Wednesday, 10 October 2018

New vision Croydon and experience update


To celebrate what I hoped would be successful procedures to remove cataracts from both my eyes, five months ago, I planned a weekend visit to Croydon, the town of my birth my birth in 1939 over the first weekend of October 2018. The weekend lived up to my expectation because it was as if I was seeing everything for the first time in vivid colourful clarity.  There were two exceptions, one of which reminded of the continuing British failure to help and protect the most vulnerable of citizens. We are one of the top successful economies in the world which should be able to prevent poverty at home and contribute help to those in other lands. Yet I found more people sleeping out on the streets of central London than ever before. Shame on all of us and our government especially.

My second full day proved something of a washout as the forecast light rain became a heavy down power and despite a coat with a hood and an umbrella I was drenched, and this also underlined the impact of the weather and the coming winter on those out in the cold in the streets.

My sense of not doing enough and a need to refocus on priorities developed over the weekend and was reinforced when reading the transcript of the first four days of the National Child Abuse Inquiring hearings on Nottinghamshire and its separate City Council local authority. I have expressed reservations that the Inquiry has been deliberately limited to one form of sexual abuse and where other forms not being investigated at the same level have caused life-long disabilities and injustice. The Inquiry is rightly focused and centred on what happened to victims and the Truth project remains for many the most important aspect. However, for some campaigners and survivors there is also the issue of the extent to which institutions failed and of deliberate, wilful cover up and protectionism and for this reason there has been as much attention given to the role of the Catholic and Protestant Churches as there is being given to government and local authorities.  The negligence of the non-state child care organisations is also under scrutiny. The government chickened out of tackling the role of the British state by restricting the inquiry to England and Wales, and not giving terms of reference which enabled one chairperson and panel to also examine the issue of a national cover up, including Northern Ireland, Scotland and the overseas territories. That relevant information from the separate enquiries is being passed to those of charge of the England and Wales enquiry is a positive step but leaves government open to the accusation of something to hide which should not.

I continue to remind of what Norman Tebbit said on the Andrew Marr show the day before Teresa May unexpectedly, including to some members of the Cabinet, accepted the cross party call for a national inquiry before the police had completed their enquiries and which arose from the 2012 PMQ, the present deputy leader of the Labour Party, Tom Watson, had asked the former Prime Minister David Cameron and where both a decade before had served on the Chris Mullin, Sunderland constituency Member of the House of Commons led Home office Select Committee which wanted to stop police investigations and bring to an end civil compensation in cases where there was no successful criminal  prosecution, a situation  which was then current involving Sunderland Council. Tebbit admitted the establishment cover up with disastrous consequences. The cover up was not a conspiracy between individuals and institutions but reflected the way things were done at the time, but I believe with some glaring exceptions which the National Inquiry Team may establish. However, the main cry which continues to come from victim survivors is to prevent others having similar experiences to their own, and this I have always suspected is an impossible to achieve objective given the nature of human DNA.

Also overshadowing my weekend experience was the grim international news item from global experts that without a renewed sense of direction and governmental action the likely planetary warming of 3% spells the end of human and other life as it is presently known on the planet within the present century, and therefore within the potential life time of my children, and their children.

The disaster ahead was reinforced by the latest investigation Stacey Dooley whose work has been upgraded from BBC TV Channel to Channel One, perhaps because she is also appearing on BBC Strictly Come Dancing.  Ms Dooley alongside Simon Reeve are unique because they have street credibility, expose their themselves to great danger and also expose the reality of themselves. On Tuesday after returning home I had a front seat as Simon Reeve spoke for two- and three-quarter hours to a three-level packed audience in the main auditorium of the Sage complex on the south bank of the River Tyne, Gateshead. The subject of Stacey’s programme was the impact of the development of consumer fashion where lead retailers are bringing out  a new collection every month using low  production enterprises in low economy countries exploited workers and  perhaps more significantly helping to destroy the planet by posing the second greatest threat to that from oil, The programme feature the destruction of an inland sea from the growth of cotton and the use of water in its manufacture, and the pollution of a great river from the poisonous waste which threatened the lives and health of millions.

