Float Like a Papillon

Now that I have obtained the photos from Papa's far-too-technical camera, I have found my attempt to sail above the crowds at the Louvre.

Yes, people did stare at me, but at least I had a cooler and more original photo to take home from the day than they did (that means you, couple on the left-hand side of the photograph).

A Town Called Paris

The trouble with short, weekend getaways is that they tend to end just when you are getting the hang of them. Particularly if you are me and end up spending day one, alternating between comatose and Duracell Bunny, depending on the amount of time that has passed since my last cup of coffee. I was definitely very sorry to leave this afternoon, even though the weather, having been cold but sunny this morning, became cold and sleety later on. It would have been the perfect afternoon to head to the little cinema opposite the hotel but it was not to be. Since my last visit:

• The Americans are far more ubiquitous (although spring break is the prime time for them - and the rest of the world - to come visit on account of the beautiful weather (ah hem), no doubt; in fact it was difficult finding any non-Frenchies without wandering considerably off the beaten track).
• The Starbucks are getting to be ubiquitous. Last time I came, the first had just opened by Opéra and Monsieur E dismissed it casually, saying a) it wouldn't survive and b) they would never come to the Quartier Latin. I counted four in the QL this trip and another handful across the city centre. Paris even has its own pseudo-Starbucks (Columbus Café) complete with takeaway lattes and mochaccinos and the like. Café Mabillon, on the other hand, on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, did pretty good coffee for only 1E30 to drink at the bar.
• Omnipresent bikes. I'm convinced anyone who chooses to cycle in Paris must have a death wish and yet plenty of people were using these funny rent-a-bikes known as Velibs. When the buses and the métro are on strike, the bikes do at least provide a feasible alternative for getting from, say, Gare du Nord to the Quartier Latin. On a day like today, however, it would be my absolute last resort.
• Omnipresent rain. Well, I suppose that's a seasonal thing but it's still a bit of a pain...

Meanwhile, the big shops are still shut on Sundays and on Easter Monday, while the little boutiques and cafés in the QL and in the Marais were, bizarrely, open. The Marais, in fact, which is one of the latest areas to be coolified and then gentrified, was positively bustling. I guess everyone was keen a) to break Lent and b) to get out of Mass and into the shops. Despite this, the only thing, other than presents, I bought all weekend was a Diptyque candle. Am I becoming more restrained? Saving my cash for NYC? Nah; I just didn't see anything much that I liked.

We arrived at Gare du Nord massively early for the Eurostar home and the waiting room was closed for the bank holiday so we were lucky that Dad got us into the business class lounge where we could sit down in relative peace and quiet with some coffee and nibbles, even if the only choice of newspapers consisted of The Times or The Telegraph.

The journey itself proved rather long, although I got confused because of the time difference. First, the driver claimed technical problems, which left us in the middle of a curious patch of weather somewhere nearish Calais while this was resolved. Then, we apparently "hadn't had authorisation to go into the tunnel" and finally, there was "some problem at the other end" which made me imagine a Children of Men type situation with England's borders being shut off and no Clive Owen to save my day. Eventually, we got to St Pancras at about nine, just over an hour late and as a reward, everyone on the train was offered a free one-way Eurostar ticket (or half-price return). Nice touch. I still missed the 9:06 train from KC and ended up waiting forty minutes for the next (if there were two trains an hour and if it were up to me, I would probably space them equally, but hey), and even then, we were deposited in a freezing car park in Nowhereshire (maybe even a different county; somewhere near Nowheresville) and, luckily, a coach came to deliver us back home safely.

All in all, a fun if hectic, rather than relaxing, long-weekend, which has a) re-whetted my appetite for Paris and b) got me counting down the days until NYC (40 - maybe I should have my own Lenten period).

Parisian Pâques

Sunday...

It was great to have a bit of a lie-in this morning – well, until nine, anyway, at which point, I went on a run over Pont des Arts and through the Louvre, before heading back to the hotel for a shower and breakfast. The breakfast room at the hotel is a gorgeous, cloistered room in the cellar, which dates back to the 13th century – the ubiquitous Americans were impressed anyway. I was less impressed with my “cappuccino” (hot, watery coffee with a tiny amount of UHT milk foam) but the pastries were good, even if the earl grey jam was a little too much for my tastes.

