Any Other Business: Part LXX

As the title suggests, so forth.

• 

The Dolt Who Shouts Bravo

Before the pandemic ruined everything I taped a performance of Debussy’s La Mer from the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. And at the end, before the orchestra had had a chance to relax, before the music had had a chance to die away, and before the audience had had a chance to register its deep appreciation, some idiot bellowed BRA-VO! This really got my goat at the time. And it got Petroc Trelawny’s goat a few weeks ago when the dolt who shouts bravo appeared again at the Proms. I could have done without that BRA-VO!, muttered the good Trelawny, as, once again, the last notes of music were not given a chance to settle and fade away before this jack in a box was out of his seat shouting BRA-VO! I’ve been trying to parse what it is that so irks me about this fool, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it is because his shout has nothing to do with the orchestra and everything to do with him. Sitting in a mass of people he cannot bear the thought of being lost in the thunder of group applause, he must assert his individuality by gazumping the audience, the music, and common decency by shouting before the time is right. He would no doubt dispute this, saying that he is so moved by the music that he simply must jump up and register his individual approval before everybody else in a packed Royal Albert Hall. I would dispute this disputation as bosh.

To be a party man is to be morally compromised

Fine Gael are currently spitting blood at why the Zappone saga just will not end. The answer is simple, but eludes them because it is so very simple. The saga will not end until someone has been punished for wrongdoing. But that would be to admit that there was wrongdoing, and that would be to admit that someone in Fine Gael has done wrong, which is not possible because then they would not be a member of Fine Gael but of another political party. And so on runs the logic of each party’s think-in at this time of year. To be a party man is to be morally compromised. I never engaged with being a football fan because I found exactly this kind of blind loyalty disgusting. A player from a rival team barely brushes one of your players, and there are cries of REF SEND HIM OFF! A player from your team breaks the leg of a rival player, and there are mutters of No, that was a fair tackle, shouldn’t be a red card, nothing deliberate in it, I didn’t see any foul. If you are not affiliated with either side you look at this carry-on and see utter brazen mind-blowing hypocrisy. And that is what drives ordinary people mad about politics: the endless defence of the indefensible. The unquestioning acceptance of orders from the party that black is white on Monday and black is black on Friday if that’s what the party thinks is now needed to gain or retain power. In its own way it’s not just a question of being morally compromised, it’s a return to a pre-Socratic way of thinking. I owe generosity and decency to my clique, to everyone else the devil take the hindmost. It is somewhat depressing to have arrived at this present moment in history and find the party political system has reversed the axial moment in history. Coveney is bleating about the perception of lobbying and the perception he lied, because she lobbied and he lied. Simon Harris is leaking like a sieve, as is Catherine Martin, but they are in the ha’penny place to Leo the Leak, who has now been caught out three times during the pandemic doing things that he or his flunkies have told everyone else not to do. One feels Harold Macmillan would have fired Coveney, Varadkar, Harris and C Martin by now, but Michael Martin apparently feels unable to do so because it would spark an election. Well, given that Varadkar scraped in on the 5th count in the last election that’s something of a suicide pact, so have at it. If someone isn’t fired for this,  this scandal won’t leave the newscycle.

Any Other Business: Part LXIX

As the title suggests, so forth.