I also highlighted the out in the cold at the commencement of writing mentioned those out in the cold this Winter as reference to one of Richard Burton’s great roles as a Le Carré’s Spy and who decides not to come in from the complex cold war interaction between British and Soviet intelligence at the height of the Berlin Wall division of Germany.  I did so because of an article tucked away on the inside page of the Times Newspaper, provided free in the first-class lounge of Newcastle Station after several pages on the latest public disclosure about the two men who set out to execute a Russian traitor, endangering the life of his daughter and then ending the life of a British woman unintentionally.

There is no doubt that Russia under Putin is turning up the rachet of traditional and the latest intelligence gathering and disruptive actions ever since the traitor Edward Snowden went there having handed to third parties a vast quantity of state secrets in data form. It is right that the British Government takes appropriate action to defend the state and its people, and I have previously declared that I sleep well at night knowing successive governments have, and are doing, what is necessary. While I agree with those geopolitical and military experts that the renewal of Trident was wasteful unnecessary, I have also sided with those who explain that Britain must keep to the forefront of research on nuclear, chemical and biological warfare developments, to find ways to defend itself and this today also includes digital warfare

The surprise of the Times article was what appears to be an uncontested admission before the statutory inquiry on Undercover Policing set up Teresa May at the same time she converted the non-statutory child abuse inquiry for England and Wales, that ever since the Thatcher government British homeland as well as external security and intelligence has felt able to break the law in the National Interest.  The article also appeared to confirm my understanding that each new Prime Minister gets a briefing of things which their predecessors did which they may wish to consider appropriate to change. The articled claimed that David Cameron decided to require a Judge to sanction new illegal activity which our homeland services previously self-determined, but not to make the development public, although obviously Home Secretary Teresa May would have also known.  Mrs May is said to have changed this aspect on taking office in 2015, hence the raising of the practice by interested parties.

On the train journey South, I also drafted a response to the final newsletter on the latest meeting of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party by Ann Black, the constituency secretary of Oxford City which she has made available to individual members as well as to constituency parties. She was not successful in the recent ballot despite the increase in the number of members representing individuals to reflect the increasing membership which is greater than all the other political parties in Britain together, also the largest political Party membership in Europe, where everywhere else in Europe on the Left is on retreat against the rise of fascism. The reason why Ann was unsuccessful was because of the emergence of an alleged pro Corbyn slate, I say alleged because it is likely that some are more aligned to their own political outlook than the principled politics of Mr Corbyn which is hated by many on the far left as strongly by those in the blue centre and blue right.

I can say this from some of the chats I have had with those attending the annual Durham Miners gala rather than direct contact or knowledge of those who have been successful, so apologies if I am wrong about them individually and collectively.

I hope one of them will follow Ann and provide a balanced and appropriate account of the main issues discussed at future NEC meetings for the likes of people like me who because of age, health, disability, family and other commitments can no longer be as active as we would wish. The balance between the power of the individual members of constituencies and the constituencies collectively, and on a regional and sub regional basis, the Parliamentary Party, the Trade Unions, and affiliate organisations was the subject of rule changes given greater scrutiny and voting at the Party conference.  

From the comfort of the sitting room screen I noted that conference participation by a more diverse, and a much bigger range of speakers were able to have their say in the umbrella subject debates alongside contributions from shadow cabinet members who all appeared speaking from one overall Party text. Surprisingly, the loudest cheers for someone other than Mr Corbyn was given to Labour’s Brexit secretary Keir Starmer, and who had  led a meeting of 100 Brexit interests within the Party until midnight one evening to achieve an approach around which almost everyone within the Party could unite and which offers rather than throws a gauntlet to Mrs May but which she is unlikely to accept.

The exciting and moving aspect of this year’s conference is that some 250 individuals or more were able to speak, the overwhelming majority attending conference for the first time, and weighted balance of young people, gender, ethnicity, sexuality and psychological balance. However, the danger is that the enthusiasm will be lost when the reality of the machinations by Mrs May to achieve a Brexit which will enable her to stay in power unfold and where the first move is to announce that austerity will end with the next budget. Her attempt to attract the youth vote and the vast army of betrayed public sector workers and public service users was the subject of Jeremy Corbyn’s first PMQs after the conference recess and the way the parliamentary Conservative Party is organising these events confirms my concern that she will achieve sufficient of settlement with Europe which will enable a majority Parliamentary vote, sustain her in office to avoid a general election by which time will also hope to  achieve the unlikely situation if leading her party into the next General Election after a full term parliament and in the hope  that she will not have to battle a Corbyn led Labour party. I hope I am quickly proved a pessimist.

