I received an Income Tax notice on Friday which claimed I had underpaid tax by about a third and which as all my income is PAYE deducted was surprising and even more so when it appeared my income was significantly greater than the official notice from my occupational providers who supply the notice for end of year tax purposes. I understood how the mistake had been made but the task of getting an immediate correction proved time consuming and possibly a substantial telephone bill. I spent hours in spells trying to talk to someone being told to wait for an advisor. Eventually I got fed up and rang my occupational pension provider and got another automatic response revealing that the notice was a mistake and should be ignored as there was blunder at the Inland Revenue which was being investigated to find out what had happened. Thinking this was just a regional problem I mentioned to a London based family member who said that another relative who is not a pensioner had a similar experience. Does this mean those who have got an overpayment notice are to be disappointed?
Before continuing with the Leveson Inquiry it is time to catch up on some entertainment TV as the programme bank is nearly full so I will do some cops and robbers 21st Century style and three stories from Blue Bloods the series based on the NYPD. They are entertainments based on communicating the difficulties confronting an NYPD police officer similar to its predecessor Hill Street Blues but with the added twist of covering a family where five members are hold present or in one instance past ranks from Police Commissioner to Rookie, Street Co Detective or Assistant DA. While this is a device to demonstrate that despite the challenges it is possible to have a married life with extended family lunches around the Sunday dinner table there is a strong dose of reality medicine within the sugar coating.
Tom Selleck is Francis "Frank" Reagan, the USA style Police Commissioner and widowed father of Danny, Erin, and Jamie. His role is more like that of the present London Commissioner working to a Mayor than the elected Public Interest supervisor to be introduced into the UK next year. It appears that Frank is a personal appointee as are the other Chief Officers and once a new Mayor is elected, possibly of a different political party all the chief officers offer their resignations enabling the Mayor to accept any from those he dislikes or seek a major policy change which it is felt the individual opposes.
There has already been a I am a Black Mayor you are a middle class White Cop prejudice start to the new Mayoral reign. This raised its ugly head again in the second episode of three now covered as the second season draws to its close as “Black and Blue”, An outspoken local clergyman and long time friend of the Mayor allowed two of “henchmen” to throw Will Estes as Jamison "Jamie" Reagan, rookie police officer and former Harvard Law graduate, Frank’s youngest son, down a flight of stairs together with his sergeant who is badly injured and hospitalised.
The Clergyman then arranged for a line of male parishioners to prevent the police gaining entry to the building and commenced to harangue them with multi channel TV news crews in attendance and a larger crowd of parishioners all black with the majority of police white. Frank attends the scene as does the Mayor and Frank ignores pressure to commence talking and orders his men to move the non violent civil disobedience blockade of the building and finds that the two men have escaped through the rear. It is amazing this was no planned for but this is the kind of series where it is best to go with the flow and not question too much.
The Commissioners then increases his popularity stakes with the Mayor and Black Community by arranging a search of the Church premises, undertaken by his middle son Daniel "Danny" Detective Reagan played by Donnie Wahlberg together either his sister, Bridget Moynahan as Erin Reagan-Boyle, Assistant District Attorney and single mother or Danny’s female partner Jackie Curatola (Jennifer Esposit). Once on the premises Jamie having been injured, goes along to assist identification of the culprits that could have ended the career of the sergeant is able to confirm the two attackers from named photographs on a wall and this quickly leads to their capture.
Meanwhile Frank has been checking out the Pastor with various interests and established that there has been official interest for sometime arising from the misuse of government funds and this also leads to his arrest. It gets the Mayor of the hook who admits that he had his reservations about the lifetime contact which led to him keeping the man at arm’s length long time back but the man had political clout so as a politician he had to go along with the situation.
Jamie also features in the main other story of the episode named Medicade when as an uncover officer working the clubs he is contacted by the son of the local Mafia boss (also under investigation by the Feds) whose life he saved when he overdosed on some bad drugs and Jamie took him to casualty and then departs to protect his position. The Feds had been hoping for this contact wanting James to go under cover again for them but because of the danger this is optional and Jamie has his doubts about maintaining a legend during any ongoing relationship required with involvement in such a family.
