Severin,
you're right, my apology 'was' disingenuous; it was more in the nature of sympathy for your blinkered perspective and reactionary hostility to innovative thinking.

Foxy,
I'm not offended, and meant no offence. I appreciated the thread as it was, but I'm seldom comfortable with consensus. Indeed, I think OLO is most valuable when it challenges conventional thinking. I believe we are facing enormous, mainly man-made, challenges at every level of the human sphere, which suggests that we've been getting every facet of our existence wrong hitherto. No opportunity to interrogate our collective complacency should be lost; even delightful threads like this one, for mine, should not censor or excoriate political content. I stand by my comments above, that collectively our culture is complacent, indifferent, superficial and supercilious, or at best many people are frustrated by a sense of helplessness. We have to be careful then, surely, that we don't palliate those feelings, and political potential, with escapism. I would add too that when radical criticism is made of an institution and met with hostility, that is a sure sign that a raw nerve has been struck.
So you can expect me to be just as nettlesome in future threads. I can assure you though that I don't give myself an easy time of anything either. All new thinking begins by challenging old.
Of course maybe my thinking needs a challenge...

Am off now to the cinema to see Robin Hood with my kids.

Dear Squeers,

Fair enough.

I have to admit though that I'm a bit of
a dreamer, always have been. But not in a bad
way, I hope. I've always believed that when
you're skating on thin ice, you might as well
tap dance. Stick your neck out, volunteer, have
a go, reach out beyond your best performance,
and when you do, do so with style, elan, panache.
I feel that you'll learn more from a well executed
failure than from a success planned within the
dreary safety of what you already know.
Winning easy is boring, pointless work.

Anyway, that's just me. I tend to dream in perfect
detail.

Let us know what you thought of "Robin Hood,"
I intend to see it next week. I was given some
Gold Class movie tickets as part of a Christmas
present and they expire at the end of the month -
so I need to use them. I'm tossing up between
"Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," and "Robin Hood."
Leaning towards "Robin Hood," for my husband's sake.

Glad to see that ironed out - Severin, Squeers and Foxy - you are all tops amongst my favourite reads. I was sure your collective wisdom would prevail.

I can hardly wait to see Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It hasn't reached us here yet (last time I checked).

I get a bit sick of the Robin Hood story to be honest, though it should be interesting to see Russell give it a go. I read somewhere that he took some digs about his accent. That seems a bit petty given the usual run of movies where grating accents are par for the course.

We can turn to Eddie Izzard for a bit of a laugh about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXaH9dZcR2c&feature=related

Dear Pynch,

Thanks for the link.

I'd love to see, "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,"
a friend saw it recently and thought it was great.
However, my husband hates sub-titles, so it'll
probably be "Robin Hood," minus the tights.
I think it will probably be more like "Gladiator,"
in Sherwood Forest, but we'll see.

Yes, I'm glad that we got it resolved as well.
I admire Squeers very much (voice of reason),
and of course Severin's in a class by herself,
and happens to be one of my favourite posters -
but don't tell her! ;-)

Sad about Antiseptic though. I've decided not to
play nasty with him - he's better at it!

Well, Robin Hood was disappointing; my boys got bored with it. My girls had sense enough not to go. Your comment, Foxy, <I think it will probably be more like "Gladiator," in Sherwood Forest> is spot on, only there is a (very)little humour and crow tries his best to evince a bit of gentlemanly charm--Errol Flynn he's not! Cate is heavenly as always, though she's a bit implausible wielding a broadsword against hardened French troups.
I enjoyed Pynchme's Eddie Izzard version more, I think.
My tip is go and see the Dragon Tattoo film instead; or better still stay home and watch George Clooney's "Up in the Air"; a wonderful film.

Dear Squeers,

Thanks so much for responding so quickly about
the "Robin Hood," film.

That tears it! We're not going to see, "Robin
Hood." What we're going to see I'm not sure
yet as we've got to use up the Gold Class
tickets by the end of the month. I've now
found out that "The Girl with The Dragon
Tattoo," has finished in Gold Class so
we'll have to choose something else.

But Thanks for the George Clooney recommendation.
My husband wanted to see it when it first came
out and we didn't make it. However, we'll definitely
take out the DVD from our local video store next
week.

You're a good father Squeers - taking your kids
to the movies on a Sunday!