“The Chelsea Detective” on AcornTV is one of those UK crime dramas perhaps in the same ilk as “Morse” or “Lewis”. Both of those shows did alot to introduce their audience to Oxford. This is where I first started using Google StreetView to get a feel for walking the streets and alleyways of Oxford, England and the different colleges & libraries of Oxford University. I don’t remember all of the colleges, but I know the Radcliff Camera and Brasenose, which is just off from Radcliff.
Then came “BOSCH” which followed the life & work of Harry Bosch, an L.A. detective. Early on, I realized that the filming of Bosch was very different from most other television programs. Most programs hide the actual names of streets and often rename familiar businesses or locations, but Bosch wasted no time on this. Street signs and most building names were not blurred out, so you could pause the video, and easily read a street sign in the current scene.
I came to know where the Hollywood Division of the L.A.P.D. was located. I found the location where Harry Bosch lived, which looked much better on camera and not from the StreetView. Restaurants, bars and surveillance locations were easily recognizable and locations that were near the HOLLYWOOD sign were easily referenced. And, I even found a restaurant, near a McDonald’s fast food restaurant, that had been turned into a bank, for an important “bank shootout” scene.
So, as I start to watch “the Chelsea Detective,” I realize that there are very recognizable locations acting as backgrounds for the characters. The “Albert” Bridge is very distinctive.
Finding the actual houseboat that the main character lives on, was easy to find, near the Battersea Bridge.
So, I was on the Google StreetView working my way down the street past the moored houseboats and I came to a fork in the road.
It is here that I looked and saw a Wood’s truck caught by the StreetView cam.
This is what it looked like:
I took a look at the websites for the Beefeater Restaurant and the Premier Inn, all three businesses: restaurant, inn and food service huddled together.
Beefeater Uxbridge web site. The food choices appeared to be good and the prices not too expensive. But, now that I think of it, were the prices in dollars or pounds?
Premier Inn web site. Nothing extravagant, nor expensive. But those prices were in pounds, so £97.00 would be $117.97 US dollars. Heathrow Airport only 15 minutes away via A4020. Brunel University only six minutes away. Oxford University about 46 minutes further west from this West London location.
Brunel University web site. I enjoyed the virtual campus tour and visited quite a number of locations on campus. The whole campus appeared to be neat and clean and modern, such as the Eastern Gateway Auditorium.
More than likely, at my age (68), I will never visit London, Chelsea, Uxbridge or Oxford University. I will never set foot on a houseboat moored along a river in England. But, I do like living vicariously through the characters I see on TV and using Google StreetView to “walk or ride” on foot, by car or on a boat down the Thames.
NOTE: I have been studying German for almost two years now. Have used several online sites, most free, some for pay. I even spent a little extra to learn some German grammar, as most of the free sites do not have an organized means of teaching German grammar. I created “noun cards” which helped me learn over 750 German nouns and their assigned definite articles (der, die, das).
Each noun card was a visual collage of images of nouns, but all of the nouns on one card had to have the same gender of the definite article. e.g. A card might have a picture of a cat, an oyster, a scale and several other nouns, all using the feminine definite article of “die”. Surprisingly, these cards helped me learn about 762 nouns, their assigned definite articles, and by the visual elements a remarkable memory for the definite articles. die Katze, die Auster, die Scala, die Zitrone, die Garnale, die Schubkarre, die Axt, etc. I visually see in my mind this card and the path I used to remember all the nouns on that card.
So, all the above has nothing to do with what I actually wanted to point to. Another learning tool I came to use was Google StreetView. I focused upon Berlin and StreetView would show icons representing motels, restaurants, museums and other categories of businesses. I focused mainly on restaurants and would visit their website, if they had one. I would look at the menus, and then Google for an interesting dish. Often I would find several beautiful photos online of the meal combinations for which I had googled. This helped me learn German words for various foods, and cooking items: der Spargel, der Topf, das Messer, die Gabel, Zutaten (ingredients), etc. And, I also might visit a grocer website, such as LIDL and learn how a food shopper in Germany might interact online. But, I also became familiar with the Spree River, some train stations (Bahnhofs), iconic elements such as the Molecule Man, and where the German Secret Service was located. *Interesting about that was a very tall smoke stack nearby. The new building is shown in various stages from StreetView. I even recognized this building recently while watching a current movie. The image in the movie was supposed to be of the Secret Service complex in Berlin, and I realized IT WAS.
Oh, nothing to do with the original topic, but I also turn on Closed Captioning when I am watching TV and have the captioning in Deutsche. I am not totally fluent, but I do see much progress in recognizing many German words as they appear in sentences on the TV screen. I am still weak on putting whole sentences together, correctly, or even in the correct word order for German… where does “bitte” go in a sentence?
I was reminded this morning that I had originally seen a picture of “A Young Girl Reading” on a wall in my Aunt Sis’ house (before they moved it down on the other side of Swansboro). I definitely had the “hots” for the young girl, and her nubile bod which should excite any pre-pubescent ‘straight’ male. My Aunt also had a picture of “Little Boy Blue” another iconic image (for which I had no sexual undercurrent):
[ NOTE 12/23/23 ]: I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but after the first episode of the second season of “the Chelsea Detective,” which I liked even with a different actress portraying his partner, I “fell out of love with this series.” I didn’t renew my subscription to Britbox, and although I see “the Chelsea Detective” stills, I have no desire to view any new content. **Not sure, but I have noted in several other shows, in this new age of Cable TV, that with fewer seasonal episodes, and the longer time between seasons, I have repeatedly lost interest in shows that had captured my attention. It is probably because the emotional attachment I have, dissipates because of the lack of repetition, during a season of fewer shows, and the long time before seeing new episodes, next season.
Two shows that have weathered the “new age problem” for me include the new season of “Fargo,” and “Reacher” and to a lesser degree, “Bosch: Legacy.” I’m enjoying the new season of Reacher.
I read “The Crossing” a Bosch novel, and started “The Wrong Side of Goodbye,” but quickly realized I had seen this story already on TV, so I stopped about 30 pages into that and picked up another novel.
Actually, I had already seen the story of “the Crossing,” but enjoyed the written word over the acted word. On TV, Bosch and his half-brother, Haller, “the Lincoln Lawyer,” are NOT. Haller doesn’t appear in the TV episodes, but Honey Chandler becomes the lawyer character interacting with Harry. And, in my determination, this isn’t better. I also noted that the incarcerated Accused is white, on TV, but is black & a former gang member in the Book. The dynamics of the characters in the book are so much more intricate, and better.
I am now about 70 pages into “Two Kinds of Truth,” which I have already seen portrayed on TV, but I don’t recall the ending. So when I am reading of “Jose” and “Junior” having been shot and killed in their Pharmacy (farmacia familia – sp), I already have a mental image, from TV, and a vague hint of why & how they were killed.
Oh, and as I enjoyed Tom Selleck as the police chief of Paradise, he eventually grew too old, in real life, to be believable on the screen. And I see this in Bosch: Legacy. Honey Chandler is too old, and Harry is getting there also. And although I like Lintz and Chang (he has that special charisma through his character) they won’t carry the show.
Bill Gibson, II 