Standing in Andy’s kitchen, cold beer in hand, Irwin and I discussed the forthcoming game between Hull City and Arsenal with a surreal feeling pervading proceedings. How can this be? When we went to the Grove together last December for the North London Derby 90% of the conversation revolved around Arsenal, their current position and prospects plus the inevitable nostalgia, and about 10% was devoted to Hull City, at that time probably not about to get relegated but showing no signs at all of what was the come and the incredible surge to the Premier League.

How things have changed. A quandary for the North London boy. He rightly went with his roots and football heritage and vowed to cheer for Arsenal, but when Daniel Cousin headed in from a corner to give the Tigers an unlikely lead, Mr. Williams, along with an absolutely jam packed Wheatsheaf leapt to his feet in celebration declaring; “Arsenal can get over this! Come on City!”

 Hull City rode their luck, but defended solidly and used the tactic against Arsenal that O’Neill’s Leicester developed, and it still surprises me that more sides don’t do this, of presenting with a solid block of three players in front of the back four. Arsenal don’t often play with a lot of width and when forced wide the tendency is to move back inside so if you block this option, which City did, then you have a chance because if you let them play in central areas, Arsenal will slaughter most teams.

It requires iron discipline and a supreme effort of concentration, both of which City produced in abundance allied with spirit, determination and the confidence to play some football when in possession.

Ironically it was from the flank that Arsenal produced the opening goal as Walcott ran amok on the right hand side, got to the by-line and forced the error from the otherwise admirable McShane, the Irishman putting through his own goal.

I said to the lads, “If we can hold out for ten minutes, they will get frustrated and then anything can happen”.

And so it came to pass. Arsenal failed to do the basics of pressing the ball on the 18-yard line allowing Geovanni to unleash a characteristic curling shot into Almunia’s top corner, a mirror image of his strike against Fulham.

Set plays are a lifeline to the more limited teams and once again we made a corner count and Cousin set up a wholly unlikely win.

 In the press conference Wenger referred to us as “West Brom”, clearly a slip of the tongue, but does it betray an arrogance, a lumping together of the lesser teams that meant that Arsenal were not as motivated, and lacked that 100% concentration that makes them such a great team, the best side to watch when they hit their straps?

Maybe Sheffield United, who were spanked 6-0 by the kids in the Carling Cup did City a huge favour, as Arsenal seemed to think they only needed to turn up and claim the points.

Apart from the goals the biggest cheer of the day was reserved for a tackle by Andy Dawson on Theo Walcott that was reminiscent of a certain Booby Moore when he dispossessed Pele at the 1970 World Cup. Dawson, like Myhill and Ashbee played for us in the fourth tier, and this was a great moment taking it place amongst many such incidents over the last year or so.

 Hull City: Myhill, McShane, Zayatte, Turner, Dawson, Marney, Boateng (Garcia 76), Geovanni (Hughes 72), Ashbee, Cousin (Mendy 80), King.
Subs Not Used: Duke, Halmosi, Folan, and Ricketts.

For the first time since the 1988/89 season Hull City clash with Arsenal, tomorrow’s match taking place at the Grove and being broadcast live on Sentanta which is a good excuse to go to the pub for the 5.30 kick off and you have to go back till 1915 for a League clash, City winning 1-0 at the Circle.

I’m under no real illusions about what will happen if the Gunners play to their brilliant potential. They are an awesome side and I have been privileged to watch some of the best free flowing, attacking and inspirational football ever witnessed in English football history.

Wenger refuses to compromise on playing the game the right way, and whilst this justifiably frustrates the Gooner faithful in terms of silverware, when they do win the League it will count for far more than the utilitarian prevail win at all costs mentality of London rivals Chelsea.

My first Arsenal game came in 1988 when Michael initiated me at Wembley in a pre season tournament, the Makita Challenge.

Due to Heysel related ban on English teams taking part in European Competition, this Competition, which involved AC Milan and Porto as well as Spurs took on an elevated status and was taken seriously.

