Weekend Again

Where does the week dissipate away? I only seem to recollect the weekend these days. I pretend to be doing work Mon-Fri but have so little to show for it at the end. Is tomorrow really Monday?

This is seriously starting to sound like a rant and I don't want it to because I had a really nice, lazy weekend. Sans work. Its been so long since I had one of those late lie-in, encased in sunlight mornings, sauntering at a market, stretching all the way to glorious afternoon in the park ending with white wine and strawberries kind of weekend.

There was another bonus-Zadie Smith. I went to watch her read an excerpt from On Beauty on Saturday. I was there on time but it was already packed. Two middle-aged women sitting at the back exchanged: 'She is so gorgeous'. I think most of them there were mesmerized by the lissom vision. And she read like a dream. To pin-drop silence in the hall. And took all those standard, mundane questions of 'what is your inspiration?', 'who are your influences?' etc which must have been brandished to her thousands of times. With utmost patience. No tantrums, no standoffish shrugs as slagged by the press. There was even a kind of shy bewilderment with all the attention.

Isn't it lovely that a writer you adore doesn't disppoint in person? Of course a cynic may say that its all a show-she needs to be nice now that she's had so much bad press about her atrocious behaviour. I can't be bothered about all that fine print really. She's great (except for brown shoes with black dress fashion faux pas ).

XXXX

On the Rushdie v Greer sequel, two literary giants battle out about whether the filming of Monica Ali's Brick Lane should continue in the area. There's been a big hue and cry by the Bengali community. I come from a country where censorship is a way of life (if you disagree with me, go to this blog). I don't think the protestors even appreciate all that is to be lost by if the filming is to be halted ( I think it already has).

I didn't think that Brick Lane was a particularly good book. I agree with some of the allegations made by the Brick Lane-ites. That the book projected some very stereotypical views about their lives. I don't know whether it is going to make a good movie. But like the book, we can all sit and criticize the film once it's made. Wouldn't that be better?