Five-second reviews

Harry Potter and The Whatever it is These Days: Harry, Hermione and Ron go camping and get very cold. Other stuff happens. I didn't care, I was just high on the fact that I was watching a movie in the cinema with my husband and no children. It was good, mindless fun. I suspect it would be totally incomprehensible if you hadn't read the book.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society: My optimistic aeroplane book, finished thanks to the total lack of Internet and tiny number of functioning TV channels at my parents' house. It was excellent, just the way I like my books - stealthily educational, tackling a serious subject (the German occupation of Guernsey during WWII) with a light touch and a lovely story. Go and read it, if you haven't already.

Going the Distance: Aeroplane movie #2, all of which I saw, with sound, while Mabel slept on me. The Apple guy and Drew Barrymore fall in love and pursue a long-distance relationship in the current economic climate (i.e. neither of them can just move and expect to find a decent job once they get there). With my extensive experience of LDRs (well, just the one, but a lot of it), this resonated with me, but the ending was annoying. [Spoiler coming up, so look away if you care that much...] When you've wished and hoped to be with your loved one full-time, moving to a city six-hours' drive away is a step in the right direction, but by no means a resolution. In fact, it's almost more annoying to be tantalizingly closer. When I moved to the US, I didn't move to a different city, or my own apartment on the other side of the same city - I moved into my boyfriend's bed, in my boyfriend's bedroom, in my boyfriend's apartment. Anything else would not have sufficed.

Salt: Aeroplane movie #3, mostly without sound, because Mabel woke up. Angelina Jolie is a double, triple, quadruple backward-triple-salka agent. Or is she? All I know is she looks funny as a dusty blonde.

Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow: The weather made me want to re-read this one, when I was within easy reach of my own bookshelf. Funnily enough, I remembered a lot about the first part, in the city; not a lot about the second, on the ship; and nothing at all about the denouement; which made it a satisfying finish, but I still think it meanders too much in the middle.