My first experience of the LNER new regime which has replaced Virgin on the Eastcoast line was not a good one as the coffee machine was out of order (yet again) and we had to make coffee with instant and luke warm water. However, staff, still wearing part Virgin clothing more than made up for the start with exceptional general food and drinks service throughout the journey to Kings Cross.

It is extraordinary that in Croydon and observed on trains in and out of central London the pace of putting up new tower blocks of offices and apartments appears to be growing. In Croydon there are several tall cranes at work and existing office blocks being modernised for contemporary and future use, while there are also several large units empty and decaying. I was disappointed to find that the developments around Tottenham Court Road station arising from the Elizabeth line are still to get off the ground, literally as there are still large areas to be developed. There was a similar situation by St James Park station and the site of former offices of the Metropolitan Police.

My Sunday walk between watching the latest Johnny English film and A Simple Favour took me from Tottenham Court Station through Soho Square into Dean Street where I discovered that my belief that Ann Haldane has been murdered  a short distance from the former home of Karl Marx was wrong as the blue plaque is for Sir Joseph Rogers across  Dean Street  from the former Royalty Theatre and with The Crown and  two Chairman on the other side of Bateman Street. Karl Marx lived just a few doors away though!

My Saturday was a washout after a good early morning traditional English breakfast and two cups of white coffee at the George (Wetherspoons) before the scheduled light rain commenced. I had planned to watch an afternoon showing of A Simple Favour at the Vue cinema in the Valley Park Shopping and Leisure centre taking the Metro to Therpia Way one stop before where Ann Haldane had lived for with her parents just off Beddington Lane. Looking out around midday I saw the sky overcast and light rain falling so I decided to make an early start with the plan to visit the shopping centre across from the Jury Inn at the other end of Landsdown Road where the Premier Inn is situated and  eat a sandwich meal deal from Boots or Sainsburys and where the plan was then an Bella Italia meal after the film, using my Cineworld 25% discount. Despite the good breakfast I changed my mind and decided on a lunch time cooked meal after a good look around the shopping centre only to discoverer torrential rain falling when I went to exit.

 I returned for a good look the new Alders development of a Village low cost outlet containing most features of a departmental store in terms of the good available on both side of the arcade between the High Street and the George Street Tram stop. When the outlet village development opened by the same people as Bicester Outlet village in Oxfordshire with a five-year deal in 2013 the hopes were to employ over 500 full and part time staff, about half the number which used to be employed by Alders in its heyday. On Saturday the huge shopping area appeared to employ less than a score and there were few customers for the impressive huge stocks and where the owners hope for several million customers a year. I waited under cover for the first two scheduled trams, but the rain was so hard and tram so crowded that I retreated making my way back into the Whitgift then to the under pass to get back across the road, and even with my hooded coat and umbrella I was drenched through on reaching the hotel and room

Around 4pm I was hungry and as it looked as the rain has eased, I made  my way back into the Whitgift centre and back through the arcade into George Street for a beef burger, chips and a pint of Fosters at the George which I enjoyed for £5.99 and then  back to the room to listen to Newcastle at Manchester United where amazing they were two goals up in 10 minutes but went onto lose in extra time 3.2. The Man U manager probably survives a little longer, but the likelihood of Newcastle’s manager finding a way to leave the sinking ship may have intensified.  Sunderland went back to third with an away win

By the time the game between Newcastle and M U was over it was time for Strictly Come Dancing, Simon Reeve Mediterranean tour, the X Factor and to catch the end of the six-episode Mystery Road.

In Strictly Ms Dooley redeemed her poor showing last weekend but the main revelation and turn around was that of Graham Swann. There were some exceptional performances with the participants gaining nines, one a quartet of them. The X factor continued in the awful phase of the six-chair challenge where the first six of ten contestant get a chair and then four are evicted to make way for the last four. It is all orchestrated a televised abuse of participants at its worst although in general I agreed with the decisions being made. On Sunday five of six female singers went on a shopping trip and to the Malibu home of Simon Cowell where they were confronted not by one or two assistant judges but a room full of big names song writers and record making people plus Leona Lewis and other successful performers and former contestants. The sixth had been denied a visa from the USA government and in the end, Simon decided to take four five who performed and all of whom are good.

