Tintin

I could cry salty tears;
Where have I been all these years ?
Little wow, tell me now :
How long has this been going on ?

There were chills up my spine,
And some thrills I can't define.
Listen, sweet, I repeat :
how long has this been going on ?

If you ever want to know what Audrey Hepburn's singing voice sounded like, don't watch My Fair Lady, because you'll be listening to Marni Nixon.

There are a number of films in which Audrey H actually sang (using her own voice, even), but one of my favourites is Funny Face, where she sings the Gershwin classic "How Long Has This Been Going On".

Her singing voice? Never going to carry off My Fair Lady. Not in a million fits. Heck, she barely managed to carry off "How Long Has This Been Going On", which was a wee bit out of her range...

Oh, yeah, this post was supposed to be about Tintin, wasn't it?

Well, much like Audrey's character belatedly discovering kissing, I have belatedly discovered Tintin.

I've always known the Tintin books were around. Some of my classmates used to read them when I was at school. They were often at houses I'd visit. Things like that. But, for some reason, I could never be bothered reading them.

No, it's more than that - I wrote them off without giving them a chance.

For some reason I cannot explain, I looked down on Tintin and Tintin readers. I assumed they would be boring and a waste of my time. This is in spite of the fact that I read most comic books voraciously and have always enjoyed things like the Asterix series. Thinking back on it now, I have no idea why I decided against giving Tintin a chance...

Well, the other day I picked up a Tintin book in Estonian (long story) and was completely taken by the art. It's quite brilliant - both simple and highly detailed at the same time. Then I borrowed a couple of Tintin books in English and I noticed that a) the plots are a lot of fun, and b) the translators have the same sense of humour as whoever translates Asterix.

I had a bit of an Audrey moment, wondering: "Where have I been all these years? How long has this been going on?"

These books are a really fun read, with really good artwork. And they've been around for years. And I could have been reading them ages ago if I hadn't been so darn stubborn for no good reason.

Never judge a book by the fact that you're a snob, I guess.

"I am Prince Caspian..."

So, I watched the Disney Prince Caspian movie last night. I had intended to catch it at the cinema, but didn't get around to it in time. I rarely bother to rent DVDs these days, but the planets aligned for a DVD night when I remembered this was a movie I wanted to watch.

Now, I've read the entire Chronicles of Narnia at least twice (okay, not The Last Battle, which I barely managed to get through once - for some reason Lewis decided that he was sick of couching allegories in adventure stories and decided to see if anyone would notice if he just wrote an allegory, and the answer was: yes). Some of the books, like The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair, I've read many times.

Prince Caspian, while never one of my favourite books in the series, is something that I have read on more than one occasion. I have easily read it as often as The Magician's Nephew and The Horse and His Boy - both of which are books I can remember quite clearly. But it turns out I can't remember Prince Caspian at all.

I sat down to watch this film, and suddenly thought: "Wait a minute, who's in this story apart from Caspian and the Pevensies? What do they do?" and at no point did it start coming back to me.

I could remember that the book is set several hundred years after Wardrobe, that the Stone Table is now under a mountain, and that, at the end of it, Peter and Susan are told they're too old to come back to Narnia. That was it. I kid you not. Even as the film was progressing I kept thinking, "I don't remember this at all!" Granted, there were probably some parts that were added to the story so I wouldn't remember them, but I spent most of the film being genuinely surprised by the plot. Even though some of the character names were familiar, I realised it was because they were characters who cross over with Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

It absolutely astounds me that I can have such a poor recollection of a book I've read multiple times. I would have thought I'd remember it at least as well as The Horse and His Boy, but nope. I wonder why? It's not like it's a particularly boring book... but then, what would I know? I can't remember the darn thing.