From Fulchester to Walmington-on-Sea

Apropos my previous post, I decided I should add to the small number (two) of Sci-Fi films with titles taken from the Book of Common Prayer.

My contribution, Evil Liver, was inspired by the Rubric on confession before Communion. But then (read, mark learn and inwardly digest) I remembered the time I wrote The Last Starfighter; well, not so much wrote the film, but wrote a synopsis for a screenplay which had an identical plot to The Last Starfighter - a film which I had not seen, although it had been made some twenty years earlier. So, I did the Google thing, and found that Evil Liver was an episode of Crown Court, one written by New Zealand's own Dame Ngaio Marsh (any gentle reader who does not know Crown Court clearly did not grow up in Britain in the 1970s, an admirable accomplishment in itself but one which might cause the reader to be a little confused).

Speaking of court, what a wonderful thing it would be to have a counsel like Guyon Foley, who represented Mr Roger McClay thus:

In his defence submissions, Mr Foley outlined McClay's record of "tireless" public service and said the fraud was baffling in comparison to that background.

If convicted, he would lose his ex-MP travel entitlements - 12 domestic flights and one international, worth up to $30,000 a year.

"That is not inconsequential for Mr McClay. That is in effect a fine of $30,000 every year for the rest of his life," said Mr Foley.

If any rhetoricians among the gentle readership should ever be looking to explain the word "specious," this example should suffice.

I am still waiting for the Sensible Sentencing Trust to be outraged at the community sentence given to Mr McClay. After all, he was already working for the community, and look what he did there.

On the other hand, I am pleased to discover that the Vodafone Warriors have a Captain Mannering.