2133 Two detective novels and two TV episodes

Alan Hunter was a prolific writer of police detective fiction with 46 books about Inspector George Gently of Scotland Yard who commenced as a mature officer and who managed to continue working from 1944 to 1999, although I not know if the later novels were set in the past. The BBC commissioned or bought four mini series of self contained dramas after seeing the pilot in 2007. Apart from 2009 when there were four episodes there have been two in the other three years, 11 in total.

Inspector Gently is no Wallander although Martin Shaw as Gently is as good as Kenneth Branagh, an actor who made his national name through the TV series of the Professionals as Raymond Doyle with Lewis Collins as Broadie and Gordon Sinclair as their CI5 boss George Cowley and a long way from Spooks. Doyle was recruited from the ranks of the police and later he was to star in the last three years of the series The Chief (Constable) and a long running battle with the Home Office. From this he graduated to a Judge, Judge John Deed and to more battles this time with Justice Department officials and Politicians who hated his independent mind and tendency to achieve the truth and Justice. So there is logic that he should also perform in the role as a confident, thoughtful successful villain catcher of the novels.

The novels are set in East Anglia and the Broads whereas the TV series was moved to the North East with the recent series set in the city of Durham although the County headquarters has long been located on a site on the outskirts of the city along with County Hall.

In Gently Upside Down the episode appears to be set in the 60-70’s era when young girls first started to wear colourful skirts and a regional TV show featured young people dancing to the latest records. Three young women become part of an audience where the director and his camera has a penchant for attempt find out if the girls are wearing knickers, something for which a national TV series achieved notoriety before attention was directed to Pan’s People. There was a TV rock and pop show in the North East but some two decades later called the Tube which featured a host of regional bands some from the North East who went onto national and some to International fame. In the Gently programme the director/producer takes a liking to one of the three friends and finds her frank and direct approach life in keeping with the changing times and moves her in as hostess forcing the aging professional and Lethario to throw in the towel and move back to London. In the North East The Tube was the starting point for Muriel Gray, Leslie Ash and more significantly Paula Yates other with Jules Holland as with the Tube, the TV show in episode becomes national

Now to the ploy having already mentioned three suspects for the murder of an exceptionally bright sixth former destined to Oxford who had disappeared with a small suitcase and whose body is discovered in shall grave in woodland.

There are six possible suspects for Gently to sort out in total. The producer director of the show in his thirties but with a definite eye for the girls. Then there is the former host also with a reputation for inviting the participating young females for a drink after the show and where there is evidence of an exchange of notes written on a beer glass mat between him and the deceased. He makes no secret of trying it on with the lasses at every opportunity but admits the murdered girl had knocked him back with her clever wit.

The third possibility is another bright girl at the school and friend rival of the dead girl. She is found to have lied about the evening of the disappearance claiming to have gone to the show with the third friend but had not done so. The fourth suspect is the music teacher as again it is shown that his alleged alibi of being at home with his wife and children is not so. However it is eventually established he was having an affair with the young woman offered a career in the TV show and alleged friend of the deceased.

The fifth suspect is the working class miner father of the girl who is shown to have lost his temper and hit the girl in the mouth the night she disappeared. There is the dark suggestion of an illicit relationship although he and his wife argued that they failed to understand or be able to communicate with their amazing daughter who lived in her world, with an ability to quote poetry lines to suit most situations and conversational exchanges. His frustration comes from never having had the opportunity for an education and to express his poetic soul, something which is revealed when his wife insists that he reads out what he wrote when their daughter was born.

This then brings the most likely suspect, the older English teacher of the girl and father of the young woman launched on a TV career. He becomes the chief suspect when it is discovered that over a decade before he had a relationship with a sixth form pupil of ability who now undertakes menial work as a single parent supporting her bright secondary school attending son. It is established that he did have a relationship with the dead girl and was the father of her unborn child and that the girl had packed the case with a view to moving into with the school master who wife had taken her life from mental troubles leaving her husband to bring up their two daughter, an elder daughter by many years who acted as house keeper to the rest of the family.

Yes and she did it. The girl had called at the home knowing the father and younger daughter were out to announce her intentions to the older sister/housekeeper and in effect to say she proposed to become step mother to a woman several years old. The depressed daughter perhaps taking after her mother had snapped and killed the girl unintentionally and then father full of remorse but also minded to protect his career, had attempted to bury the girl and deny any knowledge of what happened.

The format of this episode is similar to one of the early novels, the third in the series, Gently Down the Stream. As in the TV series Gently has an assistant, a sergeant. In the novel Dutt the assistant appears colourless, does a lot of hard work which brings rewards but never is able to put two and two together. In the TV series the assistant is not a likeable character. He messed up his marriage and fails as a bachelor now about Town. He is prepared to cross the line, breaking in to premises without a warrant and roughing up prisoners. He is an unlikely police detective. Another aspect of the book compared to the TV series is that the characters tend to be stock and one dimensional. Moreover I worked out who did it, and who therefore did not by page 65 of the 248.

A business man who can afford a Chauffer Cook, Housemaid and Gardener is identified as the victim of a fire on a one birth boat on the broads at the end of week’s hire. Gently is brought in when the pathologist determines that the man was shot and died before the fire. Gently discovers the man had hired the boat with his personal secretary who had disappeared and that shortly before the holiday the man had drawn several thousand pounds, a fortune at the time in the 1957 and had commenced to liquidate the business. It looked as if the couple were about to run away together although the girl and the chauffer had disappeared.

The disappearance of the chauffer suggested he had killed his employer for the money and because the man wanted to sack him because he was regarded a supporter of his legal wife who had recruited him. The young secretary was considered a possible accomplice having duped her employer.

Another possibility was the man’s son a poet and Oxford University student who did not get on with his father but he is ruled out when it is discovered he was checking on his mother because she was having an affair with the family solicitor. The daughter who is a fan of her father is unwilling to explain her full whereabouts on the evening of the murder The book portrays something of the life on the Broads, those hiring out boats and those making living in other ways.

