BUSHELL ON THE BLOG
Feb 17. Here are transcripts of interviews I’ve done recently to promote my new Harry Tyler thriller, Bad Apple, which is available now direct from caffeinenightsbooks.com
What are the first books you remember reading?
The Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling... I remember reading Spike Milligan’s Puckoon when I was 13 and absolutely loving it. Then Animal Farm which led to me devouring all of Orwell’s books, novels and non-fiction alike. His Spanish Civil War memoir, Homage To Catalonia and The Lion & The Unicorn had a huge impact on me. I read everything from Smallcreep’s Day by Peter Currell Brown and Jeff Nuttall’s Bomb Culture to Richard Allen’s skinhead series – even kids who didn’t read books read that. I’ve lost count of how many I’ve read, thousands for sure, but the ones that stand out from my teens are Indecent Exposure by Tom Sharpe and a highly opinionated take on rock and pop called Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom by Nik Cohn. He also collaborated on Rock Dreams with Guy Peellaert, who illustrated Bowie’s Diamond Dogs. Rock Dreams mixed rock’n’roll mythology with satire, lyric-inspired Images, and vibe. Jimi Hendrix was an alien, Wilson Pickett was a pool hall pimp, Rod was a football hooligan getting nicked outside a pub, Jerry Lee Lewis was staggering down a Memphis Street half-cut… I loved it. I wonder what the two of them would have made of Prince or Amy Winehouse, or Kurt Cobain. Imagine. Pete Doherty jacking up next to Rudyard Kipling and Indian soldiers on the North-West Frontier… Adele drowning in a vat of her own tears… Sabrina Carpenter directing an orgy, “go all night without the intermission”… Taylor Swift with her arms and legs wrapped around a redwood tree called Travis… I read Trotsky’s History Of The Russian Revolution and Revolution Betrayed in my late teens too. I was very radical back then.
What book are you reading now?
I’m hooked on David McCloskey’s gripping spy thrillers. I’ve just finished The Seventh Floor. He’s a former CIA analyst and so it’s a lot closer to the reality of espionage than say series four of Killing Eve or the utter tripe of Treason.
Have you discovered any great authors?
In the past few years? Jordan Harper, Callum McSorley, Jonathan Ames and S.A Cosby, all terrific. Mick Herron, Steve Cavanagh, and Don Winslow never let you down. Cavangh’s Eddie Flynn would make a cracking TV series.
Who are your favourite fictional detectives?
No surprises, Columbo, Marlowe, Holmes of course but not the over-rated Sherlock series. I didn’t mind Monk, he was like Columbo with ADHD. Foyle was good, along with the magnificent Honeysuckle Weeks, and I loved foot-in-the-door, bang ’em up cops like Jack Regan in The Sweeney and Micky Spillane’s Mike Hammer. Sweeney repeats double as love letters to a lost London, a time when Flying Squad detectives wore corduroy jackets and drove Fords – Consuls, Granadas, and Cortinas. My city in the mid-70s was drab, grey, and semi-derelict, still pockmarked with World War 2 bomb sites, yet it still had character and felt like home, even on the Ferrier Estate. I miss it.
Harry Tyler is such a strong character. Do you remember the moment when you came up with him?
Harry was based on two undercover cops I knew and the idea of moulding aspects of them into one fictional detective developed organically over time. And over pints. The first book was loosely based on real-life cases. I had called it Bushwhacker but the publisher wanted to change it to The Face and I reluctantly acquiesced. Harry is as lusty as one of those two cops and better looking than both. He has their black humour too.
One reviewer described him as being ‘nearly as tough as Jack Reacher, but a lot more randy’.
As I said, I based him on reality.
There was talk of a Harry Tyler film. What happened?
What happened is Dave Legeno died. Dave, who was Fenrir Greyback in the Harry Potter movies, wanted to play Harry. I got approached by a producer who wanted to make it a £100,000 film but Dave said no, it needed to be half a mil to do it justice. I wrote the screenplay, but Dave wanted it shorter and simpler so it lost some of the humour. Dave sadly died in Death Valley in strange circumstances the following year. Not sure about a film version now. It might make more sense as a streamer series to give the plot and the characters room to breathe. My late agent did speak to another well-known British filmmaker who reckoned audiences only wanted to watch villains. Maybe he’d never seen Dirty Harry or The Equaliser.
