Tuesday, 4 December 2012

2395 Start of December 2012 review plus Hunted, Secret State Royal Variety asnd Claridges

It is 7 am Tuesday 4th December 2012 and this short note is written to explain why there is a halt in my regular update writings. It was originally intended as an end of November round up but was overtaken by decisions to view all 8 Harry Potter films over five days and commence to read an epic account of Word War II in two volumes, The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, by Herman Wouk, some 2000 pages, told through  the eyes and ears of two families one of whom is appointed Naval attachĂ© to Berlin by the USA government in the weeks before the invasion of Poland. This is an important piece writing because it also provides a German perspective on the war and its origins.

My other reading although not on a cover to cover basis is the full Leveson Report, also 2000 pages and where the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime made separate speeches followed by replies from the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Opposition on Thursday afternoon in two one hour back to back sessions followed by a full day’s debate in the House of Commons yesterday. The consequence is that I am now engaged in three pieces of writing about political issues following my attendance at a political protest meeting in Jarrow about Government Policy on Social Welfare reforms, the Prime Minister’s attendance at an EEC summit on the next budget and a cease fire between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza which was a prelude to the United Nations decision to effectively recognise a Palestinian state, opposed by the USA and the UK abstaining and which as feared led to Israel threatening to implement further plans to occupy the West Bank with new settlements making a two state solution almost impractical.

During the same period there have been four by-elections to the House of Commons which although Labour convincingly has also has resulted in a major swing to the parties of the far right, especially the United Kingdom Independence Party and humiliations for the Liberal Democrats in particular and also the Tory party.

While my priority remains the artwork project,  Christmas  and  New Year this season involves me in making two trips and therefore an increase in my usual level of preparations and anxiety to get everything  ready.

I have serviced the car which involved substantial extra work and also taxed for another year. Taken with the expenditure required to tackle the appearance of the emergency warning light earlier in the year, this extra expenditure had wiped out the additional income that was to have been available for better debt management although on the positive side it has not therefore added to the debt.

I go to collect a new pair of spectacles on Thursday and in fairness the bill was less than anticipated for vary focal extra thin lens with protective coating, I have also selected a frame which will not rest on the nose. The presence of cataracts was again noted although immediate treatment is not required.

I have restocked with level arch files (30 Black from Staples and 20 each of blue and red) from a new supplier only at a little greater cost that the cheapest at Staples which was out of stock of blue and reds together with some cartridge inks, but more to print out the Leveson Inquiry report for around £30 including the paper and the lever arch files compared to the £250 for the  professionally printed 2000 page edition in its four volumes) It is absurd that one can pay as little as £1.50 for a lever arch file to over £5.

I have also had delivered a number of Christmas presents. The interesting aspect of the home deliveries, five in total, is that everything arrived on time or several days in advance. There was a brief moment of panic when early in the printing of the Leveson report, I thought the printer had gone wrong again especially as the code on the machine’s screen was not included in the on lime manual which I had been advised to consult. Fortunately I checked the machine again and what had happened is that during the replacement of one ink cartridge I had disturbed another and once this was spotted the machine functioned and the massive printing was completed over two days. This was great relief although given what happened before this did not pose the kind of disruption that was previously feared.

Because of including the Leveson Report in the artwork, by the end of today I will have achieved  more than half the 500 news sets of completed work for the month, after achieving the 500 last month, and will concentrate on making progress in the writing until the weekend and where given the loss of  ten working days this month I will have to work hard again to complete the planned target bringing to the total sets completed to over 13000 and 2000 for the year.

After the commencing to view all 29 Bond Films and completing the era of Sean Connery(6) and George Lazenby(1) I decided to bring forward  experiencing the  more substantial Harry Potter series of 8 films  which I viewed over six days. I have also arrange for Christmas  the first and last Harry Potter books to establish if my present appreciation of the film series is match with  a similar or greater appreciation of the writing. I am intending to go and see the latest Great Expectations this week despite viewing two version last Christmas on the TV and having a  quick read of the Dickens novel at the time. I am looking forward to the Hobbit being brought to the screen and a musical version of Les MiserablĂ©s and have added the two volume Tolkien and Hugo texts to Christmas and New Year readings

I have also managed to keep more than one eye on sporting events this past weekend although I limited the viewing of Sunderland’s 2.1 defeat at Norwich, a club which I have  visited twice and I did switch over last night from the Newcastle game at home to Wigan  after it was evident  they would win, (3.0) in order to also find out if I wanted to watch in full the Command Royal Variety Performance at Royal Albert Hall,  and which I do, as well as on the closing moments of the Leveson Debate and the new that the Duchess of Cambridge is pregnant, not planned to be announced until Christmas but brought forward because the need for the Duchess to be admitted to hospital for a few days in relation to severe morning sickness.

