Tasty Pastry

After two failed attempts at home-made brownies, I thought I'd share one success this week.  It came in the form of a Spinach and Goat's Cheese Tart, born from a recipe I came across on the This Morning website.  

I could happily turn vegetarian if I could eat this all the time! 

So-long good service

With Mary ‘Queen of Shops’ Portas recently starting her revolution of the retail industry in the style of Jamie Oliver (Channel 4), and Michel Roux training young adults in restaurant service (BBC2), I’ve been thinking a lot about customer service.  One of the many frustrating aspects of unemployment is seeing people in work who clearly do not appreciate their responsibility, showing no interest in what they are doing, who they are doing it for; and yet they go home happy with a pocketful of money and a sense of security. 

Last week it was announced that the direct train running from Wrexham to London Marylebone was to cease.  Beginning in 2008, the Wrexham, Shropshire and Marylebone Rail (WSMR) carriages called at ten stations, taking slightly longer than other lines but allowing the passenger a stress-free journey without worrying about making any connections (which in my experience of countless delays is a very good thing).  Old-fashioned carriages, with plenty of space between seats, and old-fashioned friendliness to match made this a service to rival.  Yet it was suddenly revealed that it could not continue due to a loss of £2.8m last year due to poor customer numbers.  The BBC reported that in an independent survey, WSMR received a 99% satisfaction rating – if only more people had used it more often.  

I never hesitated to recommend the service to others, each journey being the most pleasant British rail experience my short life has known.  A far cry from the crowded carriages, miserable conductors and smelly vestibules that so many other rail companies seem to thrive on, WSMR offered a sterling service.    Each and every conductor I came across was friendly and welcoming, and more than happy to answer passengers’ queries, passing through the carriages on a regular basis bearing one of those rare and beautiful treasures...a smile on their face. 

I had a fondness for this service for other reasons too.  Most conveniently it called at Leamington Spa, where I lived whilst at university, and offered a direct line home to my village train station, a mere ten minute walk from my house.  Given the choice, I opted for this slightly longer direct service every time as it was actually a pleasant experience: words I cannot apply to many other journeys taken on British railways.  They’re not all bad of course, I thoroughly enjoy travelling by train, and seeing Michael Portillo traverse the tracks in his Great British Railway Journeys (BBC2 6.30pm) only reminds me of how spectacular some of the views from the lines in this country are.  What frustrates me is that the beauty of the vistas and of the railways themselves is being overshadowed far too often by poor service, delayed or cancelled trains and extortionate prices.  And the really sad thing is that services like that of WSMR, which succeed in avoiding all of these problems and providing a first class experience, simply cannot survive in the modern world.  

Silently Witnessing

While the world and his wife, okay mainly the wives, tuned into channel 4’s fascinating and bizarre Big Fat Gypsy Weddings on Tuesday 25^th January, I settled down to the second part of Silent Witness.

First airing in 1996, and now in its fourteenth series, the drama follows life (excuse the pun) in a pathology laboratory.  Created by a former murder squad detective, the programme was based on a female forensic pathologist with whom he had worked, suggesting a sense of authenticity, though dramatic licence is indeed executed for which it often receives criticism.   I can’t imagine the real deal having me so gripped, thus I welcome its far-fetched nature.    

Having only got into the BBC One drama (Monday and Tuesday 9pm) at the beginning of its current series, I was blown away by last week’s offering.  The weekly two-part episodic nature allows greater exploration of intricate and dramatic storylines, and more time out of the lab, which now resemble other BBC thriller dramas such as Spooks.

Last week, Silent Witness did a brave thing: They stepped out of the office, so to speak, to Budapest.  Taking a British drama abroad is always risky, unsettling characters and audience alike, which can backfire if the viewer feels it too distant from the norm.  Silent Witness, however, triumphed.  Described as a ‘thriller’, I felt that aspect really brought to life in this two-parter, as Harry Cunningham (Tom Ward) found himself in a very dark and dangerous world. 

With twists-a-plenty, including the supposed death of central character Harry at the climax of Monday’s episode, the story kept me on the edge of my seat throughout.  The feeling was reverberated across the country it seems as the end of the first part, where Harry was shot and his body set alight (or so we believed), sparked outcries on social networking sites on Monday night, proving the power of television in the digital age in uniting viewers from all corners of the UK. 

Admittedly it was rather convenient that the majority of key foreign characters spoke good English but I was so caught up in the chase, willing Harry to survive and expose the criminals that I breathed a sigh of relief each time someone revealed their better-than-expected linguistic skills.  

The cinematography and haunting music in the story’s finale combined with the consistently good acting of Tom Ward, Emilia Fox and William Gaminara made this offering of Silent Witness a truly awesome piece of television that I witnessed in stunned and awed silence.