Thursday 6 October 2011

2144 Blue Bloods is back as Somerset reaches semi Final with he Fourth Angel

Wednesday 5th October 2011 commenced as a workmanlike day, contained one moment of nervous tension, one emotionally challenging film and a satisfying edition of Do you know who are? It became an eighteen hour day.

I awoke just before the alarm so was in good state to get up and leave in time to reach the Leisure club just after 6 am. I swam for as long as I wanted without counting the length and than a sauna about 10 minuets before reading more of The Honourable Schoolboy. It was also a time for deep thought.

I visited Asda and discovered two bargains with glue stick two large versions for 50p so I bought 10 for £5 and will return on Friday for a similar quantity if available. The soft cover 40 pockets were also on special offer of 4 for £3 so I took all the available black plus blues for £12- amazing value for what I have paid in the past and which in past has involved visits to Wilkinson’s throughout Northumberland and Tyneside.

In addition I purchased to reams of paper and some pockets which have risen to £1.75 for 100. They were out of the £1 liquorice packets which I prefer so I settled for the others. Some milk, a lettuce, some tomatoes and beetroot, a new carton of mushrooms and a vegetable stir fry completed the purchase. This set up in a good mood.

On return I enjoyed one sliced tomato cooked in the microwave with the mushrooms, some cereal and coffee, with for lunch the stir fry chicken with a spicy Thai sauce and a few grapes. This evening there is prawn salad and stewed plums with custard.

Over lunch I watched the new second season episode of Blue Bloods which marked the arrival of a new Mayor who leaned on the Commissioner to hush up the circumstances of the murder of one of his staff. There was an additional complication in that the assistant DA daughter was also in favour of avoiding a scandal because of friendship with the wife who she happened to be dining with when the news came of the killing.

The scandal is that the man had become attached to a prostitute and had given his life trying to protect her from her violent pimp. The situation was solved by the Mayor who had contacts with immigration and was able to deport the pimp back to his central European country because he faced a capital charge but which begged the question of how he was able to enter the USA in the first instance.

I wondered how the series would shape up given that running throughout the first was the story of how the elder brother came to be killed by members of the force who were operating a corrupt racket. It was left to the youngest member of the family and rookie street cop to undertake the investigation throughout the series, on and off.

In this instance the young man was part of several police officers assign to work on particular undercover project- the use of a bar for the distribution of drugs. The young man helps another customer who has tried a new mix of substances and overdoses and arranged for him to go to hospital without revealing his undercover status. At the end of the programme he learns from his father that because of his work the bar has been closed but more significantly the man saved is a member of a crime family where to-date the Feds have been unable to place someone inside. Having saved his life, the gang member is known to be looking to thank his saviour and his father warns that his son will be asked to volunteer to develop this contact. The young man says he is OK with this as he and other members of the family are about their father accepting the offer of the new Mayor for a new contract made because although the Commissioner is while Irish and the Mayor black he remembers the common sense kindness which the Commissioner showed to him when a police officer on the beat and he was a young tearaway.

I watched the programme because of disappointment that it looked that Somerset would lose their last chance of gaining a semi final in the World Club Championship in India. They had won the toss and elected to bat against a strong South African club side but after a good start the runs fell well behind what was needed and the innings closed on good wicket for 146 for 6 with Kieswetter Van der Merwe and Buttler get the runs after Trego was out in the first over. The South African Team, The Warriors started well with 71 for 1 and needing to score at a rate of 3 runs very 2 balls to win. However the situation had dramatically improved when I switched back having lost wickets at 79 and 82. There were then to mini collapses at 98 and 101 and then at 124 125 127. A hit for six off the penultimate ball was poor consolation with 12 runs needed of the last ball. Somerset now play the second placed team in the other division on Friday afternoon’s semi final having finished top of their mini league.

I have not written again of the News of thee World Scandal although there has been one more pubic hearing by the committee and several important exchanges of letters. I have set aside this for next week thinking that Parliament would be reassembling after the Party Conferences. However the date is 11th September so I have a week to read up and assembled a summary report on the updated situation.

Until to day I had not been able to get hold of the text of the three sessions held by the Home Affaires Committee on the Rioting. I have just completed the printing out of some 150 pages to study next week. There will be a further session on the 11 of the 11 2011 at 11 with the new Police Commissioner and Bill Braxton from the USA following him. There is so much to write about here.

I have also just caught up with the fact that the Fixed Term Parliament Bill became and Act midway during last month. The Act fixes the date of the next General Election at 7 May 2015, and provides for five-year fixed terms. It includes provisions to allow the Prime Minister to alter the date by up to two months by Order. There are also two ways in which an election could be triggered before the end of the five-year term: if a motion of no confidence is passed and no alternative government is found or if a motion for an early general election is agreed either by at least two-thirds of the House or without division. It is because of this development there will be no State reopening of the Parliamentary session this autumn, for the first time in 150 years. The next opening will take place in May 2012 to mark the new situation.