I must confess that after watching the first half of the England versus New Zealand at Twickenham on Saturday in 3D where they took a 12.0  lead which they progressed to 15.0 but then the All Blacks came back with great converted tries to reduce the lead to 1 point, so I turned off only to then learn that far from collapsing to defeat, England had themselves broken the backbone of the visitors with three glorious tries to achieve their first victory  in a decade and by the greatest of margins 34 points to 21.  Fortunately I was able to view the second half in its entirety on Sunday morning although not in 3D. I had watched Chelsea’s defeat by West Ham on Saturday which placed the temporary new manager to stop the rot immediately in the firing line as the team has so far only achieved two draw points from his three games in charge.

The County Cricket fixtures for next season have been published and I have already booked up to Croydon for the games at the Oval, a one day following by the County Championship in May. I need to investigate if there are tickets for the men and women’s 20 20 game against Australia  at the Emerites Riverside but which also clashes which Durham’s visit to Scarborough when I note there is now a Travel Lodge at the St Nicholas Hotel which I have stayed once in the past. There is also a visit to London for the Lords Game and to Brighton for Sussex as strong possibilities although the Nott’s visit comes too early  with my  having  visits two visits to the Midlands in March at birthday time and for Easter as well as short trips to  Croydon already arranged.

I made good shop at Tesco’s last Thursday followed by a  visit to four supermarkets on Friday afternoon, an all time record never to be repeated. Tesco is the more expensive of the three major supermarkets in South Shields but holding a £2 voucher plus another £6 if I spent  £60 in total plus double points on buying frozen food and fresh fruit and veg the higher prices appeared to make  the visit worthwhile. However I forgot to take the right voucher hence the need to call in again the following day where customer services handed a £6 cash back without a query. This was excellent service and the supermarket rose in my estimation.

On the Friday I also needed a petrol refill where I use the Morrison’s garage at Seaburn and enjoyed the run along the coast in the sharp winter sunshine. Travelling the coast road in daylight in all seasons between Seaburn and South Shields has been one of my great joys of the past forty years  and I have missed the run since deciding not to continue with membership of the Leisure club at the Marriott Hotel. In the past the lower  price at the pump plus the £5 voucher once or twice a year has been worth the extra mileage between the only two petrol garages now on the outskirts of Shields on the roads to Sunderland via  Cleadon Village and Newcastle, via the Newcastle Road.  I therefore decided to call in to see the final refurbishment of the adjacent Morrison’s to refill my rolling 3 month supply of sprats and of 3 for £2 liquorice and butter mints. Unfortunately there had no sprats and the offer had been withdrawn so I needed to call in at South Shield’s branch on the way home. I was also after some inexpensive Milano Salami as Tesco had also closed its 2 for 1 offer and was now demanding £1.70 for 100 grams. On my last visit to Morrison’s at Seaburn they were selling their Milano salami for half price  and this too has ended but I was able get 100 grams for £1 which I used in the home baked baguettes with olives and  leaves of lettuce.

I also need to call in at Asda for printing paper which they provide at under £2.50 a ream although they appear to be closing their cheaper stock as I purchased the last 4 reams available. They also appear to have closed their inexpensive 40 pocket display folders which leads be back to Wilkinson at the slightly higher prices. My policy of stocking in whenever the bargains appear has proved a good one time after time.

I am now well stocked in food and household supplies until after the New Year when I shall do a defrost of Freezer before another restock in case having escaped horrendous Winter weather last year, we experience another bad season.

I was not as good as I should with exercise or food eating last week although the use of the Obstructive Sleep Apnoea treatment has continued at an excellent rate  averaging closer to 7.5 hours a night than 7 and without a single miss. By coincidence the BBC has used two hours of prime time viewing this week to show the extent of disruptive sleep in the UK including the problem and serious life threatening risk for those who breathing stops during the night.

Because of all my other activities I have not devoted as much effort to the exercise as over the first four week, missing out twice in the past ten days and having two sessions where I did not achieve either the set time of 30 mins or the calorie burn of 265 or more. Of greater concern ahs been the decision to eat up the extra bought for Christmas over the week which included a carton of Pringles Crisps, a pack of six mince pies wolfed over two evenings, a packet of salted peanut and late evening eat of a salami slice within two cheese slices this undoing all the good work of the previous month. I could not resist a pack of four puff pastry mince pies over the weekend but I working hard again having had a salad on two days since and no late evening snacking but with the extra working a and activity, and the cold weather, it is a challenge.

The series Hunted has come to an end with Melissa George in the lead role. It was originally to be start of a longer term series but the BBC decided against further support quite rightly in view of complicated story line which lacked credibility although the programme makers hope to find a new channel for a reconstituted series.

