lördag 26 december 2015

A wish for 2016: More high-quality entertainment, please

I might as well face it. 2016 will not be the year when I discover the joys of serious, mind-expanding, high-brow cultural ventures. There will be no let-up in work for a while yet, and what I will crave most for my workday evenings will be entertainment and relaxation. I can, however, still hope for good quality. There’s no reason why novels, TV dramas or films made for popular consumption should be bad.

My book wish for 2016, then, apart from more novels from authors I’ve already discovered, is to find more seriously good writers of popular fiction. I’ve always resisted the wide-spread tendency to sneer at well-known bestselling authors, believing that they know their craft and take their job seriously and for those reasons alone deserve their success. It has to be said, though, that books from some of the famous bestselling names in popular fiction compare rather poorly prose-wise with authors in the same genres whom I have discovered by chance, such as Jude Morgan, Sally Beauman or Kate Saunders. Hopefully, these authors aren’t doing too badly out of their sales, but they’re not exactly household names. It would be heartening if good writing in popular genres would be more amply rewarded. If we readers of historic romances, family sagas and light-hearted romps aren’t careful, we’ll only be left with writers favouring the flat, recapitulating style of prose which you find in plot summaries of previous chapters in magazine novel serialisations. I call it the “now read on” style: it tells us what happens and what the characters feel, but doesn’t bring it to life. The silver lining in all this is that you can still discover good writers on your own (or only led by a favourable review somewhere), and impulse buys can turn out to be among the best reads of the year. I have a certain sympathy with Rum Tum Tugger who “only likes what he finds for himself”.

As for TV, what I wish for most heartily, of course, is a replacement for Downton Abbey (the final Christmas episode will be aired in Sweden this evening). This will be extremely difficult, as even Downton failed to become a consuming obsession for me right away: it crept up on me stealthily, hit me squarely over the head with the strong Thomas-Jimmy storyline in series three, turned out to hold up very well for rewatching, and did for me that way. What had been a light-hearted costume-drama pleasure – a guilty pleasure even – became, for me, the undisputed TV highlight of the year.

There are some possible contenders for the Downton crown, which should at least provide good costume-drama fun until one particular series gathers enough momentum to fill the Downton gap. Dickensian looks promising judging from its trailer and preview reports. It seems well-produced and well-cast – I hope one of Dickens’s prime-quality villains will turn up to seal the deal eventually (Fagin won’t be enough, I’m afraid, not even as played by Anton Lesser). Poldark looks set to continue for a while yet, with no less than twelve volumes of family saga as source material. Its great advantage – from my perspective – is that the hot villain, George Warleggan, is already well established. But I worry about the narrow focus and lack of complexity in the series – which is a fancy way of saying that I fear it will become too obsessed with its hero Ross Poldark, and that Georgey will be reduced to playing Tom to his Jerry and consequently suffer one defeat after the other.

The final Mr Selfridge series will probably bring some solace too. I’ve read that Lady Mae will return, which should boost the show after a disappointing series three. But there has been no mention of her ex-hubby, so who will be the villain? Here’s hoping that they realise the need for at least one.

onsdag 2 december 2015

Dickens's other Christmas books

Hey ho. I confess I've felt more alert and blog-ready in my life, but at least once during this Year of Work that is 2015 I should try to piece together a post on a Dickensian subject. And as Christmas is approaching, the other Christmas books Dickens wrote, apart from A Christmas Carol, could make a nice theme.

I've already revealed my Carol fatigue, but there are reasons why this is Dickens's most famous Christmas book. Its great past-present-future premise, and the powerful drama of a bad man turned good and redeemed (instead of despairing and dying which is usually the case in Dickens), go some way to mitigate the faults all the Dickens Christmas books share to a degree: the characters are far less complex than in Dickens's full-length novels, there are sometimes levels of soppiness even I object to, and then there's the preaching. Oh dear me, the preaching. If you are already a little fed up with road-to-redemption plot lines - like I happen to be at the moment - the Christmas books are not ideal reading.

Nevertheless, Dickens is Dickens. Even the beginning of one of the weaker Christmas books, The Cricket on the Hearth, manages to draw you in immediately ("The kettle began it"). There is heartwarming whimsy to be had, and funny phrases, and even the odd memorable character. And not all of the Moral Messages are total rubbish.

Here, then, is my ratings list of Dickens's Christmas books excepting the Carol, starting with the best and ending with the most irritating:

The Haunted Man: I would almost rate this as high as the Carol. The message of this tale is that the bad things that happen in our lives, and the remembrance of them, make us better as people and kinder to our fellow human beings. I'm not sure I agree, but the point is worth arguing, and it's argued powerfully here, and in a grown-up manner. The supernatural element is properly scary and does not become ridiculous. Also, the haunted man himself, Mr Redlaw, is an engaging protagonist. He may be a gloomy soul, but he remains sensitive to the sufferings of others. When he spreads the "gift" of losing all your bad memories to the people around him, they become cold, selfish and discontented. Redlaw, on the other hand, although he has lost his own memories of suffering without becoming happier as a result, retains his decency and willingness to help. One could of course wonder why a man like that needs to be put through the whole ghostly visitation thing - more of that anon.

The Battle of Life: I wish someone could have explained a quite simple fact to Dickens. Two women in love with the same man do not, as a rule, become best friends. And I'm prepared to wager they never enter into a "you have him, dear" - "no, you have him" scenario. This is wishful thinking of an (I suspect) specifically male nature. In Dickens's world, only bad girls like Rosa Dartle are allowed to be jealous, whereas there's nothing to stop the hero from being as jealous as he likes. For instance, David Copperfield hates the man with red whiskers who courts Dora, but Dora and Agnes become bezzie mates. Honestly, t'ain't right, t'ain't fair, t'ain't proper.

What makes the "you have him, dear"-plot in The Battle of Life a little easier to swallow is that the two women in love with the same man are sisters. Blood is thicker etc., so of course they're not going to end up hating each other (not being the Grantham girls). But accepting with good grace that the man you've set your heart on prefers your sister is one thing: actively promoting the match at every turn is another. This story contains insane amounts of self-sacrifice that not only hurt the self-sacrificing women but their nearest and dearest, too. On the plus side - and this is why it ends second on my list - The Battle of Life is a good, honest relationship drama, without any supernatural funny business, which makes a touching point about the importance of everyday heroism. And it contains two nice lawyers (not the villain kind, the well-meaning but prone to thinking the worst kind).

The Cricket of the Hearth: If you think the story of a blind girl and her devoted father, who keeps their wretched surroundings a secret from her and conjures up a bright fantasy world for her benefit, sounds hopelessly sentimental, then The Cricket on The Hearth is decidedly not for you. Because this is the best part of it (in fact, it unfailingly makes me blub). That and the acerbic, child-hating toy merchant Tackleton in a secondary part.

The main plot in Cricket is a variation of the Doctor Strong subplot in David Copperfield. The young, pretty wife of a good but unglamorous older man comes under suspicion of adultery. The husband, after struggling with his feelings, declines to think that she's guilty, but still comes to the conclusion that she does not love him. However, everything ends happily. I was fond of the Strong storyline, but here it is ruined by far too much domestic syrup and, yes, self-sacrifice again. You think I exaggerate? This story contains household fairies. Masses of them. And they're a right soupy lot - Puck wouldn't have anything to say to them. Everything is overegged, including the conversion of the sort-of-villain Tackleton - at one point in the story, he could have bowed out with his dignity intact, and things would have been quite satisfactory. But he has to go the whole Scrooge, and turn up for the concluding knees-up as genial as anything. The eponymous cricket is supposed to be the good spirit of the house. There's a dog, too. Enough!

The Chimes: Anyone of the opinion that Dickens is a deep political thinker should read The Chimes as a penance. It contains such clumsy caricatures of the promoters of social and political ideas Dickens does not approve of that it makes Hard Times seem well-reasoned and nuanced in comparison. Especially threadbare is the depiction of a gentleman who praises the "good old times". I haven't forgotten his name - he doesn't have one. He is an idea barely written up at all. Another reprehensible establishment figure, Alderman Cute, sadly does not live up to his name ("cute" meaning "shrewd" in a 19th-century English context). Out of these caricatures, only the statistician Mr Filer shows signs of life, when he gets het up about tripe ("'Who eats tripe?' said Mr Filer, warmly.") or has the guts to contradict one of his chums on the basis of statistical facts. (He is scathing about Henry VIII - a favourite of Cute's, but not of Dickens's - who had "considerably more than the average number of wives, bye the bye"). But that isn't really enough to make a proper character of him rather than a mouthpiece.

To be fair, neither of these gentlemen is the subject of the main plot. The protagonist, Toby "Trotty" Veck the ticket porter, is well-realised and a perfect sweetie. But this becomes the story's main problem. All the other Christmas books suffer in comparison with the Carol in one respect: Ebenezer Scrooge truly needs redemption. The characters who are taught painful lessons in the other Christmas books, on the other hand, are at heart good men, though they are stuck with some misconception (Redlaw thinks we would be better off without painful memories; Doctor Jeddler in The Battle of Life thinks life is a farce and not to be taken seriously; John Peerybingle in The Cricket on The Hearth thinks he is unworthy of being loved by his wife). In the other tales, the insights the good men gain are - arguably - great enough to balance what they've been through and make the whole exercise worthwhile. But what has poor Trotty Veck done to be put through the wringer by the goblins of the church bells? He is a kind man who, though poor, gives houseroom to a stranger and his niece and gives up his own evening meal for them. But because he reacts with indignation when he reads in the paper about a woman who's drowned herself and her child, he has to witness a version of the future where his own daughter is reduced to the same fate. Granted that Trotty has to get rid of the idea that the poor are "born bad", but given that he is himself an example of the contrary, this could surely have been done in a far kinder way. Quite simply, he does not need the Dickensian Christmas story treatment - he's already as decent as they come. Dickens becomes guilty of exactly the same thing that he criticises Alderman Cute and Co. for - of reading a lecture to an honest poor man and telling him what to think.                      

onsdag 18 november 2015

Comfort reading - and viewing

One commonplace I'm guilty of spouting a lot, especially in spring and summer, is "autumn has its uses, because then you're not tempted to go out and you get things done" (not that I'm ever tempted to go out a great deal). All right, you do get quite a bit done workwise, but apart from that? This autumn, ambitions have been decidedly low on the home front. "Go on", my non-better self urges me, "you're a grown woman. Why shouldn't you have a cup of cocoa if you want to?" (Though maybe better selves are not the issue here. Why should I consider it immoral to drink too much cocoa, when I'm the only one who suffers if my jeans get too tight?) Book-wise, too, I have consistently gone for the cup of cocoa novel equivalent.

