mybackup2022 | Jan. 31st, 2009

Which is one of the perks of taking Fridays off work. Just when I begin to sink into slight Sunday-afternoon-grumpiness, I remember that it's only Saturday, and I have what seems like an infinite amount of time before the working week starts again.

Yesterday was (feline) Lucius's 6th birthday. It got me thinking - if I'm lucky, I'll have ze boyz around for twice that amount of time, and then... No, it's better not to think about that. But what exactly are ze boyz to me? I've never been the kind of person to anthropomorphize animals, because I'm deeply convinced it isn't a good thing for any of the parties involved. So, even though I call them "ze boyz", I can honestly say that they're not my surrogate children. If I had wanted children I'd have them. On the other hand I'd be lying if I claimed they'e just animals to me. They're companions, I guess, and companions who allow me a maximum of egoism. True, they've also limited my choices - I can't apply for a posting in Canberra or Malta, because I don't want them to go into quarantine, not even for two weeks. I need to plan my holidays very carefully, because I can't just take them with me or leave them on their own for a long time. But it doesn't feel like a sacrifice. It's a way of life I've chosen consciously, and it feels right. The blue-eyed pests have made my life a great deal better.

Deep thoughts on human-cat relationships aside, I watched the BBC adaptations of three of Henning Mankell's Wallander novels with Kenneth Branagh, and I liked them a lot. It's not easy to whittle a four-hundred-page novel down to 90 minutes of film and still end up with a result that does the original credit. But they've managed, not least thanks to an extraordinary director of photography and an excellent screen writer. Branagh looks just the right kind of seedy (although he obviously couldn't bring himself to put on much weight) and Wallander's tormented vulnerability is totally believable. The relationship with his daughter is much better in the films than in the books, and I wonder why they chose to do it that way. In the books, he never quite understands the choices Linda makes for her life, and she's a lot more judgmental about the way he lives his life. It's a difference I can live with, though. The fact that I've always thought Branagh to be rather attractive, whereas I imagine Wallander to be singularly unattractive, is a bit of a problem. But he's still a great actor, and the films are certainly worth watching. As are, in fact, the extra features.

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