Not so astounding, Holmes.

Yes, I'm afraid it really is that bad. I'm talking about the recently released film called "Sherlock Holmes". I have to put it that way rather than "the latest Sherlock Holmes film", because the film has nothing whatsoever to do with the famous detective.

I don't see myself as a purist when Holmes is concerned. I have seen, read and enjoyed all kinds of sequels, spoofs and "forgotten cases" featuring Holmes. And to be honest, much as I admire the detective's razor-sharp mind, he can be irritating at times. Both Watson and Lestrade have my sympathy for putting up with his arrogance. What's more, in this case, my expectations regarding the film's faithfulness to the original stories, or even to the spirit of the original stories, weren't high. There had been much talk about Holmes suddenly becoming a first-class pugilist and action hero. Well, well, I thought indulgently, Holmes is actually rather good at defending himself in the original stories. Anyway, even if Holmes is not very recognisable, a crime story in nineteenth-century England can never be an entire waste of time, can it?

This time, it is. It's like those trendy cynical films called things like "True Romance" who aren't romantic at all. The protagonist of "Sherlock Holmes", played by the otherwise charming Robert Downey Jr. who is nevertheless pretty insufferable here, is a disorganised, absent-minded, childish slob, who tries to sabotage his friend's engagement out of pique. Now, does that sound like Sherlock to you?

Which leads me to Watson, played somewhat surprisingly by a trim, handsome Jude Law. Personally, I don't think Conan Doyle ever intended Holmes and his loyal sidekick to be more than just good mates. But if the film had hinted at something more and depicted the two friends as an affectionate but bickering old couple I might have lived with it. The thing about Holmes is that he's asexual, so inventing female love interests for him - which has been done often enough - is just as wrong-headed as romanticising his relationship with Watson. Here, though, the two behave not like an old married couple but like a token gay couple in a rom-com. A squabble about a waistcoat is a case in point ("I thought we agreed it was too small for you"). That is just plain wrong - whatever they are, Holmes and Watson aren't honeymooners. By the way, there is a female love interest for Holmes, so it is perfectly possible to take or leave any homosexual subtext. She is Irene Adler, or she is called that, but like "Sherlock" she bears no noticeable resemblance to the character invented by Conan Doyle. This Irene is a femme fatale and gangster moll between whom and Holmes there is zero chemistry (at least that part is strictly true - Holmes only ever revered her for her mind). The only thing faintly Doyle-ian in the whole film was Eddie Marsan (a.k.a.Pancks to those of us who have seen the superb TV adaptation of "Little Dorrit") as Lestrade.

The biggest problem with the film, I believe, is that if you are going to invent freely on the basis of a legendary figure like Sherlock Holmes, you still need to have some references to the original before you take off in flights of fancy. I suspect this is why the "realistic" film about King Arthur with Clive Owen and Keira Knightley was not a hit, and why I would be surprised if the new "Robin Hood" film with Russell Crowe should turn out to be a box-office phenomenon. (Though I may be doing these films an injustice: the "this is the true, unvarnished story" spin they both used has put me off actually seeing them.) King Arthur needs his Round Table, Robin Hood needs his merry men and an archery competition or two, Sherlock Holmes needs his pipe, his violin (not just to pluck at) and his tidy, logical mind. Otherwise, why bother to tell a story supposedly about them at all? Do a film about a Briton fighting in the Roman army, or a rugged non-merry freedom-fighter, or an unshaved nineteenth-century detective who can kick ass, and call them something else.

Brutus says he was ambitious...

After having finished the high-prestige Swedish crime story - which proved not to be so very gloomy after all and included a touching description of male friendship - I'm back in ancient Rome. Harris's second novel "Lustrum" is even more highly acclaimed than the first one, but I must confess that in my view, it could have done with a bit more "the politicians at home" scenes. What I liked in "Imperium", apart from the West-Wing-in-togas-feel, was the intimate portait of some of the Famous Romans. The lumbering Pompey enthusing "didn't I tell you he was clever?" when Cicero came up with one of his brilliant ideas or the tough old bird Crassus genially pinching Tiro's cheek (Tiro is Cicero's secretary/slave and the books' narrator): these kind of scenes added a personal note to all the political schemes. They are still around in "Lustrum", but not as much as I would have liked. We never do get any real take on what Catilina was like as a person. I have gathered this much, though: if any Roman resembled the kind of villain I easily fall for, it was Caesar, not Catilina. Caesar is the sly one.

