MALLRATS

As the pioneer of treacherous voyages from DC to Virginia, I was able to guide Max to safe passage as once again we ventured to the next door state to fix our computer (this time to solve the problems created by the person who was meant to fix it yesterday).

We made sure we visited a 'genius bar' at a different Apple store. This one was housed in Pentagon City - an enormous mall of fancy shops like Apple, Nordstroms and Macys. It felt a little like we were 14 year olds on a date, as we wandered around the shops and had lunch in the 'food plaza'.

We were fortunately able to find a slightly more competent 'genius', who told us how to buy a programme that transfers music from iPods back onto computers and that seems to've done the trick, so our 18,000+ songs have been restored and now all I need to go through is the tedious task of recreating our playlists. Ugh.

With our peace of mind restored, we hit the shops of Pentagon City and I was pleased to find that Max was in a buying kind of a mood. Sometimes when we go shopping, he tries lots of stuff on but never buys anything but it's way more fun when he starts splashing the cash. Especially now, when I can't really afford to go clothes shopping, so get to live vicariously through his extravagance.

Somewhat extraordinarily for someone who doesn't wear suits to work, Max bought four suits yesterday! He got a cool grey pinstripe one in the sale at a fashion-y shop, that will be good for bars and parties and for wearing the jacket over jeans. Then we spent hoooouuuurrsss in Macys where there was a gigantic Memorial Day weekend sale on and he snapped up two Ralph Lauren suits and one beautifully cut by Alfani for a tiny fraction of the price. So the money Max's folks gave him for a fancy suit for his birthday has gone a very long way!

With the computer fixed, many suits bought and Virginia no longer a strange and faraway place, we went home for dinner and a movie - 'Atonement'.

Mum had warned me that she'd walked out of 'Atonement' an hour in, and I don't traditionally like Keira Knightley or Joe Wright, but I heart James McAvoy and Dad said it's the greatest piece of cinema he's ever seen, so I felt it had to be done.

I am on Mum's side.

Aaaaarrrgghhh, I hated it SO much. Aaaarrgghh, it was so awful. Sure enough, Fishface Knightley bothered me - especially with the absurd BAFTA nomination she got for her performance. And it didn't help that I hadn't enjoyed Romola Garai in the production of 'King Lear' we saw last year (or that we were supposed to accept that her character wouldn't have changed her hairstyle from the age of 13 to 70something). And would someone PLEASE explain why on earth Saoirse Ronan was nominated for an Oscar??!

But the two things that annoyed me the most were Joe Wright's direction which, while looking very pretty from time to time, frequently made no real grammatical sense. He'd use effects for no real reason, some shots felt really random and the infamous long single shot just really irritated me, because it starts as POV James McAvoy, then veers off to do a general sweep of the vista, then picks up with McAvoy again. Which, to me (and I SO don't know what I'm talking about), seems like showing off for showing off's sake - if you're going to change the view from POV to a general shot, then surely put a cut in there to mark the switch.

The other thing that didn't work for me was the plot. I get moved by the most ridiculously small things - adverts, 'Neighbours', Chinese people... - but 'Atonement' left me absolutely cold. I wasn't at all sad at the end and didn't feel the impact of the sweeping epic romance that it was trying to be.

Max said that this was part of his frustration with it, having read the book - that the book isn't about an epic love story set in wartime, but rather storytelling and narrative. It's about the telling of tales - both in the sense of lies and in literally recounting stories. So to bring it to the screen as this big romance is missing the point of the book and can only fall short. Boo.

That green dress that Fishface wears is beautiful though, and James McAvoy was terrific and I liked the music, too.

Suffice to say, it felt good to cleanse our visual palates with a bit of trusty 'West Wing' afterwards.