MOBSTER CONFESSIONS

 

 DISCOVERY CHANNEL

 

This documentary is based on an account by Billy Cutolo Jr. who is an ex-mobster. He was based in New York where there are five big crime families one of which is the Columbo gang that Cutolo and his father before him were members of. The story begins with some in fighting amongst the gang. The gang leader was in jail and a power struggle erupted between two members. When the war was over Billys father was on the losing side, but as things settled down it appeared that all was forgiven and things went back to business as usual. However it wasn’t long before Billy Senior was “erased”. When Billy Jr. found out he wanted to take lives in revenge.

Shortly afterwards the FBI approached Billy Jr and asked if he would like to help get the men that had his father killed. After some soul searching he decides to help the FBI which he does by providing his dads journals and wearing a wire when he went to meetings with gang members. He recorded over 100 conversations. He managed to get his fathers killer on tape threatening his family. His testimony led to convictions. Sadly for Billy Jr. though this was not happy ever after time because he and his entire family had to go in to the witness protection program which meant taking on new lives and identities. When he told the rest of his family what he had done he did not get the reaction that he expected. He was seen as a “grass” by his family who couldn’t believe what he had done. Sadly, Billy Jr. informs us that he is not in contact with any of his family now.

The documentary is of the style that uses re-enactments and dramatizations of the story, which were done ok and also featured an interview with Billy Jr. It is fascinating to look into another world: a world that is alien to most of us whose only knowledge of organized crime comes from the news media and movies. It is fascinating yet horrifying that we have within our midst people who would think nothing of killing another for the personal gain it will bring. They move within their own circles but the documentary makes mention of an incident that cost two bystanders their lives, so it can reach the public. What a horrible thought: sitting in a cafe drinking a Latte and being killed!  It brings a new meaning to a shot of Coffee!

Billy Jr. paid a high price to get justice, losing his family and his identity but declares that he is glad that he broke the cycle of violence. Mobster Confessions looks like it will be an interesting show for those of you that like crime programs. It has nothing new to offer in the way of a format but that isn’t really important. The story was well told and reasonably well dramatized. My verdict: good for fans of crime and gangster shows as long as it continues to find new people to showcase.

THE REASON HANK MARVIN WILL OUTLIVE CLIFF RICHARD

Once upon a time there was a big sensation in the pop world: Cliff Richard and his backing band The Shadows.

 Cliff became big in the 1960s and was marketed as the clean-cut boy next door with Christian values. He parted company with the Shadows in the 1970s and went on to solo superstar status. Annoyingly he would bring out a Christmas record every year which would be number one on the chart for the duration of the festive season.

 As the seventies became the eighties and then the nineties cliff continued to put out records, mostly at Christmas. Through the eighties he was a popular guest on daytime TV and chat shows and maintained a large following of fans. I wonder now, though, how many youngsters know who he is?

Cliffs backing group, the Shadows featured one Hank Marvin as lead guitarist. He may have been in the “shadow” of Cliff but I think that his name will live on a lot longer thanks to cockney rhyming slang. Even if the man himself is not remembered his name will live on. For those of you who don’t know, “Hank Marvin’“  is now a slang term for starving. For example, someone comes home from work and says to their partner or parent:  “What do we have for a snack, I’m Hank Marvin’ “.

 Hank and the Shadows had a string of hits themselves, the biggest being “Apache” a number one all over the world. It won’t be his music or his association with the evergreen Mr. Richard which will keep Hanks memory alive, however, it will be his name passing in to common parlance. He has been awarded the greatest of accolades in the pop culture world – his name is now featuring in an advert for Mattessons “Fridge Raiders”.

This is why Hank will be immortalised and the memory of him will outlast that of Sir Cliff: youngsters watching the advert are going to think “Who is this Hank Marvin whose name means starvin’?” They will then go on the internet and look it up, and in doing so will learn of Hank and his famous Stratocaster Guitar, and will probably think “oh”. Be that as it may Hank Marvin is immortalised.

 Who Knows, as time goes by perhaps a legend will spring up around him. People will be saying that long ago there was a guy called Hank Marvin, who had a voracious appetite and would hide in the shadows beneath a cliff from which he would pounce on passers-by with snack food.

Well, stranger things have happened...

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: THE LONDON UNDERGROUND

I recently watched a documentary about expanding the London Underground. It was interesting to see how they make the tunnels these days, dealing with the challenges of digging in an old city. There was also a history of the tube given including how it was necessary to find a clean and economic means of propulsion. There is also a look at the New York subway and the Paris Metro which show the innovative techniques that have come about through improvements in tunnelling.

Due to London being such an old and historic city the Victorians decided that trains should not run across the city. This meant that all the stations in to London were in a ring on the outskirts of the city, making it difficult to get in to the heart of the city. Thus was born the idea of an underground railway.

 In the early days the work was manual and dangerous. It involved two men digging in a tunnel shield. Powerful hydraulic jacks were pushed forward every 60cm that was dug and a metal cylinder was put in the gap. Many workers died during the construction of tunnels worldwide so giant boring equipment has developed which is automated.

