My recent dreams appear to underline failure in completing missions, usually into or out of places or not remembering where I have been or where I am going. I hope this a fear and not a forecast.
Sunday was a stop and go day with more stop than go. I stayed up until after 2.30 finishing writing and an unsettled night led to a late start in the morning, bleary eyed.
I played a few rounds of Luxor Majong after failing to break the 50 win barrier at level three chess, having achieved my highest score to date of more than and having achieved 16.5 million points, it is my preferred game with seeking to break 17million. I then watched the second episode of the new series of Dr Who, belatedly did good work in the garage area outside but over a short period and then enjoyed a quick lunch of sausages and mash around 2.30 pm another short burst of research and writing, later undone and substantially rewritten, and then a little painting of areas where I not repaired or used a small tube of sealant to gauge how much I would need for a good job on the surround to the garage roof where leaks were causing the main problems my work was intending to remedy.
I watched most of the second F A CUP semi Final between Spurs and Tottenham, having also watched a large chunk of the first semi final between Chelsea and the Villa yesterday after watching the Grand National and listening to Sunderland’s and Newcastle’s games on two radio’s simultaneously.
This evening I enjoyed a medium size piece of steak (£2.71) with vegetables, some grapes and hot cross buns and coffee. Yesterday evening I made a four small egg Spanish style omelette with pieces of olives, prawns and salami and having finished off various salad items with a peppered mackerel earlier, with a banana, grapes which were not sweet and a couple of the hot cross buns. Later I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
There were two highlights on Sunday, a programme on the life of one of the great female jazz singers and piano players of all time Nina Simone and the first in the new series of Foyle’s War which dealt with one of the most horrendous aspects of the second World War when the allies agreed to repatriating any Russians within their territories who had fought with Germany against Russia. This was part of the Russian policy of returning to their direct control anyone who had fled their country or from captured territories who were known anti communists or negative about Stalin’s regime.
In this first episode of the seventh series of full length feature films with Michael Kitchen as Foyle, Honeysuckle Weeks as Samantha Stewart and Anthony Howell and DS Milner, the focus was the spread of the news among Russian POW’s in the UK that those who had been repatriated from their work camps in Yorkshire, taking home with them clothing and scarce food rations from kindly Yorkshire people, were machine gunned to death immediately upon arrival at the Port of Odessa
In the programme Foyle finds out that Churchill had agreed the exchange at Yalta for a stated 20000 British POW’s held in Eastern Germany and occupied territories, liberated by the Russians, and that the members of the administration knew what had happened, after being called in by his World War 1 commanding officer who now worked in the War Office, and asked to try and find an escaped Russian POW known to be in his area. Foyle undertook the mission after being persuaded to stay on as the police detective chief after the war ended until a replacement could be found.
My only source of background information to-date Wikipedia, refers to the book published by County Tolstoy in 1977 which claimed that the number of Russians returned without choice was in excess of 5 million although the allies refused to return millions from the Soviet occupied countries, notably Poland, who had fled when the Soviets arrived. Tolstoy is reported to have put the figure at substantially less but still in the millions. An estimated one million of those returned, according to the Soviet source, were executed or sent to labour camps for 25 years. About a third received shorter sentences or were exiled. A percentage were conscripted and sent to areas other than their homes and those allowed back were treated as inferior citizens.
In the film Samantha has gained a job with a local art painter who has taken a shine to a young Russian POW still only 17 years who has become a live in handyman. He proposes to make the young man his adopted son and heir after his biological son decides to stand as a Labour Member of Parliament. Sam then finds her employer shot to death a day after the son learns of his father’s intentions to change the Will. DI Milner, now in charge of his own service at Brighton suspects the young Russian who has taken flight and believed to be heading for London and the home of a White Russian known to help fellow citizens. Foyle calls at the house of the Artman without knowing any of this, including the involvement of Milner and the presence of Sam although the three had only recently attended the Christening of Milner’s child. They are both shocked at the way Milner reacts to their involvement, wanting to solve his first murder mystery on his own, but appearing to discount the five years of their previous association.
