TV series recommendation: Professor T

Originally a Belgian series, this UK remake stars Ben Miller as the uptight hero of the UK series: Professor Jasper Tempest. You might know Ben Miller from the first series of TV crime series Death in Paradise. He was Richard Poole, an equally uptight character.

You might also recognise the actor playing his mother: Frances de la Tour, who was Ruth Jones in the classic 70s sitcom Rising Damp and, for younger audiences, Madame Olymp Maxine in the Harry Potter film series.

The poor man has to put up with not-so-bright students and his OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), not to mention his overbearing mother, a drip of a boss, and a secretary who is unusual to say the least. His ex-wife (one wonders how they ever got married in the first place) is a police officer. He is called in by the police to assist with a case and he basically never stops helping. Oh, and there is some mystery about his father's death when he was a child. He keeps having flashbacks and his mother is very anxious about him uncovering the truth...

The episodes are all very scenic as the series is set in Cambridge. If you like McDonald & Dodds, you'll like this.

Bennet Evan Miller and his on-screen mum Frances de la Tour:

TV series recommendation: Harry Wild

This is a crime series set in Dublin and starring Jane Seymour. She is an English literature lecturer who retires from the university right at the start of the first episode. And like Loriot in Papa ante Portas, she finds herself at a loose end.

With the aid of a tearaway but bright young boy and her 14-year-old granddaughter, she solves crimes by referring to works of literature. Her shenanigans annoy the hell out of her son, who happens to be a detective.

All very enjoyable - especially since it combines crime with literature - and I'm watching the first series again.

For more information:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14527610/?ref_=tt_sims_tt_i_4

TV series recommendation: Miss Scarlet and the Duke

If you enjoy cosy historical crime series, this is a series for you.

Set in late Victorian London, a father dies and his daughter, Eliza Scarlet, steps into his shoes as a private investigator. Over three series (with a fourth in the pipeline), we see how she struggles to acquire cases and to be taken seriously as a female private detective.

Obviously, there is a dashing police officer (whose looks put me in mind of a young Clint Eastwood or Hugh Jackman) to assist her, and to be completely annoyed by her insistence on doing things her way. As is also the case with the Murdoch Mysteries, we also have the stock character of the at first clueless and hapless young police officer who has to be taken under the wing of the astute inspector. The loyal housekeeper, with Eliza since her childhood, provides good advice and acts as a haven for our young heroine. And then there is a shady, but kind-hearted, criminal who also assists with the investigations. 

Good sets and costumes, mainly filmed in Dublin and Serbia, it seems. Interesting plots. All highly entertaining. If you like the books by Charles Finch and his hero Charles Lennox (also set in Victorian London), then you should enjoy this TV series.

More information here:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8270592/episodes?season=1

Length isn't everything....

 ...as the actress said to the bishop*.

Over the Easter weekend, I went out with my walking group on Easter Sunday and Easter Monday.

The walk on Easter Sunday was 20 km long but flat - in the countryside near the Dutch border. Lakes, fields, a heath and forest. Easy peasy.

The walk on Easter Monday was supposed to be 12 km but hilly. I was more tired after the first 10 minutes (with 124 steps to get out of the valley and on the hillside) than I had been at the end of the previous day's walk. Phew. 

We had some newcomers to the group who thought that 12 km was going to be easier than 20 km, but as I soon told them, you can't go by length. The main criterion as to how knackering a walk is going to be is how hilly the countryside is. 

*In the UK, you can make a double entendre simply by adding the words "as the actress said to the bishop" at the end of any sentence that can be read with a salacious [wollüstig] meaning.