2169 Planting Sping bulbs and three films

The weather has been amazing of this time of year during the Saturday and Sunday on this last weekend of October 2011. It has been sunny and pleasant so that I have only needed a buttoned coat of a woollen house jacket. The new look and layout Wilkinson’s in South Shields has cleared away the gardening range for Halloween and Christmas so I had to go back to B and Q and deciding that it would be wise to do plant now in case the weather changed to unpleasant cold even for the garage I purchased a pack of large 100 daffodils for just under £7 and 70 mixed tulips got just under 10. I would have saved myself 10% if I had waited until Wednesday but have no regret, I enjoyed a documentary concert in French featuring the performances of Edith Piaf around midday..

I went of in search of bulbs around 2pm and had plated them in satisfactory way by 4pm. I have placed the four large black boxes on the main table now with two tulips and two daffodils to the rear and then the four smaller width blue planters by the side of the walls with one tulips and two daffodils together with seven daffs in a large blue pot which is also on the table with the pots of pinks. The five pots of red geraniums are now on the second table. One of the blue planters and two pots along kitchen wall are still flowering with the summer blooms and there is continuing life in the baskets although limited. I brought in the dried soil used for the attempt to grow olive trees and found the eights seeds in tact so will have another go to see if they will germinate but I might get and electric germinator for this purpose.

After a pair of decapitated and tailed kippers for breakfast I did not feel in nee do of food again until the approach of evening and put the whole chicken into roast around 4 and heated up that fresh vegetable mixture of a swede parsnip, onions 2, carrots 6 and turnip for £1 which will provide two good portions. Now to the films catch up

Route Irish is not a great film but provides an insight into the development of entrepreneurial organisations some who work clandestine in winning and working contracts in war torn countries. Le Carré’s Mission song which I am presently reading covers similar subject.

Route Irish is a Ken Loach directed film set in Iraq and Liverpool. Philip French in the Observer describes the film as covering a number of Ken Loach themes, the brutality of war, the exploitation of the indigenous population by national government and” rescuing invaders alike, state sanctioned ‘crimes.’

It is good that there are films of this nature to educate the weekend teenage and young people audience into a greater sense of reality and helping to fuel movements which counter balance the excess which states will indulge unless there are brakes applied from within as well as without.

As I age and reflect I more and more understand the nature of global capitalist economy. Faced with threats which undermine the security of an individual democratic nation I appreciate the necessity of measures being taken which in other circumstance would be judged crimes but if knowingly sanctioned cannot and should be regarded as crimes. They are only crimes when not sanctioned. The problem is that Ministers sometimes fail to separate Party political interests from those of their individual nation or that of the maintaining their personal position and power. Who Guards the Guardians must be constant cry?

This film is about the growing tendency of Government to employ agents at arms length, some under open contract and others secretly in order that if things go wrong, especially if the agents are to act outside the law or abroad in situations where the government’s role is being challenged or not made public

For the film has more personal themes such as the bond which develop betweens those who experience intense working situations over prolonged periods and that prolonged involvement in some activities corrupt and undermine the integrity of the strongest and purest of souls the recent theme of Spooks and which cause individuals to blur the actual differences between different political and religious run states to cause them to change sides.

The story is seen through eyes of Fergus Molloy and Irish rooted Liverpuddlian who with his lifelong friend Frankie (John Bishop) have become security mercenaries after doing terms with the military special services. Frankie is married to Rachel who is the only thing which Fergus has not shared with Frankie although he has wanted her but kept his distance. This includes sharing a female bar owner in Spain on R and R breaks from their tour in Iraq where they protect company employees carrying work on contracts. Fergus moved on to Afghanistan while Frankie continued in Iraq where he is reported killed in a roadside vehicle explosion and his body is returned to Liverpool for service and cremation.

Before the death Fergus comes home to Liverpool but goes on a bender and gets locked up and misses a series of phone calls from his best friend which haunts him now he is dead. He is also puzzled because his friend was the cautious one. He attends the funeral and through the man’s widow attends the briefing from the employers about what happened. The family are not pleased with his presence because they blame him for getting involved in the lucrative but dangerous work. They do not understand his questions to the representatives.

The woman, the friend from Spain, has received a package from Frankie which she passes to Fergus and on it there is an email in Arabic and a video. It is of the shooting of a young family including two boys. Fergus uses an Arabic contact to gain a translation and he also makes inquiries with his contact in the country to establish the official reports of the incident. There is no record.

Things begin to happen as the home of the wife and that of Fergus is trashed in the search for the videoed evidence. The Arabic speaking friend is badly beaten requiring hospital treatment and care.

The story which emerges is that the taxi was in the wrong place at the wrong time and failed to stop and a trigger happy member of the security cover had opened fire. The matter had been covered up with continuing action because the firm had entered a new major contract to help in the reconstruction of a county which they feared this would be lost if the unintentional slaughter of civilian children had become public.

Frankie’s wife and Fergus work together and develop the physical closeness he had longed to desire. But he is driven to settle the debt he feels due to his friend. He had opened the coffin before burial to see the remains as part of establishing how the friend had died. The man’s ashes had been had been smashed in the ceramic container which the wife had in her room.

He reaches the conclusion that the man had been intentionally targeted not by insurgents but by the firm because guilt had driven him to start telling people about what had happened. The man believed to have been responsible was working in Afghanistan but comes to the UK for the “clean up operation.” He is captured and tortured by Fergus but at first he denies any involvement saying that he was on his way to Afghanistan when Frankie’s death occurred, but then under more torture he confesses. Fergus feels there is closure, for himself and the man’s wife, and begins to look for a future for them together. However he is then shattered to receive confirmation that his victim was telling the truth and was not in Iraq when Frankie was assassinated.

There were several things not clear to me through out the film or which I cannot now remember not have made notes at the time of viewing, I therefore do not know if he established through a bugging device that the Managing Director and lead recruiter of the firm undertook the killing directly or had someone else do it for them. They exit a building together and another employee a young woman accompanies them at the last moment. As they enter the vehicle they notice a note on the dash board which says wrong time wrong place, the words they had used to the family to explain the death of Frankie. At that point the vehicle explodes as a bomb detonates.

Frankie has explained to the widow who has become his lover that he has to go away and they will not have further contact which she does not understand. In the closing moment of the film Fergus is on one of the Merseyside Ferries. He slips quietly overboard and disappears.

PS Rote Irish is the name given to the road leading to the airport in Baghdad.

I saw Harry Brown in the Theatre two years ago and cannot understand why there is no separate review on file. Michael Caine plays an aging former decorated soldier attempting to live quietly on an estate in London where the quick way to the pub by a canal is through an underpass which has been taken over by drug pushers and a teenage terror gang. He therefore walks the distance required to a crossing on an exceptional busy main road. At the pub he plays chess with Leonard (the splendid David Bradley or visits his wife who his seriously ill in hospital and dies. At the funeral Leonard admits that he is being terrorised by some youths on the estate that have put stuff through his letter box and written graffiti on his outside walls. He shows Harry a military bayonet he keeps with him for protection. Harry says he should leave the matter in the hands of the police but Leonard explains he has reported before but this has only made the situation worse.

The following day a senior police woman, who has elected to work on the estate where she originated, calls with a young constable to advise Harry that his friend has been killed in the underpass. Harry declines to say anything about the conversation the previous day because the man has been stabbed with a bayonet. Later the Police advise Harry that because the Bayonet belonged to Leonard the charge is likely to manslaughter at the most because of self defence.

Harry makes inquiries and finds out that local drug pusher also sells firearms. He visits and finds that the two have an office at the back on the building where they are growing pot on an industrial scale. Here he finds a teenage girl in a serious condition from a drug overdose. She is ignored and he is offered to have sex with her alongside the gun purchase. She is being overdosed so she is pliable for pornographic films. Harry kills to the young men and sets fire to the premises after which he gets the girl out and takes to her hospital.

The local commander orders the senior police woman to drop her inquires about the death of the pensioner and concentrate on action to stop what appears to be an outbreak of gang land killings related to drug use. Harry conducts his own inquiries and through one of the girl friends in the gang tracks down a young man who he threatens to kneecap and who reveals a camera video of what happened to his friend. Just as he about to go for the gang leader Harry collapses from an emphysema attack and is taken to hospital where he is interviewed by the police woman who notes there is cordite on Harry’s clothing. Harry then discharges himself from hospital.

Meanwhile the local commander has ordered a drug bust on the estate and there is major rioting with the throwing of Molotov cocktails and stoning. The senior police woman and her assistant are involved in a car accident and Harry rescues them and takes them to the local pub where it is revealed that the barman is the uncle of the gang leader whose father is in prison. The uncle has been hiding the boy in the pub. Harry has another bout of emphysema and loses control and his gun to the barman who brings out the son with a view to having to kill three witnesses. The young constable is killed by Sid who orders his nephew to kill the police woman but fortunately she has got a message out. So after Harry recovers sufficiently to shoot Noel as he is strangling the police woman, Harry is shot by the barman who is in turn shot by the back up squad who arrive just in time.

At the subsequent media conference the local commander announces that the Police woman and her dead colleague are to receive bravery awards and dismisses speculation about the involvement of vigilantism. In the final scene Harry decides to use the underpass where there is no presence of teenagers but he has lost his wife and his only friend and committed murder.I will mention a film which had promise from the small advance information note but must be reported as the worst dubbed film of the past 100 years. The African Game is an Italian production with English voice overs.

Robert Hill is an assassin, the kind who is ultra professional and apparently emotionless about what he is doing. He does love his cat whose image opens the film as is the only noteworthy thing about the production. We see him conduct one such operation after making love to the female Mary Hari his immediate employer.