Foyle was on the trail of finding the escaped Russian POW, for his former Commanding officer after learning that another had committed suicide by throwing himself off a viaduct rather than return to Russia and that the two had been friendly with the Young Russian at the Artman‘s House and was likely to have turned to him for help. In this he is correct as the man on the run had persuaded his friend to steal housekeeping money in order to make his way to London to reach the home of an émigré leader. From what Sam says and what he had learned so far Foyle, who does not yet know about what happened at Odessa, does not believe the young Russian killed his employer and is therefore at odds with his former Sergeant.
There is another possible suspect-the brother of the head of a local military unit assigned to take into custody the young Russian. The brother has just been demobbed and calls at the home of the artist where six years before he had been promised that his job would be waiting for him on return. He is very angry when told there is now no job, and even angrier when he finds out why.
Foyle goes to London, taking Sam with him who is at a loose end having lost her job with the death of her employer, and he decides to stay on even when told that the missing POW has been captured and is on his way to Russia.
He visits his former commanding officer where he is given this information and no background and takes up the offer of staying at the club of his former military leader and invited to have dinner there later. They served at Passchendale in the war where again millions of men on both sides perished under the orders of the High command. This governed he subsequent life of both in contrasting ways.
Sam stays at the hotel where the escaped POW is known to have been captured after being placed their by the Émigré leader. The Émigré leader denies any knowledge of either Russian but his assistant appears to express concern when he learns that the man has been recaptured and is on his way back to Russia. Foyle keeps watch on the house and sees the leader talking to an individual who he later spots following him as he makes his way from the club to see Sam at her Hotel, the following morning. They are then pursued by this armed man who unintentionally shoots someone else at the hotel and Foyle and Sam go on the run and are saved by the assistant to the émigré leader who shoots the would be assassin. He says that has just found out that his boss had started to work for the Communists. Foyle demands the resignation of former commanding officer for having used the assassin in the attempt to kill him and Sam, to stop them revealing about the Odessa cover up. He also requires the freeing of the young POW back to Hastings as the price for keeping quiet about what has happened for the time being. It is then revealed that the artman was accidentally killed by the brother of the returning British serviceman when trying to take the young Russian into custody although we had suspected something of the nature arising from a scene in which the War Office chief explodes at what had happened at the artman house and earlier. A civil servant reminds that he was against calling in Foyle because of his known rebellious and singled minded nature.
As with the over 20 previous films during the seven years of the series it has an authenticity about wartime England that I can remember, the feel and the look of the time, and the acting is always of a high stand with credible storylines. It is also a salutary reminder of what Prime Ministers, including those in democratic countries with freedom of the press and allegedly open governments feel required to do in specific circumstances.
Credibility cannot be used to describe the storylines of Dr Who which had began my Sunday.
Having woken late and bleary eyed as mentioned, wanting to continue with writing of Babylon 5 and to work on the garage area but also wanting to catch up on television from yesterday and watch more today and I also procrastinated and played Luxor Majong, I delayed breakfast deciding on toast and then on Monday if the weather was fine walking to the local to try their bacon roll and coffee down from £1.50 at the hostelry visited last year before the Azda move to £1.19. Either before or after I would then cross the road for a haircut. In fact after setting up the i player on the lap top watch on the large screen Telly I enjoyed the first of the bacon steaks in one roll, the size of which is the equivalent of four slices!
Setting up the i player takes time and caused me to laugh at myself. When preparing to work on the outside of the house, I had moved the larger of the two folding chairs I take to the cricket in their carry bags or have used for picnics by the car, or attending concerts in the park or sea front, I had also used the smaller one at the Whitely Bay Jazz Festival last year. For a couple of minutes I could not remembered what had happened to the smaller chair, even considering that it had been stolen during a period when the garage door had been opened. I then remembered that I had been using the chair to set up the computer when attached tot eh large screen telly. I had then found the carry bag, a couple of days later, by accident, although I had kept half an eye on the look out. You daft man, I said, well words to the same effect.
The second episode of the 11 Doctor Who, The Beast Below has a scary start for young people. A Manhattan skyline passes by with each tower block named after the counties of England. It is a floating England in space. In a school room the class appears to be conducted by a motionless enamel head in a fairground type game booth. Pupils are being congratulated for their performances but the last child is given a zero and the head in the booth changes its face to show an angry expression. The boy goes to a lift and the girl says he must walk to London rather than take the lift because of the chastisement. He tries to take the lift but is prevented by a hooded man, resembling a figure of death, the boy enters the adjacent lift and the head in the lift changes from benign to hostile and floor of the lift opens and the boy falls into the fiery furnace which appears below. I imagine the kind of nightmare this will create for some children.
