Up the Apple Tree

Sunday night is generally ‘Period Drama’ night in my house. It’s the night when I settle down with a glass of something cold and winey, sit back and enjoy a crossword puzzlel whilst my wife watches a period drama in the other room. Occasionally, I catch a glimpse of women in those huge skirts that look like toilet roll covers, blushing under their bonnets as some chap in tight trousers smiles at them suggestively and says something like,

‘Why, Miss Piddlesham, you have exquisite eyes.’

‘Really, Lord Barfhampton, whatever makes you say such things?’

And on it goes until his Lordship deflowers the young wench in a barn and then gets shot in a duel by Ned the farmhand who goes on to inherit half of Lincolnshire from his Aunt Nancy.

That was the usual Sunday night offerings, with which I was quite content as these crosswords don’t complete themselves you know.

Until Sunday the 22^nd Jan 2017, that is, when Apple Tree Yard was unleashed upon the watching millions who had just finished Call the Midwife and was preparing for an hour of big skirts and bonnets, set in a yard, in which there was a tree, presumably of the Apple variety. I glanced up from 1 across – Person who digs a gambling game – and lowered my reading glasses. Emily Watson was purring away like a luxury car whilst being cross examined at a government select committee. A genetic scientist of some repute, Yvonne Carmichael was mansplaining to several old buffers exactly what a genome was and playing the whole thing for laffs. She swatted the final question like a particularly lazy fly and moved smoothly out of the committee room into the great hall of parliament where she checked her e-mails. She was immediately engaged in conversation by Ben Chaplin, last seen by me in Game On some years ago but subsequently conquering stage and screen on both sides of the Atlantic. Mark Costley was a confident and handsome man in his mid 40’s who spoke easily to Ms Carmichael about Genomes and the history of the houses of parliament. He had access to a cupboard in which once hid a former suffragette who was trying to beat the system from within and, after giving Yvonne a brief history lesson, he proceeded to give her a quick knee-trembler up against the wall. No small talk, no tipping of his top-hat and not so much as ‘mind if I do?’, just straight up the skirt and down with the trousers.

The real problem with scenes such as these, and I speak with the aid of imagination only, is that it’s all too slick. Ms Carmichael was transported on a wave of lust into a suitably receptive position which, though vertical, enabled Costley to enter her smoothly with his trousers merely unzipped rather than falling awkwardly about his ankles thus restricting any movement of his legs. Even those of us who have not even contemplated copulation, fully clothed in a cupboard, know for sure that the only outcome is a sudden and undignified crashing through the door as both parties try to dislocate themselves from the underwear that has become entangled around their ankles. However, Yvonne and Mark did the deed expertly and with the minimum of comedy moments, I half expected to see them lying together in a filing cabinet drawer having a post-coital cigarette or swinging lazily and contentedly from the light fitting like a couple of safari park chimps, instead they both sat in the coffee shop, Yvonne assuring him or herself that she had never done anything like it before and Mark casually offering her another go on the rollercoaster whenever she wanted.

The story progressed to show Yvonne’s home life being comfortable yet routine with husband Gary, played by Mark Bonnar who seems to have the market for long suffering, middle aged, partners sewn up, portraying a loyal, yet unremarkable, lover as he snored gently next to his wife while she contemplated whether or not to go to an STD clinic. Mark’s magnetism was far too much for Yvonne who began to feel valued as a woman again. Although quite how much value one attaches to a woman who can be regularly banged against a variety of brick walls I am unsure. Loads, probably, Mark would say, but then that’s his party piece whereas some of us have got bad backs. Despite her contention that she resembles a Jelly baby, Yvonne is finally convinced that Mark fancies the pants off her for reasons other than she can, apparently, hover vertically in mid-air while he treats her like a sort of reverse cash-point. Thrilled at his status and his sense of adventure she slips into an affair that will, no doubt, start a chain of events over the next three Sundays that will see further incomplete crossword puzzles. The opening scene showed us Yvonne’s life had led to being transported, in handcuffs, to a courtroom. The final scene featured Yvonne being attacked by a drunken male colleague who seemed to know that she had a taste for the rough stuff – unexpected and intriguing, please don’t let us down on this, writers.             

