Enthusiasm Curbed

Just got my parcel of the first two series of Curb Your Enthusiasm through from Amazon.com. Yes, .com. They got held up in customs, and I had to pay a tenner to pick them up from the post office (still marginally cheaper than getting them from the UK, mind). Which leads me to present Some Useful Advice:

Customs are only interested in anything over £18 in value. If you're ordering anything from outside the EU (e.g. America, for the less geopolitically minded of you), they'll only delay and slap on the duty for something worth more than £18. This means (if you're me): one DVD boxset = cheap; two dvd boxsets = slightly less cheap.

Anyway, at least I'll be able to sit down and squirm in the comfort of my own home while watching someone even more capable of causing embarrassment than me.

In other news, I saw Closer yesterday, which is clever, witty, unusual and as bleak as the Daily Mail. I've just realised what one of my nagging doubts about it was though. In the strip club scene, the music playing is How Soon is Now? by the Smiths. I have never, in all my born days, experienced anything more incongruous. And, if you want to see pictures of someone ill at ease with fame, or possibly just a bit tired, check out these shots of Patrick Marber, who wrote Closer and is one of The Inner Circle of British Comedy's Elite. Probably has to clean Armando Ianucci's carpets to keep his membership.

Also disturbing about Closer was that one of my companions murmered a soft erotic breathy gasp of 'Jude' at one point in the film when Mr Law was on screen, and then looked deeply embarrassed when I noticed. He's been keen on me maintaining my anonymity, but I suspect this is just a pretence to keep his.