49Up

Being sans hubby for a week I have fully embraced the idea of Netflix instant streaming - and yes this is going somewhere. 49Up showed up on my documentary queue. We were made to watch the original 7Up at school. The saying goes 'give me a boy until he is seven and I will show you the man'

Every 7 years film maker Michael Apted goes back to the same group of kids. At seven they were rich kids at prep school, poor kids from the east end, several kids in a children's home. The two standouts for me were the boy who wanted to be a jockey (Tony?) and the girl who wanted to work in Woolworths. Apted documents the twists and turns they lives have taken. Jackie - the want-to-be shop assistant made the most impression on me because she told Apted she hated doing the films. She said that to be wrenched out of your comfort zone every seven years as a form of entertainment was emotionally draining. It got me thinking, how would my own life measure up to that and would I have the raw courage this lot have shown in allowing themselves to be shown warts and all. How honest would I be? How honest would you be? Think about it.

Picked up an arc of The Hypnotist by MJ Rose yesterday. I've read one of her earlier books Flesh Tones but that was a couple of years ago. I also put a yes please sticker on the new Sebastian Faulks, A week in December.