Sugar Rules

Celebrity reality shows are all the rage now, apparently, according to my great-grand daughter, with Celebrity Big Brother in full swing and The Jump about to unleash it’s wrath upon the celeb community by culling a few of the less deserving entertainers. The premise behind the celeb versions of any show seems to be that it is far more watchable if you recognise the contestants, a strange premise, given that I never recognise most of the Big Brother or I’m A Celeb participants. This, however, does not always apply to quiz shows for some reason where the rules are;

1.       Individual quizzes do not necessarily require celebrities to make them interesting.

2.       Panel games must NOT feature members of the public

3.       Unless it’s Only Connect, which must NOT feature celebrities

Basically, TV likes to show people you recognise doing something with which you don’t usually associate them, but it will tolerate people you have never seen before being very very clever or extremely stupid. The very clever ones have to be viewed in the evening on University Challenge and Mastermind, while the stupid ones must be aired during the day (Tipping Point), except on Channel 4 (Countdown). Yes, it’s complicated but Telly knows what it’s doing so just go with it.

What is absolutely forbidden, however, are programmes that feature people making important lifestyle changes but are NOT celebrities. It is, apparently ‘bad TV’ to show 7 overweight people giving up sugar and refined carbs and discovering a new and healthier lifestyle unless those people are vaguely familiar to the general viewing public.

Sugar Free Farm is currently following some familiar faces as they endure three weeks in an all-inclusive resort where they are fed only good things to eat whilst observing ordinary people working hard. Part of the fun is watching the famous fatties become unwell as they withdraw from the drug they have become so dependent on. After two days Peter Davidson, ex Dr.Who and TV Vet, started to get dizzy spells and felt exhausted. Medics were called an immediately hospitalised him for observation. News spread around the farm like diarrhoea on a cruise ship and the very wisdom of doing without 6 Mars bars in your tea was brought into question. The resident nutritionist was interrogated and asked to justify the continuation of the experiment of trying to encourage Alison Hammond to stop eating 7 Galaxies per day. Anne Widdecombe was unconvinced by the diet and vowed to resume consumption of 12 loaves of white bread per week as soon as she could. Nobody ever considered that the 60 year old, overweight Dr.Pete felt exhausted because he was asked to spend seven hours mending fences around the farm after a breakfast of liquidised grass and some bird-seed. Still, Peter soon returned after some R & R in hospital and Big Mac on the motorway services and was back on the funny farm.

The next day, in order to increase their intake of Omega 3, three of the celebs went fishing in the farm river where they were tutored in the art of catching fresh trout. To try and build tension, the voice over informed us that, “Joe (Pasquale) is their last hope of eating fish for supper tonight.” Unlike the jungle programme Joe was last featured on, if he failed this task he would not simply have to survive under canvass fuelled by nothing other than a Wallaby testicle, he would receive instead a freshly made omelette and a comfy bed. Fortunately, he did land a catch but, unfortunately, it was too small to ethically take home and cook so it was returned to the river. Empty handed, the three intrepid hunters returned where they were forced to eat a salad of home grown vegetables and free range eggs – surely someone would crack under this pressure.

Disaster, of course, was just around the corner. After spending the morning in the kitchen, shaking a jar of fresh milk until the curd separated from the whey (eh?) she stooped to pick up what she thought was a Twix from the floor. On hauling her 23 stone body back into the upright position she reported feeling a little dizzy. Cut to the next scene and an ambulance was shown, horns blaring and lights flashing, crashing through one of the newly-repaired fences to her aid – at least that’s what I saw. A paramedic was shown taking blood pressure and talking sincerely to her about the possibility of type 2 diabetes. He would have to take a blood sample. A small pin-prick was applied to her thumb, inducing a pained scream, and a smear of blood was extracted. Diabetics do this about 4 times a day but for Alison, it was trauma beyond words. The medic reported sugar levels of 6.5 and said that it was ‘borderline’. Given that levels should be between 5.5 and 7.5 I would call it ‘normal’ and add, ‘lose about 12 stone and you may be able to bend over without the need for medical treatment’  but then I am no paramedic, dealing with a precious celebrity.  

