The Hallucinating Goose

1. Plebs 2. Detectorists 3. Father Ted 4. The Inbetweeners 5. Time Team

1. The Full Monty 2. Blade Runner 3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service 4. The Wrong Trousers 5. Rear Window

It is brilliant but I can't quite agree with your last sentence. My favourite sitcom of all time is Plebs, absolutely adore that show and I'm actually watching it as I type this!

Peep Show, what a classic! I've been thinking of rewatching it myself recently, haven't watched it in years.

Theoretically, but you have to remember that it would take a few years for that investment to really start to show and by that point they would have got relegated from the Prem and thus lost that funding.

Those two teams are maybe mid table championship quality at best.

For me there are two distinct categories of historical film. The first is films that are just set in a historical period but do not recreate historical events as such and it is these films I am totally relaxed about. An example of this would be one of my favourite films, Gladiator, because while set in Roman times with events taking place in one of the most famous of Roman buildings, there is very little, if anything at all, in that film that actually, definitely, took place and so it's fine to apply a bit of artistic licence I think. A similar thing to this would be like with 300, where because there is so little documentary evidence or substantiated fact as to what definitely happened during that period, again its okay to play with it a bit. The other category of historical film for me however, is things like Napoleon where there is masses and masses and masses of documentary evidence and records of the time and the events that take place that it seems almost disrespectful and ignorant of the filmmakers to take too many liberties with the information, almost purposefully misinforming the audience. This is why I say that it is encouraging that a lot of the aforementioned film seems to be about Napoleon's relationship with Josephine which of course will be nowhere near as documented as his life as Emperor of France.

I still love his gangster films and would probably put Goodfellas in my top 5 but it would be the only one in there. Yep, The Big Shave, one of his student short films, decent piece of cinema for what it is, and is still better than Who's That Knocking at My Door? which he made the same year, but that was his first attempt at a feature, also made when he was a student on a tiny budget basically with a video camera so we can cut him some slack there I think. My top 5 would be, 1. After Hours, 2. Taxi Driver, 3. Hugo, 4. The King of Comedy, 5. Goodfellas.

As an obsessive history nerd, I do struggle with films that take great liberties with historical fact because I'm always anxious that the less informed viewer will think the fictionalised version is completely correct, and this is a concern that many history nerds share. In the case of 300, however, it is about a subject I know very little about, ancient history not being my area of expertise, so I was able to enjoy the film just as an exciting action film which was a relief to a certain extent. My main area of interest with history is the Napoleonic era and I must say I am rather anxious to see what Ridley Scott has done with the source material there. It is supposed to be more about Napoleon's rise to power through his relationship with his Empress, Josephine so that would suggest a much deeper exploration of his character which can only be a positive. I have seen a lot of praise and talk of the battle scenes in the film as well so hopefully there is a good balance between character exploration and action.

Totally agree, 300 being the example I would use. A great looking, very sleek film that had the potential to be a true historical epic about a very interesting period of ancient history but with no character development or exploration of the characters' personal lives or back stories, and no deep analysis whatsoever of the political situation the events were rooted in, it was simply a CGI jizz fest.

Which Dawn of the Dead though? Classic original, one of the greatest, if not the greatest horror film ever made, or ###### remake?

Another brilliant film and definitely in my top 5 Scorsese films. You may have realised I'm a massive Scorsese fan!

After Hours is the best Scorsese film ever.......IMO.

No I have not heard of that! But now I'm thinking we need to get some of that over here!

Creating an event and an identity is the most important thing with internationals I feel. RL fans focus too much on having a competitive game to draw crowds in; other sports always have blowout scores but people don't care, they just want to go watch a game of their favourite sport and it is the event that is appealing to them. England football are playing Malta in a few days at Wembley. Everyone knows it will be a really uncompetitive game, England will probably win at least 5-0 but there will still be 80,000 people there because an England football game is seen as an exciting event. Look at the recent union World Cup. Loads and loads of blowout, massively uncompetitive games but the grounds were still full because it was made into an event.

I'd go with Gav's suggestion, a France series would be easy enough to set up and at least England would be playing some games even if they are blowouts.

Walking to work this morning, I see an empty 2 litre cider bottle thrown on the floor, which shows the high class nature of individuals in these parts, and it got me wondering, why has cider often come in big bottles like that but beer hasn't? What are the origins and tradition of a big bottle of cider?

