2547 Mandela farewell, The Hunger Games, Hebburn the Sit Com, All Aboard East Coast Trains and using social wok skills to defuse scene on Metro

Awake early on 11 12 13 and in a good mood after an excellent which over time my prove to have been an important day in terms of the decisions taken on the matters on which I reflected as the day progressed. On the way home I had to deal with three men who entered a packed Metro train high on something but not drink who were make an exhibition upsetting the young women in the window sat opposite and the other passengers. I resurrected the best social work skills and what could have been a nasty situation ended well. The day had gone well with the speech of President Obama in South Africa and restless population turning against their president. I then enjoyed a visit by public Transport to Newcastle and onward to the Metro Centre for an Imax production of the Hunger Games, catching Fire which was excellent and certainly one of my films of the year so far. In the evening situation comedy Hebburn took a giant leap forward in whit, understanding and exceptionally well acted emotions also then catching up on episodes three and four of the third and final series, I believe of Borgen.

So there is a lot to write before I can return to reflections on matter more important to me and to others covering the issues of state and professional integrity and confidentiality, the Official Secrets Act, a Confidentiality agreement in the High Court as well as countless statues covering my former work of a thirty years period an which includes the use of information technology and data protection all one on one side and Freedom of Speech, access to information and duties within the law as well as professional and ethical commitment to protect and further the interest of those unable or prevented from protecting and furthering their own interests.

The organised memorial service spectacle arranged by the South African Government for heads of states, other personalities and for the worlds media reminded me of the spectacle later witnessed in the film The Hunger Games-Catching fire.

It was however brilliant to see that while the South African people present in the stadium came to celebrate the life of their former president and civil rights hero Nelson Mandela who had shifted from a man of violence and terror while in prison to one of peace and reconciliation and they also warmly received the words of President Obama and someone of the calibre of Archbishop Tutu, they expressed open contempt for their current president and corrupt government as well as indifference to the platitudes and the Johnny come lately converts and the brazen two faced leaders Obama came to eulogise what Mandela came to stand for while terrorising their own people at home. Political hypocrisy, double talk, blatant misrepresentation, and rewriting history knows no bounds.

South Africa politicians rightly can talk of being a young democracy and that it will take generations to undo the lack of education, lack of economic advancement of the black and coloured people before the country can improve the lives of the majority but this is no excuse for politicians to line their own pockets, protecting their own and their families future at the expense of the people. There is also hypocrisy on the part of the media whose criticism of the widening gulf between the rich and poor in South Africa appears to help them turning of the spotlight to the widening gulf in the UK.

When I came to begin writing found the internet was down as was the link to the TV but remembering the appropriate text from the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, Don’t Panic I disconnected everything turned the wireless router off, waited a minute or two switched back on and whaala, everything worked so I celebrated with a game of chess, number fifteen the present run of winning games level 5 and then made progress in the latest game of Mah-Jong although I do not believe this game will prove a top of the leader board experience while I have achieved the latest run of 1000 games of patience without abandoning a game in defeat, but still some way of the run of 1350 as I also approach 3000 games played on the current PC.

After a light lunch of two pieces of smoked mackerel I made my way down to the Metro and into Newcastle when I notice that individuals were touching their passes on the barriers although these were pen. I queried with an official who explained they were encouraging everyone to get into the habit of using the system on entry and exist before the barriers became fully operational. Later there as a notice about this flashed on the platform notice board. I purchased a £1.50 bad of winkles in the Grainger market and then enjoyed a coffee at McDonalds for £1.19 my only expenses on this part of the trip although in returning home I was able to purchased more hard boiled sweets for the night, a packet of soft liquorice and two packs of shaving razors for just over £5.

Making my way into Eldon Square and don to the central bus station I caught a quick service to the Metro Centre although on return I found that the 100 is non stop and appears to take half as long starting and ending at Monument and operating about 5 buses an hour. Although I had my digital radio and earphones with me I spent the journey writing a series of letters so on arrival at the centre and seeing a WH Smith I went for the an additional notebook and ball point pens but stopped on finding that a reported book cost £3 with a similar price for a pack of pens, about twice as expensive as elsewhere. After collecting both tickets from the machine at the Odeon which is in a direct route from the Blue branch immediately passing Wetherspoons and an expensive eat all you can buffet with significantly less choice that in the restaurant area in the red/ yellow link sections. I went in search of an alternative newsagent and from the electronic do it yourself store locater discovered there was another newsagent just below with the Boots and my Smiths some distance away. Could I find the one below but the exercise walking about in search did me good and eventually it was located where it was shown on the map but just a kiosk with limited stock and no pens or notebooks.

On returning to the Odeon I used most of my remaining Premium card points for a cherry one scoop ice cream although there were sufficient left for a two or three scoop helping an then enjoyed sitting in a comfy chair before entering the theatre which was not ready. The selected Premium seat was too close to the screen for my liking and I was able to move two rows back which was excellent.

Given the good publicity I had nearly gone to see the first film but the subject of a competition in which the contestants killed each other did not appeal.

After surviving the 74th Hunger Games, "tributes" Katniss( the female) Everdeen and Peeta( the male) Mellark return home to District 12. They now are required to take a victory tour of the country. President Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland) visits Katniss and tells her she inspired rebellions in the districts when she and Peeta threatened suicide so both might survive the games. He orders Katniss to convince the country her and Peeta's love was real and the reason for their actions, and to convince Snow himself.

The tour first visits District 11, home of Rue, the young girl Katniss tried to protect in the Games. Katniss and Peeta voice their personal thoughts regarding both districts' fallen tributes. A man in the crowd whistles the tune Katniss and Rue used to signal each other, and makes the three-finger salute of District 12. Everyone in the crowd follows suit until a Peacekeeper shoots the man dead, shocking Katniss. Their mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, tells Katniss and Peeta the "show" of their relationship must continue for the rest of their lives. Katniss suggests a public engagement between herself and Peeta, which is carried out and celebrated at Snow's home in the Capitol. They are horrified at the extravagance and the food where as once the Romans are reported to do, they make themselves sick in order to be able to eat all the food available while those in the district starve.

