come on Tuesday I feel better

well, dear reader (yes - that'll be you!) today is the second good day I've had in a row

I feel almost vaguely human

it's a strange feeling, I must say - one I had totally forgotten, one that people say "remember what it feels like" when I'm not feeling like this and - for the life of me (but, I can write today, fortunately not the death of me) I could not remember feeling at the weekend, last week, or the week before, or the week before that, yadda yadda

but that was then, and this is now and all I can hope is that tomorrow is at least as good as today (altho, on the down side, I have toothache in my root canal job tooth) (a minor complaint by comparison to one which I have more recently been suffering) (but painful nonetheless)

there is various news from The Madhouse, none of which I am privy to share with you and I hate celebrity gossip anyhow and certainly do not want to stoop that low (and I'm sure you don't want me to either, do you) (?)

on the home front, Smallest Person now wants to be known as Mini-Teen so she shall be M-T forthwith; I'm sure that's alright with you, my wonderful reader, isn't it? and she had some exciting news. . .

. . .and since M-T is not quite a celebrity (yet!) I shall indulge you and write about her for a short while

last week was her school's end-of-term production

I missed it

all three performances

ya boo sucks

but there you go. . .

M-T, by all accounts (well, the three I have heard) (yes, friends in the outside world are still in short supply) (but it's quality of friend that counts, not quantity, eh) was fabaroonie - even tho she only had three very minor roles (and she enjoyed it, as well as being fabaroonie, more to the point)

however, despite the smallness of her role(s) (or perhaps because she enjoyed herself so much anyway), M-T was "spotted" by a talent scout, who needs to supply a film director with the child star of a film to be made later in the year, to celebrate next year - that's 2009 for those of you who don't have a calendar - which is the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's death

to provide you with the following information, I quote a very knowledgeable source, so altho you can tell all your friends you read about it here first (if indeed you haven't read about it somewhere else before!) please know that I actually didn't do the leg-work

and I quote:

"Annie's Box by Randal Keynes

"In a chest of drawers bequeathed by his grandmother, author Randal Keynes discovered the writing case of Charles Darwin's beloved daughter Annie, who died at the age of ten. In it were the notes Darwin kept through Annie's illness. Together with his deeply moving memorial of her, they provide a key to provocative new insights into Darwin's views on nature, evolution, and the human condition. Recorded Picture Company optioned this book at the beginning of 2007.

"Jeremy Thomas is producing, with John Collee adapting and Jon Amiel to direct. The author is consultant. 2009 is the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth. The film will be centered more on the naturalist's home life, particularly with the death of his daughter Annie, which he blamed on inbreeding (Darwin married his first cousin). The adaptation is being written by John Collee, who I had actually thought would be appropriate for Palmer's film, and will be directed by Jon Amiel. A good guess is that Keynes' son Skandar, who acts in the Narnia films, will get a part as one of Darwin's kids (he had 10). Jeremy Thomas is set to produce Annie's Box about Charles Darwin, and hiring John Collee to write and directed by Jon Amiel.

"The film will be based on a biography of Darwin by Randall Keynes, the great-great grandson of the Victorian scientist. Variety notes it focuses on the period when Darwin was writing The Origin of the Species, his ground-breaking treatise on evolution, while living a family life at Down House in Kent, near London.

"The 'Annie' of the title is Darwin's first daughter, whose death aged 10 left him grief-stricken. With his scientific discoveries leading him toward agnosticism, he was unable to find consolation in belief in an afterlife, but coped with his loss by plunging into his work. Thomas plans to start production on Annie's Box next year in Down House; he's hoping for a release in 2009, the bicentennial of Darwin's birth."

(M-T had to pretend she was looking at sea creatures in a rock pool during part of the casting audition - she said she thought about when we have done exactly that in Polzeath as inspiration!)(clever girl, huh)(not that you'd expect anything less of course)

"The book it is based on is Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution by Randal Keynes, and it's an excellent choice. There's a great deal of potential for family-centered drama in the story—it's all about his family life, and in particular the effect of the death of a daughter at the age of 10—but there's also some difficult material on Darwin's tussle with religion that's going to be hard to capture. (It's also not easily summarized; Darwin left Christianity behind, but his ideas about a deity were conflicted)."

I'm sure that there are many many many many excited little girls - sorry, Mini-Teens - about the country this week each dreaming that she will be Annie. . .

. . .and my daughter is one of them!