We saw The Reader before our show at the SOH yesterday. Kate deserves the best actress award and she has no inhibitions about showing off her body. Lesson from the movie? Returning gratitude to its fullest is a virtue. What do you expect from law students and lawyers? Inadequate gratitude and injustice.

We had dinner at Sofitel's Garden Court. French food. Very nice but
we only ate the main course as we are both grossly overweight... by
Chinese standards. I had brought my own dessert anyway although the
chocolate dessert there is heavenly. I made two banana cakes in the
morning.

Next was a show at the Opera House. The opening program for Vladimir
Ashkenazy was Mendelsohn's "A Midsummer's Night Dream". If I knew
there was so much Shakespeare in it, I would not have gone. The music
is great but I find the English spoken difficult to comprehend. Not
all the actors spoke clearly; one of the girls has a lisp!