Arsenal thrashed Tottenham 4-0 and lifted the trophy by beating Bayern Munich 3-0. During the lap of honour we were standing on our seats when Catherine slipped, fell and brought her brother down with her leaving a painful set on finger nail marks on his arm in the process.

So began twenty or so years following Arsenal, and as luck would have it the League Cup draw pitted City against the North Londoners, the first leg taking place at Boothferry Park on 28^th September, just two days before our final year at the University of Ulster.

Michael drove Laurie, Catherine and I up on a glorious late summer’s day and whilst Highbury, in common with all football grounds ‘Eighties style was basic in terms of fans facilities Boothferry Park’s away end took some beating as it was just a set of steps backing on to a Kwiksave supermarket. But it did have a tea hut. The only problem was that they couldn’t have the light on at the same time as the water boiler due to the lack of power.

City lost 2-1 having taken the lead via a Keith Edwards strike from a corner. The Tigers forward put through his own goal for the equaliser before non other than former City legend Brian Marwood popped up with the winner.

At the chippy on Anlaby Road Laurie, assuming that Hull being the home of fish would serve him up a real treat, asked for plaice and chips, only be told, “Sorry luv, we only do fish!”

Back in Ireland I listened to updates on RTE radio as Arsenal finished the job with a 3-0 victory over Eddie Gray’s Tigers.

The season saw City draw the mighty and all conquering Liverpool side of Kenny Dalgleish in the FA Cup Fifth Round, and I travelled back to Hull to see City lead 2-1 at half time, but the Reds hit back with an Aldridge double to progress to the ill fated semi at Hillsborough, finally lifting the Cup in late May.

Arsenal, against all the odds and with an unfancied youthful team with no major Summer transfer activity, went on to lift the Championship on that fateful night of my 21^st birthday.

City just avoided relegation from the old Division Two and Gray was sacked.

Much has changed on and off the pitch and this was a fixture I never thought I would see. It will be very weird actively wanting Arsenal to lose, but I’m sure once the whistle goes and the beer flows, I will manage.

This from Arseweb…

28/09/88 vs Hull City (a) 2-1 (att: 11,450)
Scorers: Winterburn, Marwood
Team: Lukic, Dixon, Winterburn, Thomas (Richardson), Bould, Adams, Rocastle (Hayes), P Davis, AM Smith, P Groves, Marwood 12/10/88 vs Hull City (h) 3-0 (att: 17,885)
Scorers: Smith(AM) 2, Merson
Team: Lukic, Dixon, Winterburn, Thomas, Bould, Adams, Rocastle, P Davis (Richardson), AM Smith, Merson (Hayes), Marwood

When Johnny Cash auditioned for Sam Phillips at Sun in 1955 singing Gospel songs that his mother had taught him. Phillips stopped him and said; “Stop and get out. You don’t believe in what you’re singing. If you don’t believe it, how can your audience?”

Cash sung him the self penned “Folsom Prison Blues” and the rest, as they say is history.

This is the key to Cash and his career. He bled his music. Melodramatic but true. If anyone was more honest in his music then I’ve never heard it, from “Cry, Cry, Cry” to “Hurt”, Cash sung from his soul and was always true to himself.

I’ve never heard lyrics that can move me as much as from the Man in Black, and the genesis came when Cash suffered unbearable tragedy as his brother was killed in an accident borne of typical Mid Western poverty, dying whilst sawing wood to make some extra money for the family, only for his father to piss it up the wall and destroy his sons confidence, not through physical violence, but worse by relentlessly saying “You’re nothing” when he really meant, “I’m nothing”.

Cash Senior was a constant drain on John, even in later life. Although dry he dragged his son down with a drip drip of disapproval, and by drawing satisfaction whenever Cash messed up, either through drink, drugs or adulterous behaviour.

A theme continued through the film as a drug addled Cash still craved his father’s approval only to be rejected.

Cash undoubtedly was scarred by his brother’s death as they were best friends but he never let it define his life or made it an excuse for his behaviour.

Instead he wanted to reach out to others through his music and change things for the better.