Returning home, Katniss warns her friend Gale Hawthorne(male) of Snow's threat to kill both their families. Peacekeepers crack down in District 12, and Gale is publicly whipped after attacking new Head Peacekeeper Romulus Thread because of his action in attacking an elder without cause. As he threatens to also kill Katniss he is informed who she is and also about Peeta and reluctantly holds back promising that next time he will not be influenced thus also revealing that having give free reign to his security butchers the President is unable to control what they do,

Snow announces Panem's third Quarter Quell, a special version of the Games held every 25 years. This is the idea of Plutarch Heavensbee, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman as a way of turning the population away from Katniss as she is forced to kill the other Tribute involved in order to survive although she is to be killed as well. The Tribute survivors from previous years are also viewed as threat and therefore will be killed as a consequence..

Katniss immediately devotes herself to ensuring Peeta becomes the Quarter Quell's victor, should he compete in the Games, still full of guilt about those she has killed and reluctant to kill again, with only the threat to her family holding her back from open rebellion.

At the selection process, Katniss, the district's only living female tribute is selected, and Haymitch as arranged selected by chaperone Effie Trinket an extraordinary vain and superficial female creature who appears oblivious to the reality of the world around her, or so t appears. However Peeta volunteers to take Haymitch's place and the system is such that this has to be accepted be accepted and the couple are taken quickly tot eh official trains, without a chance to say goodbye to their loved ones.

We see the process of training, developing their skills and a performance test together with introductions to the other contestants. Katniss resists the plan to join forces with some of the contestants but under pressures selects Mags an elderly woman who has volunteers to protect a younger woman from her district as a couple who although intelligent appear to lack the ferociousness of the other including a city socialite who appears self cantered an confident. She is counselled to reconsidered. Peeta pretends they have married in secret and that Katniss is also pregnant and while this also affects the audience is has no effect on he President

They have already attracted great attention in the City on the official grand drive in chariot when their outfit appears to catch fire in a form of phosphorescence. For the TV audience watched ceremony, the dress designer had insisted she wears When she twirls in the dress to display it to the audience, it bursts into flames and transforms into an outfit resembling a mocking jay, designed by Cinna. As a punishment for the scene it caused, Cinna is savagely beaten seconds before an onlooking Katniss enters the arena.

This they quickly find is a large area of tropical forest with beach and pools and where there is one pool which appears to marked in twelve segments with a construction at the centre which appears as the contest continues.`

Moments after the Games begin, Katniss allies with Finnick Odair the self possessed young socialite from the city who also has been given a hold present to indicate that he is one of her allies together with the elderly woman called Mags and soon after moving forward in the jungle an electrical forecefield shocks Peeta, stopping his heartbeat until Finnick revives him.

It begins to emerge that once every hours lightening strikes the same tree causing a new threat to beset the competitors with the second a dense low lying creeping fogs which becomes poisonous to the exposed body when touched.

Mags sacrifices herself to a poisonous fog to allow Finnick to save Peeta instead of her and they only survive by realising that although painful water acts as mins to cleansing the skin. The temperature in the forest and atmosphere causes dehydration but somehow supporter part of the games organisation has provided them with a tap which can be used by inserting into tree to siphon off water.

The next problem encountered are murderous apes attack. Peeta is again saved when a woman from District 6, a camouflage expert and drug addict, sacrifices herself. They escape to the beach, and are met by District 3's tributes, Wires and Beetle, and District 7's tribute, Johanna Mason who are there to join forces

It is only then that one of new arrivals, Wires discovers the arena is designed like a clock and every hour a specific attack occurs in its designated section. Having worked this out Snow and his game organisers start to rotate the clock in such a way as the tm cannot work out which sector is to become the focus of an attack.

He dies and another of the newcomers works out away to electrocute the two remaining tributes outside the alliance, District 2's Brutus and Endbrain, using wire and a tree that is struck by lightning each noon and midnight. Johanna and Katniss lay the wire while Finnick and Peeta guard Beetle as he wraps the tree. When the wire snaps, Johanna attacks Katniss, cutting the tracker out of her arm. Katniss tries to find Peeta at the tree. Unable to, she attaches the remaining wire to an arrow and shoots it at the force field during a lightning strike, destroying the arena and causing a power failure

.

Katniss awakens in an aircraft with an unconscious Beetee. Entering the cockpit she finds Haymitch, Finnick and Plutarch Heavensbee, the head gamemaker, revealed to be a rebel against Snow. Learning she is on her way to District 13, though Johanna and Peeta were taken away by the Capitol, she attempts to attack Haymitch for not fulfilling his promise of saving Peeta. Plutarch sedates her and she awakens days later with Gale by her side, who informs her that her family is safe but District 12 has been destroyed.

The film can be appreciated at several levels. It an engaging adventure with excellent acting. It can also be regarded as logical extension of the current enthusiasm for televised reality show with the latest series about surviving in the wilds of Australia Get me out of Here, recently completed. It is also about divide and rule, bread and circuses and length which ruthless dictators and those who gain from operating a regime going to any lengths to preserve their position. It was the right film at the right time I was also impressed with the performance of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss.

On Metro stations and platforms Hebburn is described a as place on earth and not to do with heaven I have very mixed feelings about this series now its second season and featuring the community in South Tyneside closest to Gateshead. The main industries of shipbuilding and Switch get manufacturer Reyrolle have gone with the largely Irish and Catholic origin a strong and dominating one with the equally strongly Labour party dominating with its posh club compared to the seedy Unionist club long the main room. The town largely made up of uniform council housing with gardens replacing the former terrace back to back streets, While the town had a modern civic centre which includes a modern swimming pool with facilities for all the family there was a lack of shopping facilities with families wanting to make major purchases of furniture, clothing and other goods having to go to Newcastle or South Shields within the centre of neighbouring Jarrow there was significant better. It only over the past two decades that there has been the growth of Supermarkets with three major and several smaller units in South Shields, one major an substantial in Jarrow, a huge superstore in Bolden but none until last few years in Hebburn where life revolved the working man’s club and entertainment pub.

