Fixing a hole where the rain gets in

I found myself expending my blogging energy not by blogging but by posting snarky comments on other people's blogs, most notably GASMETER, a notable effort from a fascinatingly enigmatic bloke I sometimes do things with, things like acquire advanced degrees and watch football. But all this metablogging was getting me down, so here's an actual bit of blog.

No matter what your politics and even if you don't like documentaries, have a look at Gunner Palace if you haven't already. We Netflixed it last week (yes, that is a verb), and it's a commendably spare look at a unit of American soldiers in Baghdad, living in an abandoned old Palace of Uday Hussein's. As surreal as the setting seems, it's the least striking thing about the film, which avoids Michael Moore-ism and sticks to telling the fairly horrific story of life in occupied Iraq, not seen through, but reflected in, the eyes of the occupiers.