January seems to have slipped by - I was going to say in a slump of lethargy and getting hooked on Wordle - but actually I've been busy at work, and not much time to get out and about. But a sunny weekend and a walk along the river yesterday proved energising - and when I got home, I set myself to booking tickets. First off was a matinée this afternoon - an unnervingly good audience with Maggie Thatcher at Riverside Studios. Not a very useful recommendation as this was the last performance and the actor is off on tour to Spain and the Netherlands - but he promises to be back (to the Edinburgh Festival) and also performs as Hitler/Churchill/Dickens/Einstein/Hitchcock/Francis Bacon - he must have a phenomenal memory, not only for his lines but for whole biographies as the audience can catch him on the hop and ask him anything. Anyway, now we've discovered him, we'll be looking out for him again.

And talking of Francis Bacon, the Royal Academy exhibition is simply riveting and so powerful. I came out feeling energised, as if the sap were rising ...

The herringbone overcoat is just because I liked it - but I was enthralled by the potency of his bullfighting pictures, especially as the gallery cleared and for a few minutes I was there all alone. Now I fully understand that Bacon isn't everyone's cup of tea. Regrettably, though, there is a 'trigger warning'at the entrance to the exhibition (after they've taken your £20, though!) cautioning visitors to beware of potentially disturbing content ... heavens, art that elicits an emotional response, how very shocking! I do sometimes feel the need of a trigger warning for infantilising twaddle!

Christmas baking ... I'd have slaughtered anyone who was cheeky enough to eat one!

I saw a primrose ... only one, but I thought you'd like to know.

I was looking forward to A Very British Scandal but after watching the first episode, I can't say I'm desperately bothered to watch the next. It's more sympathetic to the raunchy Duchess than I was expecting. Hardly Christmas viewing though, but maybe I'll catch up with it later ... if we're locked down again, I might even be glad of it! I was far more intrigued by The Girl Before - and the minimalist house from which books are banned.I gasped in horror - then thought how soothing life would be without 'stuff'.

Yes, I'm still here - still out and about despite a certain amount of Covid-lethargy and 'can I be bothered?' Though when I did go into town on Friday - for the first time in years Christmas shopping in actual shops rather than online - it was lovely to see the Christmas lights and hear the carol singers on Piccadilly. No crowds and I got all my gift-wrapping done for me! It's so long since I last posted that I'm struggling to think what I've been up to. I was looking forward to seeing Operation Mincemeat - so I'm happy to report that it's just as good as I was hoping, quite gripping even though you already know how it ends! Definitely one of my top films of the year, and it made me want to read the book by Ben Macintyre.

I do love a tiara - so I made a dash to the Fabergé exhibition at the V&A, just in case we find ourselves in another lockdown. (I know it was sold out until March/April, but they must have had a flood of cancellations because it was easy to get tickets last week.) It's a mix of the breathtakingly expensive and exquisite - this little rose was unsold stock when the London shop closed down in 1917 - and the downright naff, much of which was made for the British royal family. Though I had to admire the teeny-tiny snail bought by the future George V in 1905 and lent by the Queen - if only because in the intervening years nobody has lost it, trodden on it, and no royal toddler has inadvertently swallowed it or stuffed it up their nose ... I must be common to the core as it wouldn't have survived a week here. The nouveaux riches clientèle are almost more fascinating than the royals. The Watney 'beeress' had a gold and diamond bootlace hook so impractical for everyday use that it had to be re-enamelled after six months. And imagine having a portable bellpush especially for picnics ... press the garnet and the butler will appear with a soggy tomato sandwich. Those Downton Abbey folk were clearly the poor relations of Edwardian society! But I did love the snowflake 'winter jewellery' and the exquisite Easter eggs. Who would have thought, though, that there was such a thing as 'Austerity'Fabergé, bowls stamped with the word 'war' and a miniature cooking pot - that might have been just about big enough for one portion of rationed rat stew in the trenches?

The shortest book I've read this year - a very slim novel indeed, I started it in bed last night and finished it this morning - but quite the most compelling. Published in 1938,it's a series of letters between a Jewish art dealer in San Francisco and his cultivated, liberal German friend - who very quickly becomes a Nazi - and the disintegration of their friendship. The postscript by the author's son describes how the story was inspired by real events. The twist at the end of the book is simply breathtaking. It was a best-seller in America and England, a prescient indictment of Nazism - and then largely forgotten after the war. There was a film in 1944 which I see is on YouTube. You know when sometimes you want to jump up and down, and press a book on all your friends and say, 'You simply must read this...'

Just what we need ... Silent Night: a movie full of cheer for the second Christmas of the pandemic. Spoiler alert ... Think Nevil Shute's On the Beach - the Yuletide version, with Keira Knightley and designer frocks. The planet is doomed, poison gas will be here before Santa, the water is a funny colour so there's nothing to drink but Fanta or prosecco - and do you fancy a sprout with your government-issued cyanide tablet? Would you really forget to cook enough roasties for your last meal on earth? Surfacing into a gloomy, grey afternoon - yes, I felt quite depressed. Might need to watch It's a Wonderful Life, or even Love, Actually to take the taste away. Luckily I'm off to a concert tonight at the Festival Hall. Though it was depressing, the film did keep me amused and gripped ... which is more than I can say for The French Dispatch last week when I confess I slumbered through most of it.