Don't Talk To Strangers

It's early, despite the extra hour with the clocks having gone forward and I’m knackered. L obviously isn’t but I’m not one for fighting her off.

I get up and do some training for next Sunday’s Shepshed race. Surprisingly Doggo seems keen to join me. We do our usual route; we are creatures of habit. I think he's relieved to get a rest when we see someone we know and stand chatting for five minutes or so. He lays down, a heaving mass in the long grass. The run goes well, for both of us. We don’t see many other dogs and he runs by my side for quite a stretch.

I head off to Derby for the match and drop L and Daughter in Derby at the same time. They check out the new shopping centre but don't stick it for long, retreating to the tranquillity of Sadler Gate.

Today's match preview says that Everton deserve a break after being victims of some strange refereeing decisions last week. They should count themselves lucky, we were victims of some strange management decisions last week, and there's more today. If the aim was to score goals we'd have started the game with more than one striker on the pitch. Not until there's half-an-hour to go do we finally get to see the invisible man unwrap his bandages and finally make an appearance. At last the Miller/Earnshaw combination that everyone wants to see. Well, for all of three minutes before Howard comes on as well and Miller is moved onto the wing, so we're still none the wiser.

Overall it's a poor, error-strewn performance and Everton win at a canter 2-0. Some natives are calling for a new manager; a popular choice is Graeme Souness. Which shows what little people know, what's he ever achieved as a manager? People can't complain, everyone put up with our great leader's tactics last season because we were thrashing teams 1-0 despite often being played off the park. Unfortunately you can't bore teams into submission in this division. In my opinion, Billy Davies got us into this mess by getting us promoted, so he can sort it out.

We spend the evening in the company of my favourite author Ian McEwan. I haven't read any of his books but I'm working my way through all the films. We watch the Comfort of Strangers on DVD. L thinks we've seen it before and she may be right but I don't have a memory for these things. Harold Pinter also had a hand in it, so you know it's going to be extra weird.

A thirty something not-so-happy couple called Colin and Mary (Natasha Richardson and Rupert Everett) return to Venice, the scene of a previous holiday, seemingly to decide whether or not to continue their relationship. The obvious answer seems to be a very definite no. They must annoy each other because they both annoy me. Neither can seem to summon up much interest in the other, yet Mary seems to want Colin to propose to her or at least move in with her.

Then they meet the local psychopath, a bar owner named Robert, played by Christopher Walken. Walken is, as ever, excellent. They are strangely drawn to him and to his equally strange wife, Caroline, played by Helen Mirren, who seem to have an unnaturally intense interest in them and whose marriage seems to be a perverted mixture of violence and lust.

Colin and Mary are appalled by all this but at the same time are still drawn to it. In fact it seems to stimulate them. Suddenly, as Colin and Mary continue their holiday, they find that their interest in each other has been rekindled. In fact they seem to be constantly making love. Energized by this, Colin finally feels ready to commit himself to Mary but she feels energized too and brushes his offer aside. It no longer seems to be enough for her.

Then there’s the ending, almost straight out of Eastern Promises, where Colin becomes the victim in Robert and Caroline's perverse game.

One message to take from the film is to do what your mother always told you and ‘Don't talk to strangers’.

L’s watched the whole thing in her French knickers. She knows what I’ll think she’s after in that sort of outfit. I take her to bed to talk psychopaths.

I've been taking this relaxing the units idea a bit too seriously. 39 of them this week.