24 hours later

This morning my wife and I set out on a mountain walk about 30 miles out of town. Not tremendously arduous, at about 6 miles with an ascent of little more than 300 metres, it is a bit special as I have seen its dark rounded shape from a distance since childhood, yet never thought to climb it until now. We would have gone yesterday, but the weather was inclement. Today, illustrating once again what a difference a day makes, it is set fair with plenty of blue sky and clouds scudding at several different layers in the atmosphere. Very pleasant.

When we return home we settle down to watch the final 2 episodes of "24", series 7. I have thus devoted 16 hours to the enterprise (and not 24, because at least a third is accounted for by commercial breaks, which thankfully we are spared in the DVD) So, was it worth the expenditure of so much time? I fear not. There is no doubt that the "24" concept, with all the action taking place in "real time", is unique and at one level both exciting and dramatic. High production values and some powerful acting performances, especially by Kiefer Sutherland, seem to make it work sticking with, but some of the plots twists are ludicrous: the president appointing her own daughter to chief of staff despite her having a dubious record (in a previous series) is just one example out of several devices that eventually made both of us lose faith. We are currently recording and storing series 8 on "sky plus", but we are both now seriously questioning whether we're going to bother. There has also been a lot of debate about "Jack's" tactic of torturing vital information out of suspects and justifying his actions as being for the greater good, saving thousands of lives etc etc, but the fact is that 24's creator, Joel Surnow, has made no secret of his republican sympathies, and one can't help wondering how much of all this is designed to support the Bush presidency and its treatment of "terrorists"