2054 Films and TV while listening to a radio cricket commentary

I am again setting to one side writing to and about Margaret Humphreys, the Child Migration Trust, the recently released film, the books and my knowledge before and after being reminded. I need to finish the books and other reading and then write from different perspectives worthy of the issues involved. So I will attempt to become up todate in my viewing of films and television and reporting on my continuing evolvement into a writer and contemporary creative artist. I also opened another door yesterday to the Second World War, the Pacific Theatre of bloodshed and human misery. The series -Pacific, originally shown on the Sky Film channel is being re run on Sky Atlantic but yesterday struggling to get the internet to work effectively in general and transfer from lap top to TV I found that the series is available on Sky Anytime Internet and watched the first two episodes. I will leave this subject until I have completed Empty Cradles, Sunshine and Oranges and the rest of the emotional wringer I have set for myself, trauma upon trauma of others and my own. It is 7 am on 14th April 2011 and I have drunk my first cup of coffee, after deciding to gives the Leisure a miss and need some food. I begin with one of several films- The Blind Side a gooey mash of sentimentality and how America wants to see itself based on the true story of Michael Oher, the offensive left tackle for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League. The true story is far better and more important than the film, and in fairness the reality is also of good Christian people whose standards are maintained consistently. So instead of beginning with the film and then moving onto the reality, I begin with the reality. Michael was born Michael Jerome Williams Jnr 28th May 1986, the year that Margaret Humphreys became confronted with one aspect of the horror of the British record by state and religious based bodies to provide appropriate care for children in need. His father was a criminal, who shared a cell with Michael’s mother’s brother and who was murdered and pushed over a bridge when Michael was in High School. His mother is an alcoholic and crack cocaine addict who produced thirteen children. What has happened to his brothers and sisters before Michael was helped to make a different life for him and what is his present relationship with them and his biological mother is not known to me. Nor do I know the extent to which his subsequent foster family who became his legal guardians have used their wealth and position to make a difference to his siblings and to others in a similar situation. In comparing stories and roles this could be the difference between the Tuohy family and Margaret Humphreys who after being confronted by one situation devoted her life with her husband and children to as many people with the same issues as money and time were available to her. This is not to belittle the Tuohy epiphany contribution to the life of Michael Oher but to place his story and the film in the true perspective of the reality of the USA today. The country remains racist and segregated, has failed to tackle drug abuse and alcoholism and prides itself on its vast differential between rich and poor. It remains a fundamentally hypocritical and unchristian practicing nation although under President Obama it appears to be attempting to put his own house in order before attempting to lead the free world while supporting feudal dictatorships, the extermination of men women and children, together with their starvation and death from treatable disease. The republican supporting majority of the country is not willing to improve the balancing of the budget in a humane way or to embrace a national health care programme which enables all to receive the minimum care when needed. The danger of the Oher story and film is that it make good people feel comfortable and accepting they do not have to do more, every day, and sometimes at great personal cost to maintain present levels of civilization let alone make the required progress. I also pose the question would this couple and their children have devoted themselves to Michael and continued to do so if he had not shown potential as an American football player. In fairness this is a question posed in the film and I presume also in the book and which it is possible to answer with evidential support that first and foremost the Tuohy’s provided Michael with a Christian education and loving family home and while they were keen for him to do well in sport as they were with their biological children what happened to him was down to his High School Coach and Football star spotter and recruiter Tom Lemming. Before encountering the Tuohy family, Michael was taken into care, placed in a number of foster homes from which he ran away and attended various schools somehow managing to grow tall and large. The film attempts to answer how he managed to survive while the majority do not is that he shut out the negative aspects and development a great sense of protective caring for others, greater than the majority of human beings possess. What his story also suggests given that his academic ability progressed from significantly below average to above average is his parents were victims of their social circumstances rather than of predestined criminality and personal and social inadequacy. The man first responsible for changing the future life of Michael was Tony Henderson, known as Big Tony who decided to enrol his son in the Briarcrest Christian High School, a non denominational fee paying school, in order to fulfil the dying wish of his grandmother/mother, and that because he had known Michael, who sometimes stayed at his home, and who attended that same public school as his son, suggested to the head of Briarcrest that they also ought to take the young man because of his potential in sport. The purpose of the school then, as now, is to provide a Christian education first; to make an all round good citizen, and this required everyone to also have a good college education. This is what the parent’s were prepared and able to pay for. This meant all pupils had to have a good record of academic ability and Michael did not by a long way and before he would be accepted he was required to successfully complete a home study programme which he failed to complete. The then Principal confirms that he was persuaded as the Christian head of a Christian school with few black pupils to take Michael anyway. His school life started badly with several teachers believing he was unsuited because he did not have the basics and his performance was appalling. On some respects his lack of basic knowledge was similar to my own although I had managed to cope with some of the basics better than Michael by his age on admission. However fortunately there was Jennifer Graves who ran the programme for students with special needs and she saw in him potential and was not prepared to give up and ensured that he was given a chance and which is where Sean Tuohy and his wife enter the story. While the film concentrated on the role of his wife, the book written by Michael Lewis and summarised in the New York Times, under the title - the Ballard of Big Mike 24th September 2006 prior to the publication gives equal prominence to Sean, a man socially aware who made a fortunate and an upper middle class lifestyle through owning a chain of 60 fast food restaurants for the likes of KFC, Taco Bells and Long John Silver, He also had been an able basketball player at university and in the minor league and he maintained involvement doing commentaries and took an interest in anyone also trying to work their way up. He had taken in interest in the poorer students at the school, and these were predominantly black, helping to fund their scholarship and encountering Michael and working out the boy was not eating on a regular basis arranged for him to have a paid for lunch each day. His daughter was becoming the state pole vault champion (not covered in the film) which concentrates in her membership of the cheer leader’s unit, and admits she was afraid of his size until she found worked out that he was more afraid of the other students. One cold and blustery morning on seeing Michael leaving a bus wearing shorts and the same T shirt he always wore, Sean mentioned this was the boy he was helping by proving regular lunch and when the boy said he was on the way to the gym because it was warm in there, his wife got upset and Sean knew that they were to become more involved. That his wife immediately took an interest was against the family grain as her father was a racist US Marshall who had taken her out of public school to Briarcrest because of desegregation. When she decided to buy him a wardrobe she had no idea she would one day become his legal mother. During the autumn of 2003 Michael stayed with various families and one night after a track meeting attended by Leigh Anne Tuohy she saw Michael and gave him a lift the 30 miles to a trailer where he slept on a blow up mattress which tended to loose air as quickly as it was blown up. She took him to her home where he used a couch for two weeks during which time she visited the places where he had stayed collecting clothes that had been given. He then moved in with his own room and bed and quickly became a close friend of the young son Sean Jnr. It is at this point I introduce the role of Tom Lemming and why the book and film is called the Blind Side. Michael now plays as a left tackle offensive, a role similar to Orlando Pace who in addition to his standard role had developed the ability to protect the quarterback‘s blind side, something which failing to do had led to the end of the career of well known quarterback. The article explains just how important finding an offensive left tackling linesman with the ability to protect the Blind Side of the quarterback had become in the game with the average National Football League player in the role earning $5.5 million a year in 2004 while by 2006 Matt Hasselbeck had signed a six year deal worth $8.2 million a year. By now it would be surprising if the figure has not reached over $10 million What emerged in the article and the film is that one of leading recruiters of new American Football talent from High schools, Tom Lemming, had followed up a tape of Michael’s play sent to him by the ambitious school coach, and became intrigued as well as interested because the high school had no record of providing Division 1 college players and the young man was unknown outside the High school for having ability and potential or having the kind of social life which potential stars normally experienced, and that when he got to interview him at school, the boy did not know who he was, did not consider himself a football player or had played in the role of left tackle which Lemming viewed him as a result of seeing the tape. I like this because it is evidence that the Tuohy’s were providing foremost a loving and secure home. The consequence of Lemmings appreciation of the boy’s potential is that when he notified 100 head football college who provided first division programmes On the first afternoon of Spring practice Briarcrest staff noted the arrival of coaching staff from five universities, something that had never had happened before. They could not say anything to him directly because of the rules which prevented approaches until July of an athlete’s senior year. At the end of a play involving Michael visiting coaches all went off to make private telephone calls. One of those visiting handed the team coach his card saying a full scholarship was available for Michael. The Tuohy’s were not immediately convinced that football was the future for Michael especially because of his lack of natural aggression. He was successful in playing basketball and in throwing the discus. (Having debated whether to go to Headingley for the first day of the game between Yorks and Durham after getting an accommodation voucher worth £15 a night at Travel Lodge, I decided to stay and see what happens over the first possibly second day. There was a little regret when Durham won the toss and decided to bat. Will Smith former captain that led Durham to their great championship win before he lost confidence and resigned after last year’s year disastrous start has returned as opening batsman, because of an injury to Stoneman. Captain Mustard is also out with injury and I have learned that Steve must have been hit on the arm and broken a bone with his second ball at the Rose Bowl last week. Smith is showing his nervous tendencies with De Venuto on 28 and Smith 21 50 without loss in 12th over). The next problem was Michael’s record of academic performance with a history of D’s and F’s which meant there was no prospect of his being eligible for a University Placement. He needed to somehow raise his grade average from .6 to over 2.65 by the time of graduation. The family hired a private tutor to help Michael 20 hours a week and with her assistance he undertook a number of intensive Internet courses at the Brigham Young University (something not mentioned in the film) and which took him over the minimum requirement for college. Michael was courted by the Universities of Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi and in choosing Mississippi caused an investigation by the National Collegiate Athletics Association which organises and regulates programmes and scholarships at over 1000 institutions. It is not known who complained and why, but the issue centred on whether Michael had been pushed into accepting Mississippi because it was the University of his adopted parents and that his High school coach was then given a post with the University soon after Michael agreed to go to the University where he obtained a grade I scholarship meeting the academic standards because of the Internet work with Brigham Young. In the film the inquiry does cause Michael to question the extent to which the family took him in because of his sports potential rather than his individual qualities. The NCCA did not close its case on suspicions of collusion and the High school coach was found guilty of secondary violations by contacting University staff before becoming a member of the staff. The film ends with Michael’s graduation and visit with his family to start at Mississippi. Michael was likely to be the only graduate without a baby photo for the year book and the best Leigh Anne could achieve was one when aged 10 years taken by the state child care authorities. Her solution was to use the best appropriate photo of a black baby so he did not miss out. In the film she also warned what she would do if made a girl pregnant. Mrs Tuohy has her own Interior decorating business after attending Mississippi University where she met her husband then a basketball star. Sean was educated in New Orleans where a gymnasium is named after his father a longstanding basketball coach at the school. He is included in the University of Mississippi Hall of Fame. He continues to broadcast report Basketball games as well as enjoy the income from his now 80 strong restaurant franchise chain which also now includes Pizza Hut. Also in the film Sean Jnr attended the various meetings between the University coaches and Michael before his decision as to which college he accepted. He asked about his ability to keep in contact with his older brother and the offer from Mississippi included the ability to lead the team out as a mascot for the first game. The film the films then ends with live film and photos of Michael being signed by the Baltimore Ravens as the 23rd pick of the 2009 draft having gained Michael on an exchange with New England Patriots for their first and fifth round selections. After his opening performances he signed a five year $13. 