Ghosts

I watched the film The Ghost on TV yesterday evening, and found it as good, if not better, than when I first saw it. It is beautiful as well as neatly gripping, the spare, bleak buildings and wintery landscape mirroring the narrative, adapted from the novel by Robert Harris. All the plot twists are credible, as are the characters (well cast) and the underlying premise: that a UK Prime Minister's policy decisions - always in favour of what the US wished - were down to his wife having been recruited at university by the CIA.

Trailers for another ghost movie soon to be released, The Woman in Black, are also airing on TV, starring Daniel Radcliffe, the erstwhile Harry Potter.

Lastly, I am progressing through The Snow Child, which also has an element of the magical and inexplicable. On page 300 there is a sentence which has connotations in English of which the author may be unaware: 'He had shot her fox'. To shoot someone's fox, a metaphor taken from the hunting field, in parliamentary, legal or City of London terms means to thwart a ploy, snatch the advantage , deprive someone of their quarry.