This idea gets some getting used to. Only now do I realise how favourable the portrait of Caesar in my old "Asterix" comics really was. Yes, he was an enemy of the intrepid Gauls and was time and again defeated by Asterix and his gang, but he had dignity and honour all the same. "Asterix" comics shouldn't really be allowed to influence one's judgement regarding a historical personage - they are, after all, cheerfully unhistorical, and only the Latin quotations have any basis in fact. But once you have seen the Asterix version of Caesar slumped in his chair, as baffled as the reader by a lecture on economics, and finally giving the one-word comment "Eh?", it's hard to imagine him as an unscrupulous wheeler-dealer with little regard for anything except his political ambition.

As I remember it, Shakespeare didn't help either. Granted, it's a long while since I saw the play (or read the Illustrated Classic - a very good cheat's guide to the Western Canon). But I chiefly recall three things about Shakespeare's Caesar: 1) He loved Brutus like a son (big mistake) 2) he preferred fat people to men with a "lean and hungry look" who thought too much 3) he couldn't swim as well as Cassius. Honestly, who would have thought he was a lean-and-hungry-looker himself?

It is possible, of course, that Harris is exaggerating Caesar's dastardliness a bit just to make a point. He is on Cicero's side after all. All the same, I do trust him more than I trust the "Asterix" comics when it comes to historical accuracy.

Now, time for a summary of the Swedish crown princess Victoria's wedding festivities on TV, and then a football match with the Ivory Coast, trained by our "Svennis". I told you I'm very Swedish in some ways.

I may not know much about football...

It was fun while it lasted, being a critical consumer. For weeks I have proudly used Chrome instead of Internet Explorer, praised its swiftness, and felt very grand for making the effort of testing another browser instead of passively trudging on with IE, just because it's Microsoft and what I'm used to. But now, after having wasted an hour of my life looking for a print preview function, I give up. If you want to do anything remotely fancy in Chrome (and surely print preview isn't that fancy?), you have to rely on a "Gallery" of additional functions programmed not by Google itself but by happy amateurs around the world. I'm sure it's very kind of them to share their add-ons with us, but sadly there's no guarantee (as, after trying to install two of them, I've now found out) that they actually work. So, back to lumbering old IE. At least it's got all the functions you need, as well as a great many you don't need. "Don't be evil" is all very well as a company motto, but "Be professional" would be even better.

Anyway, moving on to the subject of the moment: the Football World Cup.

Wonderful as world and European championships must be for real football fans, they (the fans) do have a lot to put up with as well. It is at times like these when people like me, who don't know the first thing about the game, insist on taking an interest. Instead of regional teams, which don't really capture the imagination of the football illiterate, we have ACTUAL COUNTRIES playing against each other. This is great fun. If our own country doesn't win, we football philistines can always root for other countries we like for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with actual footballing skills. I love French history and English literature and have a Western European bias altogether - with the result that no matter how many times they let me down, I will still have a soft spot for these countries' teams.

I am starting to change my mind about France, though. One thing a football philistine does not forgive easily is if a team plays "boring" football. We want to see the players rush back and forth on the field trying to score goals. We don't care about tactics or saving your strength until it's really needed. This is why I can never warm to the Italian team, even though I like Italy as a country. Once they score, they spend the rest of the time more or less standing in front of their own goal defending their position. It may be tactical brilliance, but it's boring, boring, boring. France suffers from a similar problem: their games have, in later years, become increasingly dull to watch. Now the England team may fail as often as not, but something still makes them watchable. Perhaps it's all those near-misses that keep you on your toes. Pity any sincere football fan, though, who has to watch World Cup games with me and listen to my comments. "If Lampard is such a great shot, why has he never scored a goal while I'm watching?" "Didn't Crouch use to be a red-head? I think red hair goes better to the lanky, lantern-jawed look somehow." Capello, as you see, needn't fear any competition from this quarter.

Lazy Monday afternoon

A bonus day off today because the Swedish National Day (6 June) was on a Sunday. The holiday commemorates the vaguely-more-democratic-than-the-last-one constitution of 1809 which has been ditched many times over since then, so it's hard to get too steamed up and patriotic. Although if I'm not mistaken, Gustav Vasa marched into Stockholm after having defeated the Danes on 6 June as well, which is a bit more like it. All right, Independence Day it ain't, but a holiday is always welcome, whatever the pretext.

