I was watching Country Tracks on BBC 1 this morning – well it was on and I was in the same room.

They were doing what might as well have been an episode of Coast; from Liverpool to Morecambe – with a diversion up the Manchester Ship Canal – taking in along the way Antony Gormley‘s statues on Crosby Beach, and Blackpool.

A lot of the programme consisted of clips shown on previous BBC shows. The introduction to Morecambe was an extract from a 2006 edition of Coast which I remember well as it alerted me to the refurbishment of the Midland Hotel which I looked at last year and Big Rab has photographed recently.

The show is on the BBC iPlayer. For how long I don’t know. (The content wasn’t working when I tried though. The relevant bit will be towards the end.) For a programme called Country Tracks it spent a lot of time in cities and towns this week.

The presenter got to stay the night in the hotel and we saw several shots of the inside and the Eric Gill artworks.

By a curious coincidence yesterday’s Guardian Review (I only get round to reading that bit on a Sunday) had an article about another English sea-side Art Deco extravagance, Marine Court, St Leonards, whose structure is modelled on the liner RMS Queen Mary. Marine Court opened just in time to be made a bit of a white elephant by the Second World War. It’s quite stunning.

2005

This season covers the build up to and aftermath of Pres Bartlet’s re-election. In the course of it, as a result of a freak result in a congressional district where a candidate died during the campaign, Sam Seaborn is detached from the West Wing to stand in his place and is replaced as speech writer by Will Bailey. We also get a substitution of the pet republican by a new one – whose first day is eventful as he uncovers Vice-President John Hoynes’s love affair. This episode started with the revelation of Hoynes’s resignation and then flashed back to the circumstances which brought it about. The tension that could have been built up by this scenario was dissipated by the fact that we knew what was going to happen from the outset.

In this season the writers seem to have made a conscious decision to try to inject humour. Bailey’s appointment is followed by a mass resignation of subsidiary speech writers and so he has to make do with the help of interns whom he finds indistinguishable from each other. There is also some by-play with the glass window between his office and Toby Ziegler’s and with a pigeon that pecks at Donna Moss’s window.

The running theme is that Bartlet has ordered the assassination of a foreign leader and the ramifications of this (both domestic and foreign) are worked through – especially as the reporter Danny Concannon has sniffed out the story.

I wonder whether the writers felt they had to have Bartlet doing something underhand/constitutionally illegal – as opposed to his earlier concealment of his MS – in order to assuage criticism about him being too well intentioned to be true.

We have a cliff hanger at the end when the President’s daughter Zoey is abducted. He stands down temporarily to avoid a conflict of interest and, there being no Vice-President due to Hoynes’s resignation, the Speaker of the House (played by John Goodman) is sworn in as President. In a further illustration of the bizarreries of the US constitution he has to resign as Speaker first though. (Logically doesn’t that then render him no longer next in line?)

…. has not convinced me, I’m afraid.

For me Smith doesn’t embody the role the way previous Doctors have. (As far as the new Who is concerned I was never taken by Christopher Eccleston, either, come to that.)

The character of Amy Pond, however, makes for a cracking companion, not merely an adjunct but substantially more pro-active than those who have accompanied the Doctor before (including Rose Tyler) and capable of carrying a sub-plot without reference back to the Doctor but in this sense she was underused.

And once again, a la Russell T, we had her friendships and relationships as a focus of the stories.

Can we have a bit more universe spanning please and stop relying on entanglements such as these to create a sense of empathy and emotional impact?

Another quibble was that I wasn’t entirely happy with the story arc of the series. What with all the “will never have existed” malarky, it skirted dangerously close to “it was all a dream.”

I know it’s all fiction, but fiction requires rather more substantial backing than this, otherwise it’s not worthwhile people investing their time in consuming it.

I was watching Doctor Who so I didn’t catch the build up to tonight’s game. I switched over just in time to catch the kick-off.

And seven seconds later?

Mark it: seven seconds.

That’s all the time it took for the commentator (Clive Tyldesley?) to mention a certain event in 1966. I think that makes some sort of record.

Not as satisfying a record as the original 7 seconds, as by Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry, which I append below for your pleasure.

7 seconds is, I believe, the only song to feature a lyric in Wolof to trouble the British charts.

2004

The first episode is a one-off – a September 11^th memorial special dealing with terrorism. The intro at the beginning, where all our favourite characters give a little spiel in support of a September 11^th charity, may have been fine at the time but now seems a bit mawkish.

During the special itself Sam Seaborne asserts that terrorism never works. I’m loth to mention this as I don’t want to gave encouragement to any mad, murdering so-and-sos out there; but in fact it has. Israel was established in the late 1940s following a campaign of bombings/shootings etc by the Stern Gang and the Irgun. I suspect this fact would not have suited the mind set of those writing the episode, though, as Israel was put forward as the exemplar of a society/country daily threatened by terrorism. In saying this I do not for a moment argue with the main thrust of this special – that terrorism is barbaric and pluralism is worth defending. In a later episode Toby Ziegler says, with regard to the Arab world, “They’ll like us when we win.” Notwithstanding my earlier sentence, I beg leave to doubt that.

The thrust of this series is on the ramifications of President Bartlet’s MS having been made public, the subsequent congressional hearings and the (re)election primaries. Our tame Republican from season 2 makes only token appearances; some new characters belong to a firm of spin doctors/campaign directors. As the series goes on, Rob Lowe, the actor playing Sam Seaborne, increasingly wears an air of perpetual puzzlement, like a faithful, trusting dog suddenly betrayed.

