kinuta

The Dust Bowl - Ken Burns

Mid '70s in Sudder Street Calcutta. I was looking for a decent barber rather than the pavement wallahs and this congenial barber was sitting outside his Raj era shop, he gave me a great haircut and shave with a genuine cutthroat razor.. Lovely shop, all dark wood, mirrors ,marble and whirring ceiling fans. These days I pay 1500 yen for cut and shampoo. Pensioners rate ! A shave is another 200yen.

Suits S2 Good gracious, talk about wall to wall babes.

Hope everything works out for you, Vic. All the best.

English basically but there are many times when I think in Japanese. I spent two hours at the hospital this morning and didn't think in English once, I guess I've long passed the stage of translating stuff in my head as I go along, 30 odd years has that effect. In answer to King U, I'd say ' Please do it exactly as we did last time'.

Many happy returns of the day, Bruce

Right, remember the smarty pants kids who told me my cursive was wrong, ' The I doesn't connect at that angle and you should loop the t lower etc etc. I smiled and told him we were weird in England and loved breaking rules.

Same here, first time I saw him was in 'Life'. Never saw him in 'The Forsyte Saga'. I too liked 'Life' a lot and was quite smitten with Sarah Shahi as his sidekick. Happy to see she will be appearing in 'Person of Interest'. Anyone else love that show? Yes, we are dedicated fans of Mr Finch and Mr Reese. Seems 'Life' was cancelled as the ravishing Ms Shahi was pregnant and the replacement woman couldn't hack it, for want of a better expression.

Right, corporate suits cancel so many interesting programmmes, don't even mention Rubicon and Terriers.

Found season one of 'Homeland' compelling viewing, very powerful. Agree about Damian Lewis, just saw him in the recent film 'The Sweeney' and it was strange to hear him talking in a London accent! Did you watch him as Soames Forsyte in The Forsyte Saga remake? The original with Eric Porter is probably the definitive take but Damian Lewis did a workmanlike job. I also liked his fruit noshing detective in the short lived 'Life'.

Just out of idle curiosity, when was the last time you eat a hamburger at a hamburger or fast food 'joint' ? Try as I might I cannot remember, I think it might have been a ' Burger King' in Sheffield about three years ago. Half of it went in the bin.

30 Rock - started rewatching season 1.

Rather you than me mate, keep us posted on the latest grim nastiness. Be sure to check out Channel 4 ' Utopia', although the ' we have ways of making you talk' scene surpasses anything in The Following or Zero Dark Thirty. Watching a few episodes from Season 1 of Law & Order.

Over several days, Ken Burn's The Civil War , the whole series. Again as a non American I realised how little I really knew about this seminal historic event. I thought it tended to go on a bit but when ever it seemed in danger of slipping into tedium it was rescued by Shelby Foote. Love his folksy anecotes. PS The Following was awful. I like Kevin Bacon but the programme was bad news.

Are chapatis too humble ? Just mix wholewheat flour, Pilsbury Chakki Atta is about the best with a couple of pinches of salt and very slowly add water mixing and kneading until the dough is firm and not too wet. Knead for 5 minutes, cover with another bowl and leave for 10 minutes. Roll out the chapati dusted with flour and dry cook on medium heat in a non stick frying pan. They should puff up nicely, just don't have the pan too hot. Once you've mastered chapatis YouTube has a large number of similar recipes for paratha, stuffed paratha, puri and most kinds of Indian breads.

Yes, I'll miss Walter, one of the screen's outstanding eccentrics.

Tate & Lyle Green & Black McVitie & Price

Breaking Bad is superb, don't give up after a few episodes, it really does take off into mouth watering storytelling .

It's a great show. I've been a fan since it began and I can't remember seeing a substandard episode.

Benson Jeeves Lurch

Margaret ( directors cut) - Kenneth Lonergan (2011) No spoilers ! A must see and in my best films of the year list. Yes, I know it's 2011 but I'll make allowance for the fact that it was unavailable for ages.

Avast has a great track record, only once in the last five years has anything broken through and that was soon cleared up.

I'm going to have to be honest and say that Flight was probably the most impressive mainstream film I saw. I also thought Arbitrage was excellent and curiously unmentioned. I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree on The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, I didn't like it at all but agree on Liberal Arts, that was excellent. In the dudefest-kick ass dept. Dredd was the clear winner.

6.00 am here so I guess I'm the first. Hope 2013 works out well for you.

Roower - cry , bawl, shed tears, as in Shurrup roowering - stop crying.