Hence the opening scene of “Walk the Line” sees Cash playing his one of infamous prison gigs.

We see cash demand that his label release the Folsom jail gig as a live album.

“John, your fans are Christians, they don’t want to hear you sing for a bunch of rapists and murderers”.

“Well, then they ain’t Christians at all”.

The album was released in 1968 and outsold the Beatles  “White Album”.

Cash turned back to the faith of his youth but not in a Bible Bashing Holier than thou fashion. His inspiration was the passage that if followed by Christians would make them Socialists.

“WHEN I WAS HUNGRY, YOU GAVE ME FOOD; WHEN I WAS THIRSTY, YOU GAVE ME SOMETHING TO DRINK; WHEN I WAS A STRANGER YOU TOOK ME IN, WHEN I WAS NAKED YOU GAVE ME CLOTHING; WHEN I WAS SICK YOU TOOK CARE OF ME, WHEN I WAS IN PRISON YOU VISITED ME. THEN THE RIGHTEOUS WILL REPLY, LORD, WHEN WAS IT THAT WE SAW YOU HUNGRY AND GAVE YOU FOOD, OR THIRSTY AND GAVE YOU SOMETHING TO DRINK, A STRANGER AND TOOK YOU IN, OR NAKED AND GAVE YOU CLOTHING? WHEN DID WE SEE YOU ILL OR IN PRISON, AND CAME TO VISIT YOU? AND THE KING WILL ANSWER, I TELL YOU THIS: ANYTHING YOU DID FOR THE LEAST OF MY BROTHERS HERE, YOU DID FOR ME.”

Wouldn’t it be great if Christians actually followed what Jesus taught them instead of perverting it and cherry picking?

The above passage is a great manifesto for how to improve Society through individual and collective action.

The movie focussed on the Great Man’s early life and especially on his relationship with June Carter.

Talk about star crossed lovers. Every obstacle both external and between them seemed to be in the way but this is an amazing story of how love can conquer all.

This was a superbly written picture and Phoenix and Witherspoon were brilliant as the duo.

 I found the movie moving and inspiring and only increased my admiration for Cash as a man and musician, and having seen it already at the cinema, I found it actually improved with a second viewing, as there is so much to discover and reflect on in Johnny Cash’s amazing life story.

Sack David Miliband.

That would be my advice to Gordon Brown in the wake of the Foreign Secretary’s arrogant, self serving, delusional and disloyal comment that he toned down his Conference speech to avoid a “Heseltine Moment” and upstage the beleaguered Prime Minister.

Just who does this jumped up little oik think he really is?

Hezza is far from being on the Christmas card list of any self respecting Labour Party person, but he had the weight of a career in business and six years as a senior Cabinet Minister when he made his move against Thatcher. In addition he argued with her on a point of principle over Westland, resigning as Defence Secretary rather than bitching and moaning like a whiny schoolboy prefect who doesn’t like the Head Teacher.

Miliband is cringingly ambitious, timing for him is everything. Hence his unwillingness to stand last year, which would have actually emboldened Brown and given him some credibility as having at least been elected by the Party, and Miliband’s similar reticence this year as he knows Labour will be likely election losers, and he wants to take over with a clean slate in Opposition.

I find him a cold fish, insincere and if I hear about his brilliant father one more time….

Jim Murray Senior is a fine brickie; Mike Crawford an experienced heating engineer but it doesn’t mean that I want James and Pete to renovate my house. No offence lads, but you catch my drift?

Plus I can’t get past Miliband’s very odd procurement of a family via an American surrogate. To me it takes a certain type of person to pay someone and then take the kid. If that sounds too personal, then he laid himself open to it when he gave an interview to the Observer.

Brown’s speech today left me very under whelmed, he got through it “without chewing his arm off or falling over”, as Matthew Parris feared would happen. Draw your own conclusions.

The Cabinet know what needs to be done, but it seems no one wants the gig. Funny that because when we could do no wrong under Tony Blair there was a list as long as your arm of “ambitious young Ministers”. Not now.

