In this strange complex of time and space anything can happen

I know I am several years late to the party on this one. I did actually try to see this film when it first came out, but hadn't booked ahead and couldn't manage to get into a showing. So, what with one thing and another, this is the first I've seen of Daniel Craig's Bond.

It's definitely quite a change in direction. I liked how the chase straight after the opening sequence was on foot - it signalled the 'back to basics' approach, but also still made me gasp with awe at the clever use of gymnastics and props. And I like the way some of the old paradigms were inverted - like seeing Daniel Craig emerge dripping from the sea in his bathing trunks, in place of the classic old-school image of Ursula Andress in Dr. No.

I can't say I followed the plot terribly well, despite having read the novel as a teenager, mainly because I actually watched this film in two halves with several months in between them (all to do with a cock-up in setting the recorder for it in the first place). But it didn't really matter - I don't ask for Bond films to be anything much more than a series of impossibly-exotic characters floating through a succession of spectacular set-pieces anyway. And the set-pieces certainly delivered - particular the destruction of the Venetian palazzo at the end of the film, which was absolutely breath-taking.

I did find the portrayal of Le Chiffre's asthma slightly annoying - it's often mis-portrayed in film and TV, and I do wish actors and producers would bother investing five minutes in learning how inhalers are actually meant to be used before trying to portray it on screen. Still, then again, I don't suppose many people really go around bleeding continually from their left eye or re-joining poker games minutes after experiencing cardiac arrest either, so maybe I shouldn't be too picky.

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Just had my 'flu jab for the year. I've regularly been using my asthma as a passport to 'flu-free living for about the past four years, but I think the government are actually starting to insist that all asthmatics have it now, anyway. Sensible them: I had it over Christmas about five years ago (i.e. just before I started the regime of regular annual jabs), and the coughing was definitely not good for my lungs. I don't think I would realistically die of it just because I also have asthma, as mine isn't that severe. But I can see how it could trigger severe breathing problems for some asthmatics, and I am certainly keen to get the jab each year rather than have 'flu.

Incidentally, just for clarification here, I am talking about real influenza, with a raised temperature and severe hacking cough. Despite the fact that it is becoming increasingly common for people to say they have 'flu when they actually just have a bad cold, the difference is real and significant.

I didn't really expect to get jabbed for it this morning: as far as I was concerned, I was just going to my local practice to complete the process of registration by being seen by a doctor. But when I mentioned that I was asthmatic and wanted to get a 'flu jab, he just whipped one out and zapped me.

I do hope it doesn't make me ill itself, though. Last year, I was offered a pneumonia jab at the same time as the 'flu one, and said yes... but then ended up with a temperature the next day, and a swollen and infected upper arm. I'm pretty sure it was all the fault of the pneumonia jab, as I'd had one injection in each side, and that was the side that swelled up. But still I'm a little nervous about the 'flu one this year. Having just had an evil cold which, combined with a heavy workload, has left me utterly exhausted already, I really don't need another mini-illness to add to the problem. *Cross fingers*