Belatedly Batman

A week ago, as part of the spectacular birthday celebration that heralded my 39th birthday (apologies if the fireworks kept you awake) Karen took me to see the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight. I’d quite enjoyed Batman Begins – as superhero movies go it was nice ‘n’ dark, gritty and packed a hard hitting punch or two. But for me the story was too fragmented, too intent on ticking as many bat-boxes as possible within the classic Batman framework... it tried to do too much and felt frustrated and frustrating. So despite the hype it was with some trepidation that I settled into my seat to watch The Dark Knight.

I needn’t have worried. It totally blew me away.

The sets, the backdrops, the stunts, the action... all on target. The story – despite the length of the film – felt tight and compact (like a well defined six-pack). And the humour... ah the humour was so dark it felt beyond black. I actually felt a twinge of regret when it was all over.

Michael Caine was a joy to watch and I’d at last fully accepted the bat-voice without wondering at what point in the movie Bruce Wayne had smoked a hundred Columbian cigars... Gary Oldman too was effortlessly believable as Gordon. The man is such a chameleon – he manages to change his physicality in every film I’ve ever seen him. How else can he go from the emaciated Goth cool of Sirius Black to the fustiness of Gordon and yet still look like himself?

But all this is just the nuts and bolts of the movie, the framework – the skeleton – albeit a very impressive one. The flesh, the heart, however is The Joker. Was Heath Ledger as good as the hype? For me: yes. Definitely. All the clichés are at least meaningful and fresh – a commanding performance, hypnotic, mesmerizing. In any scene where he didn’t appear I found myself pining for him to pop up in front of the camera.

I liked the fact his performance doffed its cap to the classic Joker and yet also managed to contemporize it so fully. The lies, the tricks, the surety that he will always, always play you false, the certainty that even the truth from his lips will inevitably be a lie. My favourite part of the film was The Joker’s self-deprecating speech to Harvey Dent: he dismisses himself as a mad dog, too chaotic to plan, to organize, he merely acts on his every whim, it’s not personal... it is the police, Batman, the authorities who plan and plot, who connive and conspire.

It is of course another delicious lie but one that hints at an interesting subtext of the movie. The Joker is the most organized agent in the story. To tell a good joke, to perform an effective trick takes eons of planning, post production, preparation... It is The Joker who connives and conspires more effectively than anyone. The Joker allows himself to be captured by the police or at least plans ahead for it – how else explain his henchman with the bomb-phone sewn into his guts?

The mad dog, the man who acts on his whims is, of course, Harvey Dent. Stripped of his suit and tie, the façade of law and order, he merely becomes another one of the Joker’s slathering canines, maddened, hungry, blindly animalistic but leashed and very carefully directed. Controlled completely by The Joker.

But isn’t Batman himself also a creature of instinct and whim? Isn’t Batman too something of a mad dog? He reacts emotionally, personally to all of The Joker’s plots and machinations. He considers giving up his Bat alter ego on an emotional whim and returns to it without a second’s regret. His explosions of violence match those of The Joker and he is just as apt to change the rules of engagement to suit his current requirements... The Joker was correct when he told Batman that he completed him (though it was a corny line). The correlation between these two characters is intriguing and gives the film its distinctive resonance.

Where they go from here in the regretful absence of Heath Ledger is a mystery but I’m awaiting the next film with a pleasurable amount of excitement. Just what kind of morning will follow this dark night? I can’t wait to find out.

Let’s Play Global Thermal Nuclear War

You can’t turn on the TV these days without seeing some C list celeb adding their twopenneth-worth to the National anti-knife campaign or some appropriately austere politician promising tougher sentencing for those caught carrying knives or other catering based weaponry on our streets.

And on the whole I’m not complaining. Something does need to be done. And yes tougher sentencing is the answer. For those caught carrying as well as those caught using knives. Cos it’s all the same in my book.

What worries me most though is the justification that these knife wielders frequently put forward in defence of their need to carry knives. Twice this week I’ve heard the phrases “self defence” and “deterrent” used by some hoodie when asked why he has to carry a knife.

Kind of reminds me of the justification that our politicians used years ago (and still use) whenever they were questioned about the massive stockpile of nuclear weapons that they were building up. Why do we need such weapons?

- Because they maintain the peace; they deter outbreaks of war, blah blah blah.

But did anyone ever believe that?

