Street scene, Carcassonne

"I'll go and buy the cinema tickets," said S, "so you've got five minutes to find a blip while I do that." I hurried round the corner from the cinema and this is the best I could manage in the time available. I've blipped the Hotel Terminus before, here. It's a very fine Belle Epoque building, which also houses the cinema on the other side (not seen in this photo).

We saw Agnès Jaoui's new film, Au Bout du Conte. Not a masterpiece, but she observes and gently mocks social ineptitude so well, and here there are many sly references to fairy tales too (Prince Charming flees at midnight, leaving a clodhopping shoe behind). Jaoui herself plays a witch (but a rather sympathique one) and Jean-Pierre Bacri is his usual grumpy self (he does grumpy depressives so well!). There were both laughs, and moments that truly made you sad for the characters. It was more visually spectacular than her films usually are too.

It was an early evening show, so we decided to have something to eat afterwards. What a desolate place Carcassonne is on a Monday evening! You'd think in a town of 50,000 people, some of them would have reason to be out in the street at 8:30 pm, but no. We ended up on a deserted Place Carnot where precisely one bistro was open. There were half a dozen people in there, and by the time we'd finished our steak-frites we were the only customers, and the waitress had her coat on ready to go home.