The Cozy Mystery List Blog

Cozy Mystery (and Other Favorite) Books, Movies, and TV

Dalziel & Pascoe…. Why No DVDs?

I keep searching around for DVDs of series that were so down-right entertaining to watch that I can’t believe I didn’t set up my trusty VCR years ago. Of course, we no longer watch anything on the VCR machine, so I would have to check to see if my husband has disconnected it. Everything these days is in DVD form…. everything EXCEPT some of my very favorite shows.

I remember watching Dalziel and Pascoe on the A&E Network. It was so many years ago that I don’t even know when it was that I saw the delightful show. I do know, however, that I absolutely loved the show. Colin Buchanan and Warren Clarke were exceptionally well-cast as the two "hero" detectives. Clarke’s portrayal of brash, disgusting, bully-of-an Inspector Dalziel was equaled in it’s perfection with Buchanan’s upper-crust younger and "greener" Inspector Pascoe.

While typing up the 2001 Edgar Awards, I was reminded (once again) of how much I miss having access to this great British show. Did you know that this show won the 2001 Edgar Award for the Best TV Feature/Miniseries? I didn’t even know about the Edgar Awards back then, but I did know that it was a wonderful series, based on a wonderful series of books by Reginald Hill.

I keep checking on Amazon, Blockbusters, and Netflix to see if they have released any of the shows, but no such luck. I hope that they are planning to offer them soon. In the mean time, I have the next best thing………. I am listening to the unabridged books on tape. Although it’s great fun to hear the books, it would be even better to finally have access to DVDs of the shows.

Your Madness VS My Organizational Skills

I joined a forum a while ago, and then found that I was so busy with this site, that I forgot about the forum. I rediscovered the forum yesterday, and this morning, I put it on my computer’s desktop… which has way too many files on it now. I find that if I don’t put a site on my actual desktop, I forget about it. I have at least three different pull-down "favorites" lists on my computer, but I rarely use them. My desktop makes more sense to me.

It seems a little unorganized to my family members who see all of these files and wonder why I keep such a messy desktop. BUT…….. in the madness of my desktop, there is such a wonderful organization going on………. at least to me! I have "piles" where I put my site’s important "parts," I have "piles" with my Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon, Audible.com information/sites, I have other "piles" with my needlepoint/bead information sites, and even more "piles" with miscellaneous sites. I know exactly where to go when I need to find something. And, since I have renamed most of the sites, they are easy for me to "understand."

I have to admit that to the "untrained eye,"  my computer’s desktop is a mess. But to me, all of the cluttered "piles" of sites make my life easier… and isn’t that what we all want?!?

Another author I haven't read… yet…

I just added a new author to my list:  Shirley Rousseau Murphy. I belong to a forum, and some of the posting members thought that her Joe Grey Cat Mystery series should have been on my cozy site. I haven’t read any of her books yet, but when I looked her up, yes indeed, her books look like they qualify as cozy.

I know that I have said this before, but I always enjoy hearing about a new author who has a lot of books out. By "new" I mean new to me. Isn’t it fun when you find an author who has… let’s say… seven books out already?

An example of this comes to my mind… When I "discovered"  M. C. Beaton, I started by reading her Agatha Raisin series. It took me a little while to "catch up" with the recently released, and I got a lot of enjoyment from reading those books.  When I read the synopsis of her Hamish Macbeth books, they simply didn’t interest me. I had found, in the past, that when I was a devoted fan of one of an author’s series, I generally didn’t like the other series that author wrote. That had happened on several occasions.

Anyway, I finally "made" myself read the first Hamish Macbeth book. I could NOT believe I had been putting that series off! I absolutely loved it! (And still do!) As a matter of fact, I have found that I much prefer the recent Hamish books over the recent Agatha books. 

House of Cards Trilogy

The House of Cards Trilogy is one of the finest BBC productions set in “modern days” that I can think of.  Although the trilogy started in 1990,  it doesn’t seem at all dated to me. There are, of course, concrete things like the use of cassette recorders and the absence of today’s ever-present cell phones that double as cameras, but, for me, those types of props don’t make a story line outdated/obsolete.

This political thriller/drama stars Ian Richardson as Francis Urquhart, the deliciously evil, ambitious Chief Whip of the Conservative Party. Do not worry about becoming lost with regards to the British political system… Francis Urquhart provides a lot of information in his wickedly clever asides to the camera.

The trilogy follows Urquhart as he schemes, ruins, manipulates, back stabs, charms, corrupts, uses, destroys, conspires, flatters, (and any other adjectives that you can think of when you think of the lowest of the lows) his way up the British political ladder. Ian Richardson is absolutely delightful to watch!

I have to admit that of the three series that make up this trilogy, the first one… rightfully named “House of Cards” is by far my favorite. The second series (“To Play the King“) brings in one of my favorite actors (Michael Kitchen), who, as the Prince of Wales seems very familiar to us.  “The Final Cut“ is the third part, and, it is by far my least favorite series of the trilogy.

Others might find the second or third parts of the trilogy the best parts….. “You could think that, but of course, I could never comment.”     

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