Speculation, Fact and Fiction

I have now experienced something worse than all the hell's grannies in Waitrose. A toddler, in a trolley, with a trumpet. Just a little plastic one, playing one tuneless and grating note. She would toot and toot and toot, at almost exactly but not quite regular intervals.

As one regal, camel-hair coated lady said with saccharine sweetness to her, 'let's hope you break that soon, sweetheart'. Bloody mother affected not to hear but the back of her neck did go red as she delved among the bananas. By the time I'd reached the next aisle, the sound had stopped.

Torchwood - it rocks. Currently the highlight of the week's viewing for all the family. For those of you waiting to see the next episode on BBC2 on Weds, well, let's just say, remember, it's always the quiet ones you have to watch.

Robin Hood - it's still more than a bit wobbly. Hmmmm. Still fun, yes, but... Moorish slaves brought in to break the Nottinghamshire miners' strike? At least no-one called them scabs or talked about workers seizing the means of production. And since they weren't actually miners going back to work, no-one could call them, er, black-legs...

Oh and given the timing of the baddies' arrival, this mine was about 500 yards outside Nottingham's gates.

I don't think it's a good sign when an episode fails to hold my attention sufficiently that I'm not distracted by such thoughts.

We sat down and watched The Matrix on Sunday evening. The lads were desperate to see it, having recently come across a spoof on some website or other. So we tried to recall where it might be, emptied a few cupboards - and discovered to our amazement that we actually have it on good old 4:3 VHS tape! Which must make it about the last thing we bought before going over to DVDs.

It's also a 15 certificate so Steve and I had a bit of discussion about that, given the sons are 13 and almost-11. In general we aim to be responsible parents about such things. But a lot of their pals, and this is both of them, have already seen it. Not that that's an argument for doing it. Not wanting to go all Daily Mail on you but some of them regularly see stuff that I think is wholly unsuitable. Young-teens simply do not have the life-experience to make sense of the context of the sex/violence/whatever in a lot of films. The same applies to computer games, if not more so. We're far stricter over those than we are over films.

But would The Matrix still be a 15 certificate if it was released now? Not sure, to be honest. Certainly we couldn't think of anything in it that was going to be more scary/revolting that, say, Torchwood. So we decided to say, yes, we'll all watch it together, so we could gauge their reactions and also be on hand for questions/discussions.

I don't recall watching it more than twice, and that was when it was first released, so it was interesting to see it again. What struck me most forcibly was the fabulous special effects that were so stunning at the time are now so commonplace. They've turned up on ads and were sent up so wonderfully in Shrek!

Consequently, without the gee-whizz impact that the sfx had at the time, it's a bog-standard SF story using many of the classic themes and characters. Well done, mind you; the cast manage to sell the notions and the dialogue and the effects remain impressive, so it's still a good way to pass a Sunday evening.

(Oh and yes, Hugo Weaving...mmmmm...suprisingly so, given he's not what you would call typical of my screen idols.)

Anyway, the boys loved it, and bought into the idea that the violence wasn't 'real' so I don't have concerns about either of them going postal in the playground. And we have had rather brain-aching conversations about the nature of perception and reality over the dinner table, so it's got them thinking which is always to the good.

Mind you, we now have to sit though the other two next weekend - which we do have on DVD as it turns out. Not sure how they'll stand up to repeat viewing.

Going back to the certification issue, we also turned VHS tapes of Terminator 1 and 2 out of the cupboard. Which they also want to see. We're yet to make a decision on that. T1 is of course, an 18. But I recall reading somewhere that was only coz of the sex. Which is not much more than you'll see on Buffy these days. T2 is a 15 and then T3 was a 12A. Does that really reflect major difference in content or merely certification deflation?

We also turned up a tape of Highlander, amid what younger son characterised as 'an awful lot of films with Indiana Jones's dad in.' That's a 15 as well. I'd like to see what the lads make of that but am still musing over the suitability of decapitations for family viewing. I think that's more of an issue than fantasy mayhem with loadsaguns, drop-dead shades and long black leather coats in The Matrix.