Is your screenplay faithful to the book?
The original one was. Very much so.
Would you want to be involved in casting?
I would like to be of course. I have a clear vision of Harry, how he should look and sound, and the other major characters. I can’t expect control, but it’d be good to be consulted.
Will you be doing more book readings?
Yes. Definitely. I’m getting a few lined up for the coming months. I’ll come and talk about Harry, and the rock books, anywhere in the world if the events are well-organised and properly promoted. I’ve got the one-man show as a vehicle too. Anyone interested should get in touch.
What was the first film you remember seeing at the cinema?
I saw A Clockwork Orange at the ABC at Blackheath when I was 15, before it got pulled from cinemas, but I must have seen films earlier. Definitely 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Producers and Carry On Screaming! I saw Carry On Up The Kyber there later in 1970, and the Steptoe film, with Albert having a bath in the sink, in 72. David Essex’s Stardust. Not very cerebral but they made me laugh. The ABC had started life as The Roxy. It was very stylish inside. A theatre of dreams. They closed it when I was about 19.
What was the first single you bought with your own money?
My Boy Lollipop by Millie Small. I’ve still got it in the loft, along with Charlie Drake’s Mr Custer, Max Romeo’s Wet Dream, and Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. I’ve got loads of old reggae 45s up there, Desmond Dekker, Jimmy Cliff, Bob and Marcia, Dave and Ansell Collins… And the first Pistols, Clash and Specials singles of course.
Who were the first band you saw live?
Hawkwind at Aldermaston, 69 or 70, then Cockney Rebel in Waterloo before they were signed, and then the MC5 when they opened the bill at The London Rock and Roll Show at Wembley Stadium, which had giants like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. Wizzard too I think and more. The Teds hated the MC5 but we loved them. Jeremy Beadle promoted the all-dayer, bizarrely. I never dreamed that one day I’d be on the road with Lemmy or having a laugh with Steve Harley or that I’d be invited to Beadle’s house to have a bite with the great Ernest Maxin, of Morecambe & Wise fame, producer, director, dancer, choreographer. Ernest choreographed their classic breakfast routine to The Stripper, and the Singin’ In The Rain sketch.
What was the first TV show you enjoyed?
Blimey. Things like Twizzle and Torchy The Battery Boy; then The Adventures of Sir Lancelot, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Adventures of William Tell, The Addams Family, Bilko, the Beverly Hillbillies, F-Troop... This is going to turn into one long list… I remember seeing the first episode of Doctor Who in 1963 when I was eight, and the World Cup in 1966 at my nan’s, and Neil Armstrong walking on the moon in 69 at school. My nan and grandad had a small black and white telly, and the neighbours came round to watch Quatermass and the football. I think the first show that I really loved as a kid was Adam Adamant Lives! when I was 11. I still want a swordstick! I was a huge fan of Star Trek and Bewitched – Elizabeth Montgomery was my first TV crush, followed closely by Diana Rigg – Emma Peel on The Avengers – the green alien woman on Star Trek, and Diana Ross. I never missed an episode of Top Of The Pops. That’s another wealth of memories – John Peel and the Faces, Rod kicking a football, John pretending to play the mandolin, Bowie singing Starman, Woody Woodmansey’s sideburns, Pete Townsend kicking over Keith Moon’s drumkit, Jimi Hendrix jamming with James Brown… Babs Lord and Dee Dee… So many great images, John Steed in his bowler hat…The Prisoner...Ena and Elsie rowing on the Coronation Street cobbles in black-and-white…and so much comedy: Python, Steptoe & Son, Fawlty Towers, Up Pompeii, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, Alf Garnett. I didn’t see Hancock’s Half Hour until it was repeated in the 80s, but that was genius. That was Seinfeld before Seinfeld. I also remember things like The Golden Shot with Bob Monkhouse and of course Benny Hill, Dave Allen and The Comedians. A couple of years later I saw Jimmy Jones live for the first time at Woolwich Tramshed. ’Kin’ legend. He’s demonised now but back then you heard his tapes on picket lines. The first good review The Comedians got was in the Morning Star.
