8th March 2015

The Imagin' cinema here in Gaillac is a multiplex that often advertises 'VO' films - in their original version. I'd been reading 'Alan Turing: The Enigma' by Andrew Hodges with fascination. Taken on by British Intelligence in 1938 as a shy, young Cambridge don, Turing combined brilliant logic with a flair for engineering. Two years later his machines broke the Enigma-enciphered messages of Nazi Germany. The cinema was its typical French self: no attempt to sell chocolates/popcorn/icecream. No-one in the auditorium smoked/ate/drank/made a noise. Great. Benedict Cumberbatch was ideal as lead, displaying all the angst/social ineptness necessary for the role. Even one of the characters in my own novel 'Campus Revenge' mentions Turing. To be gay in the '30s was illegal. Yet it's clearly how you are born. We are all different and must learn to get on with one another, not attack/imprison those who are different. Not only Turing but Darwin himself knew that. That's why  I wanted to see 'The Imitation Game'. It did not disappoint.