8 million contract as a right offensive tackle although during 2009 he played 5 of the 16 games as left tackle a position which became permanent for the 2010 season when he again played in every game. He is co authored autobiography I beat the Odds, from Homelessness to the Blind Side and Beyond has also been published. I will look out for his progress next season. (Durham lost Di Venuto just before lunch quickly followed my Gordon Muchall first ball. Although 110 for 2 there is now need for Smith to rebuilt the innings with in form 19 year old stokes who hit a century against Hampshire and five sixes in one over. He needs to do this again and again not to be one of those who in the past promised much early on and failed,) Much has been written about the Russian directed 2008 film Wanted with James McAvoy as the man wanted, Angelina Jolie in the role of a female assassin and Morgan Freeman as the Assassin master. Other involved included Terence Stamp and Thomas Kretschmann. The film is about the Fraternity, a ancient band of Assassins with special superhuman abilities including the capacity to shoot a bullet around an object or individual to hit another or catch a shuttlecock at play in a loom. The mission of the Fraternity is to remove bad people so that society may function overall in balance and those to be killed are revealed in a code embedded in weave produce by one of the looms- The Loom of Fate! While it is implied this had some truth in the past, Morgan is now controlling the names produced in the loom for money without caring whether the individuals deserved to die or not. McAvoy knows nothing of the Fraternity or that his father was a member as he works in an office where he has a bullying female boss and a girl friend that is cheating with another office colleague. Such is McAvoy’s condition that he requires anti anxiety medication. An event is staged between two members of the Fraternity played by Jolie and Kretschmann which result in McAvoy being told he is the son of an assassin with special powers killed by Kretschmann and after the young man become unconscious he is taken to meet Morgan who explains that he has his father’s powers and if agrees to be trained he will be given his father’s fortune which unsurprisingly is all too much for McAvoy who returns to work until the pressures mounts and he finds that several million dollars have been added to his bank account. He takes revenge on his boss and the colleague cheating with his girl friend and goes off to be trained. This involve being badly beaten up repeatedly by members of the Fraternity including Jolie in order to build up skill and resistance. The violence is gratuitous and enjoyable by those like gratuitous violence! However the hero has reservations about killing until he sent to kill Kretschmann which involves tracing a bullet maker to Moravia and a fast action sequence in which the hero crashes a car into a moving train which is then derailed into a ravine, with Kretschmann saving McAvoy’s life only to be killed by McAvoy but before then revealing that he is in fact McAvoy’s father. Jolie then admits that McAvoy was recruited because he was the only individual Kretschmann would not kill and that having accomplished the mission her task was to kill him. He escapes and is rescued by the bullet maker, played by Terence Stamp, who takes him to his father’s apartment where explains that his father had worked out that Morgan Freeman was creating the names of those to be killed for money pretending they were on some historic mission and he had set out to kill Fraternity members and to keep them away from his son. His father’s wish was that his son would grow up free and without violence but the young man discovers his father’s weapons and decided to complete her father’s mission. As the finale progresses McAvoy breaks into the compound armed with a truckload of rats, many fitted with time explosive devices which destroy the premises. Freeman explains to the surviving assassins that the reason why he stopped implementing the Loom of Fate was because all their names came up; Jolie who believes in the code because of her personal experience uses a curved bullet to kill all the remaining members including herself with the exception of Morgan Freeman who escapes. In the final sequence Morgan appears to have got the drop on McAvoy but this turns out to be a look alike decoy and he is killed by his nemesis at a distance and then McAvoy appears to break the screen to address the audience saying What the fuck have you done today? The film made a lot of money. The film is based on a comic book and a sequel is planned. It is not recommended unless you enjoy this kind of rubbish. The 10th first episode of the Sopranos-A Hit is a Hit. The episode begins with a gangster hit as Christopher Moltisanti joins Paulie Gualtieri and Big Pussy kill a drug dealer in a hotel room as a warning to his organization to stay away from the New Jersey Soprano territory. They steal a huge quantity of cash which Tony states should be used legitimately to broaden the role of Family. He and the others celebrate with whores in an hotel room while Christopher goes off to celebrate with his girl friend. After taking her to a show in New York for some inexplicable reason Christopher queues for some fast food boxes and as we know Christopher does not like queuing and insists on being served which draws his attention to a well known Black Rapper Massive Genius who amazingly are also in line with his assistants who take exception to Christopher’s racists comments. Also in line is a city cop who advises the singer to be careful mentioning that Christopher is part of the D’Meo family. The rapper invites Christopher and his girlfriend to a party at his home where she attracts the attention of the rapper and this encourages her to follow her wish to become a music producer of the work of an ex boyfriend who fronts a band Visiting Day. Christopher puts up the money for a demonstration record but realises that the man has not recovered from an accident and has problems, and after taking the completed work to a member of the fraternity who had been responsible for the development of Black artists in the past but who now develop their on work , he tells Christopher that, “A hit is a hit,” is not a hit! Massive G disagrees although Christopher notes the continuing interest in his girl friend and then Massive reveals that he is a relative of a deceased artist who he claims is owed $400,000 in music royalties to the artist's elderly mother by the man who Chris consulted. When the contact refuses to pay, Massive responds with a threat of litigation and the man with a counter-suit over the unauthorized sampling by Massive G's music label of a song that his record label still controls, leaving them at loggerheads. As Massive fumes over the impasse, Tony and his crew comment on the irony of modern-day celebrities like Massive Genius being idolized as "gangsters", with Paulie summarizing it as "fucking depressing". This brings to the other main aspect of the story, the attitude of Tony neighbours and Dr Melfi’s friends to having a notorious gangster living among them. He lives next door to a doctor Dr. Bruce Cusamano, the family neighbour and family physician who referred Tony to Dr Melfi because of the anxiety panic attacks and gives him a box of illegal top notch Cuban cigars. Cusamano invites Tony to play golf with him and friends at the private country club of which Bruce is a member. After some initial hesitancy, Tony does so. Later, at a barbecue with Dr. Cusamano and his friends, while Tony is looking for stock tips, Carmela receives one from one of the wives, and invests in the company. The company's stock soon splits 3-for-1 and Carmela is pleased explaining to her daughter that they must take steps to achieve separate final independence in case something happens to her husband. Tony regrets his decision to play golf with Cusamano when he realizes the other players want to hear his stories about life in the Mafia. They even ask him if he has ever met John Gotti, which he jokingly says he has. He tells them a story, completely made up, about Gotti's fondness for a certain kind of ice cream truck. Cusamano and his friends are enthralled by the story. Later, Tony discusses the incident in therapy with Dr. Melfi, and how he felt used for the amusement of others, much like his speech-impeded high school friend with a cleft palate, Jimmy Smash, whom they would make fun of because of his speech impediment. As revenge, Tony fills a parcel with sand and asks Dr. Cusamano to hold on to it, in an attempt to worry him and his wife. The box is a source of concern to the Cusamanos, who think it may contain drugs or a weapon. He has advised Tony that Membership has been closed and will only be available when an existing member leaves or dies. Dr Melfi has attended a dinner party at the Doctors house where the talk is of the neighbour and his activities. The doctor explains that it is good to have such a neighbour as their is no crime, no one dares. Another dinner guest says that there is little difference between Tony and most of the business men he knows except that Tony probably is involved in murder from time to time. Something which of course large corporations never engage in except in the cinema and on GTV! When Tony’s wife attends a charity raising barbecue with the neighbours they mention their involvement in the stock market and that they are successful. It is evident that one of the husbands is involved with insider information which is passed on to thee wives. Thus the episode can be said about the greyness of behaviour in a world where we like to divide people and actions into simple black or white. At the dinner party Dr Melfi had made an excuse to fo to the toilet in order to take a look at Tony’s house and hear an alarming tortured sound emanating. She asks Tony about this and denies knowledge. The episode ends with Tony weight training in the basement uttering excruciating cries! Little Fish is the 11th episode of Blue Bloods. Danny is at home in bed after a tiring shift when he receives a call from a frightened woman who he had given his phone number but tells her first to call emergency and then when he regrets saying this she rings off. Understandably and rightly he feels guilty when her body is washed up in the river. Brother Jamie with his Sergeant are at the scene when a detective arrives who Jamie is advised was the partner of his killed brother and this arouses Jamie’s interest and concern as what happened and why. Arising from a witness friend of the dead girl Danny is able to arrest the boss of the escort agency which employed both girls. The Judge at the custody hearing is unhelpful and gives Danny the weekend to substantiate the case refusing to hold the man in custody. Understandably the witness withdraws her statement and Danny is left with the prospect of the being released unless he find something nee to hold him. He reviews available tapes involving the escort girls and their clients and one face appears familiar so he asks for the car used to be traced only to find that it belongs to the judge in the case. He therefore is able to have the judge removed waiting until the morning of the adjourned hearing to do so. Meanwhile the Commissioner is contacted about a case form 25 years pas which he and his partner investigated of a missing child and where the remains have now been found behind a false wall in a building close to the area where he lived and disappeared. Frank visits the mother and promises to find the killer. This proves to be the former caretaker from whom he obtains a confession The cricket has been a day of mixed fortunes. Durham took the score to over 100 without loss and then just before and after lunch collapse and 136 for six. There have been three saviours with wicket keeper Richardson making 67 and Thorpe 41 and with Plunket not out 65, the total 326 for 9 and with the match balanced. If tomorrow Durham can gain another 25 suns for the 4th bonus point and restrict Yorks to 250 then an unexpected win becomes possible. Yesterday I enjoyed the first programme in the final of Master Chef where the remaining four, two men and two women undertook three tasks over the week involving pastry and which merits separate attention

2053 Disatisfied with myself TV watching in April

The second Monday of April 2011 has been a day of mixed fortunes commences with a struggle of swim and quick read of the newspaper before going to the supermarket for milk with I then forgot, some meats and fowl as the cupboard had become bare, two made up salads one chicken and bacon and the other prawn layered, some butter scotch for the night and four packs of the £2 for 8 Pepsi.