Despite the involvement of the local established and highly regarded actress Gina Mckee I did not know what to make of he series or how townsfolk would react to the portrayal of its people especially its lasses as moron and sex crazed where social activities comprised shopping when the cash was available for cloths and make up and hairdressing into Newcastle for a club and otherwise the local social club pub. Having exploited the East End of London, Liverpool, Yorkshire and more recently Glasgow for situational comedies about the working, or non working underclass, it was probably to bring out all the clichés and stereotypes about somewhere in the North East It would be OK if it as funny especially as there was no audience with many scenes shot to show the ton as it is. It was amusing because of my knowledge often area and essential viewing because of this but in terms previous series in the same vein I was disappointed, disappointed that is until the second series which became funnier in kind way and culminating in a moving an authentic episode this week which I believe has talent the series onto a different level.

Gina Mckee plays the proud mum who wont let anyone use her best room unless the occasion demands who this season has tried her hand at selling housing although the establishment colleagues ensure that had was allocated only the worst properties to get rid off,, and where she has now branched out in making cup cakes He typical North husband with an enthusiasms for football, beer , fish and chips and pies has had a stroke and is in rebellion at the added control with his wife and mother now have over him. There at home daughter tried hard to ape Geordie Shore and the Essex girls with her friend who is significantly more of a slapper and her club singer whose school son by a previous relationship has become a skilled thief. The mother in law has organised her fellow residents of a home for the elderly but has returned home complete with stair lift after being left a house which she sold for coppers to the son and daughter in law to ensure she continues to get her full wacky of the social, especially as the main bread winner is now on the permanent disabled sick.

The series has revolved around the arrival back home of h on ho unknown to his family has married a girl from lower middle class home in a drunken moment in Las Vegas. who mother has pretensions and a retiring hen pecked husband. The young man has been working as a journalist, giving up his job to become a writer only for this to fall through. His wife had been a bright student and finds her temporary stay become permanent as her husband takes a low paid post as editor of the local free newspaper. Their predicament in a wafer thin wall bedroom, when his wife is the butt for his sister and her best mate who the son once dated becomes even greater when she becomes pregnant as does the girl friend of the club singer, but her relationship becomes challenged with the arrival of a former male friend while the sister takes a course at the former Hebburn Tec.

The day to day week by week storylines came to a head last night when the daughter in law gives birth several weeks prematurely coinciding with the publication in the magazine of a national newspaper of the diary her husband has kept and which the paper has edited out all the complimentary leading the picture a high emotional and unliveable wife in pregnancy. There are two episodes to go as the residents of six flats at renovated Westmorland Court were evacuated following a fire at one, the second incident at the Court within three months according to the local authority area Newspaper the Shields Gazette.

As I passed Newcastle Station yesterday on my way home I wondered on the progressed made to the outside and what I assume is to be the new ticket office and customer service centre, something was not mentioned to date in the excellent Sky Channel One series All Aboard East Coast Train and which later in the day featured Derby Day between Newcastle and visitors Sunderland and where the home side lost 3.0 always an event likely to cause trouble. Had the side lost then supporters would have been inclined to leave early and get away as quickly as possible while the Newcastle crowd remained in the ground celebrating to into town to do likewise. However with a lost there was an element, some of who would not have been in ground but in surrounding pubs and bars showing the game or would have waited for the news just to take the opportunity to have a punch up with the visiting supporters. Several staff cars were badly damaged as the scum attempted to get to the visiting supports by using the cars to get onto a roof giving access to thee station. The visiting fans were penned in a narrow yard ending the arrival of three special trains travelling from Sunderland to the station. Others would have come on the Metro route travelling incognito among the home supporters, by bus and by car.

The edition feature the female station manager and the organisation of the departure of several thousands students from Durham University as they made their way home with trains at half hourly intervals. Extra staff were n hand to put luggage at speed in the special luggage van so as to avoid the train being leaving the station in over the 90 second turn around time, after which the East Coast Train paid a penalty to rail track.

Previous editions have featured the team in the restaurant car travelling early and providing breakfasts especially to he first class passengers who now have a meal at their table provided as part of their ticket. Another episode feature the work of Trolley ladies and counter which has a target of making a certain amount each journey to balance the books. Newcastle has been a regular featured station which included those who see the trains depart and the weekend stag and her do’s both arriving in Newcastle or visiting the cities. Football was also the subject of trains arriving and departing from Kings Cross one Saturday and the insistence of no alcohol trains which result in any alcohol being confiscated and those who attempt to smuggle and drink when onboard at risk of prosecution. This applies to anyone travelling although alcohol packed away in luggage is not checked.

The training is centred at York where the HQ for the line with its 19 stations and 155 trains a day is located and a driver and the supervision as well as the retirement of someone leaving after a lifetime of service at York. The series mirrors a similar one covering the West Coast line from Euston to Liverpool and Glasgow on a different channel..

I would have been prepared for what happened after three young men got on the train at Gateshead although I was able to drum my social work skills to defuse what could have become a nasty situation,

Before this I had sat opposite a young woman in early twenties at the aisle and with the departure of two people she had moved to the window seat while stayed in position so we had plenty of keg room. Before I could adjust the situation one of the young men sat at the window next to me and the other opposite with the third standing and helping the one opposite who appeared to have been in a fight with a cut above the time. He appeared to have been a boxer at one point. I did not get the impression they were drunk but high as the best way to describe the subsequent situation is that they were rowdy with little motor control making the position of the young woman and myself physically uncomfortable as well as that of other passenger. I tried ignoring the situation but when looked as if they were continuing all the way to South Shields I intervened and made it clear of they did not behave I would have to stop the train for help. This calmed then down with the help of the one who had stood but now a seat across the aisle from me. The most troublesome who appeared disturbed got out at a station to return to Newcastle where it appeared he had some kind of curfew at 7,30 attempting to get out on the wrong side of the train at one point,

A woman who got out told the one who appeared more in control that she would ensure he was not service him in future and he referred to being banned for life from the new Tesco superstore that has opened. He gave her a mouthful of abuse as she left which continue so I told him and in fairness he apologised saying that he never used methadone. I decided to engage the two in conversation learning that they were both Catholic and one a traveller from Hull. They departed at Chichester which was a relief concerned at the situation on arrival at the terminus at South Shields. We shook hands I urged them to keep out of trouble and gained the appreciation of other passengers for my efforts.