Isn’t it a case that possessing any kind of weapon is actually an unspoken threat of war not a deterrent to ensure everlasting peace? There’s a big difference.

Tooling yourself up as an act of self defence is a complete fallacy. Wearing body armour – that’s self defence. Carrying a can of mace or a personal alarm – that’s self defence.

Shoving a 12 inch carving knife down the front of your baggies is an act of war.

And there is no justification.

Wars Have Started For Less

Disenchantment with work is still coursing through my veins like a potent narcotic this morning – and this might very well account for my current state of over reaction.

I am positively fuming.

Now it’s never a good idea to bad mouth one’s work colleagues on a public blog so I’ll keep things as cryptic and anonymous as possible.

Basically I’m doing my damnedest to arrange some Fire Safety training for the staff. No big thing really except trying to get everybody together in one place at the same time is proving difficult. Either our staff can make it or the trainer can’t. However, I’m hoping my perseverance has finally paid off and that a mutually agreeable date has at last been settled upon.

It’s taken weeks to get this far.

Gallingly I come in to work this morning to find an email from a work colleague (who I have obliquely bitched about before) copied in to me and the Boss, expounding the point of view that she her glorious self has successfully organized training for all the staff.

Feathers.

Spitting.

Out of my mouth.

Wasn’t it Bruce Lee who said that any object at all can be a weapon? I’m casting my eyes over my workstation as I type and they are alighting hungrily on the stapler, a hole punch, a Vlad The Impaler collection of assorted Biros, a Rolodex – even the Tipp-ex.

Dark fantasies are forming in my mind.

I need help.

Can someone either supply me with valium or an alibi?

A Good Walk Ruined

So the sun is shining, it’s 30+ outside and I’m taking a walk through Victoria Park as I have done nearly every lunch hour for the last three weeks – just me, my sandwiches and my MP3 player – and I’m kind of at peace with the world.

You know, lush tunes, warm feelings, glorious sunshine... for half an hour at least all seems to be right with the world.

And then I spy two kids lamping the hell out of each other across the other side of the park. And I mean really going for it. Fists, feet, head-locks, the works.

This is souring in itself – I mean it’s not pleasant to watch two 11 years olds knocking seven bells out of each other – but what makes it ineffably worse is that they are plainly in the company of three adults who are standing by and watching it all unfold. And by watching I mean watching like they’re an audience at a kick-boxing match.

One of the kids goes down with the other one on top of him still pummelling away. I’m quite sickened by this point and am glad to see one of the adults – the male – finally getting up and going over to them.

Only he doesn’t stop them fighting. He separates them, apparently gives them advice on fighting fairly and then lets them set to once more. Round two – ding ding.

I’m astounded.

What parent / guardian would let their kids slug it out in this way? Surely you’d stop them? Give them a stiff talking to and send them away separately to cool off? Not make it a spectator sport!

Oh but of course, Mr Referee was instilling the values of fighting fair into them. Establishing a chivalrous code of gentlemanly conduct and rules of engagement. No knives, pistols, house bricks or eye gouging, please gentlemen. I want a fair fight. Queensbury rules. May the best man win. Loser to crawl off and die somewhere quietly without crying like a big baby.

That this guy’s two female companions could sit complacently by, sunning their shoulders and chatting about handbags while The Gangs Of New York was playing out before them just makes me shudder. I was really disgusted by the whole thing. Not even the velvety vocals of Wendy & Lisa could restore my happy equilibrium after this little interlude.

I trudged back to work feeling sullied (and not in a good way).

Parents? Some kids do ‘ave ‘em.

Photo Opportunity

This from Yahoo news this morning:

"Former Big Brother contestant Charley Uchea was threatened at gunpoint last night."

"Charley was attacked by four men who tried to carjack her Mercedes when she left nightclub Funky Buddha."

"A witness revealed that one man jumped on the bonnet of Charley's car while the others attacked her and her friend Sisi. The attackers then told the pair they were armed and would kill them if they didn't hand over the keys to the £35,000 car."

"Police escorted the 22 year old away in a police van and her car was taken to West End Central police station for further examination."

There you have it. Further proof that intelligence levels in this country are sinking to an all time low.

A man. A gun. And Charley "I'm a big BB mega star I am" Uchea.

The perfect opportunity and no one pulls the trigger.

Doh!

