How well do I know my sons?

I recommended Money Heist to Dan, my younger son. The recommendation was a success as he rated it "probably in my top 10 [TV series] ever". Which led me to think what the other 9 would be. So I'm going to give it a go and he can tell me my score in the Comments. Maybe he could even take up my offer of a guest blogger spot!

Bear in mind he's 35 years younger than me so I have to avoid some of my own preferences - e.g. Only Fools And Horses - he was 2 at the time. Here goes. No particular order.

The Sopranos

Game Of Thrones

Stranger Things

The Wire

Breaking Bad

Dexter

Friends

The West Wing

For the final guess it's a toss up between Succession, Billions, The Thick of It and Homeland. I'll go for...

Homeland

I eagerly await my score..... 

Other readers can post their top 10s!

The Sinner

I was brought up in an evangelical Christian household and spent my formative years in membership of the Salvation Army. The SA was founded in the east end of London in the middle of the 19th century, where the alleviation of poverty as its central social mission was fuelled by a deep hatred of alcoholism and other vices of the poor. So I had an instinctive understanding of the concept of Sin - the sins of drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco and much more were a fundamental part of the organisation's message and of the prohibitions of membership.

You can imagine the temptations this brought to an inquisitive and intelligent teenager; they were probably the origins of the rebel I became and arguably continue to be.

I pondered this when I started watching the Netflix series The Sinner. It's a psychological  drama covering four seasons, each of eight episodes. The central character, Harry Ambrose, is a detective who appears in all four seasons although the rest of the cast of characters changes for each season. In each case there is a murder and we know the perpetrator straight away. But Ambrose looks beneath the plain facts and seeks to understand the murderer's motivations, believing that there may be ameliorating circumstances which could affect the justice system's treatment of the case. With the perpetrator he acts as therapist as much as investigator.

As the seasons follow, the scenarios grow darker. Season one features a - on the face of it - perfectly normal wife and mother who unaccountably stabs someone to death on the beach. Season two gives us a glimpse into an ugly cult through the eyes of a young boy who poisons two of the cult members.

As things progress, we learn about Ambrose's own background and understand more of why he relates to these abused people whom he sees as victims (of their pasts) rather than offenders. It seems to me that he is the eponymous Sinner.

Season three for me just got too dark. A teacher, husband and father is involved in the death of someone whom he knew and was very close to. As we are shown flashbacks to their relationship we come to see that person as someone very destructive indeed. He came across to me as almost the personification of evil and I simply felt - halfway through episode four - that it was disturbing me too much and I should stop.

So I did.

I spent some time debating whether I should post this. But, if I'm going to describe movies and TV shows which I enjoy and think you might too, I felt a responsibility to mention those which I would dissuade anyone whose sensibilities are similar to mine from watching. It's fair to say that there has been a degree of critical acclaim for The Sinner and it has many good points. It's just that, for me, it went too far into the dark side.

Distinguished and Commemorable News

Johann Carolus' newsbook entitled Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien (Account of All Distinguished and Commemorable News) published in Strasbourg was the first European newspaper. Indeed the World Association of Newspapers recognises it as the world's first.

In fact it was more like a newsletter or court circular, listing who was where, why and what for. Carolus was a bookbinder and bookseller by trade and had begun writing newsletters, which had been popularised at the turn of the 16th/17th centuries. Relation was first published in 1605 and was such a success that it spawned not just copies but a whole new industry. Two new industries in fact, since the spread of news led to questioning about the veracity and provenance of the 'information' and very soon to a 'fake news' bandwagon. Robert Burton, an Oxford don, wrote in his Anatomy of Melancholy:

A vast confusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances are daily brought to our ears. New books every day, pamphlets, corantoes, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion, etc. Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays ... treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villainies of all kinds, funerals, burials, deaths of princes, new discoveries, expeditions.

Robert was not a happy man, it's fair to say. Or maybe he was simply illustrating the melancholy of the title. BTW corantoes  "were early informational broadsheets, precursors to newspapers. Beginning around the 14th century" [Wikipedia].

