Sweet Nothings

Stephen Hawking and the Kray twins might not be obvious bedfellows, but there is a slightly tenuous comparison (not the last of those in this post) to be made between Brian Helgeland's Legend  and Oscar-tastic Hawking bio The Theory of Everything. Both are based on accounts by the protagonist's spouses, with the male heroes/villains being mostly seen through their eyes, in case you were wondering. Neither Ronnie nor Reggie had a hitherto-unknown interest in astrophysics, as far as I know. Emily Browning narrates the film as Frances, a fresh-faced East End girl looking for a way out, who is seduced by 'normal' Kray brother Reggie at the start. We are then taken on a gleeful whistle-stop tour of the Krays' manor-cum-empire, including a childishly exciting tit-for-tat feud with Sarf London's Richardson family, and Reggie's club where celebrities and aristocrats enjoy the frisson of rubbing shoulders with members of the underworld. This opening part of t...

Yesterday, I watched highlights of Chris Froome’s latest spectacular Tour de France mountain ascent, where he burst clear from the pack with over 6km left, gaining huge chunks of time right until the end and echoing his mountaintop stage wins in the 2013 Tour. This morning, I sifted through the online postmortem discussions, where the overriding consensus was clear: this guy must be doping. Not only that, but Froome’s Team Sky colleagues Richie Porte and Geraint Thomas also produced stunning rides, beating established team leaders in the process who didn’t have anybody else to work for. Accepted wisdom in cycling says that whole teams can’t be this dominant over the rest of the field without chemical assistance. My favourite is this race from the dawn of the EPO era when three Gewiss riders casually destroy the field at a frightening speed.     Yesterday’s other big story was that somebody appeared to have hacked into Sky’s data logs and had uploaded footage of...

Update: Oh dear, no new posts since I got back from my honeymoon. In my defence, I’ve been trying to write a novel, a process which mostly involves finding new ways to procrastinate from actually sitting down to write a novel. I’ve found that buying a house, moving house and decorating a new house work quite well in that regard. Anyway, free movie preview time! There is so much depressing stuff on the internet (or at least the parts of the internet that men tend to visit) about how women aren’t funny, and how dare these silly tarts be starring in comedy films when there are more than enough male comics to do the job. One of the leaders of the fightback, ironically, is Paul Feig, who directed arguably the best mainstream comedy of recent years in Bridesmaids, and who always features women in promenant roles, including his upcoming all-girl Ghostbusters remake (which would blatantly be SO much better with Sandler or Ferrell in it, right lads?). Melissa McCarthy seems to b...