• 

The Purity of the Turf Revisited

There was an unfortunate coincidence the other week of happenings in the Tour de France and the European Championships. Kylian Mbappe was running at speed towards defenders and the commentator bellowed about how they were backing off because they were so afraid of him. Well, yeah, because he was near the edge of the penalty box and if they touched him he would fall down. Indeed if they didn’t touch him but merely invaded his personal space he would probably also fall down. Because, despite his great speed and skill, Mbappe would always rather fall down theatrically and seek a penalty or a free kick than ride a bad tackle for the sake of glory as Maradona did in the 1986 World Cup for his spectacular goal against England. But this is somehow now normal in soccer. When Jurgen Klinsmann joined Spurs in the mid-90s the parodic diving goal celebration was appreciated because it was understood that diving was wrong and he was repentant. Now diving is par for the course. Gamesmanship. Clever play. There are any number of euphemisms to cover such disgusting cowardly craven cheating. But on the same day Mbappe was being praised there had been a number of crashes in Le Tour. Geraint Thomas, after one, with an audible pop, had his dislocated shoulder put back in place, and then got back on his bike to continue the race. He is still continuing in the race. I’ve complained before about the decline of soccer as both spectator sport and character building exercise due to the incessant cheating and the tactical negativity (raised to an art form by the Italians). It is not hard to imagine a time-travelling Spartan on his way to compete at Olympia passing Geraint Thomas: “What was that pop?” “Dislocated my shoulder. Put it back in.” “Respect”. Can you imagine that same Spartan having anything other than utter contempt for the parade of dissemblers at the Euros? Bafflingly two Atlantic writers have been praising the England team. Because they make all the right gestures for all the right political causes. And this apparently makes it okay to completely overlook these footballers’ actual conduct as footballers. England might well win tonight, but it will have an asterisk after it, just like France’s disgraceful triumph in 2018. The conduct of their fans, booing the Danish national anthem, defended by Gary Neville, and shining laser pointers at the Danish goalkeeper before a penalty kick, was equalled only by the conduct of their players, diving to get an unwarranted penalty, and thereafter retreating into corners with the ball like they were small children going nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. I don’t know how such behaviour is a spectator sport. I don’t know how such behaviour is morally improving. And I certainly won’t be tuning in tonight to see a thrilling clash between such a cheating team and a team renowned for not playing, in an attitude of pure defensiveness that, if replicated, would see all matches everywhere end 0-0. The only way to win this curious game of petulant millionaires is not to play…

• 

Intemperate language betrays inane logic

So, an incident at the RDS on Friday made me think about an unhinged conspiracy theory that rattled around Facebook back in 2013. Apparently the real reason that Pope Benedict XVI was resigning the Papacy was nothing to do with the rigours of the job and his advanced age. Oh no, it was to avoid being extradited *somewhere* to stand trial for covering up child abuse. Now, this didn’t seem all that logical. He would after all have to never leave the Vatican ever again by the logic of the argument. But he went to Castel Gandolfo a few months later. And no SWAT teams abseiled down from helicopters to crash thru the windows and arrest him for extradition. And they never have in all the years since. Because the argument was bollocks. And it was very obviously bollocks if you took the time to read the ‘article’ that was being breathlessly shared. The only problem was nobody did, because, in the manner of the scam outlined hilariously in the standout essay in Jessica Mitford’s Poison Penmanship, it played in to all their prejudices and fears about the world. I watched semi-aghast as numerous acquaintances after years of university education, who would regard themselves as educated and sophisticated, fell for gibberish, because they would also regard themselves as progressive, and this gave them a heaven-sent opportunity to vent Anti-Catholic bile in the name of justice. None of them ever posted anything retracting their venom when Benedict moseyed out of the Vatican, none of them ever gave any indication of feeling even a little bit sheepish about having fallen hook, line and sinker for total nonsense. Because none of them had stopped to wonder why the tone of the ‘article’ felt so wrong – breathless, abusive, poorly structured, poorly phrased, full of pseudo-legal claptrap. I couldn’t help but feel the same tonal incongruity the other day pouring forth endlessly, repetitively, and then see on Twitter and Facebook the faithful for whom it was meant lapping it up; all oblivious to the total insanity clear to anyone who would actually listen to it, think about it, and call it what it was – nonsense.

*As with a previous post on Legion I feel I ought clarify a drift from decorum; hopefully more people than not got the Blackadder Goes Forth reference and appreciated the tongue-in-cheek nature of using it amid a complaint about use of language.

A Journal of the Plague Year

It’s hard to believe it’s been a full year since things got serious and a Friday the 13th appropriately marked the beginning of paranoia, restrictions, and hygiene theatre.

The End now appears to be in sight. Perhaps. I’m in no mood to get Churchillian playing about with this rhetorically. But even if we vaccinate everyone and stamp out all variants and finally declare the virus dead, will things ever go back to the way they were? Will certain habits persist? And will certain activities just never return? After all if one gives credence to the 21/90 rule then we have all very much habituated ourselves to the new behaviours foisted upon us by the coronavirus. Which means it will take quite a conscious effort to break those habits and return to the way we were. And an all new consideration of risk and reward will impinge on our consciousness during those moments of decision.

