Two Notes

First, that one of my favourite poets, Craig Raine – who wrote A Martian Sends a Postcard Home – has a long piece in the last TLS, "I remember my mother dying". It is less opaque than much of his other work, and very moving.

Second, that The Squid and the Whale finally came to Pittsburgh, and it is an extraordinary film. It has something of the feel of Wes Anderson's movies – he was a producer of this one – and a similar line in feckless, self-involved, male protagonists. Jeff Daniels is the equal of Bill Murray in Rushmore and The Life Aquatic, or Gene Hackman in The Royals Tenenbaums. The child actors are magnetic. I can't remember when I last saw a film I so much wanted not to end.