We watched The Constant Gardener last night.

Extremely impressive film; powerful and moving.

I do think it's a pity that (as usual) all the main characters are white and foreign, and the people who actually live in Africa are portrayed (for the most part) as helpless pawns. That whole patronising colonial thing.

But, even so, I highly recommend this one.

What I do not recommend, however, is going shopping for clothes with my son.

We set out this morning, at his request, to visit a store a good forty minutes away from here, so that he could spend some of his hard-earned money. It absolutely had to be that particular store; no others would do, especially not if the others were closer and more convenient. So, after slogging through the traffic, we finally arrived at this mecca, heaved a sigh of relief as we walked into its soothing air-conditioned-ness - and walked out literally 90 seconds later, because "there's nothing that I like here, this is a waste of time".

Do I get points for letting him live?