The Social Network

Watching TV last night on our huge screen attached to cinema surround sound I said to Alex – I’ve seen this Come Dine With Me. At least three times, I added. This led me to moan about the fact that with that Sky record thingy all we seem to watch is Come Dine With Me. What’s going on? Are we crucifying ourselves by watching people cook and eat meals which sometimes look mouth watering but which we both know we should be avoiding. After all, our nuptials are looming in the Fall. Why don’t we ever watch a movie I asked and our eyes drifted to the shelf full of unwatched DVDs and Blue Ray discs. You see neither of us is supremely confident about hitting the right buttons on the three remote devices needed for our home entertainment system. How about The Social Network I suggested. If you can get the thing to work, fine, Alex replied.

So we unwrapped the disc and I inserted in the drawer and lo and behold – cinema surround sound or what! We wondered what our 70 year old neighbour made of the thumping deep bass sound. We had the sound, but no picture. After much fiddling on the three aforementioned devices we eventually had success. And we sat back to watch the movie.

It was indeed very good if it did take some time to adjust to the fast pace of the dialogue and the plot. But it turned out to be a very well told story of an autistic genius who, ironies of ironies, created FACEBOOK as forum for social interaction.; he who was so poor at this. It also contained the story of friendship and ultimate betrayal which is a sad one. In real life, objectively, the creator has achieved enormous success but we do not know how connected he really is. It brings to mind a recent edition of the Women’s Hour where the topic of adult children who emigrate was being discussed. One wistful mother declared that Skype was all very well but you can’t hug it.