The problem is, it's time for me to pick a new Ambitious Book Project, and I'm feeling far too lazy. It should cheer me that the last ABP turned out to be great fun - "Imperium" by Robert Harris, which I counted as ambitious because I haven't read anything by him previously and because the scene is set in ancient Rome rather than in, say, Victorian England. It is also a book about Cicero, which sounded faintly worthy. I remember a picture of Cicero we had in our Latin book in school, painted 1800 years or so after his death, I would say. In it he was attacking Catilina in the Senate. Cicero had a flowing white beard and looked upright and noble. Catilina looked like a bird of prey. You can imagine whom I rooted for.

It turns out, though, that Cicero was a shrewd politican and only vaguely more principled than his contemporaries. Yes, he tries to do the right thing, but only if it does not hinder his political ambitions. It makes it easier to cheer him on than if he had been the incorruptible paragon ready to defend the Republic at all costs I imagined. As for Catilina, he seems a bit too loony and violent to be a villain in my taste, but I'm not quite giving up on him yet - he did look very foxy in that picture. Let's see how he turns out in "Lustrum", book No. two in Harris's Cicero series (it does sound learned, doesn't it?).

After "Imperium", I indulged myself with a frothy Regency Romance by Julia Quinn ("How To Marry A Marquis"). Frothy entertainment is not so easy to write as one may think. I remember being thoroughly bored with one bestselling author's supposedly escapist novel, in spite of a good premise and a glamourous setting, and at another time I was bemused when a romantic bestseller turned out to be written like a children's book. But Quinn knows her stuff. She is not the new Austen, as someone quoted on the cover alleges, but she may well be the new Georgette Heyer, and that is not bad at all. In spite of the title, there is less snobbishness displayed here than normally in the genre. The hero is not a nonesuch of the first stare, fussed about the tying of his cravat, for which one is thankful. I do wish, though, that he had not been an ex-spy. I cannot imagine him, or any other Regency Romance hero, lasting ten minutes pitted against Fouché's finest.

But now I have wallowed in a bodice-ripper, including romantic but blush-inducing sex scenes, I really should read something meaty and mind-expanding. A gloomy crime story written in the Fifties by one of Sweden's leading authors seems the likeliest candidate right now. I just wish I felt more enthusiastic about it.

Handsome is what handsome does

All right, no more Eurovision this year, I promise. Not even to gloat over Germany's victory, nor to swoon over dimpled disturbing Daniel, nor to wonder how on earth the Swedes can yet again blame - not themselves, not Europe - but the Swedish competition's organiser for not winning (or even making the final). Although honestly. They had 32 songs to choose from, for Heaven's sake, and incidentally they were all better than the, er, Munch-inspired number from Ukraine... No, enough is enough. On to higher things. Like, oh I don't know, "The Tudors" maybe.

Can anyone explain to me why one keeps watching this series? Normally, there are two kinds of period drama inspired by real historical events: those who are faithful to historical facts, which can sometimes become a bit long-winded, or the pacy but historically unreliable ones, where even fairly urbane law-enforcers can suddenly be found snarling "He doesn't need his tongue, then tear it out" in dark torture cellars.

What is fascinating with "The Tudors" is that it is neither historically accurate nor particularly pacy. A bit of bed-hopping cannot disguise the fact that it takes ages over every plot thread. Remember than never-ending divorce procedure? And Anne Boleyn took a goodish hour-long episode to execute. At the same time, those in the know continually point out historical errors, like a mix-up over popes, or the fact that Henry VIII should have become the pig-eyed fatty we know from the portraits long ago, instead of hardly looking a day older or a pound heavier than when he was a golden young prince. The historical doubtfulness starts with the title. Why "The Tudors"? Because there had already been a series called "Henry VIII"? Because the series-makers hope to carry on with Henry's children's reigns eventually, though at this rate they won't be able to kill him off until approximately the year 2020? Whatever the reason, a series called "The Tudors" should in all honesty start with Henry VII. As a true supporter of Richard III (not that he was anything like Shakespeare's version, more's the pity) I heartily dislike Henry VII, but I would still have been interested to see a period drama about his reign. His marriage with Elizabeth of York must, all things considered, have been a pretty tense affair, and surely a great deal could be done with the rebellions instigated by more or less dubious pretenders claiming to be Yorkist princes. But no - instead we get yet another re-tread of the story about Henry VIII and his six wives.

