7388/19908
Early morning football - Phoebe’s football team has won its last two matches, but she didn’t play in the first one of those and I was away for the second, so I’d still never seen the side win (though last time I’d come there had been an honourable draw). Plus they’d gone back up a league so the opposition would be tough. It was a blisteringly good game, with lots of chances and lots of great saves. We went 1-0 up, but then 2-1 down. Then equalised and then went behind again. I thought that I might be a jinx.
But an equaliser in the third quarter set up a tantalising last ten minutes. Phoebe was in goal for that last quarter, a position she likes, but one that comes with a lot of responsibility. Our team hit the post twice and it looked like it might not be our day. On two occasions the opposition got through on goal, with no defenders nearby and just Phoebe standing in the way of defeat. My heart dropped. I didn’t want her to feel responsible, even though it was the rest of the team that was at fault. But she got down and saved the first effort, keeping the score at 3-3 and then we went down the other end and took the lead. The opposition came back strong and overwhelmed the defence again and hit a blistering , close range, flying ball that looked unstoppable and which I would definitely have ducked to avoid. Phoebe stood her ground and got in the way and blocked it with her body and was an absolute hero. We weren’t meant to do anything more than applaud today in another week of the weird initiative where shouting out and coaching from the parents was forbidden (though it still happened) but I didn’t just clap that one. It’s incredible to see how far this team have come and how much they’ve improved, but I still remain in awe of how committed and brave my daughter is. She was thrilled with her part in the win. I might have been more thrilled.
Catie was out tonight so I made the most of her absence by catching up on Death in Paradise. I genuinely love this show, but I admire it more than I love it. I can’t think of a programme like it. It doesn’t matter that each episode runs to more or less exactly the same formula (four suspects, the youngest one almost always turns out to be the secret child of the murder victim or one of the suspects) and it doesn’t matter if you keep on changing the cast. The characters are strong and likeable and you care about them, but if one of them leaves to be replaced by someone fairly similar, you don’t really care at all. Not even the lead. I think Ralf Little is up there as one of the best incarnation of the pasty white detective fish out of water, but if he got fed up with it and they replaced him with Joe Pasquale, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.
It doesn’t even matter that most of the crimes don’t make a lick of sense (spoilers coming) like Ralf Little’s girlfriend turning out to be someone looking for revenge for the death of her sister, who seduces him, goes out with him, goes home, but then comes back and waits for an opportunity to rise where she can frame him for murder. The chances of that opportunity might be small, but it’s surely worth her sleeping with someone she hates for several weeks in order to wait for it. Rather than just waiting til he’s asleep and twatting him over the head with a brick.
I would advise the many murderers of Saint Marie to stop coming up with fiendish plots to make their crimes look impossible, as there is a detective on the island who is an expert at solving those (though always after a few false starts) and seems to enjoy the challenge. Just twat someone over the head with a brick and run for it.
This week’s episode involved a man setting up a complicated switcheroo of a poisoned bottle of rum to make it look like it must have been the glass that had been poisoned. The murderer had to rely on the fact that everyone would be so distracted by the dead body that they wouldn’t notice him moving bottles around and sticking on labels. You’d think he might have been worried when he saw Ralf Little sitting at the bar. Maybe he’d call the whole thing off. After all there was a chance that a detective might be sharp enough to make sure the murder scene was sealed as soon as someone died, but he got away with it. For a while.
It was a bit of a dumb plan as he had set up a scenario where it looked like it was impossible for anyone to have poisoned the victim, but the victim had been poisoned and so the detectives were going to have to work out how it was possible. A better plan might have been to frame someone for the murder, rather than leave it so it could have been anyone (including the actual murderer), but it was nice of the murderer to set up a puzzle that would need to be cracked and would take 60 minutes to do so. The murderers of Saint Marie are very considerate like this.
None of this matters. In fact it makes the show even better. It’s an absolute pleasure to watch and I’d say to all the people going out and getting drunk or high and dancing and fucking each other on a Saturday night to stop doing that and instead be cool like me and watch Death in Paradise on iplayer.
