Sorry folks, instead of writing Spoke entries I was out last night watching Troy. Not my idea. Apparently the film was inspired by some writings of a really old dude who wrote about Greeks and Trojans and horses. (that is, if he was alive today he would be really old). As an action film it was OK. As an accurate film about the legends it was on slightly more dodgy ground.

It suffered from what I call "Kill Bill Syndrome". Lots of action, special effects, blood and gore everywhere but nobody in the story you could really identify with or root for. And the only characters who got close to this description got bumped off at various points. Paris was a twit. Helen was good looking but angst ridden (as well she might be). Hector was honourable but a bit daft. The various kings were either innefective or nasty. Sean Bean was Sean Bean. And Achilles was a killing machine who talked about the fleeting nature of life just before going out and making a whole load of people's lives even more fleeting.  There was an "invented" girl who was not part of your actual legend, but supplied to give Achilles something to squeeze at half time. And that was about it.

We did get the things that we were expecting; 1,000 Ships - check, Great Big Horse - check, Arrow in Foot - check, but for me the time was spent waiting for these things to turn up so that I could go home at the end.  Your critic's verdit - 5 out of 10. Going to see Harry Potter next week (I hope) so I'll let you know what I think about that.

Since it is the weekend, and supposed to be a time of rest, I'll save the worky stuff about Java until Monday. At least, that is my excuse and I'm sticking to it.