I would pretty much agree with Kymm's comments, that is was a wonderful movie, "another, but not quite Four Weddings and a Funeral" with a similarly well acted quirky supporting staff that was definitely worth seeing. No, it's not Four Weddings and a Funeral, you can't expect that, but it's, you know, 3 or 3 1/2 stars. How embarrassing, I found myself shedding a tear or two as they fumbled their way toward eternal happiness.

As an aside, men are only allowed a tear at the funerals of close family members: children, wives, mothers and fathers and during eulogies for fallen comrades, preferably comrades who bravely fall on an enemy grenade in the madness of battle to save your life. I shed a tear at the very thought. As an ex-officer, however, this is unlikely, since only the very scattered and disturbed throw themselves on an enemy grenade to save a lieutenant. More likely they stumbled. You hoped, at the very best, that none of your men would throw any of their own grenades into your foxhole while you were sleeping, but that's another subject.

I assume everyone can relate to a Notting Hill or a Four Weddings and a Funeral, at least for a moment: the idea of the true love, that it exists and that it floats out there somewhere just above our heads. At my age and the age of most of the people who read this we've had time to develop some experience with the matters of love and partnership, many of you more, I think, than I. None of it is easy, none of it is as advertised: Mr. and Ms. Right fade with time and the paint begins to chip, sometimes over the years, more often overnight. Still, life, as it reveals more of what it's about, shows its secrets, and not all of them are bad in the love and partnership part.

I've been a bachelor all my life. I like the ladies, I believe I have the courage to say differently if I didn't, but I have never married, although I think the opportunity has presented itself on different occasions, particularly when there was still the chance of children. I'm not particularly pretty, but I'm not particularly not. I can tell you exactly the weight at which more things become possible for the Proprietor or, at least, I could once. I've had lovers and I've had partners over the years, but they haven't lasted long unless you think in terms that these things never really end, at least at some emotional level somewhere deep down where you don't often visit, except, perhaps, after a movie like Notting Hill.

So I came home late this afternoon and made some dinner and started this, putting a record or two on the turntable that I haven't played in years. Judy Collins singing the Beatles "In My Life", hell, the Beatles singing "In My Life" and others. I have many others. I've learned that most things I've done in my life were done with a purpose and I don't regret most things done and most things not. In retrospect they made sense, but like everyone else, every now and then, I like to see a film like Notting Hill with some proper repartee and a couple with intelligence working toward something we've all heard of and maybe some of us have attained, but all of us, at least for a time, have experienced. I had a friend once who lived at Notting Hill Gate. She once worked for the Beatles, come to think of it. Perhaps I will think of her, this evening, and play more music.