Lexin

I am supposed to be drafting instructions to the Ministry of Magic's' lawyers, but the subject matter is such that I can feel my brain cells dying as I type so I'm taking some time off to mull things over.

I had a very pleasant long weekend, the longer because we Ministry of Magic witches and wizards had an extra day because of the Queen's Birthday and I took mine on Friday. That meant I had a full five days in which to relax.

I met gloria1 on Sunday morning for breakfast, which was very pleasant as always. Then julianj2 came over on Monday to watch some films.

We saw something he'd brought first, a film called "Nice Girls Don't Explode", which was very…odd. I don't think I got as much out of it as I would have if I was from the US. I thought some of the jokes were above me.

Then we watched "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", the version with Gary Oldman as Smiley. Neither julianj2 nor I could remember the identity of the mole, though I've both read the book and seen the previous TV version. The film requires 100% of your attention; you can't look away for a minute or you'll miss something. Not even the minute in which you're admiring the faultless attention to detail in the interiors, and wondering how we survived the 1970s in those ugly surroundings.

And finally, brains turned to mush by watching Tinker Tailor with exaggerated attention in case we missed a moment of Gary Oldman with a thoughtful look on his face, we watched a film called "Centurion", starring Michael Fassbender as a Roman, Quintus Dias.

There were no thoughtful looks in this. Fassbender was ripped, well worth a leer, but I'm afraid the Romans behaved almost completely unlike any Romans I've ever been told about on Time Team or elsewhere. So bad was that that julianj2 said we didn't have to watch it if I wasn't enjoying it. But I actually was having a good time ripping it to bits. I particularly loved the way that the women characters, none of whose names I can remember, managed to keep their hair, make up and nails perfect while being (variously) warriors on the range or a weird witch of the woods.

In health news

The tablets I'm taking seem to be having no effect whatsoever. I feel exactly the same as I did before, right down to the tendency to fall asleep at odd moments.

I therefore assume I'm one of those people for whom diabetes has no obvious symptoms.