Midsomer Murders (TV Series)

Secrets and Spies (2009)

John Nettles: DCI Tom Barnaby

Photos 

Quotes 

• [to Jones, having been chosen to be the umpire in an upcoming cricket game] 

  D.C.I. Barnaby : There are 42 basic areas in cricket rules. And they are split into numbered sub-headings, which produce thousands, thousands of sub-sub-clauses. I will never forgive you for this.

• [Jones' team is losing in a game Barnaby is umpiring] 

  DS Ben Jones : Whose side are you on, sir?

  D.C.I. Barnaby : Same as always, Jones; the side of decency, justice and the American way.

• DS Ben Jones : They're all stalling.

  D.C.I. Barnaby : Yeah. So let us insert some ginger into the appropriate orifices and see if we can make the horses dance.

  DS Ben Jones : [Not comprehending the metaphor]  What?

• D.C.I. Barnaby : [to Joyce on his role as cricket umpire]  I am enjoying this job, playing God in a limited universe.

• D.C.I. Barnaby : [Frustrated about restrictions put on him by the chief constable]  I can't even speak to the sodding suspects. I, I am banned from the crime scene.

  Joyce Barnaby : So, think laterally.

  D.C.I. Barnaby : What does that mean?

  Joyce Barnaby : I don't know. You're the one who's always telling me to do it.

• D.C.I. Barnaby : [DCI Tom Barnaby notices his wife Joyce Barnaby reading a spy novel about MI6]  I was a spook once.

  Joyce Barnaby : You were not!

  D.C.I. Barnaby : I was. When I graduated from Brown's Hill, they asked me to join MI6.

  Joyce Barnaby : Why?

  D.C.I. Barnaby : 'Cause I spoke Russian.

  Joyce Barnaby : But you don't speak Russian.

  D.C.I. Barnaby : No, they got the wrong person; they really wanted Brenda Packard.

  Joyce Barnaby : Brenda? In our WI? Grows big vegetables?

  D.C.I. Barnaby : That's the chap! She's been with MI6 for years.

  Joyce Barnaby : Goodness...

  D.C.I. Barnaby : I tried it for a few months. Security Officer Grade Seven! Drank gallons of weak tea and, uh, played cricket in the corridors.

  Joyce Barnaby : You never told me any of this!

  D.C.I. Barnaby : Well no, Joyce. Secret, isn't it?

  [DCI Tom Barnaby returns to reading his book as Joyce Barnaby looks on in astonishment] 

• D.C.I. Barnaby : What about Jarvis?

  DS Ben Jones : He's the obvious suspect.

  D.C.I. Barnaby : Why do you say that?

  DS Ben Jones : Because he's the only one left?

  D.C.I. Barnaby : Oh, that'll sound good in court.

• [Glen Jarvis has just refused, very ungraciously, Barnaby's offer of advice on the security of Allenby House] 

  Sir Malcolm Frazer : Is it illegal to strangle nasty little weasels?

  D.C.I. Barnaby : I think it's actively encouraged, isn't it, sir?

• [last lines] 

  Brenda Packard : Your chappie's been clobbered.

  D.C.I. Barnaby : Yeah. What a shame.

• D.C.I. Barnaby : [to Jones]  We're going to have to squeeze the fruit further up the food chain.

• D.C.I. Barnaby : [about Wells's capture]  And what did they do to you?

  Jimmy Wells : Waterboarding.

  D.C.I. Barnaby : Waterboarding?

  Jimmy Wells : Those blokes were twenty years ahead of the Yanks. I told them everything they wanted to know, so... whole op was blown.

  D.C.I. Barnaby : And then what happened to you?

  Jimmy Wells : Three years in a Dresden slammer before our people done a deal.

  Jimmy Wells : And did you go on working for the Company?

  Jimmy Wells : [chuckles]  Surprisingly not, Mr Barnaby. No, they gave me enough money to start up the biz here, and told me to keep Stumm or they'd nail my knackers to the church tower.