Loose End

Last week I watched the final couple of episodes of Season 2 of "The Tudors." I was surprised to see how sympathetic it was to Anne Boleyn. Not that I have anything against her, but seemed as if the tone of the show went from kind of willing accomplice to her father's plans to blameless martyr. The character of Thomas Boleyn, Anne's father, surely has to rank among some of the smarmiest villains in recent viewing history. And not in an "evil but somehow fascinating" way. (It does make one wonder how he managed to avoid the grisly fate of Anne and her brother George).


The character of Henry VIII is nicely outlined as going from a true Renaissance prince to spoiled, selfish, ill-mannered oaf. During the last couple of episodes he is shown gazing out a window at a pair of swans; the second time one might be tempted to think that he is mentally comparing the swans' apparent connubial bliss with his own. After that you start to realize that somehow the swans are probably going to be punished. Then, it is no surprise when you see one served to him for dinner after Anne's execution. Or was he contemplating how it would taste the whole time? And boom! There is the metaphor. It seems as if it is going to be pretty depressing from here on.

I like the new show "Lie to Me," with Tim Roth. His character is right up there on my list.

In other events, I did locate some of my old writing and was pleased to see how well it held up after so many years. My poetry was better than I remembered, and with some tweaking could be better still.