TV

Darren Criss as Andrew Cunanan

Recently I finished watching a nine part American Crime Drama series - "The Assassination of Gianni Versace". 

Now this is somewhat remarkable for three reasons. Firstly, I am sick to the back teeth of dramas built around crime. Can't they find other subjects? Secondly, I have no interest whatsoever in the fashion industry or indeed Gianni Versace. Thirdly, my relationship with television lacks commitment. Usually continuing dramas seem like too much trouble. I don't want television to rule my life.

That said, "The Assassination of Gianni Versace" gripped me. Apart from anything else, it was unusually constructed. Not moving chronologically from point a to point b but much more fluid so that viewers proceeded from the horror of the assassination into a better understanding of the assassin's psychology and warped motivation

The assassin was a fantasist called Andrew Cunanan. A gay escort  and a troubled loner, he became obsessed with Versace and in a 1997 killing perhaps reminiscent of John Lennon's death outside the Dakota Building in New York he achieved the notoriety that he had arguably always craved. His part was played brilliantly by Darren Criss. You might even say that this drama was not really about Gianni Versace but about Andrew Cunanan's troubled existence and his inevitable journey to suicide.

Penelope Cruz was less convincing as Versace's sister Donatella and the same might be said of Ricky Martin who played Versace's long time lover Antonio D'Amico.

I agree with Ryan Murphy in "The Guardian" who had been perplexed by several rather negative reviews of the show - "It’s dark and complex and tragic, and it deserves a much better reception than the one it received. If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out on something special." Of Darren Criss's performance he also said, "Criss is horrifyingly convincing as Cunanan. He’s needy and manipulative and utterly empty; a blank that slowly draws you in to your doom....Criss deserves to be huge because of this role. He cannot win enough awards for it."

Edgeways

When I went out for my walk on Saturday, I parked in the grounds of Whirlowbrook Hall. In front of the old house, I noticed a gorgeous display of yellow flowers. Before setting off on the walk I lay on my belly and took a few pictures.

What was this flower? At first I was not sure but I remembered tulips growing in this particular flowerbed. When I got home I consulted with Google and discovered that they were indeed tulips - opened right up in the hot May sunshine to attract pollinators. It is not how we expect tulips to look is it?

 Several minutes later, as I was climbing up the path out of The Limb Valley and through Bole Hill Plantation I came across new bluebells greeting the springtime. This is my favourite wild flower of all:-

Not far from where I found the dead lamb, I looked across the fields to Castle Dyke Lodge. Although you cannot see this in the picture, it sits next to Ringinglow Road which heads west out of Sheffield towards the moors and Stanage Edge.

I have often thought about this characterful house on the edge of Sheffield because back in 1989 we could have bought it. Financially, it would have pushed us to our limit and it would have still required significant extra investment to bring up to modern standards. Since then it has had a major extension added - to the left.

I guess I waste too much time pondering "might have beens" even though I know that I can never go back. How about you?

Death

I would rather be alive than dead. Being dead cannot be much fun because it's like being in a very deep sleep forever and ever. You never wake up. However, being dead would have its advantages. There would be no money worries and you wouldn't have to visit the supermarket every week or yell down the phone at annoying scammers claiming to be from an awful communications company called TalkTalk. Death would also be an effective solution to unbearable physical pain.

Several people who have meant a lot to me are now dead. They include all my grandparents, my mother, my father, my brother Paul and my American friend Richard. In addition, all my pet cats are dead - Oscar, Blizzard and Boris and all the white mice I bred between the ages of twelve and thirteen. No matter how much I plead for them to get in touch again they all remain dead as doorposts and do not utter a single word, miaow or squeak. That's death for you.

There are many different ways to die. You could die fighting against the forces of evil - such as The Islamic State or TalkTalk. You could die mysteriously while watching a film on a jumbo jet or by falling from Mount Everest. However, I would prefer to die like my brother Paul did -  in the middle of the night whilst fast asleep.

You are probably wondering why today's blogpost is so morbid. I mean - shhhhh! - nobody wants to think about death with their laptop coffees do they?

Well, to explain - yesterday, when walking in the western fringes of this northern city, I came across a dead lamb. It was a healthy size and had no visible injuries. She was lying in the corner of a field next to an old  bath that now acts as a water trough. 

Her body was still floppy - suggesting she had died yesterday morning. The last few days have been warm and sunny but not so scorchingly hot that the lamb could have possibly had heatstroke. The old bath is near a public footpath so it is very possible that the lamb died in a panic while being worried by an unleashed  dog. In 2017 it is estimated that 15,000 British sheep and lambs were effectively killed by loose dogs.

Farewell sweet lambkin.

Maytime

Maytime in our slightly wild garden. In fact, I snapped this picture on Wednesday morning. There's a youthful freshness about Nature at this time of year. The greens are greener and blossom sings hopefully for passing insects. Migrating birds are returning, cavorting acrobatically in the blue sky above.

Yesterday morning I saw a beautiful bullfinch close by our kitchen window and later in the day, I fired up our lawnmower for the first time this year. Last month two rows of potatoes were planted further up the garden and soon I'll put courgette seeds in little pots of compost before planting them in the vegetable plot and there'll be runner beans and peas and maybe leeks too.

