How The Sweeney gave birth to Katy Perry

Yesterday I consumed an assortment of festive meals and snacks that would have put The Hungry Caterpillar to shame, and sat in front of an equally unhealthy glut of televisual titbits. First up, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, in which the girls screamed and hid in a tree while their big brother protected them; carried healing drops, a little vegetable knife and a couple of arrows instead of swords that might have actually enabled them to stand up for themselves; and cried, at length, over the apparently dead Aslan while the boys got girded up for war. (Later on, I seem to remember, Susan is disbarred from Narnia for getting interested in boys and lipstick.)

The only dame to be seen who was any good with a blade was, of course, a baddie. This female arch-villain, an ice queen who turned living things to rock, was the antithesis of the warm mother who turns her blood to milk to nourish her young. But why a wicked witch, when in every kingdom on earth masculine villainy has played the leading role down the ages? Tolkein has fewer female players – Arwen, Galadriel – but at least they’re properly heroic, and their magical powers are good rather than evil. (OK, he has Shelob, but she’s more spider than woman.)

It seems to me that C S Lewis was more hostile to the female than JRR, keener to keep it in its place. Maybe it was because JRR had lost his mother, or maybe it was his Catholicism; although there’s a popular myth that Catholicism creates two equally impossible categories for women to squeeze themselves into, the virgin Madonna and the whore, it seems to me that Catholicism is more inclusive of the female and the maternal than Protestantism; at least Mary cradling the baby is right in there, has her own chapels, occupies a crucial place in the general set-up...

Anyway, I’d rather a story concentrated on its male characters and let me identify with them rather than proffering some screechy females that I’d rather not imagine myself alongside. Peep Show’s Big Suze turned up in the last few minutes as, er, Susan, which at least gave me something to smile about.

Next up: World’s Strongest Man: 30 Years of Pain (‘I think I’m stronger than him, but he can really run’), followed by Bradley Walsh presenting The Sweeney – Must See (obviously John Simm would have cost too much). Yes, The Sweeney was one of the greatest police drama action series ever shown on ITV, and it was full of such jokes and fun, usually involving Regan and Carter eyeing up some bird’s boobs or bum, Don’t mind if I do! We’ll have to take you down the vet if you carry on like this! Oo-er missus, but I wouln’t do him, that bloke bending over next to the bird with the wind up her skirt, ooh no.

You could see how the daughters of the 1970s, reaching maturity in the 1990s, decided to draw the sting out of this kind of provocative sexual appraisal by joining in: No, I wouldn’t mind a bit of that either. And thus trysexuality was born; girls necked girls in queues for the loo, Carrie kissed Alanis Morrissette and a few years later along pranced Katy Perry cooing about the taste of her snogee’s cherry chapstick. Regan and Carter, just look what you went and started.

Then there were a bunch of Brit actors garnering, hopefully, fat pay cheques in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – well, you have to hope they were handsomely rewarded for their role in advertising, at length, what I’m sure is a very effective and successful theme park ride. The film was beautifully realised, and had some decorative actors, but oh! What a load of heartless tosh! Why do people talk about this franchise with such warmth, as if it’s a guaranteed go-to for a good time? I thought the first one was disappointing, and this one was even more silly and tedious. It’s the kind of film where a random, expendable crew member is reduced to a pair of feet stuck in a porthole before disappearing into the clutches of the lovingly CGI’d sea-monster, whereas if Keira Knightley gets nabbed you know someone’ll save her within minutes.

CGI does not a good story make; I’d rather watch Old Gregg talk about his mangina than Bill Nighy with a beard of genuinely wriggling sea-serpents. And as for Johnny Depp... yes, I know everybody raved about his comedy-pirate turn, and he did a convincing job of looking like he was enjoying himself, so much so that it almost felt rude (but still quite possible) not to join him.

Anyway, by the time I caught sight of Robert Downey Junior being startlingly assassinated in a very good Nazi-themed Richard III I’d thoroughly spoilt my appetite, and had to call it a day.

Also glimpsed in Richard III: Dominic West. Series four of The Wire arrived this morning. Yay! There’ll be no Jool’s Annual Hootenanny for us this New Year’s Eve.