Boys' Own Stuff

When I was a kid growing up in the sixties "The Eagle" was a boys' own comic so it is quite appropriate that the film of the same name (our Orange Wednesday choice for this week) is very much in the boys' own vein. An old fashioned swashbuckling movie, the story could have been set in the Wild West, Vietnam or the Eastern Front but instead we were whisked back in time to the wild northern frontier of Brittania where Roman commander Marcus Aquila (Channing Tatum) is on the hunt for the golden eagle standard lost by his father twenty years earlier when he ventured north with 5,000 men and none was ever seen again. He is accompanied by a British slave played by Jamie Bell (of Billy Elliot fame).


The film has all the features we knew and loved in the sixties - a big battle scene (without CGI), a heavy emphasis on honour and comradeship, a good chase and absolutely no sex or love interest whatsoever. Filmed on location in Hungary and on the Coigach Peninsula in Scotland (which should expect a big influx of tourists as it looks stunningly beautiful) the film has its critics who claim it is boring but Marion and I liked it very much. Don't expect anything challenging, just sit back and enjoy a good old fashioned yarn.

We hoped that Submarine would come to VUE in Southport but there's still no sign of it so we're going to have to go to Liverpool where it is on until the weekend when I expect it will finish. Fortunately retirement means that it's no big problem so we'll head off to FACT on Friday afternoon and see if it's as good as everyone says it is.

Which means that we're not going to get to Ken Loach's "Route Irish" which has Liverpool comic John Bishop of "A League Of Their Own" fame in a serious role. But good news on that front as it has been simultaneously released on Sky Box Office so we'll probably catch it on Saturday night now that we are Forbrydelsenless.

Marcus Aquila might have found a metal detector useful in his hunt for that gold eagle. I am afraid that my finds on this week's outing with my detector were a long way from Roman gold or the bronze age axe that my brother found recently. I found all the usual bits of lead, a ring pull and a few buttons but nothing historical at all. On the plus side I found over twenty items in a field that I've searched a few times and any one of these signals could have turned up a Roman coin like the one I found in the same field last week. That coin has been recorded and is now on the national finds database. The new detector arrived today. Cant wait to give it a try. It's a big change on my own machine, uses the very latest technology and, being wireless, it's as light as a feather.  Should be able to get out in a couple of weeks.


I'm a mug for anything new on the technology front. I'm going to have a look at those new Nintendo 3D portable games machines soon.