Scents and Sensibility

My nose seems to be picking up more smells than normal. I know that smell is the most evocative sense but the extent to which a slight wiff of something similar to something from the past can bring back whole rafts of images in the mind. Yes, we are back to the old Proust/Biscuit combination.

We watched Fairytale - A True Story again last night as we had visitors. Eldest daughter was rapt throughout which is quite unusual and says something about how good a film it actually is. It was only this-morning that my supposition that the returning father at the end was played by Mel Gibson was found to be true. Now the reviewer on IMDB says that they object being lied to because the story is not true. Now I think I knew that (my book of strange phenomena pretty well debunks most of the film) but that is not the point of saying it. It may well have no trace of irony but it means something and something not so subtle that I could not pick up on it without having seen the film. The point is that it is a film which children like because there are fairies in it - real ones and ones which are spot on for the centuries-old imagining of fairies by children and adults alike. Adults like it (even if they do realise that there really are no fairies) because it gives them hope that things can be better. The reviewer admits that they have not seen the film so to criticise what we know is NOT a true story because it says so for reasons that are not clear to this person seems rather sad. Unless you have documentary evidence of fairies and are producing an edition of Horizon about this then "True Story" is obviously NOT GOING TO BE TRUE. This one is for my daughter.