Idris Elba as the POTUS was not believable especially as he still had his british voice as per Luther/Hijacked etc. The bit with the FEMA (?) woman being sent for from a different place was stupid, it would have taken her much longer than the time before impact but she made it. No, the whole thing was way beyond ridiculous.
That’s what I meant by the procedural bits plus stuff like the NSA discussing very highly classified matters on his iPhone in the middle of the pavement.
But the general clusterf*ck around the response was all too believable.
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Thanks, I’ve just watched the trailer, & it’s available on Prime Fr. 
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When the wonderful Prunella Scales died recently I spotted for the first time a programme on the BBC called ‘Canal Boat Diaries’ and thought it was referring to her and her husband’s ‘voyages’ in tribute.
It wasn’t, but instead I was treated to a gentle and, for me, addictive account of a 40 year old single man wandering the canals of the north and Midlands in his canal boat. I once had a week on the Norfolk Broads with a bunch of mates and a 6 berth launch and many years later, with my then family, a holiday on a narrow boat from near Derby, and this has brought back such happy memories in addition to a quiet charm all on its own.
The icing on the cake this evening was that he finished in Nottingham which, with the route on which he arrived via Lincoln and through Nottinghamshire gave me a vague feeling of homesickness. The fact that as he walked away at the end saying that he had serious engine trouble might mean the last episode. I hope not but if not I can thoroughly recommend it for a gentle hour or so.
BTW, the narrow boat of my own family holiday included me falling off into the oggin to the delight of the kids who had no idea of my danger. I was executing a ‘spin’ turn at the time and, hanging onto the side not far from the propellor, was in some danger ‘till I managed to scramble back aboard. Happy days! 
Funny thing is, since Fran died, I have had a thought to hire a boat on the Canal du Midi, along with the faithfull Jules and, now, Hades. I wonder, could be a last hurrah. In more ways than one. 
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Is this Countryhousegent? He plays guitar, was mugged at one point in his travels?
More research shows they are two different people doing much the same thing. Travels by Narrowboat is the other one. Both are good fun.
Yes, sounds like the other one, this chap has just split from his partner, softly spoken and wears a cloth cap. 
That reminds me of a brilliant wheeze I had but since forgotten. Yotties making for the Med from UK can go the long way round, via Gib, ‘cut the corner’ via the Canal du Midi’ or, somewhat longer but at least avoids Biscay, cross to Le Havre, unstep the mast at Rouen and down thru FR to emerge at Sète.
The Cruising Assoc has a list of skippers looking for crews - often to the trip to the W.Indies - but also for another hand to help deal with the trip down thru’ the rivers and canals to the Med - or via Gib, as well but I don’t think I could cope with blue water sailing now.
Must put this back on the ‘to do’ list, after fettling The Bothy and selling up.
I mentioned this in the ‘missing UK’ thread but well worth repeating… ‘Gone Fishing’ with Bob Mortimor and Paul Whitehouse.
Even if fishing is of no interest to you and/or you have to hit ‘mute’ when Bob Mortimor goes wittering on, or leaps about hysterically when he catches a fish, the shots of the British countryside, from The Norfolk Broads to Uist via The Lake District, The Wye Valley, the Tay and the Tweed - it shows Britain’s countryside at its very best. There’s a good deal of wonderful aerial shots from drones.
If I wanted to show British countryside to a foreign friend, I’d use these programmes. They’re on iPlayer - 8 series of 6 episodes each.
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Yes I sometimes watch it because I am a massive fan of Mortimer and hardly less of Whitehouse and no less of Ted, but I do have a problem with the format. I am also a massive animal lover and cannot stand the idea of wild animals tortured in the name of sport, so I sometimes watch it fingers crossed that they are unsuccessful.
Fortunately, they often are.
Oddly enough, despite having been a keen angler - a la Whitehouse - since I was 5, I’m half-way with you there.
In all my fishing days, 95% for trout, a bit of sea fishing and nul points for salmon, I have disapproved of ‘catch and release’. In my book, you caught it, now you kill it, you cook it and eat it.
Those chaps sitting in a row along a canal bank, putting whatever they catch into a keep-net and having it weighed at the end of the day to determine ‘the winner’ - couldn’t be doing with that. That’s awful.
As boys on the rivers of the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales we’d catch brown trout +/- 1 lb and grill them on a twig fire.