First, I've worked my way through the back catalogue of Kate Saunders - though saving Night Shall Overtake Us because it takes place during World War One, of which I'm currently rather sick. The Marrying Game, Lily-Josephine and Bachelor Boys all proved gripping page turners, though sadly no more sexy villain sightings were forthcoming (with the exception of a quite nice villain surrogate in The Marrying Game who unfortunately doesn't feature as much as I would have liked). Next, I gave Kate Morton another try - some years ago, I gave up on The Forgotten Garden because I couldn't see how anything could lighten up its gloomy premise. This time round I tried The Secret Keeper. It's not such high quality escapism as Kate Saunders, but it was still an enjoyable read with nice twists and a satisfying conclusion. Morton seems fond of plots where old mysteries are solved several decades after the events took place. The upside of this is you get a historic setting to some of the action; the downside is that some characters have to wait an awfully long time to have old ghosts laid to rest.

Now, I've fallen far enough to resort to chick lit, with no on-travel excuse whatsoever. More fool me - Mini Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella is proving to be one of the more stressful Shopaholic books. When it comes to Becky, the Shopaholic franchise's heroine, I don't mind her shopaholicism that much, but I have a hard time with the pathological lying which puts her in all kinds of unnecessary scrapes. Sometimes, her frantic scrambling to iron out various swindles while owning up to as little as possible calls to mind some chick-lit version of The Way We Live Now.

As for TV, I emergency-ordered the first part of the new Doctor Who series recently - I needed another fictional universe to snuggle up in in order to dampen my Downton worries, and my worthy ambition to wait until the whole series was available fell flat (honestly, part two isn't even available for pre-order yet!). It's still great, though the two-part episodes this far haven't come up with any tidier solutions than the shorter adventures. The added time is mostly taken up with potentially character-explaining chatting - but with dialogue of this calibre, who's complaining? I was particularly pleased to see Missy again, as cheerfully over-the-top wicked as ever. When Clara asks sceptically if she's supposed to think Missy's turned good now, she treats the question with the contempt it deserves. "No, I've not turned good", she sighs very Scottishly, killing off a random passer-by just to prove her point.

I know villains who are capable of reform are the best - of course I do - but there is something therapeutic with the Missy approach now and again. The problem with a villain redeemed is the good guys get to have it all their own way. And gracious me, they can be a smug, sanctimonious lot, in great need of having their certainties shaken up a bit. Not that I'm thinking of anyone in particular, mind...       

torsdag 5 november 2015

The Cardinal's man

In spite of having read both Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies and enjoyed them (though I was shocked by Thomas Cromwell's behaviour in the latter), I didn't expect to think much of the TV dramatisation of the novels, called simply Wolf Hall. True, most of the reviews were very favourable indeed, but in a somewhat off-putting way. They made it sound impossibly worthy and high-brow, and thus implied the reviewers' contempt for more easy-going, middlebrow costume-drama fare. At length, I started watching the series and did, at first, get irritated by its high-browness. Yet it has grown on me. I've watched four of six episodes now, and am feeling increasingly positive. Admittedly, a certain long-night's-journey-into-day Downton plot line (I bloody well hope there'll be some daylight at the end of it, anyway) may have made me feel especially sympathetic to Cromwell's "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you" mindset. If there ever was a time when I could be led to believe that lopping a group of people's heads off just because they vilified someone you care about in a play was anything else than bananas, this is that time.

Wolf Hall the series may be slow-burning, but it has a great deal going for it. For one, it is superlatively acted. I spent the starting credits cooing "Ooh, is he in it? And she?" - there's an awful lot of acting talent involved. Mark Rylance lives up to the hype as Cromwell himself, and has more charm than the Cromwell of the novels. When he smiles, you feel that he is sharing a dry joke with the person he's speaking to, which must leave them feeling flattered. His expressive face registers other emotions, such as cardinal-induced blues or ill-disguised dislike of the self-righteous More (a convincing Anton Lesser, enjoying himself), just as easily. Damian Lewis is puppyish enough as Henry VIII to make it believable that Cromwell should underestimate his tyrannic streak. The willowy Claire Foy is a perfect fit for the role of spiteful Anne Boleyn, and it takes something to be the perfect Anne and the perfect Little Dorrit. Bernard Hill is a joy as the unapologetically brutal Norfolk (admittedly, he has some of the best lines). I could go on.

Also, the dialogue is snappy and the adaptation is skillful. It has at its focus Cromwell's filial affection for Cardinal Wolsey (a suitably disarming Jonathan Pryce), which was one of his most humanising traits in Mantel's novels. This almost makes sense of the twists and turns of Cromwell's career. While Wolsey is alive, he protects the Cardinal's interests and works to get him back in favour with the King. When Wolsey dies, Cromwell tries to protect his memory instead, and is incensed when it is defiled by Anne's gang of young bucks. He is set on avenging his old employer, settling scores with whoever has sneered at him or caused him a moment's discomfort - though with a few notable exceptions, as I will soon return to. Wolf Hall the novel focused a great deal more on Cromwell's Protestant sympathies as a motivating factor; however, in Bring Out The Bodies,  Cromwell readily dispensed with these sympathies and allied himself with Catholic nobles against the reform-friendly Anne. Perhaps it is wise, then, for the series not to make too great a claim for Cromwell's reformatory zeal and concentrate on the Wolsey plot line instead. It makes for some great human drama, too: you feel the Cardinal's ghost is standing between Anne and Cromwell at every opportunity, even when they have a shared interest. In one scene, they both stand at a window gloating over More's resignation as Lord Chancellor, and Anne, in a rare gesture of sympathy, puts her hand over Cromwell's. But he's wearing the Cardinal's ring, and as the person largely responsible for his downfall she - and we, the viewers - sense without being told that she and Cromwell can never really be friends.

There are weaknesses with the Wolsey storyline, though, and they're not the adaptation's fault, as they exist in the novels as well. As I've pointed out before, who is the main guilty party in Wolsey's destruction? Why, the King himself, the very same man that Cromwell serves so dutifully. And what about the Dukes Norfolk and Suffolk: were they not worse enemies of Wolsey than an ungrateful lute player or some courtiers making asses of themselves in an (admittedly nasty) play? It seems Cromwell is not too keen to try his mettle against the most powerful men in the land, however anti-Wolsey they may have been. I suppose one may argue that a fierce but openly fought battle is more easy to forgive than small, unnecessary slights and betrayals. Nevertheless, Cromwell's loyalty to the King's cause - which in time will lead to his own fall from grace and execution - is hard to make sense of in the circumstances, especially as - vengenance apart - you never really discover what he wants to use his power for.

The adaptation has some weaknesses of its own as well, like the already-mentioned high-browness, as evidenced by the historically accurate dim light, the renaissancy music and the meaningful pauses that litter the conversation (I'm a sworn enemy to meaningful silences in film and on TV: they may work on stage, but on screen they merely slow up the pace). But at least it earns its chops as quality drama. Too often nowadays you get lush hooey like The Tudors, which takes itself far more seriously than it deserves and consequently often manages to fall between the chairs of ambitious drama and light entertainment (Reign, of which I've seen two episodes, is another example of this genre: so po-faced it's surpisingly boring, in spite of the glamorous sets and bed-hopping). Wolf Hall, at least, is the real deal - though maybe not ideal for after-gym watching.

onsdag 21 oktober 2015

The long Downton goodbye

"Who has an under-butler these days?"

Oh, I don't know. An earl who wants to win the annual cricket match? An earl with a butler near retirement who will need to be replaced? An earl with a houseful of secrets, whose under-butler is resentful enough to make trouble for someone simply for calling him a "stupid fool", let alone for sacking him? Most important of all, an earl whose daughter's life has actually been saved by said under-butler? I'm not sure even Alan Sugar would recommend firing in such circumstances.

Does it show that I've been thinking about angry comebacks to this line ever since I first heard about it (it was part of an early trailer shown to the press, apparently)? Now when the first episode of Downton Abbey series six has aired in Sweden and I see the line in its context, what strikes me most is the Earl's apparent insouciance. He airily considers if he should reduce staff, not because of some pressing financial need but because he's keen to show he's not "out of step" with the times (since when?). To cap it all, he rounds off his talk with Carson on the matter with a sweeping remark about not being able to "stop history in its tracks". He might easily have added that the best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley. At least Burns felt sorry for the mouse.

Don't let this grumble mislead you: I was, on the whole, deeply satisfied with the first Downton episode. Because it's the last series, I feel I've caught the reticence bug and don't want to give too much away. However, I can say that the episode contains truly moving scenes, and that plenty of things happen but without the over-hectic pace of episode one of series five, where you had the feeling that every character had a bit of plot business crammed in so he or she could take a bow for the audience. I don't think I'd be entirely happy either if there was nothing to grumble about (another example: however refreshing it is with a series where bolshie rants aren't considered a good thing, whom Daisy chooses to insult in her spare time is surely her own affair?). I think this series is going to be a corker.

