Brokeback Mountain

I went to see Brokeback Mountain on Sunday. It touched me very deeply and is still pulling on my heart-strings. I began to cry not long into the film. By the end I was bawling my eyes out.

It's a very profound movie. Please see it if you can. I didn't have much of an idea what the film was about before going apart from my pal Rob telling me he came out of the cinema quite upset. The lead characters were played so beautifully, there has to be an Oscar in there somewhere.

The film plants seeds in your mind and stirs or awakens feelings and memories that most, if not all of us keep dormant. The blurb on the official site says that everyone has a Brokeback Mountain. I know I do. Do you? There are some lies that we have to tell but some truths we can't deny. I know we live in a completely different world from that in which Ennis and Jack lived in 1960s America. Some relationships had to live in the shadows because of bigotry, intolerance and hatred. Still, even today, some relationships have to be kept under wraps. Jack and Ennis lived their lives with a feeling that some things were inevitable and inescapable. They did the best they could. Some people are still doing that now because of the constraints of society or the needs and desires of others. That's why this film is timeless. You could set it at any time in history. People are having secret relationships now, they always have and always will - for a myriad of different reasons.

See the BBC review.

Of course, there's lots of comedy potential in this film and we should expect French and Saunders to send it up sometime soon. Personally, I'd like to see some kind of film like this made about my life. The title would be somewhat different: Bareback Mounting. Who would play me? It would have to be Ninia Benjamin. She's fabulous.

Ok, so you should now have three words. Take the first letter of the first word. If you're clever and know your alphabet, you'll get a number. Note it down. The next two words spell out a track by one of my favourite groups of all time. There is a number in the name of this group. Note it down. Now, in which year did Ralph Neves, the jockey, temporarily die? You only need the last two digits, note this number down.

Take your first number and add it to your second. Take each digit separately and add these digits together. You may or may not come up with a single digit number. If you still have two digits, take the two digits and add them together. If you still have more than one digit, keep adding them together until you have only one.

When you have one digit, add it to the year you got from the Ralph Neves story. You may now have one digit, you may have many. How ever many digits you have, this number means something to me. If you know what it means, make a comment on the "It" entry. Whosoever comes up with the correct answer first wins a fabulous prize and should feel rather wonderful about themselves!

Hurrah! I feel like Kate Bush.