His next assignment is in Africa where on arrival he supplied with a satellite phone and a case of hardware. He attempts hire a jeep and finds that the only one available is driven by an exceptionally fast talkative young woman likely go down well with Italian audience, whose father was a gamekeeper killed by poachers and had planned to spend the weekend with her boyfriend also a game keeper.

She assumes that Robert is an office tourist on an adventure trip to see animals in the wild in Kenya. He insists they take an off road way to the area required used by poachers which makes it dangerous and then he insists on stopping outside the village designed as overnight tourist stop where he says they will camp and he drives off leaving the girl with a little water and food to spend the night among wild animals and poachers. He finds that the target is heavily guarded with a three vehicle armed escort so is unable to execute the mission. He returns to the camp and bribes the girl to take him to the main area for wild animal viewing, filming and photography and she shows him a quick route on the map which reduces the two hour journey by half. He again takes off leaving her alone.

He carries out the mission and they return to the capital where he pays her more to call at the Casino where the receptionist gives him a large sum of money and a case to carry out his fee for the killing. The girl gets a newspaper which announces the killing of the same man whose photograph she has discovered sticking out of the case of her client. She goes to challenge him in the Casino while the newspaper vendor goes to get a police man because she has not paid for the paper. As he leaves the Casino and the girl challenges him he suddenly realises that the case carries a bomb detonated by the Marta Hari but fortunate he flings it sufficiently away only to be injured in one arm as is the policeman called to the scene by the news vendor.

The girl takes him to a village community where his arm is treated but where they have tracked andtwo men attempt to beat out the information of there whereabouts. Robert uses his Satellite phone to send a photo of the attackers to a contact who is able to find out something of the individual before the two men are killed by the girl’s contact in the village. The information indicates that a neighbouring country has being using international aid to but arms and that the man killed was somehow involved. I could not work out if he was the gun runner or part of the UN team who were visiting to examine allegations of fund misappropriation. In any event the head man has a relative who works at the Embassy of the country concerned who they contact by phone for information but the call is traced and they are again pursued but this time by someone with a rocket launcher and they jump from the vehicle before it is hit and explodes.

In the subsequent fight Robert is mortally wounded and the girl has to kill one of the attackers to survive, Robert pleads with her to go to London to look after his cat that will by starving because he is away longer than anticipated giving her a wedge of notes before he dies. She does so and finds his stash of money in cat food tins sufficient for her to do the training she had mentioned to him for which she was saving working for the Jeep hire company.

Even in Italian the film is a million miles away from that created by Ken Loach in Route Irish.

2168 Tribulations and fun in New Orleans Mardi Gras season

In the middle of last night I watched the latest three episodes of Tremé season 2 as a third season has been agreed Ne"Carnival Time", "Can I Change My Mind?" and"What Is New Orleans?"

It is Mardi Gras in New Orleans and the first episode of the trio has the story of the central characters against the background of the carnival weeks which is up to its traditional tourist attracting liveliness and colourful spectacular which next year covers 11 days of parades, balls and much drinking and eating and much else! There are over 50 organisations called Krewes who organise parades or participate in parades and some of these can involve 5000 participants.

On some days there are parades from mid morning until early evening followed by partying in the bars as well as major events by invitation only. Significantly the main parades do not go through the French Quarter because the streets are too narrow but here are events also in that area. There are stands and premises which provide viewing platforms as well as buffet type food throughout a day for around $100 although drinks are extra and hotels tend to double their standard rates for the occasion. The population of the city doubles during the period from 1.25 million to 2.5 million.

In Tremé there is an excellent attempt to feature several facets of the 11 days including floats distributing thousands of chains of glittering beads, these days manufactured at a fraction of the old price and special traditional gifts. In one series of scenes Toni and her daughters and Davis and Annie are featured as street watching participants anxious to get not just more strings of beads to hang around their necks but the special gifts of mini female shoes similar to the main floats in the particular parade while in another it is highly decorated coconuts with those painted in gold the most prized and with special creations given as souvenirs to famous visitors and public figures. The event takes place over the period leading up to Lent before Easter and therefore occurs at some point the month February March each year and the schedule of these is already on the official Mardi Gras site (Fat Tuesday) until 2025.

I select Antoinette "Toni" Bernette (Melissa Leo), the civil rights lawyer and her daughter Sofia (India Ennenga) to begin this report on the trio of episodes as they face Carnival week without husband and father who has committed suicide and which Sofia has only recently discovered after having been told by her mother the death was accidental. The daughter breaks away from mother during the celebrations and goes to a bar where she is seen by Davis the rebellious song write and DJ who takes her to his home where she is found in the double bed alone without her top, Davis watching in a chair when Annie returns from her day celebrating with Cajun Culture Mardi Gras.

He had chosen not check the pocket of her jeans for a phone which Annie does and calls Toni who has been beside herself with worry and unable to get an answer from her daughter. Davis explained that he had to remove the top because the girl had been sick in the taxi he had ordered to get to get her home. My only story integrity issue is that he said he only had the work number and therefore had been unable to call Toni, but he had previously in season one given Piano lessons at her home and therefore the rational action would have been to take her in the taxi home and only if Toni had not been there, then take her to his place.

Toni had wanted her daughter with her when she joined the group participating in the annual scattering of the ashes of loved ones onto the river from the bank (Down by the Riverside) but I always think she constantly smiles too much and wearing the mask and dancing about somehow does not square with her everyday image, although admitted she and her husband smoked pot as appear to do the majority of characters in the series.

Worse was to come when the daughter goes joy riding with another underage friend and two youths who picked them up in a stolen car. There is there sight of her in ankle chains and handcuffs being led into juvenile court with her mum. She remains defiant full of the bravado of her father and his expletive ridden tirades on You Tube type which she appears to have stopped since finding out that her father had committed suicide. She is first given a good talking to by the Counsel mum hires warning that without a change of attitude and behaviour she risks a custodial sentence. She gets a similar fatherly talking too by the Mayor who has taken her on three evenings a week after school as an Intern. It is after the court appearance that the penny drops when Toni breaks down and explains that she is just as angry and guilty about the suicide going though everything over and over again to work out if she could have said or done anything differently to have prevented her husband’s action. Mother and daughter embrace in their respective tears suggesting that this begins the healing if not the closure. Toni has hired a professional private investigator to pursue what happened to the out of town young man who was shot dead, possibly by the police and with his help they makes progress. It is evident that one of Albert "Big Chief" Lambreaux (Clarke Peters): friends did report an incident to the police and subsequently was told to forget it or his extended family would come under the closest police scrutiny.

Albert’s son comes home to New Orleans with his wife/partner to witness his father chief in his new costume of feathers and beads and together with his entourage and friends as they dance from his neighbourhood into the mainstream Mardi Gras procession, followed by a people carrier in case the individual oldies get tired on the day long activity. He is filmed by the documentary maker from New York.

On reaching the main area the modern jazz playing son hears some modern jazz from a radio against the traditional jazz sounds of the city and the chanting of his father and realises he has the basis for an album of music in which the two forms of jazz are combined with the Big Chief sounds. He creates a new group combining some of his current combo with traditional playing musicians and persuades his father to travel to New York to participate in the recording session. During the visit he is taken to a museum of African antiquities and shown an indigenous African wearing a headdress with many of characteristics of the those created by the Chiefs. While they make progress in the recording Albert continues to find faults arguing that they record the session in New Orleans.

LaDonna Batiste-Williams (Khandi Alexander) also continues to have a bad time coping with being raped and physically beaten up by thieves who broke into her bar where she lived above in a flat. She has now made a good physical recovery and it looks that with the latest victim prepared to give evidence in court and the attackers pleading guilty her written statement will be used as only part of the formalities.

However she is in no mood to return to New Orleans for Mardi Gras so the husband goes with her sons and seeing La Donna’s ex husband and the boy’s father Antoine Batiste (Wendell Pierce) with his partner and baby daughter he asks if he will take the boys and return to Baton Rouge where’re he lives and works as a dentist so that he keeps La Donna company. The boys have a great time although Antoine’s plans to play away from home are thwarted when his partner says he can also look after the baby girl for the day so she can enjoy herself.

La Donna is further cheered when on her latest medical check at the hospital she is remains clear of any HIV or STD and is told no further visits are required. However as he still cannot not bear the physical touch of any male including her husband and she is resistant to attending counselling because she has not told her partner she was raped. When she is called back to the police to confirm her statement her partner insists on driving and accompanying and thus he learns the truth of what happened and reacts badly more because she felt unable to share this with him than the actual rape. Worse is to come for La Donna because the other woman drops out so she is needed to give her evidence in person to a court, The husband gives her an ultimatum to either go back and work in the bar living in a central area hotel or sell it and become an active mother in the community for the boys rather than remain an unhappy depressed recluse unable to communicate with her family or friends the pain she continues to feel. She considers going back but cannot face going inside the bar and returns to Baton Rouge saying she will give it up.

Antoine meanwhile is continuing to give music lessons at the local middle school and takes a large number of the class where he is assistant music master to watch one of the parades which includes the best Middle/High School bands to show what they should aim for and this has a positive effect. One of the boys is showing signs of becoming a great trumpet player and he successfully gets into a bar one evening to hear his mentor play.

Antoine’s group is making steady progress and I begin to like some of his music, usually when he has an actually well known guest singer or player participating with adjust the style of music. Sonny is back playing with the band having been sacked. One of the instrumentalists who and been through the same state decides to take him in hand and does a deal in which he will ensure he gets his place back if he hands over all responsibility and earnings to the man and who then insists that he leaves the city centre for the Mardi Gras period and goes to stay with his friend on a New Orleans style fishing vessel. During one scene when they take some fish in a container to a restaurant Sonny who now has sharp contemporary beard is attracted to an Asian young woman with a resemblance to Annie. Begins to play regularly with the band and enjoys his drug free lifestyle.