This being Sunday, most shops were closedso we went on a walk across Ile de la Cité and then through the Marais, the Louvre and the 7th to Les Invalides. There were approximately 324,250 people trying to get into Notre Dame for the Easter Sunday service – in fact, there was a queue to get into the queue – so we just walked on through as quickly as possible, enjoying the bells, the bells.

I then had a bit of a frolic when we got to the Louvre by testing Dad's new DSLR by getting him to take a photo of me leaping through the air with Les Pyramides in the background. Even though I made a complete fool of myself in front of about 5,000 tourists, we got a great photo. By this point, the sun went in and it was bloody cold having lunch outside at a sidewalk café on the Boulevard St Germain before we went to Les Invalides for Maman to see the tomb of her idol (Napolean). We then did a whistle-stop tour of the rest of the museum, which considered the outstanding role France has played in a range of different wars. I’m quite a history buff but even I start to get bored when faced with hundreds of essentially identical coats of armour.

Because it was raining and because it sounded like a cool thing to do, I then went to the tiny, old-fashioned arts cinema just opposite the hotel, that was, once again, like walking into a scene from The Dreamers; I saw Some Like It Hot, having missed The Apartment, which I finally finished watching earlier in the week and which was on at le petit cinema on Friday. I felt very cool, in my own mind if nowhere else.

There was just time for a quick Jacuzzi, shower and internet (stooped hotel only has free “wee-fee” in the sitting room area downstairs, so I’ve been shockingly restrained with regards to connecting to the internet) before we went to dinner at Le Petit Zinc, a cool, smart brasserie near the hotel, where I had a beautifully done steak, although I was plagued with a migraine (probably due to last night’s excesses) so the bro and I only went out briefly afterwards to Café Mabillon for a quick cocktail (him) and Evian (me). Still, I definitely ain't in Nowheresville any more, Toto...

Paris in the the Spring

Despite staying in London on Friday night, it was still a bit of a mission getting up in time for the 7.30 Eurostar, not least because I hadn’t had the most comfortable night’s sleep ever, curled cat-like on the sofa. St Pancras was bustling but there wasn’t time to sample its new delights (champagne bar, etc.) and we went through light passport control where the rest of my family had some breakfast but I couldn’t face anything more than a third espresso. I also rightly guessed that although the Eurostar provided papers, it wouldn’t include the Grauniad. I slept half the journey sleeping and in no time, we were at the Gare du Nord.

It was raining when we emerged from the metro at Odéon but the hotel wasn’t too far away and I walked past some old favourite shops and restaus on the way. The hotel itself was really quite nice – with small rooms (quite big, I suppose, for Paris) but attractively decked out and with a view of the peaceful central courtyard.

We stayed just long enough to drop off the stuff before heading out for rue de Rennes for Longchamps and Le Bon Marché (Paris’s best department store). We had a quick bite of déjeuner at a café-bar; I was starved, having not eaten since dinner the night before and I relived my veggie days with an omelette nature (“Avec quoi?” / “Avec ouef” / “Et avec ca?” / “Et de la beurre?”).

I spent the rest of the day shopping while I still could (it’s unlikely that much will be open in France on Easter Sunday or Monday). The weather was typically spring-like – sunny one moment and then cold, windy and sleeting. Luckily, I was wrapped up against the elements, although I still needed to duck into the Café de la Mairie and the studenty News Café for coffee and for shelter. It always surprises me every time I remember how dire French coffee really is – not quite as bad as in the US but still pretty crap. Still, News Café looks out onto the Jardins des Luxembourg and the atmosphere makes up for the coffee.

All of my memories of Paris seem to involve the rain – this is probably because it was always spring or autumn when we went. I never really mind though; I’ve definitely romanticised it and if it makes my hair go curly then so be it. Maybe all of this is because of the scene from The Dreamers where Michael Pitt and Eva Green run through the streets in the rain.

