2008 — 15 May: Thursday
Yawn. Placeholder. Again! Ripped over 20 CDs, but am too tired to update my little database tonight. Besides, I've got to do the dishes first. "Bother" said Pooh. G'night.
Up and atom
Having woken up just before 10:00 I'm now listening to Cherie Blair under (too) gentle interrogation by Jenny Murray. I only like one of this pair. I will say no more.
The weather has become thankfully cooler, though the heavy rain the BBC keeps telling me about has yet to show up. Just had a postcard1 from John and Judy during their holiday week in Jersey. Christa and I always opted for Guernsey though I can still remember buying my first secondhand copies of the two Quantum Jump lps in St Helier on the one occasion we went over on a day trip from St Peter Port. I have only happy memories of the Channel Islands. And Christa was always pleased to be there. (Example. Or should I say "proof"?)
There's a nice piece here about the journalism of AJ Liebling (he of the eidetic memory) which has "slipped in and out of print" over the years. I have only one book of his in my little library, alas. He died way back in 1963. Yikes! Time for brekkie before it turns into brunch.
Narrow escape
Judging by the howling in some of the links from here, I had an easy ride with the SP3 installation on my XP Pro system. And (speaking of howling) I can still recall the feeling of incandescent rage I experienced back in those innocent early PVR "Tivo" days when it first decided to foist a recording I didn't want on to my system. (Not only did it record a programme I had no interest in, it wouldn't let me delete it without reformatting the drive — I no longer have a Tivo, of course.) But Vista can give you the opposite problem, it seems. Without explanation, so far:
"This is indicative of why the current DRM schemes are flawed," said Marcel Good, an IT director in Northern California and one of the people prevented from recording the NBC shows. "It affects people who intend to legally consume content. They have no intention of stealing the content. The people who want to steal already have ways around DRM."
Roll on, September
Excellent news. Remember who started this magazine, back in 1923? I must admit, I didn't realise this was now part of the "Haymarket"2 empire...
Having just noticed the time (14:05 — when did that happen?) I've snaffled a quick snack and will shortly hit the (re-)supplies trail. Tonight's din-dins is already decided, and tomorrow's lunch for that matter, but man cannot live by two meals alone, even if man is now living alone!
Forlorn attempts at control... dept.
I'm as guilty as anyone else, I guess. I used to track my income against the UK Retail Prices Index in the 1970s and early 1980s until I realised just how easily they could change the basis of their comparisons. But the Bank of England still gamely battles on. I've been browsing their latest quarterly inflation report, courtesy of the BBC. It is nicely formatted, beautifully typeset, agreeably coloured, well-written, and (in my opinion) probably not worth the pixels it's painted on. In fact, I cannot even be bothered to nick any charts from it!
First time for everything... dept.
If you're watching me, Christa, you will have seen me out in the garden for nearly an hour this afternoon (after the supplies shopping). I was weeding away until (almost before I knew it) I'd completely filled one of the local authority "green bags" that I'm still paying for. I don't believe you ever saw me do this in our 33 plus years together, and the garden here last had any attention back in October, just before you went back into hospital:
Christa going out to battle the weeds, 8th October 2007
You certainly had a green thumb, my love. And people clicking on your picture here will discover I now have a "Magic Thumb" too! It is free for non-commercial websites, by the way, and simply carries a discreet little product name. It's agreeably easy to add into the web serving process, but (if anyone is reading this ramble) do please let me know if it causes you any viewing problems. Thanks!
Time (18:27 or so) for the evening meal, which is (I sincerely hope) just about attaining its peak of physical perfection as I type!
Divine chocolate
I've just discovered two new things about Sandy Balfour (whom I mentioned back here). He's the Chair of "Divine Chocolate" and he's written a (mighty short) nice clerihew3 about why he doesn't blog:
Like fog A blog Adds nowt To owt.
Heisenberg again... dept.
Since cancelling the Radio Times I'm dependent on random acts of kindness (or the Interweb) for upcoming programme information. (I'm watching almost zero broadcast TV these days.) So, when Mike retrieved last Sunday's copy of the Culture magazine from his recyling bin for me, and when I saw in it that tonight, at 22:00, there's a "Panorama" programme examining the hit-rate of scientific predictions from the 1960s, I instantly thought of Nigel Calder's series The World in 1984 which was a republication from a series of articles in New Scientist in 1964. In fact, it's revisiting a January 1960 broadcast (which I did not see) but which will (again) feature Bernard Lovell. Fingers crossed.