It was then I could not find the A A credit card last used yesterday afternoon when buying the two pairs of trousers and by mid afternoon I decided it was lost rather than mislaid and cancelled so a second replacement within a month is required with the added problem that I will have to advise the change in card number to the Olympic ticket bid. To day I discovered the card inside the pocket diary but it was too late to change and had to be cut up.

Yesterday there was also a quick return home for the arrival of he boiling servicing although in fact it was after 11.30 one and half hours into the two hour slot and then a brief stay of under 15 mins but it has been done for another year. I then found my day phone that had dropped to the floor in the car and I could settled for the day after a good lunch of a cut of steak and the rest of the tinned and tomatoes and beans from yesterday.

Today after the swim I also made a quick visit to Morrison’s for milk, select your own salad and a kipper topped and tailed. There were two in the pool on arrival and then a couple from the hotel so I sat out read the paper and my current book. After the breakfast I got ready for the dentist who has become a young Polish woman after the previous dentist left for Yorkshire. I needed another appointment for a filling replacement but this has to wait until after a return from holiday. I then went for two more pairs of trousers and decided to park at Asda when someone gave me a paid for ticket.
This meant that I could boy five pounds of food for four pounds. I found the latest location of end of sell by date counter and found two more quiche marked down from £1 to 74p excellent, purchased some strawberries and one other item which I cannot immediately recall. It was midday and then time for food, ah I remember, it was two Thai Fish cakes, already consumed with a compote of vegetables.

Yesterday I was not in the mood to begin Oranges and Sunshine and New Lives for Old- The Story of Britain’s child migration watched the recording of the first episode of the new series of Lewis. Later I watched the second part of the last episode of the last series of Waking the Dead. I have watched one awful film, Wanted, together with Crimson Tide.

I guessed that the Assistant Police Commissioner was a baddie early on in the last episode of Waking the Dead but not the extent of his infamy. A Soho frequenting pregnant prostitute has her aggressively drunk boyfriend picked up by police but he is then beaten to death in cells by a couple of young “beat” police in 1960’s with the help of the duty custody officer who they had visited for a quick drink on New Year‘s Eve.

About seven years or so later the boy becomes an orphan having previously taken the money from punters for his mother using accommodation provided by a Soho based gangster who has taken a shine to boy and then brings him as his own together with his natural son of a similar age.

About a decade and a half later the natural son uses money obtained from his father to buy a closed public house in countryside where he takes central London street boys to torture and terrorise before shooting 16 of them in the head at roughly three month intervals. He has been drawn to his prey by the son of the prostitute who has entered the police force and talks about the number of street children and that no one will miss them. This is not so because a kindly Vicar of a parish in the area has expressed repeated concern to the police over the number of youngsters he befriended and supported and who suddenly disappeared. This disappearance had been investigated by Trevor Eve as his first case on appointment to the Cold Case Unit without success.

At the start of the last two part episode, Waterloo, Trevor Eve is told that he can either retire or take up a training post with promotion. In his anger Trevor decides to reopen the investigation of the missing street boys before he leaves, securing support from the bewildered team until he discloses he is being forced out because of his unacceptable and at time illegal methods.

Early on in the investigation they discover that one of the boys died in a road accident along a stretch of motorway and they suspect he had been held somewhere within a two mile radius having accessed the motorway at junction points because of the gradient either side. Most of the area is owned by a farmer but the pub was purchased at auction 1978 purchased by a Henry Holmes who Sue Johnson immediately realises is the killer because it is the name of a convicted serial killer in the United States about 50 years before. An investigation of the site reveals the bodies of the street boys and an early appearance of the Assistant Chief Constable to offer his congratulations and support and the offer to appoint Trevor in charge of solving the case for as long as it takes. Given that the site is in the area of another police force the visit of the ACC and his direct involvement is unusual and therefore a big clue, one which Trevor and his team do not immediately pick up.

The boy who died in the road accident in 1982 had only disappeared two weeks before and according to Sue Johnston the psychopathic control freak of a killer would have become angered and frustrated by the escape and premature death and would need to immediately find a replacement victim. This leads to a review of Met records from that time. This results in a report of an incident involving the attempted kidnap of a street boy and that as a constable, the ACC was one of two police who investigated the incident. Moreover the vehicle involved is same colour and make as seen by a local farmer at the pub when visiting to report a farm vehicle had broken down and access to the main road would not be possible until a repair had been completed. Eve understandably wants to know why the ACC omitted to mention this before and did not pursue the case at the time especially when the witness died shortly afterwards without making an official statement.

The next breakthrough is the discovering of a bullet used to kill one of the boys and this is of the same weapon used to kill a retired police officer, the officer who was in charge of the shortly to be father beaten to death by him and the two other policemen. The team visit the house which is occupied by the man’s son who does a runner, because of majurana plants in an outhouse.

The Det Inspector formerly of the anti Terrorism force and now attached to the unit reveals to Sheila and then to Eve that she may have caused his retirement because of saying to her former boss that she had thought him unfit because of the risks he placed Sheila in. Eve is outraged. She had admitted her likely involvement in his demise because she was summoned to see the ACC who attempts to blackmail her into spying on Eve for him, especially about the unsolved killing of the policeman, or he will reveal to Eve her report about his suitability.

In order to regain the confidence of Eve she keeps watch and follows the ACC who goes for a meeting with someone but she is spotted observing, so the ACC manages to get in her car with a gun before she can escape. However she deposits a surveillance device in the car.

The son of the murdered policeman reveals when put under pressure that his father admitted to him he had killed someone in custody and this leads to the discovery of who the man was and that his then unborn son became the ACC. It is then discovered that the man who took him in after the death of his mother was a notorious known criminal who somehow managed to evade capture and conviction despite strong evidence against him on a number of matters. The two other policemen involved in the killing also died, allegedly by criminals, although this was so we later can assume it was by the foster father of the ACC on information from him. We learn that the foster father gave the boy gun to shoot the officer who had killed his father about the age of seven years but he had then finished of the man as the frightened boy was a poor shot who had then wet himself.

We learn that when the ACC had gone to the assistance of the attempted kidnap of the Street boy in 1982, he had immediately recognised the kidnapper as his foster brother and arranged for him to knock him down so he could escape. The foster father had then bought a farm in Africa for his killer son which explained why the kidnaps had ended.

The car of the missing Detective is found in a crusher which the forensic specialist investigates in secret discovering samples of blood. The ACC appoints two of his staff to investigate the case of the missing detective whose body is found in the garden shed of Eve after he is found not to be cooperating with the ACC in a proposed deal and cover up.
What seals the fate of the ACC is that finding that the FBI had been called in to help the police in the African country when the son had become a farmer after 50 African boys had gone missing over a period of time. The son had then been killed in yet another unsolved crime. It is then found that the ACC had made a short visit to the African country at the time of the death. Eve reveals this information to the man’s foster father who has him killed. Eve, Sue the Forensic officer and the other member of the team meet up under Waterloo Bridge to make the closure of the case and the series. Underpinning this episode is the loss of Eve‘s son, a drug addict street boy whose father son difficulties and whose murder was covered in an earlier series. Another chapter closes.

I missed the first episode of the new series of Lewis, the Oxford based Detective investigations which continued after the death of the actor who played Morse, the work of Colin Dexter and where episodes are continuously played on one station or another since its untimely end in 2000, having runs annually from 1987 to 1993 with specials from 1995- 33 two hour shows with adverts, 90 minutes in actual length, which I have come to know by heart as most feature my beloved Oxford city and county. His Assistant Kevin Whately took over the key role together with an academic former theology student played by the upper class public school Lawrence Fox.

The first episode has connections with the last episode of waking the Dead because the murder occurs at the last all female college in Oxford which has just voted to admit men for the first time. The murder occurs at a special meal and social gathering at which a number of former graduates return. The occasion is also designed to mark the move of a Professor to the USA. She is an internationally know feminist and celibate who invites the brightest and best to share her home.
The case has difficult echoes for Kevin who several years ago had commenced the investigation of an assault on a young visitor, the sister of a student at the college who remains in a coma since the event. He had left the enquiry after his wife had been killed and it was taken over by another officer with the help of the then female assistant to Whately.

As with Waking the Dead I worked out the villain -the Professor on her way to America. The motive for the murder is related to her evangelical feminism and the student son of an exceptionally wealthy family who before his disappearance was notorious for approaching every female within his immediate orbit for sex.

What emerged is that he had affairs not only with several of the bright ones taken under the wing of the Professor, played by Juliet Stevenson, but also with her and at the party attended by the 15 year old sister of an undergraduate, he had set his sights on the new arrival. The Professor had killed the young man and later disposed of his body in a farm building at the former USAF base at Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire. She had knocked out the young visitor to prevent identifying disclosure and the girl had developed a coma from which she had not recovered.

