Flame and Citron, Danish film about the resistance

The place Copenhagen. The time 1944. The German occupation.

Citron, (Mads Mikkelsen), is living on fear, hate and desperation. He cannot sleep and he is always stressed. Being in the resistance he cannot live with his wife and daughter and his marriage is failing.

He drives red headed, smartly dressed, cold Bent, code named Flame, (Thure Lindhardt), to assassinate leading, Danish supporters of the Germans. Flame is calm and in control as he kills his enemy. The two are driven by their hatred of collaborators.

The work for the resistance group Holger Danske and they are given their targets by Aksel Winther, who co-ordinates the group. He states he gets instructions from both the British and Danish politicians based in Stockholm.

Winther then gives them the order to kill three Germans.

Official site of the film – good video.

Walked to Hampton Court Palace through Bushy Park.

Saw this amazing dog. Takes around four hours to groom.

Amazing dog in Bushy Park

Over the winter you can go around the back of the palace for free. Today is the last day you can go. Tomorrow, April 1st they charge and that ain’t no joke.

Hampton Court

When Hampton Court was built there was a fashion for stylish chimneys.

Chimneys at Hampton Court

and then my camera batteries gave out.

Quite a lot of interesting tourists. One kid put ‘This is my favourite place in the world’ in the visitors’ book.

Walked to Teddington Lock and saw the following:

Bike with flowers

Teddington Lock

Heron at Teddington Lock

Fishing at Teddington Lock Weir

Small boat leaving Teddington Lock

Nice lady running a book stall at Teddington Lock

This was taken in Kew Gardens in early March, 2009.   This is the haunt of the ameteur nature photographer.  He stalks his prey and scant attention to his own personal safety gets close to his prey.

See also plane over pond.  The plane flies noisely over the pond on its way to London Heathrow.

There are great arguments against Heathrow expanding. I am one of the few locals who actually supports the expansion.

Why?

1. Air travel will continue to expand despite the economic gloom and doom recessionists and the green lobby
2. If  the expansion is not done then rivals, such as Paris, will take the trade away.
3. Not expanding Heathrow will badly affect the image of London, as a financial centre and as a tourist centre.
4. The facilities and structure of the airport are inadequate for such a large airport.
5. Some of my friends work at Heathrow.
6. Three times this year mist meant that some planes had to divert from Heathrow.  If the airport had three runways they would not.  (In poor visibility there has to be longer gaps between planes on the same flight path)
7. We are used to aircraft noise around here.  Building another airport would affect another group of people.
8. and I live on a single bus route to Heathrow and an expanded Heathrow means more competition.  Which means more cheap flights to more destinations for me.

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Our holiday flights were paid on my BMI, British Midland, credit card, which is owned, or managed, by mbna.

So the letter stating we have been unable to process your recent Direct Debit to your account for one of the following reasons:

After one hour on the phone I find out that I have not used the card for 13 months and all direct debits mandates linked to the card are automatically cancelled.

mbna, the biggest card issuer in the UK does not have a routine in its vast computer network to check this. I would assume that this is not an unusual occurence.

So mbna send the direct debit to Barclays.

• Barclays then debits, not I’ll use real English, removes the cash from the account

• Barclays then realises that it should not have removed the money and so they pay the same amount back in.

So then starts the saga of Barclays call centre. As I have never bothered to get the 5 figure telephone pin number, as I never use telephone bankin, I feel a little bit awkward.
Still we go through the security checks and fortunately my date of birth has not changed since I signed up with the bank.

The place sounds like it is in the Caribbean. Certainly the hold music is upbeat and the woman dealing with me had a charming accent Barbadian accent..

It takes me a time to understand the reason as in banking terms the direct debit is unpaid, yet I can see with my own eyes, on the computer screen, that it has been paid and then replaced. (in English it should not be – unpaid, but something like not authorised to be paid)

Then onto mbna call centre. I do not have their telephone secret passwords or codes, as my ‘phone-a-friends’ tend to want more than just talk about credit cards.

My date of birth is still the same, another set of questions and then I am told by a cheerful chappy that the direct debit failed because of the 13 month rule.

In a cheerful way there was only a vague attempt to apologise, but the interesting point was how am I going to pay the outstanding amount. I did point out it was their fault, which was cheerfully agreed, but I ought to pay.

I said I would prefer to pay by Direct Debit, but I was told that would take 30 days and the money had to be paid before then.

So to avoid damaging my unblemished credit record I paid by debit card.

And the reason I don’t use their credit cards very much

They used to keep sending me sets of blank cheques, which I could use for cash, paying off other credit cards or for whatever use I wanted. These cheques are automatically charge the same rate of interest as getting a cash advance from an ATM, possibly more.

There’s a great safety risk as all my bank details are on the cheques and if stolen and used by somebody else would have caused me a great deal of hassle to try an dcorrect the problem.

They also seem to be targeted at those already in financial trouble and let’s face it – this is the sort of banking initative that has caused the present credit crisis.

B – B – B – Bankers

An old fool and his money are soon parted, but he’ll die with a smile on his face.

Parked near my house

Taken 16th March, 2009

The picture does not give him credit. But I really like the self portrait of Van Gough. As youn move around the painting it changes.

The Courtauld Institute is really worth a visit. It has a vast range of paintings, furniture and some sculptures.

On Mondays entrance in the morning is free. The staff are very freindly and the cafe is a quiet oaisis in the bustle of traffic.