The Critic of Wolf Hall

I type this warily, with 'Tread softly because you tread on my dreams,' in mind. And I ought to say straight up that I am enjoying the BBC's adaptation of Wolf Hall. But. I can only assume that the fervent praise for it I see on social media is from people who have read and loved the books, and who are delighted to see what I gather is generally a very good adaptation on the screen.

As someone who hasn't read anything by Hilary Mantel (in fact I've hardly read anything by any Booker Prize winner, because with a few exceptions like William Golding, I really don't get anything from reading literary fiction except a sense of worthiness), I do think that the glowing praise needs to be balanced by a little negative criticism.

Before I do, I'll get some praise in. It's very well acted, the locations are excellent, and as someone who is fascinated by Tudorbethan times (mostly because it's my favourite period for music), there's a distinct thrill of thinking, when we first meet, say, Dr Ridley, 'I know what's going to happen to you!' It's a bit like playing god. But.

So here we go with a few bullets to the heart:

It's a bit dark. I don't mean ominous, I mean without enough lighting. Sometimes this works wonderfully. It's hard not to think when, for instance, you see Cardinal Wolsey glowing by candlelight against a murky backdrop, 'I now understand why paintings of the period look the way they do.' But I still have two problems. One is that I'm currently re-watching the X-Files, and I've always felt they spent far too much time wandering around in the dark by torchlight. Similarly, it seems a trifle overdone in Wolf Hall - just substitute candles for torches. The other problem is that eyes don't work the same way that TV cameras do. I think with the number of candles in some scenes, because the human eye is so good at working in low light (think how well you can see by moonlight), there wouldn't be so many dark voids - you would comfortably be able to see the whole room.
An awful lot of the scenes have the same format. Character spends a long time walking into a room. Character exchanges a few lines with another character. Character spends a long time walking out the room. I think the series could lose about an hour of walking and benefit from it. I get it that this isn't 24, and they want to be leisurely about it, but sometimes the pace verges on somnolence.
If you live in Wiltshire, it is hard not to spend quite a lot of time thinking, 'That's not Greenwich, that's Bowood House... if you go through that door you get to the gift shop' or whatever. This is, of course, an unfair complaint, as they had to film somewhere, but it's hard not to get distracted by it. Oh, and I did think they could have spruced up some of the stonework, which looked as if it were over 400 years old, rather than newish.
Finally, I hope they'll get a bit more variety in the period music. We're only two episodes in and we've heard the mournful sounding tune Ah, Robin three times now. Admittedly it's quite appropriate, as when performed as it should be, as a part song, it's essentially about two friends discussing their mistresses, and it's a piece I'm very fond of, but even so this was a very rich period musically.

So there we have it. I like it, but I can't get as excited as everyone else seems to be. I shall now retire to my bomb shelter and await the assault.

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor...

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense...

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