High heels

I have added a poll at the right-hand side - High heels: Empowering for women or the contemporary equivalent of Chinese foot-binding?

Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments below in support of your beliefs.

Designer Warehouse Sale, London

Next date, November 30

Bring sharp elbows

Hollywood Writers' Strike

I support. There's an old joke about the starlet who was so stupid that she slept with the scriptwriter. American tv is in its golden age at the moment, and that's because of the phenomenal quality of the writing. So pay for it.

Comrades, the massed ranks of the Society of Authors are behind you all the way.

Meanwhile, aspiring writers who think there's a living to be made from literature, should check this out.

Jellyfish

Last night I saw the second London screening of the film Jellyfish directed by my friend Etgar Keret and written by his wife, actress Shira Geffen.

They won the Camera D'Or at Cannes this year.

A young waitress whose boyfriend has just left her finds a little girl wearing nothing but a rubber ring around her body, wandering on the beach. A Filipino care worker, a long way from home, looks after the cantankerous mother of a busy actress while homesick for her own little boy. A bride gets locked into the toilet at her wedding reception, climbs over the top of the compartment and injures her leg, so they have to honeymoon at home. A beautiful woman has taken a hotel suite all by herself.

These stories play out separately, occasionally interconnecting. The sea, full of mysteries, draws all of them, vivid and blue. Full of longings, hidden pain, the legacy of suffering pervades this film yet it is charming and beautiful, sad and hilarious.



This is an ice cream seller on the beach. The actor is Etgar's father, and he's some story in his own right. He's in the hospital right now, but Etgar says he's getting better. Some survivor.

I dreamt of this film all night long.

The war within

I had a cortisone injection on my left ankle on Wednesday. Every since then my left foot has been contorted into an awkward position, hanging around my left ear, begging, wheedling, demanding, that I buy it these.



However the rest of my body has sent up a more deafening crescendo. 'Don't listen. If you buy those, you'll wind up looking like this.'




And furthermore the whole business might end up here.

Or worse, like this

The only kind of non-old lady slippers are red leather Moroccan mules, with artificially pointed toes, an Aladdin's lamp air about, them and preferably some gold around the toes.

Thought for the day

It's almost as stupid to let your clothes betray that you know you are ugly as to have them proclaim you are beautiful. Edith Wharton