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To have a proper weekend, with no pressure in it, is really comforting. At last we had one of those. There was work to do, but not so much that you get all resentful and cross. And there was time for catching up in the flat, which had got into a muddle. We used up all the Thanksgiving turkey (at last -- sandwiches, sandwiches, pie, sandwiches, pie, more sandwiches...), had parsnip soup, and actually got round to slicing the oranges for pudding. We got the hannukah gifts together in time to post to Arizona. I de-pilled, washed and pressed my cashmere jumpers (very pleasing), darned holes in other jumpers and in socks (only irritation -- these had only been worn twice. Bad American Apparel. That's my punishment for buying things from a pornographer), and managed to read more Dickens (doing more of that today). Then on Saturday evening we went to see The Master in the good cinema down the road where the seats and comfy and they let you drink wine. A pretty strange film, but so beautiful to look at. The lighting, camera work, settings and everything were in a very appealing colour palette that felt very 1950s and was a real treat to gaze at. So many millions of times better than the BBC's The Hour. What's going on with that programme? It should be so good -- the actors are pretty good in other things, the costumes are lovely and the idea is sharp. But the script is desperate, and the directing has to be the worst ever -- who can get people like Anna Chancellor and Romola Garai to say things with all the charm and subtlety of a brick? Watching this feels like you're stuck in a small pub on a hot afternoon in the Edinburgh fringe watching an ex-publisher who's decided in her mid-50s that it was the stage she was made for after all, but that she delivers lines in a way that no human has ever spoken before (yes, that was my afternoon this summer) -- to achieve such sow's ears from silk purses is really special (...).