It only made me realise how much I will miss Downton when it ends. I think I've been reasonably sensible about the news that this is the final series, and yes, I still believe this may be the best time to stop. But when will I get this much satisfaction out of a TV series again? Poldark doesn't even begin to compare, in spite of the heartstoppingly lovely George. When all is said and done, the plot-line and characters in Poldark are fairly simple. It's up to sweet Demelza to be the drama's heart, whereas in Downton - with the risk of sounding like Dickens's Mrs Skewton - there's heart everywhere. Fellowes cares about his characters, and it shows.

I will, perhaps, not be able to refrain completely from bellyaching in a faintly spoilerish manner when things go agley later on. But I know that I will not have been the only one who was pleased to see Thomas being nice to the children (George and Marigold: this is important) because 1) see? he's not all bad 2) it makes a redemptive story-arc for him far more likely. When Downton is done, I will most likely never again savour the feeling that my villain-besottedness is shared by thousands. Oh, well, we're not there yet.

onsdag 14 oktober 2015

The modern-day retelling - the hardest classics-poaching genre of them all

As I've already confessed, I have a sneaking fondness for the prequel/sequel/retelling from another angle genres, in short: the "parasite" genres who poach ideas and characters from well-known classical works and put a new spin on them. But they are tricky to get right at the best of times, and lately I've started wondering whether the modern retelling, where a story from a classic novel is transposed to an up-to-date setting, is not the very trickiest. The other alternatives have built-in interest: in a sequel, we get to see familiar characters in new adventures; in a prequel, we get to know more about what makes them tick - plus we get a few new plots; in a retelling from another character's point of view, a new light is shed on the plot of a favourite novel which, at best, opens up a whole new perspective on it (and at worst only makes us angry). But the modern setting - what does it add, exactly? A reminder of the timelessness of the concerns of the original novel, perhaps, but surely something else is needed too: some new insight that highlights something in the original novel that you hadn't thought about before. Alternatively, simple fun can be had with a modern variation on a well-known theme, but it does have to be a variation.

I've come across two modern-day retellings lately on opposite sides of the faithfulness to the original vs free invention spectrum, and both approaches have their drawbacks. "Your rapier is like a bird: if you hold it too tight, it chokes - if you hold it too loosely, it flies." (Was that in Scaramouche? Or just in the Mickey Mouse version?)

To start with the free invention, quite a few nice things can be said about the American series Elementary. It's a good, funny, fairly clever crime series, ideal post-gym watching, and at least one of the protagonists (Watson) is worth rooting for. It is, however, not in any way reminiscent of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about Sherlock Holmes. As in the English Sherlock, the series features a detective called Sherlock Holmes and a Watson - in the American version, a Joan instead of a John. The makers of Sherlock, however, are great Holmes fans, and it shows. Although the crime capers that their Holmes and Watson get up to are freely invented, there are a lot of affectionate references to the original stories. They get Holmes and Watson and what they're about. In Elementary, you have a feeling that the series creators have been inspired exclusively by Sherlock and not by the original stories at all. Elementary's Holmes is rude and antisocial, like Sherlock's Holmes - but unlike Conan Doyle's Holmes. The original Sherlock was arrogant, yes, but he treated witnesses and the like politely, otherwise they would not have told him their stories, omitting no detail however slight. I accept the "sociopathic" trait of Sherlock's Holmes because the series is so close to the spirit of the original in other ways, but Elementary just isn't. It's a crime series about a Englishman without manners who makes a lot of deductions and his likeable female sidekick - but there is no reason why these characters should be called Holmes and Watson.

As for the faithful retelling, I'm in the middle of Val McDermid's modern take on Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. It's pleasant enough, but it just doesn't catch fire. Although the action is relocated from Regency Bath to modern-day Edinburgh during the festival, the characters and the situations they find themselves in are essentially the same. Cat Morland, the modern equivalent to Austen's Catherine, is well caught, and still a very nice girl. But I've already lived through her disappointments, humiliations and occasional triumphs in trying to make the acquaintance of Henry Tilney and his family - while being hindered at every turn by the dreadful Thorpeses - when I read Austen's novel. Every situation in the original seems to have its counterpart here, and it feels too much of a retread. Perhaps something new will be added now that Cat is in Northanger Abbey itself, and maybe Val McDermid's novel will start to dare to take some liberties with Austen's plot. If not, I don't really see the point of retelling the same story from the same point of view and with the same characters, only now with mobiles and Facebook.

onsdag 30 september 2015

Wild Young Bohemians - and a villain who scores

I see trees of green, red roses too, I see sexy villains on screen and page, and I think to myself: what a wonderful world. Yes, there's been another villain sighting - and in a book, for the first time in ages. I'm greatly cheered by this experience: apparently, the good old craft of villain-creating hasn't been abandoned altogether, and there are still discoveries to be made out there. For this optimistic new outlook, I give thanks to Kate Saunders and her novel Wild Young Bohemians.

This novel is right up my alley in other ways as well - almost ridiculously so, in that way that makes you feel that perhaps you are part of some well-known market segment after all, and that there actually are books catering specifically to your taste. A group of Oxford students form a society of sorts called, you guessed it, Wild Young Bohemians. As life catches up with them they become considerably less wild and bohemian, but there's still a lot of glamour and romance to be had. One of their number, the pathologically self-centred, beautiful Melissa, has an obsession with Quenville, her old (well, 19th-century) family estate now fallen into ruin, and an unsolved mystery connected with it. I'm a sucker for old family estates, but this time around I was less caught up with the Quenville plot than with the lives and loves of the old Oxford group when they enter the real world. And then, there's the villain hottie, Johnny Ferrars - a delinquent vagabond and consequently rougher than what I'm used to. However, he turns out to be as intelligent and charismatic as any middle-class baddie - not to mention stunning - and gains, in due course, the aspirations necessary to rise in the world. I lapped up the pages as he worked his way through the Oxford contingent in quest of his real goal, Melissa. Here, finally, is a villain whose attractions are acknowledged - there is, in other words, villain sex aplenty.

More than one character (mostly people he's slept with) single out Johnny as evil. I thought that  my theme for this blog post would turn out to be the problem of evil - as opposed to mere wickedness in the forms of selfishness, resentment, ruthless ambition, greed and what have you which is completely OK. Evil, as I define it, is doing harm for harm's sake - a seemingly irrational destructiveness. This is where I think I draw the line: a villain-lover like me does her normal run of champions small service if she encourages that sort of thing (I mean, most of my boys just want to get on in the world - is that so wrong?). I've always imagined that I'd be able to detect, and back away from, the smell of sulphur. But there is nothing to say that a truly evil character can't be charming and funny too - and then where are you?

Luckily, it turns out that Johnny isn't as evil as all that - though certainly malevolent enough to make the odd mine-closing or snuffbox-hiding incident appear downright harmless. In fact (as the reader has guessed, but the Oxford group are slow to acknowledge) he's not even the most evil character in the book. He develops a chink in his armour, and might not even be beyond redemption. Relieved as I was not to have fancied a being of unmitigated evil, I confess I was, just in this case, a teensy bit disappointed in a plot development which I'd have loved if it had concerned a less hard-line bad guy. Leader of the pack appeal does not altogether suit a man like Johnny, who's a beagle boy and then some if ever I saw one. All the same, Wild Young Bohemians is a very satisfying read - especially if, like me, you get irritated by the fact that villains tend to get laid far less than is credible, considering their general attractiveness. This is partly their own fault for foolishly falling for the wrong people - but more of that another time (and I suspect that I will have reason to broach the subject sooner than I would like).

onsdag 16 september 2015

The hard sells of Pixar

Ha - at least that's one more New Year's resolution kept. I somehow missed watching Cinderella in the cinema (I caught it later on DVD - sweet, but not essential viewing), but this time around I managed to fit in a cinema visit for Inside Out (and in the original English too), the latest Pixar film. And I think it's their best yet.

I've already confessed my devotion to Disney, or its animation studio at least. My feelings for Pixar, first a partner to and now a part of the Disney empire, are a little less gooey. I admire the Pixar people tremendously: their films are intelligent and masterfully crafted. But I'm seldom so completely taken in by a Pixar film as I am by "pure Disney" products with their extra spoonfuls of sugar. This is because Pixar's films, clever, funny and often moving (the prologue to Up is hyped for a reason) though they are, can sometimes peddle disconcerting messages.

Take the Toy Story trilogy, doing it best to reinforce the needless guilt one feels towards toys one has abandoned. The fears that the films' protagonists show of being replaced, forgotten or thrown away are imaginatively handled - but to what purpose, exactly? Even adults have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that their old beloved toys are not, in fact, alive and do not have feelings to hurt - and films like Toy Story 1-3 aren't helping. I can only hope that kids are more sensible, and not too shaken up by scenarios where a teddy bear lost during an outing and then replaced is so traumatised he turns into a psycho.

Then there's Finding Nemo, where the message is that parents should not be too overprotective towards their children, but should allow them to have adventures. But overprotectiveness isn't such a grievous fault as all that, is it? What's more, it's a sign of love. Is it necessary to guilt-trip loving parents and to hint that they may lose their offsprings' affection if they hold on too hard? And what about The Incredibles? There were critics who raved about this film's "shameless elitism" and found it very refreshing. But it depends on what you mean by elitism, doesn't it? The Incredibles encourages the use of superpowers if you've got them - except in the real world, people don't have superpowers. It doesn't work as a parable to normal talents either: the most talented person in the film is the villain, who attains superpowers through using inventions perfected by hard work and perseverance (and a lot of killing). Yet he and his "fake" superpowers are considered lesser than the "real" superheroes (all right, partly because he puts the teddy bear in the shade when it comes to psychopathic behaviour). This isn't meritocratic elitism - it's aristocratic elitism. If you weren't born a superhero, you shouldn't get ideas above your station.

