Contains spoilers...

OK. So we all know the feeling when something we've really been looking forward to turns out to be less good than expected, or just a bit crap. It's easy to be disappointed and cross and irritated.

But it's equally easy to be irritated when something turns out to be better than you thought it was going to be. If that makes any sense...

I know this to be true because I nearly* went to see Edge of Darkness (The Film) and was mildly annoyed that it was OK. It wasn't brilliant, but I really wanted it to be awful. And it wasn't.

Now, going to see it was probably a risk all along because Edge of Darkness (The Not-Film 80s TV Series) won several BAFTAs and was genuinely dark and shocking. I remember watching it unfold over several weeks and it was a story that could only be told in that way, slowly and deliberately. It was Classic Drama - it says so on the DVD box.

So I knew the film was going to make a hash of it. There would be no comparison.

Well, actually, there would be a whole range of comparisons.

On the way there, we couldn't actually remember the last thing we'd seen Mel Gibson in. Let alone the last thing he'd been any good in. Whereas Bob Peck's performance is still grim and haunting even now. He can easily act most people off the screen, despite having been dead for eleven years.

Ray Winstone as Jedburgh? Maybe not. Presumably, as the whole thing has been imported into Boston, Jedburgh, American in the original, had to be English. But Ray Winstone can only play Ray Winstone. He played Ray Winstone in Robin of Sherwood and in everything since. And Jedburgh should really have watched Strictly Come Dancing... But he didn't.

So, not looking good so far. How would they capture that sense of foreboding which those lingering shots of the nuclear fuel trains and Eric Clapton created? Who would play Clementine? Would we get Time of the Preacher...?

At least we wouldn't have to put up with Joanne Whalley... Arguably the best thing about her appearance in the original was that she was viciously gunned down in the opening episode. (A punishment that really should have come after Willow, rather than before...) But Emma in the film was less convincing than Yorkshire Emma - less of a terrorist, less in control. And less of a guiding vision for her bereaved father.

The civil servants weren't quite right. You have to be British, with Queen's English and possibly a bowler hat, to do the tortuous bureaucracy required to cover up something politically incovenient. And possibly radioactive. You also have to be called Pendleton and Harcourt. Which the American attachés in the film may have been called, but not noticeably.

Plainly, there was so much that wasn't quite right. The cheesy, uplifting end for a start (or for an end...) I won't spoil what it was. But he dies and is happily reunited with Emma in spectral form. (OK, so I have spoiled it, but no more so than the film does...)

None of the uncertainty and ambiguity of the original, in which both Craven and Grogan face a slow, irradiated death. No particularly prescient environmental message. No Zoe Wannamaker. No black flowers...

But it was OK. No more than that. If you've not seen either, I'll lend you the DVD...



* "Nearly" because my sister nearly wasn't able to get the tickets at the cinema because she signed her debit card over the magnetic strip not the signature strip, rendering it useless in the "Collect your own tickets" machine. Or the "Can't collect your own tickets machine", as it's now called...

22:30 (Post lectum)

Finished the book.

Don't worry, I won't give anything away... Was it any good? Well, it was an entirely satisfying ending, with lots of loose ends tied up.

Loose ends tend to be tied up with the in-yer-face italics of lines from the previous six books (and earlier in this one) in case you had forgotten. Or were remembering the films, rather than the books, which is probably more likely.

What there's too much of...

There's too much Polyjuice Potion, too much apparating and disapparating and way too much Invisibility Cloak. So much so that when they come to make the film, Daniel Radcliffe will probably only have to turn up for a couple of days.

There's too much that's convenient for purpose but which doesn't quite sit right in terms of believability. And believability has to be important, even in fantasy.

What there's not enough of..

There's not enough Hogwarts, but what there is, is spectacular.

As a result of there being not much Hogwarts, there's not much Hogwarts' students - beyond the main three - or Hogwarts' teachers either, and some of the fun in those interactions is missing as a result.

But it's still a great read!

Of course, you get to know about the remaining Horcruxes and you get to find out what the Deathly Hallows are (they're on the cover of the book...); you get the back stories of a couple of very important characters and you also get the deaths that J K Rowling promised - in fact you get lots of deaths. So many more than the two she alluded to that it's a veritable bloodbath.

And while the ending of the book didn't make me sad, the ending of the books is quite sad. It will leave me at a loose end for a day next July. I shall just have to Potter around.*

* That's such a bad joke, I'm glad it wasn't mine...

00:01

Because it was the last day of work, and because it was the last time we'd be able to, and because there's a Starbucks, and because we actually wanted to read the book, Cesia and I went to the Harry Potter Launch Party at Borders in Southampton.



Surprisingly, the books were not in this large packing box, which had been in the shop for a number of days, but it does show that the staff at Borders had really made an effort. Bits of the shop were labelled up in "Harry Potter" font, they were playing the soundtrack and they said "Good Evening, Hogwarts" every time they had to use the tannoy. (Which got a bit irritating after a while, especially as the things they said afterwards - "Good evening Hogwarts! Could Rob please call extension 204?" - were, like, totally off-role.)

And they dressed up.



Mad-Eye Moody, very effective; Hagrid, on stilts and not in any way fat enough, less so.