Janette Desautel (Kim Dickens) the Chef has returned to New York but misses New Orleans especially as Mardi Gras approaches and on Fat Tuesday the boss gives her the day off and agrees that she can have a meal in the restaurant with a friend. She starts the day with puff of pot and some traditional breakfast food and enjoys the meal but this only reinforces her sense that something is not right. One of her flat sharing friends works at a new restaurant which had been created a counter diner but serve organic food prepared to the highest standards of cuisine and she gets a free loan transfer so to speak with a return of this does not work out for her.

The two characters who most enjoy Mardi Gras are Davis and Annie, the air who seemed to me ill suited and unlikely to last but there is evidence of a growing bond between them. On one of the festive period days, Annie is invited by the traditional Creole beaded group leader to participate in the tradition Cajun celebrations and music in the Bayou which involves an extraordinary but attractive dressing up in a colourful patch work outfit which includes a Klu Klux Klan type of headwear also patchwork multicoloured and a fine mesh face mask also decorated. The music here is great although Annie is uncertain about aspects of the opening ceremony for new initiates and decides not to play but listen although is eventually persuaded to join in. There is a scene where bedecked group attend a local cemetery where it is traditional to pay respects to those who created and handed down the Cajun culture

Davis was expected to also participate in the event but hated the idea of wearing such a costume and finds the excuse when his father has made up with his former band members and has agreed play a set at a bar/club as part of the festivities and Davis feels given his usual estrangement from his father that he should go in support. It is as a consequence of being on his own that he sees Sofia in a bar being eyed up and pawed by men twice her age and steps into rescue.

Davis continues to work on his new album mixture of hip hop and other contemporary sounds and is rather put out when his new found friend and hip hop artist has a track played on the radio. Davis and his friend are interviewed about the album by the radio station where he worked and from which he was sacked much to annoyance of the former boss when finds out.

Also enjoying Mardi Gras is the young smooth and fancy dresser out of towner politically well connected white young man and deal maker. He has made friends with the demolition work gang master who he has sub contracted for one of the contracts gained. He is introduced to one of the local social and pleasure clubs associated with the festivities as a way of getting himself into the black community and being favoured for city contracts with the black mayor. In order to gain a contract he offer to put in a tender several points below competitors until he realises price is not the issue but kick back. The particular social club have a float on which they dress up with blacked faces, golliwog hair and grass skirts which he is persuaded to join in and has the time of his life especially when a young black woman in the crowd is attracted to him, makes him take off his head gear so she can take a proper look at him and exchanges mobile phone number afterwards meeting up for a two person celebration.

Toni continues to develop her association with the local police commander where we see festivities through his eyes and those of his command. They celebrate the fact that the season ended with only one death and that was not associated with the festivities. He does spot someone carrying a gun who they arrest. He suddenly finds that he is transferred to homicide and working as deputy to the homicide chief or senior manager who he reported for the earlier situation when a murder was said to be down as a domestic when in fact there had been a violent break in a short while nearby just before which was not investigated. It appears that the force superiors are concerned about several aspects of the work of the Homicide and have posted the Commander so that he can sort out the squad and its head by getting the evidence to take to his superiors. He is not looking forward to the assignment. When Toni’s investigation points to irregular and possible illegal behaviour by the squad and its leader she realises she has information which will be of mutual interest to her commander friend who has confided his misgivings about the posting.

Annie on her way back from a gig with her Cajun friend they are challenged for their instruments by two gun carrying young hoods. Her friend appeals to one of the gang to think again before it is too late and one of the youngsters takes offence and shoots her companion, which appears fatal as the episode ends.

2167 End of October 2011 blues

The last weekend of October did not commence well with a bout of winter melancholy over my present situation of my own making and the darkness of the months ahead literally and figuratively and perhaps sparked by the moving of the clock’s back an hour creating even great darkness earlier but extending the light of the afternoon’s, a little. Yet one advantage of the UK north is that there is more light than in its far south and then even more than say the South of France or in Greece.

I am locked into the immediate cycle of interests which means that I am not working on or taking steps to change my position fundamentally from fear mostly that the outcome will create a worse overall situation where it matters than any significant improvement and I have the recent experience during the course of 2009 and 2010 reinforcing the anxiety.

And yet the immediate condition does not merit further analysis because of overcoming recent small challenges and satisfying or interesting and engaging developments. In part my present mood is caused by last night going to bed and sleeping and then waking as usual but also knowing I was not going to return immediately to slumber. I rise, found I had enough milk to make a milk based drink and watch the three latest episodes of Tremé which I report shortly and then slept well but one disturbing waking dream until just before 10am. It is now 11.30 so has just about going with a good plate of mushrooms and tomatoes as a brunch. I need to go for a shop immediate after lunch to return to listen to Sunderland’s game against Aston Villa with Newcastle on Sky away to Stoke on Monday evening to look forward to. I could go out later but risk the shelves having been emptied of what I seek.

I managed food well over the week sometimes with a cereal bowl or the mushrooms and tomatoes rather than both. For main courses there was curry with chopped turkey breast on Monday after lamb cutlets on Sunday, the Tex Mex mix on Tuesday, fishcakes, scampi and beans and tinned tomatoes on the Wednesday, a pork chop with the rest of the beans and tomatoes on Thursday, a piece of white fish with mixtures of peas, carrots broccoli and rice from two individual frozen packets and to day, shortly Chinese style chicken wings with a whole roast chicken on Sunday with road potatoes commence the fortnightly cycle I have established. For evenings there were salad combinations with a cos lettuce base and a daily choice from cucumber, olives, beetroot, sweet peppers and a tinned mixed bean salad which provides two portions. I am using a plate rather than bowl and eating slowly while I do other things. As a salad topping I alternate between quiche, smoked mackerel, and prawns from shell and occasionally sardines and now and again tinned salmon or crab meat. I usually have a cuppa soup with dry crackers early evening instead of the previous afternoon snack and then having the soup with the salad and also leave until the evening the stewed fruit mix which this week I made in two cookings, the first just with plums and chopped apple and the second with the addition of a banana. This latter was very successful so that two apples, six small plums and one banana and one small packet of custard made four potions which in one instance I then enjoyed cold and another heated in the microwave. I have one or two cups of coffee a day and now usually only one can of coca cola whereas in the summer I was having an average of two and sometimes three.

I have been considering the budget for this over the period of a fortnight. These are rough calculations which I am tempted to put to the test by detailed monitoring, sometime: Breakfasts including coffee 50p Midday meals average £2.50 with cold drink and the evening combination about a similar amount. This is a reasonable £6 a day which includes additions such as sauces which I am reducing and liquorice portions to keep me regular. However it is more than many families budget per head although a world away from regular modest eating out and as much as some couples spend on an individual meal in a posh nosh with vin specialé. Out under the present regime is alcohol, bread and roles, bacon, salami, chocolate and Danish pastries.

The bright change of the week was working out how to repair one of the Brother printers after one of the new colour cartridges for the Lexmark failed. This was the oldest of the two identical Brother machine and reason for the recovery arose when I got a paper jam in the Lexmark and move the print head carriage gently to one side and removed the offending paper, I did likewise with the Brother and after replacing the black cartridge with a new one it has worked brilliantly enabling me to catch up with printing out of transcripts from the House of Commons Culture and Home Affairs Committee and the Lord’s Communications Committee but deciding against the voluminous material from the Leveson Inquiry with available documents each running into the hundreds of pages and which I suspected the intention it is bury the subject over years of inquiries and their paper.

I have now rescued the second printer which was outside in the garage ready for the next visit to local authority recycle and disposal centre. I will investigate if it can be self repaired tomorrow having spent a pleasant half hour or more outside clearing dead growth and bringing evergreens under partial cover to avoid the worst of the winter and sorting out general in preparation for whatever the winter brings. I may even change my mind about bulbs after making visit to Wilkinson’s later to day. I have changed my mind about the time of going out enjoying the Arsenal at Chelsea game, where at present the score is 4.4 to Arsenal after Terry slipped leaving Van Percy with just the goal keeper to go round. He has now got a hatrick as they lead 5-3 in extra time, the final score.

It was cold this morning first thing and last night but now there is a clear blue Sky and it is pleasant. I shall however watch the 20 20 game in India and keep an eye on the Rugby League International and listen to Sunderland at home to Aston Villa before having a shave and going to Wilkinson’s, possibly Azda as well as Morison’s, to replace a cheap every day saucepan and get another packet of mini packets of sweets to give for callers on Halloween on Monday, some mushrooms and sprats if they have them at Morison’s, milk, quiche mackerel, stir fry, beetroot and lettuce

The Le Carré film and TV DVD’s have arrived with four that I have viewed including Smiley’s People viewed on a poor recording and the Spy who came in from the Cold plus also this year The Tailor of Panama and with the past couple of years the Constant Gardiner where I though I acquired the book but cannot find. I have seen the Russia House in the past which I will save to read with the book and then the Looking Glass War and the Deadly Affairs which I may have also seen but have no immediate recollection. I am reading The Mission Song which I do not think I completed and am treated as a quick read through before considering in greater depth.

2166 The Fact and Fictions of a UK coup

From time to time writers have speculated about those in British Society who have plotted a formal right wing coup involving use of the army and the police and there are anecdotes that there have been plans if not attempts, notably surrounding the 1970’s organisation set up by Stirling, the founder of the SAS in the UK to ensure the continuation of public services in the event of a general strike but which he abandoned because of the involvement of extremists who wanted to use such a situation for a military backed based coup.

The main protagonist for many of the secret mission groups is a former MI6 officer who from a cursory examination of his writing seems to have confused the existence of legitimate private international and national organisations with missions to bring about change within a democratic framework with those who undoubtedly exist on the extremes of right and left politics, religious and economic interests who seek to gain and maintain ascendancy through force of arms and dictatorship. He lists such groups as the Bildenbergers, the Committee of 300 and The Club of Rome who are part of former than the latter category.