2546 The Danish Coalition government series Borgan season two ending and the start of season three

For the greater part of Sunday 9^th December I reflected and then made notes on my experience of child care and protection during the years 1962 to 1971 some for publication and others over which I am still debating the merit of circulated in private or to become part of the 101 project and sealed for 100 years or more. With going to see an Imax film at the Metro centre tomorrow as well as investigating the purchase of a new suit I have decided to leave decisions until later in the week and concentrating on bringing up to date my writing and viewing experience of Borgen, the brilliant Danish series on coalition government and politics together with the impact of the political public life on relationships with partners and children.

Because of the unintended break between writing about the first and seconds seasons up to episode 18 of 20, it is appropriate to recap on the main characters and storyline.

Denmark has its first woman prime Minister leading a significantly minority party but which had gained seats dramatically at the General Election and forged a coalition with the Labour Party and progressive parties on the left, and which led to the replacement of the Labour Leader who concentrate on his media involvements using his tabloid newspaper in a crusade against the Prime Minister, Birgitte Nyborg who he sees as destroying his political career, although in fact it was of his own making after being fed damaging personal information by the media director of the Prime Minister, which he had discovered when rescuing a former partner, a Public Service Broadcasting TV station news front women from a situation where she woken to find her lover, a married man with children and also gofer for the former Prime Minister dead from a heart condition. Birgitte had refused to use the discovered information found when Kasper had stayed in the flat after Katrine had left to removed all traces of her presence before alerting the authorities.

The series is as much about the roles and relationships of the media Director, Kasper, and TV journalist and front woman. Katrine. She appears to come from a comfortable middle class home with good relationships with her family. Her previous relationship with Kasper broke up because there was a significant part of his inner self he was unable and to some extent unwilling to share.

The death of her lover who had announced his intention to divorce his wife and live with her was very difficult to bear but eventually as the series progressed she commenced a physical relationship with a fitness coach. Kasper is jealous but also recognises there is a gulf in intellectual and political and social interest between the two which he draws attention and ultimately leads to man involve walking out of the relationship appreciating that apart from the sexual attraction there as nothing binding the two together.

Kasper in the other had is haunted by what happened to him as a twelve year boy and pretends to his current girl friend as he has to Katrine that his mother died when he was a boy and father lives in the South of France too busy and with a very different life for them to get together. It is only midway during the second season that we learn the facts which are hinted at then slowly unravelled, that his father and three drinking and card playing male friends had sexually abused the boy until he had taken a hunting knife and severely wounded the father, but who had survived and with the friends had been convicted and imprisoned. Kasper refused further contact and with his mother who had conveniently been away when the criminal assaults took place and who provided a home for her husband on his release from prison

The past comes crashing back when his mother calls to announce the death of her husband and he cannot cope with the burial on her own. He takes over provides the minimum and attends the cremation on his own but joined by Katrine who he eventually tells what happened, after his mother is admitted into care with dementia and on selling up the family home, the agent gives Kasper a box with a scrap book and video tapes of the trial and publicity. They are both on their own but commence to live together after he gives the box to Katrine and understands.

The professional lives of the two also as its ups and downs. Birgitte sacks Kasper for taking the discovered information to another political leader, but re-engages when his replacement, an academic, starts to put his own spin on issues. Kasper also has a time when he believes she will sack him after he becomes aggressively angry with a right wing leader over his attempted to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 14, an issue, the raising of the age with which I with others was involved and believed we had succeeded when the Children’s and young persons Act was passed in 1969, only for this section not to be implemented by the Conservative government of 1970.

Katrine also storms out of her TV station job takes a job with her predecessor working for the newspaper run by the former Labour Leader. When they discover a plot to oust the successor party leader, they again revel and her former boss finds herself unemployable, having a drinking problem as well as her ethical standards while Katrine takes work where she can in hosting a daytime TV show. Eventually she is taken back in a temporary basis while her replacement is on pregnancy leave and she insists on her former boss also returning as a part time assistant. By the end of the second season they have achieved such good work that they are offered permanent positions although the head of the news division makes the point that she should put having children on hold given the problems the station has recently encountered. This she says is unlikely, after during the two remaining episodes of the series when they are embarking on taking n expensive new apartment Kasper makes it plain without discussion that they are not having children and they are at the point of breaking up again. He goes to see his mother and changes from the years of resentment and smouldering anger to empathy and forgiveness on seeing the state in which she is now in. At the point her boss is offering the appointment on conditions, Kasper is changing his mind, brings flowers to the officer and tells her she need not take the contraception pill. This is point when both could be said to have reach the best of times in their relationship and working experience.

During the first season we have witnessed the growth if Birgitte in to someone amazed at finding herself the Prime Minister, struggling to cope with challenges of lading a coalition and most of all with the impact on her husband and two children. It not just that she is required to be on duty 24/7 but her position impacts on the ambitions and interests of her husband who begins the series as a university lecturer. First he is required to sell off shares in a firm specialising in wind turbines and then to resign soon after accepting the appointment of a CEO with an International firm because in the first the government is about to conclude a contract worth millions supplying Turbines to another government, but who starts to try and get out the deal when Birgitte refuses to hand over a dissident. Then it is discovered the firm is involved in a small part of a big contract involving new fighter planes where the Minister and Military are found to have accepted very expensive hospitality and in one instance a very expensive gift.

However his main difficulty is accepting her more confident and assertive role as her confidence and assertiveness develops in her political role and which is show by her power dressing and manner and this demonstrated by her decision to suggest she will make herself available for se twice a week, something where events sometimes intrude and where she offers for him to have discreet sexual relationships if that is the way for them to remain husband and wife something she wants. They separate and eventually divorces something she resists although for the sake if her two children she accepts his new partner a paediatrician his two children immediately take to, especially the youngest boy.

What both parents fail to appreciate is the impact of the divorce and the absences of Birgitte is having on the daughter as she moves into adolescence. The girl starts to have severe anxiety attacks, withdrawal and depression which comes to a head when after commencing treatment with medication she starts stops take taking the anti depressants, the happy pills. The second and more serious breakdown occurs just as the Prime Minister is gaining her greatest political and media success brokering a peace between warring sides in an African state where the Christian side is supported by the USA and the Muslim by China and where the revenue from oil is a major factor with a leading Danish industrialist having significant interests.