I made good progress on the Document location and financial review although the work required several searches for information. I checked on the position of the Motor vehicle insurance and when the annual car service is required

I will leave Len Goodman’s interesting back story to piece on the last programmes in the series which concludes next week with the individual who work triggered the work which I have become engaged for the past eight years- Tracy Emin. I will conclude with the story of the Fourth Angel which featured Jeremy Irons, but for the morning

The unexpectedness challenge, interest and satisfaction with films tends to be greater when there is no expectation. The film grips you emotionally in the kind of way you wish you had not commenced to view At home you can switch off which I was tempted and which once the film ends and the cool head prevails and the film flaw prevail you wish you had. Jeremy Irons play the European Editor of the Economist weekly which enables him to travel extensively and regularly to Europe which for some reason includes India! He cancels the arranged family because of a sudden assignment which involves a few days working after which he will take the family on a tour of the sights.

For another unexplained reason they travel on an American airline and the plane develops technical fault and is diverted to Cyprus where it is taken over by alleged terrorists called the August 15th Movement and demand $50 million. The demand is agreed but as the women and children leave the hijackers spot a local assault team. The hijackers believing they have been set up commence to open fire on the fleeing passengers and because of a fuel leak spread which catches fire the plane not only explodes and fleeing passengers are consumed in the flames so that even those shot injured perish including Jeremy’s wife and daughter although he is among the 15 adults who survive together with his son.

Back home he consumed with grief, anger and guilt and spend the greater part of his time trying to find what happened and why. He has amazing connections for an economist does just with the American Embassy but with intelligence. The situation is complicated given an American airline, the involvement of Cyprus and an alleged International Terrorist group and becomes horrendously worse when Jeremy leans that for some unexplained reasons the captured terrorists are released in secret for political reasons.

His USA Embassy contact feeds him information which leads him to a Terrorist centre in London where four men arrive as he is seizing some papers in a central European language and because he is knows guns he is able to shoot his way out of the situation killing three of the four men.

This brings Forrest Whitaker to London as an FBI agent anti terrorist operations with authority which ensure the cooperation from Timothy West who represented the lead British Government Interests accompanied by Police and homeland security interests. He assigns someone to work with Whitaker plus a small team. Whitaker is primarily interested in securing the $50 million which he believes was the prime motive for the operation as their is nothing known about the alleged Terrorist movement and those killed in London were a disconnected group of known assassins and extortionists including of those involved with the hijacking.

It is at this point that a new female interest is introduced who appears to have been a former girlfriend of Jeremy and is a British spook/ or informed civil servant played by Charlotte Rampling who has a boat. He seeks information from her and also mentions that when it is all over he is thinking of buying a boat and going off into the sun with his son.

While the story lacks credibility it is so well acted to that one stays to leans how it will finish well. Our hero learns that another of those involved is coming to London and he is able to trail him (he rides a motorcycle) and follows him from the station to a hotel where the individual throws away a message which leads to a station deposit box holding a large amount of cash. Jeremy then works out an elaborate scheme in which he breaks into the country home of a colleague and friend for a hand gun (the two spend weekends shooting) goes to the theatre where he creates a scene at an interval to be remembered, then goes off an assassinates the villain in a taxi and then returns apologising to the bar lady at the end of show for his earlier behaviour.

Forrest Whittaker has already arranged to interview the surviving passengers and his initial reaction appears to be that he is satisfied with the explanations given by everyone. This is however a cover because he already suspects the CIA agent at the Embassy who had been feeding Jeremy with information of having some complicity and that the hijacking was not political but financial.

He interviews Jeremy again after the second shooting and of course there is the planted theatre alibi and that having gone shooting the weekend there will be residue. When he finds that the reported stolen gun from the breakin at the house of the friend is of the same make as the recovered spent cartridges he is convinced that Jeremy is involved but being set up by the CIA agent whose desk he bugs on a visit.

Jeremy is fed further information about the location of a hijacker in Paris which he visits and is at the point of killing him with a knife when the man’s daughter enters so he holds back and then leaves. The police arrive only a pair and are killed and the man escapes.

Finally Whitaker is able to persuade Jeremy that he is being set up and participates in the next provided lead which involves a shoot out on a train in Europe which leads to the killing of the last two baddies with Whitaker surviving shots wearing appropriate protection. Back in London Jeremy is picked up by Whitakers British Assistant for the CIA baddie who had organised the whole thing and who has secreted himself in the vehicle. Jeremy and the British assistant jump out of the moving vehicle while Jeremy leaves a grenade obtained from the Whitaker which blows up the baddie.

Meanwhile Rampling has found a boat for Jeremy to buy and her, Jeremy, his son and mother/mother in law set off for an enjoyable weekend sailing trip although we have heard before that there was one cabin. But I say the film was well done. The fourth Angel is a biblical reference. The film opened before 9/11 but was held back and eventually issued to DVD in the USA in 2003 and subsequently to channel TV.

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