England

I got a call last night from my friend J asking if I wanted to come see "This is England" with her and her boyfriend. I loved it, as I knew I would, for variety of reasons. For a start, it was very well-written and exquisitely well-acted. Also, in parts, very funny. But what appealed to me (and this is why J asked me - she knows I lived in the UK for quite a while) was that it correctly portrayed England as a desolate hell-hole full of violent drunks.

And - I can hear you asking - what's with the glamour pic? After the movie, I had a drink with J and her bf, then had to leave at 10pm because I had to 'meet someone', which caused a great deal of speculation. But what it was was that a friend of mine had recommended a photographer who lives near me and I wanted to get some nice shots to I can look back at them when I'm an old(er) man and say "yes, that's what I looked like". Although of course they're so artfully posed and selected that it's debateable whether I do, in fact, look like this....