wiccan333 I have loved all of the episodes of The House of Cards Trilogies from the very first to The Final Cut. I absolutely abhor the American version of the show. I wish Hollywood would stop taking BBC ideas, paint them thickly with a stupidity brush to then show on our television screens and start making original ideas of their own.I am curious if any other fans of this original series has or know where one can get sound bites from the third series? In particular, there are two I am most interested in and I believe they are in the same scene. When Jeffrey Boozer-Pitt tells FU about his behavior with a woman who was married, FU makes the following statement, "Jeffrey, Jeffrey." The second sound bite is just a moment later when Jeffrey talks about his improper share dealing with same woman, FU says, You really are utterly contemptible, aren't you" he goes on, "No background, no bottom, absolutely no informing principal but the will to survive. Just a plump little bag of squirming appetites." Harsh,perhaps, but appropriate. If anyone knows where I can get those sound bites, please let me know. I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU An absolute masterpiece in political philandering. Politics is poison. Politics is perversion. Politics is treacherous intercourse between any man and any other person, any woman and any other human with only one objective: to seize power, to retain power, to "make history" as if they could, not understanding that power is illusive and evasive, and history is not made by anything or anybody because history is and nothing else. What makes it is unknown of everybody. Big Ben here is only to dictate the time of the beginning of each episode, 9:22 a.m. The general idea is that a plain apparatchik of the conservative party manages to push aside the successor to Margaret Thatcher, the longest- serving peace time Prime Minister, who was too weak for the job, and he becomes nothing but the brute of the job who uses young women to get his inspiration, kills them as soon as they could become dangerous, and is in fact entirely manipulated by his own wife, a new Lady Macbeth who even manages to make him confront the new king and force him to abdicate. What's the best part of it is that it is thrilling to follow the actions of this apprentice sorcerer and to see how he manages any situation to his own advantage and yet is heading right into the wall because to succeed too long becomes dangerous for your own health in the British system where only the sovereign can last long because he or she is not supposed to play politics. It is thrilling because we know the only end can be his failure when the wall of success will become so hard that he will have to be eliminated for the simple survival of the political system.Yet you will learn only in the very last scene who the manipulator of it all is and what his or/and her intention is too. And it is true the series is intelligent enough and well enough done that you cannot know who that manipulator is though we see his/her black gloves at crucial moments but the episode systematically mislead you to believing it (he/she) is someone else.The series is also a very good criticism of British democracy based on the free press that is as free as a tornado in a narrow and deep gorge between two very high mountains. The press is in fact on a very short leash: make money with news and make the news if necessary to make money, like Citizen Kane used to say. Parliament is an amazing maze of corridors and staircases, a comfortable bar and a House of Commons with only one interesting session, Questions to the Prime Minister, every week or maybe more often. This Parliament is a farce in many ways, at best a circus for gladiators who have no right to kill one another but who can bruise their own and respective egos in all possible ways.It is so easy to make the public believe what you want them to believe when you can pull the strings that hold the press. And then you can always manage someone to get killed here and there, now and then, who is embarrassing or annoying the big masters.I am so glad I am not engulfed in such an ugly activity. And yet I am sorry everyday because of them because they terrorize my own life all the time with their own caprices and incompetence. After that you sure will loathe politics, or at best want to be one of the few who can control the game.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Philby-3 WARNING; SPOILER AHEAD. This mini-series is the final in the three adapted by Andrew Davies from Michael Dobbie's books (the others are `House of Cards' and `To Play the King'. Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson) has achieved his ambition to be prime minister even longer than Maggie Thatcher (whose memorial he is about to open) and is now contemplating retirement. However, his past is now catching up with him in the shape of his participation as a young man in a long-forgotten insurrection on Cyprus. What's more, his hitherto supportive wife, Elizabeth has been getting rather matey with Corder, the security goon.This is the blackest of the series and at times the dullest. The pace gets very slow and when the final bullet comes it is almost a relief. It fits though. As a noted Scottish autocrat, Lord Reith of the BBC once opined, the best form of government is despotism tempered by assassination. Churchill, on the other hand, thought that democracy was a terribly bad form of government, but far better than all the other sorts. Urquhart, the Scottish laird, needs to wear the democrat's clothes even to be a British conservative politician, but is a despot at heart. Mrs Thatcher was successful for many years as the national chief bully, but eventually hubris caught up with her in the shape of the poll tax. `F U' nearly makes it out the door, but alas, he knows too much, and, (shudder) is showing signs of weakness. Perhaps we forget that down through the ages politics has been a bloody business and the genteel veneer of present day parliamentary democracy conceals some pretty rough play.Anyway, the three `Cards' series amount to 600 minutes of great entertainment – much more fun than most airport novels and filled with incident and amusing, if not very original characters. `F U' himself, Ian Richardson, is a joy, and never has better use been made of `direct to camera' acting.

Clivecat I can't recommend this series highly enough! All the actors are first rate, the script literate and hilarious! BBC has done a first rate job and this is one of the best things I have seen in years! Ian Richardson is perfect in this role! He's probably sick of hearing about it by now, but he was really wonderful, as was everybody else. A first rate production in all ways!