Back at the hotel, where the gorgeous cloistered spa is in the basement. It was a pretty nice way to chill out after a long day of shopping and café hopping. Very relaxing indeed - oh, and a great shower.

We went for an aperitif at Café Laurent (the caipirinha didn’t have its ice crushed enough for my tastes but it was at least French – i.e. strong). We then headed down the street to the Rôtisserie d’en Face where I had the most deliciously juicy roast chicken I’ve had in years, followed by a flaky vanilla mille feuille for which I really didn’t have room.

After dinner, we went to Café de Flore – yes, it’s clichéd, yes, it’s massively overpriced and yes, there are a lot of other better cafes, but it does do great, thick, rich hot chocolate and – for once – there weren’t any Americans there. Once we’d ditched the parents, though, the brother and I went to Les Editeurs, which is one of my favourite bars in town. It does really good cocktails and the whole café is in a literary theme, so the menu looks just like the old cover of a great work of literature. The walls are covered in books too – books and a huge clock, anyway…

The Mad World of Ads and Cads

As part of an experiment designed to teach me (or, at least, remind me) what it feels like to actually watch a TV show, week in, week out, I've started watching Mad Men vaguely in synch with the actual broadcast schedule on the BBC. I think we do have the BBC 3 (3 viewers, that is) or whichever channel it is on but on Sunday nights I'm usually sheltering in my room for warmth rather than risk the frosty living room, so I've been watching via iPlayer, which is actually fairly adequate, not least because I can choose when I want to watch the show rather than being constrained to Sundays-at-ten.

I picked Mad Men as my first almost foray into TV-watching because my dad, the adman, recommended it. The show follows the loves, lives and lies of a group of men at a Madison Avenue ad agency in the early 1960s. Apparently not much changed in ten years because according to my dad, the agency depicted is just like the London company that became his first employer; indeed, his first boss was interviewed on Radio 4 to provide an insider's insight as to whether the show was at all realistic. Although my dad has moved from advertising to brand strategy he does look back wistfully on those early days as a junior account planner.

The protagonist of Mad Men is Don Draper (Jon Hamm), who thinks he is (and is seen to be) Don Juan. He's proclaimed as a creative genius and is handsome, charming and confident. He knows exactly what to say to whom, especially if it means he will win the pitch. It's somewhat telling that first time he is shown cavorting (sorry; "brain-storming ideas for a pitch") with a woman, it is with Female Stereotype #1, AKA Midge (Rosemarie Dewitt). She is an independent, sexy, brash illustrator living on her lonesome in a sweet little apartment. Oh, and she saves Don's bacon early on so she must be Real Smart.

As the first episode rolls out, we are introduced to a range of other cardboard cut-out characters. Take Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), the Sweet and Naive New Secretary who, following advice from her office manager, goes on the pill within about a day of starting work. She wears ugly clothes and has hideous hair and is clearly desperate to receive approval and validation from the men at work, including Don, who is her boss, although she's not really his type so he doesn't pay much attention.

Then there's Joan (Christina Hendricks), the Feisty, Knowing Office Manager (and yes, she does have red hair, just in case the feistiness doesn't come across well enough). She gets off on bullying Peggy (in an elder sisterly way) and showing off how much more savvy she is than her latest minion. Oh, and of course, she likes pushing the junior executives around too, although isn't brave enough to dare try anything on Don.

Finally, Don's wife (yes!) Betty (January Jones) appears on the scene. Betty, playing the role of Perfect Blonde Wife, is somewhat reminiscent of the character of Naomi Watts's Betty in Mulholland Drive--they have the name, the blonde bob, the beaming smile that is obviously masking something darker and the utter deference to the role of PBW. Both MM and MD clearly got their inspiration from the comic book, although neither bothered with a Veronica. This Betty seems to have it all: the perfect handsome husband, the perfect cute kids, the perfect suburban home and yet somehow, she is not a happy bunny. She tries to brush away these doubts but her anxiety leaves her with hands that shake so badly and so uncontrollably that she ends up crashing the car (which reminds me of this great Harry Enfield sketch) and after the doctors fail to find anything wrong with her, she ends up going to therapy. How terribly modern. What's more shocking is that somehow, January Jones manages to look much older than 27; I think it's those frumpy housewife dresses she has to wear.