Eventually the young woman, the secretary, is tracked down, living of her own and she attempts to take her own life and then gives the impression that she is the guilty one. But her personality and her way of life suggest otherwise and moreover there has been another murder of a woman who appears to have found something out. And who has passed on some money, money which it looks belonged to the dead man. Then of course it is worked out.

The business man is not dead and is posing as someone else in disguise. His daughter is an accomplice to the deception because she is an amateur actress. She had been accidentally discovered by the woman and she had to die also. What I do not understand is why the two did not just run off together. Everyone would have been with that.

Nearly all the novels have Gently in the title and I do not know if they feature someone else or the writer could not think of a suitable title to make a play on Gently. In Goodbye China. China is a solitary man, considered to be a tramp, who is found dead. This is not so much a dun it but you prove it and what is there to prove. We are given aspects of the truth as the episode progresses. A large young man of limited abilities living in a residential institution goes to the kitchen one night and there discovers two brothers messing abut looking for something to steal. Recognising the youth as a simpleton they tie him up take him out to a park where there is one of those old wooden roundabouts where the young man is placed and is pushed round and around as fast as possible, something that he hates.

The bullying is seen by an old man who lives in lodgings nearby overlooking what has happened and he cones down to remonstrate. The boy with mental disabilities always has with him a pack of cigarette cards, a full set which he likes to look at in their order one to 50 in rows. These falls out and the youth attempts to gather them together but one of the attackers prevents him and the old man gathers some and attempts to return them. The young man is enraged at what has happened, lashes out and the old man falls, hits his head and dies.

The boy is the only child of a local senior police officer and his wife who they usually look after but placed in the institution for the occasional night or weekend if they are away and unable keep him with them. They are devoted to the young man in other circumstances. The officer is known to Gently from their previous experience together in the Met and they have mutual high regard. The officer finds out what happened. The two attackers have become out of control of their father, a pig farmer, since their mother left home with another. They have gone off the rails since always getting into trouble with the police. But Gently finds there is no record and that the area appears to have far fewer convictions for youth crime than would be expected. The police are operating an illegal and secret corporal punishment system with the approval of parents as an alternative to the young people gaining a record.

The father had allowed the two tearaways to be taken by an assistant to a senior police officer two an approved school where one of the staff allows the boys to be held in no longer used holding cells in the basement and where are kept the instruments of birching from the time when they would be part of the sentencing of the young people. The reason why police have access is because the wife of the assistant is having an affair with the staff member.

Unfortunately the two young men refuse to be broken by the physical punishment and therefore there is continuing risk that they will reveal what happened and therefore the son could face a charge of manslaughter or be removed from their direct care because of his temper and potential danger to others. Worse still one of the young men commits suicide and his body is taken away and held at the local mortuary with a sympathetic coroner treating the case as a the death of unknown individual.

At first the assistant wants to take the blame for the involvement of his superior, He has nothing to live for as his wife is establishing a new life with the staff member the Approved school. However when she sees his willingness to take responsibility and his continuing love for her she is prepared to stand by him although he will lose his job and go to prison for his part in what has been happening. The former colleague pleads to let matters rest because if he goes to prison, his wife will not be able to cope with the son and the boy will become a permanent resident of an institution. The sergeant suggests that they do walk away but Gently arrests his friend. Gently is not the virtuous one authorising the Sergeant to break into the residence of the Pig farmer when he is not there to try and find evidence about the whereabouts of the brothers. He finds some of the cigarette cards which Gently had previously seen in a drawer when inspecting the bedroom but had not appreciated their significance until seeing the son of the former colleague playing with part of the same set of cards.

The episode ends with Gently working out where the old man had lived and spending time in his room. The man had been an informant for Gently in times past and they had become friends in the way that an Inspector can become friendly with an informant. The man was however grateful for the help that Gently had given to starting a new life.

Gently by the Shore is the second of the publish novels in the series. A body is washed up on the beach of a seaside resort and no one comes forward to identify the individual who has been stabbed four times. The reason being that he arrived in the town wearing a beard.

The local police are forced to call in Gently because of publicity about the case although they regard the matter as a routine checking of what has been done and confirmation that without any leads or identification the mystery will remain unsolved. Slowly Gently unravels a case of international intrigue.

To the amazement and denials of the local constabulary Gently uncovers that the town is the headquarters of a secret organisation bent on taking power. The chief is someone who owns the local arcade and alcoholic drinking bar frequented by low life’s and dodgy characters including a blond prostitute from London up for the holiday season with her pimp Peachey. Under threats of death she had lured the man, an American of central European background to a condemned home on the cliff which experts anticipated would fall into the sea at any moment because of coastal erosion. The murderer, a man with a facial scar, had attempted to skip the country after lying low until the publicity and the Inspector and gone away.
He is caught by the British security service who had been investigating the activities of the organisation with the help of Interpol. They were after the top man in the UK but were prepared to settle for the murderer.

Gently persuades them to release the prostitute on the basis that she and the pimp will be at risk from the boss who it is hoped will show his hand which of course he does attempting to use the same knife or kind of knife as used to kill the man on the shore. Of course there are lots of twists and turns involving several characters and a sub plot of counterfeit $100 bills with two local minor villains braking in to try and find the rest of the loot and hen being implicated in the murder by the actual villains who take back the money from where it was hidden and replacing it with the clothing of the naked man on the shore.

Gently triumphs having kept quite at a top level meeting between the local Chief Constable and team and the National security people, until the opportune moment when he reveals that he knows who the leader is and how to catch him. There is a good portrait of a season town in the early fifties.

Martin Shaw is excellent as the Inspector and the writers and directors manage to engage the audience with characters who interest so that we overlook flaws in the plots. I was not engaged in similar manner by the novels although those were the early ones and I shall try and find some of his later works especially any where the TV series has been based to come to a final conclusion.

