More memory problems

Last night we watched an episode of Vera on ITV3, a channel we used to use on a regular basis until we got a smart TV. Reference 2 to be precise.

In which I was quite struck by Phyllis Logan, who seemed terribly familiar, although I did not at that point know her name - but which the telephone soon turned up for me. But still none the wiser, I asked what else she had done. Downton Abbey seemed big on her CV, but that did not help as we have never watched that particular show, at least not in a regular way. I think we may have tried a long time ago and not liked it. The only thing on the CV that worked was reference 3, also watched on ITV3, quite recently. Probably no more than two or three days ago.

But I could remember very little about the episode. To the point where I was muddling it up with another one which involved a wood. It striking me now that woods and forests figure quite a lot in murder mysteries aka police dramas. Cheap, I should think. Multi-storey car parks ditto.

However, back with reference 3, I was able to skip through the episode on my laptop - even though the skipping capability of ITVX is not as good as that on Amazon Prime. After which it was clear that Phyllis Logan did indeed have as large a role as she had last night. It also seemed likely that this was why she seemed so familiar, rather than from something in the more remote past.

A role which I was quite unable to recover from two or three days previously on the basis of the title.

And while quite a lot of the rather tangled story came back to me, it was also the case that I noticed, on skipping through, several short takes which I did not remember at all. Had I nodded off? Is this sort of memory on the way out?

PS 1: there was also a transient confusion with Anna Chancellor, near ten years younger.

PS 2: at bit later, the piece at reference 4 caught my eye. It seems that New Jersey encourage the preservation of open space by giving a generous tax break to land used for agricultural purposes, with hay making and woods counting as such purposes. So it suits some fancy golf clubs - including a couple owned by the Trump organisation - to set land aside for hay making and woods and to claim the tax break. Not really news at all. Perhaps on a par with the way that big famers in this country do rather well out of various measures which were originally cooked up for the benefit of small farmers.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Logan.

Reference 2: Vera - Series 2: Episode 3: A certain Samaritan - 2012.

Reference 3: Midsomer Murders: Series 2: Episode 2 - Strangler's Wood - 1999.

Reference 4: Trump golf club ditches goats — but keeps $240,000 farm tax break: Small herd banished from Bedminster club but hay harvesting to continue, according to New Jersey filing - Paul Caruana Galizia, Financial Times - 2025.