Saturday evening brought this on YouTube
Brilliant movie of the Muriel Spark novel, all world-class actors, Cyril Cusack, Maggie Smith, Zoe Wanamaker, on and on. It's well worth watching.
Elsewhere in Blogland I read about a domestic standoff between a perfectionist spouse and a more realistic one, in the matter of laying wood flooring.
I think it's parallel to the ultimate test of a union, papering a room together. Handsome Partner and I did this back in the seventies.
The date is important because it explains why we were papering the kitchen with a sort of busy sunflowery prepasted paper. Think Bob Newhart show. Bob and Emily had our wallpaper. We also had an orange shag rug in the living room. Don't judge, it was the seventies and we were young!
The kitchen was very complicated, three doors to work around and cabinets, not a single solid wall. So we started out on opposite sides, working around to meet in the middle.
This was an old house, not a right angle in the place. So HP, the scientist, measured, drew diagrams, transferred the measurements to the paper, cut then papered. Took hours. It looked perfect.
I, the more freeform artist, gave him a long head start, had a pot of tea, then laid the paper on, cut and pasted where it hit, no measuring, matching as I went. I have a good eye. It looked perfect.
Where we met, I razored around flower motifs, tip I remembered from a professional paper hanger, to create an invisible join. It looked perfect.
He insisted that was cheating, wallpaper was supposed to have a straight edge. Also that no matter how good my section was, I should have measured, not done it by eye. I pointed out that I was tired, we'd done a fine job and never again. Also that I was still holding a box cutter.
Discretion ensued on his part. But he never gave up the idea that working by eye instead of a diagram was somehow suspect!
It seems to be a cosmic joke that diametrically different people find each other. Maybe each completes the other. Or maybe each drives the other off the edge. Or both.
Happy day everyone, be careful who you partner for paperhanging.. or anything, really.
Today's the 62nd anniversary of our wedding. One of us checked out a while back, but is still very much alive in memories.
