Hurrah!

Well, the unveiling of the sculpture turned out to be a charming event. The sun shone, the bronze artworks glinted, the band played, the Mayor beamed benignly at everyone. The sculptor – Hilary Cartmel – said some words, then I said a few words, and then I read my poem to a rather bemused audience who probably didn't understand it, and then we posed for photographs. My mum wore her best pearls, my father –as usual – shied the limelight, bless him, and my daughter Imogen stunned everyone with her glamorous dress and movie star sunglasses. All in all, a very pleasant morning. Okay, so I was mildly harangued by a Labour Councillor who for some reason had chosen to use the event to promote party politics (something I thought was unnecessary), but apart from that it was all jolly good fun.

I went to see The Bourne Ultimatum on Friday. This film has been much hyped as 'raising the bar for the spy and action genres for years to come'. Really? I thought it was overblown, badly photographed and demanded a bigger suspension of disbelief than even the plots of Holloaks. Nothing wrong with that, you might think – surely all this is perfectly compatible with the genre itself. But no, whereas this might be acceptable in a James Bond movie when it's all meant to be tongue-in-cheek, Bourne's director Paul Greengrass presumably expects us to take this seriously. Mind you, Matt Damon looked as fabulous as ever and yes, it's all great fun. Furthermore it was a huge treat to see Paddy Considine as the doomed British agent Simon Ross – if nothing else, go and see the film for him alone.

Paddy's not an infrequent visitor to Broadway, either. Good bloke.