Jamie agrees and attends a large family gathering at the son’s restaurant where he is first quizzed by the mafia boss who appears satisfied with the explanation why he did not stay with his son at hospital. Jamie is also warned off the attractive daughter who is rehearsing the song Hallelujah and insists on accompanying the two young men when the Mafia son announces he is off to pay his respects to the drug dealer who gave him the bad stuff. Jamie has been advised that he is to observer and report but not give himself away or actively participate in any criminality. He manages to get out of cutting the man after he is forced to take a lethal cocktail of snorted drugs. James finds the experience unpleasant and not his cup of tea when he is forced to leave the man without medical and quickly returns to uniform street duties. One suspects this is the start and not the end of this particular story line.
This is a grey area where it is evident that on both sides of the Atlantic it is unrealistic and impractical for undercover officers not to participate in unlawful activities to a degree especially in situations where the idea is to gain the confidence of ringleaders and gain access to membership lists and representational meetings with other groups nationally and internationally. In the recent real situation discussed at some length the individual became confused, to put it mildly, commencing a serious long term relationship with one individual and over the eight year period getting to like and have more in common with them than his only family, friends and colleagues.
The episode is called Medicade because of an insurance scam in which there is prior arrangement for a vehicle to be driven into the back of a stationary one, enabling an individual make substantial personal damage claims. What goes wrong is that the person making telephone contact is killed when taking off his seat belt to retrieve the phone which has slipped out of his hand. Danny solves the case. In the story Danny and his wife are having a romantic weekend with an evening meal and hotel stop over away from their two sons who are having a boys out with their dad and great granddad Henry Reagan, retired Police Commissioner, played by Len Cariou who is in fact only five years older than his actor son in real life and therefore requires some aging make up to justify the age difference of father and son.
The boys are taken out for a meal, do some fishing and watch a western until they sleep. They experience a similar time to that which Frank had with his father and grandfather when he was their age and remains a lasting memory. The boys are told to enjoy their food out because when they grow up they will find there is a time when starting their own homes and families they will not be able to afford to eat out which strikes the boy’s as unfair. The story thus making the point of the important role of grand parents and great grand parents can have in passing on their experience (for better or worse).
The romantic evening goes badly at first when Frank is called out but after he returns the evening ends on a high note.
In "Lonely Hearts Club Jackie Danny’s partner goes undercover as an escort Internet site girl when she and Danny track down a serial killer who is murdering prostitutes in hotel rooms.
We see the first part of the latest murder when the girl bribes the reception clerk for a room to meet her client who asks her to turn round and it appears he then strangles her. This is correct but first he has injected a paralysing substance into her neck. The body is washed with surgical spirit as is the room to remove DNA. Later there I a record of two other similar killings and the three girls all have same build and appearance as Danny’s partner who has already had a narrow escape from being raped in an earlier episode. Danny is concerned but the girl is confident about doing the job she has trained for.
Danny interviews the bereaved mother only to find that she has become estranged because of her daughter’s way of life and says that she is not surprised by the death as she assume it would be a matter of time. I saw her behaviour as suspicious noting that we had not seen if the murderer was male or female. Despite having cameras and audio in the room things go awry and the assistant just about escapes with her life again. Danny rescues to find that the murderer(s) is in fact the interviewed mother and her son who believe they are doing God’s work.
Assistant DA Erin Reagan is still concerned that her teenage daughter Nicole "Nicky" Reagan-Boyle wants to join the force and is forcing her on a tour of artistic experience including the Met Opera which she enjoys more than anticipated and a contemporary art centre where she has considerable misgiving. She attributes certain qualities to one picture which her mother pooh pooh’s only to be supported by an attractive man who says he is an art agent who has direct knowledge of the artist. This provides the opportunity for mother to commence yet another romantic engagement. The daughter wears teeth braces to promote the notion that doing so does not make a young woman unattractive.
There is one other story line. Frank is facing union problems because of the political tax cutting budget and the union leader is proposing a pay freeze for a year but no job cuts and no out sourcing. Frank arranges a meeting at which the various departmental head outline their proposals to the union boss. One quip is the threat for the police to develop Blue Fl, mass sickness leave because of the inability to strike.
One of his retired father’s function is to arrange an annual sports event and meets one of his former deputies who boasts he is working for a private security corporation that had contracts in the USA as well as abroad. They want the grandfather onboard because they believe he will carry weight in their bid to take over some non policing functions. He declines because of expensive suits he will have to wear and a long tiresome train journey and not being available for the family as much as he would like especially his weekly Sunday roasts.