I believe it was at this point the introductory credits roll with Amy Pond at the open door of the Tardis in space because of an air bubble created by the Dr. They are to visit the travelling space country and the Doctor explains the rules about not being able to affect the normal life of where they visit. They see a girl crying quietly and the Doctor amends the governing orders with the exception of children crying.
They discover that in the reign of the 10th Queen Elizabeth, played by Sophie Okonedo, the earth planet reached the end of habitable life and all the countries built space craft to go in search of planets which could sustain the people. England left it late and discovered a huge space travelling creature, a whale which they capture and use as a platform for their space craft!
She believes she has reigned for ten years but the doctor suggests she is now 300 years old to indicate the time they have travelled by slowly down the metabolism. It emerges she as with everyone else has to make a choice every five years between continuing the journey to find somewhere else to rebuild the nation or end the search with the complete self destruction of the community. At one point Amy is rendered unconscious and assessed by those who runs the Ark and has age of 1306. The two end up through waste disposal onto the giant mouth of the whale and get themselves out by making the creature sick. Given the choice of accepting the system or registering a protest, Amy presses the Forget button and the doctor expresses concern that she has been participating without making prior reference to him. He has encountered someone with a mind of her own and proposes to send her home. This upsets Amy who come on the journey despite being set to marry the man of her choice that very day. Worse is to follow when Amy creates a situation where the Doctor is faced with the choice of killing the last of the great space Whales or losing the population of the England before they can find a new home.
I was reminded that in Babylon 5, a million years after the death of Sheridan the entire population of Earth left to other planets because the sun had become too hot to live on earth. This was also the subject of one of the early black and white space films, the planet of the apes and such like. The Doctor decides to brain destroy the Whale so he will not feel the pain his experiencing from the burden of the task to which he has been imprisoned. It is at this point that Amy takes responsibility and presses the Abdication button which frees the Whale from direct control. She has two links for the decision. She notices that membrane from the whale which have become exposed act kindly towards children as does another last of his race, the Doctor, who cannot bare to see children cry. She gambles the pressing of the button, a system created by the Queen and her government within the Ark will not have the effect everyone has assumed. She is right and the Ark continues as before but at greater speed and the Doctor has been saved from having to make the creature brain dead
He recognises that Amy is a good ally and agrees after a hug, that is more than brotherly and sisterly, that she can continue in their exploration. He receives a telephone call which amazes Amy until the Doctor reminds that the Tardis is after all a police Telephone box! The call is from Winston Churchill as wartime Prime Minister. We are shown a clip in which he introduces the Doctor to his new secret weapons. It is a Darlek. Woo err. I thought we had seen the last of them, whatever next, the Cybermen?
Then there was the repeat showing of showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix which I had on but paid only fleeting attention after the opening and I broadly remembered the story. It is time to confess that while I am full of admiration for the creator of Harry Potter who has become the wealthiest writer of all time and can understand the appeal of the books and the reinforcing films for ten to sixteen year olds in spirit, I have found individual films overlong, repetitive, and so complex that my mind wonders. I have not read any of the books which could be the difference and most readers view the films to see the re-enactment of their imagination.
The concept of humans from childhood having special powers which enables them to live in a different dimensions from the rest of us appeals and follows not just series such as Babylon 5, the 4400, Star Trek, the Men in Black and the X Men but the pre Christian belief in intervening Gods and post Christian stories of Angels, Devils, Witches and Wizards of varying degrees of goodness or harm. An inevitable aspect of the science fiction, pre and post Christian concepts is however benign the special powers there are always those who will misuse and has history has shown that almost all those with power become corrupted by their position which they then seek to maintain by fair means and then foul. The one good moment in the Order of the Phoenix is when Harry becomes uncertain of the extent to which the dark one is having an increasing influence on his thoughts and behaviour. The best moment in the film for me is when the Professor explains that we are all made up of good and bad feelings, motives and actions in terms of their intentions and outcomes and this understanding this and taking charge of ourselves is the key to having a life which we can look back on with satisfaction and facing death without a fear or a sense of being disappointed and unfulfilled, irrespective of its length and circumstances.
