I am not watching or reading anything of real value at the moment.
I am partially binge watching Ghosts (Netflix) and not (NOT, emphatically not Ibsen) but rather a jolly, undemanding Sunday-afternoon-TV sort of series. This about a young couple who inherit an old house from a distant aunt and discover that it is full of ghosts. Which the female part of the couple can actually see because of a near-death experience.
The ghost characters span the years stretching from a Viking, via a representative of the indigenous peoples of the area, to a trouser-less almost up to date idiot, taking in a flower-power hippie, a black jazz singer, and an American Revolutionary Officer on the way.
The variety allows for a somewhat picaresque approach as the back stories of the ghostly individual characters interact with the living or other ghosts. It is effortless watching and there are some moments of wry humour. But it remains a guilty pleasure that consumes time that I feel I should be spending on other more worthy matters.
My reading is equally easy, with my just having finished reading Nine Minutes of Sun by F G Harrow. This Sci-Fi novel is set on a distant ice bound planet where the inhabitants of the underground shelters are threatened by a heat devouring ‘other’ that threatens the existence of the human population. It is a well worked narrative and the description of politics and the mechanics of living in challenging situations is carefully crafted and has a gritty realism within the fantasy that is compelling.
As this was one of my ‘free’ books courtesy of the internet, I was not really surprised to find out when I got to the end that this book is one of a series, the rest of which needs payment! Not unreasonable. But my enjoyment of the book was not sufficient to encourage me to pay for the next instalment.
I am something of a fan of the Father Brown short stories of by G K Chesterton, though it is many years since I have read them. Therefore, a casual glimpse of the television series based on the character was enough for me to give the tele my attention and follow the episode.
I was also drawn to the fact that the character of Father Brown, the unlikely Roman Catholic parish priest detective, played in the television series by Mark Williams, which has been running since 2023 and has over 140 episodes to its credit.
Williams is perhaps better known as Arthur Weasley in the Harry Potter films and for his excellent comic work in The Fast Show.
The episode that I saw was called The Viper’s Tongue and it originally aired in January 2022. It concerns a woman who returns to Father Brown’s village to avenge the death by suicide of her sister on those who she considers drove her sister to it.
And Williams as Father Brown was awful. His acting was wooden, his charisma nil, and his ability to mouth religious platitudes embarrassingly unconvincing.
Just as with The Dresser you have to believe that the wreck of an old style actor in that play could have played Lear in his past, so with Father Brown the actor must have the ability to make you believe that he could be a Parish Priest with an extraordinary ability to solve seemingly intractable problems in crime. It is the clash of incisive minded analyst and kindly, umbrella wielding priest that makes for the drama, and is the USP of the stories.
Perhaps I just saw a dud episode, it is the only one I have seen, but all the rest of the cast were the usual professional jobbing actors and character part players that the British acting community do so well, giving the perfect acting setting for Williams to do his starring bit. Which he didn’t.
What is especially galling is I know that I have seen him act better than this. I felt cheated.
And it’s raining. At least we have no had another of those intrusive mobile phone bad weather warnings, but we have an a period of extended heavy rain, so that we can be absolutely sure that all the usual places on our roads will be flooded.
Next to a Catalan School and the site of The British School of Barcelona there is a building site which is supposed to be constructing something to deal with the flooding by capturing (in some way or other) the excess water that our inadequate drainage system is incapable of dealing with.
As is often the way, what at first appeared just to be a big hole in the ground has developed into something much more sophisticated and much more expensive.
I have been having extensive conversations with Chat and have discovered more information about this structure. It is, in effect, a giant pumping station that can force excess rainwater through a system of pipes and out into the sea. Since this new collection of pumps can pump up to six times the present volume of water, it would be good to know just what quality of water will be being added to our local patch of the Med every time we have a downpour.
It turns out that there will be no treatment of the water and that the excess will be pumped out into a channel on the beach to make its way to the sea. At present, although I have turned up an amount of technical information the precise details of where and when are not yet settled. Chat has asked me to do some photographing of likely areas where the outfall is supposed to occur and we will take it from there.
Another question has been bothering us as well. At the end of the sweep of our beach towards Port Ginester, there have been extensive works on the coastal road and the paseo, which have now ground to a halt. The works here were supposed to have been completed last month, but the stretch is still a building site, and one half of the road has had to be closed with wire netting restricting access to the beach.
It turns out that money has run out, and so all work is on stop until funding is made available for it to continue. The powers that be have said that work will resume “soon” – but no firm date has been given, and we all know what that means!
It does say something that AI does give access to what could only be discovered with hours of research and frustration. Now the frustration is almost immediate when you find out just what has been going on in your name with your money.
And that is progress of a sort!
