Library DVDs are not bad!

The Blockbuster ticket logo on its old shop,
covered with a policing sign
presumably to deter break-ins

It's probably not news to report that our nearest DVD rental shops have both gone out of business. Blockbuster: busted!

I'd subscribe to Netflix if I could, but it isn't available in the UK. Maybe in 2012, says Which magazine... Meanwhile, I go to the library and check out DVDs for 50 pence each (that's about 80 cents). And what good films I've found, mostly true stories or at least based on historic incidents:

• "The Lives of Others", a 2006 German film about a Stasi agent who becomes disillusioned with his commitment to East German politics
• "K-19 Widowmaker", a 2002 Harrison Ford film about a Soviet nuclear sub disaster off the coast of Greenland in 1961, the story only becoming known after Glasnost
• "The Last Contract", a 1997 Swedish film about the killing of Olof Palme, the Prime Minister of Sweden
• "Kinsey", a 2004 film with Liam Neeson; a biography of the sex researcher
• Not to mention "A change of seasons", which was true to life if not true

The pickings are small at the library, but so far so good and can't fault the price! Too bad, though, that councils are closing libraries all over Britain in these austere times, despite arguments that they are community centres in and of themselves, with computer classes and literacy help groups – not to mention a warm daily refuge for the homeless. We can all petition to save the libraries, but maybe we should also donate books and DVDs, so that maybe the libraries can use some of their funds to stay open instead of buying more stock. Do you have any worthy ones to donate?