L’Étranger; Killing an Arab

Yesterday evening, James and I went to see L’Étranger with Heather and Ewan; the 2025 film version of Camus‘s novel. It was filmed in black-and-white which suited the downbeat atmosphere and Benjamin Voisin was excellent in the lead role. It’s a long time since I read the book but I reckon the film was pretty true to the story, and Camus’s bleak absurdist view of the world was well portrayed. I absolutely loved it. We went for dinner to red onion afterwards and chatted about the film. Ewan had correctly discerned that the song “Killing an Arab” during the closing credits was by the Cure; we looked it up during dinner and in fact it was written by them about the novel “L’Étranger” back in 1984 as their debut single. The title and lyrics have been condemned as racist by people who didn’t realise that it was about the book and this has given them a lot of grief over the years. Robert Smith has said that he wishes they had given it a different title! 
In laundry news, Ally and Cat brought me a beautiful merino wool jumper for Christmas in a cornflower blue colour. This week I have been doing a big clothes cleared out and when I was looking at the jumper, I noticed that there was a mark on the front of it which I hadn’t noticed when I put it away before. I decided to hand wash it, which I don’t do very often, but I really wanted to be careful so that the jumper would keep its softness. I managed this successfully but oh boy it took a long time to dry! This was because I dried it flat on a towel to keep its shape. It was worth it because it looks and feels brand new.