Kiwis expect a fair go about the rescue in Iran – but the best Ben Affleck could do was give us Argo

You don’t get one of these for telling it as it is.

Dunno why anyone should think a movie made in Hollywood would tell the whole unvarnished truth about a historical event.

Alf’s dad did his bit on a British destroyer in World War II, blasting German U-boats to save the world from the Nazis. He was damned upset when the tossers who made “The Enemy Below” (starring Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens) turned a British ship (see here) into an American one.

The movie script differs substantially from the original book. The ship is changed from British to American. More importantly, the final scenes of mutual respect and potential friendship between the protagonists is not at all how the book ends.

In light of that experience, Alf has steered clear of the movie version of The Hobbit. He fears the worst – that American flags are flown from poles outside the holes in the ground or wherever it is that hobbits reside and that they chew gum, watch baseball and mispronounce “aluminium”.