The daughter is rushed to hospital where the consultant explains that she has become very ill, although girls not taking the medication is common as a way of demonstrating that they still have some control over themselves. He recommends a significant change the parents care of their daughter and her placement in a special private unit because of the 50 week waiting list for national health service psychiatric treatment. This poses a major problem for the Prime Minister as her health reforms involve scaling back on the tax subsidy to private health care. The cost of eh treatment without health insurance is a major issue and the decision is taken not to use her former husband’s health insurance because of the political fall out.

Birgitte asks Kasper to help with limiting media interest but the story quickly breaks as the son tells friends at school, one of who parents sells the story to the paper of the former Labour Leader. Worse is to follow when a photographer enters the grounds and takes pictures just when the girl begins to settle and participate in the treatment regime,

At first the daughter panics at the idea of going to establishment and then is very cautious until the unit head convinces that she understands how the girl feels based on the experiences of the others who have abd are being treated. Th daughter then resists going to group therapy but she also begins to attend and to participate In addition to basic structure and approach makes friends with another girl suggesting a very close relationship as the season ends,. She is also able to communicate with Kasper who went through a similar experience as a child,

The presence of media quickly disrupts the treatment programme for everyone and faced with having to remove their daughter Birgitte takes the unprecedented action of taking leave and asking the leader of the Labour Party to take over in her absence. The daughter make great progresses over a period of weeks to an extent that she is ready to begin the process of returning home, first by only attending during the day time. Such is her progress that at one point she gives thanks to Kasper for his understanding with a peck on the cheek as she goes off with her best friend.

Birgitte who has never been happy with the behaviour of her husband accuses him of abandoning her too quickly and not making the effort to stay. He ends the relationship with his new partner but this does not lead to the two getting together but enables him to devote the time required to sharing the care of the their children. Birgitte has had a one night stand with a chauffer who is replaced. She is full of guilt about what has happened to her daughter, especially when the girl reveals she had talked about her feelings of letting her mother down. The unit reminds that the roles of mother and work place greater demands and the reality as workaholics is that sometimes he work just does not take precedence but it is a necessary escape from the demands and realities of parenthood. She claims that Birgitte is not responsible for what has happened to the girl, about the only point in the entire series with which I have conflict. It true that much of the behaviour and physical life of children is the product of their physical and mental structure but this is inherited from parents an while direct carers, teachers and other will have their impact it is the parental relationships, or substitute parental relationships or the lack of them that has a major bearing on how the child develops and over their subsequent lives.

As the daughter heals she needs the attention of her mother less and this is the opportunity for Birgitte to return to political life as speculation about the future amounts and the opposition begin to steal the political initiative. From the outset Birgitte has relied on an older political friend from within her Party who becomes her Minister of Finance, but she is forced to stand him down under pressure from Coalition members as they demand concession for keeping the coalition going. He also reacts when she attempts to make him a commissioner in the EEC an when he agrees he immediate has another attack on his health something which he had kept previously secret from her and his colleagues.

As the second season ends they are back as friends and party political colleagues and he is impressed when she seizes the initiative after her major reform bill is passed by a narrow majority 82 to 80. She goes to see the queen and now she is calling a general election, not to decide if a woman should be Prime Minister but if the policies of her party and coalition have majority support. During the leave period the opposition and others had made much of difficulties of being a politician, wife and parent. The seasons therefore ends optimistically and we the viewers make the assumption that he will be returned and indeed I had assumed that the series had end at this point until learning of a third series.

The first two episodes of the third and final season of the Danish political Drama Borgen commenced on BBC Channel Four Saturday evening 13^th November 2013

The Prime Minister’s daughter and son appeared much and son appear that much older suggesting there was a gap in production between seasons two and three and this is confirmed with a gap of two years since the General Election. The next revelation is that not only did the coalition lose the election but her own party was smashed to below the number of seat from the election before their rise to power and office.

The head of her Party. the Moderates is Kruse th man she insisted become the European Commissioner after his double dealing nearly finished of her close friend Bent he had disappeared from the series in episode 4 of the second season.

When the season opens she has become a Board member if not the chairman of an International company and is visiting developments in Asia. She is also in a relationship at a distance with the company CEO. She and the children are renting a very expensive upmarket apartment and the husband comments that his son bedroom has th space of the previous kitchen and living area.

Returning th Denmark she see Kruse announce on Katrine’s TV news show that he is prepared to talk to the Government about Draconian immigration and repatriation laws and this she makes up her mind to return to politics and Ministerial level if possible, although she appreciate that many will oppose especially Kruse and his supporters.

Katrine has become a single parent mother although its father Kasper is playing a major in the boys upbringing and care As they are both working hard the boy is in the care of her mother who appears to have become a permanent fixture although she has her husband and home. Kasper has moved back into the media and co hosts th news programme with her boss,

Birgitte arranged to meet Kruse hoping he will provide a safe seat and a return to ministerial duties albeit in the Shadow cabinet. It is pay back time and he rejects her offer and after talking things over with Bent she decide to contest the leadership of the party as any member to do.

She approaches Katrine to be her media director who is finding working full time and being a mum challenging, using her mother as and when necessary as well as Kasper playing an important role so the child’s first words are grandma and daddy but not mummy. Her predecessor, Hanne who also works again at the TV station presses Katrine to spend time with the child given her experience where she lost contact with her daughter because of being a foreign correspondence as a young mother .

When Katrine meets with Birgitte and Bent to discuss the campaign we learn that the Party now has only ten thousand members in 92 organised districts each with a local leader who has the vote in the leadership campaign together with the Members of Parliament where there are now only 18, When Birgitte goes to meet one f the leading members Jon, with views close to her own and also an opponent of Kruse she finds first she cannot enter the Parliament Building, despite having been the Prime Minister, without possession of the appropriate pass is let in as guest when another member, a female Member recognises her, and Jon who just gets the message is thrilled about her return but says he cannot openly support because of the power Kruse now yields threatening and intimidating people, especially many district leaders into in critical support..

