AE on Telly News (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

First I've heard of the Oxford Ring (and I'm a world authority). But having had a quick scout around, it does seem to be a runner.

What I am finding intriguing (I'm up to episode two) is that there is an (as yet?) unspoken assumption that there is a mole above Philby. Those of us who are world authorities know this to be true (it was Hollis, the head of MI6) but it would be a major innovation for a British terrestrial network to say so.

[Mick Harper]

Carry On Cruising 1962 (Sky Movie Greats)

Surprisingly early for a gay pic. Kenneth Williams stars, to nobody's great surprise.

[Mick Harper]

A Thorough Examination with Drs Chris and Xand (BBC R4)

[Wile E. Coyote]

A Spy Among Friends (ITV-X)

I enjoyed this. I normally prefer my tele told in a nice linear way, but they made the jumping around work by not providing constant captions (Beirut 6 months earlier), (Moscow 1 year later), but instead providing visual clues. Where it fell down a tad was that it tried to be super clever and work for docu lovers who want to know the how and why, as well as your thriller/drama addicts who really want to know who really was pulling the strings. Brilliant but conceited....very much like Elliot. If alive he might have written it. He certainly got a very easy pass.

[Mick Harper]

Twenty Four Hours in Police Custody (Channel 4)

One is constantly astonished by the amateurishness of the criminals paraded before us every week -- one suspects they have to be in order to be apprehended by the Bedfordshire constabulary -- and even more astonished by the punishments they receive. Either ridiculously long for mere flotsam of society or worryingly lenient for really dangerous customers.

This week's story was both odd and not odd. Finally we got an old fashioned Raffles-type crook, a surgeon with landed properties in Bedfordshire and Ireland. Both were stuffed full of valuable antiques which he took down to the cellar, reported they had been stolen and claimed half a million on the insurance. After five years this ruse was rumbled and he received... wait for it... thirteen years in the jug. I suppose he was classified as a class enemy.

[Mick Harper]

Just a word for those of you thinking of doing a quick insurance scam in these days of rampant inflation and derisory pay rises. When they ask you for further and better particulars of a stolen antique candelabra -- a photo would be best, if you can track one down? -- don't, whatever you do, pop down to the cellar and take a pic with your smartphone because one click of the loss adjuster's mouse will reveal (a) when you took the pic and (b) the co-ordinates of the candelabra's present location. Evening all, mind how you go.

[Mick Harper]

I have had to give up with A Spy Among Friends. ITV-X recognises that I have been watching it, refuses to let me start where I left off and doesn't appear to have a mechanism to fast forward. Clearly, ten years hasn't been enough to sort out the platform. [See also the benighted BBC I-Player. What is it with these ex-bigwig media people?]

[Mick Harper]

I started afresh with Episode Three. Blunt couldn't possibly know about Vermehren (a lazy authorial invention, a cross between Vermeer and van Meegeren, the art forger?), he was middle echelon MI5. Which by the way I erroneously called MI6 re Hollis. One tends to forget just who these people were working for. I disagree a little with the spiralling flashbackery, it can be confusing to those of us who have difficulty following which horn-rimmed Harry is which.

Are we being asked to believe that Philby is in cahoots with the British in Moscow? Come on, Wiley, you're the world authority on all this, spill the beans. (But not in a way that will spoil my enjoyment of subsequent episodes.)

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

I binged on all the episodes. It drove me mad watching adverts and I might have missed something when one episode returned me to the start midway through, but to sum up:

1. Very superior production values though it would have gained in both comprehensibility and watchability by being about two-thirds the length.
2. I found the London-set stuff had the whiff of authenticity (apart from the woman, though they had the decency to say she was a work of complete fiction at the end credits). The 'revelations' had a slight air of 'everyone's heard of him, let's lob him in'.
3. The Beirut material suffered from the fact that we still don't know the ins and outs of it. Not even a little bit and it is surely key to the whole.
4. The Russian scenes were downright weird. I wouldn't myself use turning the lights of my Moscow KGB-supplied flat on and off in morse code but en clair as a communication device.
5. Their position on Hollis could best be described as 'careful'.
6. I still don't know what to make of the central character. Not even what the programme-makers wanted me to believe. But perhaps that's the general effect they were after.
7. The American role throughout was too opaque even given the unknowns.
8. Angleton deserves a spin-off series of his own.
9. Overall, nothing to see here but...
10. Pretty good, all things considered.

[Mick Harper]

How one forgets, year after year, the awfulness of telly at Christmas.

[Mick Harper]

'Who's Really Tone Deaf, Guardian?' Competition

[Mick Harper]

The New Gurus (BBC Radio 4)

I wanted to listen to this partly because the series is written and presented by Helen Lewis who once wrote a favourable review of a book of mine in the New Statesman, and partly because I've always had a hankering to be a guru. Disregarding my mother's injunction, "You will do no such thing. You'll be a pretentious blowhard like your father and his father before him. In any case, we've already lined your brother up for it."

To this end -- and because I've got nothing better to do before I start on my next book -- I'll post some stuff up in the Reading Room.

[Mick Harper]

Vardy vs Rooney, A Courtroom Drama (Channel 4)

Who's got all the best lines?
Coleen Rooney's QC.
Who's playing Coleen Rooney's QC?
Michael Sheen.
Who's the executive producer of Vardy vs Rooney, A Courtroom Drama?
Michael Sheen.

[Mick Harper]

The second day of the TV trial -- Coleen's account -- was much less exciting despite the screamers claiming it was going to be even more eye-popping. She was a mildly incompetent -- or under-prepped -- witness constantly allowing Vardy's QC to entangle her in legal niceties when her overall position ("I had good reasons to suspect Vardy, I set a trap for Vardy, Vardy blundered in") was perfectly sound. If by no means definitive.

However, I have to say I found the whole thing was conducted well and the correct verdict -- the judge dismissing Vardy's claim for damages -- delivered. Insofar as one could judge. And the telly people did well too. Insofar as one could judge. I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway.