The Wartime Trifecta

There are a few things that are useless about February, chief among them that it is Valentine's Day in it.  Normally, I think it's a month best spent chiefly hiding in the blankets, but in California the climate conspires against you:  It's been bright and sunny and often dry and windy, and no one has any sympathy at all for you if you've made up your mind to a little glumness. 

I've been staving off post-holiday letdown by a little homeopathic English movie treatment of my own invention.  MGM or someone must have recently acquired the Sidney Gilliat portfolio of films and they've all shown up on streaming video from Netflix.  This is just the thing if you are pretending to be a spinster in a garret and need a little accompaniment while you work on your embroidery (that is, if you are spinster in a garret...with a computer). 

First there was London Belongs to Me, also known as Dulcimer Street, starring a baby-faced Richard Attenborough:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040548/.  Honestly a little strange in tone as it veers between comedy of manners as varying personalities rub along together in a boarding house, and kind of stressful gangster situation as there is an unsolved murder, and subsequent trial.

A complete winner, though, was Millions Like Us, produced during World War II, about a young woman, the slightly overlooked youngest sister in the family, who wants to be part of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, but is instead pressed into service at a manufacturing plant.  There she meets an embryonic Gordon Jackson - remember him, Hudson the butler in Upstairs, Downstairs? http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0413561/ - and Romance Ensues.  This had, for me, the all-important World War II in England trifecta:
1) Blackout preparations;
2) Discussion of rationing;
3) Knitting on film. 

It's just enough to keep me going, here in my garret.

I Can Report the Following

I have been home now for a full week and I have the following post-trip updates:
1) There was an anxious moment at passport control when it appeared that the officers were requesting fingerprints of everyone.  You may recall that I had an injury to my right thumb, and while we waited in the queue, I formulated mentally my query regarding the presence of a Hello Kitty bandaid and its impact on anti-terrorist precautions.  In the event, my fingerprints were not requested;
2) We were inspected by, among others, a small beagle in customs.  Thankfully, the pear drops either escaped notice or were not included in the beagle's remit;
3) My Transport for London injury has fully healed;
4) Wodges of cake consumed since my return - zero.  A Certain Reader will recall that I did buy a brownie from the bakery the other day, but that is not cake.