2007 — Day 76 - flushed with success?

Nope. Still awaiting the plumber's arrival. But fingers twitchily crossed. Aha! He's just (08:45) backing on to the drive way. Here we go... Gosh! Isn't it exciting? No!
Early evening update: Happiness is a quiet boiler and piping hot radiators (except for the two that are still rather cool amidships). As for the grot that was flushed loose — I could almost believe in the efficacy of colonic irrigation.

Meanwhile, in other news

My regular reader will know I exchange banter and CSS advice from time to time with (actually, mostly from) chum Ian Brackenbury down under in far off New Zealandland (as Dubya would probably say). Today, he told me of an exchange he'd just had with the editor of one of my preferred web hideouts, the superb Arts & Letters Daily site.

Brack being Brack, he was suggesting they update their instructions about choice of browser and how to make A&L your home page. In response they gave him details of the user profiles with respect to operating system and browser used by their (many) visitors. Geekily fascinating stuff. Did you realise there are still people around using OS/2? :-)

Now that was a real operating system, he remarked provocatively!9

Amazon makes a suggestion

To be filed under the "You can't blame them for trying" department:

We've noticed that customers who have expressed interest in "The Camomile Lawn" have also ordered "Cousin Bette"10 on DVD. For this reason, you might like to know etc etc

Amazon.com

I don't remember expressing interest and I already own "Lawn". I recommend it, too.

We're not in Lake Wobegon any more, Tonto

"Today's simple truth: Half of all children are below average in intelligence. We do not live in Lake Wobegon." So says Charles Murray in the first of three consecutive articles in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. Golly. Let me see if I can recall the simple definition of "average" — nope; it's gone. I nearly had it there for a moment. Wait! There it is — under my copy of the The Mensa Yearbook, 1990-1991.

By the time I'd struggled to the end of the third article all I could think of was The Marching Morons, the story Cyril Kornbluth wrote the year I was born. With a side order relating to the telephone sanitisers described by Douglas Adams. Dammit, why are all the best and funniest authors dying on me?

18 January 2007  

Footnotes

9  Did you recognise the beginnings of a "Tom Swifty"? Victor Appleton's fictional character Tom Swift was incapable of just "saying" something without the added benefit of an adverbial modifier. (Goodness, I can almost see eyeballs glazing over as I type.) The classic Tom Swifty? "I'll have another martini," said Tom drily.
10  A 1971 BBC mini-series with Helen Mirren, apparently. Never heard of it! But having checked it out, it's now on my list of Outstanding orders from Play.com (I'm such a web slut!)