2008 — 5 April: Saturday, colder and wet?
Just a placeholder for now... G'night. Though if you read this, Geoff, both attempts to email you have been bounced. And here's a taster from yesterday's literary acquisition:
Hard to say, of course, but of all the things you might do in your final ten minutes, it's a pretty safe bet that few of them are things that you actually did today... Now some people will bemoan this fact, wag their fingers in your direction, and tell you sternly that you should live every minute of your life as though it were your last, which only goes to show that some people would spend their final ten minutes giving other people dumb advice.
And that's just from page one!
Where's that snow?
Having been determined to have a morning lie-in (neatly avoiding all the foul weather the BBC was gleefully warning me about last night) I've basically been woken by the blazing sunlight. Typical. After a cuppa I shall have to report to Geoff1 that now his suggested alternative email address is sneeringly rejected somewhere along the electric string as a "permanent error"...
SMTP error from remote mail server after initial connection:
host mx1.prserv.net [12.154.55.40]: 550 unauthorized interface for 69.73.180.197 on kcin02
Some days, I regret the demise of the fountain pen. As for other news: the idea of Croatia suddenly becoming "one of America's closest allies" leaves me as unmoved as the headline item concerning an elderly Greek layabout spending his second night in hospital. Back to Brian Matthew and that "itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka-dot bikini" for a lighter mood. Interesting to hear Nick Hornby chatting to Jonathan Ross, too. He's describing the "miserable" process of making films from books. I also read, with very mixed emotions, the latest twist in Joan Didion's meditation on grief which is now, it seems, making its way to the stage.
A fun evening? Not! Though I do think her new opening to the play (revealed at the end of David Hare's Guardian article about the 18-month process of turning the essay into his playscript) is simply brilliant. Even if (to my mild shame) I had to ask Mrs Google to tell me the meaning of "Lehrstück" — to save you the bother, it's a "learning" play; a form of drama that is specifically didactic and not for "orthodox" theatre. Christa would not only have known that, but would very likely have told me all about Brecht's use of it for anti-Nazi propaganda purposes. How I miss her in all sorts of ways!
Pictures for Christa, etc.
I thought it would be a shame not to take a few pictures of the blossoming garden so, braving the pollen, I captured at least the Japanese decorative cherry ...
... and the pear tree. Then we had a brief touch of hail. But no snail mail.
Meanwhile, the DVD artwork scanning continues. I've just begun on the second folder, which has taken me as far as the delightful B for "Banger Sisters". I've also worked out why I was throwing away about half of the eggs each time: I'd basically stopped cooking bacon'n'eggs but have decided I can tolerate a fry-up about once a fortnight or so, specially as I now use horribly healthy cooking oil. The new non-stick frying pan is amazing even though (like a new car) it apparently has to be run-in (or "conditioned") before first use, which added a 15-minute delay to today's lunch.
I'm still trying to re-establish trouble-free email comms with a previously reliable correspondent who persists in teasing me with (as the Free Online Dictionary describes it) my "curious lacunae of astounding ignorance". (A phrase from Frank Norris, I believe. I'm ashamed to say I was previously unaware of his existence. QED)
Sniffing around... dept.
When I came to transfer the garden pictures from the Canon's memory card a few minutes ago, I found still on it the batch of pictures from my walk with Mike on 5th March. These were neglected in the wake of the great PC crash and recovery, but here's one of my fantasy animals: a bloodhound, unless I miss my guess:
Should I try...?
... the new series of "Dr Who"? The last time I watched this programme with any degree of regularity, the lead rôle was taken by an irascible chap called William Hartnell and there were only 405 lines in a monochrome picture! I also didn't think it was as good as its near contemporary "A for Andromeda"2 but that's what happens when you let my hero Fred Hoyle loose on science fiction with Julie Christie, I suppose. However, I have admired several pieces of recent work by Russell T Davies, so perhaps I shall give it a go.3 There's also a tribute to the late TV producer Verity Lambert tonight. And a reshowing of the first couple of episodes of the second series of "Gavin and Stacey". See what happens when I get my hands on a copy of the Radio Times?
Memories of old science fiction must inevitably include a BBC radio series called "Shadow on the sun" — this has been so comprehensively expunged from existence that it doesn't even feature in a fat book of BBC radio and TV SF. However, Jon Ronson did some research on Stanley Kubrick for the Guardian several years ago, and I found the results fascinating. Turns out Kubrick was also a font buff. What's not to like?!
Plus ça change... dept.
I remarked last year how Christa did much better than me in sheer entertainment value when receiving silly cheques. Dammit, even Mike does:
As the landlord of an electricity cable buried under part of his property, he gets these annual cheques in rent. Now there's a small business idea...
Technology? Don't get me started!
It's now 20:41 and I'm taking a small break from my Epson scanner to check out the Linux Mint distro. I must have a masochistic streak, I guess. Meanwhile, I know a chap not a million miles from here who is achieving a certain amount of success in his dogged pursuit of delivering an upscaled TV video stream to his new plasma toy via his hacked XBox Media PC's component output. More success, by the sound of his email a few minutes ago than my much more limited ambition of switching my scanner between two PCs via the fancy KVM's USB hub facility. It seems whenever I switch "focus" (as it were) between the two PCs the scanner needs to be powered off, back on, and the application recycled. Far more hassle than it's worth — trust me. I shall just have to decide which PC to do all my scanning on and then simply network the image folders instead. <Sigh>