Thought of the Day 32

Tell me you’ve been to the cinema during the last seven days and that you are ready to give us an insightful film review for the Bitsnbobs Sunday specials.

I’ve been to the cinema in the last seven days and that I am ready to give you an insightful film review for the Bitsnbobs Sunday specials.

Don’t be facetious.

I’m not - I’ve been to the cinema in the last seven days and that I am ready to give you an insightful film review for the Bitsnbobs Sunday specials.

You haven’t!

I have!!

Cool – what did you see?

Killing Bono.

Killing Bono?

Killing Bono.

Bono?

Bono.

Bono Bono?

Bono Bono.

What’s it about – assassination at the United Nations or something?

No it’s about Ivan and Neil McCormick.

Ivan and Neil McCormick?

Ivan and Neil McCormick.

Help me, I’m missing something here, who’s ivan McCormick when he’s at home?

He’s chief rock critic for the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Ah! A link to Bono – music?

Yes.

I have a feeling you could be making this a lot easier for me.

Why don’t you ask me?

Could you make this a lot easier for me?

Of course I could.

And?

Ask me.

I just did.

No you didn’t – you asked “could you make this a lot easier for me?”

Could you?

Yes.

And?

Well ask me!

Look……, ok…….. please explain the connection between Neil McCormick, his brother Ian and Bono and the film Killing Bono.

Ok, now you’re asking… Neil went to the same school as Bono, who is Paul, and started a band at the same time as Paul, and one of the bands went onto become U2 and the other didn’t.

Neil’s?

Well; obviously not Paul’s.

And?

Years later Neil wrote a memoir – I Was Bono’s Doppelganger.

Remind me what a Doppelganger is.

You are.

I am?

Yes.

What?

A doppelganger.

Bono’s?

No, mine.

Yours?

Mine.

You aren’t making sense.

A doppelganger! “A tangible double of a living person in fiction, folklore, and popular culture that typically represents evil.”

Wikipedia?

No, a DOPPELGANGER! You are my evil twin.

I am not!

Are!

Aren’t! You’re mine!

Ain’t.

Are!!

Hang on – whose turn is it?

Who’s Ivan?

Neil’s brother.

What’s he got to do with it?

His brother, Neil, stopped him being in Paul’s band. Sort of.

What do you mean sort of ?

Well the film is a fictionalized account of what happened, based on a fictionalized memoir of what happened.

Sorry?

Neil says it better in his article about Killing Bono.

What does he say?

'a tangible double of a living person in fiction, folklore, and popular culture that typically represents evil.'

I thought that was Wikipedia.

Oh yes, it was, sorry I cut and pasted then cut and pasted again and forgot.

What?

He said - 'We all fictionalise ourselves in the process of creating a story out of the raw materials of our life. For some it is a soap opera, for others an epic, but, for all of us, it’s an ongoing narrative that we constantly manipulate and reshape, improving (like the best anecdotes) in the retelling. This is not just true of writers. The story is one of the key ways we define and order our experiences as human beings: how we tell ourselves and others who we are. And our stories are full of omission and exaggeration, the stuff of subjective experience.'

That could make a good “thought of the day”.

Shall we leave it there then?

Yes, I think so.