I had expected much from the same creative team that  has Spooks to its credit along with having worked on the X Files and other class productions. As with similar series where the arching story is not resolved until the final; year series Hunted posed such a longer term story, but instead of having episodes with a beginning and end in terms of a separate stories with resolutions, had a single series story that was complex with too many tentacles which lacked credibility.

First the several years story concerned Sam Hunter who has witness the torture and killing of her mother as child and who understandably had blacked out event details. Year later as an adult she is working for a criminal security firm  as a field operative, prepared to kill, use physical violence and break laws such as breaking entering, stealing, bugging and all forms of illegal surveillance on behalf of those with the money regardless of their motives or country allegiance. What we learn is that the head of this organisation wants Sam dead, as appears a second mysterious character, although paradoxically he wants to keep her alive, we presume until she is able to remember what her organizational boss has been ordered to kill her for. The organization, Byzantium,  boss moreover is part of an international conspiracy to rule the World (another form of Spectre no less). One of the leading members of M16 possibility its head is killed because he has been investigating this international conspiracy called Hourglass for sometime.

The series commenced with Sam sent to Algiers to rescue someone kidnapped only to hand him over for someone else to kill, although she does not know this and where she was  supposed to have been killed after completing the mission. She goes into  hiding for a year to recover from her wounds and to have a child by one of her colleagues in the organisation, She is then nearly killed by being drugged and drowned and during this time she remembers what happened in childhood although we are not disclosed what she remembers. She is then set up to be taken and killed but has a fake death instead organised by her fieldwork boss and carried out by the unit leader. We see her with her secret child at the home of her mother or at least brought to her by her mother in the wilds of Scotland where she had disappeared for the year after the first attempt on her life. This was meant to herald  the next phase of the story until the BBC pulled the plug so we were and may be are, left in mid air. Do we care? If we did should we?

Sam tells the father of her baby that she lost the child and has him top the list of suspects behind the attempt on her life with all her other colleagues also listed.  He was supposed to have been her back up in Tangier. In fact he is either a Member of British intelligence or the link person with British intelligence who understandably what to keep tabs on such a criminal organisation.

The main issue of the first series is enabling the customer ( the Chinese?) to win a multi million contract and preventing this being  won by a former small crime boss turned big time  international investor, Hedge fund controller and business man called Turner. He has built his success by rigging the market for his product by causing a  series of disasters which do not  normally cause  a loss of life, although  in the latest which  raises £30 million to win the tender, a passer by does.

However Turner uses a local crime boss who runs a  snooker hall and who in turn employs a psychopathic younger man to carry out the work, who in fact is the illegitimate son of Turner  and who is responsible for several killings in the process. A member of the organisation  is sent to become a friend and work for the local crime boss to try and retrieve a case which seems to be important and this man is subsequently set up to take the fall for an assassination related to the tendering process. This leads to the killing of the local crime boss by the illegitimate son of Turner and who in turn is killed after he has also killed a police  detective in the pay of Turner.

Sam  participates in a  fake kidnap attempt on the grand son of Turner in order to get the job as nanny/companion to the boy whose mother is suppose to have committed suicide while balance of mind was disturbed but in fact had been slowly drugged and then drowned by Turner and his henchman because she was threatening to leave the home with her husband and son. Turner’s son  is a pathetic individual who does not stand up to his murdering father and with whom she has sex after gaining he confidence of the  boy who begins to look upon her as a substitute mother. She walks away without regard to the impact of her involvement ion their lives.


Turner has contempt for his son  and tolerates him as long as he has overall control of the grandson. When they find they are being  kept under surveillance by a member of the organisation  they kidnap and torture the man in a secret lower basement to the family property and Sam is instructed to kill her colleague before he gives her up and her purpose.

The Unit leader begins to have misgivings about his work and consults the local priest but still is involved in the killing of two innocent people in order to also protect the position of Sam, He is eventually offered to take over from  the Fieldwork head who is dying of cancer and uses a high class whore from time to time and who appears to have no other function than to add some sex to the series, the whore that is although the same can be said for the fieldwork boss. Is everything clear?

The Minister in charge of the British Secret service is hinted at being part of  the International conspiracy or in the pay of  the organisation.

I mention this aspect because by comparison an excellent short series on Channel Four called The Secret State  also involved secret relationships between government and International Corporations and Banks and which has the excellent Gina Mckee as an investigative Journalist.

The British Prime Minister visits the Head of an American Company where an explosion at a factory based in a Northern Town has killed people and devastated several streets. The British want appropriate compensation. The company plane on which the Prime Minister flies home blows up killing everyone on board and the Black Box is not immediately found. In fact the explosion on the plane was caused by the same rocket fuel being developed at the factory which caused the explosion. However a  conspiracy between the firm, a bank and several leading politicians at Cabinet level aided by a fascist General at the  heart of Government make it look as if the Prime Minister was killed by someone on behalf of the Iranians as  means of getting the government egged on by the media and populous to attack Iran.