They decide to go on the offensive and she participate in a TV interview which has the desire effect of immediately brings some influential party member to her side. However Kruse does not give up his position without a vigorous contest and she fails to get the 56 seats required to win the leadership by five..

n the final scene we see her inspecting a dilapidated building which she takes on lease and when asked what she wants is for she says a new political Party. In the second episode she approaches Katrine to become the Communications Director and they approach a female member of the Moderate party who as a Member of Parliament enthusiastically support Birgitte and now finds herself cut off. She also approaches Jon although his support for her leadership was cautioned by Bent because he thought the man was after the Party Leadership and was using Birgitte for this purpose.

On a visit to the Parliament building Katrina meet Bent and assume he knows about the latest development but although Birgitte knows that he will come round in the end having been a member and supporter for 40 years she knows that his first reaction would be hostile and had hoped to advise him what she was doing once they had progressed and were in a position to go public.

A meeting takes place between Birgitte, Bent and Kruse in which the leader offers her a seat in Parliament and deputy leader of the party but she refuses because he is unwilling to make any concession on the issue of the new repatriation legislation. He warms that she is now an opponent and he will fight her all the way. She says he will have her resignation within an hour and Bent comments that she is no longer his friend.

A very different response eventually come from a senior member of the New Right party who has married a black refugee to the country and where later he makes the point that the very legislation he helped to pass means that their son cannot wear a hooded top because of the risk of being picked for a misdemeanour and then being open to repatriation. It is a very big step for him to make, and even after he arrives at the first policy making and launch meeting of those involved he hesitates and momentarily withdraws unable to because he cannot send the letter resigning from his party and become and an Independent.

Katrine has explained the development to her mother who remains hostile because of the insecurity financially and the impact on her role as a single parent. Although sworn to tell no one she tells Kasper and he pretends that it will be on the news that evening. He is joking and in fact on the Kasper Torben show he says he believes that Birgitte has quit politics after the failure of her attempt to become leader of the Moderates.

Through a misunderstanding, I think Katrine believes Kasper is staying for a meal first before taking their child to his home although it is not clear if he living on his own or with someone after the couple split up yet again. He only stays for part of a glass of wine. However Katrine does have a one night fling with the new Director of News Division having previously approached about returning to the TV station after failure of Birgitte to gain the leadership of the Moderates.

The News Director has a held meeting with Torben raising with him the unit cost of his division which is increasing as production cost rise but viewership falls. He had made it plain that without improvement Torben’s job is on the line. When Katrine fails to rejoin the station and then arranges for a rival TV station to have the first interview with Birgitte after the new Party announcement is made then his future becomes the issue and he expresses his anger to Katrine at what he regards as a betrayal.

Katrine also expresses anger towards her mother who is constantly commenting on the lack of time her daughter is devoting to her son, her financial insecurity and the state in which she keeps her apartment. When mother accuses her daughter of still being a child inside, Katrine flips and sends her mother packing saying she will manage her son on her own but then is forced to take the child to press conference launch of the new Party at the Parliament Building.

In order to finance the new party Birgitte considers giving up their leased apartment and moving to something smaller and less expensive which the daughter takes in her stride but which anger her son who says he does not want to move. While the relationship status of her ex husband is not clear relations between the two appear comfortable and relaxed and her helps out Birgitte with some surplus furniture from his business enterprise involvement.

The lover from Hong arrives on his way from a meeting in Germany to Norway which confused about his role and that of Birgitte in Hong Kong but this was settled in the introduction given to her for the TV appearance when it was stated that since her defeat as Prime Minister, and where I presume she was one of the party members losing her seat she had worked as a lecturers and on the board of a number of companies

With the failure of the approach from the leader of her now previous party she had no alternative but to go public and the press conference is arrange in which she makes a passionate and well argued case why the party is needed as the Moderates have effectively moved into an alliance with the governing coalition over the immigration and deportation issue. The show stopper is the appearance of the former member of New Right party with his young wife to explain why he has joined. However the magic moment is the appearance of Bent who also arrives and asks if he can join, shortly after she learns that already there have been 10000 likes on a social net work site.

2545 Masters of Sex series and Newcastle win at Old Trafford first time in 41 years.

Having gone to bed at midnight and woken alert and raring to write at 5am I did so for five hours and then returned to bed for another two setting the alarm just before midday, coming down stairs to cook my first plate of battered and bread crumbed sprats since last summer hoping it would be part of a celebratory visit of Newcastle to Old Trafford after their disastrous visit to Swansea on Wednesday when the stayed back and allowed the home side to take control of the game.

Manchester United manager having lost against West Bromwich Albion at home midweek and below Newcastle were under greater pressure especially as Wayne Rooney is suspended and Van Persie playing but in first game from injury far from match fitness. David Moyes with all the riches of players still available has rung the changes match after match to find a team able and willing play his style of football match after match, and this time there were seven changes from the mid week defeat.

Alan Pardew awarded manager of the Month along with Goal keeper Krull as Player of the month decided to stick his team apart from change with one forward Remy and a strong midfield with Tiotte very impressive but all three taking early command. The approach was hold the ball and to contain home side who lacked confidence and everyone in the stadium apart from Newcastle fans who could be heard above the silent tension. There was only an occasion confident urging from the home side fans and it was Newcastle who looked more likely to get the ball into the net. Newcastle had a bit of luck as a defender failed to clear the ball heading it on to a Newcastle player on the wing to regained control and passed to Debuchy who hit a strong ball into one corner and despite a little deflection which only took pace off the ball the keeper was beaten into his right hand corner.

Man U did get the ball into the net but the female linesman was spot on to rule offside and there was an arm away on the goal line which some referees might have given a penalty if they had seen. Pardew instead of being defensive as Man U attempted to come into the game and had several good raids on the goalmouth, brought on Ben Arfa to threaten but also to keep the ball. The most pleasing aspect which he identified t the end of the match is that the plan worked better than anticipated and he now has two potential match wining plans home or away which poses even great problems for the other teams in term of the which side do they bring on to start a game if the squad opposite can play one of two different but equally effective ways.