And yet I keep watching. Why? Is it because of James Frain's unusually comely Thomas Cromwell and his troubles? At first contemptuous of Henry, whom he runs rings round intellectually, he is by now becoming seriously rattled - when Henry makes him a knight he glances nervously at the sword blade, as if he were afraid that the ceremony could become an execution any moment. A stupid king you can work with, or around, but a psychopathic king is a bit less comfortable. Frain's Cromwell is by far the most interesting character, and he has comic timing too. Consider this not too subtle exchange:
CROMWELL: We must continue to destroy the brothels and slaughterhouses.
HENCHMAN: Sir?
CROMWELL: The monasteries.
Not exactly razor-sharp, you will agree, but thanks to Frain's slight disbelieving pause before the last line and his irritable do-keep-up-tone it drew a giggle from me.

Another reason to keep watching, if like me one is not so very taken with the Tudors and their shaky claim on the throne, is the series' take on Henry VIII. Appropriately, it's a real hatchet-job. The man is a preening, violent, volatile menace to society. I have never seen a less likeable Henry VIII, and that is saying something. In fact, a fat suit would probably increase our sympathy for him, rather than the opposite. While Henry whores and slashes his way through his reign without noticeably changing, you start to feel reminded of "The Picture of Dorian Gray".

Still I must say that if you want to watch only one series about Henry VIII, you'd do better with the one honestly called "Henry VIII" starring Ray Winstone as a thuggish but not certifiable king, Helena Bonham Carter as Anne Boleyn and Danny Webb as yet another watchable Cromwell. It is pacier, better written and probably a great deal more reliable.

And the winner (with my luck) probably won't be...

I was thinking of raising the topic of audition shows - the almost acceptable face of reality TV - and trying to justify why I love watching them (only two have been aired on Swedish television so far). But that is too much like hard work. So I'll just settle for the easy option of posting a list of my favourite entries for the Eurovision Song Contest. Note that I've only heard the songs once, and they may sound completely different live, while some of the also-rans may pick up enormously (as happened last year with UK's "It's my time"). So here they are, in random order:

Moldavia: I originally gave this 3 out of 5 points, but what the heck, it's up-tempo and fun and the singers remind me slightly of the bad siblings in High School Musical. (Yep, I saw it - there's no limit to how silly your TV viewing can get when you're single and unrestrained.) Plus I like the hat. Bop to the top!

Albania: Another up-tempo number. The singer's boyfriend in the video looks like he's going to blow up a factory, but it doesn't really matter.

Iceland: This song sounds more like Ireland than Iceland, with the Valkyrie-like singer belting out a catchy pop tune (the only one of the songs I can still hum) very satisfactorily.

Armenia: I don't know what's happened to me. I normally like ballads a lot, but this year, both in the Swedish "Music Festival" competitions and now in Eurovision, I find the crop of ballads rather boring. This one I do like, though. Eurovision buffs usually appreciate "ethnic" numbers where the countries display "some of their national cultural heritage". Not me. I prefer this kind of number: smooth, professional, western-style pop.

Israel: Nice-looking boy with impressive voice sings soulful ballad in Hebrew. Yes, the concept is familiar. But no matter: it works. And as half of Asia is participating now, we can lay the old "yes but they're not really part of Europe, are they?" argument to rest.

Germany: No, I'm not so biased as you may think. I've barely liked one of Germany's entries to Eurovision so far. I'm not impressed by the Eurovision winner "Ein bisschen Frieden". (Admittedly, I've only heard about half the refrain of that song, but honestly: asking for "a little peace"? Isn't that as impossible as "a little war"?) But this time the singer is a pro, and charming with it, and the number is pleasing. The accented English is a little bewildering, but doesn't detract from the charm somehow.

Spain: Now here's where bias really comes in. The almost-completely-Swedish expert panel, with the exception of the excellent Finn, found this number "disturbing". And that's why it's a favourite for me. The sinister circus-master singer could be the evil genius in an "Avengers" episode - and he's got red curls too (well, all right, maybe it's a wig). If he had been made up as a clown, I agree it would have been too scary - as it is, from a villain-lover like myself, it has to be four out of five. Could be a complete disaster live, though.