There are plenty more female stereotypes to come, though. Lest we think that all women in this universe are silly secretaries, wussy wives or freak-of-nature "lone women," enter Bright, Sexy Businesswoman, Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff), AKA The Client (obviously, she couldn't be in charge of something serious like cigarettes or cereal, so she is the daughter of the owner of a Fifth Avenue department store that sounds a lot like Henri Bendel). Big error occurs early on when the Ad Lads get in a guy from the Jewish deli to show the client they're in touch with their Hebrew sides, only for one of the Lads to assume that this new guy is in fact Mr Menken, when, of course, the Menken in the room is a Ms (or, at least, a Miss, if Ms hadn't been invented then; when was the sexual revolution again?). Obviously, there is some serious sexual tension between The Client and Don Juan, which we know can't end well. For now, though, The Client is the most likeable character of the lot of them.

Actually, though, for all of his failings, Don is remarkably likable; how much of this is due to his charisma and silver tongue is another matter, but as a representative of his time and of his industry, he doesn't seem so bad at all. Yes, he's smooth but he comes across as more classy than sleazy, unlike his underlings, all of whom look up to him and who think of him as The Man To Be. Methinks that with a set-up like this, some downfall is inevitable, even if only a temporary one; the question is just when--and how.

In fact, the non-major characters are rather like the ensemble cast of Grease. You have Donny's boys who are full of bravado and one-upmanship and who spend their time showing off to any ladies present; then there are Betty's Pink Ladies who all wear their nice house-coats and are terribly gossipy--they aren't so far away from a less fashionable version of Desperate Housewives. I forgot one final stereotypical female: The Single Mom. You know she's going to be trouble because she turns up to a kiddie party wearing trousers; not only that but she walks around a lot- and not even to go someplace, just because she likes walking! Still, The Single Mom seems to be popular with the men, which only leads the Pink Ladies to bitch more.

Everyone smokes--everywhere--even the heavily pregnant Pink Lady who is both smoking and drinking mint juleps in her third trimester. Nice! Good luck raising that deformed child! Smoking seems to be a recurring theme--and not just because of the sexual chemistry Don Juan evokes. His first big pitch is to a tobacco company, where he has to try to keep the business in the face of all these recent, new-fangled, scientific studies that apparently say that smoking's bad for you; imagine that! The characters all get terribly excited by a deodorant--in an aerosol can! How modern!

In any case, Don et al. are a pretty fun bunch and so long as I remember to keep watching the damn thing, I will almost certainly make it through the end of the series, by which point, I hope that Gossip Girl will be back on the air. There isn't much time left before my interest wanes, although both MM and GG are good NYC mood-setters. Not as much as Serendipity (big time cheese, I know, but who wouldn't fall in love when in NYC? With the city if not with anyone else...), Breakfast at Tiffany's or The Apartment but they'll do.

Wherefore Art Thou @?

It occurred to me earlier while catching up on Jezebel posts earlier (no, I don't subscribe to it on account of its excess productivity at the expense of mine), that I'd never really complained about the use of the at-sign in blog post comments with the rough meaning of, "in response to Bexquisite wrote in comment higher up in this thread" (e.g. @Bexquisite: Well, clearly, it's all just a massive conspiracy against you, isn't it?). It annoys me because it stands for a lot of what is wrong with such - ah hem - heated debates: people don't talk to or with one another; they talk at each other. Isn't it great that the internet provides such a great medium for us to cooperate and collaborate rather than talking over or at one another?

Actually, I don't really mind that much because whatever its etymology (semiology?), it is quite a useful little device and it certainly seems as though it's going to stick, so I'll just have to pretend that I really am typing out "in response to X's earlier comment" in a way that is more convenient both for me and for the reader.

