Sunday, 16 January 2011

A 'must-see'

We went and saw The King's Speech last night. Superb performances by Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush, and not a bad one from H. Bonham-Carter either. Claire Bloom is sadly under-used as Queen Mary, though Michael Gambon's George V is nicely scripted and acted. Guy Pearce plays a suitably vacuous and infatuated Edward VIII opposite Eve Best's Mrs Simpson. I thought Derek Jacobi an odd choice for Cosmo Lang, though, portraying him as a rather lightweight Archbishop (which Lang was not), and waspish rather than severe. His time-expired assumption of unquestioned influence over the King came over clearly enough.

It looks like we might get the odd glimpse of sun today, at last. The unrelieved grey and wet weather is bad for the spirits, particularly when the days are so short. On glancing out just now, there was another spirit-raiser - a magnificent woodpecker, the first I've seen this year, and resplendent in his orange 'trousers' and scarlet collar. He was shifting the last of the suet balls in the feeder, so I'd better squelch out there and refill. Must grease the pole it hangs on as well - the squirrels are getting more than their fair share.

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