"Being Johnny" by Nigel Gordon

[Rutabaga]

Aunt Ruth is a pistol.  Based on what has transpired so far, I'm not optimistic about Bernard and Debora getting back together.  

R

[Rutabaga]

“Hanger’s the name . . . Cliff Hanger.”

 

R

[Rutabaga]

By the way, a bit of review from the previous series might be helpful here.  In this scene, Mike is having lunch with Miss Jenkins:

"The thing is, we appear to have a coincidence, and the people we are dealing with are not the type of people who believe in coincidence," she stated.

"And what is the coincidence?" I asked.

"The week before Easter, some members of my family took down a rather nasty operator known as Master James. I won't bore you with the details, but we were able to assist Maddie in sorting out some problems she had come across. It so happened that the particular problem she had come across was one we had an interest in sorting out, so we got together to work on it.

"Part of that action resulted in us acquiring a large amount of computer data relating to the activities of the Argentinian-based organisation. Within a few days of that, you became involved in triggering a series of events which resulted in Mayers being arrested.

"We had already identified Mayers from the data we had recovered from Master James' system. Another person who was named in that system was Mrs. Smith. It was quite clear from the information we have that she was involved in laundering funds through various businesses. Back in September, we were able to identify Mrs. Smith as being your ex-wife. For the last few months, we have been watching her activities. Then your son goes and exposes her as a crook, an act which was going to cause those she was working for significant problems; I believe a large amount of their assets are held in her name.

"I do not doubt that they will now be taking an interest in you and your son, and when they do, they will soon come up with the connection with my family. After all, we have the same solicitor, we have interests in the same companies, your father was our accountant, and a number of my family, including myself, have trained with your brother.

"All these connections are, of course, pure coincidences, but the people we are dealing with tend not to believe in coincidences. To make matters worse, it seems that the Hendersons and their Brethren Church, may have been involved with the same group."

"What?"

"We can't be sure Mr. Carlton, but there are indications of a connection between the Hendersons and both Master James and Mayers. If that is the case, and I suspect it is, between the two of us, we will have delivered a major blow to their operations in this country. A blow which I do not think they are going to take lying down."

This takes me back to my concern that those diaries that Mike and Johnny brought back from Beryl's residence need to be kept in a safer place, or duplicated, or both.

R

 

 

[Rutabaga]

Meanwhile, I find myself wondering what has become of the mysterious Antonio who is suspected of planting some kind of hacking capabilities on Arthur's servers . . .

R

[Nigel Gordon]

To address a point that has been raised by a couple of different people who have emailed me. Johnny, Mike and Anne do not go to church, that is why there is no mention of them going. In book one Mike identifies himself as being Pagan and Johnny identifies himself as Buddhist. Anne's religious affiliation, if any, is not made known. 

Even if they had identified as Christian, it is doubtful if they would be going to church. The largest Christian denomination in England, the Church of England, has less than 600,000 regular church goers. That is less than 1% of the population. Church going is not a regular part of life in England and attendance at Church would be an exception rather than a norm in any even. 

The only member of the cast of the Johnny series who does attend Church on anything like a regular basis is Miss Jenkins, but that is covered in another story.

[Ivor Slipper]

Chapter 29 today takes the story off in a totally unexpected direction. Some little known (and shocking) historical facts are revealed by a chance encounter that Johnny & Joseph have with an elderly man in Amsterdam. 

[Nigel Gordon]

The story of Henk, told in Being Johnny, is essentially the story of a friend I made whilst I was living in the Netherlands. All the major events, reported for Henk happened to my friend, including being forced to leave Australia after his conviction in a Nazi era court came to light. The only part of the story which was not taken from my friend's experience was the execution of Henk's pal in the work camp. The description for that came from another source about the treatment of gay men by the Nazis.

 

[Rutabaga]

First the suspicious Antonio; now the phony potter Marius and his sister (or so he claims) Irene. 

It makes me think there is a nefarious counterpart to Miss Jenkins out there who is planting undercover agents in the Priory. 

World War II had ended 7 years before I was born. It is hard for me to imagine the depredations that Hitler brought about.

R

 

[Rutabaga]

Something tells me Wim is in for a surprise. 
 

R

[Rutabaga]

Meanwhile, the mystery of the guy following the Carltons around grows.  It seems unquestionable that he is keeping an eye on them (and rather clumsily, it appears).  The question is, on behalf of whom?

R

[Rutabaga]

It's about time someone asked Miss Jenkins about the mystery man shadowing them.

