Grumpy old men - 2

For one reason or another, we hadn't been to the Film Society recently - till last night. "The Guard" (released in 2011) is Irish noir, laced with good visual jokes. There were jokes in the script too, but many of them passed me by: never have I found the words of an English-language film so difficult to grasp. A strong case for subtitles throughout!

Delivering Christmas cards earlier, I dropped one in at Catherine Shinn. Her father, Catherine said, was at home decorating an absurdly large Christmas tree: "we don't do minimalism," she added - unnecessarily, if you have ever been to her magnificent shop: see my photograph.

I bumped into another of my "by hand" card recipients as she walked homewards with the shopping: recently having flown back from a pilgrimage/holiday in the Holy Land, she justified her failure to send conventional cards this year by a desire to save trees. Really!!

Which brings me onto the great airport debate, raging anew this week - mostly about where extra capacity should be built. The leader in today's Guardian stands alone, reminding readers that roads (and runways) breed traffic. "The old Mr Cameron," it goes on, "warned that If we don't act now, and act quickly, we could face disaster from the climate. That danger has not gone away, and neither have Whitehall's own projections for a 50% rise of aviation emissions by 2050, projections that make a mockery of a supposedly binding commitment to cut 80% out of total greenhouse gases by the same date."