In my 20 years living in central London, from my flat at Sth Ken, in 25 mins I could be casting a fly for rainbow trout in one of Thames Water’s 4 x 25 acre reservoirs on the Surrey side of Hammersmith Bridge. What I caught - a bag limit of 6 - was cleaned and went into the freezer.
The same with the rainbows of my fave, Clatworthy Reservoir in Somerset. Beautiful fish, ‘bars of silver’ and superb eating.
I was astonished when Mortimor/Whitehouse caught a very fine sea bass in Cornish waters - +/- 5 lbs - and it was put back in the sea. To make the irony even more pointed, the dinner they were served after a day fishing for pike on an Irish lough was - sea bass!
They caught pike, which is good eating, as are perch and grayling. The same with the dog fish - rock salmon at the chippie.
My guess is that the programme decided not to show fish being despatched and kept. The ritual that the two of them had, of slipping the fish into the water and chorusing “And away!” was deemed more acceptable.
I’ve never fished for carp but I understand there are monstrous carp, well known and with names. that have been caught numerous times. I disapprove of that.
Yes, catch and eat, we, most of us are carnivores but respect and do not torture. Just because a fish can’t manage an expression or cry in pain does not make it right.
I carry my thoughts to extremes too. at the moment there are occasional really, really tiny minute little creatures running across my table. Well, one actually, and I am getting very annoyed with it. I could easily squash it but instead keep blowing it away. One of these times I will take a breath at the wrong moment and it will be carnivored. 
As another life long angler I confess to having caught and released many carp. I believed all the propaganda about them being inedible.
When I came to France a neighbour, who came fishing with me, insisted on cooking a large carp we had caught. It was very difficult to descale but cooked with a huge amount of sorrel, it was superb.
I have been given access to a fenced off lake which is completely wild. Only me and one other person fish it. Carp pike and even perch are regularly caught for the table.
I have just filleted a (farmed) Dorade Royale for tonight’s meal
And awaaay
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I used to carry the landing net and creel and pick up, then fish, and shoot, and hunt. Haven’t for years and wouldn’t consider it now.
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We loved Ted so much that we bought his book.
Yes. I don’t now thoughtlessly squish that sort of creature nor ants or other creepie-crawlies - except in Trinidad. Got a lot of time for spiders and always apologise when cleaning away webs indoors that are festooned with dust.
It gets to the point of those Japanese [?] who swish the ground they are about to walk on, to try to avoid treading on a living being. I understand but logically, it breaks down …
There are creatures that we cannot see but are just as much life forms, living about our bodies
Parents go to a gt deal of effort to rid their children of nits picked up at school. How would the Japanese swishers deal with those? Or the lice that plagued the men in the trenches?
Why is that? [Saving hunting. “The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable”] Are you veggie/vegan now?
At my prep school in the Lake Diistrict if a boy shot a pheasant it was roasted, with all the trimmings, and served to the boy, the HM, Commander MacPherson [Maths] and Mr Williams [paedophile/sadist/Fr lang]. The remains were then passed down the table, from senior to junior. Slim pickins for junior …
Jains, not Japs, an Indian Hindu sect I believe.
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They might do it in Japan, Jains in India certainly do, you see them in Mumbai dressed all in white with a sort of gauze yashmak to avoid breathing in a microscopic living thing.
Turned into a bleeding-heart bunnyhugger, obv. Gone off killing things, and even eg steeplechasing, things I took for granted as a child. Squeamish or may just have grown a conscience over the past 40odd years. I’m revolted by the way most creatures are farmed & slaughtered and find trophy hunting appalling, I eat less and less meat and no fish (eating fish & fishing should be stopped worldwide for at least 25 years, fishing wild fish to feed farmed fish is obscene). But no not vegan or even a proper vegetarian, but I do try to avoid contributing to misery.
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Kudos and ditto!
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One film we won’t be recommending is ‘Leave the World Behind’. I thought it would be good as Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke and Kevin Bacon were in it. But neither of us enjoyed it - in fact we watched about 45 minutes only and that was 45 minutes too many. If anyone has seen it, what did you think?
Lazarus - I’ll go t’foot of our stairs. Terrible story, not at all believable and most of it ridiculous with that awful Bill Nighy playing Bill Nighy