As with the Boat race between Oxford and Cambridge the Grand National was one of the great sporting events of my childhood and one where most people have a bet or enter a sweepstake. The nature of the race with some 30 large jumps, there used to be more, and a mixed field of professional jockeys with some amateurs has great appeal especially as it lasts like the boat race some 20 mins and involves two circuits of the track with famous jumps such as Beaches Brook, the Canal Turn and the Chair where horses and riders have sometimes found themselves in great peril. Usually the bookies clean up because almost all the entrants have a chance of winning or gaining a place with the bookmakers paying out on the first four finishers. This time a co favourite won with the other also gaining a place and the bookmakers are reported to have lost all the gains they made last year and more. There was an element of romance with the result because a previously calm and stone faced Tony McCoy champion jockey with 3000 winners over his twenty year career won at his 15th attempt, with the trainer the famous former rider Jonjo O’Neill, who also had won everything but never the Grand National. His horse is called Don’t Push it. My choice on the day, although I did not bet, was Black Apalachi which came second at a modest 14.1 with State of play 16,1 and the co favourite Big Fella Thanks fourth. Only ten other horses finished with the rest of the field falling or pulled up at 1,2,4,5,8,14(2).15,19(3), 20(3), 21 22(2) 23 24 26 27 28 29(3)th fences, that is 25 horses, including a horse named after Freddie Flintoff which he owns or is a part owner who pulled up at the 21st .
Sunderland have only won once away from home and usually lose which they did on Saturday although their present accumulation of points indicates they will not be involved in the relegations nightmare of the last few games. Newcastle continue to go from strength to strength with a win a home against struggling Blackpool and are now six point clear of second place West Brom with a game in hand. I was delighted that Portsmouth already relegated having lost 10 point after going into administration beat Spurs to reach the final of the FA Cup. They were lucky as Spurs has a good goal disallowed. The Villa who played well were not so lucky against Chelsea as they should have had a penalty missed by the referee before Chelsea score their first goal. I missed the US Masters where a Brit as doing well.
Sunday was a stop and go day with more stop than go. I stayed up until after 2.30 finishing writing and an unsettled night led to a late start in the morning, bleary eyed.
I played a few rounds of Luxor Majong after failing to break the 50 win barrier at level three chess, having achieved my highest score to date of more than and having achieved 16.5 million points, it is my preferred game with seeking to break 17million. I then watched the second episode of the new series of Dr Who, belatedly did good work in the garage area outside but over a short period and then enjoyed a quick lunch of sausages and mash around 2.30 pm another short burst of research and writing, later undone and substantially rewritten, and then a little painting of areas where I not repaired or used a small tube of sealant to gauge how much I would need for a good job on the surround to the garage roof where leaks were causing the main problems my work was intending to remedy.
I watched most of the second F A CUP semi Final between Spurs and Tottenham, having also watched a large chunk of the first semi final between Chelsea and the Villa yesterday after watching the Grand National and listening to Sunderland’s and Newcastle’s games on two radio’s simultaneously.
This evening I enjoyed a medium size piece of steak (£2.71) with vegetables, some grapes and hot cross buns and coffee. Yesterday evening I made a four small egg Spanish style omelette with pieces of olives, prawns and salami and having finished off various salad items with a peppered mackerel earlier, with a banana, grapes which were not sweet and a couple of the hot cross buns. Later I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
There were two highlights on Sunday, a programme on the life of one of the great female jazz singers and piano players of all time Nina Simone and the first in the new series of Foyle’s War which dealt with one of the most horrendous aspects of the second World War when the allies agreed to repatriating any Russians within their territories who had fought with Germany against Russia. This was part of the Russian policy of returning to their direct control anyone who had fled their country or from captured territories who were known anti communists or negative about Stalin’s regime.
