Sad

It's strange that my inability to read let alone write lj has been brought to a halt by news of the death of Heath Ledger. It was bound to hit hard - how many repeats of A Knight's Tale have I watched on Sky? - it isn't even that great a film, it just makes me feel good. Brokeback Mountain,for all its lack of pace, really haunted me; Ennis Del Mar was a lumpen crag of inarticulacy, don't know how I ended up feeling so much for him. Well, yes I do I guess; Mr Ledger's acting. Goodbye Mr Ledger, and thanks. I'm sorry it got so tough. I'll watch the Dark Knight and remember you.

xxx

Meat

I love a good horror story. Sometimes it helps to know it's a horror story in advance.

When larians bought 'The River Cottage Meat Book' by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, I was prepared for my usual sneers regarding the author, a man whose tv series about his smallholding, 'River Cottage' down in Dorset, resurrects every Famous Five cliche except the dirty stinking low class villains who always get caught in the end. His is a pure sweet Dorset populated by men with cider enhanced sideburns and their practical peahen wives, incubated in jam jars at the local women's institute. There are no children in Dorset; people are born at the fine age of 53, safe from new ideas, loving the old and playing skittles when they feel daring.

I watch the show with a kind of dreamy contempt that veers between wanting a smallholding of my own full of fine fat pigs and lambs, and obliterating the whole smug little fib with a death ray from Mongo. I am a fan.

So then, this book. I was expecting an homage to darling Dorset, far from the evils of the city. Well, now I know.
( meat )