Flashman and the Mountain of Light takes place just after Flashman's Lady, and it also falls between the two parts of Royal Flash, making it the fourth book chrono­log­i­cal­ly of the Flashman Papers and the ninth book published.

In the prologue, our hero finds himself telling Queen Victoria a much-edited version of how he came to acquire the Koh-i-Noor diamond on the crown's behalf forty years earlier during the First Anglo-Sikh War. The actual story—at least according to Flashman and Fraser—is …continue.

Andy Osnard (Pierce Brosnan) is a disgraced MI6 officer, packed off to Panama, where he recruits Harry Pendel (Geoffrey Rush), the eponymous tailor. Osnard is an un­scrupu­lous dirtbag; Pendel is a fabulist in need of money; they're made for each other. Panama is “Casablan­ca without the heroes” and Pendel spins tall tales that make their way back to London. Eventually, he outdoes himself, claiming that the Canal is to be sold to the Chinese. Osnard manages to procure $15 million to fund a revolution, which he plans to abscond with.

Brosnan plays against …continue.

Flashman's Lady takes place between the two parts of Royal Flash, making it the third book chrono­log­i­cal­ly of the Flashman Papers and the sixth book published.

Flashman and his wife, Elspeth, become friendly with Don Solomon Haslam, a rich merchant from the East Indies. Losing a wager to Haslam, who is smitten with Elspeth, Flashy has to let Haslam take Elspeth and her father on a trip to Singapore. As things have become hot for him in England, he sails east with them. Haslam's feelings …continue.

To­mor­row­land is a story of dashed dreams and recovered optimism.

In 1964, eleven-year-old Frank Walker meets a girl called Athena who takes him from the World's Fair into a futuristic city called To­mor­row­land. In the present day, where doom and gloom reign, a teenager called Casey hasn't given up hope of a better future. She is recruited by Athena—­some­how no older—to save the world. Casey finds Frank, who is embittered at having been cast out of paradise decades ago. They find their way back into the now-desolate To­mor­row­land and destroy the machine that's casting a pall …continue.

Jimmy's Hall tells how Jimmy Gralton became the only Irishman ever deported from Ireland. Gralton returns to rural Ireland from the US in 1932, after being run out ten years' earlier during the Irish Civil War for Communist activity. He revives the dance hall he had built previously, as it is a much-needed outlet for the young to dance, study, and talk, and im­me­di­ate­ly runs afoul of the local powers, par­tic­u­lar­ly the parish priest. Tensions escalate, cul­mi­nat­ing in his de­por­ta­tion.

Ken Loach is never subtle about his own socialist beliefs. Jimmy's Hall is a polemic about the struggle …continue.

Having read Royal Flash, I also read its in­spi­ra­tion, The Prisoner of Zenda, Anthony Hope's classic adventure novel. Rudolf Rassendyll, a young British aristocrat, decides to visit Ruritania, where his distant cousin and dop­pel­gänger, the dissipated Rudolf Elphberg, is about to be crowned king. The future king has a half brother, “Black” Michael, who begrudges him the throne and also covets his fiancée, Princess Flavia. Michael kidnaps the king and the king's friends, in a desperate attempt to preserve political peace, persuade Rassendyll to im­per­son­ate the king. The imposture is successful and a stalemate …continue.

Having made an enemy of Otto von Bismarck a few years earlier, Flashman now finds himself compelled by Bismarck to im­per­son­ate a Danish prince in a German duchy, taking his place in a marriage to the duchess. Flashman is a dop­pel­gänger for Carl Gustaf and with his talent for languages, he's able to pull it off. At first he believes that Carl Gustaf is re­cu­per­at­ing from an em­bar­rass­ing case of the pox, and he settles into enjoying his role. Then he learns that …continue.

As I watched In­de­pen­dence Day 2, I disliked it more and more, to the point where I was seething with anger at the stupidity of the plot and the characters.

The original 1996 In­de­pen­dence Day was at least a watchable B-movie. The sequel is leaden and plodding and makes no sense. The characters are per­func­to­ry and un­in­ter­est­ing, while the comic reliefs are teeth-grindingly irritating. You might assume that the young pilot who is the son of Will Smith's character would be the lead in this film, but he's sidelined here by Liam Hemsworth as the Top Gun jock.

My …continue.

Brigadier-General Sir Harry Flashman, celebrated Victorian soldier, winner of the Victoria Cross, survivor of the charge of the Light Brigade, the battle of Little Big Horn, and the raid on Harper's Ferry, reveals himself in this frank memoir published long after his death to be “a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a coward—and, oh yes, a toady.”

The central conceit of the fictional Flashman Papers is that Flashy, writing frankly in his old age about his remarkable set of adventures, is perfectly willing to put …continue.

Nick Behrends wakes up after a party at a drug dealer's house on Ibiza with a gun in his hand, no memory of the last few hours, and a roomful of dead people. He goes on the run, and soon encounters a Russian hitman who's looking for his abducted 12-year-old daughter.

Pre­dictable plot, cardboard characters.