Kevin had retained a feeling that although it was established that the young girl had been attacked by the young man before his disappearance there was something more about the case that he had been unable to unravel before personal tragedy had led to his further direct involvement. He visits the girl in hospital and meets her sister who visits every morning before work and afterwards most days talking to her, hoping that she will recover. He also makes contact with his former partner who now runs a small boat yard and I sensed that she was somehow involved beyond her immediate failure to remember the case until reminded by Whateley. Later when there is a further murder at the college she visits him to enquire about progress, to go out with him for a drink, to ask why he had never approached her sexually when they were partners, to give him a good night kiss and to say she would like to see him again. She is then found murdered too.

The police then find in her office the kind of crime analysis board used in Waking the Dead as if she has been re examining the original case herself. It is established that she had started to blackmail the Professor although if it was clear in the film how she was able to do this I cannot now remember. There are other aspects which I do not remember the links although two of the female members of the group had their lives significantly adversely affected by one of the others who reported back ground information in such a way that it led to the break of a marriage and loss of direct care of her children in one case and to being passed over for an important promotion in another. What is understood is that his present assistant knowing that his boss had an issue about the original case at the college staying up all night, piercing together all the photographs that were taken and held by the investigating police in a time line which eventually leads to a query about the owner of one of the costumes. Fortunately, and amazingly, some will say, the girl comes out of the coma and when she begins to regain her strength she is hypnotised in order to remember the events of the that night and what she says adds to the certainty that the owner/hirer of a particular costume caused the injury. It may be my lack of immediate memory or that my mind wondered to the young woman who I had know at one of the then all female colleges and to other aspects of my time at Ruskin and in Oxford that this is a far from satisfactory note on the episode. Although it remains available to be viewed again it is not something I now wish to use time doing. Oddly rather than disappear to the Sates the professor goes to where she hid body and then dousing herself in petrol, burns herself to death.

The second episode of what I suspect is also a last series of four programmes proved more satisfying, possible because it communicated more of the flavour of the Oxford College city that I remember although also like the Midsummer Murder series there are just too many bodies too frequently for the series to have the kind of integrity of Wallander, or the first Morse based on published novels.

The crime in the second episode is the murder by drinking poisoned wine of a visiting Female Bishop from the USA attending a conference at a small college “Christian” teaching college called St Gerard’s, funded by an aristocratic Italian woman played by Sian Phillips and her daughter who is having a passionate affair with a college servant.

The major red herring issue of this episode is the election by the college Fellows of a new head. For some reason never explained although the college is for the teaching and training of Friars and is a traditional Christian establishment two of the four contenders for the position of the retiring head who hash plans to open and run a facility in Italy, are women, who have gained positions with the college. Moreover one has an extraordinary past in that as a child she left people to die in a burning property without raising the alarm. She had been convicted and sentenced to youth custody and given a new identity and is now in an ongoing relationship with a former criminal who has become a successful detective story writer to whom she has not revealed her past which I find unlikely in the particular circumstances.

The cause of the subsequent deaths and the near death of what proves to be the successful candidate in the election is that the college servant is in fact a close relative of family who died in the fire and has been plotting revenge for years. The murdered bishop was a mistake because he had left the poisoned wine for a room rather than a person and the hotel had switched rooms before the arrival of the two guests. The intended victim was the retired policeman in the original case that had come to Oxford although I cannot remember why.

The second red herring was the only other survivor of the four was an arch traditionalist opposed to females having any role in the church. However his sin was to steal bottles of the special vintage wine available only to those resident in the college and to sell to a third party. While the who dun it aspect of this series is always a consideration of greater and lasting significance in the series has been the relationships and truths about relationships and life in general. In this episode Kevin has noted the adverts for early retirement and voluntary redundancy and his sergeant has also noted his interest.

Kevin explains that he is about to become a granddad and his daughter has suggested he moves to their area (if not with them) and he is tempted. His first reaction is to assume the sergeant is considering his prospects as a consequence but the response is to say that if Kevin goes he might also because he is unlikely to find someone else who understands him. For the sergeant this episode raises his past as having entered a seminary to become a priest/vicar but then leaving for reasons he has never disclosed to Kevin. He is offered a post at the college by one of the other candidates who do not survive. The future of both men is uncertain which partly why I suspect that the 19th and 20th episodes will be the last of Lewis. Lewis was far crying from Morse with a reverse relationship Morse the intellectual versus Kevin the Geordie so that it became Kevin ad Kevin with Laurence the cultured thinker. The two worked well together but the Oxford setting could not mask the roughness of some of the stories.

2052 Television weekend on a sunny day

I ended the last piece of writing with a summary of the penultimate first series of Boardwalk Empire which launched the Atlantic channel on Sky. The series is intended as a history of how the Mafia organisation developed into the national crime incorporated and last night I stayed up to watch the last episode of the series in which two scenes summed up the organisation and morality of the series.

Margaret who is an archetypical leader’s wife asked how he could be sensitive caring man and a ruthless killer and received the response that being an adult is deciding how much sin you can live with. Hmmm.

In the previous episode Margaret had gone away unable to cope with aspects of his reality especially his enjoyment of any woman available when he felt the need for one, She had become a replacement for his wife who could not cope with the loss of their son only after a few days his birth, while breakfast with her and the children assuaged some of the guilt he experienced knowing that he had been to busy at the time to appreciate how ill his son was becoming and how desperate was his wife at the loss. The moral is therefore killers, rapists; gangsters are human being too, as if we did not really know!

Margaret reappears towards the end of this episode looking more sophisticated than ever and it is quickly evident she has decided to become his partner again which he willing accepts despite the threat she poses in knowing his personal vulnerability as well as having seen the crime books.

The second structural aspect of the series was underlined in a scene in which Chicago’s Mafia boss Torrio accompanied by the new serious Al Capone meets with Nucky and Jimmy from the City and Rothestein and Lucky Luciano from New York to do a deal creating a truce between their competing and warring national ambitions. Nucky agrees to arrange for Rothestein not to be indicted for fixing the World Series baseball series result in return for $1 million and the whereabouts of the D‘Alessio. Family. The barely veiled aspect of the meeting is that all three assistants are planning take overs of their masters.

Nucky has the least idea of Jimmy’s intentions given his preoccupation with the Republican Party retaining control of the City through his nominee Mayor. His gives Chalky a new car and an invitation to the all white election night party for delivering the Black Vote, Margaret worked hard to win the new female vote before her departure and Nucky’s master stroke is to first to dismiss his brother from the job as city justice controller and appoint the deputy and then to claim responsibility for bringing to justice the rest of the killers of the five bootlegging gangsters after first blaming Margaret’s husband as the leader of the assassins. This all helps to defeat the anti crime and corruption Democratic Party rival.

What Nucky fails to appreciate is that his brother, married with eight children, deeply resents the way he is treated and has opened a dialogue with Jimmy’s father who is recovering from the attempt on his life using arsenic The Commodore plays on the fact that Jimmy is upset that it was Nucky who found the 13 year girl for the Commodore although his mother has no regrets saying she was languishing in a child care institution at the time. Jimmy also appears to be working at re-establishing relationship with his wife although she has received a card from Paris saying sorry for running off in the way the lesbian lover did.

The Republican Party on Election night continues until Warren Harding is elected President. His young concubine is expecting that she and her child will return to having a major place in the man’s life.

Van Alden, the Prohibition FBI agent is back in the good books of his superiors after discovering the Still which Nucky had revealed to his deputy Sebso in an effort to re-establish Van Alden’s confidence in his deputy who remained suspicions at the events which led to the death of the witness who could have sent Jimmy and Al Capone to the electric chair. Instead of finding the Still they encountered a baptismal gathering of an evangelical preacher among the black population and Van Alden had been much affected by what was being said given his recent fall from grace. In this episode he forces his deputy back to the site after he put in a request to leave, and shoots the man in front of another baptismal group claiming the deputy was killed by bootleggers. He then decides to leave the force himself much to the horror of his wife and buy into a business opportunity offered, unless he has some sign from God to stay. He does so in the form of the gangsters tart he fornicated after his drinking binge at the club. She arrives to announce he has made her pregnant. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, so it is claimed.

The episode- A return to Normalcy ends with Margaret and Nucky surveying their empire from the Boardwalk.

The ninth episode of the first series of the Sopranos, Bocca is concerned with hypocrisy and double standards. Tony’s daughter is a goalie in the High School British style soccer team and her best friend is the leading striker who is going through some kind of crisis, slashing her wrists at some point. Tony and two other members of his fraternity all have daughter’s involved with the team are much impressed with the progress under the coach and after one winning game take him back to their pole dancing and drinking club where he is offered a free session with one of the girls which he rejects being a happily married man with children. Hmmmn

When they find that he is leaving to take up a better paid job at a University they attempt a mixture of bribes and threats to make him stay. The mood changes when Tony learns from his daughter that the attempted suicide is because the coach had a relationship with the girl who fell in love and became suicidal after he said he would not leave his wife. Tony and the others talk of murder until the girl’s father pleads for a legal solution and the man is arrested. This happens after Tony has visited his psychiatrist, Dr Melfi who queries why he feels such a responsibility for the rights and wrongs of society.

Meanwhile Tony finds he has a hold over Uncle Junior on learning details of his sexual behaviour towards his long time mistress after the return of the couple from a long vacation in Florida to get away from the attention of the Feds who are closing in. Because Junior has two previous prison convictions he faces the strikes and indefinite imprisonment if he is successfully indicted as the head of the DiMeo crime family. Other captains congratulate Tony on his manoeuvre to put Junior in charge. Meanwhile Tony’s mother is attempting to poison the relationship between Tony and Junior suggesting his visits to the psychiatric are endangering the family.

Junior’s woman is so thrilled at his willingness to address her individual sexual needs that despite his warning that talking about his approach endangers his position she does so on return to her hairdresser and this is overheard by a friend of Tony’s wife. This results in Junior beating up the woman after being taunted at length by Tony.

