Pheasants, shoplifting and fanatics

Finished yesterday, Ottoman Fanatics, Dixons at the front, Hinchliffe with the sword & shield.

"Come and get some if you think you're hard enough"

Phil the pheasant has returned after his summer away.

Most of the day he just sits in the middle of the border, as though hiding, an activity for which he is very well camouflaged. He makes the occasional foray to the feeders but otherwise remains very quiet and still. One morning I went out to collect the feeders and he rather awkwardly limped away, not very far. He has an injured right leg, so maybe the injury and the quiet sitting in the border are linked. Out in the fields he got an injury and he has come back to recover.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the Cityscreen Cinema in York to see this Japanese film. I knew it had some wonderful, glowing reviews and that it was a Cannes Film Festival winner. I was not disappointed. It is a delightful, small film based around a family that is on the edge of society and the economy and they are struggling to survive. That survival includes day labouring jobs, precarious cleaning jobs, the sex industry and shoplifting. There's no CGI, no car chases or gratuitous sex and violence, just a massive secret at the heart of the family that slowly unfolds. I am agreeing with those wonderful, glowing reviews.