Should I Not Read John Le Carre ......For My Mother's Health?

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Whilst she is making a remarkable recovery my mother does at this moment need a professional carer to come in every morning for reasons I won't go into.

The point though is that nothing can be done in the morning until the carer comes in. And the company uses the extremely wide timescale of 7-11. For the past two days she has come in between 8-9. Today however she came in at ten.

Thing is until the carer comes in there is nothing apart from making my mother breakfast in bed that I can do. So I find myself every morning now watching one of the DVD sets I bought from Amazon to help pass the time. Have been going through Series 2 of Bones, a show I didn't like at the time but am warming towards now (on a weekday evening am watching on the channel Your TV Bones, Body of Proof and Castle shows which are perfect entertainment).

The other box sets I bought were Perception Series 1, a show I liked but didn't see all of hence the purchase and The Net (the TV series of the film) which I bought because it was cheap and now know why.

Anyway because she came late I wasn't able to have a quick trip to my mother's local GP to get her full medication until around eleven. And whilst her prescription was being made, I was able to read the latest book from my Kindle. Which turned out to be Single and Single by John Le Carre.

The thing is this. The last book I read of his was Absolute Friends. Which was at the time my mother had her first cataract operation (I wrote about this at the time). And (though the hospital where she stayed for the past few weeks advised was purely coincidental) her troubles seemed to begin from the moment she had the operation.

Can a book cause bad luck? I actually believe yes and no. It is after all a state of mind. If you believe that a book has caused problems then stopping reading relieves you from that worry, whether it was justified or not.

A few years ago I started reading Next Man Up by John Feinstein. A book where the writer follows the American football Team the Baltimore Ravens. From the moment I started to read the book my daughter tripped and grazed her knee.

Ok....

Then my wife cuts herself whilst trying to open a can of peaches. A cut so bad it required stitches from Accident and Emergency.

When they found out that everything seemed to happen from when I started reading the book. Wife and daughter pleaded with me, alright they nagged me to stop reading. Fearing that as what happened to them seemed to increase in severity the fate that would have awaited me if I continued would have been much worse. So I stopped.

And I thought being a Chicago Bears fan would be the limit to my dangers following American Football.

Best then I postpone reading the Le Carre...not superstitious you understand...just thinking about my mother's health.

Until the next time.

How I've Learnt To Love The Inventors Of Videotape. The Experiment (Part 3)

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

The next day then of channel surfing. The previous posts explains the experiment.Ten pm Saturday 30 December

ITV3 + 1 : Midsomer Murders: I've explained in a previous post how much I hate this show. One second. Click.

QVC Beauty : Shopping Channel. One second click.

Quest:Aliens On The Moon: No time for reality TV ghosts no time for reality TV Aliens either. One minute click.

Quest Red: The Jury Speaks: Another crime thing. This time the Jury on the Michael Jackson case. Not interested. Two minutes click.

CBS Action; NCIS: I've mentioned that I like this show. Unfortunately I've seen this episode before. And when I say "before" I mean this week. Two minutes click.

Food Network: Mystery Diners: Seems to be a show about security cameras trailing dodgy valets. Not for me.Five minutes click.

Travel channel : Life Before Zero - The Thaw: People living in cold climes that are less cold that they were.....????....rubbish. Two minutes click.

Gems TV: Another Shopping Channel. Turned over quickly but not before the woman selling jewels said that they had "A melody of colours". What??

Channel 5 + 1: The Championship: To be honest have lost track of football West Ham aside this week. Ten minutes click.

Challenge TV: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire: Simon Cowell is in it. Five minutes click.

FourSeven: The Simpsons. I've said before am neutral towards The Simpsons. Which for the purposes of this means uninterested. Four minutes click.

Movies4Men: The Gundown: You know being a man I can honestly say I've never watched a full movie on this channel. Nothing changes here. Two minutes click.

The Jewellery Channel: No melodies here. No interest from me either. One minute click.

Sony Movie Channel: Swat Firefight: Too old for this. One minute click.

My5:Jo Brand's Cats & Kittens: I'm not scared of cats as I am of dogs....doesn't mean I'm interested though. Two minutes click.

