(no subject)

There are times - and this is one of them - where a strict vow of apostolic poverty seems not just morally excellent, but extremely attractive, not to say the only convincing model of existence.

... only I know I'd miss the books and pictures really. I could do without the wildly varying styles of dress just now, though, including the evening dress which exposure to St Andrews and Oxford made me pack as a necessity, and hasn't been off the hanger once.

Nearly Packed

... just finishing my coffee before proceeding, since I was up til quarter past two last night (stopping only when I realised that my incompetence at duct-taping a cardboard box was a bad sign on the whole).

In other news, BBC to do The Thirty Nine Steps on the telly. Would like to be excited, especially as I don't like either of the films (the Hitchcock one's a decent thriller, but only if you disassociate it with Buchan), but I actually feel sligthly apprehensive:

"With this adaptation we wanted to stay faithful to the spirit and period of the book, but asked the writer, Lizzie [Mickery], to feel free to reimagine it for a modern audience more familiar with James Bond and Jason Bourne," said producer Lynn Horsford.

Apart from the fact that I had to think quite hard about who Jason Bourne is, I have a bad feeling about that: apart from anything else (I assume that means a MY LUV INTEREST IZ PAINTED ON YAY! - the poetical innkeeper? - but I don't see what they can do with the high tech angle)*, the 'innocent blunders into nefarious scheme' is quite a different genre to Bond or even Bourne (it would be easier to do Mr Standfast that way, though it would probably ruin what's best about the book); arguably, that's where Hitchcock is just to the book, although what comes out in the end is almost 100% him rather than Buchan.


* Admittedly having the hero hunted by an aeroplane in a book set in early summer 1914 is possibly the most Bondish touch in the book - shiny new technology! - but I'm not sure how easy it is to bring this shock of the new over to a modern audience.