Welcome to my Blog!
I hope to share here my irrepressible thoughts on news, music, books, arts and such like. In general these will be items, events and issues which I feel have no place on my website (which focusses on aviation history and my travel photography).

The item immediately below this would be the latest posting.

Anybody, providing he knows how to be amusing, has the right to talk about himself. - Charles Baudelaire
Esse est percipi (To be is to be perceived) ¬Bishop George Berkeley

Not even I understand everything I am ¬Aurelius Augustinus of Hippo

In 2013 I started a series of photo albums on Blurb.com, named '36Exp' (a subject adressed in 36 exposures, a reference to the exposures on most common rolls of 35 mm film: 12, 24 & 36.).
The books can be ordered directly from the Blurb.com website or Amazon.
www.blurb.com/user/ruudleeuw

CURRENT BLOG

This photobook had an immediate appeal to me, I could identify with it or even better: I wish I had taken these photos myself (not something I'd say of most photobooks even though admire the photography).

Travelling across the United States during 3 extended roadtrips, the French photographer Emmanuel Georges went in search of the American dream.
Using a 4x5 inch large-format camera and a documentary-style approach, he captured the reality of America he encountered during these journeys in 2010, 2011 and 2014. The seed of his fascination was planted during an equally extended roadtrip in 1986, then 21 years old.
There is an atmosphere melancholy here, normally found in poetry.

The roadtrip lasted more than 20.000 kilometers: from the former capital of the automobile industry, Detroit, to Butte, Montana, once a mining city and now half-deserted; through the Rust Belt from Pennsylvania to Arkansas, formerly flourishing cities tell the story of the disappearance of an economic boom long gone.

Georges’s recurring motifs—decaying façades of industrial buildings, garages, motels, movie theaters—become iconic images of American urban landscapes.
During over 25 tourist trips to the USA I often came across similar places, but my photos lost their strength in numerous holiday snaps: those endless views over empty landscapes, abandoned cars and gasstations, boarded up houses and businesses, etc.

www.hatjecantz.de
atlasofplaces.com/filter/Photography/America-Rewind-Emmanuel-Georges
emmanuel-georges.com (requires Adobe Flash Player - which after installation with me did not work)

The first series of 'Prey' entailed  John Simm as Detective Constable Marcus Farrow, a well-liked detective with the fictional Manchester Metropolitan Police and an ex-husband with 2 children. His life falls apart when he finds his ex-wife and one of his sons murdered, and all the evidence points to him. He is arrested but escapes and goes on-the-run, in search of who killed his family and why.
See MyBlog-2016Q3.

This Series 2 stars Philip Glenister as Prison Officer David Murdoch.
His life becomes very complicated when his pregnant daughter is abducted and the kidnapper demands that Jules Hope, a prisoner Murdoch is escorting to a hospital for a check up, is brought to an adress in town. No police or else...
Things becomes murky when it becomes apparent that Jules Hope staged the fainting and she is as much a plotter of the escape as her brother on the other end of a phone line. Except that at the same time we see Chief Inspector Susan Reinhardt at a burned car wreck and the burned remains of a male is identified as Daniel Hope, Jules brother!
During the initial escape Murdoch and Jules are pursued by the police and a police officer, in an attempt to arrest them, fis injured in traffic and his situation in hospital is critical.
The complications for Murdoch grow to staggering proportions, he's desperate to save his daughter Lucy but he's played by the machiavellian schemes of Jules Hope.

I esspecially liked the role of Susan Reinhardt, by Rosie Cavaliero, who has been passed for promotion by a colleague and struggles with (non-)formalities of her sidekick, feels pressured by career choices and there's her partner who wants to tie the knot while on top of it all she finds herself pregnant!
Her obsessive behaviour in finding Murdock's daughter, apprehending the kidnapper and catch Murdock and Jules Hope, while being chased by her superior and ducking the issues in her privat life is really well played and a joy to watch.
This second series dates from (late) 2015 and came across my tv channels in recent weeks.

en.wikipedia.org:_Prey_(miniseries)
IMDb full cast & crew

Enjoyed another gripping read by Nicci French!

Psychotherapist Frieda Klein is contacted by a former schoolfriend, from Braxton where she grew up.
Madeleine 'Maddie' Capel wants Frieda to talk to her teenage daughter, for she has become 'difficult'. She had read about Frieda in the newspapers and had learned she was 'a pschychiater or whatever'.

As a gesture Frieda talks to Rebecka (Becky) and what she gets told is a carbon copy of Frieda's own trauma, including a mother in denial.
Frieda decides to return to Braxton, which she left aged 16 - never to return; this also results in meeting her mother, whom she hasn't seen since she left Braxton.
Juliet Klein was a GP in Braxton but retired 3 years before they meet up again; both are not enthusiastic about reuniting, but Frieda recognizes certain symptons and arranges a brain scan for her mother: she is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.

Then Maddie informs Frieda of her daughter's suicide and blames Frieda for Becky loosing faith and killing herself. Actually, Maddie Capel never was part of Frieda's group of friends, left out and bitter sentiments reign.

Frieda connects with a former schoolfriend in Braxton, Eva, and takes up lodgings with her a few days in a week to take care of her mother but also to investigate Becky's suicide and reconstruct events of 23 years ago leading up to her own trauma.
She finds that reopening her case by the Braxton police based on present statements is impossible. She is also unable to convince the Braxton police to reinvestigate the suicides (Frieda finds another suspect teenage suicide) as murders; even her friend DCI Mats Karlsson in the London Met is unable to turn things around for her.