In this first episode of the seventh series of full length feature films with Michael Kitchen as Foyle, Honeysuckle Weeks as Samantha Stewart and Anthony Howell and DS Milner, the focus was the spread of the news among Russian POW’s in the UK that those who had been repatriated from their work camps in Yorkshire, taking home with them clothing and scarce food rations from kindly Yorkshire people, were machine gunned to death immediately upon arrival at the Port of Odessa
In the programme Foyle finds out that Churchill had agreed the exchange at Yalta for a stated 20000 British POW’s held in Eastern Germany and occupied territories, liberated by the Russians, and that the members of the administration knew what had happened, after being called in by his World War 1 commanding officer who now worked in the War Office, and asked to try and find an escaped Russian POW known to be in his area. Foyle undertook the mission after being persuaded to stay on as the police detective chief after the war ended until a replacement could be found.
My only source of background information to-date Wikipedia, refers to the book published by County Tolstoy in 1977 which claimed that the number of Russians returned without choice was in excess of 5 million although the allies refused to return millions from the Soviet occupied countries, notably Poland, who had fled when the Soviets arrived. Tolstoy is reported to have put the figure at substantially less but still in the millions. An estimated one million of those returned, according to the Soviet source, were executed or sent to labour camps for 25 years. About a third received shorter sentences or were exiled. A percentage were conscripted and sent to areas other than their homes and those allowed back were treated as inferior citizens.
In the film Samantha has gained a job with a local art painter who has taken a shine to a young Russian POW still only 17 years who has become a live in handyman. He proposes to make the young man his adopted son and heir after his biological son decides to stand as a Labour Member of Parliament. Sam then finds her employer shot to death a day after the son learns of his father’s intentions to change the Will. DI Milner, now in charge of his own service at Brighton suspects the young Russian who has taken flight and believed to be heading for London and the home of a White Russian known to help fellow citizens. Foyle calls at the house of the Artman without knowing any of this, including the involvement of Milner and the presence of Sam although the three had only recently attended the Christening of Milner’s child. They are both shocked at the way Milner reacts to their involvement, wanting to solve his first murder mystery on his own, but appearing to discount the five years of their previous association.
Foyle was on the trail of finding the escaped Russian POW, for his former Commanding officer after learning that another had committed suicide by throwing himself off a viaduct rather than return to Russia and that the two had been friendly with the Young Russian at the Artman‘s House and was likely to have turned to him for help. In this he is correct as the man on the run had persuaded his friend to steal housekeeping money in order to make his way to London to reach the home of an émigré leader. From what Sam says and what he had learned so far Foyle, who does not yet know about what happened at Odessa, does not believe the young Russian killed his employer and is therefore at odds with his former Sergeant.
There is another possible suspect-the brother of the head of a local military unit assigned to take into custody the young Russian. The brother has just been demobbed and calls at the home of the artist where six years before he had been promised that his job would be waiting for him on return. He is very angry when told there is now no job, and even angrier when he finds out why.
Foyle goes to London, taking Sam with him who is at a loose end having lost her job with the death of her employer, and he decides to stay on even when told that the missing POW has been captured and is on his way to Russia.
He visits his former commanding officer where he is given this information and no background and takes up the offer of staying at the club of his former military leader and invited to have dinner there later. They served at Passchendale in the war where again millions of men on both sides perished under the orders of the High command. This governed he subsequent life of both in contrasting ways.
Sam stays at the hotel where the escaped POW is known to have been captured after being placed their by the Émigré leader. The Émigré leader denies any knowledge of either Russian but his assistant appears to express concern when he learns that the man has been recaptured and is on his way back to Russia. Foyle keeps watch on the house and sees the leader talking to an individual who he later spots following him as he makes his way from the club to see Sam at her Hotel, the following morning. They are then pursued by this armed man who unintentionally shoots someone else at the hotel and Foyle and Sam go on the run and are saved by the assistant to the émigré leader who shoots the would be assassin. He says that has just found out that his boss had started to work for the Communists. Foyle demands the resignation of former commanding officer for having used the assassin in the attempt to kill him and Sam, to stop them revealing about the Odessa cover up. He also requires the freeing of the young POW back to Hastings as the price for keeping quiet about what has happened for the time being. It is then revealed that the artman was accidentally killed by the brother of the returning British serviceman when trying to take the young Russian into custody although we had suspected something of the nature arising from a scene in which the War Office chief explodes at what had happened at the artman house and earlier. A civil servant reminds that he was against calling in Foyle because of his known rebellious and singled minded nature.