For such a small symbol, @ (or "the at sign") has a pretty long Wikipedia entry; I did know that it was used to stand for that favourite vowel of mine, schwa, when the reader/recipient may not have the IPA font downloaded (philistines!) to their computer and I had forgotten some of @'s affectionate sobriquets in foreign languages: most of them focus on the snail metaphor (Italian chiocciola, Belarusian сьлімак, and Welsh malwen) but there were some more creative ones in there too: the German Klammeraffe (spider monkey - isn't it great how German makes even the most charismatic little critter sound ugly?) and the Tagalog (pronounced tuh-GAH-log) utong (nipple; well isn't it?!).

The French stole theirs from the Spanish - arobase, which, according to La Trésor de la Langue Francaise (France's less-easily searchable but free equivalent of the OED, etymology-wise), is:

Ancienne mesure de poids (variant de 11 à 15 kg) et de capacité (valant de 10 à 16 litres), encore usitée en Espagne, au Portugal et dans plusieurs pays d'Amérique latine

i.e. It's an old measure of weight (around the oh-so-precise 11-15 kg) and of volume (bizarrely, 10-16 litres), still used in places more peasanty than France Spain, Portugal and parts of South America. The word - and the measure - comes from Arabic, originally. In other words, @ originated as a typographical convention, invented to make the lives of scribes and merchants a lot easier as it meant that they wouldn't need to write out arrobe each time. The same is true for ampersand (I don't buy the explanation that "&" looks a bit like a lower-case epsilon and a lower-case t, i.e. et; my capital es are very curvy indeed and I still can't get my ets to look anything like an ampersand); and who would doubt the validity of the £ sign? Not moi, and I'm sure that in time, I will grow used to bloggn @ ppl. Maybe. I'm sure I will never grow used to txtspk, though; I hope not, anyway.

It's Steve! Don't Panic!

It's already way late and I'm already way tired and yet there's nothing like an (almost) chance encounter with one's favourite celebrity linguist to perk one up (surely the chance of us both being free and in London on the same night, given how large the universe is has an almost infinite improbability!). S knows my tastes so well and this evening, we went to the Sixth Annual Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture, an event hosted by Save the Rhino International, of which Douglas Adams was a founding patron. It was actually perfect for both of us: a talk by Steven Pinker on The Stuff of Thought, followed by a live performance of episode two of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, to which I'm just going to refer as H2G2 from now on, for convenience, to commemorate the thirty-year anniversary of the original airing of the radio series, complete with members of the original cast.

I didn't realise that the performance was going to happen as when S sent me a link to the lecture I just read the part about Steve and then switched off. Although I spent many a Friday night in the Triple Set (Adams's rooms while an undergrad at my college, which consisted of three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a huge dining room complete with a massive dining room table), which is said to have inspired some long room in one of his books and although I have probably listened to H2G2 many times over, it has never been chronological as my dad would play a few minutes of one episode on a car journey and then switch to Bill Bryson or some prog-rock. Still, even I was excited by the performance.

First, there was an intro by John Lloyd of QI fame, which was quite interesting - all about the stuff of rhinos and biodiversity. He also told an amusing anecdote about Adams: a few months before Adams died, he, Lloyd and Richard Curtis, who were all great friends met up for lunch and to catch up and gossip. At one point, Adams said, perfectly seriously, "So, I've been doing some thinking and I now know what the meaning of life is." Curtis apparently considered this and realised that as Adams tended to go on a bit once he had an idea in his head, if he asked Adams what the meaning of life was they would never get round to their gossiping and so instead, he said, "That's nice, Douglas; how's Jane?" and so he never got to find out what the meaning of life was but he did get to catch up on the gossip.

On strolls Steve. I wished I had left work thirty minutes earlier so we could have got seats closer to the front. 

The talk was fun but then a) I've read the book and b) I've heard very similar talks in several different podcasts. Basically, the layman-friendly parts of the book are: the "physics" of language and linguistic relativity; swearing and how we use it to evoke strong emotional reactions in people; and social interactions and the joys of innuendo and indirect speech. I'd read or heard most of the jokes before but it was still funny and great just to see Steve swearing, or, at least, reading out lists of expletives. He mentioned that he wanted to bring back bestiality into swearing and cited a 16th-century oath - kiss the cunt of a cow - which was his favourite (not least because of the alliteration). I raised my hand to ask a question at the end but didn't get called on; boo!