I remember my amusement when various intellectuals procaimed how much better and more "edgy" the animated film Antz (DreamWorks) was compared to A Bug's Life (Pixar). Well yes, if you think a strong individualistic message is "edgy", then Antz is certainly edgier. But if you're looking for revolutionary fervour, look no further than the oppressed masses of ants in A Bug's Life rising up collectively against the exploitative grasshoppers. I'd have thought this would be right up the street of those commentators who routinely sneer at anything associated with Disney. For myself, though I've seen and enjoyed A Bug's Life often (I've only seen Antz once), I feel a twinge of unease when Flik pronounces with great emphasis that "ants are not meant to serve grasshoppers". Um... what's he implying, exactly?

The message of Inside Out is a characteristically hard sell, but this time I buy it. The film takes place inside the mind of Riley, an eleven-year-old girl, where her feelings see to the day-to-day-running of things under the management of the relentlessly upbeat Joy. The other feelings personalised in Riley's head are Sadness, Disgust, Anger and Fear. Joy can just about see the point of the other feelings, except Sadness. The film sets out to show her - as well as the viewers - that sadness has just as worthwhile a part to play in a person's life as joy.

This is very skilfully done, and the packaging is breathtaking. The different parts of Riley's mind - long-term memory, imagination, abstract thought, dreams, the subconscious "where all the troublemakers end up" etc. - are depicted with all the inventiveness you expect from such a setting. There is much attention to detail, where you see the interplay between what goes on inside Riley's mind and outside in her surroundings. For instance, I liked the scene where Disgust, Fear and Anger frantically try "to be Joy" in her absence, with the effect that Riley's answers to her parents' questioning - which look upbeat enough on paper - come across as sarcastic, wary and defensive respectively.

It's imaginative, brainy, well-scripted, visually stunning entertainment - and it almost convinced me that sadness is as important as joy.     

torsdag 10 september 2015

The derailing of Ross

Oh dear. Spoke to soon, didn't I? Here I was, thinking that Ross Poldark showed healthy signs of self-awareness and that he didn't seem too enamoured of his own hero status. Well, not for long. Before the first series was done, he had committed the lethal double-fault which heroes should avoid at all costs: he loudly and repeatedly declared his own moral superiority, then went on to do something ethically indefensible without showing the slightest trace of remorse.

The notion of being the People's Friend was always going to be at the bottom of most annoying Ross behaviour. This is one area where he makes no bones about thinking himself more admirable than others - Gorgeous George and uncle, naturally, but also other members of the upper-middle class and gentry. As soon as one of Ross's rustic pals is in danger, his judgment seems to go out of the window. The first time he stoops to moral grandstanding is when he tries to get Jim, a childhood friend and picturesquely poor, off the charge of poaching. The only trouble is, Jim's guilty, and what's more, a repeat offender. Ross guilt-trips the court to bring in the sentence of two years' imprisonment - this for a crime that could lead to either hanging or transportation. But Ross is not satisfied: Jim's lungs are weak, he will surely die, the judges are monsters. Afterwards, he realises briefly that his thundering sermonising to the judges may not have been the best way to win hearts and minds, and that he would have served Jim better if he had been civil. However, his anger rises again when Jim does die, though not of his lungs but of a typhoid epidemic, and near the end of his sentence, which rather goes against the argument that he was physically unfit to go to prison in the first place. Nevertheless, Ross squarely blames the judges for Jim's demise, and spends a whole ball glowering at his unfeeling social equals.

Later, he helps another rustic friend to escape justice after he (the friend) has accidentally killed his wife. True, in this case Ross's protegé is at least innocent of the crime for which he would be tried, and it seems realistic that the court would have had difficulty in believing said innocence. Nevertheless, he wants to face up to what he's done himself, and it is surely a little worrying that Ross should feel it completely justified to floor soldiers in order for his mate to escape. One soldier is even shot (though not by Ross), and we never learn whether he made it.

So far, so normal, vaguely irritating hero behaviour. One can live with it. But at the same time, Ross becomes more and more self-righteous about his business plans, which at first were calculated only to make sure of his financial survival. Who knew that creating a cartel was such a fine and upstanding thing? And that anyone opposing this cartel's noble dealings - seeking to destroy it even - was an enemy of the community? That Ross's business interests should clash with George's is fair enough, but there's no need to be prissy about it. This is the mining industry, not a holy crusade.

And then it happens. Noble Ross, at his life's lowest ebb, looks out over the coastline. (Yes, his child's just died. Tragic, but not something even Ross can blame the Warleggans for.) He sees the Warleggans' ship, Queen Charlotte, run aground on her maiden voyage. There's a shipwreck. What does he do? Alert the authorities? No. Try to save the passengers and crew from drowning? Nope. Ignore the whole thing, because what has the Warleggans' precious ship to do with him? No, not even that. Joyously, he drums up all his rustic friends for a proper and thorough looting of the wreck. The loveable rustics cheer. Ross leers triumphantly. No-one lifts a finger to help the ship's crew or passengers. Only when less cuddly miners (because they don't work for Ross) gate-crash the wrecking does the smouldering hero call to mind that maybe he should "protect the survivors" - a phrase that indicates that more lives than that of the Warleggans' card-sharping cousin were lost while the Poldark contingent was having a party.

What is this? A man derailed by grief? Or are we seriously supposed to think that wreck-plundering's OK now? I was planning to use Poldark as a starting-point to another discussion on the well-worn theme of what heroes can afford to do, and why (unfairly, I admit) villains get away with much more. But I see I've used up too much space and energy with Ross-bashing instead, which I'm aware won't appeal to that many. In my defence, had I not had a more than expected favourable impression of the show's hero to start with (though his stand-offishness towards George is, of course, incomprehensible), I would have minded both the preachiness and the shocking looting business a whole lot less. It's what I always say: self-righteousness is a hero's worst enemy. Not only is it infuriating, it can lead to things ill done and done to others' harm.

A classic scene in innumerable dramas and melodramas is when the hero stands with a weapon in his hand in front of the villain, and the villain is baiting him to use it and kill him. Here, someone close to the hero (usually his love interest) intervenes: "Don't do it. You're better than him". It's not quite as simple as that. It's more a case of living up to your own hype. If the hero has claimed to be a better man than his enemy, then he is honour bound to prove it.  

onsdag 26 augusti 2015

Is this a cute banker villain that I see before me?

Wow. One thing I didn't expect to encounter in Poldark, which I've now finally started watching, was villain totty. True, at the back of the DVD cover, there's a picture of someone I thought looked quite tasty, but I didn't imagine that he would turn out to be the villain. I assumed, with my luck, that it was probably the hero's ninny of a cousin. It was not. It was George Warleggan.

I'd two reasons not to be optimistic about the baddie fare in Poldark. First, I somehow don't expect smouldering heroes of the unkempt, unshaven kind to co-exist in the same fictional universe as tip-top villains (this is probably just a prejudice - Wuthering Heights has a lot to answer for). Second, I did read some of the reviews and hype surrounding Poldark, but did anyone mention Gorgeous George? Well, "The Warleggans" - always in plural - flitted past now and again, but only to the extent that you realised that they were bankers and no great admirers of Ross Poldark, the hero. To tell the truth, I expected them to be fat, maybe with a wart or two. Well, listen to it: Warleggans. It sounds like a pair of goblins. I also assumed that their only function in the plot would be to put a few spokes in Ross's business wheels.

Instead, we have George: an absolute peach in exactly the right pale, slender, bankery way. I could watch him pensively weighing coins all day. And it's not just his looks either. The hot villain trend - which I'm surely not just imagining - will come to an end one day, so a villain-lover shouldn't become too fixated by such shallow matters as, say, well-dressed curls (though they're very welcome for all that). Unlike Pretty Ralph in Indian Summers - a show I'm constantly thinking of giving up on - Gorgeous George knuckles down to some impressive, traditional villainous plotting. He takes a keen interest in the hero's affairs, the better to be able to ruin him. He engages same hero in vaguely menacing banter and keeps his end up commendably. He's deliciously insinuating and manipulative with poor Francis, the aforementioned Poldark cousin. His motive is shadowy but not unconvincing: it's still a pleasing mystery whether he wants to force the cool kid from his school days (Ross) to finally become friends with him, or whether he has some old scores to settle (we remember what the cool kids in school were like, don't we?). Either way, it's not just business, it's personal.

The other Warleggan, incidentally, George's grumpy uncle (they seem to be quite common in 1780s Cornwall: Ross has one too) isn't a goblin either, though he continously looks fed up. His part in the plot is to bring George back to business earth when the latter becomes a little too fond of playing the gentleman. Compared to his nephew, though, Warleggan senior is a mere bit-part player.

Admittedly, it's early days, but right now - after three episodes - George looks a very promising candidate indeed for a villain crush, and the prospect of more Poldark will, I suspect, be a great comfort to me when Downton stops airing this Christmas. But how come no-one mentioned this crumpet in the Poldark features I've read?

Because, as is traditionally the case, what interests most viewers is the hero. Now, to be fair, for those who like that sort of thing, Ross Poldark is the sort of thing they like. And as smouldering heroes go, he's not half annoying as I thought he would be (if still rather annoying sometimes - well, he is the hero). Though a bit rough around the edges - designer stubble is a modern folly: I'm pretty certain it wasn't a thing in the 1780s - he's not plain rude, and perfectly able to string a sentence together without an insult in it. He does the decent thing when it's required, as a hero should but doesn't always. He also occasionally displays more rueful self-knowledge than smoulderers usually do. For instance, he's not indignant about the semi-hostility of his family. One has the feeling that Ross considers it a fair cop - they imagine that he still carries a torch for his old flame, who's now hitched to luckless Francis, and they're quite right. As for the famous scything scene, at least the commotion about it is not such a mystery as the still inexplicable Darcy Wet Shirt Business. If you fancy Ross Poldark, you'll like this scene. It just so happens I don't, much.