The things always ending well or relatively well is not so when looking at Cops and Robbers Italian style 1970 and based on true events when several collectives of young gangsters combined into one collective providing the whole of Rome with illegal drugs in Romanzo Criminale an Italian production with English sub titles. While the comparatively young handsome Police Detective, a kind of middle ranking senior officer with some independence reporting directly to the judicial system on the management of individual investigations, knows that members of the Collective were responsible for the kidnapping and death of someone early on, for several brutal gangland killings since and for the drug racketeering he is unable to gain sufficient evidence for a successful prosecution, although in one instance he did and higher ups arrange for the evidence to disappear.
His is also compromised in two ways. The first is repeated interventions to prevent his communist sister activist from arrest and imprisonment and in the latest two episodes viewed he arranged for her to leave the country to Paris as the situation becomes too hot following the kidnapping and execution of the former Prime Minister. He is photographed although we do not know who by. He is also attracted to the beautiful and confident upper class prostitute girlfriend of one of the senior members of the racketeers who repeatedly offers herself to him in exchange for not being asked to spy on her gangster lover. By the end of the two episodes the Detective has gone with another call girl who as a day job working in a bar.
His previous target Dandi whose a third lead member in the gang continues to cause his colleagues concern so they devise a plan to set up a brothel with his girl as the Madam so that she can become the full time official girl friend of Dandi. There is a complication during the two episodes when a punter dies from a heart condition and in order not to attract attention they get rid of the body unofficially. This causes two problems. The first is that the deceased was a friend of a friend recommended to the brothel because an Asian girl was known to be working there and the family is concerned about the disappearance. The major threat comes when the girl panics about the implications of covering up the death and makes contact with the police. She is silenced by money and threats, just before the Senior Detective arrives.
The focus of the first of the two episodes covered is the wish to get rid of the Gangster Terrible who has continued to control a major part of the city separately from the collective. He attempted to get rid of the leaders and take over their rackets and plans an assassination attempt. This fails and the two assassins are captured and forced to join forces with the Collective and enable the gang to enter the stronghold. However Terrible and escaped and gone into hiding. When this is discovered t Libanese is persuaded to let the leader of the original other gang to take a small group to take their rival out including piercing his heart with Libanese’s knife
The killing takes places on the big celebration of the wedding of the gang member who has got the school age girl pregnant. There are complications because of the need for the gangster to covert to Catholicism before the wedding takes place. The priest is given a large bribe of donation to the poor to expedite matters to enable the wedding to be organised early. Before the happy day there is an indication of the growing wealth of the syndicate in that there is a debate about which style of suit the young man will wear and they settle for a St Laurent.
Meanwhile a bank robbery has taken place with a death and the Detective chief believes he has evidence to pin the robbery on the man who killed Terrible and locks him up. I believe the individual has the nickname as the Cold. He is the one who had a regular girlfriend who had been going out with his younger brother who did not tell abut his life as a gangster until he was arrested in her presence and they have not had contact since. He is introspective and longs for a different life and has become moods and aggressive in his otherwise calm and sympathetic manner acting as brake on some of Libanese rasher moments. It takes time for others to find the man who had stolen the motorcycle of Libanese used in the robbery. The Motorcycle is placed outside the police headquarters while the Cold is in custody thus confirming that there is no real evidence. This all takes time meanwhile some of the friend wondered if The Cold had committed the robbery and this has filtered to him while in prison. Worse was to come when he is discharged and finds that by a majority the decision had been taken to open a casino.
There is more to the coolness between the two men. Libanese has become very ambitious. They had been invited to a lunch meeting with the Mafia who offer a deal to provide all the drugs allowing the new group to keep all the profits without requiring a cut from these. This only serves to increase money and the Mafia offer advice in going into business venture including property and investment speculation. The Cold hankers for keeping things small and for the past relationship. At one point the senior detective visits the small dingy club type haunt where they spend hours together playing pool and card games as well as a crime HQ. After his release The Cold makes friends with the young man who committed the bank robbery and who is more interested in the thrill than the money which to some extent meshes in with the Cold as well as sharing his passion for fast motorbikes so they go off and look at the stars and philosophise about star sign personalities. The Cold has told Libanese that the higher you rise the harder you fall.
No comments:
Post a Comment