The caricature of an aristocrat they have as the UK ambassador to Washington refers to the country he represents as England. I would have thought no one in his position would make such a gaffe. Moreover even such a stereotype upper class Englishman would surely know that the malt whisky – and the island where it is produced – is not pronounced Iss-lay but rather Isle-a. (That may have been a double bluff if the writers knew but didn’t think their viewers would – or they could have been suggesting the ambasador thought the person he was speaking to was ignorant.) The US military chief (Fitz) also refers to the “British” and French armies at Agincourt – three hundred years too early for the word in quotes, I’m afraid – and says in a comment on international law and the presence or absence of war that those who laid down their arms in those times were well treated. Henry V ordered prisoners killed at that very battle! Okay it shocked his contemporaries and those on his side who were looking forward to the ransoms; but it did happen.

The series is clearly only an entertainment. I get no sense that this is anything like a real West Wing, whether Bush’s or Clinton’s (or Obama’s.) Everybody’s motives are too pure.

Three episodes in and I’m magnificently underwhelmed.

It’s mainly bish-bosh action and rushing on. The dialogue isn’t coming over well, at least to me. Is it the actors’ diction, or too much background noise, or am I going deaf?

And Karen Gillan ought to have refused to utter the line, “Well, I’m still here, aren’t I?”

As a Scot she should have insisted on, “Well, I’m still here, amn’t I?”

Okay. Charges of gingerism dropped for the moment since no new mention of it was made. Plus the latest companion (like Catherine Tate before her) is a redhead.

Except… The child she was when she first met the doctor was not redheaded. Now how is that exactly? I know this is loosely Science Fiction but usually hair colour diminishes on ageing.

As a setter-upper the episode was passable but no more. A bit harum-scarum. And what is it with Who and creatures with fangs?

I’m not yet convinced by Matt Smith in the role. Full marks for the new assistant’s Scottishness, though.

The acting of the wee lass playing the young Amelia was excellent. Don’t suppose the doctor could have such a callow companion, though. Not nowadays anyway. (The original Doctor had his granddaughter, Susan, An Unearthly Child, with him, of course. She was supposedly of school age but was played by someone much older than that.)

The BBC has been showing trailers for the series – some scenes appeared before the end credits of Episode 1. I was tickled by the khaki Dalek (complete with canvas webbing belt) emerging from the sandbag enclosure.

Pity it can’t carry a swagger stick. That would have been even funnier.

2003

In a double episode at the beginning of this series the writers use the shooting at the end of series 1 as an opportunity to lever in the various characters’ back-story (though to be fair one of the incidents is referred to again later on.) Quite why President Bartlet’s aides were nearly all portrayed as failures before joining his campaign is a touch strange. The device, however, also enables the prolongation of tension (one of our heroes is in critical condition) during these two episodes where not much actually happens.

One of the principal characters from season 1, the youngish woman with the middle aged woman’s hairdo – played by Martha Kelly? – has disappeared without mention. A new one, a rabid Republican, has been introduced to show how nice and inclusive we all are. The President’s chief lawyer seems to be replaced during this series but we’re only told this after it’s happened and the new one has been advising him for half an episode.

The story arc of season 2 is mostly concerned with the ramifications of Pres Bartlet’s multiple sclerosis being hidden from the public who elected him; a long build up to the cliff hanger at the end of episode 22 where we have to wait for next season to find out if he’s decided to run again. Not really any suspense when you’re watching the box set as there are obviously more series to come.

I suppose this storyline is by analogy with Bill Clinton’s troubles; both with Ms Lewinski and Whitewater – a Grand Jury apparently awaits Bartlet.

There is still a lot of info dumping going on – too often with characters telling others things they should already know – but I’m certainly entertained by the minor arcana of the US constitution. (At least theirs is written down.)

One final thought. There are Gilbert and Sullivan buffs in the US? Who’d have thought it?

Two losses today. One is provisional but will most likely go through and that is the takeover of Cadbury by Kraft. This can only presage “restructuring” and job losses. Cadbury was one of the original good employers, renowned for treating its employees with consideration, actively looking out for their welfare. This arose from the Quaker traditions of the company’s founders. I can’t see much of that ethos surviving under Kraft.

Also, if the takeover is finalised can reformulation of Cadbury products using cheaper ingredients be far behind?

The other loss is irrevocable and struck me more personally. It is the death of Rugby Union commentator Bill McLaren. For many of my age he was – and remains – the voice of Rugby Union. His knowledge and enthusiasm for the game shone through every comment and his impartiality was impressive.

Rugby Union has never felt the same without him behind the microphone. I sometimes wondered how he felt about the modern professional era as, to me, it seems more soulless than in his commentating heyday.

Cadbury’s, 1824-2010.

William Pollock McLaren, 16/10/1923-19/1/2010.

So it goes.

It seems I may have done Russell T something of a disservice. According to the comments in a blog which I frequent, the dialogue for the new Doctor’s scene was actually scripted by Steven Moffat, the new overall supremo for the series.

Also the line, “And still not ginger,” seems to be a reference to one of David Tennant’s first utterances in the role. I had forgotten he was given that to say but now I’ve been reminded I do vaguely recollect it. As I recall now, Tennant said it in a regretful tone, though, which I did not think Matt Smith did.

For me, the new doctor has got off on the wrong foot.