Recollecting.

Something reminded me tonight (I don’t remember what) that during my early days of working at the theatre I had a sort of minor semi-fling with one of the young women there.

Our first date was an unprepossessing affair, being nothing more than a quiet drink at a neutral location – a pub close to where she lived. I was intrigued by her insistence on telling me more than once that she had hairy legs. I suspected a trace of misinformation and assumed she was testing me, maybe assessing my capacity for commitment or something of that ilk.

The relationship bubbled a little but never quite fizzed, and ended in minor tragedy three months later. I spoke to her rather savagely one night because I believed that she had, deliberately or recklessly, trodden on my feelings and I dislike having my feelings trodden on (since what else is there?) And the question of whether her legs were unusually hairy or not remains one of life’s enduring mysteries.

*  *  *

I remembered something else that I did during my recent leave of absence: I watched The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. So what did I think?

Well, I have mixed feelings about Peter Jackson. He does epic very well and he has a great eye for sets and locations, but I do believe his direction can be naïve and heavy-handed at times and he sometimes lacks subtlety (especially when it comes to humour.) Accordingly, I found the Lord of the Rings trilogy highly commendable but with a few flaws. I found The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey little more than flaws. That’s what I thought. And still do.