I love this book. (Although I appear to no longer possess it. I wonder if there's a calculation that tells you how many books you'll lend to so-called friends in your lifetime and NEVER get back. And then how many you'll borrow and never return, says she, sitting pretty on shelves full of books that were never her own.)

So I was hopeful when I heard it was to be filmed. It's a beautifully magical story, written as beautifully as Mr Rushdie writes all of his books and set against a background of the only shred of history I know anything much about. (Actually, that's a lie because my so-called knowledge of Indian history runs out in 1932, fifteen years before the story really gets going. But I feel the sort of fondness that's born out of knowing that you should know something rather than actually knowing it. Though maybe no-one else feels this fondness but me.)

The film was full of colour, sparkly bits, sweeping vistas, bustling jostly streets, the tragedy of human life in the midst of an unreasonable and unforgiving caste system. But man, it was slow. Slow as the last little dregs of old black treacle as you wait for them to lollop out of the tin.

To be sure, there was loads of story to pack into the whatever it was two hours. But wouldn't this make for a hop skip and a jump of a film?  In this instance, not.

So delightful looking, lovely story telling on the part of Mr R but if you're planning to go and see it, maybe take some knitting.