• Will we really want to go back to the cinema? Yes, there is the big screen. But sitting with a crowd of strangers in a dark confined space will unnerve us now, rather than simply annoy us as in the past when people talked obnoxiously and lit up the place with their phones, because no film is worth getting the coronavirus for just to have seen it on a big screen. And even if that risk is miniscule it will be still play a subconscious role in our decision-making, along with the obvious comforts a year of Netflix has hammered home – you can riff on the film with your friends and family in the comfort of your own home, you can rewind it when you miss something, you can pause it, and you can eat inexpensive snacks and not overpriced popcorn. You can even stop watching The Devil All the Time and watch an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine to restore your flagging energy.
• Will we really want to go back to the theatre? I have a certain nostalgia for the buzz of the interval, drinking tea hastily with a club milk biscuit and speculating where the action is going to go in the next act, and from watching several filmed theatre shows I know that being in the presence of live performance adds a je ne sais quoi of ephemeral magic that cannot be captured on film. And yet I can’t say I have been desperately missing theatre during this year. My theatre-going had already been in steep decline as I had found less and less shows of interest. The high price was already complicating the risk/reward ratio, as spending the guts of 40e on something like the Gate’s Look Back in Anger travesty leaves far more of a bitter taste than wasting 10e on a bad movie.  If the risk/reward calculation involves a crowd of strangers and coronavirus, well, I can continue to not theatre-go.
• Will we really want to go back to the concert hall? Now, this does not concern rock concerts. Something which I gave up on for good after suffering thru the distracted audience at St Vincent’s Iveagh Gardens gig in 2015. I have previously fretted hereabouts regarding the future of the National Concert Hall and the potential nature of its altered programming in trying to operate under various levels of lockdown restrictions. But after a year of listening to classical music on BBC Radio 3, YouTube, Spotify, and CD, I now think that an equal problem might be my own 21/90 inertia. I have in the past fallen completely out of the habit of going to concerts because of life crises. And it took years to return to the habit. Will that prove to be the case for many other people who have simply found a different way to listen to the music they love?

You Have Been Listening To: Part V – An A to Z of Great Moments in Film

As we throw our hands up in despair and wait for the Grinch-timed return of lockdown it seems a good point to look back at a 2020 project that is nearing completion. There has been a lack of reviews by me of new releases on 103.2 Dublin City FM this year, and what was personally an injury-enforced sabbatical from studio and cinema was made a general cinema sabbatical for all for most of the year. But if you’re eager to explore the back catalogue here’s a list of the films we discussed as the film links morphed into an A to Z of Great Moments in Film that attempted to tip the hat as often as possible to films that had an anniversary of some kind in 2020.

All About Eve

Back to the Future

Cast Away

Les Diaboliques

The Empire Strikes Back

The Falcon Takes Over

Goodfellas

Top Hat

The Ipcress File

Jane Eyre

Kelly’s Heroes

The Lavender Hill Mob

Memento

Nosferatu

Othello

Psycho

The Quiller Memorandum

Rififi

The 39 Steps

Tremors

The Usual Suspects

Vertigo

Westworld

X-Men

Yojimbo

Dr Zhivago

Any Other Business: Part LXIV

As the title suggests, so forth.

As You Were!

And so back to level 3 (plus) lockdown, but the schools stay open. You see the fact that the very noticeable spike in numbers during the level 5 lockdown just happened to coincide with the return of the schools after the mid-term break is just noise not the signal. The signal is that wet pubs are to blame for everything. That’s what compelling evidence, which hasn’t been independently parsed, tells the neo-prohibitionists in the government. And furthermore you, yes you, are to blame: once again you, yes you, got complacent. Indeed this time around the complacency, and the letting down of the guard, and all the other irritating chiding clichés, took on even more magical properties; because, when this line of attack from NPHET voices started, it had not actually been 2 weeks since the announcement of the vaccine, which would mean that people had …  relaxed in anticipation of the announcement? Yes, clearly that makes more sense than not: Bad people!

Here’s my playlist… Give it a listen when you’re ready to take things a bit more seriously…