I completely agree, I too used to love watching these programmes and then a few years ago I started to find them getting very preachy. If I want to watch a programme about global warming or pollution I will purposefully seek out such a thing. I'm still a big fan of the watches though I will never forgive the BBC for cancelling Autumnwatch (but keeping Winterwatch, strange decision) however fans of the watches were not disappointed too much this year cos Chris Packham and Co. did their own two week programme on YouTube when Autumnwatch should have been on. Said programme is called '8 out of 10 Bats' and is all still available to watch should you fancy it. Looks like it might become an annual programme with Autumnwatch not existing anymore. I will say there is quite a bit in it about environmentalism but the programme isn't pretending it isn't gonna have this content unlike Attenborough documentaries.

That's a great idea for a present! Maybe I'll treat myself to that trip to St Albans I'm planning!

Beautiful cathedral as well. I've been twice this year, lovely little city.

Hull are not bothering with Christmas jumpers at all!

That has really put a smile on my face!

@OnStrike I've finished. I don't think I've ever read such a deep character study as this one. As the reader, you are put right into the middle of these peoples' lives, experiencing every little tiny bit of their existance and with that you are immersed in their world, plonked right into the middle of that castle. You are in bed with these people, you are in the saddle with them. You are really connected to these characters and experience their emotions as much as they themselves are. From what I know of medieval history (a subject I am very interested in), I feel that it is such an accurate portrayal of that time. It is incredible how the feeling and atmosphere of that time resonates off the page, in the feeling of emptiness, isolation, bleekness that you get from the setting of the castle. You really get the impression you are isolated in the middle of nowhere, days from anywhere, almost imprisoned, so to speak, by the forest that surrounds the castle. I think the feeling of emptiness comes from the lack of description of the environment; while the characters are developed and described in such great detail, very little is said about the make up of the world. I don't know if this was purposefully done or not. I agree with you that the casual use of religion and magic and superstition was very refreshing. These subjects are treated with the respect that they would have been given during the middle ages and not used as a sideshow, almost mocked, like they would be in some modern historical novels. It is not seen as a joke when Lady Alis summons someone who is essentially a witch to give potions and remedies to her ailing children because this is just what happened at the time. I have read other modern novels set during this time where only a really eccentric, crazy character would resort to such methods. This relates to what you said as well about not trying to apply 21st century values and beliefs to this time period, something you see far too much in historical fiction. I read one series recently that was set in Victorian Times but if you weren't told this you wouldn't have a clue, it could so easily have been set yesterday with how modern the characters and story was. It is very clear with this novel that you are in the middle ages. While this is an incredible character study, my main criticism of the novel comes essentially from its real lack of any linear plot. Apart from the 100 or so pages set in the middle east, I just found it so dull. I've read close to 600 pages where virtually nothing exciting or interesting happens. Like I say, aside from those 100 pages it is just two people sitting around a castle with a strained marriage doing nothing. He occasionally goes off to a tournament but there is no detail given about said event, no action or excitement offered up, he just goes off then a paragraph later comes back. While he's gone, she will probably have a miscarriage. This is probably done on purpose to reinforce that real feeling of isolation that is maintained, in that, as an ordinary member of the household, you don't go off on adventure with the Lord, you are forced to stay in the darkness and bleekness of the castle, and that is fantastically put across, but it also just made the tone so miserable. To sum up, it is such an in depth, such a rich character study. It is very rare that I have found myself so immersed and so connected to a series of characters before which is a very great achievement. The bleek medieval setting is very clearly and accurately portrayed as well which is something many historical novels fail to do. Unfortunately though, I just found the lack of any exciting, linear plot a very dull, miserable and quite frankly boring read. I really felt like I was just slogging out the pages towards the end just to get it finished. While the quality of the writing was fantastic, I would have sacrificed this for a bit of entertainment. Someone I've been reading a lot of recently is Edward Marston whose writing is very poor quality in all honestly, essentially just writing what in the past would be considered pulp fiction but his novels are at least very exciting and put a smile on your face. This novel was just far too empty and boring and the misery it portrayed just made me miserable as well. I can only give it a 5/10.

I was in Cleethorpes. I think that could be the earliest I've ever seen one up. You seen one yet?

500 pages down, less than 100 to go!