At War With The World

I’m not sure who fired the first shot but the battle lines have undoubtedly been drawn this morning. My enemy seems to be everywhere. Not in full view like a Napoleonic regiment but instead secreted behind every window and street corner... a host of snipers hidden at every vantage point as I go about my day to day business.

There’s nothing fatal about their attacks but they’re debilitating. Their ammunition is irritation and annoyance. They’re fighting a war of attrition to wear me down.

And it’s working.

Every job I undertake is interrupted with the pressing needs of three others. Keys required for various work tasks seem to just walk away by themselves or vanish into thin air. My computer is on a go slow – I’m not joking; my paperclip tray has more processing power than my PC at the moment. My telephone is refusing to work... I swear to God it is connecting to numbers that I haven’t even dialled.

And my pens.

Even my pens have turned against me.

I got into work this morning to find their tops have all mysteriously been chewed over the weekend.

I, personally, do not chew pens. I do not chew pencils, crayons, biros, paint brushes or anything in fact except food. I don’t even chew chewing gum.

So how the hell has that happened? Or perhaps rather, why?

If the world wants to fight dirty, so be it.

As of now the gloves are off.

A Load Of Tosh

Actually, despite the title, this is going to be a favourable review of last night’s episode of Torchwood...

At last we were presented with a story that had depth, emotional content and decent social commentary. It also made far better use of Toshiko than her usual sidelined role of pretty-but-not-pretty-enough-Asian-geek-girl-in-the-background.

I have to confess that Toshiko has grown on me. Out of the all Torchwoodies she’s my favourite by far. Gwen I’m still ambivalent about: nice hair, nice eyes, but annoying trailer park attitude. Toshiko is quietly intelligent and the most morally upright member of the team.

And yes, she’s another brunette but that has no bearing on my opinion at all. Honestly.

Anyway yesterday’s episode revolved around a shell-shocked soldier removed from 1918 and cryogenically frozen by Torchwood in order for him to be reinserted back into his own time and so close up an immense rift in time that was forecast to destroy the world in 2008.

But let’s not get bogged down with the science.

This poor guy had been awoken / thawed out once a year since 1918 (and then refrozen) to give him a breath of fresh air, a walk in the park and to make sure that “everything still worked”.

I have to say that Toshiko was very thorough in checking that all his parts were still in working order. Having been his guardian on his previous “awake days” she’d fallen head over heels in love with him...

Geez, but Tosh needs to get out more! 4 dates in 4 years and she’s smitten?!? I’m not saying she’s easy but...

Sorry, ignore my ingrained and in-growing cynicism. It was actually a very touching relationship between the two of them, aided somewhat by Toshiko’s inherent shyness and social ineptitude and the young soldier, Tommy’s, fragile and wonder-filled state at being removed from the conflict of WWI and being allowed glimpses of the world that slowly formed in its aftermath.

And the fact he called Tosh a “daft lass”.

Hey, you may scoff but it got Tosh into bed and young Tommy showed what he was made of by going over the top with his bayonet fixed. Or something like that.

The clash between 1918 and the present also allowed the writer’s to critique the modern world – nothing too astounding or earth shattering here and nothing that hasn’t been done before but it was all expressed rather nicely and personably. As Tommy says: they fought the war to end all wars and then 3 weeks later (from his perspective) there was another one. What was the point of it all?

Cue sad and weary bout of naval gazing.

Of course it had to end. Badly for Tommy and Tosh but well for the rest of us. Tommy had to go back to 1918 when the time rift threatened to pull reality and the whole dang future down into the pan... unfortunately, according to the records from 1918 it was plain that Tommy’s condition, like so many struck down with shell-shock at the time, was hardly met with kindness and understanding by the army top brass. A few weeks after his discharge from hospital he was sent back to the front, suffered a relapse and was summarily executed for cowardice.

Thank you for saving the world and any last requests?

Bang bang.

Hey but at least he’d got a chance to smoke a last cigarette post coitus with Tosh.

That’s not too bad a way to go and in terms of the “big push”... at least the earth moved for them both.

Grot Wars

With all the recent stresses and strains it was inevitable that one the many microbes that inhabit our atmosphere – a nasty flu-like one in this case – should seize on our apparent weakened state and launch a full frontal assault.

Karen and Tom are currently under siege. Boiling oil is streaming from their noses in a vain attempt to stave off the attackers.

