Title: Atonement
Director: Joe Wright
Rating: 3.5/5

Briony when she's 13... Her earnestness and her desire for the housekeeper's son, Robbie, take her in the most horribly wrong direction. Saoirse Ronan's face! My god! Those icy cold eyes, that neat, short blonde hair and her frequent appearences in white frocks combine to create a striking character.

I really like James McAvoy here. He's Robbie, the housekeeper's son who studies medicine due to the generosity of the Tallis patriarch. His problems begin as soon as Briony catches her sister, Cecelia, stripping to her underthings in front of the young man so that she can retrieve a piece of an ugly vase from the fountain. Briony wrongly believes that something awful is happening - that Robbie is 'assaulting' Cee. To make matters worse, Cee doesn't know how to behave towards him after he starts at Cambridge. It's the age old tension between the classes that makes her stumble in her attitude and behaviour towards Robbie. The poor guy of course is not as confused by her sending out mixed signals. He knows how she must be feeling towards him and his sudden elevation due to her father's willingness to assist him. And yes, he loves her but doesn't get the oppurtunity or the courage to reveal his feelings - until he writes 2 letters and delivers the wrong one into the hands of his messenger, Briony. He has no idea that she sees him as a threat to Cee. And then things really start rolling.

When he is wrongly accused of raping Lola, Briony's precocious cousin, everyone is convinced that Briony's testimony to the police must be the truth. Everyone except Cee and his mother. As he gets dragged away, Cee promuses him that her love will never die. The chocolate magnate, some awful upperclass twit who behaves in a most forward manner towards Lola, is the real culprit but the girl doesn't dare say anything to contradict Briony's insistence that Robbie's the rapist. I can't help but imagine why she let Briony decide the matter for her. And this brings me to the next thing that really stood out: Lola marries the rapist. How can she do that with a clear conscience?

Briony fulfills her childhood ambition and becomes an author, but not before she abandons the Cambridge offer and atones for her sins by becoming a nurse during the second world war. Her last book is Atonement. She suddenly reveals very matter-of-factly that the ending that we've just watched was made up. Robbie and Cee never get the chance to reunite. Robbie dies during the war and Cee dies in an underground bomb shelter during an air raid. The little girl who erred suffers for almost the rest of her life. She becomes a nurse and slips into harsh anonymity.

I'm afraid I've succumbed to the stern brow of Mr Thornton. I went to buy the DVD of North & South, finding it cheaper than I'd have thought and discovering thereafter many missing scenes. Ah me!

No matter. The only scenes that matter are those with Thornton.

How could Mr Lennox have stood a chance against that guy? Goes to show guys have the fattest egos. And responding to a comment by Stalin, I did in fact prefer the ending in the book. I've always held the view that Elizabeth Gaskell's romance was something else. She might have wrapped herself up in corsets and torture devices aplenty, but I always got the feeling that she liked nothing better than to get everything ripped off by her dear husband. You never can tell with those Victorians, prigs though they pretended to be.

I actually have the drama running now. The final scene - and Sister said Thornton looks all pervy when he gazes lovingly at his Margaret.

i'm feeling high. I'm on medication for the past 3 days and I haven't gone to work. My tonsils are working against me again. One more reason why I shouldn't be a teacher.

I wanted to write some meaningful review of North and South, the BBC drama. That the quality of the production was very high and that the casting was almost perfect. And something or other about the hotman, RIchard Armitage, an actor who looks a contented mix of Hugh Jackman and who is that guy? I forget so quikly. Sometimes I forget what I want to say in mid-sentence.

The Boleyn Inheritance is Philippa Gregory's latest in the "Tudor Court Novels" and it's the book I'm currently reading. I've got to say that Henry Tudor is really starting to annoy me. He sucks young women's blood. I'm trying to avoid glancing at that portait of him - he stands there smugly on the spine of Antonia Fraser's The Six Wives of Henry VIII directly in my gaze.

I want to take a bath every other time I read one of Gregory's novels. They make me feel corrupt and disgusted with myself. As if I were there intriguing against a desperate queen. First, the Boleyns, then Elizabeth and that wishy washy Hannah Green. Now it's the duke of Norfolk and Jane Boleyn, wife of George Boleyn.

I will accept that Gregory has a talent for believable characterisation, despite certain historical inaccuracies. She's not as good as Marion Zimmer Bradley in The Mists of Avalon, but somewhere pretty close in the contemporary writers' list. Surely one of the top 10 in mine.

The fact that Anne of Cleves reacted badly to the old fool's advances - he stunned her with an "embrace" (a kiss in Gregory's novel) while wearing one of his many corny disguises - might have been what caused her downfall. She didn't get her head lopped off. Lucky enough for someone married to a serial killer husband. Nevertheless her reputation rests soley on the historical 'acceptance' that she was the turd amongst his 6 ladies - that he found her unattractive. Look at all 5 known portraits of the queens:

1. Katherine of Aragon
2. Anne Boleyn
3. Jane Seymour
4. Anne of Cleves
5. Catherine Parr

For the life of me, I don't quite know what there was in Anne Boleyn that drove men crazy to such a reverberating extent. I don't blame her for the English Reformation but you have to admit that she was a very important catalyst. I can imagine what a charmer she must have been, and quick-witted too; she accomplished quite much for a white woman in the 16th century.

