Heroes!

A recent, and most delightful, discovery has been the TV series 'Hornblower'. Completely fantastic! The adventures, the wit and derring-do, the honour, duty and courage, the twinkle in his eye, the floppy hair.... Where have I been since 1998? - or was it 1798?

I'm not sure whether to read the books or not - Ioan Gruffudd is so perfect in the TV series that it's hard to imagine anything different!



I knew by the end of the first episode that Horatio Hornblower would be joining my 'list' of favourite fictional characters. But it got me thinking as to who else might also be on it!

So here goes, my first draft at a list of favourite fictional characters heroes:

In no particular order,

Horatio Hornblower (as played by Ioan Gruffudd)
Captain Jean Luc Picard
Constable Benton Fraser (Due South)
President Bartlett (plus the rest of the cast of The West Wing!)
Mr Spock
Anne Shirley (as played by Megan Follows)
Jo March (Little Women)
Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen gets it!) - plus Gandalf, Legolas and the others!
Sir Lancelot

On the B list are:
King Arthur (Sean Connery's, obviously)
Robin Hood (I think Kevin Costner's wins)
Spiderman (Tobey Maguire) - he's so sweet!
Mr Darcy (hmm, difficult to decide which one)
Princess Leah, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker
Buffy Summers
Captain Carrot (from the Terry Pratchett books!)
Sherlock Holmes
Elinor Dashwood

Hmm, I notice they're almost all TV characters so far! And by far the majority, men :) And a good number of men in uniform as well... I'm so predictable...hehe.

I'm sure I need some more 'intellectual' choices... any suggestions, anyone?

From West Wing to the Real Thing

... so states the headline of an article on Barack Obama in today's Guardian. I'm glad I'm not the only person getting confused between The West Wing and the real world of US Politics!

It turns out that Matthew Santos, the 'next' president in The West Wing, was in fact modelled on Barack Obama - way back in 2004. As the article states, "the result is a bizarre case of art imitating life - only for life to imitate art back again."

In the TV show, Santos begins as the rank outsider up against a national figure famous for standing at the side of a popular Democratic president. There are doubts about Santos's inexperience, having served just a few years in Congress, and about his ability to persuade voters to back an ethnic minority candidate - even as his own ethnic group harbour suspicions that he might not identify with them sufficiently.

But the soaring power of his rhetoric, his declaration that the old divisions belong in the past and his sheer magnetism, ensure that he comes from behind in a fiercely close primary campaign and draws level with his once all-commanding opponent. Every aspect of that storyline has come true for Barack Obama. Axelrod, now chief strategist for the Obama campaign, recently joked in an email to Attie: "We're living your scripts!"

The Telegraph also found a list of 'delicious parallels' between The West Wing and the US Presidential Election.

Could this be how it ends? :-)

Matthew Santos' stirring convention speech (from 'The West Wing'):