The audience were told to all stand up and to think about how much they would pay to see a live performance of an episode of H2G2 with some of the original cast and Rhino Man 1 would then read out different price bands and people were asked to sit down when they reached the maximum they would pay (and that they would pledge to donate this money to Rhinos on leaving). Most people - including me - sat down in the £1-10 bracket; it was a tough question for me because I had paid my 15 squids for Steve and probably wouldn't have come were it not for him. I probably would have paid more than that for the performance but I only had a fiver in my wallet. Steve was more generous and pledged £20. On leaving, though, I noticed that the collection buckets were mostly full of £20 notes, so I guess people were suitably guilt tripped.


Finally, on came the show, which was really good and (of course) really funny. Simon Jones walked on first, wearing Arthur Dent's dressing gown and then Mark Wing Davey (Zaphod Beeblebrox), Stephen Moore (Marvin the robot who inspired Thom Yorke and co.) and the rest. The performance was being recorded for future use (hence no cameras - ah-hem!) so I tried to laugh in as distinctive a way as possible, although probably, canned laughter will be used; none was necessary tonight, certainly. We were sitting next to the guy controlling the sound effects from his Mac, which was quite cool, even though the actors on stage were pretending to make the noises using random "props." It was definitely a great experience and has prompted me to try to finally get round to listening to the damn thing - in order.

But the fun wasn't quite over yet! S and I joined the queue to leave the lecture hall but it was quite slow-moving. Steve was chatting to some Rhino people on stage so I took a few blurry cameraphone snaps and then decided that I was just going to go and speak to him, even if it was Rhino folk only. I hurried over, having fumbled in my bag for a pen and my first copy of The Language Instinct, only to realise that I was about to ask Steven Pinker to sign my book with a frigging Clinique eyeliner in "midnight diamond." I quickly ran back to find a real pen, worried that Steve would evade me. But no! I asked him to sign my book and he agreed and asked to whom it should be written and I reminded him briefly of the context of our previous interactions, pointing to a conveniently positioned t-shirt I was wearing. "Ah, yes," he said, and we had a brief chat about SLI, which was very exciting for me indeed. I even asked him for a few linguistics/academic-related favours, as per the said context of our previous interactions and he said he would. I think I was very restrained not asking him to sign my t-shirt!

After our brief, two-minute chat, he was whisked away by a Rhino person but they were behind us in the queue on the way out and S took a sneaky photo on his phone that included both Steve and me. Never mind; this almost makes up for the time when S and I went to see Pacey from Dawson's Creek Patrick Stewart and Josh Jackson in A Life in the Theatre, and although there was no photography, all the teenage girls were taking photos during the applause so I tried to as well, only for S to stop me because he didn't want to get my camera confiscated. Of course, I'm not still holding a grudge. Honest!

I can also confirm that Steve's hair is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is.

What larks! Two days of London journeys in a row have left me exhausted and without any time to chill or to think. I really wouldn't go for the commuting lifestyle - obviously you get into rhythms over time but I know I would always leave at the last minute and always be rushing to catch a train and end up sweaty and exhausted every day. A ten-minute walk over the common is a much more pleasant commute - except when it's gale force 10 outside again.

There Is No Friend Like a Sister

I was pretty sure I would dislike The Other Boleyn Girl, even though it involves the Tudors. I read the Philippa Gregory book on which the film is based years ago and quite enjoyed it, as far as I can remember, but Gregory's flowing, if not always brilliant, prose paints a vivid picture of that troublesome period in history and, indeed, of the other Boleyn girl, namely Anne's older sister Mary (Mary is younger in the film, which allows to her to be married off to any old country gentleman, whereas first-born Anne becomes the true apple of her father's plotting eye).