Frieda told her friends about her long-buried secret before she set out for Braxton.
Her builder buddy Josef offers his unconditioned help. Her old analyst Reuben is somewhat disappointed for the fact that Frieda kept this from him when he councilled her.
Upon Frieda's email Sandy, her lover in America, returns to the UK (giving up his job) and they both set out to buy a house or a flat for him. But Sandy has clear expectations of their future together and Frieda terminates their relationship. She does this while during a walk following the hidden medieval river Walbrook, a recurring feature in these Frieda Klein series (the city alive and unseen). A drawing of river Walbrook is on the frontispiece of the novel.

Sandy is unable to accept the break up, while he also thinks that Frieda should leave the past well enough alone. He pursues Frieda, directly and through DCI Karlsson, not seeing Frieda gets more unyielding by his attitude.
The relationship with her mother is unusual, from both sides.
When Frieda contacts her former school friends for a reconstruction of events 23 years ago, she finds they were oddly matched as friends and soon sees their attitudes change. But Frieda 'bloody' Klein persevers and identifies the culprit.
Only to find herself unable to present a case for the police. Nobody believes her.

While the obvious search for the criminal has been written in an interesting plot, this novel is also a highly personal one: Frieda learns a lot about herself, getting the picture from her former friends and we see her distinctive reactions such as breaking up with Sandy and her obsession with the truth, bulldozing over social graces.

Nicci French is the pseudonym of English husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write excellent psychological thrillers together.

en.wikipedia.org:_Nicci_French

Waterstones is buying the historic family-owned book chain Foyles.
With 283 shops Waterstones, which also owns Hatchards, is Britain’s biggest book chain.
Foyles operates 7 branches, with 4 in London and the remainder in Birmingham, Chelmsford and Bristol.
I happened to be in Chelmsford last july, visited both Waterstones and Foyles there; the latter was disappointing for I expected a similar branch as the Foyles at Charing Cross Road in London (which I
have visited multiple times, one of the best bookstores in the world, imo).

www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/07/waterstones-buys-foyles

These books served me as valuable references for my research in my aviation research and I was meticulous in my documentation while archiving my photos and slides of aeroplanes into maps or showcases.
In the 1970s this hobby took off but for the first 15 years or so was directed towards military aviation; only after I started work on an international airport my interest gravitated to the civil aviation industry (I found the planes rather more colourful and diverse than the camouflaged or grey-toned military aircraft).

Reference books always played a part in my aviation hobby and I supplemented the information with my information of where and when.
I dedicated a webpage to such reference books on my website: Aviation Books for reference
After 2006 or so I purchased this information on DVD and later on became available online.

I already have thrown out many of such books and today this pile will end in the paper recycle bin. Thank you for some wonderful years, decades even!

Peter Steinmetz worked for many years as a steward in the cabin of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, including as purser.
When he found 'in the early years'  that no travel guide existed (hard to imagine now) for Thailand he wrote one and found it a great succes. He wrote several travel guides so it is hardly surprising that he also wrote a book about the evolvement of inflight service in the airline industry, with KLM in particular.

The book spans some 65 years, 1934 - 2000, and since he worked with the KLM it is mainly about the KLM, though the early years are more of a general nature of how cabin service came about.

Early cabin attendants were nurses, because it wasn't uncommon that a flight ended in a field. From coffee and tea service gradually expanded to sandwiches, provided by hotels. There was no galley at first and utensils were kept in a wicker basket. When cooling was required (e.g. for butter to prepare the sandwiches) a block of ice was provided and the steward(ess) had to bring an ice pick.
KLM provided the utensils to its staff, made them sign for it and if anything was lost it went out of their paycheck.
A cook was added to the serving staff at some point.

Quite notably in this book is the difference in pay and work rules for flight crew, flight engineers, stewards and cooks.
Many anecdotes by KLM cabin crew are included of long working hours and duties required; also of staff making extra money to supplement their pay on their outstations. During the years shortly after WW2 when so many things including food were still on short supply at home the crew delighted in the luxuries a city like New York could offer them.

The book details the evolvement within KLM of working hours and rights of cabin staff, noting that KLM management often lacked empathy in work pressure, effects of jetlag and being away from home for extended periods of time. These labour discussions continue to this very day and therefore this book confirms the present is only a continuation of the past into the future.
The book also adresses the various fatal crashes with the KLM and hijackings.

While the chapters about certain persons crucial in management of Cabin Services over the years as well as those instrumental in establishing proper working rules and conditions mean nothing to me, I found the book very readable and of interest for the history of cabin service, working conditions and KLM history (approaching its 100th anniversary).

I doubt whether this book was published in any other language than Dutch.

Donna Leon (b.28Sep1942 in Montclair, New Jersey) is the American author of a series of crime novels set in Venice, Italy featuring the fictional principal character Commissario Guido Brunetti.
She lived in Venice for over 30 years, but has moved since to a small village in Switzerland.

'Friends in High Places' (NL: Vriendendienst) is the 9th crime novel featuring the capable Commissario Brunetti.
Perhaps more than ever the book details the shady dealings in Venice's who-is-who, the hopelessness of Italy's corruption and failed government institutions.

The book starts with a civil servant, Franco Rossi, visiting the home of Guido Brunetti. He presents the case that his house (apartment) may have been built illegally, for proper documentation is missing from the officical archives, at the Ufficio Catasto. Officially their house does not exist and may have to be broken down.
While a follow up did not come about (Guido's wife Paola has her father work his network, against Guido's wishes), after some time Franco Rossi telephones Brunetti at work for another, undisclosed reason. But the young man falls to his death from a scaffolding before he is able to contact Brunetti about certain suspicions.
Brunetti suspects foul play and finds the injuries conflicting with a mere fall. Further investigations brings him to a world of loan sharks, corruption and a definitely a sphere of 'friends in high places'.
Of course Brunetti's superiors (e.g. vice-questore Patta) would like to contain Brunetti's investigations
for their own participation in that upper sphere of contacts and services.

