The film was slightly over long at around 3 hours but most of the time this wasn't a problem. There were a few scenes which dragged a bit but cutting these out wouldn't have shortened the film by much.

One nice touch was early in the film when we're first on the boat and a cage can be seen labelled 'Sumatran Rat Monkey' - a reference to director Peter Jackson's earlier film 'Brain Dead'.

The best thing about the film (apart from the impressive CGI) was the ending. The writers must have realised that the original version of the film with King Kong, the Empire State Building and the biplanes was such an iconic cinema moment which shouldn't be messed with. Some of the aerial shots could be bad for vertigo sufferers - they made my legs tingle during some of them. It was almost like being up there yourself.

Back in Coventry now. The house was so cold when we got back, the toothpaste was almost solid in the tube - it was really difficult to squeeze any out. The house doesn't have any central heating, only storage heaters which only come on at night. To stop the hamsters from freezing, we had to plug in an electric heater to warm the room up for them.

Christmas was good - we drove up north to visit our parents. This meant we had 2 christmas dinners, which was nice.