If in five years time the Tories are in, closing hospitals and destroying SureStart will certain people be thinking, “If only we had acted when we had the chance….”?

A Milburn/ Johnson ticket followed swiftly by going to the Country with one simple question. “Labour experience and values, or same old Tories?”

 Just do it boys and girls. You know it makes sense.

Two wins, two draws and just the one defeat see the Tigers in the lofty position of seventh in the Premier League table after five games, and frankly today felt like an anti climax at full time as Everton, who finished fifth last season, clawed their way back from two down to earn a share of the spoils.

The first half saw City in control and deservedly double the advantage on 50 when the lamentable Phil Neville put through his own goal from a scramble resulting from a corner.

This type of set play is vital for the more limited teams, and we made it count twice which may annoy the purists, and get us a reputation for clogging, but anyone who witnessed our attacking play today and is a student of the game, would be disavowed of such thoughts.

Halmosi, Marney, King and Cousin all showed admirable skill and deft touches, which were well complemented by Ashbee doing the ugly stuff, and a solid performance from the back four where Zayette and McShane both slotted in next to Turner and the old warhorse from league Two days, Andy Dawson.

The balance of the team just feels right, and Brown has them doing the basics well (closing down and working hard when the opposition are in position) whilst allowing the ball players to do their thing.

There will be some downs and we will lose more than we win, but I feel we are here because we deserve it, and the Manager has spent the Chairman’s money wisely, and we have options in most positions.

The game turned on a terrible decision from the officials regarding whether a Cahill shot had crossed the line having crashed down off the bar.

MOTD will tell us yay or nay, but to me it looked no where near over, and the ref must be 100% sure in order to give it and I just can’t see how he could have been.

Everton were enlivened, we were naive and they equalised. All part of the learning curve and City will be all the better for it.

Arsenal next week.

Despite seeing the Gunners do the Double in the flesh and many other fabulous memories for which I am eternally grateful especially for the bond with two of my closest peeps, when Dean Windass netted in the Play Off Final none of that mattered a jot. It was like it never happened and I realised what seeing the team that represents your City and Community achieve the unimaginable, really means so the Arsenal shirts are packed away and in the loft.

Hull City: Myhill, McShane, Turner, Zayette, Dawson, Mendy (Garcia 77), Ashbee, Marney, Halmosi, Cousin (Folan 69), King (Boateng 81).
Subs Not Used: Duke, Geovanni, Hughes, and RickettsAtt: 24,845

I really enjoyed this Martin Amis book, which is about a man reflecting over his life in Soviet Russia, first as a war hero, then as a Gulag inmate and, after release living through the Cold War and the eventual collapse of the USSR

The book is presented as a series of letters from the protagonist to his stepdaughter in America, and this structure enables Amis to build the plot in a traditional manner, a blessed relief from the all over the place modern style of literary fiction.

This is a bread and butter English novel. Hurrah!

Amis is a very irritating man when you see him interviewed, and whilst I can see where he is coming from with some of his anti Islamic sentiments, the chillingly calm way in which he expresses quite incendiary views is very un nerving.

I think I succeeded in burying my prejudices about the man because as soon as the first chapter was over I had banished his irritating Toff way of speaking from my mind, which is credit to very good writing.

 Amis’ descriptions of Gulag life is especially good, and the prose is simple but harrowingly effective as he talks about “spasms of frenzied hunger” and the comfort of the foetal position when the cold becomes un bearable, and it is as convincing as when you read Primo Levi’s “This is a Man” which is about how the Italian survived Auschwitz.

Life in the Soviet Union is seen as just crushingly average, poverty of aspiration as the State controls your destiny seems to be the most common experience for the majority of it’s citizens.

Western life has many bad points, mainly inequality of opportunity, but at least people don’t just drift around in a sea of greyness, which is what Amis and other writers such as Solzhenitsyn and Mikhail Shokolov show the Russian people, in many ways so spirited as being emotionally sterilised and crushed which may go someway to explaining their love affair with the vodka bottle, and periodic bursts of anti semitism. All that angst and pent up disappointment. It has to come out somehow.