While the book was published in 2000, Brunetti is still awkward with 'telefonino's', computers and the internet, as well as the world outside Venice. The young and delectable Miss Elettra deals with inquiries, interent research and even hacking into government systems.
I continue to be surprised by the casualness how people are away from their desk without the colleagues knowing why, where and for how long. But perhaps this is still how society in Italy functions; giving my holidays in Italy it would not surprise me, as the world stops in that country between noon and 15:00...
Brunetti often goes home for a warm lunch, which his wife faithfully prepares. While discussing another couple, the wife grown fat and stunted in her development for lack of a job, he muses he does not care whether his wife is working or not but he's grateful Paola did not grow fat...
So we can conclude that Brunetti is not a very modern man (not by my standards, anyway), but perhaps peculiar to the typical Italian husband or perhaps the Venetian version.

I do find the decriptions of food and dinners tiresome in the novels of Donna Leon, I could do well without the detailed descriptions of food the family digests. I do love the descriptions of Venice for I visited Italy many times and have a particular interest in Venice.

en.wikipedia.org:_Donna_Leon

Spiral (French: 'Engrenages') is a French television police and legal drama series set in Paris.
The tv series follows the lives and work of Paris police officers and the lawyers and judges who work at the Palais de Justice.
It was created by the TV production company Son et Lumière.
The first eight-episodes series started on Canal+ in France on 13Dec2005. The series was first shown in the UK on BBC Four during the summer of 2006.

Again while we see the murderer(s) is hunted, each episode we also see different storylines develop, about Laure's baby, about lawyer Joséphine Karlsson who is willing to go near (or over!) the edge of what is morally justifiable or even legal, about Judge Roban struggles with his health.
And all these sidelines develop without getting confusing who is who, that's the brilliant thing about this series (well, one of the brilliant things).

In series 6 we see Police Captain Laure Berthaud as commandant of the investigation team while her lieutenants, Gilou and Tintin, are adressed as captain.
Laure has had a premature baby and Romy is kept in the hospital's IC unit. Laure is more than hesitant to grow attached to the struggling baby.
TinTin knows his marriage is on the rocks but hesitates to sign the divorce papers.
Gilou and his girlfriend are looking at apartments, but she spins Gilou a yarn and their relationship has little chance of survival.
The new boss Beckriche (Valentin Merlet) has great difficulty settling in, all he really can do is go with
the flow dictated by Laure, Gilou and Tintin - as they more or less do as they please anyway!
Judge Roban is diagnosed with a brain tumor and he struggles with the various legal cases, trying to hide the signs of his sickness from everybody else.
Avocate Joséphine Karlsson goes very much against the grain of the judicial system and gets deeper and deeper into trouble.
We also reacquaint ourselves with former 'patron' Herville (Nicolas Briançon), who has been transferred to Saine-Saint-Denis and has an investigation ongoing into one or more of his police officers while another one of his group has been brutally killed and mutilated.

That is how Series 6 starts, with the finding of a corpse in a sportsbag, later identified as young police officer Mercier.
And Laure making an early return from maternity leave and Beckriche far from pleased with his posting and this murder inquiry.

I am more than pleased a Series 7 has been announced!

Caroline Proust ... Laure Berthaud, commandante de police
Audrey Fleurot ... Joséphine Karlsson, avocate
Philippe Duclos ... François Roban, juge
Fred Bianconi ... Luc 'Tintin' Fromentin, capitaine de police
Thierry Godard ... Gilles 'Gilou' Escoffier, capitaine de police

Chief Inspector Van Veeteren has been diadnosed with cancer and is facing an operation.  His cantankerous attitude towards everybody who is not up to speed with him or is holding a different view (i.e. his superiors) sees another dimension added: both before the surgery as well as the period in
hospital after the surgery.
Shortly before him being hospitalized a mutilated body in the woods i sfound. It's rolled up in a carpet and lacks head, hands or feet...
Establishing the identity of the body is a daunting task in itself and essential before any murder inquiry can be started.
Van Veeteren is determined to run the investigation from his hospital bed.

'The Return' is set in 1994 and (e.g.) free from mobile phones as a result, but that apart the book did not feel dated. Dogged police work only come to fruition when a member of the public comes forward with the information they need.
The sometimes awkward interaction of Van Veeteren's team is a pleasure to read and they're all real characters who come off the page well. Van Veeteren himself is sardonic and philosophical, his mood and conjectures not always easy to follow by his staff and colleagues.

When the victim has been identified, the police investigation slowly runs aground. The victim has been found guilty of two murders, twice of young women whom he had been in relation with. He served two sentences and was probably killed on the day he was set free and returned to his home.
He always had been a bit of an oddball and when VV is beginning to doubt whether Verhaven actually did kill those two young women, his superior is rather relieved no proof of such can be found and closes the case. Nobody is sympathetic to the fate of Verhaven.

But....
Van Veeteren muses as to what he would do if he was certain that someone had committed a crime but couldn't produce the standard of proof which a prosecutor would require. Will he or won't he finally cross that line?

