BACK to normal TV service after the annual two weeks covering Wimbledon.
Last month I met up again with Spooks star Rupert Penry-Jones.
The occasion was the launch of new two-part BBC2 thriller Burn Up, which is screened next week.
More on that in tomorrow’s MEN and in a later blog entry.
I also took the opportunity to ask Rupert about filming his final scenes as Adam Carter in Spooks.
We’ll see them when the new series returns to BBC1 later this year.
And now the embargo on the Burn Up interview has expired, I can report what Rupert said.
“I did nearly cry on my last sequence,” he told me.
“But then they brought me back for re-shoots.

“It was very moving and upsetting.
“It was on The Grid filming and everybody was there.

“It was sad leaving. It was like leaving a school that you’ve had a really good time at, where you’ve been head boy.
“The producer gave me this brilliant photo album she’d made up of all these behind the scenes photographs. And a pen.”
Yes, let’s not forget the pen.
Rupert plays oil company boss Tom McConnell in Burn Up, screened a week on Wednesday, with part two on the Friday.
He admits the decision to leave Spooks was tough.
“It’s really hard because you get used to regular work and used to knowing that you’ve got seven months’ solid work each year.
“You can make plans, you can make financial decisions that you’d normally not be able to make.
“But I didn’t become an actor to have a nine to five job, and Spooks was starting to feel a bit like that.
“It was relentless, day in, day out, six days a week, and I think acting becomes a very tough game when you’re not being fired up by it.
“I was still fired up when I left but it was time to move on. I was in danger of getting lazy, I think.
“And you can’t afford to be lazy in this game.”
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