Anyway, we made the dreadful mistake of going to Starbucks to have coffee (which they weren't serving hot, because you need a licence to do that after 11pm, which they didn't have, but were serving iced... ) and then browsed round books which weren't Harry Potter for the best part of an hour, so that when we finally joined the queue to get served, it snaked round the shop, like a snake, right back into Bargains and Romance.



No matter. The countdown to midnight came and went and Minerva McGonagall and a fat bloke with greasy hair (who would have been better as Hagrid) wheeled the real palette of books through to general burblings of excitement...



...and then it must have taken them bloody ages to get the plastic off because the queue steadfastly refused to move for about another half an hour, leaving us stranded with nothing to read but yards of Georgette Heyer.

Past crime and travel and Diana, reverential pause, Princess of Wales, 10-year anniversary remembrance gift books and we finally got there...



...which only left the decision about whether to buy the children's cover or the adult cover. Being as anyone seeing you reading it with an adult cover still knows that you're reading a children's book (even if you don't), this decision was easy.

Back home by 1.30 and read four chapters before dozing off...

Telling the truth about the world...

I'm pleased the Snakes on a Plane school of naming has extended its reach.

They have started putting the stupid little biscuits you get with a cup of coffee in this.

Which I applaud.

Does what it says on the tin...

The summer can't end officially until I've seen...



You have to wonder how many less obvious titles were mulled over in the boardroom before they finalised via the Plain English Campaign. I'm going for...

• Ophidiophobia
• No-Legged Freaks
• Lord of the Fangs
• The Poisoned Adventure (Almost an anagram...)
• Slytherin' (Cash in on the Harry Potter crowd...)
  

Please feel free to add yours.

More interestingly, I wondered what this approach might throw up if applied to other films. Would you have gone to see...

• Bomb on a Bus?
• Prats on a Boat?
• Monsters in Space?
• Christians in Bedroom Furniture?

But the best thing about the film is the website, where you can persuade people to go and see it (even though it will be utter toss of the highest order), by leaving them a personalised voicemail narrated by the totally bona fide (or possibly a fairly convincing sound-a-like) Samuel L Jackson.

How can I resist?

Monday is Lincoln - "Quick, Sophie! Run!"

This is Lincoln Cathedral - "one of the finest mediaeval gothic buildings in Europe..." (it says here).

And it is! Seen here from the castle (which I didn't know Lincoln had), it's very imposing and grand.



Looking the other way from the castle, you get a picture of how flat and tedious the rest of Lincoln (and Lincolnshire) is...



...and that somehow makes the cathedral all the more striking.

I haven't been here since I was about ten, and my Dad hadn't been here since before I was about ten, so we spent a long time looking round and having digital camera shoot-outs. My photos (camera cost about £200) came out loads better than my Dad's (camera cost more than double that) so I was quite pleased...



You really do have to wonder exactly how they built it without modern technology to help and Health and Safety law to hinder... "Have you been hurt building a cathedral? We can help you on a no win, no fee basis..."

If I play with the settings on my digital camera enough, I can often (through no skill or judgement) get good photos of hard-to-get-good-photos-of things like stained glass windows. This is the one good one of about twelve which didn't really work...



...and here's another with lighting effects. Don't ask me what part of the cathedral this is. I'm guessing the high altar?



Now, I suppose that the inside of one mediaeval gothic cathedral is a bit like the inside of another one, and this has been exploited by the makers of The Da Vinci Code, who filmed inside Lincoln, pretending it was Westminster Abbey...

These very ornate looking cathedrabilia are, in fact, fake. The tomb is plywood...



...and blokey here is made of polystyrene...



Look out for them as Sophie Neveu runs past when you go to see the film. What would be really funny would be if they ran past them several times, repeatedly, like the gang does in Scooby Doo...

(If you zoom into the picture above, you will be able to see that the inscription is done with Letraset...)

There's obviously a huge debate about whether they should have allowed the filming to take place in the Cathedral, as the story (if you don't know, and until Christmas, I didn't) details the Church's supposed duplicity and gynophobia over a number of centuries. Did they sell out to Hollywood money? You can read the Chancellor of the Cathedral's views yourself, but I liked this little extract from his sermon the week the crew packed up and left...

"Many have come this week to get a glimpse of Tom Hanks. We know from the staff and from our own experience that a few have also caught a glimpse of God. That is our work and that is our mission."

Anyway, they can now afford the thousands needed to restore the huge "Dean's Eye" stained glass window in the North Transept...



...and even though I doubt Tom Hanks paid for the scaffolding personally, Sophie-Neveu-like, I can't help but see a connection.

The Anti-Bunnies gather....

I breathed a sigh of relief this morning, and put an end to a slight element of internal confusion, when I discovered that there are other people, people I respect and trust, who don't get Donnie Darko...



I fell asleep several times during the film and had to rewind lots, but had previously kept very quiet about this, for fear of being pronounced thick or lacking in culture, but now it can be said...

Donnie Darko is rubbish.

And I refuse to be persuaded differently... "When people run in circles, it's a very, very mad world..."

Now all I need is to find someone else who agrees with me about...