What is distinctive about Nesser's Van Veeteren novels is that while they have a dictinct Scandinavian flavour, the fictional names of places and persons are a mix of Scandiavian, German and Dutch. This may feel odd at times.
I did not like the going to and fro in time, the flashbacks not always clear to whom is living the
experience. If not confusing I found them disruptive.

www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/...The_Return_by_Hakan_Nesser

FSA, The American Vision - by Gilles Mora & Beverly W. Brannan
Published in 2006 by Abrams

Between the World Wars, America's Great Depression spawned the need for many public works agencies, in particular the Farm Security Administration (FSA).
Director Roy Stryker was invited by the Roosevelt administration to assemble a team of photographers, which included a.o. Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Jack Delano and Gordon Parks,
to document America's cultural and economic conditions.
Although the archives are often consulted for a few nostalgic images, they have never been comprehen-sively anthologised.
'FSA: The American Vision' gathers, for the first time, the FSA's catalogue of documentary photography, a collection of images so extraordinary that they set the standard for photojournalism for years afterward.

The photographs produced by the FSA during the Great Depression constitute one of America's greatest artistic legacies. The project launched a stellar group of young photographers, including Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, Carl Mydans, Arthur Rothstein, Marion Post Walcott, and Gordon Parks, who fanned out across America and created images of intense power and poetry.

Gilles Mora and Beverly Brannan immersed themselves in the vast archive at the Library of Congress
and emerged with unknown treasures, previously unpublushed.
Theirs is a new view of the achievement of the FSA photographers-the most comprehensive in print-that finally gives them their due as the creators of a new American photographic vision.

THE EARLY YEARS (1935-1937)
Dorothea Lange: Exodus
Ben Shahn: Ohio
Walker Evans: Signs and Munuments
Carl Mydans: Housing Projects
Theodor Jung: Jackson County, Ohio

THE MIDDLE PERIOD (1937-1942)
Edwin & Louise Rosskam: Puerto Rico
Marion Post Wolcott: Tobacco Land
Jack Delano: Ordinary People
John Vachon: Montana and Minnesota
Russell Lee: California Food Industry

THE WAR YEARS (1942-1943)
Marjory Collins: Ethnic Minorities
John Collier Jr: Pennsylvania Coal Mines
Gordon Parks: Fulton Fish Market, NY
Esther Bubley: Bus Trips

From Wikipedia:
The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was a New Deal agency created in 1937 to combat rural poverty during the Great Depression in the United States. It succeeded the Resettlement Administration (1935-1937).

The FSA stressed "rural rehabilitation" efforts to improve the lifestyle of sharecroppers, tenants, very poor landowning farmers, and a program to purchase submarginal land owned by poor farmers and resettle them in group farms on land more suitable for efficient farming.
Critics, including the Farm Bureau, strongly opposed the FSA as an experiment in collectivizing agriculture-that is, in bringing farmers together to work on large government-owned farms using modern techniques under the supervision of experts.

After the Conservative coalition took control of Congress it transformed the FSA into a program to help poor farmers buy land, and that program continues to operate in the 21st century as the Farmers Home Administration.
The FSA is famous for its small but highly influential photography program, 1935-44, that portrayed the challenges of rural poverty.
The photographs in the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Photograph Collection form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1944.

This U.S. government photography project was headed for most of its existence by Roy E. Stryker, who guided the effort in a succession of government agencies: the Resettlement Administration (1935-1937), the Farm Security Administration (1937-1942), and the Office of War Information (1942-1944).
The collection also includes photographs acquired from other governmental and non-governmental sources, including the News Bureau at the Offices of Emergency Management (OEM), various branches
of the military, and industrial corporations.
In total, the black-and-white portion of the collection consists of about 175,000 black-and-white film negatives, encompassing both negatives that were printed for FSA-OWI use and those that were not printed at the time.
Color transparencies also made by the FSA/OWI are available in a separate section of the catalog: FSA/OWI Color Photographs.

'FSA, The American Vision'
ISBN: 0810954974
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
Hardcover : 360 pages
Language: English
Dimensions: 9,5 x 11,7 x 1,2 inches

www.lensculture.com/books/2322-fsa-the-american-vision
en.wikipedia.org:_Farm_Security_Administration

These advertisements were a blast from the past, I remember what a revelation it was for me to get to work with multi-contrast paper and filters in the enlarger.
Then photoshop shop came and spoiled it all..

'Witnesses' (French: 'Les Témoins') is a French police procedural television series, first premiered in Belgium on 22Nov2014. In March 2016, France 2 announced a second series was in production.

Police detectives Sandra Winckler (Marie Dompnier) and Justin (Jan Hammenecker) investigate in this second series a bizar incident when men are found in an abandoned bus, dressed for a wedding but frozen and all very dead.
Sandra and Justin find themselves soon on the trail of a serial killer whose modus operandi is to murder all former lovers of his kidnap victims.
This series was broadcast on BBC Four from 25 November 2017.

Sometimes I thought the twisting plots served drama more than a logical storyline; there certainly is a good portion of long desperates gazes, but I guess that is the French Noir for you.
Sandra has two children by Eric, but they live seperated and never married; Eric has a new girlfriend. The care for their children is complicated because of Sandra's workhours end esspecially when it becomes clear Sandra is targetted by the killer as well.
The emotional way Sandra persues the serial killer makes her deviate from normal investigation procedures and creates a distance between Sandra and Justin (and the entire police workforce). The way she teams up with a surviving victim of the serial killer, Catherine Keemer, and runs her own investigation, is way beyond believe.