In The House Of Meetings Amis imagines what would happen if the inmates were allowed conjugal visits, and the anti climax that would ensue. In this case the narrator’s brother shows up in the Gulag and it transpires that he took the meaning of “look after my girlfriend whilst I’m away” a bit too literally.

But given her portrayal as a feisty and free spirited artist, it’s no wonder younger brother was led off the straight and narrow.

The characters are full blooded, interesting and all flawed in some way, which is just like life itself making you care what happens to them.

This isn’t rated as one of his best when you read the user comments on Amazon, so I will be checking Amis out again real soon, despite his annoying way of expressing himself on TV.

Despite sounding like a drippy Lefty jerk I am prepared to say that I try to balance my literally intake along gender and cultural lines. Yow. Cringe.

Kira Cochrane is a journalist I really admire because she is progressive about the role of women in Society, but is not adverse to a bit of self deprivation via her really funny attempts at dieting this year, recounted in her Gruniard columns.

And her novel Escape Routes for Beginners cements her role in my eyes at least, as a progressive woman writing about female issues, here over three generations from the poverty and degredation of hispanic immigrants in 1900’s LA to a girl growing up with neurotic parents in the ‘Sixties, but with a sense of perspective, dark irony and a realistic view of inter gender and generational realtionships.

Cochrane contextualises what happens to women in Society without being judgemental about men, rather about the system which empowers certain types of males to oppress females. Therefore she avoids lecturing us lads, and makes this book and enjoyable and challenging read for allcomers.

The assassination of General Zia, another in a series of events that have thrown Pakistan into turmoil at regular intervals since independence, may not, at first sight seem a subject full of laughs but in the zany spirit of Catch 22 we follow the antics of a young Officer called Ali Shigri who is set to avenge the suicide of his high ranking father, and event he blames on President.

Various calamities ensue and we meet a rich circus of bonkers characters, including a cameo from Osama Bin Laden (at a July 4^th do where he is thanking his US paymasters at the height of the USSR/ Afghan War) a sugar-crazed crow and the obligatory sadistically mad army officer intent on instilling discipline into his soporific conscripted recruits.

 Geo political analysis it aint, but playful, manic, surreal and funny it most certainly is.

27^th October 1986.

That’s the day that the first breaths of the whirlwind that is wreaking havoc throughout the global financial markets were first felt as the Thatcher Government de regulated the City so allowing the dodgy practices such as brokers being allowed to act as dealers (an obvious temptation for hidden transactions and shifting about of virtual money to facilitate un sustainable credit) and institutions being allowed to cover each others debts.

Thus was created the unreal era of an economy based on wild levels of borrowing and trading of debt, whose success is solely reliant on the intangible concept of “confidence”.

This effectively means that as long as people failed to acknowledge, as with PFI, the elephant of completely unsustainable levels of debt that was in the room and soiling the carpet then all would be well, but once it became noticed, then the people and the system start slipping, sliding and falling face down in a pile of unmentionables in the style of THAT Blue Peter moment.

But how can the Government criticise the banking and finance sector when it is up to £600 billion in it’s own un acknowledged debt through PFI, which to be fair has delivered amazing success in the form on new schools and the biggest hospital building programme in our history, but for which that borrowing doesn’t appear in the overall balance sheet.

So when Brown says we don’t owe as much as Germany and France (60% of GDP, ours has just broken 40%) he is being totally disingenuous. How dare he take credit for economic stability when he has behaved with such flagrant disregard for basic house keeping?

It’s obvious that Governments need to raise money, especially when they are as so committed to Social Justice as the Labour party is, but to do it in such a reckless way and then to try and cover up the reality of just how much we really owe is simply dishonest.

The market now seems to be driven by financiers betting on what’s going to happen, but when it all goes belly up they just repair to their yachts whilst the ordinary Joes who work in these organisations are the ones thrown out of work.