I enjoyed Blue Bloods After Hours much more than last week where the theme was marital fidelity and the impact of the job on relationships. The detective son Frank is called to a murder outside a night club where the doorman is shot after refusing entry to someone where his female escort is permitted. I was reminded of my time over fifty years ago when demand to get Cy Laurie and the 100 club was such that even if you arrive early entry was controlled by someone with whom it was important to become a familiar and trusted face. By coincidence I learned that a classical guitarist was performing at the 100 club in Oxford Street and that the Wetherspoon’s in the Charing Cross Road (105) had been the home of the Marquee club after it had transferred from 165 Oxford Street where I had attended the opening night with the Johnny Dankworth Band in April 1958. The club had moved to 90 Wardour Street with a tiny stage in 1964 when the Trad Jazz and jazz in general waned and rock and roll came to the fore with the Rolling Stones have their first London gig at the club with Led Zepplin, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Flloyd among those who played there. The club moved to the pub site in 1988 and this lasted only 8 years after which there have been several attempts to revive the club including by Dave Stewart in Islington, then in Leicester Square and then St Martin’s Lane. Each time the ventures were shortlived, I assume the difficulties of getting good bands and audience to make the venture financially worthwhile.

Returning to Blue Brothers, Frank is pursued by the owner of the club a more alluring and seductive creature than Joan Collins when she starred as the predatory cougar in a couple of films promoting the expensive social disco night club fashion. His wife immediately senses the threat on seeing a photo of the notorious celebrity owner in the press and when he then buys her a fashionable sexy top. The investigation takes a couple of twists, first when it appears the doorman was doing a deal to help open a new club with a rival and the owner becomes the prime suspect. Then an enhanced security camera film reveals that the doorman was killed by a ricochet and was not the prime target which appears to be the club owner and at the end it is reveals that the the assassin was the doorman‘s pregnant girlfriend after she learned that he was also having a relationship with the club owner.

The younger brother reveals that his girl friend has taken up the offer of an six month job in London and is consoled by his father (Tom Selleck) who in turn is under pressure when he is thought to be recommending a colleague for promotion much to the disgust of his own father. The subject “took” two bullets intended for Selleck the early days of their career when they worked as partners on the street, On the anniversary of this event the two have a meal together and it was during this year’s event that the officer now the head of a unit raises the possibility of gaining promotion. Selleck’s father is opposed to man because he left his wife and children for a younger model. Selleck not only decides against the appointment but requires his friend to take early retirement on learning that the man had been cooking the figures by classifying major crimes as lesser to the detriment of the victims.

As usual the TV treat of the week is Treme with the episode All on Mardi Gras. I can understand the enjoyment of those who use Mardi Gras as the opportunity to get drunk, high on drugs or to have casual sex. I also understand that some people like dressing up in costumes and playing roles different from their usual personalities and life experiences. I am less convinced of the value of Mardi Gras carnival as family entertainment.

In this episode everyone is focus on proving something to others as it is the first big carnival since Katrina. John Goodman as the voice of thinking New Orleans takes his daughter on a visit to destroyed areas of the city to put the day in perspective and reminisces with his family over previous experiences. They dress up in a vivid and garish blue outfit with the daughter looking attractive, the wife looking OK and John absurd. They eat out at the street side kitchen operated by Jeanette. John feels less and less like celebrating and returns home alone to make a morose rant for You Tube and then gets drunk on his own and sleeps off among sheets of completed typescript. He is told to sober up by his wife when she finds him in such a state in the morning.

Jeanette get drunk after a hard day’s work from which she makes a lot of money and appears to be at risk as she wanders aimless around the city as it begins to quieten down.

Her casual lover Davis visit his parents who are celebrating the festival with a garden house party and he then goes off and finds the busker violinist Annie on her own and they have an enjoyable day together in which he shows her the fun side of carnival. She has reunited with her lying and cheating drug taking boyfriend only to learn in the morning of the day that he is going out on his own. She still dresses up and goes out on her own until she meets Davis having uttered a few words about the behaviour of the boyfriend Sonny. Sonny ends up enjoying drugs, drink and sex with a woman who is impressed by what he has to say of himself.

Another pair who enjoy an illicit encounter is bar owner LaDonna who struggles to keep her silence over finding that her brother is dead until after the festivities, both missing out on family meals of Gumbo, the southern states dish brought from Africa comprising stew of shellfish or fowl with Creole and Cajun variations. She meets up with the lawyer who represented the city opposing her requirement for action to reveal the whereabouts of her brother. The lawyer hopes there are no hard feelings as she was doing her job and hopes the brother will be found.

Madonna’s partner in crime is Antoine who she meets after he has played at a gig. The episode ends with La Donna outside a Funeral Parlour although it is not clear if she has yet told her mother. Antoine had met up with the Asian man who gave him the new Trombone so he feels obliged to explain that he had recovered his own Trombone and gave the gift to his teacher who has since died. Antoine is impressed that he man was aware of the death and also expresses approval on being told that the Trombone had been passed down to the grand son of the former teacher. Although it is evident the two have a romantic encounter it is not clear how far this develops given that on leaving the home of his partner and daughter Antoine checks on the parameters of his freedom for the day and the partner is firm about the limits.

This just leaves Albert in jail after his protest over the failure to open the State controlled housing project. His son who is staying at a good hotel with the band and bails his father out but only after the Carnival Day. Delmond is impressed by a group of half naked female “Indians” to whom he throws necklaces of colourful beads (made in China) traditionally thrown by those participating in the main parade each day of the two weeks season in New Orleans along with fake Doubloons, decorated plastic cups and small toys for the children. I am assuming that the episode attempts to communicate the flavour of the events, the parades, the masked balls, and parties of various forms and sizes.

Later I was the penultimate Waking the Dead and Record a new Lewis. Newcastle lose 1.0 at Aston Villa with Nolan and Ameobi absent. Sunderland after taking the lead twice lose at home to lowly WBA 3.2 and are in trouble. Vettel won the next Formula 1 race with Button second so he is now second in the championship ahead of Hamilton who had a difficult day. Hampshire looks as if they will manage a draw being set close to 500 runs to win by Durham with rain forecast. I also watched the spectacle of the Grand National in which two horses died leading to the usual debate about the continuation of the event.

In the afternoon I purchased to pairs of trousers from British Home Stores in Shields finding the right waist and inside leg length but have I mislaid lost that credit card again?

2051 The sun shines in London and on Tyneside

I am home with glorious sunshine outside and yet I am at my desk, briefly.

This was my second trip away this year with only two others so far planned on late August and mid September.

I will begin with glorious Wednesday April 6th 2011, a day which I had planned to spend in central London. By good fortune despite misplacing at home the Oyster travel card and only ordering a replacement online late on Thursday it arrived on Saturday morning so was available to bring with me. There was only £3.50 of transferred credit so the first task was to bring up the amount to £8 the maximum charge during a single day after 9.30 am. I thought I had added £5 at the ticket machine but did not appreciate that I had to touch the Oyster Card for the sum to be added. This I did second time of trying. There was a similar hesitancy at the registering ticket machine, so I touched again and this time noticed that a sum deleted so my first reaction was that having touched twice it had treated the action as arrival and departure and that the card may not have been registered for the trip. I therefore checked with an assistant on arrival at East Croydon whose hand held monitor confirmed that everything was in order and that the basic journey charge is always taken and then adjusted at the checking out as appropriate.

I then took a bus from outside Victoria Station to Piccadilly Circus and made my way to the Cineworld in the Haymarket to check out the times for Sunshine and Oranges the film about the work of the Child Migration Trust. I also checked at the box office that I had interpreted the new Cineworld vouchers correctly that they can now be used at Cinemas in Central London, worth up to £9 for an evening or weekend ticket where there are no elder concessions.

There was time for an early lunch at the Weatherspoons and on the way I noted a sign that day tickets were available for the Children’s House play at £15 with a matinee available at 2.30. I was tempted but as with the cinema there was glorious hot sunshine, a rare event any year and at the commencement of April almost unique. The gardens at Leicester Square were all boarded up with a notice getting ready for 2012. It was not clear if this was an improvement to the nearby Underground station or some refurbishment and reorganisation for the Olympic Games.

I had noted some good meal offers before getting to the Square and decided to go along teh Charring Cross Road towards the Tottenham Court Road where the other side of Cambridge Circus I had come across an inexpensive Chinese buffet restaurant. It had not lasted and was now an unattractive empty pizza parlour. A little way alone on the other side of the road there was another Wetherspoon’s where I enjoyed a pint of lager and beef hamburger and chips. I then went to the cinema and the film was moving and personally challenging with long term consequence.

All I wanted to do was to sit somewhere in the sub so made my way along Piccadilly to Green Park, taking a peak in the windows of Fortnam and Mason, scene of the recent sit in noting that one of the House specialities was a platter of four types of caviar for £150. There was also some work on the damaged Ritz Hotel. There was also a large area of hoardings within the area of the park at the entrance of Green Park creating a new entrance for the 2012 Olympic Games. At the far side of the park opposite Buckingham Palace was another area cordoned off with several large hospitality type structures. I could not read the signs from one of the few available park benches but later discovered this is a temporary area for the Royal Wedding. As I crossed over to St James’s Park to make my way along the passage way by the former Home Office, now Ministry of Justice building to the Underground station I gasped at the four tiers of temporary Television studios in the process of building with 12 studios on each level assuming that one window equated with one studio!

At East Croydon I waited for the train to Caterham, but got off at Purley for a visit to the Tesco supermarket where as the previous day I bought a baguette and a layered prawn salad. I could also not resist a mini peppered salami. However all the ice cold Pepsi was sold out. On the way to the bus stop to completed the journey to Whyteleafe South I saw a newsagent back towards the railway station and crossing back over the busy main road I was disappointed to find it was closed by Court Order because of non payment of rent.

