I didn't grow up in New Jersey or Minnesota, whcih is probably why I was less than impressed with both Prairie Home Companion and Clerks II, although I was more entertained by the latter of the two. Even Darlington has its losers and so I can identify.

It's been a hot weekend and one that warranted trips into the office both days. Quick vists, since it's being repainted: the walls apparently although it looks as though the carpet got most of the paint. I guess I need to summon some anger from somewhere and sort that one out. I thought I might be able to find some sort of release from all this by solitary trips to movie theaters but alas I ended up wishing I had gone once only and feasted on the Depster as a pirate. Two and a half hours just seemed like too much of a commitment for me and after having watched a close relative tie the knot recently, I find the "c" word too distasteful.

And is it just me but is anyone else disgusted by the mind numbing consumption of your fellow viewers during a movie? The constant pumping of hands filled with butter soaked polystyrene to mouth that continues for one hour and forty five minutes exactly. The rustling, the chomping and the smell.

Thank god for this place as a restorer of sanity.

Someone quite fantastic gave me some quite lovely advice over a carafe of wine and a rocket salad yesterday,

"Everyone responds to love. The first time you say I love you, it sounds hollow, the second, overbearing and the third, it warms the heart."