I watched the delayed by an hour show to see the first of a four-part latest Simon Reeve perspective on the Mediterranean commencing with an exposure that Malta has become a corrupt murdering tax haven for criminals, and one presumes supported by the Catholic church as it once did prop up Franco and fascism for decades. He then moved on to drug smuggling as a way of life in Calabria before going on a sixty-mile trip to Albania where the blood feud still dominates although the new regime was said to doing its best to bring about change. As Simon revealed in his brilliant 3-hour show on Tuesday he joined gangs, drank too much and got into trouble as a teenager leaving school with no examination passes and finding getting work difficult. He then got lucky taking a job in the post room of a national newspaper and then even luckier getting an assignment because no journalists were present on a Monday as usual. He used his initiative and although continuing in the post room he became sufficiently useful to become a reporter, leaving to write a book which when published failed to sell, until 9/11 as his book was about the prospect for Terrorism and Al Qaeda.  This led to researching and writing more books until the first researched in advance travel and adventure programme was launched on the BBC and to date he has been to 120/130 of the 200 official countries in the world as well as visiting several who have not been recognised.

I also managed to catch the end of the six-episode Australian Mystery Road which retraced familiar ground on the feudal nature of the outback small town.

Sunday proved a good day although it began badly with no fast trains scheduled to Victoria and  a four coach stopping train crammed tight so I took an empty stopping train to London Bridge  instead and on the jubilee to  Green Park and from there to a cold but dry and sunny Leicester Square where the first surprise was to find the Odeon cinema having a major make over. The Moon Under Water Wetherspoons was still open and although costing £1.50more than Croydon I enjoyed another traditional English breakfast for under £5 and three cups of good coffee for £1.55. in 1948 I made by first visit to the Square after watching Stanley Mathews play for Blackpool against the Arsenal, although standing with uncle George behind one of the goals I could only see the far side of the game. We had fish and chips in the Lyons Corner House and then watched a film at the Odeon on what was the first memorable good days of my life.

After breakfast there was time for a walkabout and to find fake snow was being propelled from above the entrance of the Cineworld to mark the opening of a new Disney film. I also went to see the progress being made to turn the Trocadero complex into an hotel noting the number of rough sleepers using the undercover throughway at the side to the cinema which used to be a Cineworld.  The Cineworld now occupies the site of the Empire where the façade has been retained but little else. It was evident this was a good day to be about London streets as the summer crush of holidaying visitors had ended and the Christmas shopping and entertainment rush is yet to commence.

I exchanged a Lloyds bank voucher for adult ticket worth £10 I would have paid as a senior for the latest Rowan Atkinson Masterclass in facial expressionism. As he readily admits  the series has silly to stupid story lines but somehow this works although  there were not as many clever or genuine funny moments, but there was some response from the two sets of boys in the theatre, the first nearby with their father, and then second  at the front with their parents, the only others watching the 11.05 starting film and where the performance include nearly half an hour of starters.

This meant I had 55 mins between shows to get to Tottenham Court Road and back and then head for Boots Piccadilly for a £3 triple sandwich which I eat sitting on the cold but now dried concrete seating which surrounds the green space of the square opposite  a crowded Mc D as the area filled up with Londoners on a  day out and visitors from a far.  I had also passed a model or actress being photographed sitting on top of a post box aided by a full camera crew.

The number of open topped tourist buses is increasing with different route and big prices. The second Odeon in the Square has also made way for an Hotel but appears to move to the nearby once independent cinema a couple of minutes’ walks away.

By mistake the end row seat booked was against a wall at the far end of a row and with the film attracting a fair audience I was able to exchange the voucher seat for one of the remaining available on the aisle. I had heard good things about A simple Favour which Dr Mark Kermode also liked but suggested at the end of the film you ask, “what was that really about?” The film is a tour de force by Anna Kenrick as a widowed young mum with a son who lost her husbands and half-brother in a car accident which is part of the very dark to black revelatory tongue in cheek and very funny story telling.  This is a very clever and very enjoyable film with Anna’ performance Oscar nomination worthiness.

I then made my way to Victoria to make use of 25% discount because of the Cineworld subscription to the Café Rouge although the meal was no a success. The pâté starter was good but small as was the portion of chicken with mash dish, and I did not enjoy the beer which proved a bad choice alongside the food, so I drunk separately before a good cup of coffee. But just was well the 25% was off both the food and the drink reducing the cost from £28 to £21.  The chicken chasseur dish on the train back was more enjoyable, and free with the first-class ticket.  The catering staff were not as generous or sustained in the provision of food and drink as on the outward journey when I had acquired two sandwiches, a slice of cake, crisps, biscuits and a whisky with ginger for the evening in addition to the food and drink during journey and a copy of the Times which contained the TV viewing as well as the story on homeland security’s extracurricular activities.