It took Poldark to remind me of how things usually are: generally speaking, I'm just not that into hunks, and the general public is just not that into villains. As long as Downton runs, I and a sizeable part of the costume-drama viewing audience will be singing from the same hymn sheet (I assure you I'm far from being the only Thomas fan around, as only a little irresponsible net trawling will show). Come the new year, however, and we will go our separate ways again, not having learned much by the experience. To them the scything hunks: to me the coin-weighing bankers.

onsdag 12 augusti 2015

Languid Indian (and Swedish) summers

Poor, pretty Ralph Whelan. After the first two episodes of Indian Summers (and vague recollections of the episode in the middle of the series which I saw in London) I can already guess what his Dark Secret will turn out to be, or at least what kind of a secret it is, and it will do nothing for his villain pin-up appeal. Of course, it will have something to do with his creepy obsession with his sister, butter-wouldn't-melt Alice, a good-looking young woman back in India for the first time since she was eight, when for unspecified reasons she was sent to England. In episode one, Ralph sends for their old rocking horse (with the help of a lot of Indian carriers), and it is revealed he has a photograph of Alice as a girl in his office. In episode two, Ralph sends for a piano (with the help of a lot of Indian carriers) because he remembers Alice playing on one as a child (she claims she doesn't play), and it is revealed he has an old drawing of hers in his possession. Get it yet? Creepy obsession! The Indian good guy Aarfir Dalal's love for his rebel sister is, on the other hand, entirely healthy and praiseworthy. There you go.

So, no real rich villain pickings there, then, in spite of Ralph being a looker and having two baths in as many episodes. Even discounting the whole sister thing, this villain pin-up is rather lazy when it comes to actually getting up to something villainous, or getting up to anything at all, really. Club owner Miss Cynthia (Julie Walters, getting the best part as is her due) and her Indian henchman Kaiser are far more active when it comes to mischief-making, as is sniping Sarah Raworth, who must somehow have missed out on the information that being a missionary's wife is not an easy life (hasn't she read Jane Eyre? Even Jane balked at getting hitched to a missionary). 

Is it as schematic as that, then? English man bad, Indian man good except when he's in league with English man? More or less, yes, but it could be worse. It's not as if Ralph and Co. grind the local inhabitants' faces in the dust while calling them "filthy scum". Some Indians aren't doing that badly out of the Raj, all things told. Still, we're quite obviously meant to tut at the English folks' behaviour. The political backdrop is so desultory it's boring: the case for Indian independence is so self-evident in the modern minds of the series-makers that no-one bothers to make a rousing speech explaining why it is a good thing, much less put the case for the opposition. The characters fail to grip me so far, but I think I will hang on a little longer. After all, you have to admire the chutzpah of a costume drama that dares to include a dancing-the-grizzly-bear scene post-Downton.

Cultural consumption-wise, things are a little languid at present, in the style of Indian Summers (which is why I'm reduced to write about it after only two episodes). I had a lucky reading streak a few weeks ago when I read two page turners in succession: Curtain Call by Anthony Quinn and A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French. Curtain Call looks like a crime story from the blurb, but the crime plot feels a bit tacked on: its strong points are instead the Thirties London atmosphere (it helps that the protagonists, with one exception, all have enviably arty jobs) and its quietly likeable characters - or, in the case of the outrageously egocentric theatre critic James "Jimmy" Erskine, loudly likeable. It also contains this comforting sentiment: "Entertaining people generally are [selfish]". I was expecting French's A Tiny Bit Marvellous, about the trials of the Battle family, to be over-hyped, but was won over by it, in no small part thanks to Peter a.k.a. Oscar, the precocious and affected sixteen-year-old son of the family who channels Oscar Wilde. Having been a precocious and affected teenager myself, I can testify to the portrayal of this character being spot on, as well as very funny. It's also generous in a female writer to let the safe anchor of the family be not the wife/mum Mo, who is capable of being just as immature and self-centred as her teenage children, but the decent, long-suffering husband/dad.

After this winning streak, though, things have slowed down. I'm struggling a bit with the Jenny Colgan I didn't finish during my journey, Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop of Dreams. The formula is too close to the Little Beach Street Bakery, and honestly, who in their right mind could prefer some country backwater (with or without a sweetshop) to London? I plan to tandem-read it with a Swedish, pretty ambitious novel set in Stockholm in the Eighties. I just hope it doesn't prove to be too ambitious.

onsdag 5 augusti 2015

Why a chick-lit novel is the ideal read when travelling

I realise why people have issues with chick lit, I really do. Quite apart from the fact that there is so much of it that's very badly written, even superior chick lit feels like a very guilty pleasure indeed.

The typical chick-lit set-up does little for women's lib. The heroine is usually a ditzy twentysomething, accident-prone but warm and spontaneous. Her spontaneity gets her into all sorts of scrapes, which in the course of the book she will have to find her way out of. These heroines aren't thick, exactly, but the intelligence they have is of the "emotional intelligence" kind. They have an instinct about what people will feel and how they will react, which sometimes gives them the edge vis-à-vis their love interests. The love interests in question are mostly the dependable breadwinner type - in fact, noticeably often they are successful business men who, once they're caught, will be able to provide their girl with a comfortable shopping-filled life style. (Not that the girls ever think along those lines - no, it's true love that guides them.) If only Austen knew what she started with Mr Darcy. The downside of the successful businessman love interest is, as with Darcy, that he tends to be emotionally reticent, stiff even. When the businessman boyfriend gets angry, there's seldom a shouting match: instead he bottles up his anger and gets fiercely icy. It's a good thing, then, that the sparkly heroine can teach him to let his hair down and get in touch with his feelings. It's reminiscent of the song "Something's Gotta Give", except neither the hero nor his impeccable heart are "old". However, the hero tends to be ages more mature than the heroine, who is perfectly capable of behaving like a seven-year old.

Haven't we come further than this - must women still be the warm, emotional yang to the men's cold, reasonable yin (or is it the other way around)? Granted, chick-lit heroines are partly excused by their youth, but even so. Also, other stereotypes abound in this genre - think, for instance, of the heroine's GBF (Gay Best Friend - not to be confused with Big Friendly Giant) who is unfailingly queeny. I dare say there must be gay men who are slightly scruffy car mechanics with a bit of a beer belly, who would rather listen to Bruce Springsteen than opera and rather do anything than go on a fashion shopping spree, but you won't find them in chick lit. To be fair, the queeny GBF is dramatically useful, which I think is partly why this stereotype is so tenacious. Fun, waspish comments, which would sound iffy coming from the warm-hearted heroine, can be given to him, as can a running commentary of the available male talent.

So why bother with chick lit? Because when it's done well, it can be enjoyable, witty escapism. And there are some situations where you need escapism more than others. I swear by a Sophie Kinsella (chick-lit gold class) for getting you through a day of travel, especially by plane. Any airport visit is full of stress factors, not least because of all the self service which is mandatory nowadays, and where you have to do amateurishly and swearingly what trained staff used to do smoothly and professionally - check in, scan your passport, attach luggage tags, drop off the luggage, sometimes even scan the luggage tags you have somehow or other managed to attach (mind you, I'm not saying that the cut in price may not be worth it - just). Then there are the security checks, some of them provokingly pointless (when will they finally lift the liquid ban which everyone agrees is nonsense?), and this in an environment where you must not at any price be provoked into stupid jokes or outbursts. Throughout, there are the stop-go queues (bag drop, security, passport control, boarding) and, last but not least, the other passengers who offer a fairly large range of distractions. What is needed is something that will calm your nerves and put you in a friendly semi-trance while not taxing your brains or your emotions too much - chick lit, in short. I tried a Jenny Colgan on a return journey recently, but she proved too homespun - there has to be metropolitan glitz (London or New York, preferably) in travel-reading chick lit novels, not idyllic countryside with wise yokels. On the airport, I purchased Kinsella's I've Got Your Number instead - just the ticket.

Don't be tempted to go for something just that little bit more ambitious - like "hen lit" with more mature heroines and more serious problems. You'll need something light and airy as a soufflé. Even Kinsella writing a bit more seriously under her own name Madeleine Wickham proved a little less than satisfactory for me on the out journey. Reading matter full of glamour, shopping, jokes and mating games in pleasing surroundings will make you a more agreeable travelling companion, so grab a glittery chick lit novel for your hand luggage - you will be hard pressed to find a better excuse for reading one, and a good excuse is needed.

tisdag 14 juli 2015

On the subject of heroines

Generally, I find fictional heroines easier to like than heroes. Not surprising, perhaps: as a villain-lover, I will always measure heroes against villains and find them at fault, while heroines have an easier time of it. True, villainesses are often more interesting – Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair being the tried-and-true example of this argument – but I don’t harbour the same devotion for them as I do for the male of the species, which means I don’t necessarily feel the need to slag off their opponents. I see heroines and villainesses alike as potential objects of sympathy and identification and judge them accordingly. They don’t have to be fanciable.

I suspect, though, that quite apart from the villain-loving factor it’s easier to create a likeable heroine than a likeable hero. A bit of warmth, a sense of humour and some witty self-deprecation coupled with a sense of self-worth usually does the trick. I’m currently rereading Jane Eyre, which is very much a case in point. As in, say, Pride and Prejudice, you can see what the hero is up against. He must prove himself worthy of the lovely leading lady and show that he has a core of decency while at same time not appearing prissy or self-righteous. Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre wobbles when it comes to the decency qualification (not that this worries me one bit – the lack of a passable villain in the book, and no, Mr Brocklehurst does not count, works in his favour here) while Mr Darcy is impeccably decent but – sorry girls – considerably behind Rochester, or for that matter his chosen bride, in the warmth and humour stakes.

