After an article from the Telegraph arrived in our mailbox today, we conquered our horrified astonishment, picked our slackened jaw up off the desk and immediately called in an expert: Supernanny.* Take it away, Jo-Jo!

You’ve been very, very naughty!

What sort of person takes preteen boys who have already expressed a complete lack of interest in the proceedings to a grownup’s film in a crowded cinema, and then allows them to comment aloud and carry on throughout the film as though they’re sitting in your own living room? Don’t you know that the other people in the cinema paid nine or ten pounds, which translates to nearly twenty dollars U.S., for one ticket mind you, to see the film, and would prefer to enjoy it in the peace and quiet that the social contract demands in a public cinema?

If it was so important that the children see their little cousin, perhaps a private screening could have been arranged? A DVD screener, perhaps, that could be watched as home, and little Dave’s brush with greatness rewound as much as desired, and boring talking scenes skipped entirely? When one writes for the papers, one should have the wherewithal to arrange such things. Does Jo-Jo need to make up a schedule for you?

Mummy, your behaviour is unacceptable. You must go to the naughty chair for…how many minutes is that now? One minute for every year of your age, and Jo-Jo will know if you’re lying.

*Legal Disclaimer: This post was not really written by the Supernanny. It was written by Mags pretending to be the Supernanny. Just in case anyone is confused.

Miranda Sawyer asks in the Observer: is there too much Shakespeare, Austen, etc.?

But is it audiences that clamour for such well-worn tales or the powers that be? Are Mr Darcy, Anne Boleyn and Macbeth so much more interesting than what’s going on today? In this turbulent time of war and money, of natural disasters and manmade destruction, are our contemporary stories so dull, so unfabulous, so irrelevant?

Not at all; but it does not necessarily follow that relevancy of modern stories makes older stories irrelevant. If Shakespeare has survived to this day, and Austen, and the Brontës, it is because their work speaks to succeeding generations. There were other playwrights in Shakespeare’s day whose work has not been staged in 500 years. There were other authors in Jane Austen’s time whose books have crumbled into dust on forgotten shelves. Every generation has its classics. Will succeeding generations speak so of Hemingway and Joyce? Most likely.

And we maintain that even halfway decent Shakespeare, like halfway decent Austen, is better than none at all.

Sort of. We found a restaurant review in the Sydney Morning Herald that invoked Jane Austen’s characters rather hilarious.

I was never into Jane Austen, but I know enough from watching Sunday night bonnet dramas to realise that being labelled Wickham by my friends Darcy and Elizabeth is not entirely a good thing.

“But I don’t want to be Wickham,” I protest.

“You’re so Wickham.”

“No, I’m not. Why can’t I be Bingley?”

“Too affable. You’re Wickham.”

“Yeah, get us another beer, Wickers.”

Days pass. Darcy remains uptight and aloof. Elizabeth is continually heartsick though headstrong. I continue to be a scoundrel and a cad. “Let’s get a burger,” I suggest when Darcy’s out of earshot.

Poor guy. Anyone who begs to be Bingley should be allowed to be Bingley, don’t you think?

As we sometimes reach up to the top shelf (next to Grandma’s cookie jar, as the hockey game announcers say) for an Austenian metaphor, especially on a slow news week, we could appreciate the following:

Had Wickham ever taken Miss Bennett into town for a burger their carriage might have pulled up at an address not unlike 332-334 Kent Street. Or not. This last sentence may read like a winning transition but, sadly, it’s historically inaccurate. The building wasn’t completed until 1884. It has a carriageway, however.

Care to have a chat with a couple of film adapters and directors, O Anonymous Reviewer?

Once again, the title says it all. The film also opened strong in the Netherlands.

Not much other P&P3 news at the mo’, so we will pass on a link that came to our attention recently. Several of the reviews of P&P3 mention that the film evokes the Brontës rather than Austen, which might not be the best thing for an Austen adaptation; however, we enjoy the Brontës’ work very much and know that many of our readers do as well. Thus, we present BrontëBlog, which the editors tell us was created in imitation of AustenBlog. AustenBlog, in its turn, was created in imitation of The Leaky Cauldron, so we are delighted that the idea of a literary subject weblog continues to be passed on.