Good news followed after a visit to hospital where she was checked for signs of Diabetes and results were returned as ‘normal’ (old you). However, Alison said that she would ‘do anything’ to avoid the misery of the condition, suffered by her mother, sister and brother so avowed to continue the sugar-free lifestyle. You would think that such a revelation would have occurred to her when she smashed her first set of bathroom scales but, no, the epiphany had to be delivered by a celebrity nutritionist on a celebrity reality show. At least some good came out of the format.       

Snow's here, we're all gonna die.

You can always tell when the first snow of the winter arrives because it is accompanied by the sound of relieved cheering from local newsrooms throughout the land. Reporters, feverishly searching for cats stuck up trees, can now find gainful employment by reporting on some real news. The weather. It’s a little like one of those wildlife programmes in reverse where, after months of hibernation, the huge warm blooded mammals emerge from their hides and stand blinking in the sunlight at the prospect of new life for them to devour. In the case of ‘snow news’, local reporters emerge from an autumn of talking to retiring lolly pop ladies and disgruntled councillors who have given planning permission to the wrong kind of supermarket, and see a new dawn where they must gorge themselves on a diet of travel chaos, treacherous road conditions and, best of all, flooding. They run, bursting with new life, at 5am to take up positions in a field with their camera crew just waiting for the breakfast news to come on and go to them ‘live’.

This morning on BBC Breakfast, they went live to someone called Simon who was in Canterbury. Don’t ask why Canterbury suddenly had such nationwide appeal when it came to the metrological conditions, or rather DO ask me because I think I know. He was the only bugger who was set-up at the right toime and in the right place so they went to him because he was ready to go. Or perhaps it was because ethe Archbishop had some sort of influence. Whatever, Simon sprang into action and became Local Reporterman.

“These cars,” he gestured, “are now moving slowly up the hill, but earlier (yes?) vehicles had to be pushed by people in order for them to continue without causing delays!”

Many viewers at home, especially those who had only passed their driving test a few minutes ago or, alternatively, had never actually been behind the wheel, or even seen,  a car, sat aghast at the fact that snow and ice had caused some vehicles to need assistance when trying to climb a steep hill.

In order to help our feeble imaginations, Simon mimed the act of ‘pushing’, leaving us in no doubt what he had seen earlier that never-to-be-forgotten morning.

“These main roads are now pretty clear of snow and ice.” He elaborated, “but roads such as this one,” he said, pointing up a side street, “are still quite bad.”

It was difficult to know what ‘quite bad’ actually meant as, as far as could be seen, there were no cars actually driving up the road at the time, so we had to make our own mind up. My guess was that they were actually quite passable but this would have detracted from Simon’s narrative, namely that the country, as represented by one junction in Canterbury, was slowly coming to a standstill. He then gave us the news that we had been dreading, weathermen had warned that the bad weather was set to continue or get even worse over the coming weeks. Here we were at the start of January and were being told that winter was going to last well into the next month.

We then cut to a woman standing up to her waist in a lake in a place called Heston or something. She looked sincerely down the camera and told us that the last time this area had seen the river so high was in 2012. Thus, the intervening 4 years was made to look like paradise in comparison as now the reporter stood, hair blowing uncontrollably in the quite stiff breeze, right next to the banks of a nearly-overflowing river informing us that some homes may have to be evacuated if the weather get much worse.

“Back to you, Chris.”

“Thanks, Helen. Now…how many of you have noticed the increase in the Robin population?”

