A bravura barney

Dolly and her little friend Secco are scrapping at my feet, Heart FM is blaring some ghastly song and Lily is watching a trailer for some wham-bam action-packed movie on the iPad. Not my idea of a harmonious summer holiday.

'What are you watching?' I demand.

'Pacific Rim.'

'It sounds ghastly. What's it about?'

'It's the near future. And from below the Pacific Ocean, giant monsters known as Kajoo rise to conquer the world. Our only defence is the Jay-gers, huge robots controlled by two human pilots whose minds are locked in unison. Ultimately however it's a losing battle and in desperation the authorities turn to an untried novice, Mako Mori, and a washed-up pilot, Ra-lie Becket...'

'Typical Hollywood!'

'... who are tasked to drive an apparently... ob...sol...ee...'

'Obsolete. It means something that's out of date, defunct, has-been, useless, like every piece of technology you buy, the minute you get it out of the shop...'

'...experimental Jay-ger. With the apocalypse imminent...'

'Quelle surprise. Typical Hollywood.'

'... this unlikely pair make a bra....v.....V-U-R-A...'

'Bravura - accomplished, brilliant...'

'... last stand.'

'You see? Typical Hollywood film - imminent disaster, pair two unlikely heroes together, they're going to be totally incompetent, fall out, the whole thing is almost going to go wrong, and then miraculously they're going to pull it out of the bag and save the world. Totally predictable.'

'Well I find it totally predictable when you watch Pride and Prejudice,' Lily says coolly, switching trailers.

'There's nothing predictable about Pride and Prejudice!' I retort. 'You're just saying that to be annoying.' I catch her eye and she laughs.

But actually, I reflect, she's right. The dark difficult bloke always has a heart of gold and the dismissive heroine always ends up with him. Unlike real life. Typical Jane Austen.