end we learn he was the person who had discovered the frightened hiding girl alive two decades before, Having saved the girl once and he is protecting her from the involvement in the kidnap, covering up the affairs of the husband in so doing. There is more some good and some not so good.
The husband whose wife he had followed quickly becomes an obsessive pain in the backside with the private detective quickly switching sympathy to the wife protecting her location. She calls in the police when the husband finds her location and is visited by the new assistant to the police detective who has crossed swords with her former boss several times previously. He misguidedly gives his mobile and responds when the husbands returns and makes a scene in the roadway outside the property demanding that his wife returns to him. The private detective also arrives at the scene concerned at the state of mind of the husband and tries to prevent the policeman involving himself. The husband thinks the plan clothes detective is his wife’s lover and shoots and kills the officer who dies in hospital.
Throughout the two episodes the Detective adjusts to his daughter being in Australia, communicating with photo links on the lap top he presented to her as a going away present. She is learning to surf with the help of a new friend of her mother. Jealous and concerned at first he tries to learn more the new situation but sends her a surf board as a Christmas present. He visits his young saviour who is spending Christmas with her employer, husband and child to exchange Christmas presents but declines the invitation to stay for the Christmas dinner.
Following the incident at the hospital when the police woman detective had assumed he said he was in love with her she had left a message on his mobile when finding he had discharged himself from hospital. Having got his mobile back following the discovery of the body of the man who had attempted to switch identities, he had called at the home of this former colleague late one evening when she was entertaining the surgeon from the hospital for a meal and drinks. He had been sent packing. On Christmas Day he calls to ask her again what he is supposed to have said at the hospital and she tells him and he responds by saying that was about right and she says that is alright with her. He says he will return later and then goes off for a long run overlooking the city where they live. There is therefore the door left opened for a second series of programmes. There are questions about the situation with his daughter and ex wife half way across the world and the relationship with the his former assistant, and most of all there is what happened in elation to his sister, the young man in the car and the person who had committed suicide. At the same time there has been closure of a kind in saving the same person twice, as a potential murder victim and then as a kidnapped woman and mother. He tells her it is time to move on especially as the murderer has taken his life. He is also telling himself the same advice, accepting that his ex wife and daughter have a new life and appearing to begin a serious relationship with his former assistant.
Spartacus has taken an interesting turn with the purchase of several new recruits last week and persuading the wife of the Roman Commander who enslaved Spartacus and his wife to sponsor one of the men of her choosing and exceptionally masculine endowed individual. She tells him that if he obeys her in all respects she will ensure that he becomes free. The task she sets is to kill Spartacus. He survives with the help of Crixus and the new man is severely punished with the Gladiator school boss being suspicious at the turn of events but required to accept what happened in view of his desire to improve their social status by ingratiating himself into the top society through the wife of the Roman commander.
Crixus having clashed with Spartacus following his loss of authority over the other Gladiators becomes concerned with talk of being sold. The two clash in front of the Gladiators and Crixus still suffering from the effects of his injuries is badly beaten. However the saving of the life of Spartacus should change their relationship. Spartacus meanwhile has been encouraging his friend the roman citizen gambler to forgive his wife because of what happened to her.
In the Chicago Code the team get the opportunity to apprehend a billionaire drug baron only find they have no evidence to hold him and Federal Bureau wants to take over and offer him a deal to get access to others. The Team discovers that the reason for his visit is that his son has been kidnapped and he arrived with the ransom money. They persuade the Billionaire to cooperate in finding the son and eventually recover the boy after discovering he had been kidnapped by Nigerians with the help of one of drug bosses own men. They work out a deal which gives everyone a good result. The drug boss will stand trial for those crimes where the police now have evidence because of the testimony of the man who helped in the kidnapping under plea bargaining arrangements. He will also cooperate with the Feds on the basis that they will place his wife and son in a witness protection programme. He will not see them again. Meanwhile the undercover agent trying to gain evidence to convict the district Alderman is stressed and considering leaving the job because of his involvement in the death of a man where he was asked to torch a property for insurance money. He is then asked to act as chauffer for the Alderman for a couple of days while the Alderman visits the families of recently bereaved members of his community. This includes a visit to the home of the widow of the man who died in the fire. Thus the Alderman signals that he knows about the incident and in a telling moment asks whether the young man is up for the job and in. He says yes and also reports to the police chief that far from wanting to leave, he now wants to bring down the Alderman more than ever.
In the latest episode of the Sopranos D Girl the main interest is with Christopher who has an affair with the young female film executive in the Company of his film Director distant relative. The relative is interested in the reality of Christopher’s life as a gangster and adjusts his latest film project with a true story revealed by his relative much to Christopher’s subsequent anger, especially has the girl and the director reject Christopher’s script. When Tony learns of Christopher’s exploits and that he has written a script he expresses the same kind of concern which others including Christopher expressed when they heard that Tony was seeing a psychiatrist.
Christopher returns to his girl friend, a decision which the detective in Chicago Code also appears to make after re-establishing a relationship with his ex wife and caught leaving the family home by his teenage son at 3 am one morning. She seeks clarification of their relationship after the detective says he cannot bring himself to bring off from his fiancée who is growing anxious at the lack of time they are spending together. At the end of the episode it looks as if the Detective is going ahead with the marriage.
Tony and Carmela are having problems with their son AJ who damages his mother’s car while joy riding with friends. He has developed a melancholy philosophical view of life centred on the awareness that every life ends in death. Tony discusses the issue with his therapist who attempts to get him to talk about his relationship with his parents, and mother in particular, about which Tony remains resistant. Christopher agrees to be confirmed as a Catholic while the FBI force Pussy to wear a wire when attending the Conformation Party at Tony’s home and where Pussy has sponsored AJ and gives the boy advice! He is torn between his regard for Tony and being blackmailed by the FBI. Tony tells Christopher to give him 100% loyalty and attention and give up the writer nonsense.
Previously in the Happy Wanderer Tony hosts a high stakes gambling game in which tries hard to discourage a friend via the same high school as attended by their children from participating. When the man presses to join in Tony relents only for the man to lose heavily. Tony uses force to insist that the man pays him before his other creditors and take away the man’s son’s car in part settlement which he takes and gives to his daughter thus destroying the relationship between the two young people. She appears on her own in the high school concert.
No comments:
Post a Comment