Meantime, Buddha sits serenely under a laurel bush beneath one of our apple trees - watching the sparrows and reminding me of Thailand.

Clerk

Yesterday. Six thirty a.m.. I manoeuvred Clint into a parking space outside a former synagogue. 

I had morphed into a poll clerk, climbing back into Clint at ten fifteen at night. A working day that lasted for almost sixteen hours. It had been the day of local elections - for a replacement city councillor and for a South Yorkshire mayor.

Most of the time I sat at a desk with a very pleasant young woman of Indian descent. We had lists in front of us. As people entered the polling station, we had to find their names on one of the lists and then add their allocated voting slip numbers to another list.

The hours seemed to pass by quickly and the young British Asian woman, the presiding officer and I got along famously. This helped a lot.

I found the list of names and addresses fascinating. About seven hundred people living in a particular Sheffield neighbourhood. You could read things into the list. There were houses of multiple occupancy, traditional homes, lonely flats and perhaps 4% of the names spoke of non-British heritage. I found Spanish, French, Italian, Sri Lankan, Iranian, Pakistani, Nigerian and Irish names. One man was called Ian Anderson like the leader of the rock band Jethro Tull - but it wasn't him.

Every person who entered the polling station was different from the next. Some came in in running or cycling gear. Some came in with small children or dogs. Some were exceedingly polite while some came in with strange challenging attitudes. Two police officers came in and the polling station inspector and a woman who complained bitterly about the location of the polling station.

In the middle of the day a partially-sighted woman came in with a very belligerent attitude. I have come across her several times before in our "Oxfam" shop. She arrives ready for a fight. She will say - "Where are the books? I can't find the books! You people do NOTHING! NOTHING FOR THE PARTIALLY SIGHTED!" And you have to calm her down by speaking quietly and kindly.

Yesterday it was the same. She was shouting the odds as soon as she had stepped over the threshold. "Mayor! MAYOR? We don't need a BLOODY MAYOR!" And she ripped up that particular polling slip in front of us, scattering the pieces on the floor like confetti. I guess she lives her whole life like that - angry from dawn till dusk.

At 10pm we closed the door and packed up the polling station - quickly putting furniture back in its place and sealing the voting boxes. Andy - the presiding officer - had to get the boxes and various documents to the counting centre but I was heading for the pub after driving Clint to his familiar parking space in front of our house.

874

St Wilfrid's Church, Kirkby-in-Ashfield

Yesterday's weather forecast was clement. Consequently, I considered a walking location. I wanted an area that was new to me knowing that this would involve a significant drive if Clint was willing to co-operate. You see the trouble is that within fifteen miles of this house I have walked every square kilometre.

I ended up driving down the M1, exiting at junction 29 on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border and making for St Wilfrid's Church in Kirkby-in-Ashfield. I had checked out the location via Google Streetview. This is something I often do to visualise key junctions and the availability of suitable parking. Clint is quite picky.

With boots on I was off. First a neb round St Wilfrid's churchyard and then onwards to the wide valley of The River Erewash. Some young cows came to check me out, spellbound by my rugged handsomeness.

The whole area was once blighted by coal mining with railway tracks criss-crossing the landscape. The Erewash was once just a convenient drain for industry. However, nowadays you could easily fail to spot that history for the old rail tracks were closed down years ago, the coal mines have gone and Nature is doing her best to cover up the scars.

Path by The River Erewash

Under the M! motorway to Pinxton where I bought a cheese and onion roll and a pint of milk in a small general store staffed by a small Indian woman. Indian shopkeepers are prepared to work all the hours that God sends and you can come across them in the most unlikely places - like Pinxton for example.

Farm track up Boar Hill

Back under the motorway further north and then up the rising ground to Kirkby Cliff Farm. The paths are not so well-trodden in this area but  was able to find my way to the oddly named Franderground Farm and then up Boar Hill just to the west of Kirkby-in-Ashfield.

The circle was almost complete. "Where the hell have you been?" said Clint when I opened up his rear end and tossed my boots in. 

874? It's the walk number.

Today

Well there they are - The Bosh! Boys. They were on a segment of  the legendary Today Show called "Make-Ahead Monday".  The woman in the red dress is Megyn Kelly, very famous in America but pretty much unknown on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. When presenting for Fox News her final year's salary was a reported $15 million.

Ian and Henry had flown over to New York City on Sunday morning. Their Today Show slot was only four minutes long but they managed to pack a lot in and seemed cool and competent in the glare of the studio lights.

Publication of the "Bosh!" cookbook was deliberately delayed in America so it will be interesting to see how sales go following their TV appearance. You might say it was a four minute advertisement for their book. In many American communities there is much interest in vegan and vegetarian cookery and the fact that "Bosh!" has been created by two British hipsters may give sales an extra boost. We will see.

Thanks to Vivian Swift on Long Island for keeping me right up-to-date with the show and thanks too for the screenshots she sent me as soon as Ian and Henry's slot was done. The journey continues.

Picture from Vivian Swift