A look at the methods that were needed for London, New York and Paris, all with individual challenges shows just how resourceful and ingenious humans can be. Of particular interest was the way in which Big Ben had to have the ground beneath it reinforced before a new line to Canary Wharf could be undertaken. As the clock and parliament are standing on a bed of shale that is not very solid the ground beneath the buildings had to be reinforced by injecting concrete through rods that were embedded deep below the surface of the ground. The engineers that were interviewed were confident that this solution would prevent the buildings from capsizing. Whether they have factored in thousands of tube trains travelling through this ground causing vibration is another matter: I suppose they have but it still feels to me that the whole area could move if there was heavy use of the line.

Other innovations are limited by the size of the tunnels, therefore research has been carried out in to aerodynamics, lightweight and strong materials, ventilation and ways to maximise the payload. Events such as the London tube fire also hastened improvements after a wooden escalator caused a massive fire and fatalities. Lessons were learned not just about how fire spreads but the danger of smoke and toxic fumes created by burning wood as well as evacuation procedures.

This is an interesting documentary if you are interested in trains or transport history: it also shows just what we can achieve with planning and vision. People use the underground every day, taking it for granted, and are probably unaware of the work that went in to providing a high speed transport system for greater London. A good watch.

TIRED OF TV REPEATS? TRY STUMBLEUPON

Recently television schedules seem to be full of repeats: programmes are not only repeated during the same week nowadays, they get repeated every four hours on some channels. Even with hundreds of channels available it is difficult to find something new and interesting to watch. It isn’t just the general entertainment channels that do this the documentary channels are just as bad. Well here is an alternative for you which will satisfy your desire for knowledge and need for entertainment: “stumbling”.

There is an excellent add-on available for the Firefox browser, which I believe is also available for other browsers called Stumbleupon. It is my favourite internet tool and has been for a long time. When you sign up for Stumbleupon, which is easy and does not involve giving many personal details you are taken through a plethora of subjects from which you choose the ones that you are interested in. I have chosen interests that cover a range of topics, from sociology to ancient history, UFOs, my favourite types of music, horror films, and so on. Altogether I have chosen over one hundred topics of interest. Once the choices are made and the sign up is complete a “Stumble” toolbar is added to your browser. I promise you, with this add on installed your days of boredom are over.

If you get periods of time when you would like to unwind but can’t really find something to do just hit the stumble button and it will take you to a page from one of your interests. Pressing the button will choose from your interests at random and find a photo, news item, video or site. It is also possible to select to stumble just videos or photos, or to choose just one particular interest or site to stumble. You can also stumble within certain popular sites such as youtube, flikr, Wikipedia and many others. It is amazing how many times I have found items I would never have thought of looking for but have found fascinating or enlightening.

No matter what your interests are you will find stumbleupon a useful tool. I have found hundreds of pages and sites that are saved in to my favourites. Any time I am bored I stumble and it doesn’t take me long to find something new and interesting. Sometimes I remove some subjects and replace them with new ones for a bit of variety. I have some amazing photographs saved that I am sure I would never have thought to go and look for.

I don’t generally recommend anything because I am one of lifes cynics but I think that Stumbleupon is worth it. Give it a try: its free so you have nothing to lose.

AWAKE

It is difficult to find an original program these days, especially in the drama category so when I saw a trailer for a new show called Awake I was intrigued.

The show is about a cop (Jason Isaacs), who is in an accident when his car was run off the road by another car. He wakes up after the accident and he is in a world where his wife survived and his son died. The he goes to sleep and wakes up in a world where his wife is dead and his son survived. This is an interesting concept as the character is unsure which reality, if either, is real and which he is imagining. He is under a psychiatrist in both “realities” and the shrink in both worlds is telling him that the world he is currently in is the proper reality.

As the story unfolds it turns out that he and his family were in a car crash. This led to the situation he is in. He works on cases in both dream worlds and the cases often overlap, leading the character, Detective Britten to conclude that the link between the two worlds is because there is something that his unconscious memory is trying to tell him. Indeed it transpires that the car accident that he was in was no accident, and that he was in fact run off the road in an attempt to kill him because he was working on a case that had uncovered a drugs gang with links to the police.

As the series progresses detective Britten not only works on routine cases but puts together the pieces following the accident and begins to remember the drugs case. He then has to convince his partner(s) in each reality that he needs their help to uncover the truth.To indicate which reality he is in, in one reality he has a red band on his wrist, in the other he wears a blue band. He checks his wrist when he wakes so that he can orient himself. Without giving too much away, Britten manages to put the pieces together and when he does he wakes up. The viewer wonders throughout the story which life is the real one, did his wife die or did his son die: in fact I pondered upon whether he was in a coma and his family lived, with the dreams being his way back to life.

The show does have the feel of “Life on Mars” but is by no means a copy. The series runs for thirteen episodes and it kept me interested throughout, although the ending wasn’t very satisfactory for me: But that could just be me as I wasn’t happy with the end of Life on Mars either, or Lost, or Paradox (which ended after six episodes and never returned), V (also disappeared without an end). All in all this is a good show worth watching. The cast is strong and portray their characters well. Laura Allen (the 4400, Dirt) plays Brittens wife and BD Wong (Law and order, SVU, Oz and various major shows as one off character) plays a psychiatrist. The other psychiatrist is played by Cherry Jones (24, Signs, the Perfect Storm, Oceans 12).   

If I was marking this show out of ten I’d give it an 8. It is definitely worth a watch.