At the bus stop the first bus to Whyteleafe was seventh in queue and a wait of 17 minutes. Another bus was then signalled six minutes later to Caterham, a different route. I decided on the first which took a tortuous route part way up one side of the steep chalk hills on either side of the main road. With cars parked on both sides of the road there was just sufficient space for the bus to pass through which meant oncoming vehicles had to dive into empty spaces. Most fo the housing had garages although those further up the him had almost vertical driveways into the garages whereas those at the other side had almost vertical drops down to the housing although few a spent a fortune creating a level space to the side of the house while others had a elongated ramp down the side of the property to a garage set back into the vertical garden space.

At the travel lodge I consumed two cans of ice cold Pepsi from a machine in quick succession. I was in bed and asleep by nine pm missing the second half of the Champions League game between Manchester United and Chelsea.

I have been busy since rising with the alarm at 5.30 am, on Friday, the morning after my return yesterday afternoon making the Leisure club for 6.15 to find the most regular member and one female hotel guest rushing back and forth with exuberance.

A task bar window reveals that Durham is now 38 for 0 wicket at the Rose Bowl against Hampshire. Hampshire do not broadcast their home games which adds to Hampshire being my number one and only hate County after their disgraceful facilities for the 20 20 final. I only have bad wishes for their new and any season. We are now 42.0 after 12 overs.

Because it looked as if I would not immediately enjoy my first swim back home I had a Jacuzzi and then a brief Sauna until I heard the regular member of the 6 am club enter the steam room opposite and I commenced my swim session. It was hard work after a four day absence and I struggled to reach 50 lengths. There was an important article on cricket in the Daily Telegraph report of a civil action for liable in which a leading individual alleged that forces from the sub continent had met with representatives from three British counties to discuss what a UK 20 20 franchise system might look like. One party alleges that the proposals were advance enough to threaten the authority and structure of established cricket in the UK while the other party are reported to have only been sounding out possibilities after a commercial review of estimated income to participants.

While away I asked about the position of the stadium development on the club site forum and while there have been two responses from other Members the club has resisted the temptation to comment. Interesting! We are now 57.0 after 12.2 overs.

After the Leisure visit I purchased frozen roast potatoes, a full baguette which I hope will last two days and a good portion of salad. I have been hungry this morning enjoying cereal, two sausages and mash, a hot cross bun with coffee and a glass of diet coke after struggle to remove the Winter destroyed tree plant, my pride a joy where the root ball encircled the large pot thus making it impossible to remove without cutting and pulling and breaking sweat.

I will make half the baguette with half the salad and then take the remains to the tip along with some other stuff before returning and going back into town on foot to replace a couple of cartridges which did not work, renewing my travel pass and making use of the addition of free ferry crossing as part compensation for the change in approach so that there is now a summer concession for £15 and Winter for £10, up from £12 last year, but the Ferry concession is an important bonus as until now the return trip cost £1 so with fine weather I shall make regular trips and then get the bus to North Tyneside and Tynemouth or walk to the fish quay and along the coast. The score is 72 .0.

I need to arrange a visit to the Dentist and the boiler servicing and some plants for outside. I need to send a birthday card for the weekend. One of the reasons why I have not gone out earlier is that three shipments of books are due which have been ordered over the past two days. (81.0). I went to check for information about the shipments and found I had own £2.50 on the lottery having invested £3 for last Wednesday, 2 lucky dips plus the bonus entries. Remembered to o buy Euro lottery. In fact I bought two with the winnings! Durham has lost their first wicket with De Venuto out for 42 and the total 86 for 1. There is a sound of the post so I may not have to check the latest position after all Stoneman got his 50 and so the score is now 105 2 with lunch approaching and 116 for 2 at the luncheon. I have enjoyed the filled baguette and completed the removal of the plant, broken pots and such like while watching a good edition of bargain hunt with one team gaining £150 on the bonus buy taking profits to £227 while the second team stuck with only £5 profit and missed out on a further £45. 133.3 With Stokes out for a poor 10.

Nearly time to go out as I have loaded the car, cleaned up, ordered a mixture of 450 Bizzie Lizzie Pansy and Petunia plants for £18 which is truly amazing, and made a dental appointment for next week and was just about to arrange the central heating boiler servicing when the second arrival of books of the day so just as well did not go out before now. More about the books when I come to the main development of the past few days. Tried to make the boiler service on line but had to ring free number instead and arranged for Monday. So that is be now all done and ready to take stuff to Council recycling and waste site after posting birthday card and then return car so I do not have to walk up hill on return journey and go to renew Travel Pass, replace the Ink cartridges and take the ferry over for a short walk before coming back. Durham have recovered to 183 for 3 so should get a total of 300 to 400 to day.

It is just before 5 pm and I am shattered without having got to the ferry. This is because having reached the office for the Travel Pass I had forgotten my credit card on the desk after ordering the plants. So on the way back I stopped to read the opening chapter of one of the books I had taken with my rucksack which was left at home when I collected the credit card and return leaving the car down the hill but a little bit closer to the town centre. On the first journey I had continued to opposite the former Woolworth store and now partly a Pound store to the Computer shop to replace the two black cartridges which had not worked and on the way back to the car for the second occasion I went into the Museum and Art Gallery from office to collect the latest information on summer Ferry trips, what‘s on, and bus service Time Tables. I then went to the Council, recycling and waste centre, cleaning out the back of the car before returning and garaging the vehicle. Durham are progressing exceptionally well as the partnership between former captain Benkenstein now on 101 and Blackwell now on 55 339 for 4 with over an hour play 400 remain a good possibility. I shall get myself a drink and watch some backlog TV.

The first season of the history of the Mafia in the USA is coming to an end with various developments concentrating on the Boardwalk Empire -Atlantic City with no involvements in New York or Chicago.

The big event is a clash between the hypocritical, calculating and emotional Margaret who reacts when she finds a predecessor seeking help from Nucky at his office. This brings out her insecurity and ambitious streak and a verbal confrontation with Nucky after which she leaves. The predecessor has walked out on her in current relationship after finding the man has lost all his money in the original Ponzi scheme.

Nucky’s brother is highly critical over the fact that Nucky has admitted he was responsible for the death of Margaret‘s husband. Mucky retaliates by stripping his brother of the job of Sheriff which he hands to the deputy, believing it will help to secure a Republican victory in the forthcoming election.

Jimmy’s Angela goes ahead with her plan to run away to Paris with Mary Dittrick and leaves a letter explaining things for her husband only to find that that Mary and her husband did moonlight flit the evening before

The most interesting aspect of this episode is that Jimmy visits his natural father and this leads to his mother talking of the situation where Nucky arranged for her to visit the Commodore when she was only 13. The doctor advises Jimmy that his father’s deterioration in health is not natural but caused by arsenic poisoning. Jimmy appears to have found the letter from his wife who returns and to have accepted that he nearly lost her but did not do so.

Nucky goes to consult the fortune teller once more.

2050 8 Women, 8 1/2 Women, 13 Days, From Paris with Love, Treme, Blue Bloods

The last day of March 2011 has been an excellent work day in that I worked for six hours on the Liturgy of artmanjospehgrech completed a redraft of the first thirty pages with four to six more pages to do I am going slowly starting with the first line and rewriting as ideas occur with each new consideration. I then worked on a new writing covering the Sopranos which involves and second look and then the Boardwalk Empire. I also watched Blue Bloods which disappointed I sorted out completed work in the first floor store and then partially completed work in the first floor work room. The motivation for this was a final search for my Oyster card and after searching everywhere possible and not finding it I eventually managed to log on the site having to be reminded of he sign on name and then get a new password link After all that I discovered I only had £3.50 on the account although a new card requires £5 deposit. Unfortunately the replacement is unlikely to arrive before I set off for the Midland’s and London although at present this is primarily a family visit including one or two visits to cemeteries on the agenda.

Today I begin with the first of retrospective film notes and the first 8 Women which I saw at the Bolden Cineworld on 27th December 2002. Because the experience was nine years ago I am not attempting to recount the story but give my memories or memory if I have them. The first is that there were some young people in the 20.20 evening performance who did not appreciate that the film was in French with English subtitles and created a disturbance before walking out. After this incident the staffs were at pains to advise customers when other subtitled films were shown. The film was a curious concoction more an Agatha Christie who did it, than comedy with some singing added. I remember some great visuals and although the 8 women were reported well known I only knew of Catherine Deneurve and Danielle Darrieux then and still.

My only other note is that I saw the film over a New Year between visiting by birth mother and my care mother whose health had deteriorated as a consequence of the incompetence of her General Practitioner and a Health Visitor. The GP subsequently apologised but the Health Visitor lied, a strong charge but one which can be proved. Within three months my birth mother had died in hospital where she had not wanted to be admitted and a result of several levels of failure and incompetence. I spent years going through the changing complaints procedures being mislead by various levels of officialdom. I hope to one day become sufficiently emotionally detached to write up this aspect of the tragedy in some detail.

The second film also has 8 and women in the Title but with the addition of a half- 8 ½ women, neither film to be confused with 8 which covers 8 short films or 8 ½ the Fellini film which I reviewed recently along with the musical version called 9. Having said this, 8 ½ women is an English language homage to 8 ½ in so far as a father and his son use their wealth to establish their personal harem to bring women on contracts to live as their concubine.

I did not immediately remember anything about the Peter Greenaway directed and written film which I saw at the Newcastle Film Theatre 10 January 2000, over a decade ago. As soon as I read the story notes I remembered several visual images and that the women were carefully selected for their different specialities. The other aspect which I do remember is that the film was more of a verbal exercise and that despite the subject there was no portray sexual activity as has become the custom.

The available notes remind that among the collection interesting and challenging females is someone who yearns to be a nun, a girl who loves horses and sleeps with a pig, a Norwegian bank clerk, a female impersonator who is female, a compulsive Japanese slot machine player, someone who wants to be made pregnant so she can sell the babies, a woman selling her body and a woman in a wheel chair who accounted for the half plus one other. I remember the film as fun and of no consequence.