Spotify these 60 songs for a 00s mood

Metric – Help I’m Alive // Snow Patrol – Spitting Games // Gwen Stefani – What You Waiting For? // Red Hot Chili Peppers – By the Way // Morrissey – Last of the Gang to Die // The Postal Service –The District Sleeps Alone Tonight // Moby – Porcelain // Clint Mansell – Lux Aeterna // Metric – Stadium Love // Interpol – Mammoth // Auf Der Maur – Followed the Waves // Arcade Fire – Neighbourhood 3 (Power Out) // Modest Mouse – Float On // Madison Avenue – Don’t Call Me Baby // Gwen Stefani – Rich Girl // Gnarls Barkley – Crazy // Regina Spektor – Fidelity // Coldplay – Trouble // Metric – Poster of a Girl // The Postal Service – Such Great Heights // Auf Der Maur – Skin Receiver // Muse – Supermassive Black Hole // Gwen Stefani – Hollaback Girl // Lady Gaga – Bad Romance // Muse – Time is Running Out // Modest Mouse – Ocean Breathes Salty // Temper Trap –Sweet Disposition // Muse – Starlight // The Killers – Mr Brightside // The Killers – Smile Like You Mean It // Arcade Fire – Rebellion (Lies) // Coldplay – In My Place // Muse – Stockholm Syndrome // Broken Social Scene – Lover’s Spit // Garbage – Bleed Like Me // Morrissey – Life is a Pigsty // Coldplay – The Scientist // The Killers – All These Things That I’ve Done // Vanessa Carlton – A Thousand Miles // REM –Imitation of Life // Wheatus – Teenage Dirtbag // Modest Mouse – Fire It Up // Johnny Cash – The Man Comes Around // Arcade Fire – Black Mirror // Hans Zimmer/James Newton Howard – Why So Serious? // Auf Der Maur – Real A Lie // Moby – Natural Blues // The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army // Tomoyasu Hotei – Battle without Honour or Humanity // Morrissey – Irish Blood, English Heart // Interpol – Evil // Linkin Park – In the End // Moby – Extreme Ways // Red Hot Chili Peppers – Venice Queen // The Postal Service – Nothing Better // David Holmes – Gritty Shaker // Interpol – Obstacle 1 // Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Zero // Red Hot Chili Peppers – Zephyr Song //Howard Shore – The Fellowship of the Ring theme

Any Other Business: Part LXIII

As the title suggests, so forth.

The Manchurian Candidate and the GOP

I was reading Richard Condon’s 1959 novel The Manchurian Candidate in the last few days and was extremely disconcerted to find what seemed to be the language of the present moment.

I will be representing the Senate, you might say – and I will be there to remind the forgetful rulers of Europe and England that the United States was established not as a democracy but as a Federal Union and Republic that is controlled by the United States Senate, at this moment in our history, through a state-equality composition designed to maintain this establishment and that it exists, in the present moment of our history, to protect minorities from the precipitate and emotional tyranny of majorities.

There is no list…

Spotify these 60 songs for a 90s mood

John Williams – JFK theme // Smashing Pumpkins – Tonight Tonight // Garbage – I’m Only Happy When it Rains // Natalie Imbruglia – Torn // Sixpence None the Richer – Kiss Me // Nirvana – Heart-Shaped Box // Blur – To the End // Thomas Newman – Dead Already // Red Hot Chili Peppers – I Could Have Lied // Garbage – Stupid Girl // REM – Radio Song // U2 – Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me // John Williams – Jurassic Park theme // Smashing Pumpkins – Porcelina of the Vast Oceans // Massive Attack – Angel // Madonna – Bedtime Story // U2 – Numb // Radiohead – Let Down // Portishead – All Mine // Smashing Pumpkins – Today // Guns’n’Roses – You Could Be Mine // Madonna – Ray of Light // Garbage – I Think I’m Paranoid // U2 – The Fly // Massive Attack – Risingson // Red Hot Chili Peppers –Under the Bridge // Angelo Badalamenti – Twin Peaks theme // Pixies – Motorway to Roswell // Bjork – Isobel // Madonna – Vogue // Beastie Boys – Sure Shot // Metallica – Enter Sandman // White Town – Your Woman // Gala – Freed from Desire // Underworld – Born Slippy // Republica – Ready to Go // Pixies – Alec Eiffel // Alan Silvestri – Point of No Return // The Chemical Brothers – Hey Boy, Hey Girl // Massive Attack –Safe from Harm // Blur – Trimm Trab // Nirvana – Lithium // REM – Losing My Religion // Blur – The Universal // Green Day – Time of Your Life (Good Riddance) // Blur – Parklife // Portishead – Glory Box // Radiohead – Just // Pixies – Velouria // Beastie Boys – Intergalactic // Kula Shaker – Tattva // Portishead – Strangers // Happy Mondays – Step On // Red Hot Chili Peppers – Give it Away // REM – Man on the Moon // Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit // John Williams – Duel of the Fates // Beastie Boys – Sabotage // Radiohead – Creep // Pulp – Common People

20:20 on 2000

Donald Trump is a loser. A two-time loser in fact, depending on your point of view.

