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Have you seen The Lives Of Others about the Stasi watching a playwright in East German in 1984? It's great, isn't it? Mrs F-C and I were particularly taken by Georg Dreyman's flat. It was a really solid, a good size, great decor, nice wood, quite stark and brutal and, considering it was 1984, it looked like 1974, which of course we thought was great.

I believe there's quite a wave of nostalgia in Germany for the old GDR. If I could find the link again I'd direct you to a new hotel in East Berlin furnished in Communist-era fashion. That is, very Seventies, spartan and basic. I've never been to Berlin, but i'm a northern Europe fan, so I do plan to visit at some stage. Mrs F-C went in the old Cold War days, and did the whole looking over the Berlin Wall thing, etc. I'm very envious, finding the whole thing totally fascinating.

That aside, the film is a great drama, with some brilliant actors. The Stasi agent who monitors Dreyman is particularly good. I heard he recently died, which is shame.



On another note, Princess Anne is not aging at all well, is she? More like Princess Man. For about five minutes between 1969 and 1972 she was a bit of a fox. When I say this to people they rubbish the idea. Her purple patch was so brief as to have been wiped from the collective memory, though we all remember getting the day off school for her wedding.

There are some pictures, of which this one is not the best example, where you would have. Perhaps meeting Mark Phillips and surviving a kidnap attempt made her dispense with vanity and frivolity and resolve to become the hard-faced, wreath-haired old moo cow she is today.