(203) The Juror and (204) George´s Last Ride

On the day, April 2nd 2003, I believe, when the jury were beginning the deliberations in the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? trial, I attended a sales presentation with accompanying free Chinese lunch at a restaurant near our home. A couple whom we there met and with whom we conversed during the meal, mentioned that this was the day when they were "... weighing it up."
We were to meet up with them again not long after at another restaurant ,when I was enjoying a (delayed) birthday celebration.

On January 11th 2004 we were vending some stuff at a car boot sale. A lady perused some of the books we had on offer and purchased a copy of a novel by George Dawes Green called The Juror.
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/g/george-dawes-green/juror.htm

Fiona had only bought it shortly before, as she thought that it might sell at boot fairs.
As the lady was buying she said that she had just recognised us. It was the one whom we had met at the sales presentation.
I quipped: "Oh; you were at the trial?", my attempt at a joke being that, although we had never actually been in court, she would have seen us when we were in court somewhere.

AND

(204) George´s Last Ride

Around noon on March 2nd 2004 I looked at a thread at the uk.quizzing.co. site . It was not a thread which I had previously viewed and I read this - 

Posted by JohnPDyer 
I don’t know if anyone else noticed some coincidences on TV tonight, but I think Mr. Plaskett should be informed. Immediately after the guy lost £15,000 on the Dylan Thomas question, if you turned over to Channel 4 to avoid the adverts, an advert was showing featuring Ricky Tomlinson (British Gas, I think). In an episode of Alan Bleasdale’s ‘The Boys From the Blackstuff’ (entitled George’s Last Ride he (Ricky T.) uttered the Dylan Thomas lines quoted in the question. Even stranger, he appeared later last night on an episode of ‘Dalziel and Pascoe’ and at one stage in the proceedings was hosting a quiz. Perhaps the Major was innocent after all? 11 Jan 2004 00:47



Next on the thread were these comments - Posted by wiseoldowls 
Chas? Not guilty? What a coincidence! So was George Davis, James Hanratty, Jeffrey Archer and Smeagol! (Enough of that Ed.) 11 Jan 2004 00:58 Site Admin 

Posted by Roxy I have to agree with the sentiments aired by JohnPDyer. As the worthy contestant was pondering the tricky ‘Salad Days’ tester, I switched over to UK Gold, which was, as always, on an advert break. Imagine my shock and surprise when I was immediately confronted with a Tesco’s advert for a range of goods which included..... its own brand Salad Cream! Coincidence? I think not. 
Surely this proves beyond any shadow of doubt that Major Ingram was an innocent victim of Celador and its evil minions? 11 Jan 2004 02:20 

 I was moved to respond immediately - 
 Posted by PLASKETT The Scales of Justice 
Er...? Not sure that was EXACTLY why I was arguing that they did not do it... but I thank all of the last three posters for their valuable input to the debate. I shall not, however, be amending my essay accordingly. Maybe the defence may take note when it comes to the appeal? 2 Mar 2004 12:41 

I then thought more about it, and two hours later I appended this - 
 
Posted by PLASKETT The message in the media 
As I now see it, the full implications of JohnPDyer’s above post are clearer. Not only had I been thinking about the "Rage, rage..." lines of Thomas a lot over the past few weeks, I had even written them downa few times. 
Then, just one hour before I saw this post of his - and the two following - for the first time, this lunchtime, I glimpsed on Sky News images of people hurt by a bomb in Baghdad being ferried away in a wheelbarrow. That had triggered the memory of George’s Last Ride; the 6th of the 1982 broadcasts in Bleasdale’s Boys From The Blackstuff, where Bernard Hill carries the unconscious George off to the hospital in such manner. 
I believe it is Ricky Tomlinson, in said hospital, who delivers the Dylan Thomas lines to the recovering George. ... ... ... 
And Dalziel and Pascoe is a detective series... 
Before entering acting in 1982 Ricky T. was a trade unionist who served years in jail for conspiracy in the 1970s. 
The Millionaire Three were charged and done for conspiracy to get Tarrant to part with money. Do not forget 
Ricky’s best and most publicized performance: as Mike Bassett, the England soccer manager in a spoof documentary, narrated by... Martin Bashir. 

Only 4 possible answers to the riddle:- 
a) Dyer is a fruitcake. 
b) Elvis is alive. 
c) Dyer, Wiseoldowls and Roxy were all in on it for a nice cut. 
d) (When will those gentlemen come and put me back in that nice , padded cell?) 

The Dylan Thomas question on WWTBAM? was concerning the quote "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." The posts had been made in early January, yet it was only fifty-one days later that I first came to read them, and that just an hour after the news images which had triggered my memory of George´s Last Ride. 
I am not sure I ever saw any other such depiction of a stricken person being taken to hospital, neither in fiction nor reality. 
...   ...   ...
On March 27th 2004, twenty-five days after I made my post to that thread, Question 27 at the weekly Quiz run by Pat McLachlan at the Emerald Isle bar, less than a mile from my home, was: "Which poet wrote the lines ‘Do not go gentle into that good night?’" 
Which I was able to answer successfully.
...   ...   ...
btw, in late 2023 I was to discover that although I had been right to recall an incident in Boys from the Blackstuff where George Malone had been transported to hospital by Yosser Hughes in a wheelbarrow it was NOT in the episode "George´s Last Ride"! It was actually in the previous episode entitled "Yosser´s Story".

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