But once again the Government hasn’t got a leg to stand on when they give succour to non-doms, suck up to the rich by raising the inheritance tax threshold, and act as pimps for the gambling industry which can ruin lives, but as long as it pours money in the government coffers then that’s fine and dandy.

We in the Labour Party are just as much to blame, as we cheered Brown to the rafters when he splashed the cash but failed to hold him to account for where the money was really coming from.

All the things that we admired Brown for (prudence, unflappability, not doing things on impulse, being iron like in his discipline over the economy, and not dithering when hard decisions needed to be made), appear to have been one massive game of smoke and mirrors.

We in the Labour Party and in the country have been duped. Not anymore.

 Brown took the credit when things went well, now he must take responsibility when it goes wrong and stop blaming everything, and everyone except himself.

Iffans and Wilkinson were both magnificent, the former a very pleasant surprise and the latter cementing an already impressive pedigree.

I am a massive fan of this show, which seems to have been given a new lease of life through various new formats such as a sports version and the Celeb edition which turned then Home Secretary and New Labour hard man David Blunkett to jelly, exhibiting the latent power of the Black Chair, the interrogation style lighting and minimalist set to intimate even the most confident and knowledgeable of people.

But I get a great kick out of seeing a guy like Irishman and Who Wants to be a Millionaire Champ Brian Gibson totally destroy the field and just shoot out answers to the most obscure of questions, plucking them from the depths of his brain in nano seconds.

I had a bash at TV Quizzery in 2001 on the dire (and swiftly axed) daytime effort The People Versus… and that was traumatic enough.

By the time I was on it was only comparable to what I imagine tripping on drugs to be like, as you feel as if you are watching a film. The Out of Body Experience that I experienced when I had meningitis in 2007 springs to mind.

Thus remembering your own name, and actually saying it becomes a major big deal, so why on earth anyone would put himself or herself through this WITH NO MONEY on offer defies logic. Or maybe I am just a quiz show whore having won £3,500 for about 20 minutes work.

My problem with the Beeb over Mastermind is the messing about with the scheduling, and whilst I appreciate times have changed regarding what BBC1 shows, I still think there is room for it to be aired on the main channel in the Sunday teatime slot. Instead it is on BBC2 and has been shifted form Monday at 8pm to Tuesday at 8.30, and now airs at 8pm on a Friday which to me is a rubbish time and evidence that the controllers aren’t really committed to the show.

Last week show featured a guy doing Newcastle United and being cooped up in a hotel with my dog (long story) without Sky + I had to ensure I was in my room right on time. I used to think that people who said, “Sky + changed my life”, actually needed to get one, but it’s true as you no longer watch shite for the sake of it and in effect you can make up your own schedule.

Matey did his thing on the Toon (I got six) and as was in the middle of texting Gordon to compare scores when the dulcet tones of non other than Mr. Raymond Rumkee filled my room.

Raymond. Not Ray as we all know him. And he had a beard, which actually suits him. All very disconcerting and meant I wasn’t paying the least attention to the matter in hand, which happened to be Laurence Olivier. Thank goodness for iPlayer.

Very appropriate choice of subject as the reason I know Ray is through the Chameleon Players with whom I trod the boards in a few productions over the last few years.

In addition Ray wrote a tremendously informative and engaging TV review column for the Hull Daily Mail until it was shamefully axed in favour of a bland syndicated effort, another example of how “local” news media in the Northcliffe Group has been sanitised to become blandness epitomised, unless they are running some Voting Labour Gives You Cancer (c. M.K. Jones) campaign.

 The Boy Ray Done Good and it was great to see his enthusiasm lighting up yet another grey and wet night on this so called Summer we are experiencing. Top man.

A series of misunderstandings leads to the Russian Mafia chasing London's Gangster Number One over a stolen painting....

Mr. Peter Bradshaw, film critic of the Gruniard has managed to do the most lazy, unfunny, stereotypical and above all snob laden review of his whole lamentable career with his “effort” on Guy Ritchie’s new movie RocknRolla.

Quite an achievement by PB given some of the absolute dross and drivel that has flowed from his keyboard over the years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/sep/05/thriller

If you can be bothered.