I myself am having to engage in flashy sword-play along my air passages just to try and keep my defences un-penetrated. If they wheel out a siege engine, I tell you, I’m done for.

I’ve left Karen and Tom in bed sneezing their bogeys and ballistas over the perimeter of the bedclothes. It’s a dirty war but someone’s got to do it.

I’m at work putting together a master plan that involves vitamin C, Iron tablets and Echinacea tea. My boss has agreed to release me from my duties early at 3pm sp that I can pick up our boy, Ben (currently neutral in this conflict), from school and then head home and rejoin the fray. My boss is sympathetic but unwilling to commit any of his own men to the battle. Reinforcements will not be coming.

If the worst comes... I have a whisky warhead hidden in a secret silo.

The countdown has already begun...

Clink

I like Louis Theroux. I like the way he masks determined confrontationalism and gritty balls of steel beneath a calm, genteel, ultra polite, very British veneer. I suspect it’s this mask of nervous warmth and humanity (though I have no doubt that it’s more than skin deep) that allows Louis to attain a proximity to the kind of people and situation that normally most of us would run a mile from.

Last night’s documentary saw Louis spending time within the formidable walls of San Quentin jail and getting to know some of the many in-mates. Although Louis’ approach with people seems to conjure up its own all inclusive comfort zone his interviews with the prisoners were nevertheless frequently on-the-edge-of-the-seat viewing. Both the living conditions of the in-mates and their candidness about their reasons for being incarcerated were sharply discomforting to say the least. But more than that: their very humanity – their very normalcy – was unsettling. Their honesty and good humoured acceptance of their fate (at least to the cameras) was even more so. It felt incongruous. I guess deep down we want them to be monsters. We want them to be visibly marked and set apart from the rest of us. To show evidence of a corrupted gene pool, some sign that they are, against the odds, a slightly different species.

We certainly don’t want to recognize certain of our own traits in a person who is serving 551 years for house robbery and torture... This particular lifer termed his crimes as “home invasion”. A far gentler epithet yet with far more disturbing and unsettling connotations... Louis questioned him closely about his criminal activities. It was interesting to watch Louis’ urbanity and almost effeminate politeness peeling away the steely body armour of machismo and de-sensitivity. I guess it worked because there was an uneasy respect maintained by and between both parties. And more importantly Louis didn’t let any of his reactions betray any kind of judgment about what he was hearing. No mean feat when the lifer casually described torturing his victims to reveal the whereabouts of their valuables, half drowning people in their own hot-tubs and using a pistol to abuse his victims sexually... this from a man who then calmly accepted he would spend the rest of his natural life in prison without a trace of anger or frustration twitching at the edge of his benign smile.

Eerie.

But I guess at the heart of the documentary was the simple fact that no matter what circumstance you throw people into they will “make do”. They will seek out and pursue some sort of life. They will make the best of it. They will take their comforts where they find them. Hence, married ex-Nazis forming intimate relationships with Jewish homosexuals, long haired rock star wannabes becoming the lovers of pre-op transsexuals... Although Louis could see the ironies his gentle illuminations were blanked by all the prisoners involved. It was weird to see such an optimistic openness and also such a fearful, self-denying closedness operating in tandem in their minds.

It would be too easy to dismiss life in prison as merely an alternate reality to life outside it. Certainly life in prison is extreme and people in extremis react in extreme ways... but I don’t think life in prison is that far removed from ours own. In a lot of respects it’s almost the same – just with less baggage; with more stripped down, more rarefied choices. In terms of the need for intimacy and relationships, the need of hierarchies, rules and rites of passage life remains the same. Yes it’s harsh. But isn’t life in the outside world too? A lot of the comforts are obviously filtered out. But a lot of the heavy responsibilities and burdens are gone too.

As Mr Home Invasion pointed out: he doesn’t have to worry about getting a job. He doesn’t have to worry about keeping a roof over his head. He’s going to be “taken care of” until the day he dies.

Hell, what are we all waiting for? Let’s sign up to the Hotel California!

Until you see the cells where these men spend every day, every week barring 2 hours in the recreation yard. They can’t have been no more than 4 feet across. You could almost smell the constant pall of sweat and testosterone. The noise was constant – shouts, catcalls, whoops, nasty laughter. It sounded like a madhouse. The food was basic and could hardly be described as a comfort. There is the constant threat of being beaten, stabbed, or raped. To avoid these scenarios there is the constant “invitation” to join any number of gangs who’ll offer to protect you against such ends provided you do a little work for them in return... beating, stabbing or raping people who have happened to find themselves on their hit-lists... Dog eat dog and dog returning to its vomit ad infinitum.