There are, however, plenty of times where the heroine has left me cold, and this is a graver disadvantage for a book than not caring for the hero (a circumstance which I have somehow factored in). I nearly gave up on Simon Montefiore’s Sashenka because I thought the title character was such a trial. The first part of the book takes place in St Petersburg in 1916, when the heroine is only sixteen years old. In spite of coming from a wealthy and influential family, she is recruited – quite easily – by her uncle for the Bolshevist cause. In no time at all, she is haranguing workers, spreading pamphlets and having the time of her life. The book opens with her arrest, whereupon her doting father – successful industrialist Baron Zeitlin – pulls every string he possibly can to get her out of jail. Meanwhile, Sashenka is naïvely proud of her “rite of passage”. When she’s released, she goes straight back to plotting revolution.

Perhaps you have to have been a sixteen-year-old rebel in order to appreciate one. In any case, I found the young Sashenka extremely tiresome. I would think that joining a political group that sees your parents as scum who had much better be exterminated is taking teenage revolt a little too far. It’s a poor way to repay her father, who had to bribe (and kiss) a cheerfully decadent Prince in order to spare her a sojourn in Siberia. What’s more, Montefiore never manages to make us understand the reason for Sashenka’s political ardour – one suspects, because he has little sympathy for her politics himself.

In Sashenka’s defence, though, her Bolshevism isn’t just some Tsarist-Russia equivalent to annoying her parents by getting her nose pierced. In the novel’s second part, we’re in Moscow in 1939, and Sashenka’s politics are unchanged – she is a loyal Party member, who has apparently done rather well for herself out of the Revolution. I found the more mature Sashenka easier to bear: in her new circumstances, her political beliefs make more sense. You don’t normally bite the hand that feeds you (a typical bourgeois, decadent argument, I suppose). Also, the novel picks up pace and becomes a breathless page turner as Sashenka’s idyllic home life starts to unravel.

Sashenka is still a silly goose (honestly, that affair?), but her mistakes are human enough, and she shows admirable bravery when it comes to protecting her children. I still couldn’t warm to her, though. It only goes to show that it is possible to enjoy a novel where you don’t like the protagonist much – but it makes it harder.

onsdag 24 juni 2015

Jolly holiday

Ah, the Swedish summer holiday – the best reason not to emigrate. I don’t think many other countries would tolerate four weeks’ holiday in a row, but it’s standard in Sweden, and exactly what’s needed after months of hard labour. In fact, four weeks can seem a bit short, especially when you’re back at work and can’t get hold of anyone because they’re on holiday.

My blogging ambitions during summer times are modest, but in view of the catchy song “Jolly holiday” from the Disney film Mary Poppins, it might be fitting to write about the film Saving Mr Banks which I caught up with on DVD a few weeks back.

My mother read the Mary Poppins books to us when we were children: I don’t remember much about them except the feeling of magic, all the more powerful because it contrasted with the dour personality of Mary Poppins herself. Consequently, I grew up despising the Disney film, which I’ve only seen once and that ages ago, because it showed a young, pretty and accommodating Mary Poppins in the shape of sweet-singing Julie Andrews.  Saving Mr Banks has achieved its goal in wanting me to give the Disney version of Mary Poppins another go, but in many other ways it is problematic.

The film claims to tell the story behind Disney’s adaptation of the first Mary Poppins novel, where the novelist P.L. Travers (real name Helen Goff) was given script approval rights. As every review I’ve read of Saving Mr Banks has pointed out, the film isn’t honest: what we see is P.L. Travers slowly coming to terms with and accepting the Disney team’s vision of the film, while in real life she wasn’t pleased at all with the finished product and made sure Disney never had a hand in adapting one of her books again. The film’s story is a much better one: in fact, the real-life scenario would have made an indifferent film. Where’s the development, the story arc? Intransigent author remains intransigent, and as discontented with her deal with Disney as at the beginning? No, I can understand they didn’t make a film like that. What I do wonder, in view of the facts, is why they made a film at all.

The answer is probably because they wanted to go to town on the battle between two formidable personalities: P.L. Travers, not unlike the real Mary Poppins in her vinegary snappiness, and Walt Disney, a man with considerable steel under his genial exterior. Emma Thompson as Travers is  the undisputed star of this film, but Tom Hanks does a good job of Disney, too. You can’t expect a Disney film to show Uncle Walt in anything but a kindly light, but you do get a sense of his toughness, in Hanks’s steamrolling manipulativeness as well as in his employees’ attitude towards him. There is terror on their faces when Travers insists on Mr Banks being depicted as clean-shaven: the request that he should have a moustache comes from “Walt himself”. When it comes to intransigence, Travers has clearly met her match. It reminds me about what Carl Barks said about Disney: that he always gave you the last word, and that last word was always “Yes, Walt”.

The premise of the film – that Travers saw her own father in Mr Banks, and that Disney got around her by making sure he had a redemptive ending – is a weak one, as also mentioned in reviews. The author’s father (according to this film at least) was an alcoholic dreamer, which means that the only thing he had in common with Mr Banks was that he worked in a bank. With an author as imaginative as Travers, there is surely no need to look for far-fetched autobiographical echoes. She defended her fictional characters – including Mr Banks –because she created them: there has to be no other explanation. Moreover, the flashbacks to Travers’s/Helen’s childhood weigh down the film, which would have been more enjoyable if it had been shorter. That said, young Helen (or Ginty as her father calls her) is played with pathos by Annie Rose Buckley, and the scene where the Sherman brothers’ “bank song” merges with a speech made by the drunken Mr Goff on Market Day in deepest Australia is very well made.

What’s extraordinary is that even knowing the facts have been tinkered with, and realising that the “saving flawed father” premise is weak, I was still left feeling more lenient towards Disney’s Mary Poppins than I’ve been before. No-one disputes that P.L. Travers did get script approval and was deeply involved with the film in its initial stages – though she had no power over the film editing – which means that, at some point, she must have accepted a young and pretty Mary Poppins. I saw the musical version of Mary Poppins more years ago than I care to remember, and there too we had a good-looking Mary, and many of the film’s seductively hummable songs. IMDB quotes Travers as saying of the film at one point: “It’s glamorous and it’s a good film on its own level, but I don’t think it’s very like my books”. Maybe this is the best way to view Mary Poppins in its Disney version: as a product that is separate from the book’s Mary Poppins, but good “on its own level”.

tisdag 16 juni 2015

Making magic

As I've mentioned before, many people view Disney with mistrust. And in a way, I can understand how the continued efficiency of the Disney brand can be unnerving. I don't think their "ordinary" motion pictures are always a hit, but their animated films are and remain the heart of the Disney franchise. Despondent and grumpy, as I often am shortly before a holiday begins, I settled down before Big Hero 6 last Sunday, confident that I was in the most capable hands imaginable when it came to improving my mood. I was right. Roughly one and a half hours later, I was sobbing like a child while feeling predictably warm and gooey inside. For me, Disney is the "dream factory" rather than Hollywood, and even their animated duds are a lot better than most popular entertainment on the market. There are times when I've caught myself thinking that I'd actually rather fancy seeing Atlantis or Treasure Planet again, and regretting that they are not for hire. It's eerie, I can see that. Disney, the multi-million dollar company peddling dreams, would certainly be the villain in one of its own films.

Big Hero 6 is far from being a dud, and hits home with admirable precision. I'm not sure whether it kids superhero-crazed children into seeing a moving film about friendship and handling loss, or whether it kids the rest of us into seeing a superhero film. Maybe a bit of both. The superhero parts left me fairly cold, though the playing with the genre clichés was fun, and the members of the nerd gang who try their hand at superheroism are endearing, if lightly sketched. (I'm still not sure whether the name of the obligatory English butler in the obligatory castle where one of the gang lives is a sophisticated in-joke or not. He's called Heathcliff - like one of the fictional characters from the English canon who's least likely to make a success of butlering.) What got me was the development of the relationship between the hero Hiro and Baymax, the healthcare assistant robot his brother has been working on before tragically perishing in a fire (hey, it's as well that you know). While we grown-ups - or as grown-up as a Disney fan ever gets - sniffle over their scenes, the little ones can get on with enjoying the chases and gadgets. Clever. Maybe a bit manipulative, even. But it works.

It has to be said that strictly speaking, I'm more of a Frozen girl. I carol "Let it go, let it gooo" as enthusiastically as any six-year-old, and appreciate Disney films with a fairy-tale touch and some romance (be warned: there is absolutely no romance whatsoever in Big Hero 6). Nevertheless, I'm very satisfied with this year's Disney helping - the Mouse is still on top.

Magic of another kind is to be found in the lunch read I've just finished, The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett. Yes, I thought it was high time to give Pratchett's Discworld novels a go - maybe more than high time, seeing as Death (also a character in the book) recently grabbed hold of the author. The first Discworld novel proved to be the perfect lunch read. It was slim, it was funny, and the characters were unexpectedly likeable. I can certainly see that Pratchett's books must have inspired Jasper Fforde, who works in much the same genre. In fact, though Fforde's Dragonslayer novels have improved a lot from the first rather annoyingly moralistic one - the latest, The Eye of Zoltar, ended with a real cliff-hanger - I'm a bit sorry that he entered the dragons-and-wizards field at all, seeing as humorous but affectionate debunking of pompous fantasy clichés has clearly been done before. But ignore me - if it were up to me, I'd put a spell on Fforde which obliged him to produce nothing but Thursday Next books, and that once a year. There's certainly enough material in the affectionate fantasy-debunking way to be going on with, especially if the author is inventive enough when it comes to shaping his own world.