If I get started on the historical inaccuracies, I'll never stop, but suffice to say that as is standard in Hollywood, the timeline is completely screwed and the importance of actual historical events is raised or clouded depending on the context in which the film places them. Effectively, the plot goes as follows. Thomas Boleyn and his wife Elizabeth have a nice estate in the country and three children, Anne, Mary and George. Thomas did rather well when he married into the Howard family - the Dukes of Norfolk and co. - but is a rather weak, spineless character, governed by his own greed and social-climbing ambition, as well as his scheming brother-in-law, Norfolk.

Norfolk learns that King Henry is getting fed up with Catherine of Aragon's inability to provide a son-and-heir so he arranges for Henry to come out to the Boleyn estate in Kent. Mary has just been married off to William Carey, a nice country gentleman, and because she is The Nice Sister, she is quite happy about this and is looking forward to a nice, quiet life with her loving husband. Boleyn and Norfolk decide that the king needs a mistress and that Anne would be the best person for the job - mainly because their favour with the king will rise and rise. The king does indeed seem rather taken with Anne and they have a little flirtatious banter until tragedy strikes while on the hunt one day - Anne was showing off while chasing a stag and the king followed her into a dangerous ravine and fell off his horse and was badly hurt. Bye bye, Anne. Thinking quickly, Boleyn and Norfolk send Mary to go to tend to Henry's wounds and his wounded ego and he falls for her. Anne is furious but not as furious as her father and uncle who think she ruined Christmas for them all by her stupid hunting antics.

Mary is then summoned to court so she can go and be Henry's mistress; she would rather stay on her farm with her husband and expects the latter to stick up for her and for their marriage, but he is offered a position in the prestigious privy council, which apparently makes up for being cuckolded by the king. Meanwhile, Anne has gone and married Percy, another noble dude, in secret, which is big oh-noes as Percy would have needed the king's permission to marry Anne. Anne couldn't resist, though, not least because Percy was betrothed to another woman, and she tells her brother and sister, in delight. Mary worries, though, about the consequences for Anne and tells daddy and Uncky Norfolk, who are furious and send Anne to France for a few months (in reality, Boleyn and both daughters were in the French court for several years); oh noes! Not France! Anne is extremely angry with her sister for tattling and storms grudgingly off to France.

Before long, Mary's hubby is banished to the country so she is free to be with the king and soon, she gets in a family way. The king is pretty pleased about this but can't see her for several months as she "lies in," locked in a dark chamber with only her ladies. Luckily, when the baby is born it is a boy, much to Norfolk and Boleyn's delight; however, in the meantime, Anne has returned to France and is playing the perfect little teasing, coquette, and Henry loves it. So much so that just as Mary is popping out Henry's bastard, Henry tells Anne he wants to have her; Anne, cunningly, says she won't even consider it unless he promises never to "lie with" Catherine again or to talk to Mary again. Henry is torn but - bewitched - agrees and won't even look at the heart-broken Mary or their child. Uncle and Daddy aren't pleased with Anne until she proves every bit the ambitious Howard as she reveals her own plans for Henry, which far exceed even Norfolk's greatest schemes.

The rest of the film is history: Anne wins Henry, Henry gets bored and/or anxious for son, Henry fancies Jane Seymour, Henry decides to get rid of Anne, Anne is executed. In fact, the title of the film is somewhat of a misnomer because it is just as much about Anne as about Mary. Anne constantly schemes and plots and betrays her sister in her efforts to get what she wants, whereas Mary is meek and mild and a bit wet. She is devastated when Henry dumps her in favour of her sister - she genuinely loved him, she says. However, throughout the film, the one thing that never changes is Henry's trust in Mary - he never could quite trust Anne, whereas if he wanted the truth, he knew he could go to Mary to find out. Of course, she puts herself on the line big time by lying about Anne's betrothal to Percy to save her sister, even though it kills her and even though she knows her lie will allow her sister to marry the king. With a dad like Thomas Boleyn and an uncle like Norfolk, the idea of family loyalty had probably been bashed into her head since she was a child, and yet it was totally misplaced given that her family was more than willing to abandon her to suit their needs. On the bright side, she alone gets a happy ending in this tale of the fatal sisters.

