General Chat

BBC4, 9pm
A new series of Inspector Montalbano starts tonight :-D :-D

Thank you I have it on series record. Brilliant.
I will be watching "The Lady in a Van" Alan Bennett.
It is followed on bbc2 by "the History Boys"

Recommended TV crime "Top of the Lake".

SnrCat has had a v good day - we upped the cortisone dose. He has been very bossy :-) but the books recommended by Nyx are late.

I'm recording Top of the Lake, but need to negotiate with him who hogs the remote before I/we can watch it.
Watched The Lady in a Van sometime ago... on one of the occasions when control of the remote was challenged. ;-)

Depending on yr TV setup there is a good chance you can control it from a smart phone Inc flagging a program/series to be recorded. BBC programs are usually avail on iplayer for 30 days. I am not a big fan of watching TV on a computer but often do so. The min res of 1600x900 is just about OK. Then there are smart phones, tablets...
Because of my work we have all sorts of screens which tend to clutter up the walls and have to be cut back from time to time like mould.

The plots to some of these series eg China Girl , Fargo, I Know Who You Are are so devious that a recording is needed to suss out what is going on!

My all time fav crime progs on TV are Rebus and Wallender, not v original I know. Rebus edges it cos of Ds Siobhan Clarke and the Edinburgh back drop. just. Ian Rankin is a genius as is Ken Stott.

As much as I love John Hannah (it's his voice that gets me every time), Ken Stott is exactly how I imagined Rebus from the books.

Likewise the first actress for Clarke, the second seemed a little bit more 'butch' and not at all as I had imagined her. Apologies to the second actress as I know she was only playing her as instructed and I don't think she was given as much screen time as the first.

As my OH has been working in Edinburgh for the last year I have spent a couple of holidays up there and have then enjoyed re watching the series and playing 'Oh I know where that is':-D

Chris

Chris - I'd love to visit Edinburgh. Although there's no reason why we can't, we seem to get bogged down with travel arrangements. One of these days!

At one time I had the majority of the Rebus books on our bookshelves. The plots are more complex than portrayed in the TV series. I'd agree that Ken Stott is a better 'fit' to the mental image.

Rollo, there's never any problem over recording a programme; the difficulty comes from wanting to view it. May be a minor hissy fit is due :-D

I, too, enjoy Rebus and Wallender but they are both my kind of programme.

I have never enjoyed Top of the Lake, though. I just couldn't get away with the series at all.

In the same way, I have never enjoyed a John Grisham book when some friends and acquaintances enjoy them. I have now tried two of them and have only managed a third of the way through the books before putting them to one side before giving them away.

I cannot get into John Grisham either.

For me as for many others Ken Stott is Rebus. I have a good friend who lives in Penecuik. Last year he took me on a Rebus trail which involved quite a lot of single malt. Edinburgh is a pearl which too many Brits have never seen. The first time I went there early 60s was by train from Euston headed by A4 Pacific "Silver Fox". Magic.

Stott is also of course known for and very proud of his role as the dwarf Balin in the Hobbit. I liked "Messiah" but saw Dci Metcalfe as Rebus in the Smoke.

The best USA crime series is Fargo followed by Miami Vice. Going much further back I loved Kojak and Hill Street Blues with its wistful theme tune.

The French have a world class crime series "En Grenages" In Gear some of which has been on Uktv with sub titles. However the crackling Paris argot is somewhat lost in translation. It did make oh v homesick.

Yes, Rollo, Hill Street Blues was a cracking series and I agree with you about the theme tune.

Edinburgh is OK but I didn't take to it as others have done. I have visited quite a few times but always driven as we are nearer to the border than you are. Every overseas visitor we've had has been taken there for the day and I've taken one of my children to competitions there several times.

I have always enjoyed Taggart but although we have been to Glasgow for a couple of reasons, I have never walked around the centre much. I plan on doing so because Granddtr tells me it's lovely. (She may be referring to the nightlife, of course, at her age!)

Cagney & Lacey, anyone? :-D
That opened up the possibility that women could be effective Detectives while combining still having a home life as wife & mother.

One line manager used to finish briefings with 'Let's do it to them before they do it to us'. No, it wasn't in law enforcement although it sometimes seemed that way. HSB was very gritty for its time.

Miami Vice was OK, although they seemed more concerned about their appearance.

LOL from the acting, subtitles etc, I thought that Montelban was a porn film, without the sex!

If you meant Mimmi, one of the senior detectives, he's been a lothario from day one. We didn't see so much of Livia, Montalbano's girlfriend, in the last series; they must be making up for lost time :-D

I sort of meant that there was "banter"to fill in time between the "action scenes"

it didn't seem to Flow, if you get my meaning, unlike Foyle's war, for example...

I agree, it reminded me of the South American soaps beloved of here. The story wasn't bad but it should have been an hour and a half programme at the most.

Would like to see a British version made into an hour programme then it would be good. ;-)

Starting 27 Aug BBC 9pm has a crime series based on Robert Galbraith ( Harry Potter auth.) story lines. Not to be missed.

Line of Duty 5/6 won't be on air until 2019 by which time David Davis could be a suspect. Thoughtfully Aunty has decided to cash in on 1-4 by releasing them as a box set.

How is Cyprus connecting to Uktv these days? Afaik Aunty has had a bit of a crack down on VPN.

<3

For JoyLouise

Camilleri, the author of Montalbano, deliberately has lots of humour and jokes in his novels. These come through quite well in the English translations but not so well on TV. OH has fluent Italian mine is fractured with a French accent. I can follow the.official Italian on the TV series but not the Sicilian which has most of the jokes.

Montalbano is a huge deal in Italy. There is a guy who does funny Montalbano take offs on TV but no, overall it is def a crime series not comedy!

Montalbano ( Montalban in Spanish) is a common name so it may have been used by others, I don't know.

If you have not read any of the novels give them a try the English trans is excellent. "The Day of the Owl" is a good start. My Oh wore her bad owl t shirt in Palermo and ruffled a few feathers.

I'll try that, Rollo, thanks.

I am not an Italian speaker and I don't usually like sub-titled programmes as I think I miss a lot of the nuances, looks and actions while reading the subs but I did like the Montalbano this week - not least because I could rewind when I thought I may have missed facial expressions.

I, too, am looking forward to 27 August.

Edit: I have deleted my post on your other thread, Rollo, so your flow is now uninterrupted.