Deborah Ross

No flies on me

issue 21 April 2012

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, anyone who happens to be passing, I have decided to quiz myself about this week’s film, for no other reason than the idea occurred to me, and I fancied it, so here goes:

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, any good?
No.

That it?
OK, if this film teaches us anything, it teaches us how to take a perfectly fine book — Paul Torday’s novel of the same name — and transform it into a mushy, corny, ghastly mess of the most trying kind.

How would you describe the viewing experience?
Like swimming upstream yourself, but through treacle, and with someone heavy strapped to your back.

How heavy?
Someone like Eric Pickles, say.

I wouldn’t like Eric Pickles strapped to my back, I don’t think.
I know someone who did once have Eric Pickles strapped to her back, and as she now says, ‘Never again, and never mind swimming upstream through treacle.

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