Back to Anne of Cleves. If you look at the Holbein portrait that initially decided Henry's choice of a Cleves wife, you'll find she's actually not the famous 'Flanders Mare'. A cow, perhaps, but who says cows are ugly? She's gentle and pleasant to behold. I shall not speculate how Katherine Howard looked like, of course. That stained glass depiction of the Queen of Sheba (psst! she's supposed to be the one on the bottom right hand corner) shows a mannish woman and frankly, it's too tenuous a claim to believe it to be a likeness of Katherine Howard.

The title, The Boleyn Inheritance, seems to be a joke at Jane Boleyn's expense. Gregory doesn't spare the woman who gave false testimony - thereby inuring her husband's reputation in scandal of the most gross order. She is coldly systematic in her conniving and displays a mannered ease in everything she does for Norfolk.

The recent published study of Jane, Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford by Julia Fox, doesn't manage to salvage her reputation one bit - as most of the reviewers have already stated. Could this be another instance of historical fiction masquerading as fact? Or plain determination to sell a book with a teasing title like that based on conjectures?

Let me BLOG.

Genie sent me a Christmas card and I got a bit exasperated. I thought we stopped that strange meaningless tradition between ourselves of sending cards for a religious holiday we have no part in... Genie dear, if you're reading this, don't send me Christmas cards anymore. I don't care about Christmas - you know that. Now I have to go shopping for cards. Pfft.

Did anyone catch the CNN/YouTube Republican debate? I don't have cable TV anymore but of coourse, I'm going there. The worst thing about not having cable: missing my one day a week dose of Anderson Cooper. -_- I love that guy.

I need to get a new bag and a pair of ballet flats that are black in colour. The ones I have now are a flashy gold. I like gold shoes for all my conservative tendency for dressing in earthy tones. My weak point.

A somewhat Christmassy question: What is your favourite brand of chocolate?

Title: Vile Bodies
Author: Evelyn Waugh
Genre: Fiction, 20th century classics
Publication: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition (3 Feb 2000)
Paperback: 256 pages
ISBN: 0141182873
Endcap: 2.5/5

The good things first. The cover is absolutely stunning. It's an original illustration from Vanity Fair, 1928. The novel starts out funny, quaint jazz age, English upper crust funny. Every English aristocrat knows the other. Miss Runcible is too, too ridiculous. And the minor characters like the Drunk Major and Father Rothschild are usually amusing to the reader. However, the novel's 'protagonist', Adam Symes, and his girlfriend, Nina Blount, are thoroughly boring. I understand that the rich are supposed to be thoroughly bored with their lives but to subject me, the reader, to their boredom is unpardonable. I felt very let down.

Somehow or other, the novel feels extremely dated. I love reading classics and I like history and all that, but as long as it's relevant. I don't think Vile Bodies deserves a spot in the modern classics. It is sometimes a chore to get through a page of inane chatter - I suppose that's the whole point of the book. People had not one thing to do except fall from chandeliers and kill themselves before they turn 30 or pretend sophistication when they're unbelievably wet behind the ears. It's a wonder what Holden Caulfield would do were he unleashed into the society of the Bright Young Things...

He sends me emails and demands that I give him his Children's Day present. What can one do in such a situation? Raise an eyebrow and get the criminal cheap candy...

Things are looking up. I feel rather more positive after almost 7 months of disgusted work related issues. I think I can safely state that I will only be doing my own goddamned work and not everyone else's. A person left and it's worked out to make life easier for me. I'm thinking I shan't be boring any soul with any restlessness and wailing. I was getting bored with myself playing the banshee - and I'm such a self-satisfied twit to start with. So that means a big deal.

I should go out and watch a movie. Like Stardust or The Golden Compass (the latter when it opens of course). I should let my hair down and consume lots of cheap wine seeing that's what I can afford anyhow.

I have fashioned my sobriquet without realising that it's the same name they have for a fashion label and a stupid fashion magazine. Are the two even connected? Don't be quick to judge me. I'll make the job easier for you and do so myself. I have no idea if the 2 are intertwined or one of the same thing. They have the same font style on their logos. Hmm. A mighty puzzle.

I fashioned my name out of Lotus-eater. L.E. Eee. Very signifcant, no?

I noticed the second curious thing for the day. My recent entries fall either on Tuesdays or Mondays. It's a sad fact of my life that I have time only on Blue Monday and bothersome Tuesday. What is Tuesday's quality? I think it's bothersome. Perhaps it might even be terrible Tuesday or tea-bag Tuesday. What do you think?

New layout that features an old design. I'm not in a hurry to tweak everything now. I'll sit back and admire my darling Rochestor. I love that guy. And Johnny Depp was a sucky Rochestor, don't you think?

DeVotchKa is now my favourite band.