Routine remarks.

They say we are all creatures of habit and yet it doesn't take much to throw your routine out. In my case, going off for a weekend away is enough to remove all semblance of a routine in my life. Not that I am complaining, far from it. Variety is the spice of life, after all. 

Of course it doesn't help if, like me, you manage to lose your purse and so have to spend an inordinate length of time cancelling cards, renewing cards and running around seeing if the missing purse has been handed in anywhere. Most of the taxi drivers in central Oldham must now know my face as I have tried to locate the taxi driver in whose cab I almost certainly dropped the purse. 

And who knew the hoops you have to jump through to cancel cards? In order to do so you have to answer almost as many security questions as when you do online banking and suchlike. I suppose this is to prevent malicious exes from cancelling their previous partner's cards and making life difficult for him or her: the modern equivalent of cutting up all the suits in your ex- (or unfaithful) husband's wardrobe. Come to that, it was that kind of jealous "make life difficult for him" action that was the basis of Woody Allen's film "Blue Jasmine". 

 One of the best catch-22 moments of this card replacement stuff was the website for a store loyalty card that asked for my loyalty card number. Yes, if I had the card I would give you the number, Mr Website, but I don't have the card. Doh! How silly can life get? 

Talking of films, yesterday we went off to the Cornerhouse Cinema in Manchester to watch a remastered (I believe that is the correct term) version of Marcel Carné's film "Le Jour Se Lève" with Jean Gabin and Arletty, one of those stars known just by one name. A sad tale of love and passion, it still holds up well even though made in 1939. The number of police deployed to capture one man was astounding and it was interesting to see the 1939 forerunner of the modern French CRS police force used to clear the square of sympathetic onlookers: a wall of police riot shield simply pushing the crowd backwards. Quite a scary image!


I wonder who they would cast nowadays in the Jean Gabin role, smouldering eyes under his flat cap! It would be a quite different film, of course, if they made it now. Perhaps the music hall dog trainer, the older man who seduces the young woman and interferes with the romance, would become a fading older rock star. Or in the light of recent scandals, an ageing DJ. No, they shouldn't do a remake. On the whole I don't really see the point of making a new version of something that worked well in the past. 

And finally, here is a bit more in the continuing spider saga. I read the other day that a singer I've never heard of called Katie Melua had a spider living in her ear for a week. Granted it was only very tine but even so, it was still a spider. And it was living in her ear. 

For those interested here is a link to the whole story.