While as the first game of the weekend the table at the top could change, if Sunderland who play Spurs at home can won or draw Newcastle will stay in 6^th place on 25 points as below them are Southampton losing to Man City 1 but claimed a point and Stoke also came back to beat Chelsea so while Arsenal are striding ahead on their own the gap between Newcastle and other side at the top closes and the gap below them widens. Alas Sunderland lost a good contested game through silly avoidable mistakes

Newcastle play Southampton next Saturday and I have purchased a premium ticket by an aisle close to the centre circle in the main stand at £39 to be there whatever the weather. They are then away to Palace and home to Stoke when i am away and home to Arsenal just before the New Year which should be a cracking game and where I have also purchased the same seat for slightly more money even though the game is on Sky TV. By then I shall know if the good feeling about this season is justified similar to that which quickly developed about Durham where they went on to win th County Champions for the third time in six years against the odds and where all the commentators had declared they were a relegation bet

England had another humiliating bad day not making 200 runs and Australia batted on creating a huge lead with two days to go and the game likely to end tomorrow. Cook England captains has lost his head and clearly has gone to pieces out for 1 starting what looked to be another humiliating collapse. However Root and Pietersen held firm for a time and at close England were 267 for six with one day and 280 runs to avoid defeat. Only persistent rain will save them, and the Ashes, as England has not won at the next Test ground for decades

Most people of my generation have heard of the Kinsey reports on the sexual behaviour of men 1948 and Women in 1953 and the renewed attention to his life and work fifty years later with a generation of film goers who may have taken interest aroused by the film Kinsey in 2004 read about his work and even the report, or the latest studies from the institute he founded

The focus of publicity overs the years relation to these studies has been the numbers of partners before and after marriage. Studies since had looked at the impact of the contraception pill and the impact of HIV and Aids, the growth in sexually transmitted diseases among young people. There have been other reports on the same subject since and these include one recent covered in BBC radio news but which I did not make a note at the time, and if my memory is good also involved a description of recent studiedly behaviour and noting changes from previous studies especially among females.

The original Kinsey findings, especially the research on female behaviour were hotly debated from various viewpoints. At that time and still but to significant less extent to day the official media and political approach was to condone sex before marriage by young males, but not by females and similarly there was greater tolerance of t men and significant less of women who had sexual relationships after marriage, especially in the North Atlantic white “western” style economies.

The work of anthropologist Margaret Mead revealed the realities among societies leading “primitive” lives, including the existence of behaviour regarded then and still as illegal, and the work of historians, especially in relation to the behaviour of rulers and war makers although more impressionistic than evidential also demonstrates considerable variation from what was expected to be the norm in pre and immediate post Second world war “Christian” based countries. In this respect it also fair comment to state that in some Muslim based countries show tolerance towards the behaviour of men allowing multiple wife partners and harems but are exceptionally severe against the adult married female, with stoning to death for adultery.

If on the other hand I said Masters and Johnson to most people before the recent commencement of the America television drama Masters of Sex I would have been met with ignorance. It was around the time the 1963/1964 class of child, family care and hospital based social worker in the first generic style professional training and qualification course at Birmingham University that we taken to a Family Planning clinic for a talk and demonstration that I acquired my copy of the Kenneth’ Walker’s Physiology of Sex first published in 1940 before Kinsey although subsequent editions made reference but understandable not to the studies of Masters and his research assistant which revolutionised official understanding about the nature of the sexual response with its liberating findings, particularly for women.

As is my want interest in the TV series being shown on Channel Four has been with the closeness or otherwise of the facts of the drama to quickly available knowledge of the work and lives of the researches concerned. I say quickly available as there is a biography of the two who divorced their partners, married and then divorced each other some twenty years later for reasons I would be interested to learn ( Thomas Maier's biography Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love.),

As the series was being shown on Channel Four my expectation was of a serious presentation of their work and relationships especially as the cast contained some recognisable actors with outstanding work, notably Michael Sheen as William H Masters, Beau Bridges as the Hospital Provost and Alison Janney (West Wing White House media director) as his wife, and to date I have not been disappointed having viewed the first nine programmes in three sessions.

For those who seek voyeuristic sexual arousal and excitement or remain convinced that that sex and romantic love is indivisible this is not a series for them and at one level it reminded of that visit to the Family Planning Clinic, or later interviewing those running sexually transmitted disease clinics when part of the Home Office Advisory Committee on Drug misuse sub committee examining the implications of HIV and Aids in relation to substance misuse and also first hand experience of what a woman can go through in giving birth it is enough to put one off sex altogether.

Being involved in the birth can help men to understand thee lifelong bond which most mothers have with their offspring and which also led to my understanding the recent televised judgment on the woman who was persuaded by an older man who dominated her life to participate in what was to have been fire and rescue of her children and which ended in their deaths. Having sat on an inquiry into the death of one child by fire, seen photographs and examined the crime scene as well having studied and worked in the field of normal and deviant human behaviour it seemed to me the original female judge, and the Lord Chief Justice who presided at the appeal hearing got the sentence right although the extent to which it would deter other mothers likely to become involved in such a dangerous action or provide the time and framework to “cure” and rehabilitate is open to question.

According to the information immediately available it is not clear if Virginia E Johnston worked as his hospital secretary before becoming his research assistant in his initial research project as portrayed in the film. We do learn that she had been married twice and was separated from the father of her two children, a musician, (previously marrying a local politician when she was 20 which lasted only two days( I do not know why) and then a much older man, an attorney, who she divorced).

