It's Saturday night and as I write this Sanae is watching 'Emma' with Mrs.-Lead-Singer-of-Coldplay and a lot of period furniture. I'm supposed to be watching it with her, but I have managed to convince her that being in the same room, albeit using a computer and occasionally glancing at the TV, does in fact technically constitute 'watching'.There is no escape from this remorseless sort of matrimonial blackmail - "you don't watch movies with me anymore", is enough to browbeat this ardent cinephile into spending close on 2 hours (there are extras on the DVD) glancing at, sorry, 'watching' what is essentially an extended advert for England's National Trust.
And, I must confess dear reader, I have seen the movie before.
I was young, living in Shibestsu, it was winter - it was pretty much always winter in that part of Hokkaido, and it was either that or drop in on my neighbour Yoshi, and spend the night getting drunk and watching bootleg 'Queen Live in Concert' videos while trying vainly to translate Freddie Mercury's stage patter "Konnichi wa Munich! Mina wa subarashi! Rock shimasho ka?!", etc., etc.
And it's not that I am short of things to watch. Thanks to my good friend Dave's advice I now have the subtitles to go with 'A Separation', 'The Prophet', 'Once upon a time in Anatolia', 'How I ended this summer', but as none of them feature regency houses, candlelit ballrooms, horse drawn carriages, or a disconcertingly long haired Ewan McGregor, they remain banned from the Tenjin-cho big screen.
And so for the purpose of matrimonial movie harmony, I forego, well, pretty much everything beyond the 'romantic comedy' section of my local Tsutaya rental store. As Ms. Austen herself wrote, "Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be in vain".
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