As a kid, I was an extra in A Very British Coup. Got paid £5 If I remember correctly. I think the scene was cut though, so I can’t point to a scene with a group of children cheering on the sidelines and say I was one of them.

I've long loved Powell and Pressburger's films, but I had no idea that the idea for The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp came first. Churchill hated it of course, which rather suggests he understood the film!

And they got a Mercury nomination! Eliza Carthy seemed to be delighted that this time they were up against her Dad, while it was her Mum in ‘96.

The problem with our current leaders is they are all chasing votes and confusing the loudest voices with the majority. That is populism.
They are not setting out what they believe in and selling that to the electorate. We need leaders who attract voters and not chase after them.

Excuse me, but Maggie Smith’s roots were in the theatre!

It’s not just faces, I miss voices. It doesn’t seem like young actors are trained to project their voices in a theatre anymore, because everything is miked now, and it gives a very different effect.

English folk!

Actually very few were, and Austen certainly wasn’t. She was related to wealth, but her family wasn’t.

I know someone who smoked weed with Moore. She told me it was the most powerful joint she’s ever smoked.

Mr India is great, and that was 87. I don’t know how many people would classify it as a superhero film though, although I definitely would!

Personally, I found it to be as lazily written as everything else I’ve read by him, even if Morrison did help with the ending. I’ve never understood why it’s held up as the one good Mark Millar comic when it’s really not very good.

I don’t think so. There were Sikhs, because apparently the British had an exaggerated sense of Sikh martial valour, and Hindus - my wife’s grandfather fought in North Africa in the British Indian army. I don’t know which group was the majority, but there’s no reason to assume it was Muslims.

When Labour took power last year Starmer stood on the steps of 10 Downing Street and said “your government should treat every single person in the country with respect”.

Naively I didn’t notice his use of ‘should’ instead of ‘will’. Should, but won’t.

Starmer’s Labour is rotten with transphobia.

Thank you. I’ve always had the slight feeling that there’s something wrong with my being that way! Glad to know I’m not alone.

And yet he also altered one major detail, so it doesn’t quite work as an primer either. I wish I could remember what the change is, but I remember my wife pointing it out to me when I read it. She’s an early medieval historian who works on the Vikings, so she was very puzzled by it.

A decent kids’ film, and also one of the best superhero films yet made. I’ve seen several American and British critics complaining that they’re unable to see a subtitled version and here’s us with a DVD we picked up on one of visits to India. Can’t help feeling a bit smug!