Entertainment

During my flights to China I caught up with some movies, especially Spiderman: Homecoming, which I was looking forward to, having seen the new, cheeky webspinner in Marvel's Civil War and liking him. I suffered the movie because I was on a plane and had nothing to do for around eight hours and I couldn't sleep, the film was so politically correct it was set in an America a normal person would not recognise with white people seemingly being a minority, unless they were bad guys, at least they are not British any more.

I also caught The Wall, in which an American soldier is trapped behind a wall by a super sniper, it starts off well but you can see the ending coming in a taxi, it should have been a gripping tale but it failed and settled around mediocre. Transpecos was much better, following a day in the life of some border cops down Mexico way, I can't say much about it but it has a few surprises and is worth a bag of munchies and a few beers.

Baby Driver, I didn't catch on until much later hearing the song at the end, I was just annoyed at a bloke being called Baby, again a beer and pretzel movie, it has some nice car chases and although I think Jamie Foxx should stick to music he comes across very well as a psycho killer in this film. Certainly watchable.

I hit on a bit of luck at last and managed to get the latest season of Veep with Julia Louis-Dreyfus a brilliant political comedy which has suddenly developed a vicious, nasty streak for some reason and which if it continues will sadly put me off the next season. I also caught up with the nerds in Silicon Valley, the hero is a complete loser but the supporting cast, especially Gilfoyle and Bachman, keep me glued to their attempts at making a fortune.

I continued to have some luck as I prepared for Gotham season four, but on watching 'previously....' I realised I had missed the second half of season three, so I have binged on that for a week. Despite continuing to be first class entertainment the original violence which surprised now and again seems to have fallen victim to pressure behind the scenes, or maybe it's just me overthinking. The Autumn looks set to be fair, Stranger Things and Narcos should be back, the latter may be already, Daredevil has been put back until 2019, which is a shame.

The BBC have scored another own goal with The Vietnam War, a huge television history of the war by Ken Burns which is simply brilliant, for some reason they have hidden it away on a Monday night at 2200 hrs. The did the same with, so far, the best comedy series on the planet (Sienfeld), what is wrong with these people, why pay for brilliance and then be ashamed to pop it on prime time. The documentary is even handed, fair, shocking and sad, once again the politicians, on both sides do not come out well.

For the first time in my life I have not been reading any military history, I have turned to, well it is hard to describe, I am reading books by political and social commentators with whose views I wholeheartedly agree but who put them over so much better i.e. Mark Steyn and Douglas Murray. I have not given up entirely on military history as I have The Opium War sitting waiting, I must get a visit in to a bookshop soon to see what is available.