Emily’s take:84 Charing Cross Road never fails to make me want to grab a book and spend the rest of the night reading. It’s the story of Helene Hanff (Anne Bancroft), an American who develops a relationship with a second-hand bookshop in London and in particular Frank Doel (Anthony Hopkins) who sells her many books over the years.

It’s a very gentle film which on occasion brings a tear to the eye. It’s all very well having the wonders of Amazon or Abe Books where you can order whatever obscure book takes your fancy, but there must be something very special about having contact with a bookseller who personally sources your requested books.

A good film for a cold winter’s evening, snuggled up in front of a roaring fire.

Michael’s take: Officially Not My Cup of Tea. Considering that this is set mostly in post war (WWII that is) London I had a job telling that it was in fact a period drama. Quite good for spotting actors in earlier film roles (such as Judi Dench) though.

Where we can we’re going to try a new thing with films - namely ‘Emily’s take’ and ‘Michael’s take’, just to give a couple of different points of view on a film.

Emily’s take: I’ve probably said it before and no doubt I will say it again, but 28 Days Later is a fab film. It begins in London 28 days after the spread of a virus which wipes out the population of the UK. The post-apocalyptic country is inhabited by a few survivors and the ‘infected’ - the rage-induced victims of the virus.

Jim wakes up from a coma in hospital and wanders out into an eerily deserted London (scenes which the film is very justly famous for). He joins up with Selena and later on Frank and his daughter Hannah, eventually ending up in a stately home outside Manchester with a bunch of soldiers.

For me the film goes through three phases:

1. the grim, empty London with a very jaded Selena
2. a fluffier phase travelling up to Manchester with Frank and Hannah where they go shopping in Budgens (one of my favourite bits), watch horses gamboling around in a field, and play cards in the back of Frank’s taxi
3. and the even grimmer stately home and soldiers phase where things develop a decidedly nasty feel

Definitely one for a Friday night with a bottle of wine or two.

Michael’s take: You don’t need us to tell you that this is A Good Film. Just to add to what Emily has described above, the best scenes are the panoramic views of a deserted London. They really bring home the ‘what the jolly roger has gone on here then?’ vibe that Jim is feeling at the beginning.

The infected/zombies (delete as applicable depending on which side of the genre fence you sit on) are really unsettling without verging on the unbelievable.

For me, the last quarter or so of the film is a tad heavy handed and brought to mind Apocalypse Now - but then again that’s an excellent film so maybe that’s no bad thing.

There aren’t many (if any) woods in this neck of the er … woods in Cornwall. So it was a bit of a change for us to venture down to the said woods in Woodcote for some walks while we were visiting family over Xmas.

Surprisingly enough, there were some trees hiding down in the woods:

Trees!

And as moss goes, this example is very funky:

Funky Moss

Some more photos of the woods in our gallery.
It was almost spookily quiet in the woods although the few people we passed were very friendly. One chap asked if we were lost - it must have been the way I was trying to extricate myself from a holly bush I’d walked into that gave us away.

Meanwhile, just to prove that it is officially cold, a snowy owl has been spotted over near Zennor!

Vexation of the day: we needed to hook up our venerable (but still going strong) iBook to a bog standard PC monitor. Simple! Or so I thought …

The short version:
1. You need an adaptor.
2. You need the right adaptor.

The long version:
1. Okay this is dead easy. Apart from the fact that every other computer uses a standard cable, Macs are different. That’s fine. We understand. We need an adaptor.
2. Ooo! Amazon are cheaper than Apple. Adaptor ordered.
3. Adaptor arrives - alas it’s the wrong type of adaptor for our iBook.
4. Cue much gnashing of teeth.

… my two great loves are one. Those being Cornwall and computer games. And the result of this match made in heaven? A sailing simulator. I bet you can’t contain your excitement? Eh? Eh?