SNOW ANGELS NORDIC TV REVIEW

 

Given the heavy rain and blistering winds yesterday,  I was forced indoors and found myself at a loss. I'd largely spent the last two weeks of my annual leave going on day trips or working in the garden (it's been one of the driest and warmest Augusts on record). I read  for a hour or so, but then during early afternoon I fixed myself a drink, a nice dram of Wild Turkey 101, and started to browse the internet - not looking for anything in particular, just travelling the cyber highways. I eventually came upon a retrospective article on the Danish/Swedish crime drama, The Bridge (HERE) and that remined me of how much I enjoy the well acted, tightly scripted dramas that come under the umbrella term, Nordic Noir.

This led me to pop over to ALL4, the free streaming service, from the UK's own Channel Four and search for Walter Presents - Walter Presents is a new VOD channel, presented by Walter Iuzzolino, that is part of All 4 (formerly 4oD), Channel 4’s on-demand service. It showcases foreign-language series that would otherwise not be available in the UK and is a joint initiative between Global Series Network (GSN) and Channel 4

 After scanning the list of available shows I settled on Snow Angels. By the end of the first episode I was hooked and by early evening I had watched all  six episodes and was left flabbergasted by this quite brilliant, darker than dark thriller.

Created and written by Mette Heeno, the drama is compelling right from the first when we discover that a young mother, wakes from a tranquiliser induced sleep to find both her husband and her five week old baby missing. We are swiftly introduced to two other women who will play a part in the tangled web the drama spins with each of them enduring their own personal problems, whilst trying to keep their professional lives on track. First we have Maria, a paediatric nurse who is trying to care for her brain-damaged brother and Alice, a police officer just returning to work after her husband suffered a debilitating stroke. These three women find their lives intertwined right up to the stunningly unexpected conclusion.

There's no glitz and glamour in this well realised working class setting - we have characters doing two jobs to make ends meet and heaps of misery is piled upon each character and those around them as things spiral out of control. Special mention must go to actor, Maria Rossing who is simply superb as the quietly brooding, Maria but all of the cast are top knotch. Ardalan Esmaili for one is simply excellent as the overworked father of the missing baby, but then all of the players give great performances.

I won't go into any more detail as this risks spoiling what is a cleverly constructed and totally believable story that won't disappoint. You'll never guess the way things actually play out but when it's all over everything will make perfect sense.

Quite brilliant - UK viewers can watch  Snow Angels HERE - 

Viewers outside the UK should check streaming services for the show.

Whisky Talk.......

 

Only a few years back whiskey/whisky was a drink that I often enjoyed, but didn't really appreciate in the way I do now. I'd drink it of course, some times a lot of it. I'd enjoy the taste, savour the aroma, chase the finish. I drunk perhaps two brands on a regular basis, White and MacKay and Famous Grouse and whilst I continue to enjoy both brands,  I have over the last few years gained a lot more experience with the golden liquid. I still drink scotch, (Irish, Canadian, Welsh and every other iteration of the water of life) but I am primarily a bourbon drinker with Wild Turkey and Buffalo Trace being my everyday tipple of choice.

 Yep, every night I have at least one dram before bed. And why should I not! Life is short, so enjoy it while you can. And besides I am a firm believer that whisky in moderation is good for both body and mind.

It was the pandemic that turbo charged my whisky experience - with so much time on my hands I started trying other brands, reading books, browsing websites and bit by bit my knowledge and appreciation of the spirit grew. Today I know and can taste the difference between the various different kinds of whisky, and there are many. I know how to read a bottle label, I am familiar with the history and output of numerous distilleries and names like Eddie Russell, Richard Patterson, Rachel Barrie and  Tadashi Sakuma have become familiar to me.

It's more than a drink I suppose. It's a sensory journey of sight, smell and taste and whilst I still have far to go in my quest for that perfect dram, the one to rule all others, I'm eagerly anticipating each and every step.