It is also true that private armies do officially exist with Sandline International the most well known in the UK for their involvement in New Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. However one Internet site brackets this registered organisation with Control Risks which although has 2000 employees with agents in 100 countries is the top of range advice group on how to trade in dangerous places without taking unnecessary risks.

This is by way of introduction to the latest BBC drama series Hidden which has a clandestine group who plot a military backed take over in the UK with the unwitting support of a substantial number of Members of the House of Commons because the current Prime Minister cannot reform a Coalition government and is attempting to operate as a minority government with resultant political instability and economic chaos. I found the four part series riveting and convincing and more compelling that Spooks. More on a work which could vie for honours with Spooks in a moment.

However in addition to my preoccupation this week with Intelligence past and present I have attempted to grasp the implications of the European summit on euro funding crisis and the House Commons E Petition debate on Monday in which without a three line Whip issued by the three main political Parties a motion to hold a referendum on the future UK relationship with the European Economic Community could have passed at the most inopportune of moments.

As a young man I supported the United Nations Association and its various branches to promote health and cultural developments. The disappointment has been its lack of intervention to prevent wars between nations and its failure to prevent genocide within countries and imprisonment without the rule of law. Its support for intervention in Libya to protect massacres was welcomed initially but then increasing question in the manner of the intervention as the situation progressed. It is evident that further interventions will require the approval of China, the USA and Russia, Brazil in South America, South Africa in Africa, India, the Arab States and the emerging United States of Europe as the latter develops its own Foreign Ministry, creates and Economic Minister and proceeding with greater political integration over the next decade. .

Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair recognised that if the UK was to continue as a world power it had to also establish closer ties with the United States but also open and develop economic links with China and Russia together with ongoing trading links with the Commonwealth which is meeting in Australia to day.

Independent self Government is OK as long as you can maintain and develop living standards for the majority of the population and maintain a military (including air and sea force for self defence and to protect economic interests which will because of the size of population, lack of ongoing natural energy sources, have to be global. We also have to take account that sometime over the next twenty five years Ireland will reunite into one political and economic self governing entity and Scotland much sooner. The reality if such developments is that that England and Wales cannot afford, and I pick my word carefully, not to be part of United States of Europe with a Single economic and financial policy based on a single currency. This is where The Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary both Euro sceptics are now trapped between a Rock- the increasing majority of their Political Party, a Hard Place- a Coalition in which their Partner recognises the need to remain at the centre of the European Development Movement, and economic and political reality.

The significant of the settlement reached by the EEC members with a single currency is that within the next three to five years we shall see a single Economic and Financial Ministry with clout so even if the Union falls short of declaring itself a United States of Europe this is what it will be in all but name as there is already a President, a Foreign Secretary and a Defence Minister is also planned. The danger facing the UK is that in the present mood of the majority of the Tory Party and the printed Media, to less extent visual and audio media is the wish to exit the present set up let alone join something more integrated. The question to be asked is who will the Chinese, the Russian, the Americans, The Indians, the Brazilians want to do business with first in 25 year’s time. A United State of Europe or an England and Wales as presumable by then Scotland and a United Ireland will be within the new European structure while England and Wales is without?

Now back to The Hidden with the excellent Philip Glenister, David Suchet and the less well known Anna Chancellor, Thelka Reuten and Peter Guiness. A mysterious lawyer Gina Hawkes(Thelka Reuten) hires Harry Vann(Philip Glenister( a solicitor) to represent a low life in prison Stevie Quirke who tells Harry to find Joe Collins who will provide an alibi and his lap top has the evidence that will clear Quirke of the allegations against him.

Harry is divorced/separated but maintains contact with his adolescent and rebellious son and is on good terms with his ex wife/ wife.

Harry is haunted by guilt and hunted by a Police Detective because of what happened 20 years before. Harry was persuaded by his elder brother to drive him and an associate to the home of a family where they kill the parents and shoot the son who is crippled. They then turn their guns on two security police who stop at the waiting vehicle at the entrance of the grounds. The elder brother is wounded in the shoot out and dies later having been taken to hospital, The other associate also dies. The detective responsible for the case is convinced there was a driver and that the driver was Harry. Harry’s father has never got over the death of his eldest son and relationships with Harry have reached breaking point especially over the break up of the marriage

Harry is bewildered and uncertain about the assignment he has been asked to undertake especially as he cannot f trace of Gina among British law firms. We the audience know she is also haunted by what happened to her mother, who was stabbed in a Paris Street and by the death of her father in a questionable road accident on the same day.
Later we learn that following the death of her parents she was brought up by the kindly David Suchet who plays, a leading Judge, Sir Nigel Fountain, with whom she retains a strong emotional attachment. When Harry meets up with Fountain he finds him protective and supportive of Gina and anxious that Harry keeps in touch, but he also gives the impression that he is not sympathetic to her preoccupation with Quirke or finding Collins

Running alongside Harry’s investigation we the audience are party to the situation that has developed within the political system. The existing Coalition has broken down and the Prime Minister is attempting to continue in office as leader of a minority government. There is financial as well as political instability given the banking crisis, the economic and euro crisis with protests and rioting on the streets. Another politician, the series is careful not to identify individual political parties and allegiances is open in his criticism of the Prime Minister and is supported in this by the Owner of a daily paper akin to the Daily Mail or Express Elspeth Verney by Anna Chancellor whose extraordinary upper class political and artistic background fits her into the role perfectly and who acts with a wealthy country house owning tycoon and others and as we learn later with Sir Nigel Fountain.

At first they appear only involved in a normal political coup pushing one politician in and another out and getting hold of damaging information for the purpose without any direct connection to the pasts and present concerns of Harry and Gina. The connecting link first becomes Jason Styles played by Peter Guinness who comes to Harry’s attention when he is seen at the prison where Quirke is murdered by an inmate before he can provide Harry with further information.

The seedy office where Harry and his Assistant work is blown up with the explanation of a gas leak although we know better. As part of attempting to work out who Gina is, Harry turns to a private detective who has saved from prison a couple of times and who breaks into the practice of a private medical doctor where the big clue is the portrait of a Battle of Britain fighter pilot who died several decades before. The man’s ideas and ambitions appeared to be shared by the Cabal behind the political coup being plotted.

Henry then follows the elusive Gina to Paris where she appears determined to keep him at arms length and give him the slip. Fortunately for her he has the ingenuity to keep track and saves her life as she goes to confront the recently released man from prison she believes killed her mother. The significant finding and establishment of the link between the two is when Harry discovers that one the assassins sent to kill Gina is the associate of his elder brother involved in he killing of he parents of the wheel chair bound Ben Lander two decades before..

It is only in the last of the four episodes that the various leads are knotted together to an extent. Sometime in the 1970’s before his death a Battle of Britain Ace and friends created an organisation with an intelligence and enforcement arm to ensure that the UK remained a Monarchy, independent, powerful and capitalist. They will have been the kind of individuals who resented the granting or accepting of independence by the colonies, the close involvement with Europe and the opening of he borders to migrants from what they would regard as alien religions cultures and races. In effect the kind of people who gathered with David Stirling the SAS founder and War Hero who formed GB 75 to combat the kind of strife which occurred in the Winter of Discontent in 1979 when the rubbish remained uncollected and bodies unburied.

In the series the organisation which the Fifhter Ace led continued waiting for the opportunity to take Britain back from those they regarded had destroyed the old order and ruined the position of the UK in the world. The political instability in the face of economic chaos of a Coalition failure provided that opportunity, just as there are politicians on the right now who are determined to ensure Britain does not enter a political union in Europe and they are backed by various interests in the UK who believe likewise. They are known to be working to unscramble the coalition as early as possible before the schedule next General Election and fight that Election on the issue of the retention of national sovereignty versus the existing or closer integration with Europe.

In Hidden the opportunity arises with the collapse of the coalition and the rioting together with obtaining a dossier of information to the discredit of the Prime Minister. The ostensible plan is for the chosen replacement, a family man with impeccable background and a media friendly personality to make the disclosure before the media of the world and then address an organised public rally and lead them on a march of protest to Parliament to force the Prime Minister to resign and for the chosen one to be called upon to form a government with popular acclaim and with the support of a substantial number of Members of Parliament.

However those behind the coup have a different scenario. They plan to assassinate the chosen politician as he is about to speak to the world’s media which they will therefore witness and with evidence then made available to suggest he was assassinated by the Prime Minister or those in his behalf inciting the assembled crowd to riot at which the sympathetic units of the military and police already in place to restore order.

Harry only becomes aware of this when he locates the missing Joe Collins hiding at a hotel at Heathrow and secures the lap top from him in exchange for funds to escape, although because the phone of Gina is bugged Styles and co are in hot pursuit and kill Collins.

This is the fourth time in days that Gina has narrowly escaped death. After the Paris situation she turns to her guardian for help and he says he will arrange for her to be taken to somewhere safe but fortunately she recognises the escort as Styles. Suchet has been reassured that she will be held until the coup has taken place but we the audience know Styles has been given instructions to kill her. She escapes and join Harry on his way to visit Lander and the private eye. After visiting Lander Gina insist on going to confront the guardian that her parents had been assassinated, that Sanders’ parents had also been killed to order and not the subject of a robbery break in that went wrong and that her knew she was to be killed. She agrees to meet him at one of the tropical houses in Kew Gardens and at the point when he is willing to answer her questions he suddenly spots the marker of riffle on her so her bends forwards and hugs and he is assassinated and she escapes. After the escape at the Heathrow Hotel she stays with Harry at the home of his wife before going to somewhere safe until after the day of days.