It’s strange to think that in 2000 a split between the electoral college and the popular vote had recently been depicted in The West Wing, and yet fiction seemed to be its proper place, whereas now it is a huge relief when the electoral college manages to actually coincide with the popular vote. What in 1992, when my class was following the fascinating three-horse election, seemed to be an endearing eccentricity of the Americans now stands revealed as a deep structural flaw. George Bush Jr was, initially, rightly sheepish about governing without the popular mandate. Donald Trump had no such qualms. Hell, even now he is trying to maintain that despite losing the popular vote again he is not a loser. He is a loser. On both counts. But the real loser is America. There is no chance that the electoral college will be consigned to the dustbin of history where it so richly belongs. Not when Republicans are bleating about America being a republic, not a democracy. It is a good thing none of these useful idiots were around in the 1950s to stymie Eisenhower’s farewell address – “We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow”.

Any Other Business: Part LXIII

As the title suggests, so forth.

It’s March, Bones, but not as we knew it, not as we knew it, not as we knew it then

Something approaching a red alert

Now is the winter of our discontent… Etc. Hours before the clock struck midnight and we entered Level 5, a return to a modified form of the panicked lockdown of March and April, news leaked that the number of coronavirus cases in schools were actually surging. But no matter, the important thing is that most people stay under house arrest for six weeks, while the schools stay open. If the numbers don’t improve, we will be chided for our complacency, rather than the schools being shuttered just to see if that might make a difference. The 5 Level plan fell apart from the moment it was announced Dublin was between two of the stages. The Engineer held forth last week to me that all we needed was a simple 3 Level plan — 1) basic precautions 2) things are hotting up 3) lock it down — and simple empirical thresholds to trigger those transitions, like 14-day new cases/per 100,000 population figures applied by county. Instead we have had our own ‘chaotic disaster’ of illogic, inconsistency, endless leaking by Leo Varadkar and Simon Harris, and pointless back and forth. And what frustrates more than all is the insistence that the schools stay open, even though this logically consistently offends against reason when all gatherings are bad, all indoor gatherings are very bad, but schools are somehow magically grand.

I for one have this vision of —-Level 6: Apocalypse—

BUT THE SCHOOLS STAY OPEN

Trop de Grand Tours

Yesterday while watching Eurosport manfully attempt to cover the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta Espana at the same time my mind rebelled. I had slowly realised that the Giro seemed light on big names this year after Geraint Thomas was invalided out, and then when watching highlights showing Roglic pipping Alaphillipe for Liege-Bastogne-Liege I figured out that if they were there then many big names had skipped the Giro because it overlapped with the Vuelta. The Vuelta was therefore the bigger race. But watching them both in these past few days has been an unnerving experience. I have literally started to feel cold just from watching the unusual vistas: there is something karmically wrong about Grand Tour cycling in the late autumn, indeed the Vuelta is going to hurtle into November. And even when temperatures were still high in Sicily the landscapes looked autumnal, and increasingly desolate. Not exactly the mood you usually get from the sun-kissed tours. And not exactly the mood you want to imprint on yourself for six weeks of strictest lockdown either…

Any Other Business: Part LXI

As the title suggests, so forth.

Donald the Impecunious aka Penniless Don Trumpf

“a formal discussion on a particular matter in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which opposing arguments are put forward and which usually ends with a vote”

Having been in two minds about staying up to watch the first Trump-Biden debate I ended up turning off after an hour, having tuned out around the half-hour mark, and watching the recording of the remaining drivel many hours later. Trump is, to take seriously the delirious title of George Sanders’ authorised biography, A Dreadful Man. By his own admission his achievements in four years are creating an economic boom (a lie), fixing the military (a lie), fixing the VA (a lie), and nominating lots and lots of midnight judges because Mitch McConnell can enable him. This he believes is better than the achievements of any other President in their first term. Lincoln freed the slaves. Jefferson purchased the Louisiana territory. Bested. But Trump is far too stupid to realise just how stupid he sounds when he boasts, which is all he ever does except whine about his endless and largely imaginary grievances. His behaviour last night was, incredibly, even worse than against Hillary Clinton in 2016. At times he resembled the voice of the teacher in Charlie Brown animations: blaw blaw blaw blaw blaw blaw blaw blaw. Constantly. Incessantly. Making remarks. Taunting. The kind of nonsense that one would expect of a profoundly dim school bully. Which of course is all this 74 year old man is. Sure, Biden could have done better. But, short of cutting off Trump’s microphone, how could anyone overcome his intentional disruptiveness? His white noise attack on Biden was his ‘Presidential’ modus operandi – make it impossible for anyone to think straight about anything with an endless stream of inane invective. Vote. Him. Out.

