Some random recommendations

OK - some random recommendations :

I advise watching the following films:

The Notorious Bettie Page
Lovely film in both colour and black and white.
Most fascinating part of this is appreciating the complete naiveity of Bettie's attitude to her work. Or, in complete opposite, her absolute broad-mindedness in relation to nudity and 'costume poses'. I can't make my mind up on that - the two seem to meld together oddly.
Apparently Dita Von Teese went up for the role and was refused. I think this was a good call, both for the film and Dita's career. Bettie was clearly an original and fell into her position as Pin Up Queen; Dita has consciously developed a similar status and positively courts comparison with Bettie. Had she taken the role, she risked being labelled as a mere Bettie-wannabe and thus lose credibility.. rather than earning the position as a modern Pin Up in her own right.

As for benefits for the film, merely because Dita knows Bettie perhaps more than anyone else on the stage at the moment, and of course sported the famous Bettie haircut for some years, doesn't give her the requisite skills for conveying the role. They were right to use a bona fide actress for it. Perhaps people would have seen 'Dita' rather than 'Bettie' in the celluloid too.

Once
Being a sucker for romance and musicals, this was high on my to watch list. It disappointed in no way except that
*SPOILER*
they DIDNT end up together :(((
But actually... despite the fact I was wringing my skirt the whole way through due to my pre-sentiment they may not in fact end up in a lover's bliss, I was kind of appreciative of that the writer hadn't gone for the easy ending. To such an extent he even chose to deny us a tearful farewell!
If you are a fan of acoustic singer-songwriters, I'd be surprised if you didn't love the score. The protaganists/singers voices are PERFECTLY suited and for an UK film, a lot of which I find stressful to watch, it was very relaxing. There was raising of the fact of hardships that Eastern-European immigrants suffer but the film managed to balance social realism with an essentially idealistic and romantic purpose. France always seems to do this better than the UK . UK films I find tend to be clumsy-handed and can only ever acheive one over the other.

FOOD

Chilli Chocolate
Yes it's old-hat and I'm sure most have tried it but I recently went to a Harvey Nics 'Chocolate and Wine' evening and was blown away by a dark chocolate and chilli variety (of a producer/ label I am afraid I can't remember). If, like me, you had not tried it before, YOU MUST! It REALLY brings out the dryness of bitter chocolate in a most excellent manner.

James Bond 'Scrambled Eggs'

Essentially, you cook the eggs over a low heat for about fifteen minutes, with the addition of disgusting heart-attack amounts of butter. The eggs must never catch, and they must be stirred pretty much CONSTANTLY. OBVIOUSLY add salt and pepper, and then a choice of parmesan (about two mins before service) OR finely chopped garlic (it DOES actually do well in here - about eight mins before service) OR herbed cream cheese (same as with parmesan for addition timing) OR fresh cut herbs OR nothing!... depending on your taste buds... Christ, I have lived with someone who added lemon curd to fried rice and tuna once with the explanation/indefensible defense it was equating to 'sweet and sour'!!!! Who am I to judge your culinary delectation?

('James Bond' eggs BTW as Fleming gives a full description of Bond making eggs this way in the short story '007 in New York' - it has now been included in edited versions of Octopussy and The Living Daylights. Fascinating!)

Final recommendation is

High Tea

High Tea will be blogged soon - it is amusingly serving as the cornerstone of my family's Easter and an absolutely inappropriate amount of conversation has been had on the intricacies of this. It thoroughly deserves a posting in its own right.