Harry has to wait for his computer friend to arrive at the store he operates in order to get into the computer and before he can view the contents he notes the arrival of the never giving up Detective called in by local police who have spotted the registration number of the car and commence a shop by store check. He hides in a dry cleaners and is able to read the last communication on the computer which provides information via a telephone number and various password and code checks to confirm that the assassination of the chosen candidate is active and that the chosen assassin is his dead brother. There has been the suggestion that his brother was still alive to the extent that Harry had checked with his father that the he was certain that the body was that of his son.

In the finale Harry fails to gain entry into the press conference so in desperation he calls the Detective Inspector as he is about to removed from the scene by security police. He is able to persuade the Inspector that there is an assassination attempt being made and that he can identify the would be killer. However he cannot do so and is therefore unable to prevent a security guard from drawing a weapon that has been handed to him and shooting not the chosen politician but the accompanying tycoon. The assassin then escapes sufficiently long to kill Styles before also being shot. Harry is then interviewed in custody by the pursing detective for the original murders of the Landers but when Harry maintains his non involvement he is charged. Gina then turns up as his lawyer confident that she can defend his position but cannot immediately arrange bail. Shortly after arrival in prison he is placed in the same waiting where Quirke was murdered only in this instance he is confronted by his brother in the uniform of a prison guard who has come to get him out of jail and presumably become part of he ongoing organisation behind the brother for the past two decades. Harry thinks about it but decides to remain in prison despite the presence of an open door to immediate freedom saying he has a good lawyer.

There are a considerable number of story holes and unanswered questions which on a different day I might have enumerated, but for once I chose not too. It was not that kind of experience and I need to move on.

There are a couple of good films outstanding Route Irish and Casino Jack to report and I am tempted to go to the cinema to see The Help and the Ides of March. There has been the sporting week and my every day activities including a Safety recall for my car which has a Twist. There is another batch of Tremé episodes to catch up but these will be covered sometime over the week’s after I engaged in other work activity and some correspondence and then back to the Riots, the Hacking Inquiries and Leveson where the available online records and transcripts continues to mount with several hundred pages of material.

2165 Boardwalk and Roma crime

After the spies comes the criminals of the prohibition era and recent times Rome and then it will back to rioting and the future of journalism in all its facets as I prepare for Halloween night but avoid thinking about Christmas.

Three weeks ago saw the return of the Boardwalk Empire which links the prohibition rackets of Atlantic City and the world of Nucky Thompson with Chicago and a young Al Capone and New York and with Lucky Luciano and their respective bosses

From the first three programmes there is the sense of the old order fighting to keep the new order from squeezing them out and not minding how much harm they generate. It is difficult for those who age to relinquish their position, their identities, and their involvement in the present beyond their immediate lives.

The oldest generation is portrayed by Commodore Louis Kaestner based on the real life character the German Hotelier and Politician Louis Kuehnle. He was the actual power in Atlantic City in the latter part of the 19th century and early part of the 20th effectively being first Republican boss of the boardwalk holiday resort with its gambling, prostitution and drinking which continued throughout prohibition making more money than ever. These were complicated characters who also undertook valuable social benefiting ventures although in the series he is also portrayed as being a sponsor of the Klu Klux Klan which appears to have the support of the entire Christian based middle and working white class. He narrowly escaped being poisoned in the last series, now dyes his hair but shows that he has the physical strength of men half his age.

He was the mentor of Nucky Thompson who branched out on his own and became the elected City Treasurer and also a controlling and funding politician for the Republican Party and is based on the real life character Enoch L Johnson who had power throughout prohibition through the control of rackets until his successful prosecution and imprisonment with the outbreak of World War II, serving 4 years after which he appears to have led a quieter life until his death in the late sixties. He lives the life of a gentleman with a personal manservant and wears the latest clothes with an apartment in a hotel but he now also has settled into life with Irish immigrant Margaret Schroeder whose violent husband he arranged to swim with the fishes and who he has now set up in a fine house with a personal maid, a house maid and a cook and where he plays the kind father to her children. Margaret is no innocent and is fully aware what a crook her husband is and over the series has become his protector.

The Commodore has become angry with Nucky and has arranged for him to be charged with election fraud, which is amusing since in reality it was he real life Commodore who was investigated for election fraud but where indictments were not achieved against any of the principals which can also be assumed will be the outcome of the present dramatic series in relation to Nucky, especially as Margaret sneaks into his apartment while law enforcement officers are turning it over for evidence and removes his records ledger and cash stash from under their noses while he is in prison. She burns the book and says he will have to learn to keep his dealings in his head. Nucky like his real life mentor arranges to fix political offices in the city and ensures employee loyalty by insisting that everyone contributes a slice of their wages to the Republic Party funds.

The two city founders and leaders also bribe and blackmail their way into lucrative state and federal contracts and in the present series Nucky is part of a consortium who has been buying up wide tracks of useless dirt land where it is known a new state highway connecting the City to New York is to be built.

One of the ways the two men in reality were able to maintain power was to persuade the local black community leaders they were on their side as long as they did nothing to antagonise the Klan.

Nucky has befriended Chalky White who runs the Black rackets and acts as a Godfather using part of his wealth for social purposes. One of his operations is to manufacture diluted whisky and at the commencement of the second series this is raided by the Klan using a machine gun to kill four workers but they fail to assassinate Chalky who manages to kill one of the attackers as well as severely wounding another. He is held in custody at the instigation of Nucky to prevent him being lynched. There are an amusing couple of scenes where Nucky first delivers a political type sermon from the pupil of the black audience church in which he promises to avenge the deaths while at the same time delivering as passionate a sermon to the white congregation about needing an iron fist to keep the blacks in their place.

In the jail Chalky is kept in a separate cell from the other blacks until a white man is arrested and he is moved with the other blacks who which includes an out of town loud mouth who starts the ridicule the fine clothes and manner of Chalky who in fact lives in a big house with a middle class family whose son goes to college and is a pianist among many talents. When the loud mouth goes to far the other blacks who regard Chalky with awe beat the stranger to pulp.

In fact the raid on Chalk’s distillery had been primed by the former ward of Nucky and for a time his hard man, Jimmy Darmody who is in fact the love child of the Commodore and the young promiscuous Gillian who was only fourteen years of age when Nucky pimped her for the Commodore. Jimmy wanted to kill the Commodore at first but is now under his wing and the move to regain power by ending that of Nucky.

Jimmy was in the First World War which has affected him greatly and made him a cold and calculated killer as well as racketeer who with Al Capone killed and stole the alcohol being imported by Nucky for a distributor to set themselves up. Al Capone had to flee to Chicago where he lives in a whorehouse and works for the current Chicago Mafia crime boss Johnny Torrio. Jimmy has recently married and set up in a coastal home with the mother of his children. Although he has branched out from Nucky he still has fond memories of the days when they went hunting and fishing together and has commenced to do likewise with his young son. The mother of his children had social ambitions and nearly ran off with the wife of the local photographer to Paris and with whom she had a lesbian affair in a ménage a trios while Jimmy was in Europe. She now battles with Jimmy’s mother when she visits given the proximity in ages between the two women. Among his mother’s affairs is one with Sicilian born Lucky Luciano of New York who works for the Jewish Mafia boss Arnold Rothstein.

Two other characters remain central to the story. The first is Nucky’s brother Eli, who is married with a brood of children and care for their senile and demanding father. He is full of resentment for his brother having done some for his dirty work in the past as city Sheriff, having to care for their father and being dropped when he was badly shot when collecting funds for Nucky, Eli has also thrown his lot in with the Commodore as has all of Nucky’s closest allies in the City with the exception of the Mayor who he planted on the electorate and one other individual who appears to be trying to keep a foot in both camps.

The other central character is Nelson Van Arden the previously Protestant fundamentalist Federal Prohibition Agent who fell as they say for a whore who is now in the last stages of pregnancy and is kept as a recluse by Van Arden. When his partner worked out that his boss was using funds for his own purposes he was murdered by Van Arden whose wife is even more zealous than he. She comes for the weekend to Atlantic city to celebrate their wedding anniversary and is shocked by the licentiousness all around especially when one of her husband’s staff gives her a booklet advertising what appears to be things to do on a visit for Christians, except this is in fact lists the gambling joints, brothels and gin houses. Nucky first met Margaret when he was addressing the local temperance league which he financially supported. Van Arden takes his wife out for meal in a local hotel and she is shocked when they are offered their choice of alcohol to accompany the meal. Later he traps the head waiter into offering them celebratory champagne and this is the signal for a violent raid on the establishment which he closes down and confiscates the till, part of which he uses to fund his prostitute mistress.

The second series commenced in 1921 when New Orleans was also in its drink, drugs, gambling Prostitution heyday covered in the film Pretty Baby recently reviewed. In the first episode Chicago gangster Torrio is offered a great deal with a Canadian Racketeer and sends Capone to tell Nucky he no longer wants to trade with him because of the better deal. Capone combines the visit to settle the affairs of his father who has died and visits Jimmy for cakes and coffee. In the second episode Ourselves Jimmy goes to New York to do a deal with Rothstein and is told to negotiate with one of his younger officers Meyer Lanski. Luciano taunt Jimmy about his relationship with Jimmy’s mother. Jimmy does not take his enforcer on this trip. Richard Harrow who has lost half his face in the First World War and who Jimmy also uses as an assassin. Eventually Lanski offers Jimmy a deal in which Jimmy supplies the alcohol while Jimmy agrees to start a heroin distribution which is going to be bigger money earner in time.

Released from prison Nucky arrives back in time for a meal and meeting with a visiting IRA fund raiser. He has brought with him young cocky IRA hood who he asks Nucky to find a role as things have got too hot for him to return to Ireland, The young man flirts with Margaret and one of the maids takes a great shine to him, Lucky at first rejects the offer from the young man to use his talent for stopping people who get in the way until he learns that in another move the Commodore has leaned on he Coastguard to raid the ships smuggling in the alcohol.