2078 Ruthless power seeking countered by those with honour and integrity

I saved watching and reading the next part of the Game of Thrones until this weekend in order to concentrate on my new programme working on my contemporary art project. This was written a week ago with a fourth programme to watch and fifth tomorrow.

The consequence of the gap of four weeks has meant having to remind myself of the story although I have quickly become familiar with the main characters. Rather than attempt to convey the twists and turns of the story over the month I am reporting the overall progress relating to the main characters plus aspects of the story which attracted my attention from the text together with any aspects of the book not included in the TV programmes or remembered when reading the text.

I begin with Jon Snow, the illegitimate son of the Lord of the North Eddard Stark, now the King’s Hand who despite his self exile to become a member of the Black Watch, one suspects he has a major part to play as the story unfolds. He shows great promise in his training but makes himself unpopular by his support for a new recruit Samwell sent by his father because the boy was coward hearted and refused to adopt the ways expected of a warrior. Jon has protected Samwell from the other recruits and the training Master. Both have misgivings about the life, especially the lack of contact with women and the lifelong celibacy membership of the brotherhood required. Jon grows anxious when his father’s brother fails to return and in the last TV episode covered by this writing, his riderless horse returns as he and Sam keep lookout at the top of the wall. Sam is delighted when he is told he will pass the training and become a Steward assisting in the Library and Rookery. When it was Jon turn to learn of his appointment he is shocked to be told he is to become the personal Steward of the Lord High Commander, nothing more than a personal servant and he felt humiliated as was the intention, but also one suspects to be protected for some greater purpose. The young men are seen taken the oath of commitment to the Order outside the Wall being told that they go down on bended knee as boys and rise as men. As they do this his direwolf Ghost returns carrying a severed hand in its mouth. There are several vivid scenes of the ice covered wall, the harshness and bleakness of the environment and the cold which permeates every aspect of their lives, but still nothing like the extent of the cold once the era of the long Winters take over from the Summertime.

The wife of Lord Eddard Stark, Catelyn, having visited her husband (to advise of the attempt on the life of her middle son and together with her husband learned that although the knife belonged to the former young man who sought her hand, known as Littlefinger he claimed to have handed it to the Imp, Tyrion, the height challenged likeable wayward, truth telling brother of the Queen), goes to visit her sister to seek further information on the death of the her sister’s husband. While on the journey they take overnight lodgings at a simple inn where she recognises several knights on their way to the tournament being held in the capital of the Seven Kingdoms in honour of the appointment of her husband as the Kings principal adviser, The King’s Hand. She calls in their assistance to apprehend the Imp, Tyrion, when he arrives from his visit to the Wall, and unknowingly to Catelyn, his visit to her home Winterfell where he devised a frame which enabled her son to ride a horse again and regain his will to live. An action unlikely if he had indeed been behind the attempted killing.

On their way to the extraordinary castle of the House of Arryn, along what is known as the High Road they are attacked by Brigands and Tyrion is released to aid in the fight for survival. He remains a prisoner thereafter although seeds of doubt at his guilt following his professed innocence begin to nag at Catelyn. The Castle is considered impregnable because it is approach through a guarded valley and then can only be reached part way or mule followed by either foot or winched baskets by which the supplies reach the fort. A disturbing sight greets Catelyn because her younger sister has aged to the extent she now looks older and she is still suckling her son who is already of an age to walk and talk. She wants Tyrion put immediately to death because he is of the House of Lannister but Catelyn agrees to his right to trial.

He is kept in a dungeon with a difference as there is large open to the elements side from floor to ceiling, beyond which there is a sheer drop to the bottom of the mountain. The guard is a dullard and a bully, depriving him of food but who he persuades on promise of gold to take message to Catelyn on basis he wishes to confess. He confesses his past wickedness but says he is not guilty of the crime accused. This leads to trial by combat where he is represented by someone who wins and he is released with ne companion offering to go with him along the notorious High road where it is anticipated he will not survive the murdering bandits.

In the capital Eddard has failed to prevent the holding of a tournament although his attention is directed at the activities of the former King’s hand who was visiting the illegitimate children of the King, one is working as a Blacksmith’s assistant and the other a teenage girl with a baby working at a brothel who remains in love with King waiting for him to return to her. He also finds he was exploring a large dusting book on the history of the King’s family. He lowly works out that all the illegitimate children have dark hair but his son Joffrey and the other children have fair hair like his wife and other members of her family. He finally works out that her children and the heir Joffrey to whom his daughter is betrothed is not the rightful heir. Before confronting the King and Queen with his findings he is wounded by one of the men of the Queen’s brother who goes to take him hostage on learning that Tyrion has been taken prisoner by Catelyn. When he recover he makes arrangements to return home with his daughters after having a row with the king over the decision to send an assassin to kill Daenerys who has become pregnant by the Dothraki Chief, Khal Drogo.

Sansa his daughter has re-established a relationship with her betrothed after the incident with the Direwolf and Arya and the butchers boy learning sword play. However she is disappointed when after the jousting and feasting she is left in the company of an ugly and wild man to escort her back to the Castle rather than Joffrey himself. Nevertheless she is distraught by the plan of her father knowing this will deprive her of becoming Queen. The reality of life is yet to dawn on this young woman no more an adolescent girl.

I noted the description of the meal at the feast comprising a suckling pig, pigeon pie and turnips soaked in butter with a honey comb afterwards. The coincidence is that only recently I mentioned to someone at the Marriott Leisure who had been on holiday in Majorca that I had twice eaten a suckling pig at a restaurant in the city centre during my only visit to the island and the only occasion that I have eaten this meal, Pigeons which are regarded as vermin has long since been a English food as they honeycomb for those that like honey.