If prison isn’t an alternate reality but merely mirrors the society that has a need for the prison what does that say about our world? Do we measure the progress of our civilization by the best it produces or the worst?

Louis didn’t have the answers. At the end of the day that isn’t his shtick. He asked his personal questions, remained affable in the face of constant, potential danger and then walked out of San Quentin jail when his stint was done with a considerably lighter tread than when he went in. And I for one was glad to be leaving with him.

Suddenly I was glad that I have a job to be worried about. That I have to constantly fight to keep a roof over my head. That there isn’t an institution taking care of me until the day I die – just me, myself and mine.

True freedom comes by accepting the weightiest responsibilities that life throws at you... not by shirking them and taking the easy or the fast way out...

I Fought The Law...

Karen and I are greatly enjoying Murphy’s Law at the moment. The script is dense, fast paced, full of twists and has James Nesbitt’s immaculately groomed moustache bristling all over it.

I must admit to liking James Nesbitt hugely. Not in that way you understand but in a “hey respect, dude” kind of way. Over the years he’s proved to be one of the UK’s most versatile actors. In every role I’ve seen him in he’s been believable... which, I’m sure you’ll agree, is rather an essential quality in an actor. The James Nesbitt persona doesn’t ever get in the way of whatever part he happens to be playing at the time.

This is no mean feat especially when, over the years, his playing of so many cheeky-chappie, quip-a-minute characters has written the James Nesbitt persona large all over the nation’s psyche.

Recently though he’s been developing a much harder edge – and I’m not just referring to the brutally chopped precipice of his lip brush. Jekyll saw him delving into Jack Nicholson territory with gusto – staring eyes, sharp teeth and “daddy’s home” vocalizations. His current outing as Murphy though sees him exploring something a lot darker and far more real... Jekyll’s appetites were too fantastic and too over-stretched to be truly scary. But Murphy is up against very commonplace desires that are no less damaging or less repulsive for all their regrettable regularity in our society. People smuggling, prostitution, rape, drugs... it’s a world we see portrayed quite often on our TV screens either through police dramas or documentaries... but Murphy’s Law has managed to reclaim the shock element of such activities. That’s pretty good going in an age of desensitizing video games and shlock-horror flicks for the under 12’s.

Murphy is a dour, insular, dangerously frenetic character with a tache like a Mexican bandido and Nesbitt walks a tightrope over the chasm of caricature with true grace and true grit. He hijacks the screen and carries the whole drama forward with a presence that commands our undivided attention. Nesbitt is at full stretch for the entire duration and doesn’t even break a sweat. It’s impressive to watch. I’m totally hooked.

Here’s hoping that Murphy’s tache scimitar will make a quick return to our tellies very soon.... and not just because I happen to possess one of my own...

War Of The Roses

Kenilworth Castle

With immaculate timing Karen and I both came down with a 24 hour stomach bug over the Bank Holiday weekend but despite this set-back determinedly set about enjoying ourselves. Karen is now heavily pregnant – 33/34 weeks – and our options for getting out and about are becoming more and more limited so it’s a case of doing what we can when we can.

As Kenilworth Castle was holding a mini War Of The Roses re-enactment event we decided to mooch along and have a gander. We all love Kenilworth – more so than Warwick though the latter is certainly one of the grandest castles in the UK. The trouble with Warwick, I find, is that Tussauds’ have eviscerated the entire place of atmosphere and have stuffed in its stead a money-spinning circus of hi-tech mechanics and theme park quackery. Kenilworth for the most part is a well-preserved ruin and as such retains so much romance and atmosphere that it’s a joy to walk around its walls and battlements just as they are and to let your mind drift back to what once might have occurred there. The boy certainly loves it and always takes a sword along to fight imaginary foes.

Yesterday however the foes were very real. Whatever re-enactment society were performing the honours (I know, I should have endeavoured to find out) certainly threw themselves into their respective roles with gusto and we had fantastic views as the Lancastrians and the Yorkists laid into each other with pike, sword and bill. Volleys of blunt tipped arrows also added to the overall melee though the boy seemed quite disappointed that we weren’t seeing any real bloodshed. However, his usual testosterone fuelled lust for fighting soon quailed when we suggested that he was welcome to engage some of the fully armoured warriors down on the battle field...!