In the third episode "A Dangerous Maid" Nucky takes Margaret out for a meal as a reward for her support and finds the Commodore with his cronies including his brother. He declares all out war including on his brother who he gives one minute to come back into his fold. Nucky calls on the new White House Justice Chief to intervene on the election fraud case brought against him, reminding that the man owes him a big favour.

There have been four episodes to-date of the famous 22 episode Italian gangster series, Romanzo Criminale based on a book written by judge and which is said to chronicles the development of a disparate group of petty Roman criminals in the 1970’s into a major crime gang which dominated the capital’s underworld for over a decade independently of the Mafia. I have seen the film previously but this is the first time series has appeared on UK TV.

The scene is the Magliana District of Rome which over the past century has become occupied by migrants from other parts of Italy and the rest of Europe. The forty thousand or so population live in substandard and illegally constructed tenement owner occupied flats on the bank of the Tiber River below flood safety levels and represent one of the poorer areas of the capital which has led to crime and political activism Italian style.

The TV series opens in the District in the present day when a middle aged Lebanese man is mugged by three young thugs. Soon after the man locates and shoots dead the leader of the trio reminding everyone of who he was in the past. The series then begins proper in 1977 when known as the Lebanese (Liban) led a small band of petty criminals with ambition. He lives with his mother abandoned by his father and dreams for wealth and power and is the brains for the take over Rome plan when their latest undertaking goes wrong. They steal Olivetti Typewriters from a truck by prior arrangement and instead of splitting the profit decide to buy a consignment of guns from a major player in the Rome underworld with Mafia links. He orders his men to keep an eye on the young punks to find what they are up to and do not upset his interests. They want the guns to carry out their first project into the big time the kidnapping of Baron with the help of an inside man, a member of staff at the stables whose main income is from illegal gambling and fixing race results.

The car in which the guns are stored is stolen by another group from the man made hill district of Testaccio an area which these days has changed from being similar to Magliana into a more prosperous centre for restaurants and nights clubs used by Italians rather than tourists. As consequence the two gangs team up to kidnap the Baron and ransom him for a large sum. The Baron is looked after by Lebanese contacts of Liban and is unintentionally killed. His minders are also killed for messing up the situation.

Leading the investigation is a young police Commissioner who is known as the Communist because he criticises police tactics used in breaking up a political protest in the district in which his estranged sister is spotted playing a leading part. Commissioner Scialoja intervenes because the police brutally kill one of the demonstrators; the student Georgiana Masi and Scialoja becomes anxious about the welfare of his sister when the protestors come to the police station to vent their anger

The Commissioner comes unstuck with his plan to find the Baron and capture kidnappers when his loses the money en route to the kidnappers. The case is handed to another young and ambitious Commissioner. Scialoja believes the kidnappers are Roman based on finding the same brand of Menthol cigarette at the scene of both the trick robbery and the kidnapping. The presiding Magistrate does not believe any of the Roman interests are involved and suggests the Sardinians based the Tuscany region. Scialoja‘s view appears confirmed when he learns of the movement of a Rome registered motorbike which failed to stop in Tuscany on a route leading to the Baron‘s family home about the time they had received the latest ransom demand.

Liban then persuades the majority of the two gangs to “bank” the haul with a view to buying drugs and control the distribution in Rome on similar lines to the Mafia of Sicily and Naples. There is only one condition that they do not form a hierarchical band but accept each other as equal partners or spend any cash until it is laundered as the notes are marked

The second episodes starts in an amusing way in that two members of the Testaccio gang bury the bodies of the killed minders in a shallow grave in the grounds of Pine Forest unaware that the land has been sold for development and then finding out by chance they have to return and break into the site which is now fenced off to retrieve the bodies and bury them elsewhere.

The Magistrate has decided to pass the kidnapping case to a young rival of Scialoja Commissioner Rizzo, an officer well-liked by his superiors. The two police Commissioners cross swords when Scialoja refuses to give up the case and goes to investigate the remains of man in a burnt out vehicle also in the Pine Forest area but it is not that of missing Baron. Scialoja’s number two, Inspector Canton has been through the entire Baron’s staff and found out that one has a record. This is Satana who was the informant for the kidnapping but who decided to take his share of the money and go on his own.

The efforts to buy drugs from the Sardinians on an industrial scale does do not go well as they demand a high percentage of the revenue for their role and Liban refuses. They can mark time as the notes are marked. They are then approached by the Gun seller with Mafia connections for a deal which is again refused. Liban with associates The Cold of the Testaccio firm and Dandi his friend talk over the situation on learning that instead of slamming the door he should have negotiated a compromise offer. They go back to the Sardinian and agree a 50-50 profit sharing arrangement with the caveat that if they fail he will kill them all.

Dandi is told about a new beautiful prostitute in town called Patrizia. He takes her roughly and quickly without attention to her needs and then asks if it was good. She tells him the truth and that he needs to learn how to treat a woman. She agrees to teach him for an appropriate fee and he falls in love and become possessive. He uses some of the marked notes.

The head of Testaccio gang is called The Cold and is estranged from his father because of the man’s treatment of the mother. He is protective and supportive of his younger brother who is at college and has an attractive girl friend and does not know the life The Cold leads or how he manages to give his brother a new Scooter. When the brother has an accident he meets up with his father in hospital and then offers to take the girl friend back to her home. They are attracted to each other but both hold back.

The episode ends with Commissioner Scialoja being advised that marked notes have been traced to shops in one area selling quality female goods.

It is with the third episode that the action gains pace and the two gangs of eight individuals begin to take off in their ambition to control Rome but as with all such undertakings they are too prove only as strong as their weakest link.

In order to sell their first consignment of drugs and meet their obligation to the supplier, the Sardinian, they divide Rome into districts so that in pairs they take responsibility for organising the distribution chains taking over existing pushers and their clients by a process of individual and collective intimidation.

On of these, the Chinaman is resistant. They conclude that if they allow him to opt out having offered him a retainer of 10% of the income on his patch the other half of Rome they are yet to control will refuse to accept the new set up. They kidnap the Chinaman, torture and hurt, and then take him to a site with a ready open grave where he begs for his life. They urinate on him and then take him back to his district dumping him on the road outside the haunt of his associate after he has accepted the deal.

In order to have brought the Chinaman into line they need their guns, which one of the group has told his school girl friend to keep under her bed. While his mate waits in the living room the other commences to have sex with the girl only to hear her father returning home unexpectedly. The two depart through the bedroom window without the guns. They return and one breaks in through the window after being refused entry by the father. Father discovers the gangster and makes him pay a small amount for the window and for the trouble before letting him take the bag containing the weapons on the understanding that he never has contact with his daughter again.

One member of the gang Buffalo is not required to organise a district but asked keep watch on one of the others. The anxiety appears to be well founded when he finds the man, called Puma, having contact with the provider of the weapons Terrible the boss of the Centocelle territory which for the moment the new order decided to leave alone with that the area of Sardinian who is also at the meet. Puma explains that he had not been able to organise the distribution and sale of a quantity of his allocation and had attempted to deal with Terrible but it had not come off. He warns that having done the hard work of creating a Rome wide system of distribution the intention of Terrible and the Sardinian is to push the new order out.

The weak link is Dandi, using marked to buy time with the girl who then buys herself a new wardrobe. Scialoja is having a drink with his Inspector in a bar who observes that the waitress has caught the eye of his boss. He advises that the girl earns extra money as a whore and recommends that every good Commissioner should have his whore informant. Scialoja thanks the Inspector for his brainwave working out that one of the kidnappers has been celebrating and asks for information on all the whores who have been arrested in the district recently and of these selects Patrizia as the most likely and keeps watch. He sees Dandi leaving the residence with the young woman, Dandi having given her what is required to spend the day with him and he takes her racing where he follows the couple and photographs them together.

This is also the event where Buffalo has been keeping watch on Puma and he reports the whereabouts of Dandi who is missing when they sort out the Chinaman in numbers as well as force. They catch up with Dandi buying presents at the store unaware their colleague is being watched by the Commissioner. As they leave the Commissioner is able to photograph the three and then tail them for a while before the driver thinks they are being followed and slows down so the Commissioner drives on to the office to develop film and consult his Inspector. The Inspector is sceptical because Dandi is regarded still as petty criminal along with his associates and unlikely to have the means to have engaged in the kidnapping. The Commissioner announces that the next step is to visit Patrizia and make her his whore.

Dandi in order to compensate for missing the confrontation with the Chinaman offer to take responsibility for warning the Sardinian (Sardo) that they are aware of his games and he has to stop. He kidnaps and drives him into the middle of nowhere takes his expensive shoes and leaves him to make his way home in his stocking feet.

Scialoja breaks in and examines Patrizia’s apartment after waiting for her leave but remains until she returns. She immediately tries to seduce the Commissioner who is tempted but sticks to his mission and asks her to name the individual who has been given the money she has been spending recently on a new wardrobe. Thinking she has got her man she says Dandi adding she will not give evidence before a judge whereupon the Commissioner leaves.

Meanwhile there been yet another change of Government with the Communists being given a role. This is said to cause another shake up in the criminal underworld where they have links with the previous or the new order thus introducing the fact of extensive political corruption between politicians and the broader Mafia underworld in Italy.

Meanwhile as well the new criminal order have acquired 2000 sq metres of storage space available in a government building together with a caretaker who has got into gambling debts which they have paid off.

It is with the fourth episode that we come to the real life event which is at the core of the book, film and series, the kidnapping of Aldo Morro former Prime Minister of Italy 1963 to 1968 and (1974 to 1976) who as leader of his Party was kidnapped in 1978 by the Red Brigade and was killed after 55 days in captivity. But I am in advance of myself and the episode.

