Chthoni/ya

So, once again almost a fortnight has passed between entries. Not a lot has happened - job applications, a day in London protesting about the IMF, a weekend party with an friend I met in Scotland who (thankfully) has moved into the area, more job applications, fun with the dole office...

Didn't get a peep about the first library job I applied for, which was a bit depressing. I'm hoping it was because they had an internal candidate rather than because my application was crap (though I hate hate hate it when organisations [have to] advertise when they already know perfectly well whom they want in the job) though I suppose they might have thought I was overqualified, which is a bit more worrying. Still, I've applied for a couple of graduate trainee library jobs and I've a couple more to put in, so I'll just keep my fingers crossed. Meanwhile I have an interview for a (hopefully) temporary office job. I'm not so keen on looking enthusiastic about a job that my heart isn't in (I much prefer the kind of temping where they just send you there), but it would be nice to have some money and some daily exercise, and temping's always intruiging for seeing behind closed doors.


Went to see The Queen a couple days ago. I usually find films about real people really strange, as it's difficult to adjust to people looking slightly wrong - and it's even stranger when the people are contemporary, though not having had a TV (and correspondingly having seen fewer images) over the last year might have helped. The cinema was disappointingly empty and soulless (oh God, I miss Edinburgh at times) but there was still a fair bit of shared laughter and the film held my attention all the way through.

I read a review of the film a week or so back that said it was a sad reflection on the British film industry that there with this much talent here we don't have more successful films (yes, we Brits can always find something to moan about) and that we should learn from this film's success - that (I paraphrase) rather than making films featuring images of ourselves that we think will sell abroad such as foppish, socially inept Londoners or gritty northerners (though I can't imagine why he thinks filmmakers think gritty northerness is a selling point), we should make more films aimed at the domestic audience - films that, like this one, focus on a British event and deal with a very British subject (the role of the royal family vs the Prime Minister, and the nature of the 'British people').

Er, no. What subject could be more calculated to appeal to the American market than an 'inside look' at the royal family? Particularly when they include news clips from American TV stations but not from any other country's media except the UK; the Commonwealth countries' media would have been rather more relevant to the plot of the film.

Still, it's worth seeing - for me the thoughts provoked made up for the winces induced by occasionally clunky dialogue and laboured symbolism. And a nostalgia trip is always interesting, particularly as at the time of Diana's death I was in Scotland, from where the whole business was regarded with some bemusement.