Force

The house is looking a little emptier now. Though not too empty, as I've still not taken the decorations up into the loft, but left them in a neat pile of boxes at the bottom of the stairs as a final reminder of the recent festivities. Perhaps everything is a little drab, now that the walls are no longer festooned with dazzlingly bright tinselly garlands, nor twinkling faery lights sellotaped around the window frame. It all underlines the generalised dullness associated with this time of the year, when the best you can do is shuffle around the January sales under grey leaden skies, looking for a bargain in the sock department.

But there are some innocent pleasures to be had in this sombre period. I went to see the latest Star Wars last weekend. Usually I only venture out to the cinema to see films starring hobbits or James Bond, so the arrival of the next trilogy in the Star Wars saga will fill a useful gap in my cultural life. It was touching to see again the original cast of Episode IV, though it does make you wonder how well you yourself have aged over the last 35 or so years. Sadly, not as well as Harrison Ford.