Day 25: My afternoon with Marilyn

Today starts, sullen and dank.  Thanks to an inconsiderately late piece of rescheduling, I have a free day - a brilliant opportunity to make new friends, start an exciting project, do a good deed for a neighbour.  Instead I slink off to the cinema alone, and bury myself in the darkness of the back row to watch 'My Week With Marilyn'.  I'm an off-peak fan - I prefer daylight hours, when normal people should be at work.  And I like to slip into my seat and fade into the fabric silently - no popcorn, nachos or slurpy drink.  Today there are pensioners dotted about.  They mark their territory with strong old lady perfume, crackly boiled sweet wrappers, the pop of tupperware, and constant chat.  After every advert and trailer - fluttering and clucking, like roosting hens.  The new John Lewis advert is cause for much general approval. 

But not from me.  I sit in the darkness revolted by the saccharine yarn - the child who can't wait for Christmas Day, and crosses the days off on the calendar before he can open his presents give his parents his badly-wrapped gift.  (What an unexpected twist - see how those basilisk-eyed ad execs toy with our emotions!).  And the soundtrack is horrible.  A fey lisping version of my favourite Smith's song - the bittersweet 'Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want'.  A broken man's last-ditch prayer for luck to change, and NOTHING to do with Christmas or presents.  So my afternoon with Marilyn gets off to a slightly sour start.  The film isn't brilliant - not one of those that sucks you into the screen and removes you from yourself - but it's enough to change my mood.  And as I leave the cinema, the weather has picked up.  A skittish wind flips my coat over my head, and blows me home, throwing leaves around yobbishly.  Bold and rude.  I like it.

In the kitchen, the reliable pleasure of onion frying with spices.  Turmeric - sweet, dusty, more than yellow.  Cumin, coriander, ginger.  Sweetened with muscovado; sharpened with lime.  Heated with chilli; calmed with coconut milk.  Equations I understand; balance I love.   

So for once in my life
Let me get what I want
Lord knows, it would be the first time