As with the over 20 previous films during the seven years of the series it has an authenticity about wartime England that I can remember, the feel and the look of the time, and the acting is always of a high stand with credible storylines. It is also a salutary reminder of what Prime Ministers, including those in democratic countries with freedom of the press and allegedly open governments feel required to do in specific circumstances.
Credibility cannot be used to describe the storylines of Dr Who which had began my Sunday.
Having woken late and bleary eyed as mentioned, wanting to continue with writing of Babylon 5 and to work on the garage area but also wanting to catch up on television from yesterday and watch more today and I also procrastinated and played Luxor Majong, I delayed breakfast deciding on toast and then on Monday if the weather was fine walking to the local to try their bacon roll and coffee down from £1.50 at the hostelry visited last year before the Azda move to £1.19. Either before or after I would then cross the road for a haircut. In fact after setting up the i player on the lap top watch on the large screen Telly I enjoyed the first of the bacon steaks in one roll, the size of which is the equivalent of four slices!
Setting up the i player takes time and caused me to laugh at myself. When preparing to work on the outside of the house, I had moved the larger of the two folding chairs I take to the cricket in their carry bags or have used for picnics by the car, or attending concerts in the park or sea front, I had also used the smaller one at the Whitely Bay Jazz Festival last year. For a couple of minutes I could not remembered what had happened to the smaller chair, even considering that it had been stolen during a period when the garage door had been opened. I then remembered that I had been using the chair to set up the computer when attached tot eh large screen telly. I had then found the carry bag, a couple of days later, by accident, although I had kept half an eye on the look out. You daft man, I said, well words to the same effect.
The second episode of the 11 Doctor Who, The Beast Below has a scary start for young people. A Manhattan skyline passes by with each tower block named after the counties of England. It is a floating England in space. In a school room the class appears to be conducted by a motionless enamel head in a fairground type game booth. Pupils are being congratulated for their performances but the last child is given a zero and the head in the booth changes its face to show an angry expression. The boy goes to a lift and the girl says he must walk to London rather than take the lift because of the chastisement. He tries to take the lift but is prevented by a hooded man, resembling a figure of death, the boy enters the adjacent lift and the head in the lift changes from benign to hostile and floor of the lift opens and the boy falls into the fiery furnace which appears below. I imagine the kind of nightmare this will create for some children.
I believe it was at this point the introductory credits roll with Amy Pond at the open door of the Tardis in space because of an air bubble created by the Dr. They are to visit the travelling space country and the Doctor explains the rules about not being able to affect the normal life of where they visit. They see a girl crying quietly and the Doctor amends the governing orders with the exception of children crying.
They discover that in the reign of the 10th Queen Elizabeth, played by Sophie Okonedo, the earth planet reached the end of habitable life and all the countries built space craft to go in search of planets which could sustain the people. England left it late and discovered a huge space travelling creature, a whale which they capture and use as a platform for their space craft!
She believes she has reigned for ten years but the doctor suggests she is now 300 years old to indicate the time they have travelled by slowly down the metabolism. It emerges she as with everyone else has to make a choice every five years between continuing the journey to find somewhere else to rebuild the nation or end the search with the complete self destruction of the community. At one point Amy is rendered unconscious and assessed by those who runs the Ark and has age of 1306. The two end up through waste disposal onto the giant mouth of the whale and get themselves out by making the creature sick. Given the choice of accepting the system or registering a protest, Amy presses the Forget button and the doctor expresses concern that she has been participating without making prior reference to him. He has encountered someone with a mind of her own and proposes to send her home. This upsets Amy who come on the journey despite being set to marry the man of her choice that very day. Worse is to follow when Amy creates a situation where the Doctor is faced with the choice of killing the last of the great space Whales or losing the population of the England before they can find a new home.
