Cinema + Sofa = a great place for a Facebook movie

Last Sunday night I did what I’m sure many of you were doing at the time – I sat on my sofa and got lost in the online world of Facebook.

But no, I wasn’t sitting at home. I was actually in one of my very favourite places in Bath – the Little Theatre – watching a film about how Facebook slowly devoured the world around us. In a cinema.

On a settee.

For the Little Theatre has introduced a new balcony which allows you to sit and watch a film on a lovely two seater sofa complete with beautifully plumped-up cushions. It feels like home from home – although my own sofa is not nearly as nice as theirs – and I’m sure will be lovely if you were part of a canoodling couple. (Unlike me as I was with my 17-year-old-son who’s never a great one for canoodling, to be honest).

I have to say that opinions between us on the ‘sofa in the cinema’ experience were polar opposites. I thought it was a wonderful luxury because, as I put it, “it’s like watching the film at home”. But that was exactly the problem for him. Even at the tender age of 17 he’s a cinema traditionalist and he said he goes out to the cinema precisely because he doesn’t want to watch a film at home. I’m sure he would feel different if he was in a canoodling mood though ...

As for the film itself, The Social Network, I simply cannot recommend it enough. It is the remarkable, true (?) story of a nerdy young man who had fallen out with his girlfriend and wanted a way of telling the world about it who stumbled on the idea of Facebook. It now has 500 million users and has made our ‘hero’ the youngest billionaire on the planet.

The story charts the rise and rise of the site and the rise and fall of his friends who helped him to set it up and is told in shifting time between court cases and the university days where it all started. It is a great film – beautifully acted and stylishly written by Aaron Sorkin, the genius behind the brilliant West Wing. He is a man that dares to treat audiences as if they’ve got intelligence but want to be entertained as well.

As someone who contributed to a BBC radio debate this week about the rise of the internet and how people shouldn’t be frightened of it, I am fascinated by the whole Facebook story because so many people are obsessed with it, and yet I’m sure we’ve all got items of clothing that are older than this now seemingly universal site.

To actually see how it came together almost by accident proves the point that some of the best ideas come from the most unlikely people and the most unlikely sources. Intriguingly, the man behind it barely saw any financial benefits and, as becomes very clear in the movie, he was never motivated by money and apparently isn’t so today.

That’s why much as I love the current series of The Apprentice, if you’re looking for the future brains in our country, I think you’d be better looking at the unlikeliest kid in the classroom rather than the sharp-suited people trying to impress Lord SirAllunSugar.

So, if you get the chance, pop along and see The Social Network and if you want to enjoy it in unique circumstances then why not curl up on the sofa at the Little Theatre?

The only problem is you may drift off to sleep in that settee. But don’t worry – I can reveal that the man from Facebook did well.

Have you ever been Lost in American box set heaven?

This first appeared in the Bath Chronicle of May 27. It was after the final show of the cult TV programme Lost...

Where were you at around 5am on Monday?

The chances are the vast majority of you were happily in the land of nod, but for a significant minority of people, they were up, staring at a screen and taking part in a simultaneous televisual event with our American cousins.

The event in question was the finale of the much-hyped and frequently baffling American series Lost.

This began just a few years ago as an intriguing tale of a group of people whose plane crashed into an obscure island which appeared cut off from the rest of the world. As the viewer soon discovered, nothing was quite as it seemed and the title of the programme soon began to mirror many people's position in connection with the plot.

Despite that, the programme had a loyal following and after going in ever bizarre different directions it reached its grand finale,broadcast amid much pomp and circumstance, n Monday.
I won't give away the ending in case you haven't yet seen it but suffice to say, one person I heard said they wept at the beauty of it all while another of my friends, who had religiously watched every episode, was weeping tears of rage and threatened to jump on a plane, head for Hawaii and ask the writer for all those hours of his life back.

Personally I 'lost' Lost in the middle of the second series so I will be avoiding any tears but this is all a classic example to me of the modern-day phenomenon of epic, long- running modern TV dramas which really can take over your life.