Strange New Worlds: At last the real Star Trek is back

 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the latest series in the long running franchise is seriously refreshing after all the angsty, boring  star trudges of recent years. 

It's arguably closer to the original series than any other version of the show, and does away with the season long arcs that were getting tiresome in favour of episodic storytelling and genuine chemistry between the cast members.

Beam me up.....

Ode to my dram

 I've always liked a dram of whisky - or whiskey since I often stray from the Scotch variety - but over these last few years I've gotten into the drink in a big way. That is I've stopped just drinking the stuff, though I do a fair bit of that, and started to evaluate what it is that makes that golden liquid in the glass so alluring. Drinking whisky/whiskey is more than the simple act of glass to mouth and swallow; it is a journey across fragrant pastures, through fields of corn and grain, into oaky casky caverns, charred walls of grapey residue. A red nosed Tomb Raider, exploring, seeking, longing sustenance - that orgasmic water of life.  Time ages perfection! It is the feel of fresh rain, of golden sun and brisk breath-taking winds.

A drink like no other - there's history in each and every drop, lives lived, deaths died, lies told and scolds sighed. It is more than than that , so much more...that precious treacly gold which I imbibe.

Here's to you all.

THE REAL BOND IS BACK

 Details of Anthony Horowitz’s third official James Bond novel, With a Mind to Kill, have been revealed ahead of publication in May 2022. 

The third Bond book by Horowitz, a novelist and screenwriter, is part of a deal between Jonathan Cape, Vintage and Ian Fleming Publications. It will be published on 26th May.

“With a Mind to Kill opens with M’s funeral,” the blurb reads. "One man is missing from the graveside: the traitor who pulled the trigger and who is now in custody, accused of M’s murder — James Bond. Behind the Iron Curtain, a group of former SMERSH agents want to use the British spy in an operation that will change the balance of world power. Bond is smuggled into the lion’s den — but whose orders is he following, and will he obey them when the moment of truth arrives?

“In a mission where treachery is all around and one false move means death, Bond must grapple with the darkest questions about himself. But not even he knows what has happened to the man he used to be.”

The cover has an explosive image of smashed glass resembling an eye, and was created by in-house Vintage designer Kris Potter.

Horowitz is the only author in recent years to have been invited by Ian Fleming Publications to write successive, official James Bond novels. The collaboration began in 2015 with Trigger Mortis (Orion), followed by Forever and a Day in 2018 (Vintage). He followed in the footsteps of William Boyd’s Solo (Vintage) in 2013, the American thriller writer Jeffery Deaver, with Carte Blanche (Hodder) in 2011, and Sebastian Faulks, whose Devil May Care (Penguin) was published to mark Ian Fleming’s centenary in 2008.   

Get Back and Re-evaluate Paul McCartney

People are taking different things from Peter Jackson's edit of the Beatles  Twickers sessions, entitled Get Back that recently aired over eight plus hours on Disney +. But for me (I'll start a sentence how I fucking want to. That's rock 'n' roll) , a lifelong Beatle (there's nothing better) fan the vibe, the message, the word I get is that it's time to re-evaluate Paul McCartney.

 Of course Jackson's edit is not 100% truthful - the pressure is just too much and Yoko is presented as less than the annoying fucker she likely really was. If you watch the original Beatles Let it Be movie and then  Jackson's latest mammoth edit then the truth about the Yoko (remember she firmly holds the reign of the John Lennon brand)  is probably somewhere in-between. If you think she sat around knitting and on occasions uttered a series of unmelodic yowls, the sound of pain and anguish, then you're just a little bit fucked up. No doubt, the victim of reality TV and the dumbing down of the brain cells that fire, spark, and evaluate in the viewer. You can only watch so much consuming of kangaroo anus and bonding sessions between false fuckers, before you're critical facilities are as fucked up as the average Jeremy Kyle viewer.

All you need is love, baby!