Wise decision. They were an impressive bunch. The women were all magnificently buxom and the men were all mightily bearded.

In fact, Karen and I were consistently mistaken for being two of their number...

"Who spilt my mead?!"

The newly restored Gate House.

Ug

I saw an amazing news item on the TV yesterday evening.

It seems that the new up-and-coming sport of choice for those with more money than brain cells is Cage Fighting.

Basically two muscle pimped meatheads are locked into a caged circular arena where, using whatever martial arts techniques they have at their disposal – boxing, kick boxing, karate, judo, finger-painting – they attempt to knock seven shades of custard out of each other. The last man standing (not necessarily with both legs attached) is proclaimed the winner.

It’s brutal. It’s blood thirsty. It’s barbaric.

And tickets for a recent bout of this event at Wembley went for £500 a go.

From what I can see it’s basically no-rules-barred fist fighting. One tiny step away from a fully fledged gladiatorial contest.

The audience were grotesque. Rich men in Saville Row suits and women in catwalk originals baying for blood and a good maiming. If these are the “in people” I’m happy to be counted out.

A spokesman for the sport attempted to justify it by painting it in a much nobler light.

It’s not just about the violence, he said. It’s about the various disciplines involved and the positive mental attitude.

Oh well. That makes it all alright then.

As soon as I have tracked this man down I’m going to break into his house, terrorize his family and steal all of his possessions.

I know it sounds like a callous and violent criminal act but please respect the immense discipline involved in carrying out this endeavour and the tremendous positive mental attitude I’m having to adopt in order to get myself through it.

Last of the noble savages, me.

I’ll be selling tickets to this event on eBay. £500 a shot if anybody’s interested?

Tightus Pullover

I’m very aware that not many of my readers appear to watch the BBC’s Rome so I am possibly heading for a comments desert on this one but I just can’t resist writing about it.

Quite why more people are not watching this show is frankly beyond me. It is definitely the best thing on TV at the moment and Karen and I are already in mourning that the BBC and HBO have no plans to fund a third series. They must be mad, though – as with Life On Mars – I can respect their integrity in quitting while they’re ahead.

Last night was a huge, sumptuously cooked steak of a show.

Mark Anthony enthralled with Cleopatra knowingly commits political suicide by refusing to admit his Roman wife sent to see him by Octavian Caesar. It is of course precisely what Octavian wants: an unmistakable premise for war. In one ingenious move Anthony has been forced to betray both Rome and the goodwill of the Roman people. The end is nigh.

Lucius Vorenus knows that war is coming but declines the chance to escape it. He knows he no longer has anything left to lose and is too stiff-necked to do anything to change it anyway. He knows this also and accepts it. The end, again, is nigh.

And Pullo!

Well, for me, Titus Pullo stole the entire show. A breath taking performance by Ray Stevenson clearly illustrates that beyond the beefcake thuggery and gory sword work, Stevenson is clearly an actor of the highest calibre.

As his second wife Gaia lies bleeding to death after saving his life she makes a deathbed confession: it was she that poisoned his first wife, Eirene, killing both her and their unborn baby. What could Pullo do but blankly strangle the last remaining drops of life out of her and then dump her body in what appeared to be a cesspool. It sounds callous and over the top but you had to see it. It was handled so well I’m still full of admiration the morning after. The wash of emotions that swept over Pullo’s face was amazing.

Steak?

Rare indeed.

The New Romantics

Cracking episode of Rome last night. Lots of gore, bed-based naughtiness and bags of peaches.

A perfect Sunday night-in, in fact.

The whole episode was great fun.

In one fabulous scene weaselly politician Cicero felt the sharp point of a blade expertly wielded by Titus Pullo. Straight in through the shoulder blade, all the way down to the heart. Cue much fountaining of blood. However, I doubt anybody was ever bumped off in such a polite and deferential fashion. “Do you mind if I take some of these peaches? Be nice for the wife...” What could Cicero do but be magnanimous. It’s not like he’d be having much of an appetite later.