The gang have gone from strength to strength and the decision taken that having doubled their original capital and the money successfully laundered it is time to start distributing the profits on an equal share basis. Before the share out is completed, Liban calls on several comrades to help unload a vehicle which has arrived and reluctantly they go out to find that it full of young and not so young ladies of the night for the party that he has been planned. There is a riotous night of drink, drugs and sex although Liban himself remains detached from the festivities.

He instigates the move on the territory of the Terrible, the supplier of the guns by offering a new deal to one of his main drug pushers. His agent in this Scorcio is asked to return after consideration has been given to a deal and falls into a trap in which he is severely beaten and given a message to pass to Liban in private. His injured body is dropped in the yard outside their hangout and is rushed to hospital where he survives. Alerted to the hospital admission the Commissioner and the Inspector go to the hospital coincident with the visit of the partners in the two gangs and Scialoja manages to overhear the private conversation by listening through the wall of the ladies toilet.

We learn that the message relates to an incident many year ago when Liban had crossed Terrible in some way and had been overwhelmed when in his car with his girl friend. He had first made to watch as sexual acts were forced on the girlfriend and then he had his arm deeply slashed and cuts on his legs. Reference to this means that Terrible is saying if he wants war he will get war.

There is then a conference with the Sardinian supplier and his top men arranged by Puma and it is agreed that there has to be a deal negotiated, for now. Reluctantly this is agreed although Liban is incensed and vows vehemence when they are stronger. The three meet with Terrible to insist on getting a significant cut of the rest of Rome wide operation.

The Cold sees his bother’s girl friend who has been baby sitting over night to pay for her college fees where she is training to be a teacher, They have breakfast at a cafe close to her flat and the proprietor immediately knows who The Cold is. He returns later with a gun to ensure the man does not reveal how he earns his money. The man reminds that the girl is a nice young woman. Later The Cold meets the girl as she leaves from her college and he attracts admiring comments from her friends. They go to the fair for the afternoon and she says she had a great time and on dropping her off at her lodgings she goes to kiss him but he withdraws. Reminding of the relationship with her bother and other reasons. The brother then comes to see him without notice because the girl has broken off the relationship without explanation. The Cold promises to spend time with him as soon as he returns from a commitment. He promises to fix things for him. He goes to see the girl who says she does not want his brother but him. They kiss passionately.

The Commissioner breaks into the prostitute’s flat once more before she awakes ostensibly to warn her that war is to break out involving Dandi. She dismisses this and comments that there is always war breaking out between the different factions but they always settle on a handshake, thus imparting the knowledge of what has happened. She thanks the Commissioner for his concern stroking his cheek before he leaves.

He feels he has enough evidence to prove to the Magistrate that he should be put back on the case of the missing Baron, mentioning that there is now an alliance between all the criminals’ networks in the city. The Magistrate says he is too busy to give the matter any attention as the former Prime Minister has been kidnapped after his guards were shot dead and is believed to be in the hands of the Red Brigade.

However later when senior police officers and in conference with senior politicians they report that there is now a city wide criminal alliance.

Liban returns home and hands a mink coat at the end of his mother’s bed while she sleeps. Far from being delighted and impressed she is horrified asking him to leave home because she cannot bear to have him with her knowing that he will shortly be dead from his criminal activities. We see him sitting on a beach at the coast wearing the fur and crying.

Now the best dramatic serial of the season, surpassing Spooks. Next piece of writing though.....

2164 The Karla Trilogy begins (3)

Episode five of Tinker Tailor begins with Jim Prideaux ((Ian Bannen) allowing one of the school boys to drive his Alvis around the sports field supported by other boys who it is evident he has taught to drive in the past. Jim draws attention to someone at the edge of the field pretending not to be looking at them which raises his suspicion because the man is not a master or someone from the village. He says in a tell tale phrase that we cannot have a JuJu man going around and he asks the boys to report if they see him again or any other stranger.

Later at night we see Jim in his caravan check the dressings on the wounds on his back where he was shot. He then goes out and digs up a package which proves to be a revolver and this is seen by Jumbo Roach, a small wimp of boy wearing glasses who Jim identifies as someone who like him is a loner and keen watcher and observer. The boy has taken to heart to be on the look out for Jim and sees him dig up the package and uses the caravan door stepping stool to see what is happening through slightly opened curtains. He falls and injures himself so Jim explains that like the wound in his back the gun is a souvenir from his life as soldier and his secret to be respected by Jumbo who he trusts. Jumbo says they nearly decided to call him Bulldog after Bulldog Drummond but chose instead to nickname him Rhino because the creature was bigger and more suitable for how they viewed him.

Smiley goes to see Sam Collins, who is to feature so much in the Honourable Schoolboy, at the gambling club where he works. He wants to talk to him about the night Jim Prideaux was shot and explains that he has been called in by Lacon with the Minister’s approval as the case has been reopened. Jim has returned to London from three years in Tokyo and was about to go for a holiday in the South of France when Mendel, Control’s Minder, called him to act as Duty officer for the night.

He had found the condition of Control a shock. It was like opening a coffin lid and he did not waste time on pleasantries. Control explained that he had officer on an important mission which could change everything. Sam had to bring any message by any means to him direct by hand but waiting to ensure the coast was clear. Afterwards he is not telling anyone anything including Smiley, Haydon or Bland.

During the night suddenly everything happened with contact from the Foreign Office and then approaches or reports from the media including Reuters that someone accused of being a British agent had been shot. Sam had gone to see Control who appeared stunned and speechless by the news. He had said that whether the man was shot or not they could deny they were not involved. He asked for Smiley who Sam reminded was out of the country. Control said it did not matter Sam should fine someone, anybody. Control asks for Mendel to get him a taxi and Sam reminds that Mendel was sent home. He contacts Mrs Smiley just as the communications officers reports that that the man has been named.

Haydon arrives and Sam assumes he was advised by Mrs Smiley as a family friend. Haydon says he heard about the shooting party on the ticket tape at his club. Sam reports that the man is Prideaux accused of trying to kidnap a General in a forest near the Austrian border. There are reports of tank and troop movements. The Minister and Lacon have been in contact wanting to know what has been going on. He has sent out calls to Smiley, Alleline and Brand. Haydon takes charge and tells Sam to contact Esterhase to pick up the two Czech students at the London School of Economics they had their eyes on and lock them up. Jim is worth more than these two but it is a start. If Jim is dead he will strip the staff of Czech embassy to the bone and pass that on to his master (Control).

Sam praises the way Haydon handled the situation including the Foreign office press statement which he dictated. Sam had then had a good breakfast at the Savoy and gone for two great months in the South of France. On return he had been called to Alleline who was acting Chief. Wanted to know how he came to be duty officer as someone called Masterman was on the rota. Sam had denied Control’s involvement saying he had needed the extra cash for his trip to France. They had sacked him for alcoholism because he had taken five cans of beer to get him through the night and there was a standing Order against drinking while on duty. Smiley explains he had also been sacked because he could not convince them he was not involved.

Sam offers to help in anyway so George points out that it was too late for the ticker tape at the club and that Haydon had been with Smiley’s wife Anne. She had kicked him out of bed and he had come in but Sam had not told him about Czecho yet Bill knew all about Czecho.

Jim goes to meet George by prior arrangement outside the school but nearby. George explains that he does not have access to the papers because he is black balled by the Circus but he has got some information from Lacon including a reference by Haydon to the man at Oxford who recruited Jim. Haydon had said Jim has that heavy quiet which commands. He is my other half- Between us we make a marvellous man. He asks nothing better to be in my company or that of my wicked divine friends. He’s a virgin about eight feet tall and built by the same firm as Stonehenge. Jim comments that they were then children.

They go to a motel. Jim says he came round in a hospital where they patched him up after a fashion and in a prison cell. He worked out a campaign to survive and tell a story which would convince leaving out what they wanted to know. So he commenced with the cover story given by Control so he could keep away from the subject of the Mole and Control and keeps his networks which he was the first to establish in that country. However they knew it all, the networks and the names, Controls briefing in St James, and Tinker Tailor. They knew about his flat but did not know about the charts, until later. Smiley tells him that all his agents were shot and the story is that he blew them to save his own skin but Smiley knew this was not true. Jim is sick and they go for walk when he tells about what happened after capture and the use of electrical torture. He was always on the move and once in a plane in which was hooded. He thinks he was in Russia part of the time. He hoped he would go mad but they knew how far to go before the long interrogation where he broke because he ran out of stories.

He told them all they wanted to know and the interrogator was a frosty bearded man who smoked powerful cigarettes non stop. He asked about Circus title tattle and re Smiley he explained how he had got the lighter with the inscription and then added that after Bill Haydon’s involvement Smiley might like to change the inscription. Smiley says that Haydon was one never to use the regulations while Jim added you were one never to see him straight. Smiley mentions that Haydon did all he could to get Jim back but poses why there was never contact between the two afterwards. He moves on to what happened at the debriefing centre and if the interrogators were sympathetic or hostile.

Jim says that he was left alone and eats, drank and slept a lot until Esterhase arrived in a new suit and gives him £1000 on top of his gratuity. Tells him Circus had nearly gone under and Jim is number one leper. Toby knew the whole story about Tinker Tailor and Smiley asks how did Toby know that. Jim says that is what he had been doing obeying orders and leaves but as with Sam Collins George has been sowing the seeds which should eventually get back to those involved that he knew what had been going on.

Part six begins with Smiley meeting Jerry Westerby the Honourable Schoolboy of the second book in the trilogy played by Joss Ackland and who in judgement does not fit the concept of Jerry the Honourable Schoolboy novel. Not Ernest Hemingway enough for my liking.

Jerry is now a journalist drinking heavily and at the margin of financial stability, sounds like Le Carré father. Smiley mentions that he destroyed the letter sent to him after the Prideaux fiasco but he not acted upon it as Jerry might have suspected.