I was reminded that in Babylon 5, a million years after the death of Sheridan the entire population of Earth left to other planets because the sun had become too hot to live on earth. This was also the subject of one of the early black and white space films, the planet of the apes and such like. The Doctor decides to brain destroy the Whale so he will not feel the pain his experiencing from the burden of the task to which he has been imprisoned. It is at this point that Amy takes responsibility and presses the Abdication button which frees the Whale from direct control. She has two links for the decision. She notices that membrane from the whale which have become exposed act kindly towards children as does another last of his race, the Doctor, who cannot bare to see children cry. She gambles the pressing of the button, a system created by the Queen and her government within the Ark will not have the effect everyone has assumed. She is right and the Ark continues as before but at greater speed and the Doctor has been saved from having to make the creature brain dead
He recognises that Amy is a good ally and agrees after a hug, that is more than brotherly and sisterly, that she can continue in their exploration. He receives a telephone call which amazes Amy until the Doctor reminds that the Tardis is after all a police Telephone box! The call is from Winston Churchill as wartime Prime Minister. We are shown a clip in which he introduces the Doctor to his new secret weapons. It is a Darlek. Woo err. I thought we had seen the last of them, whatever next, the Cybermen?
Then there was the repeat showing of showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix which I had on but paid only fleeting attention after the opening and I broadly remembered the story. It is time to confess that while I am full of admiration for the creator of Harry Potter who has become the wealthiest writer of all time and can understand the appeal of the books and the reinforcing films for ten to sixteen year olds in spirit, I have found individual films overlong, repetitive, and so complex that my mind wonders. I have not read any of the books which could be the difference and most readers view the films to see the re-enactment of their imagination.
The concept of humans from childhood having special powers which enables them to live in a different dimensions from the rest of us appeals and follows not just series such as Babylon 5, the 4400, Star Trek, the Men in Black and the X Men but the pre Christian belief in intervening Gods and post Christian stories of Angels, Devils, Witches and Wizards of varying degrees of goodness or harm. An inevitable aspect of the science fiction, pre and post Christian concepts is however benign the special powers there are always those who will misuse and has history has shown that almost all those with power become corrupted by their position which they then seek to maintain by fair means and then foul. The one good moment in the Order of the Phoenix is when Harry becomes uncertain of the extent to which the dark one is having an increasing influence on his thoughts and behaviour. The best moment in the film for me is when the Professor explains that we are all made up of good and bad feelings, motives and actions in terms of their intentions and outcomes and this understanding this and taking charge of ourselves is the key to having a life which we can look back on with satisfaction and facing death without a fear or a sense of being disappointed and unfulfilled, irrespective of its length and circumstances.
As with the Boat race between Oxford and Cambridge the Grand National was one of the great sporting events of my childhood and one where most people have a bet or enter a sweepstake. The nature of the race with some 30 large jumps, there used to be more, and a mixed field of professional jockeys with some amateurs has great appeal especially as it lasts like the boat race some 20 mins and involves two circuits of the track with famous jumps such as Beaches Brook, the Canal Turn and the Chair where horses and riders have sometimes found themselves in great peril. Usually the bookies clean up because almost all the entrants have a chance of winning or gaining a place with the bookmakers paying out on the first four finishers. This time a co favourite won with the other also gaining a place and the bookmakers are reported to have lost all the gains they made last year and more. There was an element of romance with the result because a previously calm and stone faced Tony McCoy champion jockey with 3000 winners over his twenty year career won at his 15th attempt, with the trainer the famous former rider Jonjo O’Neill, who also had won everything but never the Grand National. His horse is called Don’t Push it. My choice on the day, although I did not bet, was Black Apalachi which came second at a modest 14.1 with State of play 16,1 and the co favourite Big Fella Thanks fourth. Only ten other horses finished with the rest of the field falling or pulled up at 1,2,4,5,8,14(2).15,19(3), 20(3), 21 22(2) 23 24 26 27 28 29(3)th fences, that is 25 horses, including a horse named after Freddie Flintoff which he owns or is a part owner who pulled up at the 21st .
Sunderland have only won once away from home and usually lose which they did on Saturday although their present accumulation of points indicates they will not be involved in the relegations nightmare of the last few games. Newcastle continue to go from strength to strength with a win a home against struggling Blackpool and are now six point clear of second place West Brom with a game in hand. I was delighted that Portsmouth already relegated having lost 10 point after going into administration beat Spurs to reach the final of the FA Cup. They were lucky as Spurs has a good goal disallowed. The Villa who played well were not so lucky against Chelsea as they should have had a penalty missed by the referee before Chelsea score their first goal. I missed the US Masters where a Brit as doing well.
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