2008 — 20 Mar: Thursday — the week's getting away from me
It's just gone midnight. For a change of pace, I shall shortly retire and curl up in bed with a good book. Haven't done that for a while. Later, I'm predicting a tad of supplies shopping, and a reheated pork casserole "thing". One day just keeps following another, doesn't it? Now, which shall it be? Ms Didion or Professor Knuth? Or even the divine Delia?? (I bet I settle for Computer Shopper or Private Eye.) My thanks to John and Judy for bringing this to my attention1 yesterday. I donated a mere 580 grains of rice, but got a vocabulary level of 46. Is that any good? I failed on "niveous" but had no time to look it up before heading out to the theatre.
G'night. Oops. The road to bed is paved (at 00:50) with good intentions. I discovered far too much good stuff here. Yawn. Including this. And this.
Springing into inaction
Stuck in, actually, until Mr Postie's parcel van has done its morning dispensing. It's 10:46 and the sun is shining (in the teeth, as it were, of the BBC's local weather forecast). Christa, many things in (y)our garden are perking up. There's even a small patch of grass right at the bottom that needs a trim almost as badly as I do.
Back in April 2006 (at Easter) Christa had been telling the NZ niece #2:
We had a great break, that's for sure, even though we are somewhat off chocolate — Peter didn't want his, neither did I like mine, so David may have 3 for himself.2 I spent lots of time in the garden, we had lovely warm weather; Peter came home on Saturday; on Saturday evening we went to see "V for Vendetta" (loosely based on Guy Fawkes, corrupt parliaments and blowing up the present buildings in the end — we thought it was quite good!); on Sunday afternoon he went back to London, and I went back into the garden again. It's most enjoyable (I'm building a small wall and laid the foundations!) Basically, I feel like playing in a sand pit! But it's real cement and real bricks (65p per brick!), and the whole thing is going to be 2 m long, 2 bricks high, and in the end I shall not have any grass left to be cut ever again — anything for not having to cut the grass!
Just tell me why anyone would keep a used cinema ticket?! Let alone still be able to find it, two years later. I freak myself out sometimes. (You can tell by the price why, if all three of us went to the cinema, a DVD was often more cost-effective.) Come on, Mr Postie, get a move on. (It's 11:17 and the clouds are gathering.)
Just doing a spot of minor-league sucking with the mini-Dyson behind the plasma screen, and fastening down some of my cheapskate plastic double glazing sheets, when who should turn up...? The wish is obviously father to the thought. Having finished this spot of DIY I turned, once again, to that horribly addictive rice-donating vocabulary testing site. With a few struggles and (frankly) a couple of outright guesses, and limiting myself to 1,000 grains:
I have no more idea of the meaning of "tomalley" than I had of "niveous". Nor — in a different context — did I know "mammilary" though I like to think I keep reasonably abreast of things.
Truth?
For some reason, I find myself unmoved by the plight of our banks and other financial institutions. I know I should be and, in all probability, I will (like many others) suffer at some point down the road. But the idea of these people queuing up to borrow money (my tax money, by the way) from the central bank so they can more confidently and (no doubt) profitably carry on lending it to one another would just boggle my mind. It's as insane in its way as watching laden lorries thundering up and down the motorway carrying near identical loads (I'm sure) from A to B and from B to A. I'm reminded, not for the first time, of that wonderful quotation from Anne Fadiman.
I find, though, a strange solace in contemplating literary hoaxes. But I wonder how reliable Wikipedia is?
Something to look forward to.... dept.
While bearing in mind the lovely little short story The Star by the late Arthur C Clarke (he won a "Hugo" for it at the 14th World SF convention in 1956) consider this mildly depressing item. Mind you, given some of the things this particular information source has had to say about space science in the past... (look at the final quotation).