Arya meanwhile has been enjoying swordplay lessons from a tutor selected by her father. He has been teaching her poise by standing on one leg blindfolded on the edge of stairs and also speed by learning how to catch cats. When undertaking the latter dressed in old clothes as boy she finds herself in under castle workings and in hiding overhears two men plotting to kill her father. She then finds herself outside the Castle and has difficulties returning only to find her father displeased by her disappearance and unwilling to hear what she has overheard in detail.

When attacked by the Queen’s brother, Littlefinger had left Ned and his men ostensibly to get the city watch to prevent the very deaths which occur. Either then or subsequently he warns Ned not to trust him. At the tourney the King proposes to enter an event in which men fight together until one is left standing. There is much breaking of limbs and some bloodshedding and the King is more than determined once his wife forbids him. This is seen as a cunning ploy her part as the King always does the opposite and therefore he could easily be killed in the mêlée and his death put down as an accident. He then decides to go hunting and is badly injured by a boar and dies having become too drunk to tackle the beast on his own, having commanded the others to stand by. He sees Lord Stark in private and gets him to write a Will on dictation in which he makes Ned Lord Protector of the realm and to govern until Joffrey is of age. Eddard writes this as rightful heir thus cleverly providing to bypass Joffrey once is position is recognised.

He has already confronted the Queen with his findings about the illegitimacy of Joffrey and the other, something which far from denying she justifies saying that the family have kept the line pure this way for 300 years and that she and her brother being twins shared the same womb and have been together since they were children. She says that nevertheless she did love the King but was shattered when on their wedding night he approached her drunk and called out the name of Ned’s dead sister instead of hers. She had ended a pregnancy caused by the King and for many years had learned how to satisfy him without permitting vaginal penetration. There is a scene where they talk together and she asks if he ever lover her and he admits his was always locked with the death of Stark’s sister.

The Queen chides Lord Stark for having failed to take the crown himself when he had the opportunity all those years ago and that in the Game of Thrones you win or die. Littlefinger also attempts to make a deal with Ned pleading with him to accept Joffrey as the King but working together they will take power. When Ned is summoned to the throne room to pledge obedience to the King who wishes his coronation to take place within two weeks, he reveals the last Will of the King which the Queen mother tares to pieces. Lord Stark as the authorised Protector of the Realm orders the arrest of the Queen and her children but it is Littlefinger who takes a knife to the throat of Ned saying that he warned him no to trust him.

Meanwhile across the water Daenerys has been securing her position as the wife of the Dothraki leader having made their way to the holy city normally in by old women, their slaves and visiting merchant. Her brother has become increasingly frustrated by the lack of action to regain his father’s kingdom and at the way he is treated, especially by his sister. Having struck her at one point he was made to travel on foot and then given the option of continuing to travel on foot or in a cart along with the old, the pregnant and the sick he opts for the cart not knowing that this is a humiliations and opens him to ridicule. He becomes even more upset when Danny achieves great standing and gives proof she will have son by eating raw the heart of a chosen beast. He comments that never has anyone expressed love and appreciation in the way the people demonstrated for her on that occasion.

When he continues to complain adn threaten her because of the lack of respect and failure to regain the crown, Khal Drogo melts gold from him and then pours the molten liquid over his head thus killing him with a gold crown.

When a shipment arrives and a wine merchant offers her a special wine, her escort becomes suspicious and requests the man takes the first glass himself and when he refuses and runs off it is realised this is an attempt to kill her and the unborn child. This puts Khal Drogo into a great rage and he vows to build ships and cross the water with his men and place her on the throne of the Seven Kingdoms.

There was one other development which heralds the way the adventure series is likely to progress. The son of Lord Stark (thrown off the castle home by the Queen’s twin brother when he discovered them together) goes riding with the help of the special saddle created by Tyrion. At one point he becomes detached from the hunting party and finds himself taken prisoner by runaways for the Night Watch and others, including a young woman. He is rescued by his brother and friend and the girl is taken prisoner. She reveals she is a wildling from beyond the great ice wall but has tried to flee as far south as she could because of the impeding arrival of Winter and even more significantly the awakening of the fearful creatures who have not been seen for over a thousand years, but who it is claimed have just been sleeping. The bloodshedding has only begun.

2062 The new fantasy series gets better

Despite the inclusion of Sean Bean in the cast and the quantity of flesh exposed during the first episode of Game of Thrones my first reaction to this much heralded new entertainment series on the Sky Atlantic channel was that it was a long way short of proving to be as a good as the Sopranos in the Middle Earth of Tolkien. The setting certainly has elements of Middle Earth but the level of characterization was questionable until I read the opening 100 pages of the original work and reviewed the first episode with a more critical and knowledgeable eye.

I can now report that as consequence of watching the second and third episodes of the TV production and reading the associated text I am greatly more impressed with both and hope that this is communicated in the following notes.

That those with power can be ruthless in their own interests as well as in those of a nation, a community, an organisation or family, remains one of the great lessons of life and leads to an eventual understanding that the behaviour of individuals can be judged from a variety of perspectives leading to a variety of conclusions. Their motivation is important. Does an individual behave in such a way because they are putting self interest or personal ambition, their desires before all other interests? Even where the motives are selfless and honourable, if the outcome is disastrous causing hurt and harm to many, should those responsible be allowed to avoid censure and penalties?

The merit of a good story is that it engages and entertains and the characters are drawn in such a way that they are shown to be layered, complex and meriting our attention.

At the end of the first section of the first book and first TV production episode I had learned that that Eddard, known as Ned Stark, Lord and Warden of the North, was an honourable man putting his sense of duty towards his King before that of family prepared to leave his wife, and three sons with her, and removed the care of his two daughters from their mother into potential great danger from the family of the wife of the King who are believed to have been responsible for the premature death of the man who raised him as his own son. As he prepares to leave with the King and his Court he does not yet know that the Queen was responsible for the near death of his second legitimate son, having pressed her brother and lover to remove the threat to their lives because of what the boy had seen and heard. One suspects that duty to his King and to his murdered care father would have led Lord Stark to be more cautious and take greater care, especially with the welfare of his two daughters.