Not a bad series but too much drama and not enough 'police procedural' to my taste.

en.wikipedia.org:_Witnesses_(TV_series)

Beeld-Encyclopedie 'De Alkenreeks'.
'De Alkenreeks' later became 'De Kleine Alkenreeks' and 'De Grote Alkenreeks'; they were published by Arti (later De Alk B.V.) and had been started in 1951 in Alkmaar (N-H).
The books Ihave here are small, pocket-sized, 15x11cm.
This series became a reference for railway enthusiasts, cars, aviation, shipping, art and painting, music and ballet.

While these publications were added much later to my collection than their publication date, the
authors here, Bart van der Klaauw and Hugo Hooftman, were still the prominent journalists when I
took up an interest in aviation during the 1970s.
Aviation journalist and author Bart van der Klaauw died in 2005, aged 84.
During almost his entire life he'd been involved in aviation: first with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, later in public relations for Lockheed and he became chief editor with prominent aviation magazine Avia.
He wrote and published over 50 aviation books; I still have a few in my bookcase.
Van der Klaauw co-wrote with Bart Reinhout a book in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of KLM. For decades, anyone in Holland with an interest in aviation came across publications by Bart van der Klaauw.

Journalist Hugo Hooftman (b.1927-d.1986) appealed to me more than Bart van der Klaauw. The latter was a respected member of the aviation establishment, while Hooftman was closer to the aviation enthusiasts and plane spotters; he was also a bit of a rebel, controversial at times, in aviation journalism.
Of him too I still have several books in my bookcase; sentimental value.
He published the aviation magazine 'Cockpit', later 'Vliegtuigparade'.
He died of a brain tumor, during the 1980s; I believe on 20Nov1986, aged 59.
I did a write up on him, he was a great influence in my developing interest as a teenager: AVIATION REFERENCE BOOKS. Online there is very little on him, as a person, to be found.

nl.wikipedia.org:_Beeld-Encyclopedie_De_Alkenreeks (NL)
www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/.../luchtvaartjournalist-bart-van-der-klaauw-overleden (NL)

Beware of this software online seller (@softwaredirectonline.nl)!
I paid and downloaded Office for Mac 2011, was issued a key license, installation worked ok but the activation failed (online and by phone).
Three days I worked their helpdesk, was passed on endlessly, but no good.

Ended up with Microsoft and after lengthy talks (on hold twice) advised to report domain, software and license key to their piracy department.
Which I did yesterday, after initially going for another attempt through softwaredirectonline (received a link for another download but this time their Office Installer was blocked by Apple software).

A refund was refused as 'the software and settings on my Mac was the cause of a failed installation'...

They seem to have a warranty on their website (plus a friendly helpdesk), but that is probably to install confidence.
Money gone and nothing to show for it.

The Deventer book fair, a yearly event, is a very large book market in Deventer; mainly secondhand books, some rare, but also recently published ones by an author offering his signature in the purchase.
It claims to be the biggest book market of Europe.
People in whole Europe come to Deventer for this yearly event.
If we manage a visit, we never come away empty-handed.

deventerboekenmarkt.nl

A dark thriller mini series centering on Detective Superintendent Elizabeth Bancroft, a female detective with an explosive secret.
She is very ambitious and has Machiavellian qualities tuned to a high degree.

The formidable DS Bancroft (Sarah Parish) is leading the investigation against the violent Kamara gang.
Meanwhile, DS Katherine Stevens, young and ambitious, fresh from police training, is given a cold murder case to investigate. Initially she is disappointed she is not selected to join an arrest team, but she picks a cold case which she expects could deliver a high profile. If solved.
Katherine (a role by Faye Marsay) is seconded a forensic expert, one Dr Anya Karim (Amara Karan).

Quite soon we learn that Bancroft has been involved with the cold case Katherine is investigating, the vicious killing in her home of a young pregnant woman, Laura Fraser. The conclusion had been a drug addict went for a burglery and ended up killing Lauro, but the murderer was never found.
Bancroft offers help to Katherine and Anya with the Fraser case, but the investigation had been sloppy and forensic evidence is poor.
Katherine meets Bancroft's son, a fysiotherapist, and they develop a relationship.

The character of Bancroft has an interesting complexity. She obstructs the cold case investigation and plays Katherine both on the investigation as well as on the relationship with her son.

Bancroft had an informant in the Kamara family, but she is found dead, committed suicide. The suicide
is suspect: the family must have found out she was a snitch and killed her. Other family members feel threatened and decide to help the police to bring Athif Kamara to justice.
Bancroft is faced with a startling blast from the past, which brings the events from 1990 back to the surface. Meanwhile, Katherine wrestles with twists and turns of the new information she is uncovering.
Katherine and Anya make a determined push to get to the bottom of the Laura Fraser case once and for all. And Bancroft plans and executes a massive sting operation against Athif Kamara.

An intricate plot and fast paced, a very entertaining mini series.

www.imdb.com/
tv.bt.com/tv/tv-news/bancroft

Martin Beck is a fictional Swedish police detective who is the main character in a series of ten novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. The stories are frequently referred to as the Martin Beck stories; the most popular ones is the series where Peter Haber plays the role of Martin Beck.
A truly excellent series.
I recently watched series 7, which I suspect could be the last series - but one never knows.

Series 7 consists of 4 episodes.
We see Martin Beck has retired from the police force and Steinar Hovland (Kristofer Hivju) temporarIly put in charge of the investigating team.
Beck is asked to lead the search for a new team leader. Steinar hesitates to apply but when he does he is disappointed and obstructive when he doen't get the job.
Alexandra 'Alex' Beijer (Jennie Silfverhjelm) becomes the new head of the team. Steinar struggles to perform within the team, trying to find fault in the new chief but also struggles with marital problems.
Immigration and racism plays a major role again in some of the plot lines.

