Peter Rhodes on a tiny premium, a big dilemma and the eternal mysteries of microchippery
Having bought a new boat trailer as described in last week's gripping epistle, I rang the insurance company to update the cover for a couple of months until policy-renewal time. After some clattering of computer keys, the insurance lady said: “That'll be an extra 73.” I protested: “That seems a hell of a lot when the entire annual premium is only £93.”
“No,” she explained brightly. “It's not an extra £73 we want. It's 73p.” There was no admin charge or any other fee and so I solemnly paid 73p by card. I report this because, normally when I talk to insurance companies I get the impression, heaven forbid, that the blighters are out to rob me. Not all, it seems.
Peter Capaldi has been agonising over the rights and wrongs of him, as a straight man, playing the older Siegfried Sassoon, who was gay, in the new film Benediction. The former Doctor Who says: “A gay person would have insights into that world that I don't have.” Capaldi says he was not “brave enough or gracious enough” to refuse the part.
He joins a growing number of straight actors admitting mistakes or regret over playing gay or trans characters. The truth is that there are many significant differences between Peter Capaldi and Siegfried Sassoon and most of them have nothing to do with sex or gender. Are we to insist that the only actor capable of playing Sassoon to perfection would be a Kent-born, half-Jewish poet with a war medal for gallantry, a streak of pacifism and a passion for fox-hunting?
Or do we accept that the very essence of acting is pretending to be somebody you are not? If through an overdose of wokery, LGBT roles are reserved for LGBT actors, does that mean LBGT actors would be banned from playing straight characters and if not, why not?
Techno-crisis. My printer has suddenly stopped talking to my computer. The instructions to get them to recognise each other, let alone resume speaking terms, are way beyond human comprehension (or at least this human's ). I confidently predict that sorting out this hiatus will cost far more than the printer did. Marketing cyber-stuff to normal mortals is like selling bicycles to ferrets.
