Name: Christopher Robin.

Age: For ever seven.

Appearance: Forty-seven-year-old man.

How do you square those two things? With some difficulty, and very little pleasure. Christopher Robin is a young boy, the best friend of Winnie-the-Pooh in the classic children’s stories.

Yes, thank you, I do know some things. But in the new live-action-and-CGI film Christopher Robin, he is a middle-aged middle manager played by Ewan McGregor.

Strange idea. How’s the film faring? Not very well. The Guardian reviewer called it “unpersuasively weird”. The Times described it, inevitably, as a movie “of very little brain”. And the Chinese government banned it.

It’s that bad? They didn’t ban it because it’s terrible; they banned it because it’s got Winnie-the-Pooh in it. But yes, it’s that bad.

Why would the Chinese government want to ban Winnie-the-Pooh? Because of his resemblance to the country’s president, Xi Jinping.

Are they afraid Pooh will attempt a coup? No, but unflattering comparisons between the leader and the bear have been a feature of resistance in China for some years.

Do they look that much alike? Not really, but Xi is short and round.

And prone to getting stuck in hollow trees? Possibly. Memes featuring Pooh sprung up on Chinese social media after the Communist party announced an end to presidential term limits earlier this year, leading to a crackdown by censors.

There was a real Christopher Robin, wasn’t there? Yes, although this one isn’t him.

How do you know? Because the real Christopher Robin was the son of the author of the stories, AA Milne. But the movie doesn’t mention the writer, or the books. And instead of childhood playthings subjected to the forces of imagination, Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet seem to be actual beings.

How does that work? I don’t know. I haven’t seen the film, and I probably never will.

What are you, some kind of communist sympathiser? No, I’ve just heard bad things.

What sort of things? That McGregor turns in an unconvincing central performance; that the film is awash with tired homilies about the importance of retaining a child’s sense of wonder; and that despite the story being set in 50s England, Pooh and friends have got American accents.

Yes, I think that was Xi’s criticism as well. No, it wasn’t.

Do say: “This sort of censorship is never acceptable.”

Don’t say: “Although in this case you’re not missing much, so don’t protest too hard.”