2008 — 21 April: Monday
It's 01:38 and I'm starting to droop, just like the daffodils out in the garden.1 Had we not chosen to believe the various dire weather forecasts, we could easily have fitted in a walk yesterday. Instead, I've relatively recently returned from a meal and film at Mike's — we watched the "full" version (from 2005) of the SE Hinton tale The Outsiders with what was, at the time (1983), a very nascent Brat Pack. Good stuff.
Must remember to re-stuff the crockpot later today, before setting off for a lunchtime at the Dolphin. It's all "go", this retired widower lark.
It's a brand-new day... dept.
So now we know where the rain is. <Sigh> It's 09:53, the twits are once again twittering on the radio, the crockpot has been stuffed with a potentially interesting (I hope) mixture, the first cuppa is working its magic and, sooner or later, I shall do something about breakfast and suitable outdoor clothing. I was too busy potting the crock to realise that Daniel Dennett was on Radio 4 until he wasn't any longer. Pity.
I (literally) picked up a new DVD yesterday evening just before I set off for Winchester. As I fiddled with the blinds at the front of the living room I realised Mr Postie had dropped a packet through the open window down on to the window ledge that's largely out of sight behind the plasma screen — not a delivery system I've ever noticed him use in the past, and certainly not recommended in general, but suitable for single DVDs I suppose. So I can now add...
- Hard Men
At £4-99, I figured — what the heck... It has (from the unidentified director of the London Film Festival) one of those deliciously ambiguous quotes that could mean anything: "More than equal to anything that Tarantino might have done"
... to the database.
Still drizzling at 10:52, how drearily depressing. Still, at least I now know the name of the music used on the Space Shuttle sequence of the Joe Kane DVD Video Essentials — it's from Respighi's "Pines of Rome". Good ol' BBC.
Same time last year... dept.
We'd taken a picnic for an afternoon exploring the Rockbourne Roman Villa. It was a gloriously sunny day, and I took this on the way back home when we'd stopped just to admire the view:
Not old to me... dept.
Back from a nice chat (though a horrible lunch) at the Dolphin. Un-funnily enough, when we were asked "Was everything alright?" and I replied "No, this is horrible" it was assumed I was joking. I was not. But here's a nice joke, new to me, no matter how long-known to the editor of the New Republic:
There is an old joke about two jazz musicians walking along a street when a huge bell falls out of a church steeple and crashes disastrously behind them. "What was that?" one asks, with alarm. "F sharp," the other replies.
He throws in another neat aside, too: "Woodrow Wilson once remarked that the purpose of a college education is to make a man as much unlike his father as possible." Meanwhile, in the Washington Post we can find Jonathan Yardley wondering why pianist Arthur Rubenstein's autobiography of his first three decades is now out of print: "Unlike the memoirs that now crowd the bookshelves, exercises in self-administered therapy in which narcissistic narrators of no apparent accomplishment whine ad nauseam about real or imagined angst,..." Love it!
But now it's time (15:47) to hit the road again to pay in an ERNIE and pick up a packet too large (I assume) to be dropped through the front window. As I remarked to Messrs Smales and Elliot in Waitrose a few minutes ago: "It's all go." So I can now also add...
- Law and Order
This is not the long-running American TV series, but the 4-part BBC series written by GF Newman and transmitted 30 years ago this month. It examines endemic judicial corruption from the perspectives of the police, the criminal, the solicitor, and the prisoner. This stunning series made the same impact on us when we saw it as Edge of Darkness did seven years later.
... to the database.
Surreal continent
Australia, it seems, has been allowed to enlarge its size by the equivalent of five Frances. How does that work, then?
If you say so, Mervyn...
Not for the first time, the world's finances seem to be in a bit of a mess. Happily, the present governor of the Bank of England seems to be a great deal cleverer than I am. He can reconcile even more impossible things than the Red Queen of "Alice" fame.
For example, he has denied accusations that Britain's high street banks were being bailed out by the taxpayer. He has dismissed accusations that the banks were being bailed out by the scheme. ("The purpose is to protect the rest of the economy from the banks, not to protect banks from their previous decisions," he said.) His bank will take on mortgage-backed assets owned by the banks in exchange for government-backed bonds, and has stressed that there would be negligible risk to the taxpayer. And although the scheme is indemnified by the Treasury, it "is designed to avoid the public sector taking on the risk of losses".
Where the blue blazes does he think the Bank of England gets its money from, pray tell? (For all I know, the same place any government gets any of its money from, actually; some would suggest via the massive, and very long-running, confidence trick described here. Worth a read, by the way.)
Anyway, ever on the lookout for amusement, I've been browsing through the Bank's statement, and was particularly struck by this wonderful sentence: "If an independent market price is unavailable, the Bank will use its own calculated price and apply a higher haircut."2
Food, glorious food...
Definitely time (18:50) to pop the lid off the crockpot (to which I was rather late in adding the all-important chopped tomatoes and garlic in olive oil). My experts at lunch assured me this could be added fairly late in the process without deleterious effects. I shall report in due course... Yep (19:54) quite yummy. This is a rich stew (I prefer "mélange") of pork, onion, carrot, swede, potato, cooking apple, fresh pineapple, apple juice, pork stock, and a splosh of white cooking wine, topped off (some four hours late!) by the chopped tomatoes and garlic, and all basically simmered since 09:45 this morning. Accompanied by a slice of well-fired loaf, and followed by yet another cuppa. I do wonder what Christa would have said, but I certainly hope she'd approve.