programmes to watch

I noticed that Dakota Blue Richards who played WPC Shirley Trewlove (small part but some great lines) is not in the new series of Endavour, as she was written out at the end of the last, moving I think to "The Met."
Actually she was moving to play a part in the new upcoming ITV period drama, Beecham House which was being filmed at the same time the current series of Endeavour was being made.

I've not spotted any "in jokes" in the first episode of the new series. In a past series, in one episode, a cinema usherette was named in a scene as Betty Perske, which was Lauren Bacall's real name.

 

Watched the second episode of A Place to Call Home. Still as good, pitty that it's the last series.

 

Naturally, being an ex. cop I am drawn to police type dramas. I think that sometimes we have to let go and allow some slack, otherwise our enjoyment can be spoiled. The series Inspector George Gently with Martin Shaw, great actor IMO. I wrote in regarding the tax discs on the car windscreens. The law stated the disc was to be displayed, bottom left corner of the screen. The reply from the team was, just a bit of fun.

 

At the moment for me is Line Of Duty that's best one so far.

 

The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway.

I watched this last night. It was on BBC2, at one time, the channel for "the more discerning viewer." Ten years ago I posted stuff on Urban Dictionary, including the fact that some programmes should have the words, "For Dummies" added to the end of the title.... This was one.

A two-parter about the building of the new Elizabeth tube line.
Lots of blokes dashing about in "high viz" jackets and hard hats. Some of the footage of trains moving was accompanied by dramatic staccato music, so intense I was expecting Jason Bourne to appear at any moment.
We saw a lot of the work involved in erecting a glass screen at the edge of a platform, with sliding glass doors, which were to be opposite where the doors on the train would open, (assumimg the driver stopped in the right place). An "elf n' safety" essential consideration, for somewhere like Tottenham Court Road?

More drama, the delivery of a ten ton ventilation fan, that looked like a giant can of beans. This had to be removed from the back of a lorry and negotiated down a big hole and then pass through a large entrance to it's final position. The last bit they used air cushions, so that three blokes could move it by gently pushing it. The narrator, dramatically, "Will it pass under the doorway lintel?!" Of course it will you dummy, these calculations are all made before they order the naffin' fan!

On to driver training, a pleasant young woman was undergoing training. She was alone in the cab and had to master the controls. Ther may have been some too complicated to be grasped by the average BBC 2 viewer. But if there were, we didn't see them nor did she need them.
We saw a quiet straight line ahead with no distractions, no other trains, no pedestrians, no steering wheel or indicators to work, no talkative passenger next to her.

I'm sure my Kitchenaid toaster seems more complicated to work than this train.

Essentiallty, she had to master one large knob for, on/off/forwards/backwards and a joystick, where pulling progressively backwards on it increased the speed, pushing forwards decreased the speed and stopped it. I guess if she looked, there'd be an "app" on her phone that could do it for her.

The two instructors outside the cab decided to throw her a curve, adding something dramatic to the situation....They turned the signal 100 yards ahead of her to red.
Our gallant trainee coped with situation, slowed the train to a halt, then applying the handbrake by turning the big knob to "off."
The two men came into the cab and congratulated her on mastering the situation. They suggested that she'd had a bit of a shock and might need time to recover, but she said she was OK. The only shock she may have experienced, I guess would have been to be told she had failed the test and wouldn't be earning the £60,000 a year drivers are promised when they complete the training.

By the way, she was only in a simulator!

More scenes of furious building action, to beat the September 2018 deadline. A casual viewer would have been forgiven for thinking they'd stumbled across an episode of, "Time Team."
Unfortunately they decided they wouldn't quite make it, so they've put the completion date back... a bit....by a year!

I don't think I'll bother with part two.

 

TONIGHT
BBC 2
9.00pm
New

 

My Panasonic Viera TV tells me when there's new channels available. Just a question of letting it re-tune itself to add them.
Not so my Humax HDR. Re-tuning isn't a problem, but this means I lose all the "planned recordings." So I have to put the programmes up on the TV screen and photograph them all, seven at a time, before re-tuning.



I have 30 programmes scheduled to be recorded over the next seven days. Doesn't mean I'll watch all of them, some may only get a cursory look before being deleted. But I have to read them off the saved pictures on the camera and then find them on the HDR's programme guide one at a time and click on them. Lots of complaints about this nuisance on Humax's own message board.



Anyway, there's a new Freeview channel 99 called "The Smithsonian." There may be some interesting documentaries on there, though no doubt there also be a few of the BBC's in the category I call, "Documentaries for Dummies."

 

Thanks for the info @Doghouse Riley
Yes our TV does the same, we have a Humax HDR. When we switch the tv on it comes on as well, or it switches itself on when we aren't watching TV at all.
HDR's do that when they have to have a retune, our other one was digital stream recorder that was the same.

 

Baptiste on Beeb 1. It's looking good after the first episode although it could be that I'm biased as it's set in Amsterdam where I used to live in the nineties.

 

I've just watched a documentary on BBC1 called " Abused by my girlfriend " and it really is an awesome if gruelling watch. Please give it a go if you can. It really is worth it.

It's about a young man called Alex Skeel who really did suffer, both mentally and physically, and was just days from death when the Bedfordshire Police found him.

He now does excellent work for a charity which helps other victims..

 

If you have Netflix and you enjoyed Fargo, I highly recommend The Umbrella Academy. Just binged on 9 of them and I've only stopped cos George really really wants me to go to bed. He's got his head on my knee and is giving me the puppy-dog eyes.

 

We've only got Amazon prime for The Grand Tour. Wouldn't have it for anything else.