Good points: cleverly done, very readable. Bad points, ending is the obligatory arty-ambiguity, slightly pretentious, and it doesn't have much sense of place: you don't get much sense of what any of the places and societies it is set in are like. That's a shame since they could be interesting locations.

Verdict: pretty overrated from the review quotes, but would fill the time neatly on a moderate-length plane or train journey.

What I'm Reading 2
Finished another Batman comic: As the Crow Flies. This one has the Joker and the Scarecrow teaming up. Short, proficiently done, plenty of action; but nothing particularly distinctive here.

Museums
Went to the David Hockney portrait exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Fairly large exhibition covering a large swathe of his career: interesting to see his style develop from the fairly awkward pencil sketches of the early days to the crisp glimmering light of his California paintings. Also has a wall of his camera lucida drawings, taken by over-drawing projections onto paper: he has a theory that some of the old masters did something similar. They don't seem that much less individualistically-styled than his conventional paintings.

Downsides: crowded and expensive at £9, also quite hot and full of kids.

The Alien Nation exhibition at the ICA was a lot emptier and a lot cheaper at £3. A little bit short on content: worth it though for the magnificently elaborate spaceships made up from glittering toys on the upper floor. Also has some cute aliens made of Christmas tree baubles.

The other contemporary art left me pretty cold though: some crudely cartoonish paintings and dull projections that loop old skiffy movies. The movie posters are quite good, but there are only half a dozen or so, and they're mostly obscure foreign-language posters: doubt they'd impress a collector much.

Operation Better Posture
Not sure if this counts as an actual Operation. Adjusted my chair and monitor to sit up later, and am trying to keep my head up as I walk around. Since starting it my neck hurts and continues to ache, so I think I might just start slouching again.

Me
I seem to be being bounced from one disastrous project to another at work, without time to sort any of them out. It's stressing me out, though it shouldn't be.

Watching
Saw "The Prestige" at the cinema, about two rival Victorian stage magicians, and their escalating conflict to get the best act, while ruining their opponents. Excellent film. Nice use of Chekov's law: loved the way everything fitted together at the end.

Has a fair amount of pace to it with no real slack time, and some nice performances. Definitely worth seeing.

Observer review. Peter Bradshaw hated it, proving once and for all the man has no taste.