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Yesterday, we watched The Lives of Others on DVD, last year's winner of the Oscar for the best foreign language film. It's deliberately slow-paced, which really accentuates the details of oppression and human dilemma faced by East Germans living with the daily risk of visitation by the Stasi. It's beautifully filmed in tones of charcoal grey, with languorous music by Gabriel Yared, and a superbly understated and contained lead performance by Ulrich Mühe.

Reading about the film this morning, I discovered that Mühe died of stomach cancer exactly a year ago. So, a note of remembrance to him today, 22 July.

Onto nicer topics. Some pics from our holiday in Germany.

Yes, it's a cliche, but a fair one, that mums don't like motorbikes. It's a fair cop. If you prang your car, then it's 'oh dear' and swap insurance details. Do the same on a bike and expect to be very pleasantly surprised if you don't get a trip to A&E.

Over two weeks after my accident, and my leg is mostly on the mend. The bruising is just starting to fade to yellow, although it's still very tender if you prod it (I'd prefer it if you didn't), and I still have some loss of sensation just below the kneecap. Lovely, eh?

So, if you'd like to see what two week old bruises look like after 200kg of bike land on your leg, click on the pictures below. What you may not notice until a second glance is that my leg isn't normally this colour. You can see the colour change above my ankle bone - sadly this isn't a tan line...

You can see the tear and scrape marks on my protective trousers, as well as where the zip tore apart on my boots and some tarmac-induced nicks in the leather.

As for the bike, it suffered a broken indicator, scraped clutch cover (on the side of the engine), dented tank, and battered fairings (the blue plastic shielding which deflects wind). I'm hoping that's all - the bike is with the insurer's repair firm getting looked over now.

There. That's better.