I hadn't actually seen any news about this for a while, but when I checked today I noticed that the feature film of the 1980s series A-Team is due to premiere on the 11th of June this year. Following a couple of years of uncertainty, I'm glad to see my childhood heroes get on the white screen. Of course, things have changed, as they always do, but what irks me most is the tag line. It used to read, and I know this by heart from so many episodes when I was a kid:

In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, and no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire.. the A-Team.

In the feature film, part of this has been replaced. It's no longer a stockade, but a facility. They are no longer soldiers of fortune, but guns for hire. Does this represent a belief that people today don't know what a stockade is, or the idiom soldiers of fortune? Or perhaps it simply reflects an adaptation of the film for non-English markets? I would prefer the latter, but fear the first. On the other hand, my English teacher in school, Joel Miller, was always keen to point out that neither British English or American English is particularly dominating in the world, having been replaced by majority English. Indeed, countries such as Nigeria have a population of 150 million, and English is an official language. That's twice the population of UK.

Regardless of language, come the 11th of June, Hannibal's on the jazz.