1665 and all that

Paint a red cross on our door; carry a bouquet of flowers to ward off the stench of approaching death. My cast-iron constitution has turned rusty and I've caught PJ's cold. And it's a stinker. Headache, sore threat, blocked sinuses, and aching limbs -- although that could be the result of yesterday's yoga class. I'm knocking back the paracetmol, hot lemon and honey, and waiting for the phelgm generation to start. If the pile of moist tissues that PJ's stockpiling around the house are anything to go by, I'll be hacking away with the best of them by tomorrow.

I'm not sure that my feeling of apathy has been helped by my choice of entertainment. This morning, I finished off "Out" by Natsuo Kirino, a novel I picked up in Cardiff last weekend. This was a gruesome tale of disappointed women and dismembered husbands -- far more gory than I had expected, with details of the advantages of scalpels over sashimi knives for chopping up errant men and the erotic pleasure to be had from raping a woman while stabbing her to death. Yep, a typical light-hearted Japanese romp. The cover art should have given it away: It's a picture of a bloody plug, with more blood washing down the plug hole. (For some reason -- temporary blindness, perhaps? -- this didn't register with me when I picked up the novel, or even after I started reading it; only this morning did I recognize what it was.) It's the second deeply unpleasant novel I've read in quick succession, after the unremittingly grim "We Need To Talk About Kevin", by Lionel Shriver. Now that's a book to put you off having children for good.

Perhaps to cleanse my palate after this gorefest, I watched the second in the Ozu trilogy I bought some months ago. Early Summer was a languid delight with tatami mats and kimonos galore; the only knives used were to cut up slices of delicious-looking shortcake. It's the sort of movie that makes me want to return to happier, more innocent days -- where women were giggly and submissive, men were grumpy and shouted, and heart specialists smoked on the wards. However, lots of static shots and minimal dialogue did tend to reinforce my lethargy, and getting up to write this was a real challenge. Time for some more drugs and tea.

(PJ is also fighting off his cold with Japanese culture, but his takes the form of pretending to be a valkyrie named Lennith and collecting souls to fight alongside him/her in Valhalla. Don't ask. Whoever said that video games lead to ADHD haven't seen the fierce concentration and dedication with which PJ can work through a game. In fact, if you were foolish enough to have children, I can't see why you wouldn't buy them one as soon as their little hands were big enough to hold the control pads: Keeps 'em quiet for hours.)