The third and final film of this first film memory note is Thirteen Days which covered the Cuban Missile Crisis when the world came closest to Nuclear World War. 13 days which has the same title as the book by Robert Kennedy was based on another book called The Kennedy Tapes inside the White House and also included more recent material then declassified. I saw the film at the Bolden Cineworld on 21st March 2001. The Missile Crisis has been covered by several books, films and documentaries. The USA government discovered Missile sites on Cuba with preparation of new sites and instituted a naval blockade to prevent the arrival of further Missiles and supplies from Russia in October 1962. The USA had before this deployed a similar range of intercontinental and medium range missiles aimed at Russia in Turkey and Italy. There was an exchange of threats and secret agreement negotiated through the UN General Secretary which led to the sites being removes as were the 1961 USA sites in Turkey and Europe., Reading notes on the actual event I query with myself if I knew before that unknown to the President the military had moved the state of readiness to Defcon 2, with Defcon 3 the state of alter reserved for War and initiated a trial of an offensive rocket, again without the approval or knowledge of he President. The film starred Kevin Costner in a role which has no basis on reality. I have no memory of the film visual or otherwise.

The latest episode of Blue Bloods was predictable and disappointing. The theme was the limitations of the rule of law and justice systems which in addition to the presumption of innocence with out proof of guilt, requires the highest standard tests of proof and with it the danger that guilty persons will not be convicted because of technical mistakes. In this instance, a vicious serial rapist is released and being the USA is greeted with acclaim by individuals who are attracted to such characters.

The evidence is that the man will attempt to kill a most recent victim who barely escaped with her life and has not been willing to testify in open court. It was quickly evident that the man had set his sights not just on eliminating the witness but the daughter of the police chief Assistant DA. My suspicion that he had sights on the daughter was quickly confirmed when on providing round the clock protection for the potential witness they captured a disguised look alike fan while the serial rapist murderer attends to his preferred target. When the daughter decides to work late at the office dismissing the plea from one of brothers to be careful and father arranges to join her for a meal opposite the building and then proceeds when she does not arrive without first going over to the building to check you know what is going happen.

Fortunately when the son phones father to express his concern father goes over to investigate and shoots the man as he holds the daughter hostage. At least we were saved the round the table meal at the end of the episode although this take place earlier with the usual homilies.

I also like the sound of a new Sky 1 series called Runaway which was advertised as crime in 60’s Soho. As someone who spent many nights in Soho Jazz clubs, its pubs, and hot sandwich bars, among the ladies of the night, I never encountered violence or sight of criminal goings on. The programme followed familiar tracks with a prostitute mother, pimp father, boxing ambitions for the son, and a difficult life for the daughter. I never worked out the Soho link.

I have watched one new film on the Sky Anytime TV module. From Paris with Love staring a difficult to recognise John Travolta and a Johnny Depp look alike Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Myers plays an assistant to the USA Ambassador in Paris who has willingly been recruited to undertake non combative intelligence gathering which includes planting a bug in the office of someone visited by the Ambassador. He also plays chess with the Ambassador thus indicating his intellectual thinking ahead and food memory skills. After expressing an interesting in having a more active roll he is asked to help out a special operative (John Travolta) because of an immediate lack of anyone else available. This is one of several nonsense aspects of the story but without which there would be no story.

His first task is to get Travolta away from customs because he had kicked up a fuss about not being able to bring cans of beer into France. Meyers slaps a diplomatic bad on the cans which in fact contain Travolta’s favourite weapon. Given that he has volunteered Meyers is unbelievably naive about what his role is likely to involve and the first half of the film comprises Travolta shooting and killing half a dozen employees of a Chinese restaurant where a vast quantity of cocaine is stored between ceiling of the ground floor and first floor which rains down when Travolta knowingly shoots holes all over, asking Meyers to collect a substantial amount in a large Chinese vase.

He first explains that the daughter of the senior Government official has got involved in drugs and they are on a revenge mission to shut the supply line down. He lets one employ live with a message as the basis of getting to the power boss, who we find being entertained by a group Chinese children. Before entering the premises he singled handed deals with half a dozen street yobs and then with the security guards for Mr Big. From Mr Big he wants the name of his supplier and at this point the trail take then to a middle East North Africa source during which experience Meyers loses and regains an antique ring given him by his girlfriend and is required to make his first kill.

They then find the bomb making centre after Travolta reveals the problem is a terrorist plot and not the drugs and when it looks three are escaping they find a way to blow them up before they can and they find a way of blowing up Meyer‘s car as they leave the area in a stolen police car. Travolta is not convinced they have aborted the plot, especially when he sees photos of Meyer on the wall of the bomb making factory.

From the outset Meyer has balanced his official and extra curricular working life with an intense love affair with a fabric designer. The first clue to all is not what it seems is when he arrives home and sees what appears to be blood on the stairs leading to the roof terrace where the girl has prepared a special meal and gives him a ring to mark their official engagement. I cannot member at what point I knew the ring was a tracking device.

Confirmation that I was correct came when the two enter the red light district and come across the girlfriend, albeit with a couple of rolls of fabric but as Travolta queries why in the same building.

Travolta goes with Meyer to his flat for a meal with girl friend and her friend who during the meal takes a phone message and says Rose is not here. Travolta shoots her saying Rose as a code word also on the phones of others they connected with and that Meyer‘s girl friend is one of them. Meyer contests but when Travolta shows that the ring is a tracking device and that the flat is bugged, subsequent it is found that there are over a dozen bugs and five cameras, the girl shoots Meyer and then escapes using dramatic athleticism.

The two agents then work out that object of the terrorist attack is the USA delegation to a conference and Travolta goes chasing a vehicle which he believes the girl and one another are travelling to attack the delegation as it travels from the airport to the conference centre. Meyer recovering at home suddenly works out this is diversion and the main threat is at the conference where he believes the girl friend will be gaining entry as a delegate. He goes to the centre warning Travolta who nevertheless has to try and stop the vehicle with the co conspirator and which is still set on attacking the diplomatic convoy. He succeeds in the last seconds before the vehicle collides with the convoy.

At the conference Meyer cannot get in because the girlfriend has used a duplicate of his pass but fortunately he sees the ambassador who vouches for him. He had difficulty indenting his former girl friend and when he does he pleads with her to live and not detonate the bomb strapped to her body. When she hesitates, hope builds but when she goes to detonated he shoots her in the head and she falls back into the arms of Travolta to prevent the bomb exploding as she hits the ground.

Travolta has a private jet waiting to take him to next assignment and they play a game of chess from a travel set before he boards beating if the newly formed team are to stay together for sequels. What do you think?

This brings me to the treat of the week Treme which takes a very serious twist.

The first is that having obtained the evidence that the brother had been arrested and taken into custody a judge dismiss the defence of the city council and says that to hold someone who should not have been arrested in custody for six months and frustrate the attempts to locate him is an example fo the worst of the city and demands the prisoner is produced within 72 hours or the authorities will be in contempt. The police then provide Goodman’s wife, Toni, with the photos and info on nearly 600 prisoners held out city and the brother is not one of them. Finally Daymo is found among the bodies held in a lorry park full of bodies held by the city authorities. The sister asks for the body to be held for a few days more while her mother recovers from her ill health and Mardi Gras is over.

Goodman is seen before a class of University students in which he reads to them excerpts from a book about the previous flood and the approach of the city. Time has changed nothing except for the worse. While Toni is out working Goodman decides to work on his novel but before this creates a new You Tube rant criticising fellow Americans who complain of Katrina fatigue and making the point that the city is being strangled by indecision and political and other interests.

This is also brought home by Indian Chief Albert who breaks into the deserted 5000 place residential Calliope project centre which is under federal Control and kept empty. He contacts the media and then police anticipating being arrested. He is not and is visited by a community relations police officer who explains that with elections coming up there is no public pressure on the politicians to put pressure on the Federal authorities to make use of the project to enable existing New Orleans residents to return. He returns to advise that unless he leaves overnight the police will be back to remove him forcibly. When Albert refuses to get on the floor he is beaten up before being taken into custody.

Davis has been making lots of money from sale of his protest record Shame Shame Shame and is approached by an emissary from a Judge support another candidate who offers a Get out of Jail card for when he gets into trouble in the future, if he drops of out of the campaign because the latest opinion poll shows he has over $5 of the votes which are being taken away from the favoured candidate who is at risk of as a consequence. He accepts the offer but also works on a new record criticising the local administration.

He discoverers that his girl friend has shut the restaurant down and he then finds that she has bought a mobile kitchen and van with insurance compensation money which starts of successfully at an outdoor festival. Annie is recommended to join a Cajun group who have been booked for a three week Canadian tour but she performs badly at the audition because a friend suspect she is in a state over the break up with the boyfriend. Antoine has a paid gig with a band he organises playing for new arrivals at the airport arranged by his friend Danny who is ill in hospital and who dies and he is given a traditional funeral for members of the family. There is some excellent jazz among all the seriousness.

2049 The Mafia Fest

I am beginning this week’s Mafia Fest with Staten Island, the film although it features Staten Island the place. The largest New York District in terms of area but the smallest with under half a million citizens. Paul Castellano – Gambino Crime Boss, lived in the Todt Hill, Staten Island Buried in Moravian Cemetery in unmarked grave. Sammy "The Bull" Gravano – mob turncoat also lived on Staten Island as did the Watergate White House Jeb Magruder:

This 2009 film was only released in New York before going to DVD. The story involves three residents of the state who interact. Staten Island Mafia crew boss Parmie played by Vincent D’Onofrio decides that he wants to expand and become boss of all Staten Island against the advice of his closest associates. He lives with his invalid mother.

Sully is a regular guy who clears septic tanks for a living and has been trying with his wife to have their first child. Test reveals that she has an internal problem where the right position should solve the problem but at the fertility clinic Sully learns of special facility which costs $50000 to produce a child which enhances genes to create an above average achiever and which uses artificial insemination. But how can he raise the money. He discusses the problem with his work partner who knows the right individual to carry out a theft on the home of the Mafia boss when he is not there and the alarm is not turned on. The mission is successful in that the take is over $100000 dollars except that the woman is shot in the shoulder. This results in Parmie’s work colleague being captured and tortured to death and Parmie going on the run but only after the procedure is successful and his wife has become pregnant.

