Marketed At
18 January

I don't like being marketed at.

It's one of the reasons why I've dropped the use of any of the loyalty cards that the major branded retail outlets pass out. Whatever they may say about giving the customer money back, what they are really about is providing the retailer with detailed customer profiles against which future marketing campaigns can be built and providing the retailer with a willing mailing list to which targeted special offers can be presented to the benefit of the retailer. I found that I didn't want to manipulated in that way.

It's also one of the reasons why I have started to purchase my RLPO tickets in person at the box office and with cash. I also refuse to give my address when they ask for it. I know that if they had a record of the number of concerts that I attend, then they would be forever on my back wanting me to take out a subscription. And again, I don't want to be manipulated in that way. I want to choose which concerts I want to attend on a rolling programme; I don't want to have to decide in May 2009 what I shall be attending in June 2010. I honestly don't know what I shall feel like listening to then or what my circumstances will be in twelve months' time. And I don't want to shell out all that money so far in advance. I want to spend in dribs and drabs at a time to suit me. And, if that means that there are one or two concerts which I miss out on, well so be it because there will have been plenty that I have savoured.

So, on Saturday morning, I was not best pleased by my local bank. I went in to pay my credit card bill. It was noted that I was paying off the whole amount - which is what I do every month. I could see that the cashier was building up to offer me alternatives so I pre-empted the discussion by saying that I was happy with my current financial arrangements. I had to say it three times. I quite understand that the banks have got themselves into a difficult situation and have to find ways of increasing their revenues. But I would not trust the word of any banking organisation to offer me an advantageous deal at present. Any deal they offer has to better for them than it is for me and so I'll stick with what I've got and forego any attempts to market at me.

So, I as glad to spend some time in the back garden.

The witch hazel is stunning this year. I grows very slowly, unlike the twisted willow. However, it is now appreciably filling out. And the flowers this year are a delight, particularly as the late afternoon sun hits them.

Many of the bulbs are beginning to come through. However, with the cold weather, I'm not too keen on doing too much out there. Still, I've put the wallflowers and the stray lavenders into the front garden. We'll see how they make out.

And so to some reading. I've followed Michael Dibdin's Italian sleuth Aurelio Zen for nearly a decade now. They've offered a continuing source of intelligent delight. So, I approached this one with great sadness; I knew it was going to be the last one that I would read as the author died in 2007. I also hoped that it would be good and it was. I simply did not know how it would end and the end was very satisfying and very good. So, thank you Michael Dibdin.

I've also sampled two examples of the Sword and Sorcery genre of late.

The lesser of the two was the novel, Eragon, which apparently is a best-selling world-wide phenomenon. Where to begin... It's not a novel. It's the top level outline of a twenty-week TV series for a North American audience. The prose is completely obsessive. We get told our heroes thoughts before he goes to sleep on every conceivable occasion. Details of where the horses were stables (for example) which further neither the plot nor the character development flood every single chapter. The story doesn't reach a climax; it just stops. Great secrets are made of who is related to whom but the ties are pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain. All of the mythology is stolen from Tolkein, Star Wars, World of Warcraft, etc. It was poor, poor, poor. Even sword and sorcery nuts deserve better than this.

It's just over two years since Ross and I went to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in the cinema. The follow up, Prince Caspian, passed us by in the summer and so we've just seen it on movies on demand on our TV. To be honest, it wasn't very good. It wasn't a straight adaptation of the novel with its undertow of Christian allegory and it wasn't a straightforward sword and sorcery yarn. I suspect that the producers fell between two stools and alienated both sets of potential audience.

The greatest misjudgement by far was to re-cast the Telmarine elite in the new Narnia as Hispanic invaders and to make Narnia look like a doomed Mayan civilisation with talking badgers and mice. How far this was about trying to appeal to North American sensibilities, I really don't know. I just makes you glad that the Harry Potter series was filmed with a definite English sensibility about it.

Ben Barnes goes on to star in Dorian Gray due for release into our cinemas this summer. The gossip blogs seem stunned that it will be told as a horror story. I suppose it's irrelevant to ask if they have no concept of cinematic history as they mostly simply regurgitate what the studio press releases tell them.

He's also down to reprise Prince Caspian in Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 2010 but I wonder if it will actually get made. Apparently, Disney have pulled out of the venture. The money that came from the religious right in the USA to support The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe must be drying up. Does the world need another mis-telling of a C S Lewis novel? Well, only if the financiers think it will make them money, I suppose.