On returning on the Sunday I caught the last part of the new female Dr Who and had to wait until Monday evening to understand the story of the first episode which promises much. I pressed the record series button.  The journey home on thee Monday was mixed with having to stand from East Croydon to London Bridge, paying the £2 extra for not waiting to use my travel card at 9.30 and then going to wrong platform for the earlier train. The LNER lounge at Kings Cross has been change a little but long gone are the days when pan au chocolat or croissant with butter and jam was available. I settled for crisps, banana and a goon read of the Times.  Time Out has also changed beyond recognition and I decided against the China Daily. I worked out the right train home before everyone else so found a single seat adjacent to a luggage rack which took my case upright and next to the toilet. At Newcastle I was able to use a ramp down to the platform and was able to reveal to a Newcastle born and lived 80-year-old the existence of the lift and undertrack passage. I was home in time to get organised for a Sainsbury delivery where using a voucher and nectar points I paid only £30 for £50 of groceries.

The opportunity is taken for an update on other recent film, sport and event experiences. I did not make one visit to watch live football last season and events St James Park have not encouraged but the opportunity of an aisle seat for unde £20 at Sunderland proved a  good decision on a nice bright day and was rewarded with a four  to one goal win and indication of  some promise that the mixture of new talent with  some long serving an loyal rejuvenated players could see a return to the Championship and progress from the humiliation of half empty 50000  seat stadium.



The high culture experience was an open-air concert by the German born Opera Singer Jonas Kaufmann in the huge Walbuhne amphitheatre seating over 20000 in a forest outside of Berlin. He sung a large collection of Italian favourites including familiar ballads in a language unfamiliar I suspect to many in the German audience and where they and we in theatre did not have the benefit of sub titles, I made my way and paid he additional £6 fee to the Cineworld in Newcastle still under major redevelopment. I also made my way to Newcastle on successive evenings for a theatre performance and then an evening to mark Our Finest House at City Hall.  In my last general review, I mentioned finding a woman unconscious in the street on my way home from Newcastle one evening and that an ambulance arrived within 5 minutes. During the opening half hour of the play The Last Seam at Northern Stage at the end of September a man collapsed, and it seemed ages before a paramedic ambulance arrived and half an hour before we were allowed back into the theatre where the cast recommenced with a short reprise before going through the rest of the play without interval. The play features the mid-eighties miner’s strike in a Doncaster area pit village and the impact on the lives of the miners and their families after the subsequent pit closures throughout Yorkshire, Northumberland and Durham. The play proved deeper and far more political than anticipated and was appreciated by a good size audience in the second of the two main theatres in a building I got to know well when it was the annual home of the Royal Shakespeare company for a month.  The restaurant snackerie is where there are sometimes performances as the third stage and restaurant and bar purpose built plus the box office on the side facing the square leading to the impressive student union building. I usually time my arrival to find a seat and did so before the performance during the interruption.

The previous Sunday I had made an early Sunday afternoon visit to the Custom’s House South Shields for Dennis Skinner the veteran miner and left-wing Member of Parliament answer questions before a showing of 90 mins film about his family from Clay Cross and subsequent political life The Nature of the Beast. The film could have done with better editing but overall it provided a brilliant portrait of this unique Parliamentarian who has devoted his life to the welfare of constituents regardless of their background and political allegiances. The opportunity was also taken to view the displays about local pits at the South Shields Museum and Art Gallery.

I also attended Our Finest Hour at City Hall where the BBC Big Band played a two-hour show of music highlights from the early years of World War 11, interspersed with a commentary from Kevin Whately well known nationally as Inspector Lewis and some previously live recording by Winston Churchill. Annie Gill mezzo soprano also entertained with standards such as a Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, I’ll be seeing you, Nightingale in Berkeley square, Sally, Every Time we say Goodbye and We’ll meet again. While the audience was more my age than younger but there were a few children spotted and a few under thirties.