True Crime: Dangerous Women. Another crime show. Two women try to kill a man in four minutes on the TV. People who like this probably read Dean Koontz. Enough for me to turn over five minutes.Click.

True Entertainment:November Christmas: What???? This rubbish Christmas mush still on after it's finished? One minute click.

True Christmas: A Town Without Christmas: Well of course this town is without Christmas.....it's December 30th!!!! One minute click.

Blaze TV: Secret Access. UFOs Off The Record. Remember what I wrote about Quest TV? Ditto here.One minute click.

TBN UK: A religious channel.....I'm an atheist...One Minute click.

CBS Reality: Killer Doctors On Death Row night: Definitely not. Two minutes click.

Tru TV: Caught red handed: Series About Catching Shoplifters....I mean really ? One minute click.

My mother wakes up, time to finish up. Not a successful night.

Day Four then of the channel hopping experiment. It's 16:13 New Year's Eve

Horror: Icetastrophe: Don't really understand this channel. The Horror stuff comes late at night. This is just about people stuck in a snow storm. Two minutes click.

CBS Drama: Unsolved Mysteries: Another reality American crime series. A missing woman from the Chinese community being taken by a man. Would have turned over quicker but the phone rings.

Your TV: Body of Proof. Well I've praised this show before in this blog so I've no excuse not to watch it now. Especially as the only other channels are for children and news addicts.

So in my present situation I'm going to have to get used to this for a while.

Until the next time.

Working The Late Shift? This Is The Guide To Type Of TV You Should Watch Late At Night

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

So imagine the scene. It's 10:40pm on a weekday. I've returned home from having done the afternoon/evening shift at work. Say hello to wife. She chats about her day. Call my mother to see she's OK. She chats about her day. A few days later they will both accuse me of not listening to them. They'd be right. I'm tired but also hungry. At about midnight I'll be asleep.

But between the above, plus checking daughter is (hopefully) asleep, going to the toilet, changing clothes, saying goodnight to the wife, pinging something on the microwave whilst throwing some cold meat onto it to give the meal some oomph, saying goodnight to the wife there will be about a window of an hour whilst I eat and let the food settle before it's time for me to go to bed.

Time then to watch TV. But it's not easy. Whilst that hour draws on the danger of nodding off increases. Which is why the choice of programme is important.

This therefore is the guide to the type of programme you should or shouldn't watch (I'm assuming here that they're recorded so you can fast forward the commercials) or on demand like Netflix

1) Nothing less forty minutes: The programme might be fine but if it's less than forty minutes you'll probably want to watch a second. That's the one you'll probably fall asleep on.

2) Nothing More Than Fifty Minutes: As midnight approaches you're more in danger of sleeping in front of the TV. So you'll eventually wake up and find you've missed something important. Thus having to go through it all over again. Trust me that's not a good feeling.

3) Not new: The time you'll get to watch TV is limited. As you'll be watching something on catch-up best go for something the rest of the nation hasn't watched before you or else a spoiler will pass through someone's lips to your ears before the rest of you has actually seen it. Best for something on a more obscure channel showing repeats of a series you didn't watch years ago.

4) Nothing Intellectual: Your brain is telling you it wants to relax.

5) Nothing Simple: What do you think I am? Thick?

6) Nothing distressing: Whilst I don't believe in wrapping myself round in cotton wool to avoid the world's problems this is neither the time or the place. Law and Order SVU should be for another day.

7) Watch a series not a serial: For exactly the same reasons as rule 2. Serials have their bombshell moments towards the end, when you're at the greatest risk of falling asleep.

So what example is their currently of a TV series that falls within all these perimeters. I give you Body of Proof. A three season running drama focusing on the Medical Examiner and the cases she has to deal with starring Dana Delaney and Jeri Ryan.

I remember occasionally watching the show but not really following it on but now I am it's actually really good. Your intelligence is not insulted as a viewer but at the same time the stories are entertaining and watchable.

It is of course an entertainment, but it's more realistic than the last medical examiner TV series I remember Quincy ( as an aside a woman once told me that it had the most pervy  scene she ever knew of in mainstream TV - the opening credits when star Jack Klugman - No Robert Redford he - was drooling over a bikini clad lovely over the Golden Gate Bridge).

Until the next time.