After Alex Beijer has taken on the job, Beck stays on in a senior role, sometimes assisting with smaller details in the investigation, joining briefings and in the 4th episode Alex finds her brother Paul Beijer, a lawyer, involved in an investigation in organized crime - so Martin orders Steinar back in charge and
Alex to the sideline; their strained working relation continues.

Martin Beck still has a role to play in the police force, albeit a smaller one, and there are of course the daily meetings, a cognac in hand, with his meddling neighbour Grannen (Ingvar Hirdwall) ...

So we may wel hope for a chance of series 8...? Long may they continue! 

en.wikipedia.org:_Martin_Beck#Season_7
www.imdb.com

In Huis Marseille ('Museum for Photography') I found this exhibition 'AMSTERDAM STUFF' more appealing than the photography by Japanese photographers!
This is a photo presentation of archeological finds over a period of 9 years (coinciding with the construction of a new subway branch in Amsterdam).
Photography by Harold Strak & Willem van Zoetendaal; what a monumental job, documenting the 700,000 different, everyday objects, unearthed form Amsterdam's soggy soil.

The most important locations for the city’s archaeologists were the excavation sites at Damrak and Rokin, where the original bed of the river Amstel was found 12 metres below pavement level.
The Amstel had always been the city’s main artery and its central axis. The river bed here was thick with archaeological finds, because people have a habit of throwing their rubbish into the water, and once it has sunk into the mud it stays there for ever.
The enormous quantity of material that the city archaeologists found is marked both by its great
diversity and its everyday character, and this makes these relics a very special source of city history.

Yesterday I also had a short ride in the new 'Noord-Zuid' subway (NL:metro) branch.
On 22 july 2018, after 15 years (and a delay of 9 years!) of digging and construction, this new branch line ('Noord-Zuid') of the Amsterdam subway had been officially opened.
A job well done!

Yesterday I went to Amsterdam's 'Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography', mainly for this exhibition
'A Beautiful Moment'.
This is presentation of Japanese photography by Naoya Hatakeyama, Syoin Kajii, Rinko Kawauchi, Toshiko Okanoue, Yuki Onodera, Chino Otsuka and Nao Tsuda.
Not all photography was in Japan, there was one photographer who emigrated to England at an early
age - but photography with something or other in common.
My favourite was Naoya Hatakeyama, with 'Blast' and windows marked with raindrops; not all of the photography appealed to me but that is to be expected.

www.huismarseille.nl/en/tentoonstelling/a-beautiful-moment-collection-japan/

This Stockholm lawyer Rebecka Martinsson, who returns to her home town in Sweden's far north after the death of somebody she knew as a child.
Initially it looks as though the woman, the local vicar, died in an accident but evidence soon suggests otherwise. Rebecka gets involved in the investigation, sometimes going beyond what is strictly legal. Various suspects arise but when the killer is identified it comes as a surprise and leads to a tragic conclusion to the first story.
Rebecka has a nervous breakdown and is even committed; she postpones a return to the lawfirm in Stockholm.
Dismiised from hospital but still metally recovering, Rebecka is offered a job working as a local prosecutor before her planned move back to Stockholm in the summer. Her reasearch into the background of a major mining company in the Kiruna area results in a her involvement of another murder inquiry.
Rebecka strikes up a relation with the investigating detective, Anna Maria Mella, a refreshing role by Eva Melander.
A 3rd episode involves the death of two divers and a WW2 wreck of the Luftwaffe and a dark past of betrayal.
The last episode is about a woman whose family has suffered a number of tragic 'accidents'.

Ida Engvoll does a fine job as our eponymous heroine making her believable even when she was breaking rules. Rebecka may be the title character but there are others who are almost as important; police woman Anna Maria Mella as has been noted and dog handler Krister Eriksson; Eva Melander and Jakob Öhrman impress in these roles.

Over the past few years I've read the superb books by Åsa Larsson, on which this series is based. I found the films sometimes struggling with the many plotlines and scenarios in the books and somewhat forced towards the ending in this series sometimes.
But I enjoyed them nevertheless.

www.imdb.com
en.wikipedia.org:_Åsa_Larsson

Upon the start of this last series we find Saga Norén in prison, after over a year awaiting a retrial due to new evidence; she is released for 'reasonable doubt' about her murdering her mother.
At the same time Henrik Sabroe investigates the murder of the director general of the Immigration Service, Margarethe Thormond, who has been stoned to death. During Saga's sentence he repeatedly visited her.
Because of a Swedish connection Saga gets involved in the Danish murder investigation and team up with Henrik again. She also moves in with him.

Saga starts therapy after having a panic attacks. During the various episodes and consults we get a more in depth view of Saga's emotion; or lack thereof.
Meanwhile Henrik has joined a group therapy, still struggling with the disappearance of his two young daughters (his wife ran off years ago, was later found killed but the ultimate fate of the two young girls remained a mystery). During these therapy sessions Henrik is befriended by a man in a wheelchair named Kevin.

Two more victims are discovered and Saga realizes that each victim is killed using one method of executing prisoners sentenced to death - suggesting a total of 7 victims, leaving 4 to come. She also notes that the victims are selected not because of their actions but because of something their loved ones have done. 

Besides the 'whodunnit' plotlines we see how Saga tries to implement new reasoning on advise of her therapist, how Henrik relapses in drugs use again, plus two young girls surviving on the streets by pickpocketing and influencing the investigation and how Henrik's police commissioner Lillian sees her position undermined by progressive leaking to the media.

Sara becomes pregnant by Henrik but she decides for an abortion, which has a devastating effect on their relation. Something Sara obviously fails to understand.