As a teenager, you were a revolutionary. Do you have any residual faith?
I’m 71 this year, most of me is residual! Do I have faith in revolution, though? Not their revolution. Britain needs a punch up the trousers, but not one that leads to some grim, one-party Bigger Brother ‘big state’ and economic calamity. I have faith in people. I have faith in freedom. Freedom of speech and association, freedom of worship, free enterprise. I have no faith in mega-corporations or quangos, or modern liar-infested governments; and very little in our bloated, over-manned, under-productive nanny state.
Is Bad Apple your final novel?
No. I have my first collection of short stories due out later this year, and two and a half of them are Harry Tyler stories; and I’ve started on Harry Tyler book six, but that won’t be published until October 2027 at the earliest. I also want to work on the sequels to Hell Bent and All Or Nothing; I’ve got the ideas, it’s just a question of finding the time.
Do you ever plan to retire?
Never surrender! I’m semi-retired in the sense that I’m no longer a wage slave but I still freelance to stay comfortable. I don’t think I’ll ever stop writing, and I’ll keep my band, the Gonads, going for as long as I’m physically capable of walking on stage and remembering the lyrics. At my age, you tend to have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana skin.
Which of your books sold the most copies?
Iron Maiden: Runing Free.
What’s the key to happiness?
Love, laughter, family, friends, Hawksmoor, builders’ tea, black filter coffee, Charlton winning, Columbo repeats, a decent curry, old school pubs, six pints of Stella and a bag of pork scratchings.
Feb 15. From Bowie to Lennon, these are 11 worst albums ever released by rock and pop legends – sadly including some of my favourite bands.
Feb 14. I’m chatting to Steve Diggle about the Buzzcocks, Elton John, Kurt Cobain, punk rock, Moët, knife crime, the new Buzzcocks album, poncing film stars, life, death, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and more in today’s Daily Express.
Never-Here Keir is in Munich today where he will tell European countries we have to spend more on our defences rather than rely on the Septics. Great idea. So why aren’t our government doing it? Starmer said a year ago that Great Britain will shell out 2.5 per cent of government spending on defence – but not until 2027. Why wait? We need to invest heavily in our own protection now. Grandstanding rhetoric and pledges aren’t much use against Russian T-80BVM battle tanks. Stepping up border security might help too.
Valentine’s Day always makes me think of the card I gave the late Linda Nolan: ‘Roses are red, violets are blue, would you sleep with me for a five-star review?’ – a joke obviously, I knew Linda well, I couldn’t possibly have kept up with her. The other verse, involving her sisters, probably doesn’t bear repeating.
Feb 12. Starmer has sacked Chris Wormald as the head of the Civil Service and cabinet secretary. Wormald is the third senior official to get the boot, albeit with a rumoured £250K golden handshake. Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney went on Sunday, followed by his director of communications Tim Allan. Drivers around Westminster are warned to be extra vigilant, there’s a lot of people being thrown under buses right now.
Feb 7. The second part of my chat with Steve Diggle is online now.
All week we have been tortured with pictures of Peter Mandelson in his pants. Where was the modern-day Jack Regan to tell him: “Get yer trousers on, you’re nicked”? This case needs The Sweeney, not McSweeney. The police have raided Mandy’s properties. I do hope he was told, “Your pants will be taken down and used in evidence”.
