Ain't Gonna See No Formulaic Film Cashing In On Nostalgia For Old TV Series, Fool

So now there is a film of The A-Team. This is on my list of films to see, just beneath Cats and Dogs 2: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and Big Tits Zombie (yes, it is real). The cast were on T4, bigging it up, even Liam Neeson who you might have expected would have better things to do. But no, there he was, telling the world how enthusiastic he is about this film: 'When I read the script I said to myself - My God, I thought Ibsen was dead! And it was good to be able to play a real hero for a change, as opposed to, say, Oskar Schindler.' It is this show of enthusiasm that may constitute the real 'acting challenge' represented by The A-Team.

Not that I'm suggesting that the film will be bad. It is much more likely to be mediocre. But perhaps, in opening it out, they have managed to give it a bit of an edge. What always bothered me, watching the TV series The A-Team when I was younger, was that 'crime they didn't commit'. They were always very insistent upon that in the opening preamble to each episode; so insistent that I began to wonder what this crime was. Genocide, gang rape? I know they didn't commit it, but it still seems to matter. In essence, there is nothing wrong with the whole family sitting at home watching the antics of a group of men who haven't raped and slaughtered their way through a Cambodian village, but it does seem that it might influence the tone of the thing somehow. However, Dave assures me that it was all explained in the pilot, and it was something so dull that a.) I have already forgotten it, and b.) it probably wouldn't matter if they had committed it.

As for the film, I'm sure they'll come up with some interesting crimes for them not to have committed, maybe even a different one for each character. I can hardly wait to not see it.

life stings

An insect mugged me as I turned into Park Road. I never even saw it, only its sting, which I had to pull out of my face. This kind of thing happens, I am told, purely by accident, but it felt personal: I was shocked and hurt. Only the news that this was part of a general uprising of the insects against humankind would have brought me any comfort. But this did not appear to be the case.

The next day my face was swollen up and I had to wear a mask and go live in the sewers. Though when I think about it, why did I do both? Life and horror films are not always logical. I watched Brazilian horror movie Inferno Carnal (aka: Hellish Flesh) from my Coffin Joe box set. Some people on the internet have slated these DVD's because of the picture quality and the burned-in subtitles whose English translations are, shall we say, not the most elegant in the world, but the latter only add to the fun in my opinion. In this one our writer-director-star Jose Marica Marins (aka: Coffin Joe) plays a scientist who is neglecting his wife because he is too involved in his 'experiences' (I think they mean experiments). These involve, in one instance, pouring acid onto a caterpillar, which seems of doubtful value to humanity, although we are assured that he has created acids strong enough to 'destroy a big arm in seconds'.

It isn't long before his faithless wife throws one of his own acids in his face, while her lover burns his lab down with him in it. He survives - hideously disfigured, we are told - but, curiously, does not press charges. Instead he broods and smokes his pipe through his mask - or is that meant to be his face now? - and continues to feed his wife money, all the while waiting until such a time as she will voluntarily return to him and - also voluntarily - throw acid into her own face so that they can be monsters together. At which point - ha! - he rips off his mask and reveals that he isn't disfigured at all! Hmm, so why was he wearing the mask even when no-one was looking at him except the audience? Perhaps the acid got to the script.

On some level though, I believed it all.

watch this space

I was on my way to work when a woman stopped me and asked me the time. I showed her my watch; it seemed the simplest way to proceed. But she just stared at it as though she had never seen such a thing in her life before, though it is a very ordinary kind of watch. As the seconds visibly ticked by and still she continued to peer at it without speaking, I began to wonder if I had misheard. Perhaps she had asked me - for example - where the library was. In which case my thrusting my watch in her face might indeed seem a puzzling response. Maybe she was waiting for it to unfold into a 3D model of the town. Or the world. Finally, I said, 'It's a quarter to nine', and she seemed to come back to life again, thanking me and moving away. Now I wonder if I hadn't inadvertently hypnotised her.

At work, appraisals are looming. You have to fill in a form, explaining how you have managed, say, to pick up a phone before it stops ringing. Then your objective next year will be to speak into the phone, and so it goes on. It is simply a matter of knowing how to phrase things in a way that they will understand. Such as, for Equality and Diversity - 'I have managed to repress my deep-seated racism and homophobia, and strive to regard all of my colleagues as equal, no matter how inferior they are.' Or, for Health and Safety - 'I have conquered my pyromaniac tendencies, and no longer feel compelled to arrange little 'accidents' for my colleagues with the office guillotine.' The secret is to give the impression that you have triumphed over something. Otherwise it's like you don't mean it.

The Blood Badger Terror

'Strawberries saw the cream of the town celebrate soldiers', says a headline on the front of the Brentwood Weekly News. If headlines are all about the concise delivery of information, then that one would make a great cryptic crossword clue. Further in, we see a picture of Stephen Mulhern with his arm around a twelve-year old boy, positioned just above the headline: 'Perv's sickening child porn haul'.

Unfortunate.

Not that I'd go along with this no doubt inadvertent suggestion, but there is something slightly unnerving about Stephen Mulhern, I find: as if he might be the result of some crazed scientist's attempt to grow a version of Philip Schofield in a test tube. The experiment hasn't gone badly wrong... but it hasn't gone quite right either.

The other night I hit my head on the corner of an open window at the back of the maisonette. It didn't hurt but it bled, as they say, profusely. I took it quite well and started working my weary way through the kitchen towel, but now I wish I'd milked it: stumbled into the lounge where Dave was, clutching my head with blood-spattered hands, and taken half an hour to tell a garbled, surreal story about how it had happened.

I could have said I'd been assaulted by a badger, and joined in the media frenzy surrounding the 'fox attack twins'. It seems a solid bandwagon to jump on - glancing at the schedules, I see that they already have their own TV series. Well, maybe it was a one-off, but a media career is surely on the cards with a name like that. The Fox Attack Twins! We can't wait to see what they'll do next! Once they've recovered and grown up, of course.

figments of the real

I was checking the bus timetable at one of the stops in the High Street and this woman sitting there said: 'I get that bus', almost as though she was the only one allowed on it (she wasn't slim). When I explained that I was looking to get a later one she looked miffed, as though I'd rebuffed her.

People are strange.

After a funeral a woman was gathering up the green salad leaves which had served as a bed for the sandwiches. She turned round and said in explanation: 'My son's got iguanas.' I felt like replying: 'Terribly sorry to hear that.'

At work Lorraine was talking about the enlarged testicle of her sister's rabbit. It is having to be castrated. At the time, and it may have been this that inspired the comment, Jeremy Vine was going on about testicular cancer on his radio show. It felt odd to be sitting there in the office with Vine and co. encouraging you to feel your balls. Not that I did.

There is a new cafe in the High Street that does blue ice cream. A label stuck in it identified it as 'Blue Cloud'. It was one of the few ice creams there that bore a label, which seemed odd because that particular name didn't really tell us anything we didn't already know. Still, I asked if I could have it in a milkshake. 'Blue Cloud milkshake', said the woman serving, as though this exotic-sounding confection was perfectly permissible in the scheme of things - ordinary even. Nevertheless, I walked the High Street afterwards chuckling maniacally to myself, thinking: 'I'm drinking a Blue Cloud' and feeling like the inhabitant of some bizarre future world, you know like Avatar, if it wasn't crap.