It’s the time of year when there is not a lot on the TV. Not Thai TV of course, there is nothing on any of the fifty or so channels that is worth even a passing glance; ever. But American TV offers many series that we enjoy watching. But it is the summer in America and people go out to enjoy the sunshine and protest about cultural centres being built on the site of a carpet warehouse, rather than staying indoors and watching TV, so the current offerings are rather slim. Only next month will we be able to enjoy the likes of Dexter, House and my personal guilty pleasure, Desperate Housewives.
The off-season disappoints she who must be obeyed. She enjoys it when we can sit together and watch the latest episode of a series, as do I; so when she told me about a series her friend had enjoyed, I decided to check it out.
Spartacus: Blood and Sand was the recommendation. It’s a thirteen part series that has already aired, so it was a matter of a couple of days to download the seven gigabyte torrent containing all the episodes and we settled down to watch episode one.
I don’t know where this series was shown, but it must have been on a fairly liberal channel and after nine o’clock at night. It’s a mixture of 300 (the blood-drenched comic book adaption movie), Rome (the TV series) and Debbie Does Dallas (a naughty movie, apparently); with a script written by a fourteen year old male with raging hormones. First, the blood. There is a lot of it. I mean gallons, gallons per minute. People are punched, punctured, impaled, dismembered; and every act of violence is accompanied by lashings of the red stuff. It is so over the top that it amuses rather than offends. Rome? Well, there is a smattering of history in the story. We learn of Spartacus, a slave who becomes a gladiator and achieves fame. No sign of him leading a slave uprising yet; but then he has been rather busy slicing people up and dreaming of when he used to shag his wife. Which segues nicely into the Debbie section. There is a lot of shagging. And nudity, both female (hurrah!) and male (yes dear, I know he looks bigger than me). It’s pretty explicit stuff too.
By the end of episode one we had experienced a massive body count in terms of slaughter, and a massive body count in terms of sexual relations. She who must be obeyed was rather overwhelmed by the whole experience. “They shouldn’t call this Blood and Sand”, she decided, “it should be called Blood and Tits”.
And it was so. And although episode one could be summarised as being “rather stupid, with extra breasts”, we persevered and found that subsequent episodes, whilst still deserving of my wife’s description, actually expanded the story and characters a little. Most of the actors have been chosen for the size of their breasts or their pecs (and in one annoying case, the size of the penis); but John Hannah stands out as the scheming gladiator trainer, and there is a woman I do not recognise who does an excellent impersonation of a Roman Paris Hilton (she has nice breasts too of course).
The series has resulted in some interesting discussions:
She who must be obeyed: Where is Capua?
Me: Italy
SWMBO: So why are they all speaking English?
At this point she giggled, either because it was a joke or she suddenly realised it should have been. Nothing daunted, she continued:
And why aren’t they eating pizza and pasta?
At this point I felt duty bound to launch into a brief history of the Roman Empire and the Latin language. I felt qualified to spout on the latter because I had suffered years of Latin at school, tutored by an old tramp called Eggburger who detested the idea that Latin was considered a dead language. We would subtly chide him on the matter with questions like: “Sir, why is Latin a dead language?”
It was certainly a strange language in translation, A typical sentence would read: “Agricola, have conquered, set sail for Rome”; the sort of stuff that would have genuinej up in arms.
Spartacus: Blood and Tits mimics this jumbled word talk in a manner that is consistently giggle-worthy, and occasionally confusing for a lady whose first language is not English. For a start, they never say “thank you”, instead they do a reasonable take on gratis by mumbling “gratitudes” every time they don’t get their head cut off or achieve an orgasm. For the rest, they just re-arrange the words in the sentences. To the bath house for a blow-job, shall we go then? Much spurting of the blood today have we seen. Etc. They also say “fuck” and “cunt” a lot. I have no way of knowing the historical accuracy of this as Mr. Egggburger neglected to include this in the syllabus.
I enthusiastically conveyed this information to she who must be obeyed, but she was not really interested.
Can we watch another episode of Blood and Tits now please?
Oh, alright.
Spartacus: Blood and Tits; even better than Desperate Housewives.
Comments 🔗
2010-08-24| Mike saysNote to myself………..Must go to Tuk Com and find this DVD. I kind of like “Cougar Town” for something to watch or “Parenthood”.
2010-08-24| Antz saysAre you serious, you actually got past the first episode? I tried this a while back and turned it off after 20 mins or so….. as the brits would say: total codswallop.
2010-08-24| genuinej saysI recall that in Latin the verb was always at the end of a sentence. e.g “Omnia Gallia in tres partes diversa est” When in Rome…?
2010-08-24| Spike saysI believe the full sentence is: when in Rome, don’t get your wallet pinched by some bastard on a scooter shouting “ciao!”.
2010-08-24| Lloyd saysIt was painful enough watching the trailers, god knows how you could watch more than that!
2010-08-24| biggrtiggr saysamo amas amant amamus amatis amant
The sole memory of one whole year of study at Whitchurch Grammar School for the sons of distressed gentlefolk
2010-08-24| Spike saysI think the third one should be amat. But that is relying on a rather faded memory.
2010-08-24| genuinej saysYou are correct Spike. Amat it is. We all must have had the same textbook. Very apt title for the post. I’m not much for the blood, but the tits are nice and I also like the Paris Hilton look-alike.
2010-08-25| Billy saysmmmm, well yes, just about everyone is right,codswollop and tits …. all wrapped up in an overdose of CGI … will have to download the second episode …
2010-08-25| Spike saysIt does improve slightly as the series progresses, not as over the top as the first episode.
We finished the series last night. The finale was the predictable bloodbath, with rivers of red stuff and everyone being impaled on something, apart from Spartacus.
She who must be obeyed proclaimed she had enjoyed it. “At least it had a happy ending”.
2010-08-25| Billy saysThanks for sharing as they say in the Great Pecten, I like happy endings …. and could probably write the script for what it will be …. never mind, that will not stop me …
2010-08-27| Mike saysWell I went out to Tuk Com and got the four DVD set for 400 baht. Now the series starts out slowly but by the the third DVD I was actually enjoying watching this. Of cours I now have increased my use of the words “Fuck,Cock and Balls having heard this about every three minutes or so on the series :-) But I kept thinking this might be Pattaya with the Master-Slave thing going on.
2010-08-27| Spike saysI’m not sure how to express this, but there is also a lot of “cunt”.
2010-08-28| Mike saysYes sir “Apologies”. My jaw open wide - Tongue flow like a river…..head in the heavens. Liked all the women too, just trying to learn my new Roman language here in Pattaya.
2010-09-20| Verdell saysHave you ever visited a blog and got really interested in the content that was been written that you bookmarked the blog and visited it again and again.
2010-09-20| Spike saysNo, never.
2011-09-12| genuinej saysSad to note that the “actor” who played Spartacus, Andy Whitfield, has died at the age of 39.
2011-09-12| Spike saysSad indeed. He dropped out of a second series because of his cancer. Just a reminder that old buggers like you and I are lucky to be around.