My week in culture

A quick chance to have a look at what I've read / listened to or in some other way culturally digested this week.

- in books, I continued to plough through Ian Kershaw's lucid, revelatory Hitler, and read another 150 pages or so this week. The invasion of the Soviet Union is imminent. In the book. Also read numberless newspapers and blogs, and wasted far too much time on Twitter.

- in film, I watched The King's Speech in the cinema with the wife. A decent, sturdy English film aimed at ticking the usual boxes - royalty, clipped vowels, Colin Firth. I found the exchanges - in particular early on - between Firth and Geoffrey Rush charming and enjoyable. But the dark, complex political backdrop to the film was almost made to feel secondary to the King's hope of curing his stammer. And the film's trite final act rather let down the rest of the story, I thought. But Firth was very good, as usual.
Also watched the preposterous Pacino remake of Scarface and Rogue Trader, the enjoyable if rather chipper account of Nick Leeson's one-man destruction of Barings Bank.

- in TV, I finally picked up the Thick of It, after somehow never getting around to it before. By the end of the first episode, I realised my money was very, very well spent. Note to self: be more like Malcolm Tucker.
I also made a start on the now forgotten about 90s American drama Northern Exposure, which has been delightful at times.

- and in music, I listened to albums by The Doors (who I had not heard for a while), Actress, Kona Triangle, Big Troubles, a number of CDs bought / received over Christmas, some (but not enough) Mozart, and two new mixes, one from Fat Roland and another from Mig Dfoe.