That the King had become a fat, morally impotent, degenerate, only interested in a life which involved drinking, hunting, eating and a womanising, made Ned’s sense of duty to the institutions of country and its leader more challenging, and also reinforced his initial reluctance to sacrifice personal instincts and interests for the general good.

His wife, who at first pressed him to accept the request in order to find out what had happened to the husband of her sister and if she and her son were as much under threat as the woman believed begs him to stay once her son is found badly injured and in a coma. Her only wish is to be by his side to an extent that her eldest son now appeals to her to think of the welfare of their youngest and help him in the running of the former separate Kingdom on behalf of their father and their people.

It is too easy at this point to condemn the Queen, Cersei Lannister without appreciating her concern that married to man who never loved her, remains in love with the deceased sixteen year of sister of Ned, uninterested in taking responsibility for the day to day running of the state, appointing the right people, managing the finances, ensuring the army is ready to combat any threats, could and would at any time of his choosing find a way to get rid of her with someone younger, especially as he planned to marry off their son to the daughter of his best and loyal friend, he now wanted to de facto take on the responsibilities for running the Kingdom. Do you accept your fate in such a situation or fight? It is also easy to condemn her for having ongoing sex with her twin brother, Ser Jaime, although such a practice has been common among powerful dynasties in human reality and occurs more frequently within the lives of ordinary folk than is usually admitted. It is yet to be revealed although I know in advance that her children are not those of the King but of her twin brother!

Sir Jaime has so far been revealed as a realist and ruthless in protecting interests. However the impression obtained to date is that the attempt to kill Ned’s boy, Bran was more out of loyalty and passion for his sister than considered judgement. He prefers to take a long view about taking outright power, knowing its precariousness, challenges and demands At present I see someone who wants his cake to always be ready to be eaten and enjoyed, in fact someone little different from the King.

As yet the King, Queen, Ned and his wife are unaware, although this changes quickly, that the family from whom they took power has taken a significant step towards launching a military attack to take back their kingdom by Prince Viserys, forcing his adolescent sister Daenerys, into marrying the head of a powerful fighting force, the Dothraki and their leader Viserys appears to have no redeeming features other than the wish to avenge the murder of his father and his elder brother and ending their dynastic rule of centuries. The reader is in no doubt that given the opportunity he would become just as ruthless and self seeking a tyrant as those he wants to replace, and probably more so. His sister‘s plight appeals to us because she is the victim of criminal assaults throughout her childhood, an orphan and homeless and sold off as a child bride to an older man whose language she does not speak. I did hear a joke made about such relationships while listening to one of the cricket audio books about someone who will remain nameless who had married a woman whose language he did not speak and in response to a critical enquiry responded by saying that the best things in life are eating, drinking and making love and the less said during these experiences, the better.

Of the other characters, I and I suspect readers in general, immediately like Ned’s illegitimate son, Jon Snow, not just because of the similar parental circumstances and its repercussion, as in my case, but because he has appears a young man of honour, integrity and a sense of duty. We learn that from the text that he is only 14 years of age looking more like twelve although in the TV production he appears a mature young man.

I /we also like the eldest son who is willing to immediately step back from the life of young man ands take on the duties of his father as head household and the kingdom, although he too is also a teenager. This is more realistic in the TV production because as with all the children their ages are raised to enable adult actors to play their roles and to overcome the problems resulting from their active sexuality.

We also liked the middle son, Bran, because of his sense of adventure, risk taking and individuality and instinctively knew that when he was pushed off the walls of castle he would survive. We also like the younger sister, Arya, who also shows individuality, rebelliousness and also feminist inclinations.
I suspect that the Queen’s young brother, Tyrion, also has an immediate fan club although some will have very different reasons from others. There are those who will be sympathetic because of his biological deformity, height challenged and deformed. There are those who will admire the fact that despite his natural disability he is a great womaniser and likes his food and drink. Others will also appreciate that he is a well read philosophical analyst and observer of the human condition. His dark side is yet to emerge.

We known little of the boy heir to the throne Joffrey although this is to quickly change as the story progresses, and many will dislike his betrothed, Ned’s eldest daughter, Sansa who is vain, shallow, celebrity seeking, uncharitable and dishonest. They appear well suited.

The second episode of the TV production commences different from the text showing the first days of the arranged marriage of the sister to the legitimate claimant to the heredity throne of the Seven Kingdoms. I am not clear if the race of her husband is naturally nomadic or is just travelling great distance to their permanent base. We see the bride hungry and tired and she is advised that things will get better. Her brother is also travelling with them and is advised that he would be better off accepting the hospitality of a more civilised existence. He responds that he is sticking with the hardships in order to ensure that the bargain is honoured and that Khal Drago will lead the Dothraki men across the water to reclaim his Kingdom. Later there is a brief scene in which the husband takes pleasure in the manner of a beast which she does not enjoy. Later she consults the woman slave given to her to teach the ways of love and she advises to always have the man look her in the eye and later still she persuades her husband to do so thus beginning what appears is likely to be a meaningful and developing relationship. All this comes later in the text after several story developments and in fact forms no part of the text covered in this episode but comes later.

In the TV production the second scene switches to where the Queen’s other brother is reading in a stable before breakfast. The young son and his retainer arrive to say the uncle is missed at breakfast and they are setting off home. The boy is then slapped across the face three times for refusing to go and tell Lord Stark and his wife how sorry he is about the “accident” to their son. Tyrion is warned that the boy will tell his mother and will also remember this treatment. Tyrion comments that he hopes the boy will remember the lesson and that should he forget the retainer should remind him. Tyrion is OK or is he?

Later when he and Jon are on their way to the Wall conducted by Ned’s brother, we learn more about the young brother who explains what while his elder brother uses the sword he uses his mind and the mind needs books just as the sword needs a wetstone to sharpen. The scene is used to explain that his brother was the adviser to the former King for 20 years, who then killed him while his sister married the new King. In the book there is much more description and information from the journey of Tyrion and Jon to the Wall. We learn of Tyrion’s interest in Dragons, including a collection of skulls from a thousand and a century and half ago and which I assume will have some significance later in the overall epic.

