Z/Web

Author: Jack Higgins

I’m completely ignorant of the whole Ireland mess (the IRA and all that), so I usually find books that deal with that bewildering and meaningless. Fortunately understanding Irish politics isn’t a requirement for this novel. It’s really almost like a series of short stories. Former IRA bad boy Sean Dillon, now working for MI-5, is back, and he has several adventures. Meanwhile, behind the scenes a group called January 30 (after Bloody Sunday) is assassinating important people, and eventually Dillon has to stop them. The title character is a woman, a famous actress, who is also January 30’s main killer. The ending’s a bit of a wimp out, with everyone killing themselves, but probably realistic. Okay, not great, but a very quick read.

Very cool Roberto Benigni flick. He plays an idiot everyman who drives a special education bus. One day a beautiful girl flirts with him, and he falls for her. We gradually learn Benigni is a dead ringer for her husband, a Sicillian ganster who is marked for death. The plan is to have the wimp knocked off in place of the gangster so he can be free to retire in South America. Of course Benigni is clueless, and has no idea everyone thinks he’s a mobster. Not as brilliant as

I will date myself horribly here, but not only had I never seen this film, I am unfamiliar with the Beatles. In fact, for the first twenty minutes or so I had to keep scratching my head in amazement that Paul McCartney was a Beatle! (When did that happen? ;-) But it makes sense: my familiarity with Paul, John, and George comes from the late 80’s and their single careers (John of course was gone but still had hits like “Imagine”). I never connected those people with the Beatles, and the glimpses of the Beatles I’d seen showed young boys and I never really made the connection with them as adults. I’m sure that’s strange for Beatle fans, but I doubt I’m the only one who thinks that way. Anyway, this is a pretty cool movie. I’m not sure if it’s fiction, scripted or not (it feels unscripted like a documentary), but it’s fun. It’s basically just a day in the life of the Beatles, following them throughout London as they get ready for a TV appearance. They periodically sing, so this is in many ways the 1960’s equivalent of the music video. The dialog between the four guys is totally like The Monkeys TV show — I assume the show got that from this movie. As to the music, I recognized some of the classics and liked those, but the ballads put me to sleep. The piece is dated in some funny ways: the guys look pretty ordinary to me, but apparently there was some kind of scandal over their “outrageous” hairdos. I couldn’t really figure that one out. Overall, two thumbs up.