Feb 6. The vultures are openly circling Starmer. Thanks to the cascade of Mandelson/Epstein revelations, it looks likely that either Two-Tier Keir or his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney will be out in days. Possibly both of them. If they had any decency they would have gone already. Labour lord Maurice Glasman sent McSweeney a dossier detailing Peter Mandelson’s links to Jeffrey Epstein before he had taken up his role as US ambassador. It came with a simple but correct conclusion that Mandelson was ‘the wrong man at the wrong time in the wrong place.’ So neither McSweeney, nor the PM, can convincingly claim not to have known. Some people are comparing this to the Profumo scandal of the 60s, but it’s far worse than that. Profumo was a middle-ranking Cabinet Minister. Mandelson was the architect of New Labour. He hand-picked Blair, nurtured his rise, and helped define Blairism. Yet ‘Petey’ was always dodgy. He was forced to resign as Blair’s Trade and Industry Secretary in December 1998 after failing to disclose a £373,000 low-interest personal loan from fellow Labour minister Geoffrey Robinson to buy a £475,000 house in Notting Hill which he couldn’t afford on his £43K-a-year salary at the time. Inexplicably resurrected as Northern Ireland secretary, Mandelson had to resign again in January 2001 over allegations of involvement in passport applications for the Hinduja brothers. After a spell as a European Commissioner, Gordon Brown brought him back into government as his Business Secretary in 2008 and then first secretary of state before promoting him to the Lords. The Epstein files show that while in Brown’s Cabinet, Mandelson criminally leaked market-sensitive government information to the late financier/sex-trafficker/paedo/slimeball, joking that the PM needed “to be confined to a sanatorium”.
It now looks likely that Epstein was either working for Russia’s FSB (the modern equivalent of the KGB) or was financed by the Kremlin in order to build a huge bank of ‘kompromat’ – compromising material, detailing sex, secrets and bribes – to blackmail Western politicians. We might not learn the extent of his betrayal in our lifetimes – the full files from Lord Denning’s 1963 Profumo inquiry won’t be known until 2048. (And the published material felt like a whitewash). In the meantime, this mess illustrates the utter uselessness of our political class. Starmer, who promised to be the serious alternative to the back-stabbing Tories, has proved to be a spineless wet-blanket with no vision, no authority, and no gravitas. Never-Here Keir will be remembered for jailing tweeters, breaking promises, stifling growth, being forced into more U-turns than a performing seal… and now for ignoring Lord Glasman’s red flag about Mandelson. Mandy hasn’t just betrayed the Prime Ministers he worked for, he has let down every voter who ever believed in the promise of New Labour. Labour’s misfortune, and ours, is that the party’s leading contenders to replace Starmer, Rayner and Streeting, seem shallower and worse. Clement Atlee must be spinning in his tin. Where are the statesmen and the strategists? Where are the politicians who know how to liberate the economy, secure our borders, and rebuild our defences? We won’t get competence and authority from divvy clowns like Ed Davey and Zack ‘David Paulden’ Polanski. It’s no wonder many are looking to Reform UK, but have they got the equivalents of heavyweights like Sherman, Scruton and Joseph in the wings? If not, they might not have long to find them.
Steve Diggle on his new Buzzcocks album and writing songs from the headlines with characters “like a Dickens novel”.
My thoughts on the licence fee price hike.
Feb 2. TV’s Mock The Week has left the BBC but the BBC hasn’t left the show. Read the full review here.
Jan 30. A rather strange woman on Question Time last night said, “I’d much rather be in China’s bed than America’s… we’d know what was going on.” Don’t we know a lot of what’s going on there already? The state-sponsored murder of Tibetan monks, the jailing of Hong Kong dissidents, the brutal suppression of religions (Buddhists, Christians and Falun Gong practitioners), the draconian detention of ethnic Uyghurs, strict control of the internet, constant state surveillance… Amnesty International could tell us a lot more. In Trump’s USA, the sickening ICE murders have made world news, and may result in a partial government climbdown. In Xi’s China, state suppression goes on unrestrained and unreported. It’s no platform for anyone who doesn’t toe the party line. So you can see why it appeals to modern-day faux-Marxist control freaks. Beijing’s Big Brother never stops watching. Or killing.
The Apprentice has returned with the depressing inevitability of a herpes sore. Here’s my TikTok verdict.
