Not so magical now

I WILL not be going to see the new Mary Poppins. The original was the first film I ever saw and it remains a favourite. No matter how good Emily Blunt, pictured, is, she will never be Julie Andrews. And how depressing to learn that the Banks’ home has been reduced from the grand stuccoed townhouse of the original to something smaller and more prosaic to make it more “accessible”.

For goodness’ sakes, this is fiction and one in which involves a magical nanny at that. If I want accessible, I’ll watch EastEnders, which in fact I haven’t done for decades as it is so depressing. Is nothing to be any fun any more? I RECENTLY saw the film Baby Driver, about a getaway driver for criminals, who can only ply his trade by listening to music. The film got rave reviews, but I thought it was an utterly vacuous celebration of gratuitous violence until the penny dropped. The film was made by a man and the rave reviewers were mainly men, while the few dissenters were female. The reason? The sound track is made up of pop songs and for some reason grown men seem far more enthralled by pop music than grown women. I could throw in a gratuitous insult myself there, but think I’ll hold back… CLEVER old Iceland. The store chain made a Christmas ad highlighting the plight of orangutans who are losing their territory in the drive to produce palm oil. The ad has been banned on the grounds that it is political. The result? Millions have tuned in to see it on social media. Now that is one ad land victory.