Since this 4th series of The Bridge  (Swedish: Bron, Danish: Broen) it is not surprsing we see some form of closure for the fate of Henrik's daughters and I thought it well written into this overall crime drama; a story in a story. Also, I was pleased it wasn't made into a They-Rode-Off-into-The-Sunset- and-Lived-Happily-Ever-After -type of ending. But we know 'Scandi noir' isn't like that, not al all! 

The Bridge 4 has no problem meeting the highest benchmarks for this type of tv series!

Spoiler alert! Don't read the Wikipedia text on series 4 per below link, for it has the entire plotlines written out...
en.wikipedia.org:_The_Bridge_(Scandinavian_TV_series)
www.imdb.com

Marcel van Roosmalen is a journalist and writer. Besides his work writing columns for the daily NRC Handelsblad, he also composes extended reports and contributes to De Correspondent, Hard Gras, VARAgids and Nieuwe Revu
His dry wit is a key signature.
His sometimes cynical view on The Netherlands and the Dutch deflates many an ego and provides a mirror to many.
He wrote books about his favourite football team Vitesse, club icon Theo Bos and Marcel's place of birth, Arnhem.
His reports were first compiled in a book titled 'Het is nooit leuk als je tegen een boom rijdt' (2011; EN: it is never funny when you collide with a tree) and is now followed by ''Je moet opschrijven dat hier niets gebeurt' (EN: you have to write down that nothing ever happens here).

Amusing and entertaining.

lekkerlezen.net/.../je-moet-opschrijven-dat-hier-niets-gebeurt-marcel-van-roosmalen/ (NL)

The Lawyer is based on a concept by bestselling author Jens Lapidus (e.g. Snabba Cash-trilogy), Hans Rosenfeldt (The Bridge) and bestelling author and film director Michael Hjorth (Sebastian Bergman).

This is a fast paced thriller, located in Malmö and Kopenhagen which follows a young and upcoming lawyer Frank Nordling (Alexander Karim).
He is quite happy with his life and career: working for a small law firm and involved in an affair with a married colleague.
But his past catches up with him when his sister Sara (Malin Buska) tells him about a fresh lead to those involved in their father's murder.

As a young boy Frank witnessed his parents being blown up in their car; his father was a police detective.
Frank had been adopted by his parents and a few years older than Sara, who had stayed behind in the restaurant after a row with her mother.
Frank and Sara were adopted by different families and do not share surnames anymore. She works for the police as a detective for the narcotics department. In her own time she tried to track down those responsible for the murder of her parents but the trauma led to a heroin addiction and a seperation from her husband Said and her child Liam.
Frank and Sara were in an on and off contact, Frank feeling guilty he isn't able do more to keep Sara on the straight and narrow.

The new lead Sara provides shows a name, Thomas Waldman (Thomas Bo Larsen, of Follow the Money), in whom the police has been interested in for a long time and coincides with a job offer of a law firm which represents that same person; Frank decides to accept the offer to get close to Waldman.
A process of infiltration starts where Frank has to prove himself fast, to gain confidence.
Meanwhile Sara runs her own investigation and they feed each other with updates.

Frank abhores the violence and is in constant doubt whether the danger, him breaking the codes of law, plus the safety of Sara, warrants further pursuit of their quest. But when his lover gets involved and is shot by Waldman's hired hand he is determined to continue. Just when Sara is waivering and seeks consolation in drugs again.
Besides the plotlines into the personal lives of Frank and Sara, we see sidelines developing from Thomas Waldman and his daughter Therese.

Plenty of drama and suspense over 10 episodes!


www.bookspot.nl/film/the-lawyer
www.canvas.be/the-lawyer

'I See a City: Todd Webb’s New York' focuses on the work of photographer Todd Webb produced in New York City in the 1940s and 1950s.
This book was published last year, edited by Betsy Evans Hunt (writing a closing note in the back of the book, inclusing her relationship with the Webbs) and includes two nice essays by Sean Corcoran and Daniel Okrent.

Webb photographed the city of New York day and night, in all seasons and in all weather. Buildings, signage, vehicles, the passing throngs, isolated figures, curious eccentrics, odd corners, windows, doorways, alleyways, squares, avenues, storefronts, uptown and downtown, from the Brooklyn Bridge to Harlem.
He created a richly textured portrait of the everyday life and architecture of New York. Webb’s work is clear, direct, focused, layered with light and shadow, and captures the soul of these places shaped by the friction and frisson of humanity.

A native of Detroit, Webb studied photography in the 1930s under the guidance of Ansel Adams at the Detroit Camera Club, served as a navy photographer during World War II, and then went on to become
a successful postwar photographer.
His work is in many museum collections, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Todd Webb’s New York’ at the Museum of the City of New York, where Webb had his first solo exhibition in 1946, this book helps restore the reputation and legacy of a forgotten American artist.
Webb went for commitment rather than shining for fame and fortune. He was 40 years old when he moved to New York and married late in life. Prior to his 3 years of enlistment during WW2, Webb had been a stockbroker until the crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression.; he prospected for goldseveral times in California, Mexico and Panama; he was a surveyor for the US Forest Service and he worked for the Chrysler Corporation in his hometown of Detroit.
In Detroit, in 1940, he joined the Detroit Camera Club and became good friends with Harry Callahan and Art Siegel; both taught him a great deal and ignited an everlasting enthusiasm for photography.
In his work we see passion and commitment coming together!

