Just a tease: you can have some entree but no main
I’ll always remember my first martini. I was a guest of the British High Commission when it decided to preview the latest James Bond in style.
At the steps of Roxy Cinema in Miramar, hostesses resemblingmiss Moneypenny offered Bond martinis before the movie.
I tasted my first and enjoyed it somuch I returned for two more. I was shaken, not stirred, by the time I tookmy seat.
I remember the opening credits, but little else. I was awake during thewhole of Skyfall and vaguely recallmbeing killed off. That was it. The sky fell onme.
The cocktails resembled the martinis being served on the ocean liner, the Queen Elizabeth II. In Inside the Qehotel (Choice, Sunday), the ship is experiencing a $100 million-plus refit in Dubai.
It’s now a floating hotel and its new owner is upgrading the historic Queen’s Grill ready for guests who’ll dine and stay over in one of the 224 luxury bedrooms. They’ll need to.
Themartinis are named after Princess Margaret, who consumed so many she became as glazed as the cherries. They filled the glass.
Whether expat guests recall what they ate is anyone’s guess. The food had to be elegant and exotic ‘‘to gowith custard’’ – anything funky you could pourmilk product on.
However, the docowas hugely disappointing. We saw the preparations, the last-minute details, the use of Royal plates and cutlery – did the Queen eat off one? – and the plating up trials in the kitchen.
But, as the episode ended, we never sawwhat was prepared or served. It was like a sound check but no concert, foreplay but no seduction.
I can only imagine the food was secret. Instead, you need to pay a few thousand to sit at the captain’s table and find out the menu. Custard was mentioned, sowas salmon and a starter of haggis and haddock. Very fishy.
Another indulgence was Rosewest And
Myra Hindley (TV One, Tuesday). Sir Trevormcdonald latched on to the rumour that two of Britain’s most evil women became lovers behind bars. So he went to find out. Sadly, he took uswith him.
Myra Hindleywas the moormurderer who, togetherwith Ian Brady, abdicated and murdered five children. Rose and Fredwest bound, gagged, abused and killed at least 10 young people, including their own daughter.
Myra and Rose met at the high-security Durham Prison and became firm friends. Because all the inmates were serial crims, cells were unlocked. Other lags claimed Myra and Rose were inseparable for about six weeks.
Despite intrigue and impressive production values, I could only ask ‘‘who cares?’’ Myra died in prison, while Rose is a recluse whose only visitor is someone called ‘‘mum’’.
If she’d admitted her crimes on TV, it may have made the doco worthwhile, but she didn’t. Her answer was ‘‘never’’, which hardlymakes Trevor feel clever about his endeavour.
In Paramedics (TV One, Tuesdays), Jess put her fingers in a pouch to roll her own and got bitten by a venomous funnel-web spider. Within minutes, she felt hot, sweaty and vomited.
Jesswas taken by ambulance to hospital and monitored over a two-week period. The landlord agreed to fumigate the house. He should have fumigated her lungs.
Jess’ call for help was one of several in a new, absorbing series of Paramedics. It shows how Melbourne’s finest respond to a variety of emergencies.
In the episode, 72-year-oldmilia had a chronic chest infection, an addict overdosed on anxiety pills and ice, and John, a farmer in rural Victoria, had a heart attack.
‘‘Don’t leave the cows too long,’’ he told his family as they loaded him aboard an air ambulance. He might be having a cardiac arrest, but Daisy neededwater. Welcome to the udder side of life.
Quote of the year must go to David Bain in
Black Hands (TV One On Demand). ‘‘My family are all dead, hurry up,’’ he told police. Are there degrees of death? Would they be deader if emergency services didn’t come straight away?