Earlier Tyrion arrives at the breakfast table demanding bread, fish, a mug of beer and bacon burnt black and greets his “beloved siblings“. He then reveals, in response to a question, that the boy Bran will live. The Queen chides her young brother for wanting to go on a visit to the Great Wall, but he explains he has no intention of joining the Night Watch but wants to stand on its top and piss off the end of the world. The Queen goes immediately leaves with her children horrified at the language, but is more upset by the news that the witness to her treachery lives. His older brother Sir Jaime, suggests it would be better the boy died than remain deformed to which Tyrion reminds of his own plight and that to live is better than to have no life, and that he hopes the boy will live and tell his tale as a consequence of which his loyalty is questioned.

Jon is preparing to join the Night Watch although he appears to have misgivings about the lifelong nature of the commitment, reinforced when later on the trip to the wall with Tyron they are joined by two rapists whose sentence has been commuted to service in the Watch. The Queen’s twin brother also thanks him for the service he will give reminding that it is a lifetime commitment, He notes Jon is waiting for a new sword. This we learn is a special one for the Ned’s younger daughter, the two having a special relationship and he sensing that she is going into danger without his protection. He also says goodbye to his father seeking information about his mother which Ned promises when they next see each other.

Lord Eddard comes to say goodbye to his wife but she no longer wants him to go to the capital reminding that he has choice and to say that he has no choice is what all men do when they have made up their mind to put honour before family wishes and needs. He tells her she will cope when she says she cannot, but she also fears that as before he will return with the child of another woman. Her fears strike home with Ned as shortly after setting off he and the King eat together privately and the king presses him about the identity of Jon’s mother, something which Ned resists. The King is concerned as the news has reached him of the marriage alliance between Daenerys Targaryen and the Dothraki arranged by her brother and the threat this poses. We learn that Khal Drago has not 40000 men to hand but 100000 but Ned is dismissive saying the Dothraki have no ships and if they do manage to cross over he will drive them back to the sea. He is also concerned when the King wants the girl killed, no more than a child. This is the first indication that the King wants to have his own way and that Ned’s task will be far more difficult than he envisaged. It will get worse before the episodes ends.

Previously the Queen visits the sick room where Catelyn keeps watch over her son to “empathise” saying she lost her first born, a boy just like him, implying she will have to let go while offering prayers for his return to consciousness. After the departure of Ned her remaining adviser suggests it is time to sort out the finance and the cost of the Royal visit. She wants to leave this to their steward but is reminded he has gone with Ned. After his departure the man hired by the Queen to kill Bran arrives and the Queen manages to fight him off injuring herself badly. She, the adviser and her eldest son establish that the man must have come with the King’s party. The knife used in the attempted killing is of such quality as to have been given by another. She also investigates the area of the castle from where her son fell and finds evidence of the presence of the Queen. They conclude that the fall was no accident and she determines to ride after her husband, taking a sea route so as join him as soon as he reaches the capital city and warn him of what is now suspected.

We now come to the core event of the second TV episode. Arya, the younger daughter of Ned is practicing sword play with the son of a butcher and this is observed by the King’s son and his betrothed who has been frightened by one of the men used to protect the heir. The Heir now reveals what an obnoxious coward he is by taunting and wounding the Butcher’s boy using a real sword instead of the wooden learning instrument. Arya then humiliates the heir as the direwolf attacks Joffrey biting into his hand to prevent him doing more harm to the butcher’s boy. Sensing she is in danger she runs away and hides until discovered later at night. Meanwhile Joffrey has told his version of events before the King and Queen placing blame on Arya and the butcher’s boy. Ned’s eldest daughter although present throughout the incident denies any knowledge and as a consequence it is the word Joffrey against that of Arya. The consequence of Sansa’s silence is that the butcher’s boy is slaughtered and the King insists that his daughter be punished by the death of her direwolf cub that she has trained well and is much attached. However Arya suspecting such a course has ensured that her pet goes off. The King insists on the punishment which means that Ned is required to kill the remaining direwolf, that belonging to Sansa. She is distraught realising, perhaps for the first time, that her superficial and child’s view of the world is no longer valid in these new circumstances. Ned sensing that what he is doing is wrong, still carries out the command and at the point which the hound is killed Bran wakes from his coma. The second episode ends.

The third episode of the TV production is the most powerful of three and includes major developments in the story line. The hostility between Arya and her sister continues but her father admits that they are both in a dangerous place and that it is important for the family to remain together. He points out that her sister is betrothed and as such she cannot go against what her husband to be says without endangering her own situation. He finds that she practicing with her sword and although she resists in saying who provided the gift he arranges for her to be giving lessons by an expert. He looks on in a mixture of pride and fear, knowing both the necessity of what he is doing and fear of its consequences. Earlier he gives his daughter a present of a doll and she reminds she has not played with dolls since the age of eight.

We follow the continuing journey of Jon, Tyrion and Ned’s brother to the Wall where Jon begins to fully realise the reality of the life he is choosing. There are spectacular views looking down from the top of the wall reached by a primitive manual worked lift system. Of the new recruits Jon is most accomplished fighters and his effort to prove himself arouses the hostility of the other “recruits”, until Tyrion advises him of the backgrounds of the men, one caught stealing food for his sister who had not eaten for three days and accepted the recruitment as an alternative to having an hand chopped off. The advice results in Jon establishing a good relationship with the others as he helps them to learn to sword fight.