The third resident is Jasper who manages a Deli where he makes his own sausages. He is a deaf mute who spends all his spare time keeping records on horse racing and the betting long odds accumulators unsuccessfully. He earns the money for his gambling by chopping up Parmie victims and where we are left to speculate that the remains and then used in the Deli! He dislikes Parmie intensely and when he wins big at the race track he used part of the money to hire an assassin to kill Parmie. Unfortunately Parmie is only grazed and although his car goes into a lake he survives because he has been training to break the world record for holding breadth under water.

When he recovers he finds himself in the midst of a large woodland area part of which is being cut down to make way for development and where a protestor has created a tree platform. He persuades a motorist to drive him back to restaurant bar he uses as an operational base only to discover his associates have joined forces with the main Mafia boss on the Island against him. He devises a plan to protect himself by changing into a white suit climbing onto the tree top platform and proclaiming to the authorities his conversion to saving the trees. The authorities decide on a media clamp down but after a while one journalist manages to interview with the help of the policeman on duty. The follow day the story is national news and he wakes to be greeted by hundreds of others attaching themselves to threatened trees. The Mayor and city authorities intervene and the woodland is saved. Parmie returns home believing that he is protected.

Jasper is then asked to do another slicing up job and this is Sully who Jasper has been friends with. Sully then sets out and successfully assassinates Parmie and a carload of associates and rivals. The films ends with Sully’s wife and walking age child visiting the new parkland which Jasper helped create. The child runs away from his mother falls over. Jasper helps him up and mother first criticises why he did not call out to her until he explains that he is deaf and dumb. The child immediately communicates using sign language to the amazement of his mother thus demonstrating that the gene enhancement programme worked. This therefore is a black comedy and at the level of intention I thought the film is successful although quickly forgotten

The latest episode of the Sopranos, The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti also had its amusing moments and begins with Christopher Moltisanti having recurring nightmares about his first killing, coincidentally in a meat sandwich making deli reminding of the sausage making store in Staten Island.

Christopher (Michael Imperioli) is so troubled that he digs up the body with the help of an associate to relocate in case the area is property redeveloped and reburies it elsewhere. When he tells is friend about his anxiety over the body the friend comments that why should the dead man give him warnings about the future when he had killed him. He also advises that the reaction is normal, but the more killings you do, the better it gets.

He goes into motel hiding with his girlfriend, Adriana (Drea de Matteo) as soon as he hears that the Feds have initiated a Grand Jury investigation into the Garden State mafia and its links with New York. He is writing a script about the mafia which his girl friend advises he should set aside and start covering his tracks given that the laptop is stolen.

He is summoned to a gathering of the captains by Tony who says “we are exterminating” and told bring in a selection of Italian pastries. He quickly loses his temper on finding there is a queue and becomes aggressive when serves comes in who was permitted to leave while keeping his place. Christopher lets off his weapons, takes a carton of the pastries without payment and then shoots the terrified assistant in the foot. He moans that he has only completed 19 of the required 120 pages for a full length movie when Pussy Bonnier (Vincent Pastore) calls to give support and warn that the police have his description after the incident in the pastry shop. Christopher says he feels that nothing good is ever going to happen like that and asks Pussy if he ever felt like that. Pussy responds- all his life.

When Tony learns of the incident he warns Christopher of his behaviour and using knowledge gained from his own therapy sessions asks Christopher if he wants to be caught and suggests he needs therapy. Christopher reacts with horror. The next day Christopher receives a call from his mother saying his name is mentioned in the newspaper within an article on the known members of the mafia gang under investigation and he grabs the stack of papers in his road side vending machine and drives off with them in his car.

The episode begins with a wedding within the mafia family when they get the news of the investigation. Tony’s mother, Livia (Nancy Marchand) reacts angrily when the father of the bride welcomes her as “my darling“; she respond with her usual venom by asking if he is still seeing all his other women!

New family boss Uncle Junior says that they should continue with all their activities when several of the captains suggest they should drop out. They ask Tony for his opinion which upsets Junior who says he has ruled. Tony agrees with Junior, concerned that rivals would move in, but suggests that they should undertake some spring cleaning and Junior again steps in to say he was just about to order this.

Tony removes a bundle of notes from behind an air condition grill as well as a variety of weapons. Carmela (Edie Falco) advises that the rest of money is located all over the house. Their daughter Meadow is secretly overseeing and listening in. She advises her young brother, Antony Junior A-J he should re boot his computer. Antony resists until being reminded about all the porn he has recently downloaded. Carmela makes a surprise visit to Livia to take her out to lunch and this takes a lot of persuading. Out of the way Tony finds somewhere to temporarily hide their money, Carmela’s jewellery and the guns. The Feds arrive and turn over the house but go away empty handed. Earlier at the wedding reception, the captains praise Tony for his foresight in not becoming the Capo and making Uncle Junior the primary target of F.B.I interest.

Psychiatrist Dr Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) is having a family meal with her ex husband, her son and her parents. He expresses concern that she has someone under investigation as patient and begins a diatribe about how the mafia affects the position of the 20 million Italians the USA, suggesting that the national will never elect an Italian as President. He estimates that there are no more than 5000 Italians in the USA Mafia and the son points out that mafia gangster films have become an Icon in American cinema. This theme is later continued in a conversation between Tony and A-J that Italians are unfairly targeted by the Police and that Antonio Meccui invested the telephone and not Alexander Graham Bell.

At his next session Tony warns his psychiatrist that he may not be able to attend the next session and she asks if this is to do with recent publicity. She reminds that under their agreement he will have to pay even if he does not attend. This makes Tony very angry can calls her a whore showering her with money. She says the money will show as paid in his next account. She admits his behaviour has frightened her. Her ex husband has reminded that she needs to go past the moral relativism of her profession into the good and evil of humanity and that Tony is evil. Later the situation is discussed when she attends a counselling session with her ex husband and son.
It is Livia, Tony’s mother who has the last word during a concert at the retirement home in which a comedian tells bad jokes and attended by Uncle Junior. He admits to feeling under pressure because he relieves there is a bad apple. She asks if he has told her son. Junior says he has not wanted to add pressure on Tony and this provide Livia with the opportunity to reveal that Tony has been seeing a psychiatrist for several months, no doubt blaming her for his life. Uncle Junior quickly realises he now has a great hold over his powerful nephew.

There are also sensitive moments in the latest episode of the Boardwalk Empire, The Emerald City which covers the Mafia in the USA prior to the formation of the national organisation, although these quickly turn to passion and to violence.

Jimmy is impressed with the ability of his wife to paint and then tries to explain how difficult it was to retain cultural interests once in he trenches of World War I. The new loving bond between the couple is quickly shattered when passing the photographers, their son points to the photograph of the wife of the photographer as says Mummy’s kissing friend which Jimmy interprets as meaning the husband who he then beats up in full public view claiming her infidelity while he was away fighting for his country. Later Angela calls on her lesbian lover to apologise for the behaviour of her husband but Mary declares that she had no love for her husband and urges Angela to escape with her and the child to Paris where Isadora Duncan and opened her academy.

Margaret expresses concern at the presence of Jimmy’s First World War friend when he is employed by Nucky as a bodyguard for Margaret and her children. Later she apologies after reading the story of the Wizard of Oz to her children and drawing the parallel of the Tin man with the former soldier taping the mask which hides his disfigurement.

Margaret’s self esteem has risen together with her standing in the community after she is persuaded to give a speech to the League of Women’s voters, endorsing the candidature of Nucky‘s nomination for the New Mayor. She has to overcome her scruples over his dubious suitability for the position but afterwards realises it has strengthened her position as Nucky’s number one mistress.

She is visited by Van Arden the senior F.B.I prohibition enforces in the area after he has been strongly criticised for the loss of the key witness against Jimmy. At the same time his boss exonerates Van Alden deputy for the alleged killing in self defence of the witness who would be able testify against Jimmy.

Although he gains entry to Margaret through his official position he quickly discloses his knowledge of her background and potential for deportation and then his despite for her and ability to protect her and save her soul. After she throws him out he is seen entering an illegal drink and prostitution establishment where he quickly drinks several glasses of whisky and then picks up a woman who we then see having explicit sex as well as a view of his self mutilated back.

In Chicago Al Capone is still wearing his boyish cap and making practical jokes with the Jewish friend of local boss Torrio who suggest they talk further about expanding further in the territory of the North side at the Bar Mitzvah of the man’s son. In the synagogue Al Capone takes off his cap and the man in front explains that he must keep his head covered and take note when the man also suggests she should wear a hat rather than the boyish cap. He is also impressed by the explanation that the ceremony is to mark the entry of the thirteen year old into manhood. Al Capone is then seen wearing a hat calling to apologise at the home of the Jewish associate of Torrio and offering his services demonstrating as well as that he has grown up and deciding to accept responsibility for his actions, an epiphany which is to have dramatic consequences.

In New York the D’Alessio brothers and Mickey, the displaced owner of the Funeral home/liquor diluting plant, are given a final warning by Rothestein and Lucky Luciano over their failure to kill Nucky and to kill a passing tourist who got in the line of fire. Mickey realising that his days are numbered throws himself at the mercy of Nucky who works out a scheme to capture the D’Alessio brothers and Rothstein’s men but getting Chalky White to pretend that he wants to switch sides. The plan is only partially successful because chalky reacts prematurely when he realises that the brothers and Lansky were involved in the lynching his assistant and takes then prisoner, calling in Nucky and Jimmy. Because of their attitude Jimmy shoots one of the brother’s in the head and Chalky strangles the other to death. Nucky releases Lansky so that he can report the events to Rothestein.

He returns late to find Margaret still awake and persuades her to drink a glass of champagne with him in celebration to the new that women are to get the vote, in praise of her speech earlier in the day and the way his interests have progressed.