Last night was entertainment night for us. Saturday evening, old habits are hard to break. It's been many years since we've been retired, but Saturday-night entertainment has become a sticky routine. We start off by together making our pizza; me rolling out the dough, spreading tomato paste, basil, pizza spice, grating the mozzarrella cheese, and he chopping up the red, yellow, orange, green bell peppers, the mushrooms, the tomato.

And he assembling it all, picturesquely atop the prepared crust and tomato-paste/cheese. Oh, he does sprinkle over half of the pizza, his choice of pepperoni. And then into the oven with it, to bake until the crust is - well - crusty, the toppings melted and browned. During which process the house swoons with the irresistible fragrance of pizza. When it's ready to be devoured, we seat ourselves for our feast.

Washed down with wine for him, tea for me. And finished with bunches of red seedless grapes. I try to select those grapes that are hard, small and sweet, and sometimes succeed, wholly dependent on what the supermarket has on offer. After which we wash up the clutter and settle ourselves down to view a film. We've no longer any television reception, but the old set is useful as a screening device.

Last night the choice was The King's Speech, which had been sent to us as a birthday gift (our birthdays are roughly a month apart), along with the first series of Downton Abbey, from our oldest child (at 52 years of age, hardly a child, but still our child). For some odd reason, we chose to view Downton Abbey first, segment by segment, and having enjoyed them all, turned to the piece de resistance.

Except that's not what it turned out to be, for us. The Academy award winning film, having captured 'best picture' status, hugely disappointed us. True the splendour of the visuals was excellent, the interiors of the film in their sumptuous gorgeousness voluptuous, but the flair, drama and a sense of deep involvement for the viewer were absent.

Entirely too weak a screenplay, so heavily reliant on an empty drama of a monarch-to-be suffering agonies of self-uncertainty, with not the slightest hint of intelligence and common sense lurking in one's apprehension about a man entirely consumed with his inherited royal status. His miserable uncertainty and self-awareness absent any astute intelligence was wearying.

We were in total agreement; the sole actor of note was Geoffrey Rush, as a totally unaffected, sympathetic and resourceful character whom one could admire with the aplomb with which the role was carried by this man. The affected agonies of Colin Firth were sad to behold for their absence of balance. Helena Bonham Carter was as cloyingly fey and all-knowing as usual.

This was thin gruel for a film, and gruellingly boring to watch. An entirely flaccid - far less affective view into a socially-conflicted society than Downton Abbey, and not to be compared with The Remains of the Day with its real dramas and tensions and superior acting. Downton Abbey may be a pot-boiler with its anachronistic but entirely human diorama of life in Britain at the time, but it is also absorbing.

The King's Speech has, by comparison, little to boast of as a piece of entertainment, despite all the public relations hyperbole, and the resulting coronation of its presentation at the Academy Awards. It's amazing how it never fails to fascinate the public to be exposed to the visuals of inherited royalty, entitled aristocracies, and the population that sustains those archaic institutions of privilege.