PC Paramount

choreographed fight spectacles.....will no longer take place

Trust the Americans! The nation that invented political correctness is now imposing its Californian regime on Benidorm. Paramount, the owners of the giant Terra Mitica theme park have just announced a 'no fighting' policy to eliminate violence in the mega-attraction just outside town.

This doesn't mean that they won't be allowing hundreds of English football hooligans in - it means that the highly choreographed fight spectacles featuring great battles in history will no longer take place. Obviously the actors who play the sword wielding, spiky iron ball swinging, giant pronged fork toting gladiators of the Roman games are 'up in arms' about this because they'll probably lose their jobs.

But you never know, Paramount may replace the swash-buckling fight scenes with the other Roman way of settling an argument, a philosophical discussion using logic, bathos and ethics could really draw the crowds to the Forum!

27 February 2004 Stephen White.