I have been bitten a couple of times by this 'box set bug' where, even if you miss something on the TV when it first came out, you then buy it all again on DVD and watch it at your own pace.

One time was with the American political drama The West Wing, which I thought was an exceptional piece of work as it followed the life of an almost perfect American president and his entourage. And in a Bath Chronicle exclusive I can tell you that I saw early evidence that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats could be of the same mind because I recall having equally enthusiastic debates about this programme with our two local MPs Don Foster and Jacob Rees-Mogg who were both equally smitten with President Bartlett's battles in the White House.

Elsewhere, I know people with similar love affairs (complete with bulging box sets) with dramas such as 24, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, House et al.

One of the things that you can't help but notice, however, is that all of these mega dramas are American and I do wonder at what point the epic, intelligent TV show became the almost exclusive providence of our American friends. I am sure once we had a superiority about the quality of our TV?

Maybe I am wrong on this but, be honest, can you imagine many Americans getting up at 5am to watch the grand finale of Doc Marten or Heartbeat?

Nope, nor me.

Some things I'd like to do before I die . . .

A report has come out this week that shows that Bath is on a 'bucket list' as one of the top places that people want to go to before they die.

The concept of the 'bucket list' derives from the idea of setting out all the things you want to achieve before you depart this mortal coil.

The idea was spotlighted in 2007 when Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman starred in film (called The Bucket List, of course) where they ticked off a big chunk of things to do before cancer got the better of them. The film wasn't supposed to be all that great (hence it is not on my bucket list to see it) but the idea must have got a lot of people thinking.

I am sure most of you can rattle off your own ways to fill up your proverbial buckets and so to get you all started I took great delight in compiling my own list. It is not definitive, it is not terribly serious (something of an understatement) and above all, and I feel I must stress this, it is not terribly worthy either.

Sure I would love to see the Second Coming, see all my family and friends prosper, win the Lottery, see the Chronicle sell more than The Sun and welcome in world peace and the end of global poverty. But I am setting the rules here and I declare that for my list (and yours) you can be as selfish and as decidedly unworthy as possible.

Hence here is my completely worthless bucket list. It is my view as of Tuesday 6pm after literally seconds of thinking, and I can assure you come 7pm it will have changed totally.

• See England win the World Cup. On penalties. Against Germany.

• Work out which one is Ant and which one Dec.

• Visit New York, go to Israel (again) and visit somewhere exotic no one else has ever been. And Dundee.

• Hear my favourite band (The Stranglers) play my favourite song again (Down In The Sewer) surrounded by my favourite music fans (Strangler ones). All within walking distance of home. They are pictured here - pretty bunch hey?

• See Curly Wurlys return to their original size – and chewy Texans make a comeback.

• See Josiah Bartlett (The West Wing) made US President with Larry David, pictured, as his Vice President (the world would be on the brink on a daily basis). Oh, and see Jimmy McNulty, from The Wire, put in charge of the US police.

• See Garth Crooks win an award for making The Most Obvious Sports Comments Ever Heard on TV.

• Go a whole month where 'no weather records are broken since records began'.

• See someone get to the moon – just to prove the Americans actually did.

• Go a whole week of editing the letters pages in the Chronicle without finding anyone moaning about anything.

• See the rules of food alter so consuming lots of chocolate, curry and beer makes you thinner while cucumber and celery are derided for making people put on weight.
  

• See Phil Collins music banned from the airwaves.

• See Tiswas brought back to our screens. It remains Chris Tarrant's best moment. And Spit the Dog's only one.

• Watch a whole X Factor without someone saying "this means everything to me/this is my dream/please, Simon, please, please let me through".

• See Brian Clough given a posthumous knighthood. And a good chunk of the UK to boot.

• See a new dictionary introduced with an easier way of spelling rhythm. I mean, why two 'h's?

• See a Jerry Springer/Star Wars special entitled Luke, Who Is Your Father?

And finally . . .

• Being able to find a way to avoid kicking the bucket in the first place!

Happy bucketing.