A cultural plan for the coming lockdown

Having digested the warnings that we will be subject to rolling lockdowns for six to nine months I am determined this time around to psychologically and emotionally master any new severe lockdown. I personally expect a mysteriously timed Level 1 at the end of December, that totally coincidentally allows for a Merry Christmas, followed by an immediate jump to Level 5 in January to try and undo the entirely predictable damage wreaked by *our complacency*. But this time around I feel I am prepared. I will not be psychically buffeted by the on/off stop/go/stop mixed signals. Each month starting tomorrow I will attempt to use YouTube to deepen my knowledge of a particular composer. October will be the King of Minimalism Steve Reich. November will be that English titan Benjamin Britten. December will see 2020 disappear in the romantic thunder of Sergei Rachmaninov.

Any Other Business: Part LX

As the title suggests, so forth.

But if it’s a five stage plan, how can we have started at level 2.5 and gone on to level 3, with elements of level 4? That just doesn’t track.

“I have a new plan, it involves beards and Morocco”

–So we beat on, boats all moored on the quay, hopelessly tied up for the present.

The media has curiously decided to remember the unelected and indeed rejected regime of Leo & Simon as the golden age of communications; despite the fiasco of the picnic in the park, coming after the statesman speech that said nothing, and the literal game of name that quote played for a celebrity Twitter audience.

But Dublin finds itself in an intolerable situation. The simplest task seems to stump this new cobbled together coalition of the unwanted. Why announce a plan with five levels, and simultaneously announce that Dublin is betwixt and between levels two and three? Why announce that Dublin is moving to level three, but then crucify pubs and restaurants with level four restrictions without calling those restrictions by name? Why pretend that any of this is based on science when there is no actual evidence that pubs and restaurants have been spreading disease while we all look pointedly at schools, that opened suspiciously at the right time to be responsible for the recent spike, and which will remain open – even during level five – because … science said that’s that okay?

The sinister nature of classical music

Hannibal is leaving Netflix at the end of September. Good riddance, one should say. But a completist Mads Mikkelsen impulse drove me to try and crash thru the final two seasons. To no avail. 6 episodes into season 2 and its increasingly disgusting visuals I began to lose the will to live and had to abandon the drive to the Reichenbach fall. There is much to dislike about the clear enjoyment the makers take in showing human organs being turned into haute cuisine, even when it’s a major character; suggesting they were talking about themselves when having Will say Hannibal eats not to honour, but because he regards humans as no different to pigs. So to Bryan Fuller et al these are not real living breathing characters, just empty sharply dressed ciphers to be pushed (agonisingly slowly) around the chessboard; in a world conveniently entirely devoid of CCTV outside the lunatic asylum. But I also began to be disheartened by the relentless yoking of classical music to Hannibal’s ghoulish evil. It reminded me of a piece around 2015 that praised Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation for giving Simon Pegg’s comic relief Benjy a love of classical music, when the standard operating procedure would have been to give such a detail to Sean Harris’ supervillain Solomon Lane as a marker of his supervillainy, a la Stromberg in The Spy Who Loved Me; watching sharks eat people to the strains of Mozart. Cruise and McQuarrie went further in fact, basing an astonishing set-piece around Puccini’s Turandot, and making ‘Nessun Dorma’ the leitmotif for Rebecca Ferguson’s mysterious assassin. But why is this so damn unusual? Why is classical music so often relegated to nonsense touches like Kevin Bacon’s Beethoven-loving Nazi in the cold open of X-Men: First Class? Football fans lap up ‘Nessun Dorma’ and ‘Zadok the Priest’, everybody who whistles the ‘Imperial March’ from Star Wars is unconsciously a fan of ‘Mars, the Bringer of War’ from Gustav Holst’s The Planets. Why do film-makers who will often edit to a temp-track of classical music so despise that very same classical music when it comes to depicting it as a part of their characters’ lives?