the times | Friday May 27 2022 5
cover story
This
terminally
stupid
manoeuvre
would be a
breach of
flying
regulations
manoeuvre would be a monumental
breach of flying regulations resulting
in serious disciplinary action and
possible dismissal. More likely, it
would have resulted in a catastrophic
mid-air collision, the destruction of
three jets worth about £150 million
and the deaths of all aircrew. But it
did look amazing on the big screen.
The boringly simple fact is that in
combat (or, indeed, in much regular
operational training) you would rarely
have friendly aircraft flying metres
apart; it is tactically unsound and
offers minimal purpose. Some of the
sequences look as though the crews
are training to join the Red Arrows,
not fly a complex mission into enemy
territory. But to be fair, the audience in
my screening whooped and cheered
through most of them. And opposing
aircraft in any sort of combat these
days would rarely meet up in the same
piece of sky to dogfight where you can
“see the whites of your opponents’
eyes”. Air-to-air missiles would be
fired using radar technology about
20 miles before you saw an enemy
aircraft. Even in close combat, the
film’s fanciful depictions of dogfights
often resemble a well-constructed
aerial ballet. Which, of course, is
exactly what they were, because
having a single jet flying across the
screen alone blasting off missiles every
now and then wouldn’t make for much
of a Hollywood blockbuster.
I guess this sounds like nitpicking?
Not at all! It’s a fantastic film, and I
could relate to many of the scenes.
Without giving too much away, the
death of a comrade (I have
experienced many) is a devastating
experience, and I have placed my hand
on a number of friends’ coffins. And
in my somewhat limited experience,
the reactions, terror and exhilaration
John Nichol is a former
RAF Tornado navigator
who was shot down
and captured during
the Gulf War in 1991.
His latest book,
Tornado: In the Eye
of the Storm (Simon
& Schuster), tells the
story of the Tornado
aircrew and their
families during that
war and is out now
in paperbackPARAMOUNT PICTURESmeaning related to the rabid
Communist-hunting American
senator Joe McCarthy but is now just
another of the vaguely meaningless
insults most people with Twitter
accounts get called every day.
Dunt and Lynskey reprise the
dubious highlights of McCarthy’s
career and draw some instructive
modern parallels. American
newspapers’ commitment to
separating news and opinion meant
that McCarthy’s denunciatory ravings
were reported without comment in
The New York Times’s news pages,
lending them undue credence.
McCarthy’s career is, they point out,
a dismaying testament to the political
effectiveness of flinging around
furious, unfounded accusations and
insults. That technique, sadly, is more
popular now than ever before.
One consolation, I suppose, is that
next time somebody calls you a
“Terf” or a “gammon”, you can look
forward to an episode of Origin Storyof being shot at by enemy missiles are
well portrayed and relatively realistic.
As is being shot down, ejecting and
finding oneself in enemy territory.Maverick/Tom Cruise himself
The most unbelievable aspect of the
movie. Presuming he was in his
mid-to-late twenties in the first film,
he has to be in his early sixties in this
one. And here’s the rub. I’m happy to
suppress my belief that Maverick is
63ish; Hollywood make-up and
lighting can sort that out. But Tom
Cruise is only a year older than me
and he looks amazing. He still sports
a luxurious head of dark hair, he still
has a sharp jawline and taut skin.
Most annoyingly, he still fits into his
36-year-old uniform.
In the new film, that incredible
scene from the original Top Gun,
where shirtless crews play volleyball
on the beach, is recreated. This time
they are playing American football,
and 36 years on the shirtless and
body-hairless Mav/Tom looks ripped
with not an ounce of spare flesh on
his muscled frame. Completely
unrealistic in my opinion.
My flying kit is in the loft and I
dusted it all off to compare John
Nichol, 58, to Tom Cruise, 59. First,
my hair is somewhat more patchy,
my skin certainly more saggy and my
jawline rather more floppy. As to
fitting into my uniform? Sadly that
would, literally, be a very real stretch
that even the Hollywood film experts
couldn’t fix.
And as for me and my ageing
RAF chums playing near-naked
footie on the beach? I suspect that
may result in a call to wildlife experts
reporting a tragic case of beached
whales.
Top Gun: Maverick review, page 7A guide to understanding
your political insults
S
ometimes when I feel bleak
about how awful modern
politics is, I cheer myself up
by imagining how exciting it
might appear to historians
living in a blander, less angry future.
I like to think they will look back on
the 21st century as we look back on
the 18th, as a time of “rumbustious”
debate when Englishmen quarrelled
and brawled with red-blooded vigour.
The way that rotten boroughs and
parliamentary corruption now seem
jolly and quaint.
In the National Trust
gift shop attached to
Jeremy Corbyn’s Islington
townhouse you’ll be able
to buy tea towels and
stationery printed with
“the zaniest 21st-century
insults”: woke, boomer,
gammon, snowflake,
SJW, Corbynista, Blairite,
centrist dad, cybernat.
“Ah, it was an age of
boisterous disagreement,”
visitors will sigh as they
slip “Evil Terf” T-shirts
into their shopping
baskets.
Perhaps in some dusty
corner of an academic
library a PhD student will
chance upon Ian Dunt
and Dorian Lynskey’s
fascinating podcast,
Origin Story. Dunt and Lynskey are
journalists, and on this new show they
promise to explain “the real stories
behind the most misunderstood and
abused ideas in politics, from
conspiracy theory to woke to centrism
and beyond”.
“It would be helpful,” Dunt says, “if
anyone had any idea what the f*** they
were talking about when they discuss
politics.” Frankly, it seems unlikely
that anyone ever will have any idea
what they’re talking about, but Origin
Story is a noble project even if it is in
this respect a slightly doomed one.
The first episode is on the term
“McCarthyite” from the 1940s and
1950s, which used to have a specificOrigin Story
{{{{(
The Best of Tonight
With Andrew Marr{{{((
James Marriott relishes a
new series that unpacks
the most loaded words
podcasts
ynskeyare
Senator Joe McCarthy, of red-scare
notoriety, features in Origin StoryThey explain the
misunderstood
and abused ideas
in politics
explaining what they mean by that.
I don’t know whether Andrew Marr
is a Terf or a gammon, but you
imagine his former colleagues at the
BBC may have some choice words for
him now he has joined the big Beeb
exodus and launched a radio show
with LBC, Tonight with Andrew Marr.
Ah, Marr is a big old beast, isn’t he?
With his ears, authoritative tone and
incisive questioning. I wish he had
launched a podcast like his fellow
BBC exiles Jon Sopel, Emily Maitlis,
Mark Kermode and so on, because I
don’t own a radio. I’ve been listening
instead to the slightly unsatisfying
podcast version of his show, The Best
of Tonight with Andrew Marr, which
splices together the show’s highlights
every week. There are great interviews
and great guests, but chopped up into
a weekly package Marr’s podcast
incarnation can’t quite keep up with
the pace of the news.