Jan 29. Trump’s “massive armada” has set sail to Iran. And if that doesn’t work, he’ll send in ICE.
Jan 28. The Telegraph broke the story of the wrongful 13-year persecution of Sgt Richie Catterall last night, telling how Keir Starmer unleashed a witch hunt against British veterans. Starmer and his odious buddy Hermer opened the door for hundreds of ex-servicemen to be hounded by hustlers like Phil Shiner, now a convicted criminal. I can’t work out if Starmer uses his apparent ineptitude as a mask for the calculated betrayal of the things we hold dear, or whether he is genuinely gormless as well as treacherous. I was brought up in a Labour household and was a member of the party for years, and I have never felt more ashamed of a Labour PM. Pretty sure my late relatives who served in the second world war would feel the same. Let’s hope the good people of Gorton and Denton are watching.
Chris Packham’s new radio series A People’s History of Punk covers a lot of ground at a nifty pace and features decent interviewees. Punk was life-changing for thousands of people. It was uplifting, exciting, inspirational, rewarding, sometimes dangerous, even life-threatening, and it opened doors. For a brief time, power passed from the record industry executives to us plebs on the streets. It certainly made me realise I could make my own luck. I should point out though that although I did indeed negotiate a then-hefty EMI deal for the Cockney Rejects, along with Jimmy Pursey, in 1979. I didn’t take a penny of it. I managed the Rejects unpaid because I believed in them and bowed out after we got them signed. Not for nothing did Joe Strummer call them “the real deal”.
Jan 27. RIP Sly Dunbar, the brilliant drummer who worked with everyone from Bob Marley to Ian Dury and played on reggae classics like Junior Murvin’s Police & Thieves and Dave & Ansell Collins’s magnificent chart-topper, Double Barrel (I still have my copy in the loft.) Sly, real name Lowell Fillmore Dunbar, grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, loving US soul music and made his first drum kit when he was 15. He’s probably best known for his production work with the late Robbie Shakespeare (as Sly & Robbie aka the Riddum Twins). The duo worked with everyone from Bob Dylan to Herbie Hancock via Mick Jagger and Grace Jones. Sly was 73. He was one of the greats.
Jan 25. My Traitors reaction on TikTok, filmed yesterday.
Jan 24. Here’s my instant reaction to the nail-biting finale of The Traitors.
Andy Burnham? Are you sure? Burnham has wanted to lead the Labour Party for most of his career. He stood in two leadership elections and failed both times. He was a Blairite when it suited him under Blair and Brown and then served in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. Whatever way the wind is blowing, you’ll find a careerist. I wouldn’t trust two-time loser Burnham any more than I’d trust Elim Garak from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Jan 23. Trump reckons NATO allies “weren’t on the front line” with the USA in Afghanistan. Tell that to the families of the 457 British soldiers who died there; we lost another 139 men and women in Iraq. Soldiers from Canada, France, Germany, Denmark, Australia and other NATO members also perished in these largely ill-judged, kneejerk campaigns, instigated by the USA, which left the Middle East and Afghanistan in far worse places than they were beforehand and fuelled the mass immigration problem, legal and illegal, causing chaos across the Western world. The President’s words are not only factually incorrect but shamefully dumb. He needs to apologise quickly.
In fairness, Trump belittles our veterans, but at least he isn’t trying to lock them up like our useless government.
Jan 22. I fell off the wagon today. But in fairness I was only drinking to forget I’d said I wouldn’t drink in January.
Jan 15. The weirdest thing about Erich von Daniken obituaries is they’re describing him as a ‘non-fiction author’. The Telegraph ran their obit in the Science section. I think Erich was right and that aliens still walk among us. I mean, look at Ed Miliband. Come on!
Erich von Daniken. Dead. Or abducted by aliens? The truth is out there… There are gay aliens of course. The truth is they’re out… Erich asked was God an alien. He’ll know now.