Lord Eddard arrives separately with his daughters at the capital and is immediately summoned to a Council, but before gaining entry to the meeting room he is confront by the Queen’s twin brother in a manner best described as unfriendly and threatening. The Council appears comprised of four men all with backstories. Ned is shocked that not only is the King not present but they are delegated tasks which this time involving finding funds for a tournament to be held in his honours. He then learns that the state is in debt by several millions in the currency and that she King shows no regard for the position accept to order additional expenditure for his interests. The Council is then shocked when Ned says the tournament will not go ahead and refuses to commence planning. A message arrives for Ned by raven to say that Bran and come out of the coma but cannot remember what happened. The Queen criticises her brother for what he did and the continuing threat to them. She also comforts her son whose wound from the direwolf is in the process of healing leaving scars which she says she should bear with honour. When he admits aspects of the truth of what happened her she points out that when he is King he will and should fashion truth as he wishes. However she counsels against his wish to take control of the North, double taxes and create one army rather than allowing each of the seven Kingdoms to manage their own. She explains the problems likely to arise but in doing so Joffrey realises that she regards the North as enemies. Cersei explain that everyone is a potential enemy other than the family and she seems to be indicating that only she and her son can be trusted. She also counsels him to be nice to his betrothed after he says he hates and does not want to marry her. Later she says he can take as many painted whores or mistresses as he wishes. The girl will provide him with a heir.

Catelyn reaches the city and is surprised and alarmed to be greeted by two member of the city Watch who know who she is and take her to a house used as a brothel when she is met by the Council member who wanted to marry her, times past. Also present is another Council member who explains that his value is information. He wishes to see the knife used on the attack on her and Bran but admits he has no knowledge. The former suitor says that for once he can provide the answer. The knife was his until he lost it during a Tourne event to Tyrion Lannister. In the previous episode when Tyrion’s loyalty was being question by his elder brother he affirms his love of his family. Ned is brought to the location and explains that without proof of what is being said he cannot bring to the attention of the King. Catelyn returns to the North and their parting look suggests that both question whether they will see each other again.

At the Wall, Ned’s brother announces that he is leaving to go out beyond. Tyrion has made friends with the man who brings new recruits and the brother overhears a conversation in which Tyrion appears to be ridiculing the Night Watch. Tyrion explains to the contrary that he is full of admiration for the men but questions the necessity of their function. The brother agrees that the wildings, the people who live in the forest pose no threat although their numbers have been increasing. He fears that the White Walkers have returned as maintained by the member of the Watch beheaded by his brother for desertion. He presses Tyrion to warn the Queen and her husband of the threat and that the force has become inadequate, Reduced to less than 1000 men, a combination of old men and pressed men, amateurs with little or no fighting skills. There is much talk of the coming of Night. In this land seasons lasts for years so that Night can become years of darkness, of recent times lasting on a couple of years but in times past have continued for generations people die from cold, starvation and despair. This story is told Bran by his nurse as he lays in bed, not remembering what happened or frightened to remember and wishing he was dead because his crushed legs means that he will not walk again.

The episode is also interposed with scenes as Daenerys and her brother continue what is obviously a nomadic life. She has become pregnant, is able to communicate with her husband who have now a close loving relationship. She is certain she has a son which pleased him greatly. At one point she orders the column to stop as hey enter an area of tall grass towering above them. She wonders off and is confronted by her brother who is angered that she gave the order to stop without consulting him first. When he handles her roughly a young man appointed for protection seizes the brother wrapping a whip around his throat and choking him, only stopping when ordered to do so by his sister. They continue the journey and the brother is told to walk rather than ride. From the text we learn that for a man to walk rather than ride he is no man at all and that Dany no longer believes her brother will return to the homeland as King. Her pregnancy is confirmed on her fourteenth birthday.

The Winter, the dark is coming, but where from, the Dothraki, the White Walkers of from civil war within the Seven Kingdoms?

The main noteworthy difference between the TV production and the text is that Catelyn arrives in the city by ship rowed by sixty men before the King and her husband return and she mentions the former ward of her father Pyter, known as Littlefinger, who had a crush on her when he was 15 years of age and she 20 and engaged to Ned’s brother before his death, as someone who they should be able to trust. He companion shaves off his whiskers so he will not be recognised as he goes off in search of help after securing accommodation at an Inn outside the Castle walls. When she is woken the next day and ordered to the Castle she knows in advance it is to meet Littlefinger. He brings in the Kings’ spider given a courtesy title of Lord Varys, a eunuch whose function is to provide the monarch with intelligence and he mentions the knife after having overheard her man ask about it to his contact in the city. The rest of this sequence is as before. On arrival there is a description of the city familiar to Catelyn from her childhood and former life there.

The arrival of Eddard is kept closer to the text and I learned that two members of the Council bear the Kings surname; Lord Renly Baratheon master of laws and Lord Stannis Baratheon Master of ships both brothers of the King. Littlefinger has become Lord Baelish. In addition there is the Grand Master Pycelle and Ser Barristan Selmy Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. He is then taken by Littlefinger to meet Catelyn at the out of castle brothel where she brings her husband up todate with events at home and learning about the ownership of the dagger. She in turn has learned of events on the journey and Ned is mortified at the decision to kill the hound finding that it was his son’s creature which saved his life and that of his wife. With the help of Littlefinger he hopes to discover the truth believing that Tyrion would not have acted without the authority of the Queen. He asks his wife to organise defences on land and at sea to cover for all eventualities.

1525 Brideshead Book and DVD's continues

Brideshead Revisited was published as three books. The first opens with the return of Charles Ryder, during World War Two as preparations to free Europe from Fascism are underway, and he begins to look back how he first came to visit the property and developed relationships with all the members of the Catholic aristocratic family in residence. The focus is the relationship with Lord Sebastian Flyte, the younger son, during their idyllic first year at Oxford, and long summer vacation spent at Brideshead and two weeks at Venice. The relationship ends as Sebastian becomes an unhappy alcoholic driven between his need for pleasure and unhappiness arising from his Catholic based guilt, constantly reinforced by the fundamental beliefs and practices of his mother Lady Marchmain. While the end of their day to day relations top is instigated by Lady Marchmain, Charles realises that he cannot help his friend to break the addiction and that Sebastian wants him to collude with the addiction and end contact with other family members. Throughout the book there is an examination of what Catholicism means to the six members of the Flyte family compared to the agnosticism of Charles and his dismissal of Catholic faith and ritual as mumbo jumbo.

