Last month I moved to the Welsh countryside, a lush and lovely place. Only trouble was, precisely two days before I floated up here, the first case of foot-and-mouth was detected. Actually the disease isn't very serious--it's just like the flu. The little beasts would be fine if they were kept warm and given a hot toddy and a few days of bed rest. But to farmers and governments, this kindly response smacks of a dangerous disregard for milk quotas, or some new variant on vegetarian fanaticism, and so they have adopted a "scorched-earth" policy: All infected or suspicious animals are summarily killed and burned on huge pyres. The minute your wee baby lamb starts drooling, it's a goner. By last week I was considering cutting my losses and returning to the big smoke, until I remembered "culture." Here, we are uniquely blessed with small touring cinemas that bring little-known Iranian documentaries to little-known Welsh hamlets. Last week was a continental film, An Affair of Love. After a month of near quarantine, I took the opportunity to dapper up a little, throw something gorgeous on, and have a "big night out." Maybe my manly friend and I could even treat ourselves to a chip supper.

As we neared the village centre, we started to smell the now familiar stench of disinfectant: sour and medical, with an edge of urine. (Because of the increase in demand, a black market in nasty "unregulated" disinfectant has developed; I believe that's where the arts hall got theirs.) The cinema had soaked straw and a foot bath as a condition of entry. I was wearing strappy shoes, and the foot bath was designed for stout shoes. Hence, it was not just my leathers that got a dipping (the nasty bath had probably had 300 dirty shoes in it already) but my freshly buffed and lovely feet to boot. The house lights go dim and the film starts. I settle back to enjoy the tale, but after about 15 minutes, I become painfully aware of how very cold my poor soaked feet are. What's more, the noxious vapors of the 120 soaked pairs that surround me and the greasiness of the fish and chips is starting some horrible chemical reaction in my tummy, and I am starting to feel quite queer. The film could be divine and it could be dross, I don't care: I'm fantasizing about how healing the city will be after all this stinking misery.