As for Pratchett, I liked The Colour of Magic, but I'm yet to be as bitten by his fictional universe as I am by Fforde's. For one thing, I'm not certain I'll keep the novel for re-reading. Nevertheless, I'll buy other Discworld novels, and am especially looking forward to the follow-up to The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic. I really want to know what happens to Twoflower (naïve, kind-hearted tourist) and Rincewind (his guide, a failed, cowardly wizard with a genius for survival - my favourite) now.

onsdag 3 juni 2015

Problems with the two-track reading system

I thought I'd hit on a clever reading idea. I have several tomes which I very much want to read, but which are simply to heavy to lug to work each day. So what about reading two books in tandem: a slim one during lunch breaks at work and the odd bus ride, and a hefty one at home during evenings and weekends?

The catch is the same as with every tandem-reading enterprise: what do you do when one of the books proves far more engrossing than the other? I manage to get through the slim ones fast enough, but I'm currently a bit stuck in my hefty-book choice. Cheating by smuggling in a Christie or two among the slim lunch reads doesn't help - they always get read first, while the hefty book languishes.

I didn't really see this coming, as the doorstopper I've currently got going is Karleen Koen's Now Face To Face, the sequel to the readable if corpse-laden Through  A Glass Darkly. It promised to be an improvement in some ways, as the tiresome sort-of hero is safely dead, and the often-bereaved heroine Barbara didn't have an awful lot left to lose, so things could only look up. Oh, and apparently Philippe, the tasty villain from Through A Glass Darkly, would appear again (there's a list of Dramatis Personae at the beginning of the book). Maybe a bit of villain sex wouldn't be too much to hope for? Koen does villain sex rather well - in fact, she's one of the few authors I've come across who does villain sex at all.

Sadly Philippe plays a very limited part indeed in this sequel. He has one good scene - a stare-off with the novel's matriarch - but otherwise, the few times he appears, he's little more than an arrogantly French prop. Forget villain sex. This time around, the heroine's sluttish mum's the only one who's properly getting any (at least on-stage, as it were). There's no promising new baddie on the horizon either. I try valiantly to focus on the various plots and love affairs that do go on, lack of villain totty notwithstanding, but I find myself increasingly impatient with Barbara. Finally home after a far too long stay in Virginia where she unsurprisingly ends up freeing slaves, Barbara's next project seems to be to get even with the King's minister Walpole for not reducing her late husband's South Sea Bubble-related fine as he has promised.

Now, I can see that it's a quite an important thing for a heroine to be at least solvent. For this reason, if no other, one would not object to some fine-reducing. But let's review the facts, shall we? Barbara's husband was a director of the South Sea Company. He did speculate. I can't quite see why his widow should look upon it as an unassailable right that his fine be reduced, even if he was pally with Walpole. I suppose it is all an excuse to make her ready to join a Jacobite plot, which will be handy when she comes together with her next love interest, a Jacobite plotter. But in the meantime, I'm getting tired of Barbara stalking around thinking dark thoughts about "Robin" (Walpole) while the men around her sigh and the women - understandably - grow resentful.

Still, there's one consolation - if things don't look up soonish, not least on the Philippe front, I won't have to keep the novel and will free some much-needed bookcase space once I've finished it. I wonder if I'm the only one with limited book space who experiences ambivalent feelings every time I hit upon a novel that turns out to be really, seriously good: I'm thrilled, of course, but it does mean I will probably want to read the novel again, which means no bookcase space is cleared. Plus I will have to find space for the same author's other books. Oddly enough, though, the last part seldom worries me: the excitement of new and fairly safe book acquisitions blocks space worries effectively. That is, until it's time to put the darn things somewhere.          

onsdag 27 maj 2015

Reasons to be cheerful

Where did May go? Weather-wise and workload-wise, it has been more like a grey September than the height of spring. Furthermore, my Downton withdrawal symptoms have reached the point where watching old episodes only makes the agony worse. But it's wrong to be glum when there are quite a few things to be happy about.

Firstly, Sweden won Eurovision! I'm extra glad as I have a soft spot for the singer Måns Zelmerlöw, who comes from my neck of the woods (but no, we're not acquainted). He's a great performer and, as various interviews have proved, relentlessly charming under pressure. True, he has sung catchier tunes than "Heroes" - if you ever hear "Cara Mia", you won't be able to get it out of your head for a week - but it's a good, solid song for all that. And girls, just so you know - Måns isn't gay, or wasn't last time I looked in a gossip mag, anyway.

Commiserations to the Brits, but I'm afraid "I'm Still In Love With You" had two flaws that are absolute Eurovision poison - it was arch and contrived. Try sincerity next time. If it's any consolation to the British (and knowing them, it will be) France and Germany did even worse - Germany and the hosting country Austria both got nul points. In Germany's case, the failure was deserved, though I still feel sorry for the German singer who, by virtue of being just the runner-up in the national competition (the winner shamefully dropped out), was put in what Victorian novels would call a "false position". There was nothing wrong with France's power ballad, however, which only proves that yes, Eurovision can be unfair. At least the points are decided by telephone voting and juries now, which should be good news for those quite-nice-but-not-winner-songs.

A second reason for happiness is the rumours about a new costume drama on BBC, featuring Dickens characters - yes, characters from different Dickens novels interacting with each other! Does this mean that there are more people out there who spend their time constructing dream scenarios where, say, Ralph Nickleby and Miss Havisham discuss love and betrayal or Carker, as member of a special Dickensian villain club, tries to chat up Miss Wade while being served drinks by Littimer? OK, so other people's Dickens fantasy scenarios may be a little less villain-populated than that, but it's immensely cheering all the same that I'm not alone harbouring thoughts like these. I'm not certain that this series will have a very large audience, but the audience it does have - including me - is sure to love it. Most of us will feel a pang of envy towards the lucky scriptwriter, though. I've never forgiven the BBC for axing their Dombey and Son adaptation, but if Carker makes an appearance in this series, I will at least consider it.

Meanwhile, I hear ITV will broadcast a series about the early life of Queen Victoria. What with the TV series Victoria and Albert and, later, the film The Young Victoria, this is not untrodden ground in costume-drama land. It sounds promising even so, especially as the scriptwriter is Daisy Goodwin, who wrote the page-turning historical novels My Last Duchess and The Fortune Hunter. It appears there will be life after Downton. Maybe.

söndag 10 maj 2015

Spring books

Why is spring such a difficult blog-writing month? I've been looking back at previous springs, and I wasn't over-zealous with the blog posts then either. What's strange is that there should be material enough. I've read my fair share of books, for instance. There's just not that much to say about them to fill up a whole blog post - or (more likely) I'm too lazy to think of something. A short summary of the few reflections I did have will have to do, then.

The Fashion in Shrouds by Margery Allingham I read Allingham occasionally, more for the atmosphere than the crime stories. This one was big on atmosphere, set in the world of fashion with a notorious actress thrown in. It was enjoyable, though I'm not sure I'll ever care to reread it. One thing that shocks the modern reader is how Allingham's detective Campion's sister Valentine meekly decides to marry her errant beau after he has recovered from a bout of infatuation for the already mentioned actress. He doesn't apologise. ("I can't honestly say that I regret the experience. That woman has maturing properties.") What's more, his proposal is boorish in the extreme. "Will you marry me and give up to me your independence, the enthusiasm which you give your career, your time and your thought? That's my proposition. It's not a very good one, is it?" No, now you come to mention it, old chap, it isn't. Still Valentine, an intelligent, successful and creative fashion designer, says "Yes".

Now, given that the book was first published in 1938, is it anachronistic to mind this? Of course a woman would normally give up work then, assuming she had any, the moment she got married. Then again, perhaps there were plenty of people around who would have found Valentine's beau's proposal boorish even in 1938. Perhaps it's meant to be boorish. Perhaps Allingham, like a modern author might, is making Valentine's sacrifice so explicit in order to make a point about the nature of love. Old values and prejudices in old novels are always a challenge. One is tempted to be patronising either by handing out a general amnesty against sexism and the like because "people didn't know better then", or on the other hand by tut-tutting and measuring authors and characters from another time with modern yardsticks that would have bewildered them. It's difficult to know what to do. After all, some things are just plain wrong, and you would expect a reasonably intelligent individual from any age to recognise it.

Awful Swedish historical novel which shall be nameless  Now and again, I feel guilty about not reading more books in the Swedish language and set out to remedy this, mostly with some extremely light-weight read. I was unlucky the last time I tried. Ironically, the genre and general plot couldn't have been more right for me. It was a bodice-ripper set in late 18th century Stockholm involving Swedish nobility, star-crossed lovers, a forced engagement, balls, opera visits and even an English gentleman fiancé for the troubled heroine, who still loves her Swedish childhood sweetheart. Promising, wouldn't you say? But the plot is full of holes, the characters behave like children, and it is badly written. I always thought I was easy to please when it comes to Swedish prose style, but maybe it's the other way around and I'm actually more sensitive when it comes to clichés and unfortunate phrases in my mother tongue. Would I have reacted to a sentence like "Thank goodness for good friends, he gabbled silently to himself" in English? Well, I did in its Swedish version. What does the author mean by "gabbled"? The character's just making a simple statement of fact. You can't use a verb like "gabble" just to show that you don't like the person speaking, can you?