The second book is a Transition during which time Charles progress as painter studying in Paris after leaving Oxford at he end of his second year. He loses all contact with Sebastian who se subsequently finds at the request of the dying Lady Marchmain living in dreadful conditions in North Africa, without his allowance, after stealing £300 pounds from the fiancée of the eldest sister, Lady Julie. Sebastian is too weak to return home and his mother dies before he is in a position to decide what to do. Charles is commissioned to paint pictures of the internal and external views of the Marchmain House, their London home which is to be turned into a block of flats. He makes his name as a fashionable artist painting views of Stately homes. We learn that Julia the eldest sister has married the socially ambitious fiancée despite parental opposition. This marriage takes place in a Church of England Chapel after the discovery that the fiancée was married and divorced.

Charles had had limited contact with Julia and therefore the new film significantly misrepresents the position suggesting that the deterioration of Sebastian is caused by discovering that Julia and Charles have fallen in love on the trip to Venice when in fact the trip only involved Charles and Sebastian and Julia was in the South Of France meeting her future fiancée Rex Mottram for the first time. Both Lady Marchmain and the atonement young sister Cordelia attempt to convert Charles to Catholicism.

Throughout the book we learn about the main characters and their relationships with each other and their friends, the society of the upper middle class and the aristocracy but a constant thread is the agnosticism of Charles and the Catholicism of the Brideshead Family. First Lady Marchmain and then younger sister Cordelia set about trying to convert Charles and there is much consideration of the problems when faith along with romantic love ends. The second book ends with a discussion about a Catholic life vocation between the younger sister and Charles.

The third book is not a detailed chronology of subsequent events but series of jumps into situation over the subsequent decade and half. Charles is dissatisfied with his work as an architectural painter and with his life overall, and goes off for two years to Mexico and Central America, not Africa as stated in the film. The books talks of the paintings without describing their content so that the TV Adaptation and the Film have very different interpretation of what they look like. This book informs us that Charles has married the Aristocratic sister of Lord Boy Mulcaster the young man who was part of Sebastian's set at Oxford. They have a son of the marriage and since his expedition commenced, a daughter, with a question mark over whether this child is his or that of an affairs between his wife and someone else. She is a great socialite with Royal Household connections who attend the private view of the exhibitions of his paintings made in America.

In an attempt to renew their relationship his wife journeys to the United States and New York to meet her husband and they return first class on a transatlantic liner with the Q E 2 being used which is a coincidence, considering that the ship recently returned to the Tyne on its last voyage around the UK before being converted into a hotel in Dubai.

On this journey they meet with Lady Julia who his wife regards as a friend from before she met Charles unaware the there had been previous contact however limited. Confined bed because of the weather his wife gives approval on hearing that Charles and Julia have spent the day together. It is now evident how Charles came to know to know so much about Julia and her relationship with Rex Mottram and his attempt to convert to Catholicism. In the third book we learn that Rex felt that Julia had failed him as she was unable to give birth to a living child or accept the continuing relationship between Rex and his former mistress, He was primarily concerned with developing his business and political career using Brideshead as a base for parties which would have scandalised Lady Marchmain. They had taken over Brideshead as Rex had the means to run the house while the bachelor elder son and heir to the title, called within the family Bridey, who occupies a small suite of rooms at the top of the house next to his former nanny. While their marriage has become one in name only, Lady Julia, in the same way as Charles' wife is an excellent hostess. Charles and Julia admit that they do not like his wife as they become lovers on the ship and set up home together as Brideshead.

Cordelia the young sister tried to become a nun but then goes to Spain to operate a ambulance on the side pf the state in much the same way that Charles had joined in trying to keep services going and break the General Strike. On her return to Brideshead with a Medal she tells Charles how she went in search of Sebastian and found him still an alcoholic by living as part of a Christian brotherhood and regarded as spiritual being. Given the reinstatement of his allowance he lived and travelled with his German friend who had gone to prison in Greece after a fight and then expelled back to Germany where the Nazis were ensuring that all citizens were returned their homeland to he trained as Nazi and allocated to the service of their Fuehrer in preparation for the war. Sebastian had gone to Germany in search of his friend but found that he had hanged himself and this event had led to further deterioration and the return to the Middle East.

Charles and Julia gain divorces and plan to marry and live in grand style at Brideshead. Bridey announces that he is to marry a widow with children and because she is devout Catholic she could not be invited to Brideshead to meet Julia because she was living in sin with Charles. This upsets Julia into an hysterical outburst and emotional breakdown and we learn the extent to which her anti Catholicism hides great guilt and uncertainty.

It is at this point that Lord Marchmain returns home to die and the world of Charles and Julia is turned inside out and upside down.

I wrote the first draft of this in the early hours of Monday morning, grabbing a few hours of rest before rising to put out the bin and environment recycling box and preparing for my Midland mini trip. The recycle box was cleared but the wheelie bin remained un emptied as I was ready to depart so with the assistance of neighbours I transferred the waste sack to their bins and returned mine to the garage. I had set off for a mile or two when I thought that I may not have closed the garage door in all the rush and returned to find that I was mistaken. The journey south was a good one in fine autumn sunshine and I remained fresh and alert through the three hour journey. I had bought a sandwich pack at the supermarket, consumed at a midway stop, as well as visiting a cash machine. Later in the evening I enjoyed a carvery roast with two thick slices of beef and a plate full, but not overfull, of roasted vegetables and two small balls of stiffing at village inn. The news en route sounded hopeful with a good market response as France, Germany and Spain followed the approach taken by Britain, and the prospect of a similar approach by the USA on Tuesday.