I cannot remember if I have recorded visiting City Hall in June to see Eric Burden for the second time in two years where the evidence was of an extraordinary voice in decline but where is still to put on a 90-minute show without a break. The theatrical highlight of past months was a new adaption of the early episodes of When the Boat comes into a two-hour show, which opened at Customs House in South Shields to a couple of weeks of packed houses. This has led to buying for £30 a DVD set of all 51 episodes which first broadcast in the 1970’s and where the issues of striking and scabs in a mining community here in the North east centred of Gallowshields, a hybrid for north and South Shields in opposite backs of the river Tyne and where this year I failed to cross over and back on the ferry.

I enjoyed the final games of 20 20 cricket competition this year able to view without the need of glasses but never planned to attend Finals day in Birmingham after my traumatic experiences first at the Rose bowl Hampshire where my car broke down in the way  and I could not find the hire car on returning to the park and ride having decided not to watch the final but finding the bus did not set off until after the game ended.  Durham were never in the only semi-final in which they played as Chanderpaul forgot he was in the limited over game. The experience of going to Birmingham was just as traumatic which confirmed that the majority attended were there to dress up in fancy dress and get drunk. I found myself out of food hungry paid a lot of money for inedible rubbish and then lost my way back to the accommodation a nightmare. Never again.

 Alas Durham failed in the quarter final with a home tie, but I enjoyed Worcester’s two wins from the comfort of a seat before the telly. Ben Stokes, who I met as a boy, when brought by his father for a Durham Summer school, survived the trial accused of affray but now he and Hales face the charge of bringing the game in disrepute. I did manage to get to see the penultimate innings of Paul Collingwood as a Durham player against Middlesex. It will be interesting to see if he is in the running for the just vacated England job or the offer said to have come from Scotland. Hopefully next season will be better although I am not sure the wisdom of hiring one of the banned Australian players involved in the ball tampering scandal.

The great sporting event is undoubtedly the Ryder cup played on a golf course with lots of water traps outside of Paris and where the European team trounced an exceptionally good on paper USA team, but who clearly lacked the inspired team work between players, caddies, coaches and their families which those watching were able to witness in the European squad where both the newcomers and the experienced contributed.

I have also experienced some very good films in theatre. The most surprising film was Alpha about the discovery of a possible relationship between humans and the dire wolf 20000 years back in history and reminiscent of the relationship with those in the Game of Thrones forerunner of the relationship with Man’s best friend. The film was experienced in one of the refurbished theatres at Newcastle Cineworld with reclining leather seats with tall backs and lighted lettering on the stairways. The language required subtitles and the photography beautiful and likely to win prizes.

Black Klansman is a serious film with comedic aspects, based on the true story of Rod Stallworth the first black policeman in a southern state town of 1970’s Colorado Springs where he poses by phone as a white supremacist phone and then using a white colleague to penetrate the K K K at national and local level. The film ends with an update on Trumps failure to condemn the rise of the KKK and racists and fascists groups in the USA.

Another unexpected experience was an afternoon special showing in Newcastle of Funny Cow and an exceptional performance by Maxine Peake of the 2017 film on the childhood and making of someone who becomes a legendry stand-up comic in working men’s clubs. The film also has Alun Armstrong as the fading comic whose jokes many now know by heart.

In my last round, up I highlighted seeing a film about Virtual Reality in the virtual reality experience of 4DX at Newcastle’s Cineworld and this time Searching uses the format of Social Media to help a father find out about his daughter and what happened to her after she disappeared. The film is a good example of the appearance of anything is only one aspect of its reality and contains several important truths about relationships between parents and their children, the assumptions that we know our families better than others and that those who sometimes appear good and close friends, colleagues or helpers can prove to be our worst enemies.

A very different kind of film was Crazy Rich Asians which revealed an eye-opening insight into the very rich lifestyle residents of Hong Kong, enjoyable but also a continuous underlying feeling that this is all wrong. The current TV series Strangers also provides a perspective on the corrupt aspect of the former British state although its central character trying to achieve Justice for his murdered bigamist wife appears on a mission to get himself murdered as well.

King of Thieves with Sir Michael Caine, Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay. Michael Gambon and Ray Winstone failed because the film attempted to evoke some sympathy for the aging villains who successful robbed a vault in Hatton Gardens. The film also alleges that the safes contained the products of the work of other villains and that a significant proportion of the stolen items has not been recovered. It is difficult to understand why this film was made and why the celebrity film stars agreed to participate.

