Fillums

I am trying to get back into the habit of going to the cinema once a week with tea_cantata. In the past two weeks we have seen:

• Stage Beauty: a fictional version of the un-banning of women from the stage by Charles II, putting Ned Kynaston (Billy Crudup), star actor of female roles, out of work and allowing his dresser (Claire Danes) to take his place. It's very funny and very sexy (though not historically accurate).
• The Motorcycle Diaries: an intriguing dramatisation of the travels of Ernesto "Che" Guevara (played by Gael Garcia Bernal) around South America as a young man. He travelled with his friend Alberto Granado, starting out on a clapped-out motorcycle but later resorting to hitchhiking. Guevara kept a diary and each of them later wrote a book about the journey. It's basically a road movie but provides a little background to Guevara's later political activity. Well worth seeing.

I've also watched, on tape:

• Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore: Alice Hyatt, widowed and broke, tries to support herself and her annoyingly precocious son. A lot of people seem to like this one but I didn't really appreciate it. It seems sloppy and clichéd to me, but maybe that's just a sign of its time (1974). Plus a lot of the dialogue was muffled (but maybe that's just my ear at fault).

I've just started a trial of LoveFilm, the DVD subscription rental service. I used the promotional code CSCAM to get a 30 day trial period rather than the regular 14 days. I'm not sure it's really worth £20/month so I probably won't continue after the trial, but I'll see how it goes.

Pardon?

My hearing has been a bit dull for the last two weeks or so, following a cold. I've never had trouble hearing before, except for a while after going to noisy nightclubs, and it's very annoying. I thought this was probably due to a build-up of wax that would clear itself up without treatment but it doesn't seem to be doing so. tea_cantata has used ear candles to clear out her ears in the past, so I tried them, but they didn't get any wax out at all. I went to the doctor on Friday to find out what was wrong, and after looking in my ears she told me the problem is wax after all. I suppose the wax is just too hard for the candles to work on it. So I'm supposed to put some ear drops in to soften the wax and then have my ears syringed. I don't think I can put ear drops in by myself though, so I'll probably have to wait till tea_cantata gets back from her trip.

Update: Yes, I realise ear candles are quack medicine now. I was deeply sceptical in the first place.