Amazon England is having a sale

So I went shopping one night last week at one am in the morning, and it was all very tempting. BBC films at reductions of up to 60 per cent! Oooooo.... Was your proverbial kid in the candy store, believe me.

Whatever, my little package arrived this morning, and we began watching a five-episode series called 'Cranford' this morning.

It is about a village north of Manchester England in 1844. Lots of widows and women, frustration, and a very restricted code of 'what is done', and what is 'scandalous. Therefore every frivolous infraction of their 'rules' sends them into paroxysms of 'excitement', heart palpitations, and sets their collective tongues wagging. Well, in the first two episodes, everything has been going on very well, thanks, but are about to change. Because the railway is going to be expanded and Cranford will be a stop, to the horror of the inhabitants.

The series got a solid five star rating from the Amazon customers, and so far, deservedly so. Some of it is so hilarious that I had to laugh out loud. But with stars the caliber of Dame Judi Dench, Micheal Chabon, Simon Woods, and Imelda Staunton especially as breathless spying busy-body one can only expect the best, and they deliver. But it also has some very dramatic and sad moments. There are interesting insights into so many things in what daily life was like at the time, it can be absolutely fascinating.

I still get the giggles over a scene in the first part. Annti would be horrified, but it was so funny. Two women are testing a recipe to bleach old lace, and the piece is historic and valuable. So they set it in a bowl and drench it with buttermilk. The cat eats it. With the lace, of course. They run in hyterics into town with the cat, and a friend 'sacrifices' the 'boot that fought at Waterloo'. They hold the cat over it and give it a diahrretic. It had me in tears.

Will do a full review when I've seen it all.

Let's see, what else did I get on my binge? The best rated version of Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion, Jane Austen stuff. And a new dvd version of Little Dorrit by Dickens, a six hour extravaganza. All BBC.

Whatever, you can safely shop there, and many of them are coded so that they play world-wide. Link in the title. And thanks to Lazarus, who is still wheezing away, but got this much done.