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At dinner last Saturday our friends kept referring to MHL. Yes, the GMA telenovela My Husband’s Lover is now referred to by its acronym, saving speakers two syllables. When there is a lull in the conversation, our friends have taken to singing, “Should we stay or should we raid the fridge for snacks?” or whatever those lyrics, which we can tell you were not written by The Clash. Every time that song is played, does the network have to pay Kuh Ledesma (or the songwriters) royalties? If so, she could buy an island in the Pacific by now, that song is ringing in our ears.

Our sister’s mother-in-law watches the show every night; so do the mothers of all our friends overseas, who find that if they try to skype Mommy while MHL is on, they will be ignored. (So the next time your mom complains that you never call, tell her you were trying to reach her but she was watching Vincent and Eric.) When proper church-going ladies get addicted to a show about the travails of gay lovers (“Disente naman sila” is a typical comment) you know it’s a hit. When your friends discuss fictional characters as if they had just come to dinner, you know it’s huge.

Faithful fans post entire episodes on YouTube; others write English subtitles for the benefit of viewers who don’t speak Tagalog. Foreign audiences have caught on, and American bloggers have noticed that their Pinoy friends keep discussing an Eric and a Vincent they’ve never met. MHL has been trending on Twitter since it began airing, and it merited a rebuke from the Catholic Bishops Conference, bringing it to the attention of a wider public. TomDen/DenTom is probably the number one loveteam in the country at the moment.

We reviewed an episode of MHL early on, but that was before the show had become a certified phenomenon. It’s time to watch MHL again.

Coming up: Our thorough recap/review of the episode above, which was the first to pop up when we googled My Husband’s Lover. Join us in Comments!
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Apart from the three feline housemates whom we feed, entertain, and clean up after, we have three ampon cats who live outside and show up on our doorstep at mealtimes.

L-R: Janko, Pippin and Merry

First there was Janko (front), a fierce, mostly white cat whom we named after Tipsarevic before we figured out that she was female. For about eight years Janko was a regular visitor—too feral to be petted, and given to swatting the food container if the human was a little slow with the service. However, she also left tokens of friendship and gratitude on our doormat—mice and cockroaches she had hunted. One time she killed a rat that was almost as big as she was and dragged it up the stairs to our door. We smiled, clapped, and praised her hunting prowess. When she left we asked the janitor to take the carcass away.

If a cat brings you offerings of dead animals, be sure to look pleased and say thank you. Otherwise they will think you want larger corpses.

About a year ago Janko brought us her kittens, a boy and a girl whom we named Pippin and Merry. We’ve noticed that male cats have a sweeter disposition than female cats. Pippin will twirl around our ankles, but Merry hisses when we get too near. Like her mother, she swats the food dish when the human is slow. We figure male cats are affectionate and sociable because their goal is to knock up as many of the female cats as possible. The female cats are ferocious and cranky because they have to raise the kittens.

L-R: Pippin, Legolas and Merry

Janko stopped visiting us some months ago. We miss her, but we know she had a full life and lived exactly the way she liked. Merry and Pippin show up two or three times a day. Some weeks ago they brought a friend—a white cat whom we have named Legolas. We’ve learned to watch out when we open the door because Legolas runs into the house. For some reason our housemates don’t seem to mind—they just look at him with expressions of “Oh, a cat.” A few nights ago he ran in and snuggled up against Saffy, who was so surprised she forgot to smack him. After we had picked him up and put him outside, Saffy still looked stunned.

Matthias Eomer Octavian, Mat

It occurred to us that our outdoor ampon might be descendants of our tomcat Mat, who lived outdoors for two and a half years and presumably had relations with many females. We said, “Mat, are these your children?”

“Let me see,” he replied, and looked out the door. “Naah, they’re too young. My youngest spawn would be 8 years old. I haven’t banged any chicks since 2005.”

“Banged chicks? Obviously you have not been out of the house since the early oughts.”

“Fo shizzle,” said our retired Casanova, settling on his cushion to watch The Americans. “But the ampon could be my great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren.”

We had no idea what The Reflecting Skin was about; we only got a copy because Viggo Mortensen is in it. In this instance our shallowness paid off: The Reflecting Skin is weird, gorgeous, and not likely to be forgotten.

Childhood is frequently depicted as the most wonderful time of anyone’s life: it’s over too fast, and then life is downhill all the way. But that’s because it’s viewed through the lens of nostalgia. This 1990 film written and directed by Philip Ridley presents childhood through the eyes of a child, and while it is certainly full of wonder it is also terrifying and brutal.

Little Seth Dove (Jeremy Cooper) lives with his worn-out parents in the rural American Midwest in the 1950s. They await the return of their eldest son Cameron (Viggo), who had fought in the Pacific. Given that WWII has been over for years, you have to wonder what’s taking Cameron so long—and then you realize that amidst these golden fields of gently swaying wheat under endless blue skies (beautifully photographed by Dick Pope), there is nothing. But through a child’s eyes (accompanied by Nick Bicat’s haunting Handel-esque score), this sun-bleached world is teeming with monsters and angels.

Cameron: Why don’t you go play with your friends?
Seth: They’re all dead.

There is a spate of killings in the area—the killers appear to be a gang of youths going round in a Cadillac. Seth is convinced that the murderers are vampires; his prime suspect is a widow (Lindsay Duncan) who lives alone with her husband’s personal effects, animal skulls and weapons from whaler ancestors. We’re never really sure. You could view The Reflecting Skin as a nightmare of childhood, or as a vampire movie without the fangs and blood (If you can imagine a cross between Tree of Life and Fright Night).

Then Cameron finally comes home and falls in love with the widow.

The pace is stately, but every frame radiates foreboding. How could we miss this film when it first came out? Now we have to see it again and again.

During the Game of Thrones panel at Comic-Con 2013, producers screened this deleted scene from Season 3 featuring Lord Tywin and Maester Pycelle.

Lord Tywin fishing. And gutting fish. Presumably this comes before the Red Wedding. Fish is the sigil of House Tully; its lord was getting married and his nephew the King in the North would be present. (Tywin also gutted a stag, sigil of Baratheon, in the first season. Tywin guts things.)

They must’ve decided there was enough foreshadowing. This scene makes Tywin more likeable, though.

In other Comic-Con news, Magneto hits on his younger version.

Sir Ian McKellen announces he’s looking for a husband, casts longing look at Michael Fassbender. In Vulture. Hmm, older Magneto will have to do battle with younger Xavier then.

While we like the idea of X-Men: Days of Future Past, especially the casting of Peter Dinklage as the villain, we are bothered by the presence of so many holdovers from the abomination that was X-Men: The Last Stand. (Cue Noel: Halle Berry is not Storm!) We would’ve thought they’d use the success of X-Men First Class to recast the principals. (Except Wolverine. Hugh Jackman is oddly untainted by bad movies.)

They must have one of these in Tardis: The Timechart History of the World. 6,000 years of world history in convenient chart form, so that on your next excursion through the timestream you land in a fun, friendly era (There aren’t that many of those) and not one of the many bloodbaths.

Based on the Victorian wallchart at the British Library, the timechart is a single sheet of paper about 16 feet long, folded into pages for easy reading.

Ignore the 4004 B.C. date of “creation” and go straight to the “post-deluge” era. Ooh, Sumer! The invention of the balista! Ancient Chaldaea!

The Timechart History of the World, fourth edition, is published by Third Millennium Press Limited and available at National Bookstores, Php845.

Read The austerity story: How Spain fell in love with books again in The Independent. via 3QD.