All this I learned from the latest book from my reading list: TRUTH - subtitled A Brief History of Total Bullsh❌t. It's am amusing read although to be honest the central premise - that you should be very careful what you are being persuaded to believe - could have been expressed in perhaps half the book's 266 pages. The book describes misinformation, scams, politics and various amusing delusions. For instance, in August 1835 the New York Sun published a series of articles "describing" life on the Moon for the race of bat people who lived there. The Great Moon Hoax was presented by a new editor who wanted to boost circulation. It worked! You can read all about it on that great purveyor of truth, Wikipedia. Also: a 1614 pamphlet described a dragon living near Horsham in Surrey. Although, on reflection, maybe that was true; who knows?

TRUTH is a sequel to the author's HUMANS, also with a subtitle but one unsuitable for the sensitive and youthful eyes of my younger readers. Tom Phillips, the author, works as the editor of Full Fact, a charity which describes itself as "a team of independent fact checkers and campaigners who find, expose and counter the harm it does". Sounds like a noble pursuit.

If, like me, you are of a cynical disposition, you will find this grist to your mill. Although you will probably already be a member of the "don't believe anything you read" club. It's a depressing approach to human intercourse but the problem is alleviated in the book by the writer's wit and inclusion of many anecdotes illustrating the basic point.

Doesn't know his [] from his []

Boris in a hospital today. Checking out a large hi tech machine.

"Like something out of Star Wars, Rishi" (Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak was with him)

"Beam me up, Scottie"

Doesn't know his Star Wars from his Star Trek.

If you can write, you can drive

In order to get a driving licence in Honduras, you have to take, and pass, a simple written questionnaire and complete a medical check, eye exam and a blood test. That's it. No practical test. Tip for visitors to Honduras: don't rent a car, the locals haven't learned how to drive!

According to zuto.com, the UK has one of the longest driving theory tests in the world, at 50 questions. The world champion? Vietnam, with a whopping 450 questions. The majority of Vietnamese drivers are extremely old, because it takes so many years to complete the theory test. It's a lot easier in Uganda, where you only need to get 25% of the 30 questions right.

Until recently, the Egyptian driving test involved just a highly tricky "drive forwards six meters; then reverse six meters". Which meant the testers didn't need any test track greater than 6 meters in length. I haven't been able to confirm what percentage of people failed this. Recently the test has been made harder (it could hardly been made easier) by the addition of an S shaped track and a parking test.

The Philippines driving test lasts about 5 minutes and includes making right turns only. There is driving on the right in the country, so presumably all Philippine roads are circular, making it awkward to get from one coast to another. Maybe there's only one road in the country, making the North Circular look pathetically small. But good for an Indy 500 perhaps. In contrast, in India - where they drive on the left - you only have to  be able turn left in the driving test.

Meanwhile, here in the UK a new Highway Code, which is described by the Government as "essential reading for all road users, including pedestrians, mobility scooter users, cyclists, horse riders, drivers and motorcyclists", has been published. It includes a new "hierarchy of road users":

1. pedestrians, in particular children, older adults (yay!) and disabled people

2. cyclists

3. horse riders

4. motorcyclists

5. Motorised vehcles

which frankly sounds what already pertains.

There are countries which require first aid training for drivers, which sounds like a good idea.

Want to know the safest countries, based on road fatalities per capita? San Marino leads with just 0 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants (the UK is 10th with 3.5). Be careful in Libya (40.5), Venezuela 37.2) or Thailand (38.1).

I'm off to San Marino for my hols. Not driving, just walking in the streets.

First Neil Young then Joni Mitchell - who's next?

Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have apparently asked for their music to be deleted from Spotify's catalogue in a fit of pique about the inclusion of podcasts by someone called Joe Rogan, who commits the ultimate sin of interviewing (and by and large agreeing with) vaccine sceptics. I believe this is called self-cancel culture.

If you were to hazard a guess as to who would be next to jump on this particular bandwagon, who would it be?

Yep you've got it; it's Harry and Meghan. They are believed to be miffed that something has gone viral without their being included, liked, followed or even noticed.

Daniel Ek is reported to be mortified. Not.

I really have no idea who Neil Young is, or Joe Rogan, but I thought you should know.