R

 

 

[Rutabaga]

Bad, bad Donny.

Hope they got him some fresh underwear.

R

ADDENDUM:  We first encountered Solomon Grundy, by name only, in Chapter 28 of Living with Johnny.  The context was that one of Grundy's "helpers," nicknamed Figgy, had been caught in the act of trying to assassinate Arthur to prevent him from talking to the police.  It appeared that Figgy was freelancing for the Henderson mob, not doing something for Grundy.  A lawyer appeared at Figgy's interrogation the next day and requested permission to attend his interview, but never claimed to be Figgy's lawyer.  Figgy apparently "sang like a canary" about his work for the Hendersons, and it is said that this lawyer left with copious notes and a copy of the audio recording to report to an unidentified "man in London" (presumably Grundy although it is not stated).

This raises a couple of interesting questions in light of the current story.  First, we have seen that Grundy is far from the "forgive and forget" type, and it would be interesting to know what may have become of Figgy once Grundy learned of his freelancing.  Second, it seems like the Henderson/Braylow activities would be viewed by Grundy as an incursion on his turf, or at least putting his activities at needless risk.  This would give Grundy an incentive to facilitate the Hendersons' downfall and imprisonment (or worse).  We don't hear about such a thing, however.

[Rutabaga]

It occurs to me that we have heard little or nothing about Trevor's recovery (or lack thereof), or how things are going with Arthur.  Nor have we heard further about the planted spy routine on Arthur's servers, and whether the mysterious Antonio is connected with that.  

R

[Rutabaga]

And so today we have an actual “Cliff” hanger. 
 

Sheesh. 
 

R

[Rutabaga]

And now we have a “Dad” hanger. 
 

R

[Rutabaga]

So finally the bad guys show their hand, as it were.  But it's puzzling.  Surely they know the gold is tied up for years.  Also, it seems crazy that Die Vereinigung would be involved with such penny-ante activities as the Hendersons' church and the Aryan Defence League.  

Hopefully Johnny's review of the diaries will reveal more.  Perhaps we'll learn that Dame Grace is actually one of the brains behind Die Vereinigung and was responsible for getting Beryl involved with it all.

R

 

[Rutabaga]

Meanwhile, I'm still wondering what ever became of Antonio.

R

[Ivor Slipper]

13 hours ago, Rutabaga said:

Meanwhile, I'm still wondering what ever became of Antonio.

R

https://youtu.be/il0fCMW74ZA

 

[Merkin]

Bravo, Ivor, great find.  A perfect 19th century voice, quaver and all.

[Rutabaga]

Boy howdy, I guess that answers that! 😃😃😃

R

[Merkin]

Spoiler

 

 

[Merkin]

Oops, messed that up.  Chapter 52 Spoiler Alert:

 

Spoiler

Chapter 52:  I fear Johnny is in great danger of losing control of his aspirations.  His minders and bodyguards are busy steering his physical wellbeing, and his father and other vested interests seem intent on wrenching control of his Flying Lady replica project away from him and into the swamp of media production.  His plan for a decent year’s effort toward A level achievement will probably be derailed by the hysteria of film-making, while the grounding he experiences in the routines of boatyard work seems doomed.  And where is Joseph headed?  That’s a showdown yet to come.

 

[Rutabaga]

I think James raises an interesting and pertinent concern in his hidden text.  It's not entirely clear to me what Johnny could do about many aspects of that concern, given the outside forces beyond his control.  Unless he uncovers something critically important in his diary reviews . . .

R

[Rutabaga]

In this latest chapter Johnny seems to be picking up on the issues James raised in the hidden text above.  

I can't imagine anyone, especially in the US, demanding a physical color print of a film or TV program in this day and age.  Many facilities do not even have the equipment to play back from film any more.

It seems like the Henderson mob must have been larger and better equipped than it seemed in the last series.  Hope Johnny can get a replacement car soon, or that this one can be repaired adequately.

R 

[Nigel Gordon]

19 hours ago, Rutabaga said:

I can't imagine anyone, especially in the US, demanding a physical color print of a film or TV program in this day and age.  Many facilities do not even have the equipment to play back from film any more.

I was doing some post production work for a documentary film maker about 5 years after the date this story was set. A US distributor was interested in it, and requested that it be supplied on physical film media. 3 years later, the same distributor refused to accept a film unless it was transferred to digital format. The world changed very quickly in a very short time with respect to film media.