Questions to ponder: am I the only one who thinks the singer for Switzerland is kinda cute (red hair again)? What do Romania's dancers (they may not make it to the live show) resemble most: C3PO or cybermen? And why, when they were doing so well with the Lloyd Webber song last year, have the UK back-slided again? When, apparently, none of their professional singers or pop groups deign to take part in Eurovision, it's no wonder the Brits aren't doing very well.

Cyber Georgianas and Brontë villains

'Ere, what's all this then? When googling Georgiana to see if I could find a picture of her for my profile (well, that was the main reason), I discovered to my dismay that some other chick - it CAN'T be a guy - has registered "Georgiana Podsnap" as a user on Facebook. Is dismay an overreaction? Should I not be glad that somewhere out there, little Georgiana has another fan? Yes, probably. But honestly I can't be. If the other Georgiana should find this blog (not very likely at present because it seems to be in a Google blind spot) she will think I stole her alias and be not a little cheesed off. I can only say it's a feeling I wholeheartedly share.

I was not aware that Facebook was a playground for fictional characters as well as flesh-and-blood people but I suppose it was only to be expected: we book nerds are like that. At work, I try to use names of fictional and historical characters whenever I can as test users and in manuals. I once invented a test user called Edward Casaubon whose function it was to make all kinds of mistakes on a website where I was the webmaster, in order to check the error messages. I thought of using the name Nicholas Bulstrode, but decided he would not have made any errors even in a futuristic web environment. The company where I have my present assignment has, according to one of my manuals, contracts with Dombey and Son, Wickfield and Heep and the Captain Flint Corporation. In such circumstances, outsourcing may not seem such a brilliant idea after all.

Speaking of book nerdishness, I'm really enjoying "The Taste of Sorrow" now. The Brontë sisters are struggling on with their various teaching jobs and not liking it much, but it's still not a depressing read: the warm family feeling and the siblings' shared imaginary worlds lighten things up. I wish poor Charlotte would be less hard on herself and show more signs of the sense of humour you can see in her books, but I can't claim Jude Morgan doesn't have sympathy for her. According to him, Wilson of Cowan Bridge a.k.a. Brocklehurst deserved his bad press, and he certainly convinced me. It's one of the sneaky things about historical fiction: you're apt to believe that everything the author describes more or less happened just like that. It's hard to remember that Carus Wilson in "The Taste of Sorrow" is just as much a fictional character as Brocklehurst. But if the real Wilson really did publish a journal called "The Children's Friend" full of horrifying cautionary tales, well, there's not much you can say for him.

It would be ironic if one of the fictional Victorian villains who actually did exist in the real world would be Brocklehurst, who, as I've said earlier, is a dead loss villain-wise. The only cool thing about him is the name. I must say generally that Brontë villains aren't much to my taste. With Charlotte this doesn't matter because she has such intelligent, humourous and interestingly flawed heroes. Mr Rochester, of course; Paul Emmanuel - an acquired taste, I've been given to understand, but I like him; Robert Gerard Moore: with such men about, you don't really feel short-changed. I've not felt myself able to revisit Anne's "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" or Emily's "Wuthering Heights" since my teens, though, largely because I find their main villains - Heathcliff and Arthur Huntingdon - so appalling. What makes it worse is you're meant to see their dangerous fascination and accordingly feel for the women who fall for them, but I cannot and do not. They represent two types of baddie I have little time for: The Dissipated Cad and The Savage Brute. You can say this much for Heathcliff, however, that everyone else in "Wuthering Heights" is almost equally loathsome: Catherine even manages to be even worse than he is, up to the point where you actually start to feel sorry for the poor caveman sap for being so crazy about her. As for the "Tenant", I should probably give it another chance, because I do like the hero Gilbert Markham, and it's a ripping yarn full of warring couples which makes for great drama. Plus there's a villain on the sidelines who was rather interesting as I remember, though why he should waste his time trying to seduce Helen, the novel's heroine, is a mystery to me. But then those who know the book better than I do claim I'm too hard on Helen, which is another reason to re-read the book. I did tend to be a bit too censorious as a teenager.