Critic Cal

Better to remain offline and be thought a fool than to tweet and remove all doubt. A lesson learned too late by the official England Football Twitter Team during the celebrations following the 2015 Women's World Cup, in which England placed third: "Our #Lionesses go back to being mothers, partners and daughters today, but they have taken on another title -- heroes." *Sigh*. England Football have 1.2 million followers; you'd think they'd run you through some basic information superhighway safety checks before handing you the keys to their authorised social media machine. The pile - up behind this particular remark was ... unsurprising . "Patronising" ... "demeaning" ... "backwards" ... "inaccurate." Sexism in the world of sport is rife, it seems, but generally reviled -- it tends to get 'called out' at least. Sexism in the world of music, on the other hand, is apparently not just tolerated but rewarded, which ne...

One could write a whole thesis on ' Avengers Assemble ', if only one did not have whole other theses to write. It was so rich in wit and thoughtful content that halfway through found me rummaging in my handbag for a scrap of paper on which to scribble some hasty notes (my unique chirographic style being such that legibility was barely impacted by the dark). Part of the success was down to great casting. Ruffalo was superb as the fragile, ever-conflicted Banner, Downey Jr. swaggered his way through with perfectly-pitched comic arrogance, Johansson pouted and kicked butt and looked amazing in a catsuit [1]. They even managed to persuade a young Richard E. Grant [2] to travel forward in time especially to play the wonderfully sinister but deluded Loki. Consumed with lust for power, the disgraced Loki has left his home of Asgard -- a dimension whose inhabitants appear as demi-gods by comparison with humans -- and embarked on a quest for Earth-domination. His strategy is simple:...