Colette

Despite my reservations about the Favourite, noticed at reference 1, we were back at the Odeon, just about a week later, for Colette. The first time we have done such a thing for many years, perhaps since we used to live in a place called Lyndum Court in Lordship Lane in north London - without a television and we used to visit the cinema most weeks, sometimes twice a week, there probably being a dozen screens in the area. A place which appears to be worth twenty times as much now as it was when we sold it, around 40 years ago.

Greeted by a large contraption for dispensing popcorn on arrival, a contraption which may have included the option of personalising the flavour. In any event, some people, mainly young adult males, seemed to be buying large tubs of the stuff, maybe as much as half a gallon. With some of them making a fair amount of noise when they ate it - which I can't imagine was a patch on that we used to make when I was a child, lightly salted. Or even on that we used to make more recently, in a saucepan.

Maybe twenty people in the cinema on this occasion, so a lot more than turned out for the Favourite. Perhaps it being late afternoon rather than lunchtime made the difference.

Forewarned, I had taken some cotton wool so that I could plug my ears during the warm up. This worked rather well, but curiously, damping the sound from the screen more than that from surrounding conversations. Which, to be fair, did all stop when the film proper started.

However, once again, the film was rather too long and I found it a rather dull costume drama, the sort of thing that Agatha does so much better. Plus I did not care for Keira Knightley in the lead role, finding her too collected, too hard for Colette at the start of her long career. But I did like the rolling summary of Colette's subsequent career which came along with the credits at the end; it rounded the story out nicely. And I liked Denise Gough as Missy and Fiona Shaw as Sido.

Afterwards, once again to the Marquis, which had a young lady singer to liven the place up - but no sausage rolls. So having cranked ourselves up to try the cheese flavoured sausage rolls, we had to crank ourselves down again. More Picpoul by way of compensation.

On the way home in the dark I noticed, for what seemed like the first time, the long view down into south London one got from the roundabout on West Hill Avenue. Furthermore, I scored two two's at the aeroplane game in our very own road. It had not occurred to me that such a thing was possible - but being some way off the flight path actually helps at night as the successive aeroplanes are subtending a much smaller angle. And their lights makes them very visible on a clear night such as this one.

Home to take some dry cured bacon on brown bread. A simpler version of the snack noticed at reference 2. Plus a drop of Calvados.

Took down my copy of 'Claudine en ménage', to find the French much harder going than that of Simenon and probably bought (and read) more than thirty years ago, with it saying this edition published in 1983 inside. Decided that I could manage without ancient chic-porn and have stuck with Simenon since. Is it now headed for Compost Heap No.2? Or the upcoming Methodist book sale?

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/01/favourite.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/01/grub.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/01/modris-eksteins.html. For Compost Heap No.2.