Prime Suspect

When we watched "Snowpiercer", I noticed that ITV X now has a load of shows that had previously been reserved for Britbox (a service we had never subscribed to, nor intended to ever try). This was a fairly limited boon, as there's not really a great deal of "classic" TV that I'd really like to revisit, but the one thing I was keen to see was "Prime Suspect".

I missed out on most of "Prime Suspect" first time out as I just wasn't particularly interested. I remembered the end scene, but nothing much leading up to that, and I had no recollection of ever watching any of the sequels (although...). And having missed out, I decided to embark of a watch.

It turns out that ITV X just isn't a good way of watching these things - unless you're willing to pay for the ad-free "premium" service (which isn't worth it), the shows are ruined by multitudes of badly-placed adverts. Still, I persevered.

The original "Prime Suspect" is rightly considered a classic, centred around a towering performance by Helen Mirren. That's probably not news - it's like saying "the Sun's quite big". And it remains as grim and hard-hitting as it ever did. It's basically not something they'd make these days, which in some ways is a shame - in the years since the production values of TV have advanced beyond recognition, but the storytelling has lost something, especially in recent years.

Once past the original, though, there's a marked drop-off. Although the central performance remains strong, it's hampered by the issue that Tennison's colleagues have largely accepted their mistake in the first series - a logical response to being proven wrong, but also a loss of much of the dramatic tension. Plus, it then seemed that they were cycling through the various -isms for their topic: sexism, followed by racism, followed by homophobia (and transphobia).

Oddly, "Prime Suspect 5" is currently missing from the service. Which is a shame, as I think it serves as a conclusion for the 'original' series, with the final two seasons being set much later. Oh well - at this point I'm done with my watch-through, so I don't think I'll seek it out later.

"Prime Suspect 6", then, is interesting in presenting a new side of things, with Tennison coming towards the end of her career and feeling rather overlooked. It's also something of a reset, and regains a lot of the freshness of the early series. It's pretty good; certainly better than two of the standalone episodes in PS4.

But then "Prime Suspect 7" is an odd thing. Here, I found myself remembering various bits of what happened, which is odd - I didn't think I'd seen this previously, but I guess I must have done. But "Prime Suspect 7" suffers a great deal from the issue that Tennison is now no longer presented as a superb detective who has been unjustly held back; by this point she's actually a distinct liability and actually dangerous. Indeed, far from tolerating her various foibles, her colleagues should by rights by arresting and charging her. Which makes for a great performance by Helen Mirren, but a rather sad ending to the series as a whole.

Anyway, that's that. I'm inclined to recommend watching the original, if you missed it at the time (and can bear the adverts), but probably skipping the rest.

Challenge Completed

Some years ago I posted that I'd been having some difficulties teaching Funsize to ride her bike. Well, it hasn't been easy - a few months after that post we'd cracked it, but unfortunately she'd grown out of that bike. The new one, purchased for Christmas, was a little too big for her, which led to a long spell where she absolutely refused to try riding it, after which we were back to square one.

Anyway, over the course of this break from work we've been working hard at it, and the good news is that we had a breakthrough on Saturday which was then consolidated yesterday. So that's that job done - Funsize can now officially ride a bike. Just as long as she doesn't forget again...

Getting Caught Up

I've been off work for the past two weeks, and as a consequence of that I've been able to get caught up on my reading. The most recent novels:

The Labyrinth of the Spirits

The final novel in the "Cemetery of Forgotten Books" cycle is a fairly hefty read, and was the volume that led to me being behind in the first place. It's a twisting novel, part detective story, part thriller, part horror, and part something else. It's hard going, but also very rewarding.

Although completely different in style, tone, and content, the series that this one most puts me in mind is the Musketeer novels by Dumas - in both cases the first novel ("The Three Musketeers" and "Shadow of the Wind") stands as one of the very best novels I have ever read. In both cases, I recommend them wholeheartedly.

After that, though, the stories get somewhat harder to get through - "Twenty Years After" is a bit of a slog, to put it mildly, while I found "The Angel's Game" tough to digest. Then there's something of a respite, in the form of the start of "The Vicomte de Bragelonne", or "The Prisoner of Heaven", and then it's the march to the end.

But when that end is finally reached, after thousands of pages of reading, it is triumphant. Indeed, as I came to the end of "The Labyrinth of the Spirits", I found that I genuinely didn't know what one character was going to do... and indeed I genuinely didn't know what I wanted them to do.

All in all, a great read.

A Stroke of the Pen

The lost stories by Terry Pratchett, and the third or fourth "last book" by my late favourite author. This was another collection of twenty short stories culled from his early days writing for newspapers, and it's packed with the usual collection of wit and craziness that is familiar from the other collections. But, alas, it means that I must mourn again that there is nothing more to read.

Hercule Poirot's Silent Night

Speaking of an unexpected read, I had assumed that Sophie Hannah was done with her neo-Christie stories, so it was with some pleasure that I discovered this fifth volume (and, indeed, that there's a sixth coming).

This is the standard Poirot murder-mystery, full of a cast of fairly ghastly characters, a set of clues that eventually come to an unexpected conclusion, with many twists and turns along the way. Good stuff.

#7: "The Labyrinth of the Spirits", by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
#8: "A Stroke of the Pen", by Terry Pratchett
#9: "Hercule Poirot's Silent Night", by Sophie Hannah

Day 100: Update on Goals

Time for the second update on goals for the year:

• Books: This is slightly behind - by day 100 I should have completed 8.2 books, so on paper I'm a little behind. However, I have two books well in progress, which combine to cover the shortfall - just. The issue is exactly as I identified last time - I have a good number of very long books to read, which means it's easy to get bogged down.
• Weight: This is progressing, largely due to the effect of Lent. It is now back on track for the year, while at the same time not as advanced as I'd hoped to be in time for the wedding. Which isn't ideal, given the need to be fit for dancing, but there it is.
• Career: No further progress.
• Church Website: No further progress.
• Redecoration: No further progress. LC did approach our preferred glazier about getting a quote for the windows, but they didn't have capacity to provide one at this time. We're now musing on whether to wait for them (likely) or seek another option.
• Blogging: This was not set as a goal, but if I had targeted the normal 120 posts for the year, the expectation would have been to hit 33 by now. I'm somewhat behind that, though not disastrously so. Still, I'd like to be back on track for the next update.
• Home Automation: No further progress. I have identified the final "control" device for the system, but as it is fairly regularly reduced by varying amounts, I'm currently waiting for it to hit the price point I'm happy with before buying. That may mean delaying for Prime Day later in the year.

And that's that. As anticipated last time, most of the goals haven't progressed in the last seven weeks, but that's not a problem. I have slipped a bit behind in some of them, but not too badly - there's nothing that's fallen to unrecoverable levels.