Ultimately, The Other Boleyn Girl is a tale of the importance of family loyalty during a time in which one's position and inheritance were far from secure, as well as the extents to which people would go to protect their family and further its interests. The movie portrays the Boleyns as a slightly odd family whereby the males (Thomas and George) are weak and wussy, whereas the females (Anne and her mother Elizabeth) are the ones with the real power. Oddly, given that having a male heir was of the prime importance in the 16th century, Boleyn seems far more concerned about his daughters' marriages than his son's.

George is eventually forced to marry the horrible, selfish, jealous and scheming Jane Parker who ultimately brings about his downfall. Jane is jealous that he is always off with his sisters and not with her, so of course when she sees Anne (desperate to have a son to stop Henry discarding her) and George clearly about to engage in relations not generally deemed appropriate for a brother and sister, her jealousy prevents her from keeping it to herself. In the film, she tells Norfolk (for whom she is a loyal pawn) and then Henry himself; in reality, her wifely crime was to fail to deny the (fabricated) claims about Anne and George during their trials, which ultimately sent her husband to the Tower. In fact, there definitely wasn't enough evidence for a conviction and had George not implied that Anne's lack of male heir was due to Henry's not being manly enough, he probably wouldn't have been executed. Jane gets her own, though; when another Howard queen is on the throne (Katherine Howard), Jane is one of her ladies in waiting and she ends up giving her cousin some very bad advice that ultimately led to both of them being executed. In Jane's case, she seems to have lost her mind shortly before she lost her head, and was rambling away to herself all the way to the block, convinced she would be pardoned.

Of course, this being history (well, sort of) the ending is always clear and you can never forget it, even when Henry is being his most loving with Mary and most lustful with Anne (the film skips over much of the years before the divorce where Anne and Henry were constant companions, writing daily to each other and reading of the joys of the protestant faith). Nonetheless, the ending was quite sad, given that Mary felt let down by Henry at the last minute and Anne felt let down by Mary and then there's poor old George, whose only crime was to want to save his sister's life (even if his moral centres eventually got the better of him).

Anne isn't played in a very sympathetic light here; even though she clearly was an instrument of her conniving uncle and father, she is clearly shown to have inherited this ruthless ambitious drive and is more than happy to betray her sister to achieve her own goals (which happen to be in line with her family's goals, most of the time). Mary, docile and drippy as she is often shown to be, is at least a nice girl with a good heart, who just wants the simple, country life with a man she loves. So, is that the moral? Be nice and sweet and loyal and don't be too ruthless? Don't be the king's mistress? Don't even think about shagging your brother? Don't trust your uncle if he's the Duke of Norfolk? Don't be a woman in the 16th century if you expect to be able to do what you want and to get what you want? It's unclear... The film was still quite an enjoyable romp, anyway, zillion historical inaccuracies aside.

As with Elizabeth I (II), the costumes were gorgeous - beautiful gowns in rich red, green and blue hues. Anne's bling, gold B on a string of pearls could have been better though; it looked as though it came from Claire's Accessories or somewhere so I guess Tiffany hadn't yet opened its London store in 1530 so only tacky jewellery was available.

The actresses playing the sisters were gorgeous too; Natalie Portman as the cool, dark-haired, scheming Anne and Scarlett Johannson as the pale, blonde, "nice" va-va-voom Mary. Incidentally, some readings of Mary Boleyn actually seem to suggest that she was a dirty little harlot who was shagging both the King of France and the King of England within weeks of each other and that she was the bold, outgoing one, whereas Anne was quieter and more political. Obviously, the press loves the opportunity to point out just how different Portman and Johansson look, even though they're both gorgeous! What are the odds of that? As for the rest, there was plenty of symbolic imagery - the repeated shots of chickens being chopped up for dinner just before that fateful hunting trip, the fires flaring up when trouble is brewing, fluffy, white clouds racing over a clear blue sky when times are a-changin'... Even so, it was still a very pretty film. Good score too, and even the British accents weren't too shoddy.