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.

22 February 2015

Noticed that 'Cinquante Nuances de Grey' was showing at our local Gaillac cinema. Jean-Francois Mary of the French classification board describes it as a romance. No queues and surprisingly only a 12 certificate (18 in the UK.)  Clearly the French get all the sadomasochism they need by watching the Strauss-Kahn trial nightly on free TV, or by reading the sexual antics of the President. But the E. L. James book has sold over 4.5m, so it got me thinking. Maybe I needed to incorporate something like that in my novels. But there again writers are s'posed to write about that which they know....Anyway, have just finished my latest, called 'Campus Revenge'. Certainly it draws on my experience of university life, but...horrors!...it does contain an element of sexual intrigue and revenge. A V-C, just before he retires, receives two formal complaints, one from an overseas PhD student, the other from a member of staff, both against the same professor. Worse, one of the plaintiffs alleges sexual misconduct.  Would E. L. James be impressed? Time will tell.