This week I thought I’d continue with my theme of real people in TV and film and throw in a few personal thoughts too. It’s been a quiet week. The weather in November in the UK has been the usual dull and dismal November weather and October wasn’t that great either. Despite October being my birthday month it isn’t a month that I’m really keen on. There’s Hallowe’en for instance when perfect strangers knock on your door and ask for treats, then comes bonfire night when it’s the usual nightmare of fireworks going off at all times of the evening and night.
While I’m having a moan I might as well mention my back which has been sore for quite a while. To be fair I’m not in any kind of agony but it’s sore all the same. A few months back the doctor sent me for an x ray. Apparently, it didn’t turn out so good so then they sent me for another one. The other x ray didn’t turn out so good either but by then my back pain had eased off so I wasn’t that worried but then I got a call from the doctor asking me a whole raft of questions and suggesting a third x ray was needed.
This sounded a little odd to me, especially when I went into the doctor’s surgery to pick up the card that you need to take down to the walk in centre where they take the x ray. I must have misunderstood they told me, you don’t need another x ray. To be honest I don’t think I misunderstood at all and I tend to think that they need to get a grip at this surgery.
Until I Kill You
Anyway, let’s move on. I mentioned above about a post I published a few weeks back about real people portrayed in films and this last week I’ve watched quite a bit of TV on this theme. One particular programme was Until I Kill You. It was a true life drama in four parts and it was pretty scary. It was about a woman, Delia Balmer, who gets involved with a man called John Sweeney who turns out to be a serial killer. The couple move in together but Sweeney is a bit controlling so Delia asks him to leave. He responds by attacking her, tying her to the bed and repeatedly raping her. She is lucky in that she has a friend who is looking out for her. The friend telephones when Delia doesn’t turn up for work and doesn’t believe the story Sweeney gives and tells him so, threatening to call the police.
Later when Delia has been released, she goes to the police, reports the assault but the judge decides to parole Sweeney so he returns and tries to kill her although the next door neighbour intervenes and calls the police and ambulance. Despite stab wounds Delia survives but it is only years later when Sweeney is connected to other murders that he is finally imprisoned.
The police and the justice system don’t come out of this looking good but at least Delia was finally able to put things behind her and carry on with her life. You can stream the four part series over on ITVX.
Back to the Personal Stuff
A few days later the doctor’s surgery called and asked me to see the doctor that same day. The doctor discussed the x rays and said he had to send me for an urgent CT scan. When I asked why, he used a lot of big medical words and it was only after we were ushered out, Liz, who has some medical knowledge, told me he was saying that I might have cancer.
The first thing I thought of was I hoped that this wasn’t going to ruin our long stay in Lanzarote we have planned for next February. I started thinking about having chemotherapy and being stuck in hospital when I should be relaxing in the sun and I began to think maybe it’s time to get my things in order and write a will or something. My dad lived until he was 72 so I was kind of hoping I might have a few years left.
Sully: Miracle on the Hudson
When I was on holiday in France not so long ago, I picked up a DVD in a vide grenier, a car boot sale. The great thing about DVDs is that even if you buy a French one, as long as there is an English language option you can watch it in English. The DVD I picked up was called Sully and it falls quite easily into the theme of real people portrayed in films.
If the name Sully doesn’t quite ring a bell at least you might remember an incident that happened in New York in 2009 when a passenger airliner had to land on the Hudson River. The aircraft, piloted by Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger, had just left LaGuardia airport when it was hit by a flock of birds which disabled both engines and forced the crew to ditch in the Hudson. That was pretty dramatic but you could be forgiven for thinking there wasn’t much material to make a film out of. Even so, the film, directed by Clint Eastwood was pretty exciting and concerns not only the landing in the river but the following inquest in which the civil aviation authority tries to make out that Sully could have made it back to the airport.
Various simulations seemed to show that an emergency landing at the airport was possible but at the hearing, Sully questions that the simulations were done without the human factor. The simulation pilots knew the engines would fail and were ready to turn immediately back to the airfield. Sully and his co-pilot did not. They followed procedure to restart the engines which failed and only then did they realise the only option was landing in the river.
Sully cooly asks how many attempts did the simulator pilots have before getting the landing right. The answer was 17. Sully of course only had 1 attempt.
Tom Hanks plays Sully and plays, as usual, a good part and if you happen to notice Sully on your TV listings, it’s well worth watching.
Back to the Personal Stuff
One day I received a text message asking me to come to have a CT scan at Victoria Hospital in Blackpool. I had to click on a link to confirm I was attending and that was pretty much it, until a few days later I got a confirmation letter and I realised the scan was at a drop in centre and not at the hospital. Anyway, I went along for the scan which was a very quick fire experience. I went into the scan area and lay down on a bed. I was expecting to have to strip off and get into a hospital gown but no, I lay down fully clothed, handed over my specs and wallet and the machine arch ran over me a few times and that was it.
Lord Lucan
I reckon I need another true life film or TV show to finish this post off. This week I watched a TV documentary about Lord Lucan which was pretty interesting. I tuned in thinking it was a drama but it was actually a documentary. It was an interesting documentary but a very slow and long winded one. It was in three parts and followed a Hampshire builder, Neil Berriman, who had been adopted as a baby and finds that his birth mother was the nanny murdered by Lord Lucan.
Back in November 1974 the body of Sandra Rivett was discovered in a Belgravia basement and the chief suspect was Lord Lucan, who promptly disappeared. Neil teams up with an investigative journalist and together they track Lucan down to Australia where they reckon a man using the name ‘John Crawford’, is actually Lucan. It all looked pretty likely that Crawford might actually be their man but then other evidence emerged that seemed to invalidate that claim. It was pretty interesting but to be honest, this very slow moving documentary could have easily been cut down to two or maybe even one episode. If you are interested you can stream Lucan on the BBC iPlayer.
And Finally
After about a week I noticed a report on my MY GP phone app about my scan which said ‘abnormal results, contact patient.’ No one had contacted me so I called up the surgery and asked to speak to the doctor. After about 20 mins the doctor called me back. Happily there was no need to worry, the scan had showed no trace of cancer and the ‘abnormal’ report referred to my back and the need for further treatment at the muscular skeletal unit.
I have to admit to a warm feeling of relief when I put the phone down. I wasn’t about to die after all and I could look forward to a month in Lanzarote. The only thing is, watching Sully has put me off air travel. Wonder if we could sail to Lanzarote instead?
It’s been another cold and wet week and as usual I’ve tended to lie back on my couch and watch a lot of television and not just broadcast TV either. Lots of times when broadcast TV isn’t up to the job of entertaining me, I’m forced to crank up a recording and watch that. Just lately I’ve watched a couple of biopics, films about real people, so for this post I thought I’d continue that theme and look at films and TV shows where the actors have had to portray real people.
Stan Laurel
Letters from an Unknown Author! 