Jan 13. I’ve been thinking a lot about my old friend Derek Martin, who died a couple of days ago at the grand old age of 92. Here’s a piece expanding on my earlier tweet. Born Derek William Rapp, in Bow, East London, docker’s son Derek was best known for playing long-suffering cabbie Charlie on EastEnders, but his greatest TV role was as bent detective inspector Fred Pyall in G.F. Newman’s caustic 1978 BBC2 drama Law & Order alongside Peter Dean, another future Walfordian, who played Kentish Town blagger Jack Lynn. After that, Derek cornered the market in corrupt cops, appearing in shows like The Sweeney, Minder, Dempsey And Makepeace, The Saint, Hart To Hart and Taggart. We first met when he was playing Ronald King, a disgraced detective turned debt collector in ITV comedy drama King And Castle in the 1980s, which is when he told me about his earlier brushes with crime. Derek had started working as a meat porter at Smithfield Market in 1959, but he and a couple of co-workers decided they could make a nice few bob on the side by stealing beef. The former amateur boxer was caught red-handed stealing £10,000 worth of meat (worth £190,000 in today’s money) after he allowed his mates to escape. Derek was found not guilty after a three-day trial at the Old Bailey in 1961 but he told me in 1988, “I was bang to rights guilty and looking at a two-year stretch, but I turned on the charm and flirted with a redhead on the jury. I pretended to be a bit Dolly Dimple and convinced them I was innocent.” John Humphyrs raised the subject in 2011 on BBC1’s Celebrity Mastermind and asked if he felt guilty about the theft. Derek replied, “No, I was just choked I never got the meat.”
One evening his friend Charlie Kray, the elder brother of the Kray Twins, phoned and asked Derek to meet him in the toilet of a London casino owned by the Krays. “Charlie handed me two guns and said, ‘Stick these in your pocket, wait 15 minutes and then go straight home. I’ll come and collect them tomorrow’. I tucked each gun into my trousers, and carried out his instructions.” Charlie collected the weaponsthe next day saying, “Any time you need me, I’ll do the same for you’.” Derek, who supported the free Reggie Kray campaign in the 80s, was never a villain. “Most of my crimes consisted of buying and selling stuff that had fallen off the back of a lorry, wheeling and dealing like Arthur Daley,” he said.
He credited the redhead on his jury for changing his life. When Derek bumped into her outside the Old Bailey, she congratulated him on his performance in the dock and told him, “I gave you the benefit of the doubt. You’re a born actor! Now go and be a good boy.” He said, “I took that to heart and decided to turn my life around and get into acting.” He changed his name, taking the Martin from Dean Martin, and within days was working as an extra on BBC1’s Z Cars. He became a stuntman after chatting to the stunt co-ordinator on Softly Softly and spent many happy years doing stunts for films and TV, including Doctor Who “crashing cars, jumping off buildings, falling down stairs, acting out fights, fencing, running through a brick wall. But it left me with two titanium knees and a metal hip – my boys call me the Bionic Man,” he joked. “I told them when I go, they should have me cremated and then nip round the back and rake through the ashes because I must be worth a fortune in scrap metal now.”
Derek fell off a horse and broke his collarbone while filming Elizabeth R in1971. “They just put my arm in a sling and sent me home,” he recalled.
His real love life was Walford worthy. His first marriage to Gloria in 1960 collapsed within months through her cheating. His second to actress Christine fell apart when he found her kissing another man in a car. They divorced and shared custody of their adopted twin sons, David and Jonathan. Derek wasn’t a drinker but after Christine cheated, he downed 12 shots of Southern Comfort. An element of revenge ensued.