Todd Webb (b.05Sep1905 – 15.Apr2000) was an American photographer notable for documenting everyday life and architecture in cities such as New York City, Paris as well as from the American west.
H is photography has been compared with Harry Callahan, Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, and the French photographer Eugène Atget.
He traveled extensively during his long life and had important friendships with artists such as Georgia O'Keeffe, Ansel Adams and Harry Callahan.

thamesandhudson.com/
en.wikipedia.org:_Todd_Webb

On my bookshelf is still a pile of unread books by Scandinavian authors, bought when my interest in 'Scandi Noir' was at its peak a few years ago. Came across this paperback in a secondhand bookshop in Little Walsingham. I decided to buy it inspite of my backlog because I had not yet read anything by Åke Edwardson and liked the InspectorWinter tv-series a few years ago.
I found it a comfortable read during the holidays. Nice to note that the book has Inspector Winter and his team suffering in 30+ Celsius temperatures while I spent my days in unusual warm weather too!

A young woman, 19 year old Jeannette Bielke, who recently graduated, is raped but not killed
Chief Inspector Erik Winter is immediately reminded of an unsolved rape and murder case, now 5
years old. Jeanette was raped in exactly the same spot as Beatrice Wagner.

Detectives Fredrik Halders and Aneta Djanali interview Jeannette Bielke, but she is not being completely honest with them, she is holding back something.
Shortly after Jeannette is raped, two other girls are killed in the same spot.
All the victims have something in common: they are all around the same age when they are victimized.
And there is something in their past that is kept from the detectives by Jeanette and the friends of the murder victims.

Winter and his team of detectives are working diligently and methodically to solve the crime and they need a breakthrough. But appeals for known witnesses to come forward see no result.

Halders receives a phonecal that his ex-wife has been killed during a hit-and-run accident. There is also a romantic tension between Halders and his colleague Djanali.
Aneta Djanali is black, and her parents are from Africa. One of the victims is also black and adopted. Racism is adressed as a sideline by Edwardson, its presence clearly noted though.

The pace is a bit slow, which is not a bad thing. It follows the investigations and the plotlines precise and has the unusually hot weather mentioned quite often and Erik Winter's deliberations (his addiction to Corpe cigarillos, hints by his mother that his wife Angela is longing to move out of the apartment for a house and a garden).
I would think the pace and detailed narrative is rather representative for Scandinavian (crime) writing, but I hate to generalize. I like it anyway, I like details; other people may prefer broader strokes in their life and reading.

Åke Edwardson (b.10Mar1953 in Eksjö, Småland) is a Swedish author of detective fiction, and was previously a lecturer in journalism at Gothenburg University, the city where many of his Inspector Winter novels are set.
Edwardson held various jobs, a.o. journalist and also press officer for the United Nations.
His crime novels have made him a three-time winner of the Swedish Crime Writers' Academy Award for best crime novel.
Edwardson's 1st novel to be translated into English, in 2005, was 'Sun and Shadow'. The 2nd, 'Never End', followed in 2006.

No doubt I will read more by him in the future.

en.wikipedia.org:_Åke_Edwardson
theinvisiblementor.com/never-end-ake-edwardson (Avil Beckford, 16Dec2013)

I had 'Blue Monday' long on my 'to buy'-list for a while, but when I'd bought and read it I wasn't immediately convinced. 'Tuesday's Gone' (blog-2018q1) rectified this and 'Waiting for Wednesday' has confirmed it: I am hooked on the Frieda Klein novels!

The murder of an inoffensive home health visitor is only the tip of the iceberg in London psychotherapist Frieda Klein’s 3rd case...
Her previous behaviour left her not many friends in the police department, though DCI Karlsson still thinks highly of Frieda. But she has been declared persona non grata and for quite a while we 'see' Frieda struggling with the recovery of her wounds a psychopath had inflicted on her in the previous thriller, while Karlsson and his sidekick Yvette Long concentrate in solving this murder.
It seems like a burglary gone wrong.
Dr Bradshaw is the profiler of choice of the Police Commissioner and he holds a grudge against Dr Klein.

Karlsson can't stand the conceited Bradshaw. He seeks an excuse for consulting Frieda and he gets it.
So by the time Frieda finally enters the case—not as a consultant, but as the aunt of a friend of Ted Lennox, Ruth’s 18-year-old son— she opens Mal's eyes on what is not there in Ruth Lennox' house. She is
far too perfect: "look for her secrets", Frieda says.
Upon closer examination the police do find secrets, in fact an entire secret life! New scenarios are developed and new suspects are put on the board.

Josef the builder is involved again, failed mother Olivia and her daughter Chloë, Sandy in New York, friend Sasha, her boss Reuben.
While Karlsson is agonizing over the last stays of his young children who are about to move to Spain with his ex-wife and her new partner.
Dean Reeve is an ominous shadow in the background,

There is a 3rd plotline: aging reporter Jim Fearby, who was instumental in an appeal to free George Conley 10 years after he was convicted of strangling Hazel Barton, now wonders who killed Hazel if it wasn’t Conley!
Since the police seem convinced they got the right man the first time, Fearby goes hunting on his own and soon links Hazel to half a dozen other young women who vanished under similar circumstances.

Meanwhile, Frieda has become obsessed with tracking down the source of an anecdote one of her patients presented as his own memory. She can't explain why she is obsessed with this and it confirms to many
her mental unstability.
Her inquiries will eventually connect with Fearby’s and Karlsson’s but not before more dead ends, false confessions and another murder connected to the Ruth Lennox case have been put to the reader.

It is a book that is difficult to put down, one you long for during the day to pick up again ASAP!

kirkusreviews.com/.../nicci-french/waiting-for-wednesday/
en.wikipedia.org:_Nicci_French