There was more gore towards the end. Poor Brutus got turned into a human colander after the allied forces of Mark Anthony and Octavian Caesar wiped the Greek desert with him during the battle of Philippi. I had to feel sorry for Brutus. He was like a public school boy who just couldn’t quite live up to his mother’s or indeed anybody’s expectations. Bloody awful name too. What was his mother thinking? Like Butch or He-Man, it doesn’t leave much room for poetry or origami. Susan would have been far more fitting.

The best bit of last night’s episode for me though was Agrippa finally getting to grips with Octavia, Octavian Caesar’s tasty little sister. Although I think it was more a case of she got to grips with him.

I had to smile at Agrippa’s sense of style. What do you do if you want to impressively woo and romance a daughter of one of the most powerful houses in Rome?

Answer: you rent a room in a gaudy whorehouse and shag her senseless for three hours solid before donning leather armour and going off to battle. I guess in those days the use of such places for this kind of “romantic” activity was the norm. Kind of the equivalent to a cheap hotel off the M5. A convenient passion pad inside which one may plough the odd wild oat in whatever passing furrow pleases you... and Agrippa seemed intent on planting a whole vineyard.

The choice of location was not a great compliment to Octavia though. But then again she’s not averse to a bit of rough. Having got blatted on dope and attending an orgy last week (though Agrippa hoiked her away before things got properly started) she’s hardly a shrinking violet.

She’s more like a Venus Fly-trap.

No wonder Agrippa had such a big smile on his face.

Anybody care for a grape?

When In Rome

I like Rome.

I admit the first series took a while to grow on me – it’s hard for any production about Roman life not to fall into the clichéd honey-traps of frequent orgies, bedsheet togas, busty slave girls and butch men wearing sandals but the Beeb’s first outing last year, whilst certainly referencing all of the above, still managed to pack in loads of grit and enough punches for the whole series to successfully impinge on my psyche in a positive way.

Hell. I’m wearing a toga as I type. Tentpole Toga. Hmm. Isn’t that the name of a punk band?

Anyway last night’s episode – the first of series two – kicked off immediately where the story had ended last time. Caesar’s crumpled and knifed body lying in a pool of blood and ordure in the Senate and his followers all running for their lives.

Straight in and no messing. That’s the style I like.

Polly Walker is back as the conniving Atia and although she’s looking far more mumsy around the edges than in the last series (and that’s not a complaint by any means) she still retains enough of a predilection for casual viciousness to make her character one of the most interesting on the screen. Her heaving bosom has absolutely nothing to do with it at all. Honest.

With a pushy mother like that no wonder Octavian went on to become one of Rome’s most successful emperors.

It’s also good to see Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenson back as Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo respectively. They’re both great characters and generally provide the proactive element of the show. While the Senators and the women plot and scheme Lucius and Titus are the ones who go out sword in hand and with the barest of nods lop off a few heads. Plus a few arms and legs. And feet. And anything else that might be dangling loosely. It’s not a good idea to get on their bad side. Heads will roll. Literally.

Like I said: straight in and no messing is the style I like...

Which is not to say that the artistic side of their performance and dialogue delivery is not uniformly excellent too. There is a surprisingly subtle interplay between the two characters which is oddly affecting. This despite their penchant for thuggery and gory sword work. For me they are the engine of the show. Roaring away (not so quietly) in the background, providing the fuel, the motion and inevitably the spectacular car crashes which frequently punctuate the plot development.

The cast and producers of Rome have managed to both capture the flavour of the period and to modernize it sufficiently that it seems socially and politically relevant to today. An achievement that not everyone can accomplish (the producers and writers of the Beeb’s Robin Hood take note).

Bring on the busty slave girls. I’m ready for more.

Demon Barber

I’ve just returned to my computer after getting my hair cut at one of Leamington Spa’s most recommended barbers, Francesco’s, in my lunch break.

Bloody hell but the guy who dealt with my hair was rough (not Francesco himself alas). Sweeney Todd just doesn’t come into it. I feel like my head has been savaged by an irradiated combine harvester driven by a rabid three-legged Alsatian high on turps.

The comb was scraped so hard across my scalp you can plant potato seeds in the furrows and my ears resemble a pair of McCoy’s crinkle cut crisps (cheese and onion flavour, thank you for asking).

Even the fluffy brush thing with which he finished off his follicle artwork was batted about like he was playing Australia in the Ashes. Six!

Wow. A haircut and an Indian head massage all in one go. Now that’s what I call service.