She divorced her third marriage in 1956 after six years making three associations commenced and ended within 15 years. She had two children by her third marriage having previous dropped out of her local college at 16 and then after Attending a University music course she became a country music singer, then a business writer for the St Louis Daily Record and then going back to university for a degree in sociology which she never completed. In the series she enrols on a course in anatomy, gaining 99% marks in the first examination and has ambitions to become a medical doctor so her wok could be accepted as an equal research partner with Masters instead of being viewed by him initially as a secretary gofer as did her former colleagues and others as portrayed in he drama. I do not know if this aspect is accurate

Masters ten years her senior was married and at the time kept secret from his wife his impotency so that she took the blame. In one review the comment is made that his relationship with his mother reminded of the between Tony Soprano and his mum although this is far from the comparison I would make i rather with Kasper’s relationship with his mother in Borgen because she appears to have turned a blind eye and in fact helped facilitate her husband’s sex crimes against her son along with card playing and drinking male friends. Whether the truth in this respect is be revealed for happened with Kasper as the second season progressed and a s second we shall see as a second season of 12 episodes of Masters of Sex has been commissioned. Masters is portrayed as comfortable without children while his wife recognised that their marriage was at grave risk as she became isolated and lonely living with a man unable to show the kind of romantic passion and attention she craved. The importance of both the Masters and Borgen programme is that men can have the same lifelong damage as women if criminally sexually assaulted in childhood and significant greater than if the event occurs in adulthood.

In the first episode Wikipedia summary Dr. William Masters (Michael Sheen) proposes a controversial study of human sexuality but is rejected by his university. Undaunted, he begins the study anyway and hires Virginia Johnson (Lizzy Caplan), a nightclub singer-turned-secretary, as his assistant. Upon learning that their sole subject, prostitute Betty DiMello (Annaleigh Ashford), is a lesbian, Johnson sets about recruiting additional female and male subjects, including Masters' colleague Dr. Austin Langham (Teddy Sears). She enters into a sexual relationship with Dr. Ethan Haas (Nicholas D'Agosto) but he becomes overly attached and eventually physically abusive. Masters induces his wife Libby (Caitlin Fitzgerald) to undergo painful and invasive infertility treatments, despite, according to Haas, Masters being the infertile one. Masters suggests that he and Johnson defuse possible "sexual transference" by having sex with each other as part of the study. In subsequent episodes

Virginia has trouble telling Masters that she cannot accept his proposal, but Masters informs her that Provost Scully has cancelled the study because he found out they were monitoring couples having sex. Masters believes it was Ethan who told Scully and fires Virginia on the spot for sleeping with him. Masters moves the study to a brothel with the help of Betty, but he and the participating prostitutes are arrested shortly after. Meanwhile, after being rejected by Virginia, Ethan tries to replicate their sexual liaison with other girls, but to no avail. Virginia coaxes some reluctant prostitutes to rejoin the study, and Masters temporarily takes her back to work with him, but refuses to commit beyond the day-to-day.

Masters and Johnson continue working at the brothel but Masters grows increasingly frustrated with the conditions. Betty recruits some men for the study but Masters is nonplussed to learn they are homosexual prostitutes. Betty blackmails Masters into reversing her tubal ligation but the procedure fails, leading Betty to commit to deceiving her fiancé. Haas takes the case of a woman carrying quadruplets but Scully reassigns it to Masters. Masters drops the homosexual men from his study on the grounds that they aren't "deviant" but "deviate", uses information gleaned from one of them, Dale, to blackmail Scully into allowing the study back into the hospital. Libby learns she is pregnant.

Libby has a medical emergency at the Scullys' 30th wedding anniversary party. Her fetus dies; Bill induces labour and delivers a stillborn girl. The loss leads Barton to begin reconciling his relationship with Bill.

Bill and Libby vacation in Miami while at home Virginia investigates whether there is really a difference between a clitoral and a vaginal orgasm. Bill returns to the study, leaving Libby in Miami, where she is tempted by an older gentleman. Virginia decides it is time she and Bill participated in the study, initiating a sexual relationship between them.

Austin and Margaret continue their affair. Virginia tries to find a new secretary for Bill. Bill tries to balance the study and his affair with his home life.

This description of the action fails in various ways. It provide no context and back story and its clinical detachment about story line fails to communicate the clinical detachment in which sexual acts are portrayed on the screen. The ability of women to experience sexual climax separate from vaginal penetration is not restricted just to the clitoral, and Virginia initiates a sexual relationship with William which it is evidently more than clinical on her part by demonstrating she is able to achieve a climax via her breasts alone and that others are also stimulated by other areas of the their body.

They have established a way of observing action using masturbatory devices which extend to using a camera device to be able to project what happens to professional colleagues.

The old debate that homosexuality was a deviation from the norm ,accurate in its technical use sense was rejected as early as the 1940’s in the Kenneth Walker book mentioned earlier despite the law remaining unchanged for several decades. These is now a body fo research examining why some take one sexual pathway while others do not. As later at the early sixties a Freudian view was being propounded on the course Attended including homosexuality as a deviation from he norm which required analytical treatment and in this series after the truth of the homosexuality of the Provost is revealed to his wife he raises the issue of treatment as a means of saving his marriage., Masters tells about aversion therapy being used elsewhere but later after their research is completed and the four stages of sexual response has been finished the research team moves into the treatment of deviation..

　

In Love and Marriage" Michael Apted Story by: Tyler Bensinger
Teleplay by: Michael Cunningham first shown November 17, 2013. Confrontations between th provost and his wife with Barton over his lack of sexual interest in her leads her to ask for a divorce. Barton purloins drugs from the hospital and asks Dale to help him with aversion therapy to change his sexuality but Dale refuses. Ethan and Vivian become engaged. Libby faints during a dance lesson and learns she has become pregnant again.

Jane agrees to further aid the study by being filmed while masturbating, but upon viewing the footage begs Virginia to destroy it. Virginia cajoles Bill to complete her employee evaluation but he reveals more of his feelings for her than he had intended. With Jane gone, Virginia agrees to allow herself to be filmed instead. Ethan tells Vivian of his Jewish heritage and initially agrees to convert to Catholicism, but instead ends their engagement. Libby tells Bill she is pregnant again. Bill, in response to his growing feelings for Virginia, attempts to distance himself by paying her for having sex for the study. Virginia decides she needs to emotionally detach herself as well.

The extent to which there is any basis of the relationship between the provost and his wife, and between other characters and the sexual issue is based in fact must be questioned. More likely they are devises to make general viewers engaged in the drama. This reminds of recent discussions on Film review BBC1 and Mayo and Kermode BBC Five Live about one of the latest Daniel Radcliffe films which deals with the Beat Generation poets and writers when they are young and raised the issue of how to make interesting the process of sitting at a desk with a typewriter or word processor and writing for hours and days on end.