THE LAST JEDI

Well...good in parts, like the curate's egg.

The franchise can still get away with retelling the same story, right down to the same dialogue and still keep fans happy. A few surprises. A few too many cute new beasts. A better representation of women in fighting and command positions.

Daisy Ridley still great as Rey. Mark Hamill adequate, and I'm glad they gave him a substantial part this time (apparently he worked out for 10 months preparing for the last film, and then found he was only getting 30 seconds of screen time). Carrie Fisher looking her age - RIP, this was her curtain call.

When all is said and done, you can't NOT see it if you're a Star Wars buff -- but it did strain my personal buffness a bit.

The Spy Who Never Got Too Old

Just finished le Carre's latest and a fine stroll down the Cold War memory lane it was.

Peter Guillam is hauled out of retirement by newgen British intelligence to answer awkward questions about an operation gone awry when the Berlin Wall was still going up. An operation run by his mentor, Smiley, who is currently 'unavailable'. As the plot thickens we realize it is the back story to 'The Spy who came in from the Cold' (in fact, if le Carre errs, it is in assuming the reader still remembers the details of his 1963 masterpiece).

Dramatis personae include such Circus regulars as Alec Leamas, Jim Prideaux, Bill Haydon, Toby Esterhase and a young Connie Sachs.

Rich in tradecraft and Iron Curtain atmosphere, the book has its flaws - not the best plotted spy story - but le Carre's espioprose is as strong as ever (he's 86, I believe). And, as always, his characters are weighed in the scales of moral dilemma and the human cost is examined as closely as the the payoff from the operation.

Four-Way Read

As a lover of palindromes, I was chuckling over the cleverness of "Naomi, sex at noon taxes", I moan." when my wife pointed out that the truly complex one was written more than 2,000 years ago and found in the the ashes of Pompeii.

The Sator Square.

Roughly translated as 'The farmer Arepo works with wheels', scholars have been arguing the meaning of this cryptic sentence for generations -- including rearranging the letters around the central 'N' to form 'Pater Noster' horizontally and vertically, and therefore connotations of a secret Christian message.

To me, it's just the astounding symmetry of a sentence that can be read in all 4 directions.

  Goodnight, Carlos.

I idly googled Castaneda just now, and found that he is dead.

He had withdrawn from public life after Time magazine had described him (rather unkindly, I thought) as "an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a tortilla".

He lived in a big house with some other students of Don Juan and continued his experiments (?) with perception and alternative reality right up until his death from cancer in 1998. Nobody knew he was gone and his passing was not made public till many months later.

Back in the day his writings had an unsettling effect on me -- I felt he was on to something, but I wasn't certain what it was. And, yes, it did make me want to try peyote.

But one thing I am positive about - he believed. He wasn't a Lobsang Rampa, milking the metaphysical for all it was worth.

So good night, Carlos, and I hope you found what you were looking for.