This Is The Life

Daughter has for some time been working as an unofficial tester for all things mp3. Her main brief appears to be testing headphones for durability and she has tested and rejected, oh at least, 129 pairs. Not one pair has met the stringent standards she demands. Every time she twirls them around her head like a lasso or hits the puppy around the ears with them they break, which simply isn't good enough. I even considered getting her a six-pack of headphones for Christmas; such is the sheer quantity her testing programme forces her to get through. Well now, the Ipod itself has decided enough is enough and has given up the ghost, so I am tasked with ordering her a new one over the internet, which she will then reimburse me for.

First though as I lie in bed on a pleasant Saturday morning, it would be nice if someone fetched me the morning paper. 'Do I look like your slave?' Daughter replies when I politely ask if she will kindly do the deed, well no, she looks like someone who wants me to order an Ipod for them... so off my little slave trots to the paper shop. Ah, this is the life; I wonder how long I can string this out for. No long it seems, I am too soft and I order the blessed Ipod. If I was Apple I'd refuse to let her have another one, it'll only get their product an unreliable name.

I need to take the dogs on the park but first I need to do some homework with MD. After a very fraught hours training during which time Doggo has to be shut inside because he gets so in the way, we finally make it on to the park. On the way I attempt to get both dogs to walk to heel and, much to my surprise, it goes rather well.

Then it's the match and Nigel Clough's first game in charge. His team put in an inept performance which is down there with all our other inept performances this season, even by our low standards. It's not looking good. Our chairman is under the deluded impression that the players are actually good enough and that simply changing the manager will get them performing. We all know he’s wrong but by the time he realises it, it could be too late.

Later we head into town for a couple of pints and a film. We had intended to go see Slumdog but it's sold out at Broadway, so instead L talks me into one of her cranky specials, 'OSS 117: Le Caire nid d'espions (Cairo, Nest Of Spies)'.

Yep it's a French film and it's billed as a comedy/farce, which had me worried. I'm very sceptical about the French nation's capacity for humour. French comedies usually turn out to be, well, not funny.

I needn't have worried, OSS 117 was really amusing, not the out-loud belly laughs of the chap next to me. it wasn't that funny but funny it was. Although there were quite a few French speakers in the cinema and perhaps I missed some of the really funny French only jokes.

It's 1955 and a spy has disappeared while tracking a Russian cargo boat on the Suez Canal. They send his best friend, our hero (!), agent OSS 117 (Jean Dujardin), to find out what has happened. He takes over from the other agent as head of a poultry firm in Cairo, his cover whilst he's investigating. The problem is OSS 117 is in a country he doesn't understand and he proceeds to upset just about everyone with his arrogant and chauvinistic attitude.



What follows is a film that cannot be taken too seriously as it performs a rather clever parody of James Bond and other such characters. Jean Dujardin even looks a bit like Sean Connery and successfully copies many of the mannerisms of Connery's Bond. He's not a suave as Connery, although OSS 117 clearly thinks he is. Excellent stuff.



It all looks low budget but it's based on a series from back in the 1950's and looks just like something from the 50's should, it even has that washed out colouring of films of that era.



It doesn't have a great plot but then it doesn't really need one. Instead, almost every type of spy film is melded into one and we get a host of differing characters. There are Russian spies, former Nazis who don't seem to realise the war is over, then there's the local nationalists/fundamentalists/extremists (delete as applicable) and of course, in true James Bond style there's the local crumpet to bed. Step forward the sublime Bérénice Bejo... or not bed in OSS 117 case. There's a suspicion that he might 'bat for the other side' (had to get that one in, Daughter will understand), although he does appreciate a wonderful catfight between the two leading women where they tear clothes off each other. I had to avert my eyes obviously.



Agent OSS 117 sleepwalks through the entire investigation without ever beginning to understand anything but in the end solves it almost by accident... and is sent to Iran, to sort them out.