The article sums up what the problem with any review of this film is; Guy Ritchie.

It is virtually impossible to read anything about the man where the scribe doesn’t have a strong viewpoint one-way or t’other, mostly based on snobbery, jealousy and a closed mind because of his privileged background, marriage of eight years to Madonna and his filmography.

Lock Stock, and especially Snatch were superb and fresh takes on the well established British Gangster genre epitomised by Get Carter and the Long Good Friday, and this resulted in some excellent contributions by others over the last ten years or so with Sexy Beast, Layer Cake and Gangster Number One.

Therefore British Cinema owes Ritchie a debt of gratitude, but for me he set the bar so high early in his career that it is inevitable that the viewer will make invidious comparisons and be disappointed.

Patchy.

That’s how I would sum up RocknRolla.

The last half and hour or so is fast paced and with minimal, but effective and funny dialogue.

The performance of Dead Men’s Shoes star Toby Kebbell as Johnny Quid, the RocknRolla carries the last part of the film and Ritchie could do worse than base a sequel around this character (which is mooted on the message boards).

But until then the picture meanders about, with a flimsy plot, which is rather Lock Stock for my liking, and some poor dialogue for which I would advise Ritchie in future to co write the screenplay therefore instilling a bit more discipline and less self-indulgence.

We hear a lot about “'There's no school like the old school and I'm the faahkin' 'eadmaster.' People are bitter about doing a 'five-stretch thanks to a grass', etc ect etc. Yawn.

But unlike Lock Stock where the chracters have a certain likeability factor, you would be quite happy for them to get a pasting as they are so annoyingly cardboad cut out and superficial.

The introduction of the Russian Mafia was similarly graonworthy. Eastern Promises did this. Brilliantly. But the chase scene near the end helps pass the time and there are some genuinley funny scenes but they are all too rare.

Not the return to form we were hoping for, not the barrel scrapping awfullness that some critics label it with either.

 But the film topped the charts this weekend grossing an impressive £1.5 million, and that Dear Mr. Bradshaw, is all that counts. What the punters think.

This was a brilliant play and an example of the power of telly to debate, challenge and question basic existential issues with a ferocity and an almost frightening intensity proving those who deride the haunted fish tank as epitomizing how culture is being dumbed down via Big Brother/ X Factor culture, as being lazy and out of touch. No one is holding a gun to your head when you pick up the remote as far as I know.

Writer Frank Cottrell Boyce is well known in comedy circles for penning the much lauded 24 Hour Party and the equally derided Cock and Bull story, but told the Gruniard that having read Elie Weisel’s Night (a document of life in the Concentration Camp system) he had wanted to make this film “for the last twenty years or more”.

The context is a disputed incident, which may have taken place in Auschwitz when a block of prisoners on the eve of being gassed and feeling that God had deserted them decided to stage a formal trial, the charge being that He had broken the Covenant between Himself and the Jewish people struck with Moses some two and half thousand years before.

The arguments ebb and flow and because of the absolutely first rate cast delivering an accessible but deeply philosophical script, which is enhanced by a brutally minimalist, set, you are totally hooked and find yourself agreeing as each man has his say as Cottrell allows a good balance between empathetic narrative, and the intellectual arguments.

For me one of the major strengths of the play is that the ideas apply to the whole of humanity and this can’t be pigeon holed in the Holocaust genre, as although the personal stories originate there, they apply to any situation where the machinery of mass murder is pitted against one section of our human community be it in Palestine or Zimbabwe.

Eddie Marsen, The Bill's Rene Zagger, Jack Shepard, Lorcan Cranitch, Rupert Graves and Stellan Skarsgard from Mama Mia were all outstanding, but Anthony Sher was magnificent as, staying silent for over an hour observing the debate, he delivers the key speech of the play which largely determines the verdict.

 So to all those who lament the demise of telly, stop being negative, sniffy and patronising. Get Sky Plus and start mining the rich seam of challenging entertainment that modern popular culture has to offer.