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I recently finished reading Jan Fennell's The Dog Listener, which was very interesting. Made me think about some of the behaviour our family dog Tessie used to have. Hopefully I will be able to use some techniques to improve my walks with Nootka, as she definitely thinks she's the alpha at the moment, which means it can be difficult to call her back or keep her to heel rather than about 50m ahead (which needless to say makes me rather nervous in Edinburgh where there's traffic pretty much everywhere).

I've just started Jung Chang's book on Mao, which is so far very detailed and interesting. Having already read Wild Swans (and loved it - one of my favourite books), I'm interested in reading from the other side about how Mao got there.

There's a lot on at the cinema that I want to see in the near future: Spiderman 3, Goodbye Bafana, Bridge to Terabithia, Fast Food Nation, Transformers, Zizek!, Next (although I hate Nicolas Cage so maybe not), Hacking Democracy, Curse of the Golden Flower, Das Leben der Anderen, Alpha Dog, Zwartboek, Blood Diamond, Catch a Fire, Ghost Rider (again Cage blah, but Marvel!), maybe Half Nelson, I *still* haven't seen Hot Fuzz, Music and Lyrics (what), Premonition, Sunshine, The Hills Have Eyes II, The Last Mimzy, The Last King of Scotland, The Science of Sleep, TMNT, Bamako.

Other interesting events in Edinburgh: Amy Thomas and her Trio at Jazz Bar Wed 8.30, Cappella Nova at Greyfriars Kirk at 7.30, Ray Bonneville and Doug Hoekstra at the Village Fri 7.30, Shower of Banjos at Octopus Diamond 'til next Mon 8pm, Starlight Express at the Playhouse, Terrafolk at Queen's Hall Fri 8, Vegas on Saturday (having missed this week's one).

I have also discovered that I think Findus cheese crispy pancakes are delicious.