After all this time (it was more than fifty years ago today! That's half a fucking century) nothing could be really truthful and all that gold tinged celluloid can be made to tell any story that is required, meet whatever agenda is needed to keep everyone happy. Fuck that though - it's time for some peace in the neighbourhood. Yoko bashing is no longer necessary, Lennon myth-making has run its course, and now it is time to look at the Beatles as they were - that is what made up the Beatles.

There is no doubt that Beatles were four hearts combined - the Ringoist, the Lennonesque, the Harritualist and the Maccamelodist that made the band greater than its parts. None of these quarter parts would ever equal the wonder, the sheer magic of the whole but the truth must be spoken and it is McCartney, that dude who looks more and more like Murder She Wrote with each passing year who was the heart of the latter period Beatles and since that heart stopped Beating it is the Macca who has continued to push the boundaries of what popular music can be.

One day the Press to Play album will be considered a fucking epic masterpiece because it  fucking is, even if Press is a shit song.

Watching Macca pull the song Get Back from thin air in the Jackson edit has drawn loads of comments - magic, wonderous, brilliantoid - but this is what songwriters do and McCartney is arguably (fuck the facile arguments) the greatest pop./rock songwriter the world has ever known. I saw two Magpies, We're open tonight, the other me wags the long tailed winter bird. I mean get real - stop dissing the genius and for every Ebony and Ivory there is a Looking for Changes to restore the equilibrium.

Macca rocks!!!!

That's what Get Back shows - I've always maintained that the Beatles as a functioning unit ceased to be after Revolver and that from Sgt. Pepper's onwards it was the Paul McCartney band. Sure John and George (actually George came up with his best stuff during this period) contributed a lot of greatness but Macca was the driving force. McCartney seemed to be the only one who cared - the others were burnt out from being the most amazing musical force the world had ever known. Paul was still Beatle-Paul while George was fast vanishing into mysticism, Lennon was in ego destroying and self indulging smack head mode and Ringo was Bricky building. It's all too much but listen to reason folks because you're mother should know.

Let's imagine (all the people) that's it's 1968 - John's off tripping the light fantastic, George's discovering that we all live on within you and without you, Ringo's coming up with a cool sand/cement mix and Paul's...well, Paul's all over the place and soaking up influences from the Asher's eclectic mix of friends and friends of friends. These Liverpool scallywags have done good but whilst the others are content to enjoy the trappings of wealth and fame Paul is still pushing boundaries. John Lennon may have been the original Punk, but Paul was the nutty professor on acid.

The recent album, McCartney III shows this...acid or otherwise.

It's that deep deep feeling in the carrot patch.

So let's re-evaluate Macca - let's pull him from his Beatle past, his ever present past, but remember the Beatles may have split up but Paul never stopped being Beatle Paul. He's still, after all these years, Beatle Paul.

Once you're Beatle Paul you are always Beatle Paul.

Ram is astounding - continues to astound with each passing listen, Venus and Mars is actually better than Band on the Run which in itself is actually AOR gold and if you Listen to what the man said then you may stumble across Electric Arguments which is  amazing. There's a lot more too - Don' Be Careless Love and That Day is Done from Flowers in the Dirt or No Values from the stroll down Broad Street, or the Pound is Sinking while we play Tug of War. There's so much in Beatle Paul's solo work that will astound you and with a little luck carry you on through life.

I got married last year, to a girl I'd known forever and directly after the ceremony (Hand in Hand was played in place of  the wedding march) we went and had a snap at the Abbey Road crossing.

The Beatles and me...we go back a long way.

Beck for Christmas

 THE KILLING TIMES have reported on an all new series of Beck which will premiere on Christmas Day in Sweden, with a UK showing in the wings - great news for fans of all things Nordic Noir -Beck – A New Life will be the first of four new films.

Swedish broadcaster C More says: “This season, the Beck group is facing more complex cases and also major private challenges.”

A body is found floating in the water near Liljeholmen. The body belongs to a 39-year-old Danish citizen with a solid criminal record and a member of a notorious Danish drug
gang. When his car is found near suspicious premises, Alex and Josef start guarding it.