I took the pretty way to the cinema last night and found a friend from the bookshop displacing her thesis along the canal path. We chatted about the bookshop and work and other inconsequential stuff, just automatic small-talk while I looked at the sun touching her bonde hair into a halo of floating white light, her eyes, neon-bright and the clear blue-green of shattered safety glass. She's pretty amazing, really; a committed Christian from America, I love hearing her talk about college life and dating; but in the sun like that, I couldn't give her my best attention. I encouraged her to take a break on Saturday and come visit us at the shop; I hope she will.

I was on my way to see Frida, which I unfortunately found annoying. Of all the major struggles in Frida Kahlo's life (art, communism, her body) they had elected to concentrate (almost to the exclusion of everything else) on her relationship with two-times husband Diego Rivera, a foolish decision considering that Hollywood has no current method of presenting promiscuous people in a positive light; so it chose to play up his infidelities and play down hers to give it the proper movie-of-week, long-suffering wifey feel. In particular I took exception to the endless bloody scenes of two women discussing a man; the endless bloody scenes where she was taking men food; the fact that such scenes as there were with her lovers (male and female) were either totally sex-focussed or silent; the fact that she didn't talk, just delivered the odd (not particularly) bon mot. I wanted a film about a genius; instead I got a wacky West-End musical about the little peasant girl made good. It was so ... old-fashioned! Let me misquote someone (Winterson or Woolf, I forget who) for the last word. "We do not have the history of women; we have the history of their husbands, fathers, children -- but their own lives remain a mystery."

That said, the accident scene was brilliantly done.

On the bright side, I saw a trailer for big-in-Denmark Dogme drama, Open Hearts, about which BBC Films says, Nor should even the most devoted cineastes consider it a date movie - unless you're in a relationship you wish to end. I think I might go and see that.

Then I went home and cooked couscous with onion and mushroom and smoked pigeon breasts with peppers for Damian and me. The kitchen smelled quite unique. Farmers market, first thursday of the month; unusual meats and apple juice with therapeutic properties. Mmmm.