Saw Amélie again on telly last night. God, it's fantastic. It's such an utterly charming confection. Audrey Tatou is supremly gorgeous in it and it's quirky and whimsical in a fabulously French way. Hooray for France; there's more than just a blood-thirsty but up-tempo national anthem to admire!

A second viewing reminded me of seeing it for the first time in the cinema. That day, as I watched I became more and more terrified that "something bad" would happen. I thought no-one could have the courage to make a film these days where the heroine does wonderful things for others and still gets the guy without at least one unexpected fatality. Or at least a close friend, blood relation or cute looking dog falling into a coma. So as I watched I grew increasingly desperate for that not to happen, to the point where (like watching the first ten minutes of Casualty) I expected catastrophe round every corner. Nino will fall of his bike here! Papa Poulain will die in a plane crash! I think if it had been a Hollywood production "something bad" would have happened: the crass emotional shorthand that equates profundity only with tragedy would demand it. But nothing bad did happen, or at least only to the greengrocer. And for all its frothy and fantastical whimsy I think there is a profound point to it: humanity is capable of doing good stuff. For all the horrors of the world (ancient or modern), there are a million happy endings, a million selfless acts, a million quietly altruistic moments. And who's doing this good stuff? People are - humans merely being. Honestly, one dolphin saves a boy from drowing and we're all expected to wonder at the magic of nature and hang our heads in shame for destroying their habitat. I'm sorry about all that but there's a lot more to humankind than war and ecological devastation. Amelie shows us that for a second. Thinking about it, people are like the old yellow pages ad., "we're not just there for the bad things in life". we are the good stuff.

This one is a bit dark, but then it was taken in a cinema so what are you gonna do? I'm actually in the Odeon Marble Arch and there's a broad (and I admit it, slightly toothy) grin on my face. I'm with Lucy and her friend Jenny A; we've just been watching the Return of the King and it's just come to the end. You can probably see people putting their coats on behind me. That light patch by my feet isn't sick by the way: it's popcorn which I spilled having one of my "Cinema Turns" whereby I seem incapable of holding on to a box of popcorn but try to spill it over the person in front of me. I think it’s a kind of Tourette's. Anyhow the film has just finished and it was fantastic: the best of the three and at the end it is very moving and I was in tears. So why the grin?

We'll lets just say I have new sympathy for Peter Jackson and the writers, maybe enough to forgive the "Faramir Debacle" of 2002 (but I won't go there right now). I finally came to understand some of the problems of adapting books for the silver screen. The Return of the King has so many dénouements that after a couple you start to think: "maybe it doesn't end, maybe I'm stuck here for ever, is it for me the Doom of Smeagol: to become a film-wraith trapped in perpetual darkness? Will I never see the (Oxford)Shire again?".

I managed to internalise that profound exchange and refrained from standing on my chair and howling at the projection booth. But it was touch and go for a moment. You see, one heroic climax only leads to another. One minute the screen darkens and people are starting to collect their belongings and coaxing life into lower limbs that have remained inert for the best part of three and a half hours. But the screen lightens again and there's more to come. Poor old PJ: he made plenty of changes to the end of the novel but he was doing his best to be true to the book with the stuff he left in. And that means this cavalcade of exits! As each ending came and went the general hubbub increased. People began to drift out of the cinema: either too embarrassed to go back to their seats when the next scene began or just too desperate to get to the loo. Finally the fateful words "The End" appeared and there was a great spontaneous cheer from around the auditorium. I think everyone had enjoyed it but at last we could get on with our lives. I knew how they felt and hence the enigmatic smile... or, OK, the toothy grin.

Hooo doggies! Today is my last working day before 2nd May 2004! I can't quite get my head around that fact but I'm looking forward to trying.

After Christmas the first destination is Canmore, Alberta for the wedding of my very good friend Ms Ashley Bristowe. After a week of sightseeing, cross-country skiingand dog sledding its back to Blighty for 10 days. Then I'm back to Canada and off to Fernie for 3 months. Didn't know it was possible to feel as lucky as I do right now!