TV Feast

I came home from CAB and promptly fell asleep. It was a tough morning, no clients for the first few hours so the time dragged and I was on the brink of going home when it suddenly got busy. A cup of tea when you're tired can act like a strong sniff of sal volatile, and I had mine with toast and blackberry jam. These dark evenings are so strange still; closing curtains and blinds over early and then contemplating the long hours ahead isn't always a terrific prospect, but once I lit the woodburner the sitting room was deliciously cosy. I was feeling cross because an article in the Times reported that thin people with a bit of fat around their waist were much more likely to die young than fat people. It came hard on the heels of the piece yesterday warning that the WHO and other bodies were about to dramatically lower the safe drinking levels. In fact a glass of wine a night, even a small one, was also going to take years off your life. What the f***! Should I order my coffin now, get in early before the Christmas rush?

I did what I almost never do and watched wall-to-wall TV. Call it escapism, but sometimes you need to switch off and just vegetate. Still, I wasn't unselective. I'd recorded a film some time ago that I thought I must have seen but couldn't remember, and so I flicked onto Babette's Feast, Danish with subitles. I wasn't expecting much, but what an enchanting story it turned out to be. Two beautiful sisters living in a remote hamlet in Jutland with their pastor father and the rest of the plain-living community eschew love in the pursuit of godliness. As they reach middle age, into their lives comes Babette, a French refugee who stays to cook and housekeep for them. The years pass happily until the sisters decide to hold a modest dinner to commemorate the centenary of the long-dead father's birth. At the same time the penniless Babette wins the French lottery and begs to be allowed to cook a special meal for them. Who knew that she had been Paris's most legendary chef at the best restaurant? She spends her entire winnings on the meal which includes real turtle soup, quails in coffins and the finest French wines. Cue boggle-eyed straight-laced villagers experiencing these wonders, and Babette in the small kitchen, masterful, brilliant, generous, ecstatic. It really was enchanting.

Still smiling, I flicked around a bit and found the last 15 minutes of Billy Elliot where the father takes him to London for an audition and then tries to make enough money to allow him to go to the Royal Ballet School. The ending, the ultra-magnificent fully grown Billy leaping onto the stage as the star of Swan Lake in front of his incredulous father and brother in the audience is an instant show stopper. Words just can't express how powerful, how moving it is.

I finally went upstairs to bed, and once undressed I decided to measure my waist and hips with my hairdryer flex. The waist must not be more than 90% of the hips, and what a surprise I got. My waist is tiny, my hips not large but much wider. I'm not going to die! Open a bottle of wine!