The Week in Entertainment

Film: The Golden Compass. I thought it was excellently done, but certainly it demands your attention - don't go if you don't want to give it. The casting was good - Kidman surprisingly and Eliot perfectly so - and it was nice not to have characters explain things that no one would ever explain (such as what powered their machines). The bears were wonderful. And as for the literary intercision, well, at no time did they ever say the Magisterium wasn't the Church. ;-)

DVD: The Incredibles and a bit of Sherlock Holmes. And - of course - How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

TV: Scrooge from 1935. Interesting, isn't it, what different versions keep and what they lose? This one, for instance, had the lighthouse and the ship - which many don't - but lost the homeless families and Ignorance & Want, and Scrooge's childhood and apprenticeship. They didn't even try to show us Marley (Scrooge talked to empty air), and they made the decision to have no narration - they had characters (mostly Scrooge) say things like "Mr Marley is dead these seven years" or "As for Tiny Tim, I'll be a second father to him!"

Read: Finished Lady Anna - I must say, I don't quite see Daniel as the "problem" like the writer of the introduction did. Began Kafka on the Shore.