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P.D. James A well-written crime novel with a likeable heroine and set mostly in Cambridge. Could it be any better? We-ell... Funnily enough, I still prefer Christie to all the more recent crime writers I've tried, including P.D. James, and this time around I think I'm close to an answer why. I believe in Christie's murderers. I can see why the murders happen, and why they happen the way they do. James wrote with verve and wisdom, but she is too far distanced from the murderer's mind. We're left on the outside, still bewildered as to why a murder had to happen exactly then and exactly in that manner. And if you don't understand what's in the murderer's mind, then an important point with a crime novel is lost. Still, this is a readable book: Cordelia Gray is a resourceful heroine, and Dalgliesh makes an endearing appearance at the end.

Now, these comparatively slim three novels are not the only thing I've read all spring, but this will have to do for now. I might need the rest for another blog post later on.                        

tisdag 21 april 2015

Mr Selfridge series three and some costume-drama speculation

They sacked Mr Thackeray!

Yes, Mr Selfridge series three has finally reached Sweden. Before long, I will even have the whole series on DVD. The clever, and fairest, thing would be to wait until I've seen all of it before I blog about it, but well... I don't feel up to a serious book blog post, so Mr Selfridge and various costume-drama musings it is.

As yet, Swedish Television has shown three episodes of the new series, and I confess I'm a bit underwhelmed so far. It's not just that Mr Thackeray was sacked, after fearlessly but stupidly attacking his boss (verbally, that is). I had half expected him to be written out even before series three began, but the trailer where a Thackeray scene was included raised false hopes. No, the main fault with the new series is that it's a little on the glum side. We were spared the trenches, for which much thanks, but post-war trauma and dissatisfaction play a large part in the various storylines. This new seriousness shows up the series' weakness: that the characters, though on the whole likeable enough, are not that well developed. As long as Mr Selfridge was an airy soufflé of a show, this didn't matter much. But when someone like Henri Leclair develops a war trauma of king-size proportions - not for him simply the usual flashbacks, nightmares and sensitivity to banging noises, no, he has to see the ghosts of his dead comrades in the cellar - it swamps him and the storyline he's involved in completely, and instead of sympathy you feel a slight irritation (I did, anyway). The series probably aims at gaining in poignancy what it loses in light-hearted escapism, but the calculation doesn't quite add up.

It's still nice viewing, thanks in no small part to Victor - now a hard-bitten nightclub owner - who's by far the most interesting character. Also, the shamelessly melodramatic villain Lord Loxley is good fun. He reappears snarling "I'M BACK" on the telephone to his forgiving old school chum Miles Edgerton (yes, the one he blackmailed in series two, and whose wartime supply committee was cast into disrepute because of Loxley's dealings - still, water under the bridge, old chap), and he carries on in the same style. The scenes where he hoodwinks Selfridge's spendthrift new son-in-law are especially entertaining ("Well, he certainly knows how to hold a grudge", he says deadpan on the subject of Selfridge). But the sad fact remains that, in my case, Mr Selfridge works less well as Downton methadone than it used to, because it's become even clearer how far a cry from Downton it really is.

Which brings me to the question: what's next on the costume drama front? What can we expect after Downton ends this Christmas? Yep, as those who have any interest in this series are no doubt aware, it has now been confirmed that its sixth series will be the last. My head tells me this was a wise decision, and I was much relieved when producer Gareth Neame promised that we would be told where the characters "all end up" - hurrah, no open ending! - but still, my heart is heavy. What can possibly replace Downton?

The good news is that the climate seems to be more costume-drama friendly than in a long time. When I was last in London, three costume dramas - Mr Selfridge, Poldark and Indian Summers - were being aired at the same time, nine o'clock on Sunday evening. BBC has climbed down from its high horses, as witnessed by The Musketeers, where the second series was even more unapologetically unhistoric than the first. With Peter Capaldi busy in Doctor Who, they simply killed off Richelieu, replacing him with dishy Marc Warren as Rochefort (I'm sorry to say he's a bit too deranged even for my villain-loving taste - ooh, did you see that reptilian Spanish ambassador, though?). Any similarities between this fun romp and seventeenth-century France are completely coincidental. And now, they're adapting - re-adapting - some Cornwall-placed bodice ripper with no claims on being a part of the English cultural heritage. I look forward to Poldark, but I suspect the hero will get on my nerves a great deal. He looks like one of those Heathcliffian heart-throbs who trudges through the moors glowering and tossing his black curls while snarling "you shut your mouth, woman!" to some unfortunate female. What's the appeal of rudeness, truly? Sarcasm I like, it requires some wit, but pure loutishness is another story. Still, one should not judge a costume-drama hero by his photo-ops. He may turn out to be the height of sophistication and good manners.

I had hopes for Indian Summers, and plumped for testing it when faced with my London costume-drama choice, but found the episode I watched really, really slow. The villain pin-up (as he is supposed to be, surely?) didn't find his way to doing anything villainous or anything much besides brooding. The characters didn't engage and there wasn't the consolation of Mr Selfridge's pace. After also having watched the adaptation of Jamaica Inn with Jessica Brown Findlay, which was atmospheric but did not move forward particularly fast, I'm getting worried that the lesson we learned from costume dramas in the Noughties - pace it up a bit, as shown in Bleak House and Little Dorrit - is getting unlearned again. But I shouldn't be alarmist. Sooner or later, as long as the costume-drama boom holds, something new and exciting will turn up, even perhaps something with a memorable villain in it. Things aren't looking half as gloomy as they did only a few years ago. But something to rival Downton? Chance would be a fine thing.

tisdag 7 april 2015

Why the British don't do better in Eurovision - an anglophile's theories

This weekend, Swedish Television broadcast the BBC programme/concert celebrating the 60th "birthday" of Eurovision. And it was lovely. I'm not just saying this because one of the hosts was Sweden's own Petra Mede. Everything about this show was just right. The entries were well chosen (though I could have done without "Hard Rock Hallelujah"). The singers were professional down to their fingertips and gave strong performances, even though their Eurovision successes were often decades in the past. It was affecting to see, for instance, a bearded hippie type who proudly displayed his hairy chest back in the Sixties metamorphosed into a dapper old gentleman. The Herreys have lost their sunny locks - one is completely bald - but they still know their act. The production was lavish, and the audience endlessly appreciative. It was a warm and enthusiastic British tribute to Eurovision.

If you thought that last phrase sounded a bit stilted, it's because once in my life I wanted to put the words "warm", "enthusiastic", "British" and "Eurovision" in the same sentence. Because this is not exactly what we're used to, is it? As a Eurovision fan and an admirer of old Blighty, I'm concerned about how seldom the two go together. The Brits treat Eurovision with contempt; the other participating countries retaliate by hardly giving any votes to the UK, which makes the Brits even more negatively inclined towards the competition. It's a vicious circle.

So why exacty do the British songs fare so badly in Eurovision? They're not as bad as that, surely? Here are a few theories:

The sneering. There are a lot of anglophiles out there. (Yes, we like Scotland and Wales too, though England takes centre stage in our obsessions, I'm afraid. And we're still a bit unnerved by Northern Ireland.) We love Sherlock and Downton Abbey. We love tea and scones, Winnie the Pooh, Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, the Brontës, London, double-deckers, men in bowler hats and expressions no modern Englishman ever uses like "I say". But we hate, we positively hate the national vice: sneering. Maybe I've been unlucky, but almost every English article I've read on Eurovision has been full of it. Not affectionate irony and leg-pulling which is a stock-in-trade when you report from Eurovision but cold, contemptuous criticism with not a single positive word about any of the songs, the singers or the arrangements. According to these articles, the competition is rubbish, the other participants are rubbish, and the countries they come from are pretty rubbish too.

This is not the way to win hearts and minds. The Limeys may think we don't understand British humour: well, we do (Monty Python is another anglophile favourite). At least we understand enough to know when the joke's on us.

Songs by committee. Remember when the UK invested in a talent show in order to find the right Eurovision participant? It was called Your Country Needs You. The song which was to be performed was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, who then personally accompanied the winning songbird on the piano. We liked that in Europe. It showed the Brits making an effort. The British entry didn't win, but it did well.

This is what they should do every year. Well, OK, they can't use the Andrew Lloyd Webber gambit every year, but they should have a popular competition not only about the singer/group but about the song as well. As it is, in the latest years some Beeb pundits have thrown together some ingredients which they think might go down well in Europe ("Bonnie Tyler's big in Germany") but which have not been tested on a real audience.

Great expectations. "Is the country of The Beatles really sending this?" is a standard comment in the Swedish TV show that reviews the Eurovision entries beforehand. Sometimes having a great pop reputation as a country is a drawback. We expect the best pop has to offer, which is a far cry from what we get. What is considered a decent number from Estonia would be a lot more critically viewed if it came from the UK. Unfair, but true.

The phone votes. I'm surprised that there hasn't been more said about the fundamental difference between jury voting and phone voting in Eurovision. Back in the days of juries, you could award points for effort. A likeable song that didn't quite make the winner grade could still scrape together a decent result and avoid the shame of "nul points". However, when you phone in your vote, you only vote for the song which in your view should win the whole competition. This is why we Swedes are silly to become upset when we only get four points from Norway. They didn't "fob us off" with four points: a percentage of the population corresponding to four points in the voting system thought our song was the very best. Many of the UK's songs have been quite nice, ever since they abandoned the horrible "jokey numbers". (Remember that aeroplane one? Honestly, what do they take us for?) But with the new phone voting system practiced in most countries, sadly, quite nice is simply not good enough.

I'm not saying that if the UK adopts the Swedish model of a national TV competition, everything will automatically be hunky dory. Apparently, they have had these kind of competitions in the past, and the results haven't always been breathtaking. As for Sweden, for all its careful, popularly approved song selection it hit a bad patch a few years back in Eurovision, though until this day I can see nothing wrong with catchy tunes like Las Vegas, Hero and The Worrying Kind. But if the Brits were to try the national competition way again and honestly tried to select the best song instead of some joke act, at least they can say that they did their best. If they still fail, then they can sneer if they like.