2008 — 12 January: Saturday, and time to clear the head
It's now 00:48 and feels very cold outside. Back from the drinks and nibbles two doors1 away (thank you, Bill and Pauline). Suppose I'd better get some sleep to be bushy-tailed for the walk later today down in the Forest. Hope he picks somewhere not too soggy for us.
I shall leave the Panasonic watching Lindsay Anderson's "If..." for me, although I'm mildly curious to see how well Malcolm McDowell's screen début stands the test of 40 years. I'm sure I'll still enjoy the Missa Luba. (Thinks: is it really that long since I first watched the film, in Sedgely's cinema, of all places? I can still recall the late trolley bus ride back to my aunt's house.) My, this Time business2 is tricky, slippery stuff, isn't it?
More or less woken by Mr Postie's genteel thump. Weather is bright and sunny and cold. Ideal Forest conditions. And, even better, Cathy will be joining us as we're setting off from a cattle grid reference not very far from her home. It's the "Cadnam" loop on which I captured a large pig last time. Let's hope I don't meet up with any aggressive pheasants this time, too. (Flesh wound is healing nicely, thanks.)
Giveth with one hand... department
Or, perhaps, that old Zen koan about the sound of one hand clapping? Mr DWP has written to me this morning to tell me I am entitled to "Bereavement Allowance", payable for up to 52 weeks. (I presume the "up to" covers them against me kicking the bucket in that time.) The payment consists (as far as I can tell) of nothing more than a continuation of the State Pension that Christa (being, as I've said, a lady of a certain age) was receiving when she died. It is taxable, so I have to tell Mr HRC since (it seems) no guvmint computer has quite reached the stage of being able to talk to another one... And, keeping up the modern tradition of failing to proof-read texts, I'm advised: "If you think your payment is wrong, get in touch with the that deals with your Bereavement Benefit."
There's something faintly poetical about "the that", don't you agree? Now if only they could specify exactly which "that" they meant!
Walking over
Another delightful day in (well, morning in) the Forest with Mike, Bob, and Cathy. Not to mention pigs, a patchwork quilt donkey, ...
...and a surprising number of cars, etc. Mike took the photos, by the way.
While driving the lads home, I got a call from the funeral director. (My first call on the mobile while driving!) Stopping safely to take it(!) I learned from him that the DVD of Christa's service was ready and in fact he popped it round to me a short while ago. I've just watched it (quite brave of me, I thought) and must admit I am pleased to have done so. It seems I did quite a lot to boost the sale of Kleenex tissues that day among the attendees... Ho hum.
Having had my late lunch,3 I had just steeled myself to pop the car back into the garage before it freezes its tootsies off when Zahid (my newish next door neighbour) arrived home from one of his odd-hours (on call at the General) stints. We exchanged notes on such matters as this nasty winter virus currently going the rounds and he then asked me how I'm occupying myself. Now, there's a good question.
Leaving to one side all the domestic administrivia of daily survival that occupies the mind without exactly satisfying it then today, for example, I've been listening, rather selectively, to a pile of podcasts from the BBC and NPR. Digital Planet (from the World Service) was reporting from the CES, but has now moved on to some form of phone-based dating service. Then there's the BBC's new iPlayer and their existing "Listen Again" facility. That brought me a BBC Radio 4 programme Tom G had tipped me off about: "Doonesburyland". I'm a very long-term fan4 of this very long-running (and marvellous) American satirical cartoon strip. Creator Gary Trudeau was actually a classmate of "Dubya" at Yale! Anyway, that also took me to the Woman's Hour five-minute item on Alison Bechdel, when I saw it on the same BBC search results page. Ms Bechdel's a wonderfully insightful writer who, like Raymond Briggs (yes, he of the Snowman) recently turned her hand to autobiograpy in "comix" format, very movingly, with Fun Home — a family tragicomic. Quite brilliant!
It's not impossible that there will be a DVD or two in my schedule this evening, too. And doubtless yet more of that awful administrivia. As for the current re-jigging of my A/V systems... No wonder there's no time to do anything. Just think of all that time wasted at work!
They call it the "dismal science"... department
Banks still hold uncounted billions of investment assets based on American mortgages, and they're still falling in value. Economics, as filtered through a World Service commentator:
"Asset values have fallen. This is a real thing, and it's arisen as a result of banks making dodgy lending, lending too much, asset values going much too high, the whole system being drunk on this excessive exuberance. You can't cure that at the wave of a central banker's wand. That problem's going to be with us for quite some time."
I must have missed that memo; the one that redefined "greed" as "excessive exuberance".
Free HD TV, heh?
There's an interesting FAQ here about the pending "Freesat" TV service. "For the technically-minded amongst you," (gimme a break!) "if you have a 45-60cm dish pointing towards Astra at 28.2° East or Eurobird at 28.5° East," (I do, I do.) "you should be able to receive freesat. Note that these satellites are also already in use for existing UK digital-satellite television platforms." Here's hoping my Humax hi-def satellite receiver is up for this: "Buy freesat and we'll give you HD programmes for free." Furthermore: "If you already have a satellite dish and use it to watch channels like BBC Three and ITV2" (I do, I do.5) "your existing dish is probably fine for receiving freesat as well. In this case you could buy a digital box without an installation package and try it at home — once freesat launches you might like to contact your local installer to see if this will work for you."