Jerry elaborates what was in the letter he had undertaken what proved to be his last job as a courier for Toby Esterhase, delivering a package and had to go to Prague for his official newspaper role when what he came across was by accident and nothing to do with Tobe. He was in a bar in Prague with a crowd at a corner table when a youth with a military haircut shouts in the ear of Jerry after realising he is British: does he want to know the truth about the English spy that had been caught. The big point was the Russian contingent full works with a big car load of sinisters. The Russians are after a British Spy who was kidnapping a General. This was a day before the event so they knew what was going to happen. Big story so he took it back to Toby. Big story. Bad for Chief bad for tribe. His reaction was thanks a million, at first. He would go and POW WOW with the top and the following morning Toby rants at him says he is so plastered these days and is in cuckoo land. Toby says the boy was plant to sell a false story to the Circus.

Jerry says he will sell story to his paper although not the bit the advance information. He was called in by the Editor who had been told to keep Jerry off the story and make no further reference as to so would not be in the National Interest. He had sounded off to Smiley and thought it was Smiley who had then contacted the Editor. He had felt bad about this when Smiley had got the heave ho.

Jerry comments as they eat their meal and drink beer that Toby was rum just as he had thought something was odd about the reaction to what he had been told and passed on. He ends by asking his love to be passed on to Ann- one of the great marriages which leads Smiley to say out with it and for Jerry to say some tale which he told Toby to stuff up his silk draws

We now go back to the school where the headmaster (John Wells) is upset because Jim has taken off on leave because his mother is dying. The headmaster is on the rugger field as the school is losing. His mother comments that at least it is not an excuse Jim can use again. Wells comments that he will ask for a medical diagnosis next time. Jumbo Roach reassures the other boys that although Jim has taken the Alvis because he would not trust other forms of transport, he is coming back as he has left the caravan and has not said goodbye.

Toby is called out by Peter to meet a prospect, a Pole in the Fur trade who could be a courier only to be confronted by Smiley, Guillam and Fawn, Smiley thinks there is someone in the street, a shadow, perhaps, and sends Fawn down the street to check. Toby says that if he had brought baby sitters there would have ten or twelve individuals walking up and down.

George tells Toby what he thinks happened; how someone sold Merlin and Witchcraft to Alleline saying all the right things which would feed into his aspiration to be become Control. Esterhase who starts defiant becomes more and more anxious as George reveals the inquiry and meeting is official with the backing of Lacon and the Minister and that far from sending chicken feed in return for gold dust they have been giving away the crown jewels. He then explains to Esterhase that in order to demonstrate to Moscow that they have a Mole with in the Circus that would have had to create a legend...a history of someone who was not the real Mole and the obvious choice was Toby because it was he that delivered the packages of information to Merlin and kept him supplied with film to photograph documents within the Embassy. If things went wrong as they now had, Toby was the fall guy at which Toby offers all his support including that of his Lamplighters although he would have to see Lacon personally to get his authority. George says all he needs is the address of the safe house which they use to meet with Merlin which he readily gives whereupon he told he will be kept secure for a few days and will have to provide a convincing cover for his absence to the Circus and to his wife.

There is one fascinating aspect of the address where Toby is taken to meet the fictitious Fur Trader, Lexham Gardens and which I visited for meetings during 1961 some fifty years ago although these were not of clandestine nature.

After the meeting George walks back from Lexham Gardens to the Hotel in Paddington which he has made his headquarters and from where he had come for the confrontation with Guillermo acting as his baby sitter and Mendel keeping watch on both of them. This is a fair walk from the Cromwell Road in Kensington going up to Kensington High Street and then paralleled along the Western side of Kensington Gardens into Bayswater and the Hotel to meet Lacon for an update meeting, one presumes sometime later after Lacon had consulted the Minister.

Smiley is given the green light with Minister through Lacon pleading to avoid anything messy such as the Russian boasting how they got all the secrets for years. He comments that what the Russians achieved would be beautiful in another context.

He would arrange something to cause panic and force Gerald have a crash meeting with Merlin alone at the safe house. To achieve this Smiley sends Ricki Tarr to the Paris Office where he forces his way into the Circus station communications office and send a message to Alleline saying he has evidence vital to safeguarding the welfare of the service. Alleline can be assumed to consult with Haydon and Bland now that Esterhase was out of the frame.

The seventh episode is the grand finale when most viewers should know who the villain is even if they have not read the book or now seen the film for such have been various clues.

At the start of each episode there is a short reminder finale of the previous and then the opening credits with Russian multiple doll indicating the layers or levels of the story to be unravelled.

Smiley with Guillam prepare Merlin’s safe house by putting two milk bottles out to indicate safe entry. Guillam shows the new recording system which is voice activated to save in recording tape. Mendel has positioned himself outside the Circus to report the arrival of the trio and to try and spot who leaves first for the crash meeting with Merlin. George still has the sense that they have been followed by one individual on their recent movements. He goes out for a brief walk while waiting admitting that he is nervous about what is to happen.

In order to maintain dramatic momentum we are not immediately a party to the recorded conversation between Haydon and the Russian. We have to wait for this until Alleline and Bland are summoned, Lacon called and Esterhase brought from his location and the recording is played with us hearing the key moment when Haydon asks the Russian to get Karla to get him out.

Smiley suggests to Alleline that they do a trade with Karla over Bill in exchange for as many of their agents in the field whose cover Bill has blown. They have professionally ended their usefulness hence in the Honourable Schoolboy there is great excitement when the Station on the hill suddenly closes and all the electronics of the day dismantled, as they are elsewhere in the world. This is all mater of fact except for Peter who strikes at Haydon and demands to know how many agents he has been responsible for their deaths 200, 300, 400?

To rub Alleline’s nose in it Smiles suggests that he gets cracking right away with the Russian who is after all his direct link to Karla, Lacon agrees saying that he still the official head of the Service, for the time being. The inquisitors arrive to take Haydon away. As he goes Haydon calls out- All the best Percy! Fawn goes with Haydon while Peter and Smiley walk back to Smiley’s home this time. They are being watched by Jim Prideaux s they leave.

Peter apologies for striking Haydon expressing his disappointment at the downfall of the man he regarded as a hero. George thanks him for his important contribution

Jim is now keeping watch on Haydon at his holding in a military style camps with large huts with a simple see through wire fencing around the compound. George visits Haydon who moans about the quality of the interrogators who imagine he knows the names of the other moles Karla has placed around the world. It is evident that through Lacon Haydon has asked to see Smiley to press for the exchange and to answer his questions. Smiley says why, when how? Haydon laughs saying you ask that why, because it was necessary, someone had to. He refers to their recruitment and role as freedom protectors and service to the great cause and then breaks down in tears.

Do you know what’s killing Western democracy George Greed and constipation moral political aesthetic? I hate America very deeply. The economic repression of the masses institutionalised. Even Lenin could not forsee the extent of that. Britain Oh dear no viability in world affairs. I suppose that is where it began When I saw how trivial we’d become as a nation say in the forties. By 1950 I was slipping Karla occasional gifts of intelligence carefully selected morsels to help the Russian case against America. At that time I was scrupulous not to give Moscow anything harmful to ourselves, against our own agents in the field. I still believe the secret services are an expression of the nation‘s character. Until the mid fifties I still had hopes of what we represented. Self delusion of course. We were already America’s street walker. I was granted soviet citizenship twelve years ago. They have given him a couple of medals. Smiley listens to all this impassively.

When he reports to Lacon he wonders what medals? He hopes they will get more information from him of substance George echoes Bill’s observation about the laxity of arrangements where he is being held and where noone patrols the perimeter day or night. Smiley is concerned about Haydon’s safety. Lacon says George is being melodramatic. He can only go to Russia and we are sending him there.

Lacon also wants to know why Percy Alleline was put in charge and not Bill. Bill explains this directly to George saying it was better Alleline was the front man attending to the admin, the dinners, the meetings chewing the cud in Whitehall which would have bogged him down. He had Bland an Esterhase to run around for him. George says never happened to Control. Haydon explains that Control was a natural recluse (he could have added like you George). I could never have got away with it.

Later inside the detention room Haydon admits that Control had got close, did well which and surprised Karla given that Control was so ill. The offer from the General which caused the near death of Prideaux had not been a genuine one. He had been confident Control would send for Jim, someone outside of London station because of background. It had to be someone who was old Circus to bring the Temple down a bit. It was the most famous partnership the Circus had the iron fist and iron glove. I got him home didn’t I? Yes says Smiley, that was good of you.

Bill adds the thing with Anne was Karla’s idea. He said you were the one threat and that if you were preoccupied with what we were getting up to and if it was well known around the place I was her lover it was bound to look like personal vengeance. Karla said not to strain it but if possible join the queue. Presumably it was n Karla‘s instructions you were with Ann on the night of the shoot out, as insurance. Oh yes he was adamant about it. Lacon has discussed with George the need to tell Anne about Haydon and to ensure she report any form of contact in the future, Smiley said he had proposed to tell her anyway as a kind of balancing.

Before Smiley leaves he agrees to pas on a cheque and note to female friend of Haydon and to arrange £200 from the reptile fund for a boy, not an angel but a Cherub.

Jim who has been staking out the situation, seeing Jim clothes be collected for a cleaners visits and this enables him to get a message to see Haydon. After questioning about what happened he breaks Haydon’s neck.

Jim returns to the school and helps Jumbo Roach with a reading in the school chapel. Smiley holds a meeting with Alleline, Brand and Esterhase with Peter and Lacon present. He speculates how Haydon died via a message with his suit delivered from the cleaners; He announces he has been asked to look after things for the time being and that everyone should take leave after which there will be some redeployment, for those who wished to remain in the service.

Smiley presses his wife with the question did she love Bill which she says no, poor George. Life is still such a puzzle to you. She had previously suggested that Bill enjoyed being a traitor and she was glad his life had ended because he would not have enjoyed retirement.