Thankfully his finesse with the scissors was exemplary. Bloody good job as I suspect he could have snipped the gonads off a gnat in mid flight with the ruddy things.

The man barely spoke – which normally doesn’t bother me as I like someone to concentrate when they’re swishing about my head and face with sharpened cutting devices – but he did have a weird penchant for humming the Yankee Doodle Dandy tune. Even weirder his mobile phone rang half way through and he deliberately left it unanswered just so he could listen to the ring tone...

Yes. You’ve guessed it: Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Played on a banjo no less.

As a ring tone...

?!?!

I mean really!

But what about the haircut I hear you ask...

...brutal!

Up The Spears Of Sparta!

Karen and I experienced the visual butch-fest that is 300 the other day – the latest film by Zack Snyder based on the graphic novel of the same name by Frank Miller.

And what a visual feast it was too. Beautifully restrained colour palettes, titan-esque picture composition, manly voices deeper than Barry White’s g-string and a super baddy who was camper than Charles Hawtrey in a pink tent pitched by the side of a Cornish Maypole.

There are definite homoerotic motifs present throughout the film – the Spartans are all incredibly muscular and spend the entire film prowling about with hardly any clothes on, thrusting their mighty spears into an unending host of enemies. The main bad guy himself, Xerxes, is a 9ft giant who in the words of one reviewer (whose name I forget) looks and acts more like RuPaul than a Persian God-King-Warrior. He is also in charge of a grotesque harem of carnivalesque and misshapen concubines that reminded me more of a monster-mash of creatures from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser films than a true Persian harem. But hey – what do I know?

The audience is therefore presented with the implied effeminacy, homosexuality and fetishism of the Persians and the manly, strength-as-virtue, battle honour heroics of the hugely outnumbered Spartans. For me such over-simplified divisions are a little too uncomfortable to palate. I was also uncomfortable with the politics of the film – the West (Greeks) versus the East (Persia) – given the present world predicament, though the whole premise could easily be turned upside-down when you consider that the West / America has more in common with the vast hordes and fire power of Xerxes than the poor outnumbered Spartans facing invasion by a foreign enemy...

The film also shamelessly glorifies violence and death in battle. I realize the film makers are merely trying to give us a flavour of the Spartan ethos that led 300 men to face an entire army but in the morally conscientious world of 2007 such machismo carries undertones of foolhardiness – for all the Spartan’s stand is deeply heroic and truly admirable.

Despite my problems with the film though I really enjoyed it. Yes it is violent but there is something cartoon-like about the violence that stays true to the visual nature of the original graphic novel: it’s cartoony but not in a desensitizing sense although it does allow the audience to offset the horror of bloodshed a little. That sounds like a paradox but I can’t really explain it any better. Go see the film and you’ll understand what I mean. Visually the film is stunning – it is sumptuously photographed – and provided you disengage your politics and any historical knowledge beforehand it’s a film that most people I think will enjoy.

You’ll never see a big man’s spear handled so well...

Things That Make You Go Hmm...

A quick trip to the bank this afternoon as well as enabling me to enjoy the dubious benefits of warm winter sunlight also brought me into close contact with a much uglier side of life...

There I am minding my own business when ahead of me I spy a young buck bodily manoeuvring his girlfriend against the wall of a shop façade and pushing his face very insistently into hers. Now he didn’t throw or push her violently into the wall, he didn’t nut her in the face, he didn’t even raise his voice – the violence was all under the surface and possibly only within my own perceptions but I recognize negative body language when I see it.

For her part it was plain she wasn’t happy. She was craning her head away from his and telling him – albeit very familiarly – no. Plainly a lover’s spat and not really any need to get involved.

So why did I feel guilty for walking on past them? The girl and I briefly made eye contact but I got no sense of her asking for help. In fact all I picked up from her was her embarrassment at the way her twot of a boyfriend was acting in public. Hence I decided not to stop.

But as I walked away I couldn’t help thinking what a bad thing she’s on to with Mr Pushy. He might not be a woman beater (yet) but his behaviour is surely the thin end of the wedge. If I started physically manoeuvring Karen around I think we’d both recognise that things were in a terribly bad way and that one if not both of us were in need of professional help.

She needs to bail out now. Before things turn really ugly. I just hope she sensed that in the pained look I gave her as our eye contact broke...