Derek had auditioned for the role of Dirty Den in EastEnders, and later Frank Butcher. He made it into soaps on BBC1’s ill-fated Eldorado where he played gangster Alex Morris and finally made DeadEnders in 1990, as widower Charlie Slater, devoted father of Kat, Lynne, Little Mo and Belinda. One of his biggest EastEnders scenes was ruined by drink. “Charlie had just found out that his brother Harry, played by Michael Elphick, had got Kat pregnant and I had to spit in his face. We went to the studio canteen for lunch and Michael drank Guinness and triple whiskies. When we got back, he couldn’t do the scene. They cleared the set and he came out crying. I told him to go home and sleep it off. 9am the next morning, we did it in two takes.” Charlie Slater died on screen in January 2016, but even in his 80s Derek kept swimming and working out in a gym near his Hatfield home a week. He kept his brain active too, watching TV quiz shows. Sport was his specialist subject on Celebrity Eggheads – he’d supported Chelsea since 1955. His last mainstream TV appearance was in Jeff Pope’s 2019 ITV miniseries, A Confession. But the role he enjoyed most was as King Rat in the Grand Order of Water Rats. Their 2024 ball was the last time we spoke face-to-face but we often swapped bad-taste jokes on WhatsApp. The last one he sent me was on Christmas Eve. It was an un-PC cartoon of Santa if he’d converted to Islamism. It was typical of his irreverent sense of humour.
My favourite memory of Derek was when he roughed me up, Fred Pyall style, on my 1996 Bushell On The Box ITV show. He also prosecuted me for crimes against TV at the end of second series. Sleep well my friend.
*Captain Scarlet? He’s on the spectrum…
Jan 12. Reform have recruited former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi. Whoopee! I thought their plan was to replace the jaded establishment, not resurrect it. Who next? Matt Hancock? Harvey Proctor? The ghost of Ted Heath? If Reform become Trans-Reformers – Tories In Disguise, they will alienate millions of voters. They say the party needs experienced people. I understand that, but should it extend to signing up lockdown zealots and sour losers? Maybe tomorrow we’ll get the headline: May Day! Farage Welcomes Theresa. “We had our disagreements but she knows the security code for the Number 10 drinks cabinet.”
This is the odd thing about British politics. You wouldn’t let a first-aider perform heart surgery on your loved ones and you wouldn’t put a lollipop man in charge of the army, so why do we periodically elect unqualified people to run our governments? It’s not just Rachel From Complaints wrecking growth, none of Starmer’s clueless Cabinet have any experience of running a business and the extent of their military savvy amounts to watching half an episode of Sharpe’s Rifles and going on a few anti-war/anti-America demos in their uni days.
Meanwhile as the tyrannical Iran regime gleefully guns down protesters who want freedom and rights for women, voices on the far-Left are calling their victims “agents of Mossad and the CIA”. In the name of ‘Marxism’ they’re siding with clerical fascists over brave young radicals. It’s as shameful as it is shameless.
Erich von Daniken. Dead? Or abducted by aliens? We may never know.
Jan 11. STOP PRESS: I’m sad to hear we’ve lost Derek Martin. Derek, who was 92, made his first big TV impact as a bent DI Fred Pyall in G.F. Newman’s Law & Order in the 70s, played debt collector Ronald King in ITV’s King & Castle in the 80s, and reached the pinnacle of his career in the 90s playing the prosecutor at my trial for “crimes against television” on ITV’s Bushell On The Box series finale (Ken ‘Reg Holdsworth’ Morley was the judge). Some also remember him as Charlie Slater in DeadEnders… Sleep well, my friend.
The return of The Night Manager got me thinking about all the great and varied spies we’ve seen on TV over the years. Here’s my list of the all-time best. Feel free to disagree.
Jan 10. Atomic Rooster famously warned us Death Walks Behind You. They didn’t think to mention that it starts jogging when you turn 70.
Jan 9. Here are some thoughts on last night’s The Traitors.
Jan 8. Just seen the shocking footage of a US ICE agent gunning down Renee Good in Minneapolis. He shot her three times at point blank range. Claims that mum-of-three Renee, 37, was using her vehicle as a weapon are clearly false. She wasn’t a threat and Republicans should not callously pretend otherwise. Truth isn’t the only casualty of America’s increasingly polarised society. Their politicians’ sense of right and wrong is on life support.
Jan 7. The more I watch the news, the more I identify with St. Paul of Thebes who lived on his tod in a mountain cave for decades.
If someone doesn’t cook up a brash TV action-hero detective called Storm Goretti we’ll be missing a trick.
Previously