And on it goes. One non-story after another fed to us by a team of graduate researchers who need to fill 3 hours of rolling news reporting before the next lot clock on and take care of the mid-morning shift, which mainly consists of interviews with overweight couples with nine children under 6 who are struggling to pay their water bills, then the heavyweight political team get in to let an audience of about 350 know what a select committee on agriculture and fishing thought about the proposed DEFRA report. I wonder if any of these people ever stop to think that what they’re doing is largely a waste of everyone’s time including their own. Probably not.  

Midsomer Madness

Midsommer Murders got off the mark this week with a story based around the local village cricket team. The Lower Pampling village cricket team is extremely well supported by its well-heeled residents. Far better supported, in fact, than village cricket actually is in the real world where clubs are, largely, kept going on the playing side by a hard-core of old retainers and young farmers and, financially, by the memberships modest subscriptions, fund raisers, donations from local benefactors and the odd hard-fought grant provide by some trickle-down lottery funds. This, generally speaking, provides such illustrious facilities as a couple of mowers, a roller and a selection of stumps and bails. Some clubs are ostentatious enough to afford a sight screen or two but, I for one, never saw one in my career as a village batsman.

Lower Pampling, on the other hand, is slightly more fortunate. Their ground boasted not one, but two sightscreens, one at either end. Not just oversized bedsheets, but real sightscreens. On wheels. This alone would have made them stand out as a freakishly over-funded club in most village leagues, however, it did not stop there. Such was the popularity of the recently imported “C10 Slam” format from Australia, (where else) the Lower Pampling Panthers had attracted a crowd of around 300 spectators who sat in a temporary stand next to what was referred to as the ‘members area’. This, on a weekday afternoon as, we were informed, the competition was played on consecutive days leading to a final at the weekend. It was little wonder that the tournament was staged at the Little Pampling ground as they must be the only club outside the first-class game that has a fully equipped indoor practice net complete with state-of-the-art bowling machine, a large video scoreboard and, as was revealed later, floodlights. Yes, floodlights. It was not actually relevant to the plot exactly how much ‘match fees’ were or what the opposition were paying for teas on regular weekend match days but, I can only assume, it runs into hundreds, if not, thousands. Either that or the people quaffing champagne in the members area are only too please to squander the best part of £50 grand each to support their local cricket club, the Chairman, after all, was a wealthy architect who spent most of his time betting on the outcome of matches involving Lower Pampling and their C10 opponents.

Whilst the credibility of betting rings on the sub-continent placing large sums on the outcome of a 10 over village cricket match is not in doubt, (eh?) it stretched the imagination somewhat to believe that players on the ‘Panthers’ team were colluding with the local pub landlord to fix the matches to such an extent that thousands of pounds were changing hands every day – or does it, I really don’t know any more.

What I do know is that murder was afoot and consecutive Pampling captains had been gruesomely done for in two extremely symbolically ritual ways. The first was strung up by the wrists in crucifix position and pummeled with cricket balls projected at him at full speed. That these practice balls were, naturally, brand new ‘cherries’, straight from the box, was sooo “Pampling”. The second was skewered to an oak tree with sharpened stump in the middle of the night as he loitered awaiting further instructions from Mr. Big, or should that be, Mr Little (Pampling)? The third murder was about to be committed when Insp Barnaby rumbled the do’er inner in the act. Ben Jones, the unlikely hard man of Midsomer had been beaten unconscious and then strung-up by his wrists from a convenient rafter where, when suitably revived, he was to be finished off good and proper with a cricket bat. This, Kray-style, murder was about to be perpetrated by none other than a former England cricket captain. However, you have to believe me when I tell you that the cricketer involved was, not only well into their 70’s, but was also a frail old lady called Geraldine. As she was marched away by two burley policemen, I half expected her to rip off her mask and say, in a deep cockney baritone, ‘I’d have got away wiv it too if it wasn’t for Brian Johnstone laughing so much at that ‘leg-over’ joke’

Midsomer is a dangerous place to live. However, I shall be returning often.