Because if the priority to writing and conduct the required research there is less time to watch films on TV and but where the Talking Pictures channel available on Sky enables to recapture the films of childhood and youth and I sometimes view several at a time when the situation allows.

An important wartime propaganda documentary style film was The Lion has Wings has Ralph Richardson as a Wing Commander and Merle Oberon as his wife. The film includes footage of Flora Robson in her role as Queen Elizabeth the 1st. An earlier film which reveals all the limitation of film making at that time is the 1934 version of the Old Curiosity Shop where a young girl become the victim of murder and greed in one of Dickens poignant stories with unhappy aspects,

A disturbing film about life in the Australian outback small town Jasper Jones which centres on racism and proved far more effective than the 6-episode TV series Mystery Road.

A mainstream movie I decided not to view when launched was the follow up to Jumanji sub headed (Welcome to Jungle) where high school pupils find themselves in the midst of a computer game which they have to solve if they are to escape and where they encounter someone else in the same predicament. This proved to be traditional cinema with echoes more of Tarzan films than the latest computer-generated epics and was therefore more enjoyable than anticipated.

The most disappointing film was Talking Pictures showing of All night Long which as a dozen jazz musicians playing themselves including Johnny Dankworth, David Brubeck, Tubby Hayes, Keith Christies and Alan Ganley who I have seen play lives and Charlie Mingus who I have not. The film centres on the ambitions of a drummer played Patrick McGoonhan to from his own band fronted by a female jazz singer who has stopped performing at the request of her jealous husband. The all-night party is held at their home and among those present who Patrick hopes to persuade sign up his new band is a wealthy jazz promoter played by Richard Attenbororgh. The story is unconvincing as is the acting and specially written music has never been my kind of jazz.

I have not had time to listen much radio apart from news and the Friday afternoon film review with Mayo and Kermode. I caught up the ten episode the Corrupted based on the books of G F Newman and which centre on corrupt people behind Thatcher and includes issues of child abuse and false imprisonment. I enjoyed a ten-episode performance of Jaws.

Just in case I failed to mention previously More outstanding TV drama was the third series of Unforgotten broad casting in six episodes in August with a fourth series agreed.  Nicola Walter is outstanding, and she was supported by the brilliant Sanjeev Bhaskar.I

The best recent television was the Bodyguard where a Home Secretary is assassinated by state interests, and the Prime Minister is forced to resign. A rescued female suicide terrorist turns out to be the bomb maker and brains of the cell. A second series will find it difficult to match the intensity and credibility of the first.

I am also enjoying Press which has Ben Chaplin as the editor of the Post, a cross between the Sun and the News of World, the only paper to make money but who also admires the work of Herald whose Editor was nearly tempted to run the Royal Opera House after the paper is forced not to print an edition.

The most extraordinary engaging series available to view in sitting if wished is Killing Eve with the most watchable female assassin ever played by Jodie Comer and where Eve is an out of depth agent played by Sandra Oh and supported by a stellar cast who enter in the black mayhem with enthusiasm and credibility. It was quickly evident that this was too creative a series not to be continued but I wish things had become a little clearer by the end of episode 8.  Jodie has ended the lives of a dozen undesirable men from mafia leaders to corrupt politicians, but another score is also dead in her wake who deserve better and these includes nurses and female witnessed as well as female Russian prison guards. Behind her paid for killings is the secret group of 12 out to cause chaos and one assume save the world according to their beliefs and sense of order.



I also watched the ten episodes of Trust over a couple of days. The elongated story of the abduction of the grandson son of John Paul Getty played by Donald Sutherland. The series plays with truth as does the recent film which covered the story convincingly in one two-hour film. In the series a ransom of 5 million is used to establish a port on the Calabria coast by the local mafia who feel they are the poor relations of the international families from Sicily and those Rome based. Interestingly Simon Reeve looked at the growing important of the Calabrian point and family dominated villages in his latest series travelling around the Mediterranean. He also mentions the hypocrisy of Spain’s hold on Ceuta while claiming rights to Gibraltar.

I am not sure if I have mentioned the TV series Deep State with Mark Strong which I assume accounts for recent political reference, A second series had been commissioned but without Mark Strong.

Talking pictures shown Nightingale Sang in Berkeley is a very different film to what one could expect from the title.  The Devils Double has gratuitous violence as sex and is not recommended although of interest as based on a son of the former leader of Iraq subsequently executed like his father.