Lincoln - a retrospective

Yesterday I went to Lincoln with Alison, Jenni and Alison's mum. On the drive over there we were stuck behind a moron in a 4x4 who clearly was using the force to decide what speed at which to drive as clearly they weren't reading the road signs. On arrival in Lincoln I was directed by my mother in law who was shocked to discover that the road to the car park was no longer available. The town planners in Lincoln seem to have outlawed the practice of turning right. When we found a useful left turn in which to turn around and go back to where we needed to be you weren't allowed to turn right out of there either.

The weather was good and eventually we went for lunch at the food court in the Waterside Centre. The food was excellent and the service even better. The waitress dropped one onion ring from a small bowl and brought me an entire extra bowl.

Lincoln is a quaint city with lots of quirky little shops and Steep Hill is appropriately named. On the way back my mother in law's navigating skills left something to desired particularly as we got back to Worksop. The signs said to go right at the roundabout so I moved in to that lane and my mother in law said "Where are you going?" and then criticised me for going round the island to go on the right road.

In other news today is the 30th anniversary of the release of Back In Black by AC/DC. The album, which is now the second biggest selling of all time (behind Thriller by Michael Jackson) was the band's first release since the untimely death of their lead singer Bon Scott. It is widely hailed as one of the best Rock albums of all time.

In other news tonight sees Top Gear and the new version of Sherlock Holmes. Top Gear is irreverent fun. Sherlock is written by the team behind the reboot of Dr Who (Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss). They have taken the essentials of the original Conan Doyle stories made a few adjustments (telegrams are now text messages or emails) and retold the story in the modern day. All the previews appear favourable. Traditionalists will never be happy but there is no reason why this shouldn't work. Basil Rathbone's Holmes was largely set in the 1930s and 1940s. The problems, for me, with that adaptation were the tinkering with scripts was not appropriate and also the portrayal of Watson was very poor.

One can only hope that in terms of a reboot that this is in the league of Dr Who, Batman (Christopher Nolan and the Tim Burton) and the remake of Day of the Jackal which were faithful to the originals (OK Dr Who is merely a continuation but you get my point) and not like the reboots of King Arthur (Merlin), Robin Hood, Miss Marple (the latest ITV) or The Prisoner.

If a fictional character is well written is perfectly possible to move it in time after all A Fistful of Dollars is a remake of Yojimbo. The Magnificent Seven is a remake of The Seven Samurai (those both turned out alright).

Happy watching.