Against the odds but with the apparent support of the Chief Whip played by Charles Dance, the existing deputy Prime Minister (and who is offered the same position or another of his choosing by the two leading candidates to replace the Prime Minister) is elected by his colleagues and soon after taking up the position is faced with demands to take out a terrorist with a smart rocket, fuelled by the international company, as he man attempts to reach the Iran border and safety. The new Prime Minister hangs fire but eventually gives the order only to find that the death occurs on or at the border with Iran understandably calling the event an act of war.

 He then finds himself under pressure from the media  egged on by those in the Cabinet who want to replace him for a strike on Iran, supported the majority of his backbenchers and the official opposition. In an heroic stand at the Despatch Box in the last episode he stands up to elements in the secret services engaged in killing opponents to their view of things, including the illegal holding of  McKee, and arrest of an Government employee anxious to spill the beans to the Prime Minister.

The head of the International company is also ousted by the board as the public sacrifice and replaced by the plotting government Minister supported by a  bank under fire from the Prime Minister in order to force the company to pay appropriate compensation. Under fire the Bank gets behind strikes and the Company announced a move to Poland. However armed with some information provided by the former head of the company who has gone to McKee the Prime denounces his own in the confrontation in the House of Commons as well as attacking the war mongering opposition. It is all splendid stuff inspired by the Chris Mullin’s A Very British Coup.

There is just time to emntion the excellent 100th Royal Variety Performance opened with Girls Aloud looking amazingly  slim as well as gorgeous followed by the Comedian Bill Bailey who was amusing rather than funny. The excellent Kylie Monogue also looked gorgeous and whose standing in my eyes went in leaps and bounds after her amazing show at the O2 arena which I saw in 3D and which still is used by the channel from time to time. Bruce Forsythe had his moment with a sitting step dance before performing with the host David Wallians.  One Direction the latest Boy Band creation via the X Factor were pleasant enough. Amanda Holden introduced Britain’s Got Talent  latest winners and star performers who included Diversity. Then someone called Rod Gilbert who I have not heard but whom provides the wittiest sketch of the evening on why he could not by a single jacket potato. Ata   supermarket, Ronnie Corbet was less successful with David Wallians and some word plays before Katherine Jenkins performed with Placido Domingo in a light and boring duet. I just do not appreciate her voice.

Robbie Williams achieved the loudest applause of the night to that point and sung This Time I will be different I promise you followed by the boring Mr Bojangles, an odd selection. After this three 9 to 11 year olds are interviewed called Matilda in the RSC show of the same name and which has no appeal apart from enabling children to perform. Just as lacking in entertainment value Alan  Carr pretended to be  Ashleigh and Wallians the winning Britain’s Got Talent Dog singing the Flintstones number before the real Duo were excellent performing against a background of James Bond Music theme music.

The  singer Heather Headley performed the famous song, I will Always Love you  from the film the Bodyguard which is now  a stage show in London, She is OK but no Witney Houston. Andrea Botchelli sand La Dona  e mobile. Jimmy Tarbuck looked back at great comedy performers . Alicia keys played piano while singing,

Rod Stewart sang when you wish upon a star and has a Christmas Album out. Wallians appears as a aerial star after he has finished his number A new dancing group Ballet revolution performed and then the Violinist Nicola Bedetti reminded of previous stars at the show now departed  with Peter Sellers The Gibb brothers, Norman Wisdom, Frank , Dusty Springfield’s, Arthur Askey Harry Secombe, Gracie Fields, Danny la Rue, Leslie Crowther, Marti Caine,  Roy Castle, Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore, Tony Hancock, Ronnie Barker  John Inman Bob Monkhouse, Eric Sykes, Max Bygraves and Larry Hagman were photos I spotted.

Neil Diamond closed the show after Placido Domingo returns  to introduce  the Three Tenors, from China, quirky but good.

The best top ten tunes voted buy the British public were played on ITV again on Sunday with Bohemian Rhapsody and Queen heading the list. I was not surprised  but disappointed that Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean was  two  but  pleased that Adele’s Someone Like you was 3 Hey Jude 5 Imagine, Abba’s Dancing Queen and Houston’s I  Will always love you. Kylie, Spears and Oasis were also there.

Last word must go to the couple now in the Eighties where eh made a pile selling out his software company and she bought into Google early on, have spend each Christmas at Claridges in a  suite costing over £5000 a  night for at least thee past four decades, Sadly the wife passed away after the film was made. The couple only left the hotel twice in their two week stay

A party of a Royal princess/wife from the middle east and an entourage of 25 booked  a whole floor where the doorways had to be sealed so that men could not look in and the staff all had to be female. Three suites were cleared for shopping bags. Amazing stuff for the few.

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