2008 — 4 June: Wednesday
The walk we'd tentatively arranged for later today is on hold. My fellow walker is dealing with an ongoing water ingress horror show in his living room (and this is after chaps from the "Water Board" have been along to do their thing, too). Ho hum.
Just for a change, here's a slide of part of our Old Windsor living room (poor old Narcissus has faded over the years since I bought him in 1972). I had no idea mirror tiles on a wall would reveal so much about the drunkenness of the original builders:
Dali in Old Windsor, July 1979
And so to bed. It's 00:30. G'night.
Tut tut Chinook
What a story to wake up to. But I betcha nobody gets the chop(per). I note, by the way, that the BBC webmaster has been listening to criticisms of the over-generous size of the "fixed" real estate, and has cut it down somewhat on the main home page. Good. But I note another form of real estate is costlier than before:
...the cost of repaying a mortgage rose by 12% last year, which meant in turn that the cost of paying back a home loan rose to 34.5% of average incomes for first-time buyers. That was higher than in 1990, at the peak of the house price boom at the end of the 1980s.
Not good. What would Gordon Gecko say? Doesn't sound too hard being a professor in York university these days, somehow. Perhaps he sidelines as an estate agent. (Aside to Christa: the estate agent who was initially unwilling1 to sell us our house here is now handling the cluster of new "stuff" that's been thrown up at the end of Chalvington Road. Just sit in an office and sell the same property, on average, once every seven years. What a life!) I retain a very (very) low opinion of estate agents.
Goodness! I had no idea there was a gulf between booksellers and book buyers. I've never found it to be so. Oh well, time for some brekkie to accompany the gentle eye I'm keeping on the lads and lasses next door as they re-commence noisily ripping up the rest of Bob's patio (which has not lasted nearly as well as Christa's). I wonder what will take its place... Another house, perhaps?!
Further (movie poster related) eye-food here. Thanks for the tip, Brian! I've only seen 57 of these 99 titles. What have I been doing with my life?! See you for the next Xbox hack soon, I trust.
Don't cry for me... dept.
I was — again — pondering the few remaining audio cassettes I have (from ancient vinyl LPs) and what to do about them. I would have copied them on to minidiscs but, obviously, now I'd prefer to convert them to mp3 format. Then, hopping through radio channels, I caught the last couple of minutes of Julie Covington's heart-stoppingly beautiful performance of "Don't cry for me, Argentina" from Evita in the original 1976 concept album version (one of said cassettes) and decided, once again, to see if this definitive version is available on CD...
A snapshot of the remaining (rock) cassettes
Bingo! My order for the 20th anniversary special edition CD went off about four milliseconds ago. And Christa's ERNIE this month will pay for it nicely, too. We both liked this version immensely. If you want to browse the other titles there's a larger picture here.
One cool bird... dept.
Come back, Dr Dolittle!
At the Bird Expo, she told a story about the time an accountant was working on some tax forms near Alex's cage, and was more or less ignoring him. Peering down at the visitor, he asked her, "Wanna nut?" No, she said, not looking up. Want some water? No. A banana? No. And so on, through his repertoire of nameable desires. At last, Alex asked, in a tone in which it was hard not to detect a note of impatience, "What do you want?"
Hard to disagree... dept.
I realise my opinions on economics are not to everybody's taste; so what? Don't miss the David Parkins cartoon if you follow the link containing this extract:
For those with long memories, today's financial crisis evokes nothing so much as the 1978-79 "winter of discontent", when Britain's trade unions, after weeks of often bitter strike action, smashed through a government pay limit. In place of the mounds of uncollected rubbish on the streets are mounds of suddenly worthless securities that nobody wants to buy. For the trade unions who believed their size and membership made them too big to ignore, there are the banks and brokerages that are, apparently, too big to fail. For the flying pickets, there are the financiers in pinstriped suits informing one and all that the failure of taxpayers to bail them out of the consequences of their huge mistakes would threaten a global meltdown.
Calm down, son!
He just called to tell me about the horrors of his week after a software release that had been inadequately quality assured before it hit the fan(s). Trust me, I already know. Of course, the fact that he was out on holiday2 last week didn't help.
Bottom news, surely?
I'm sure NASA is now flushed with success. Or, at the very least, all pumped. As am I, somewhat. It's 21:51 and I'm just back from a stroll around the neighbourhood on one of the little exercise loops that Christa and I would gently walk together when that had become the limit of her physical capability. (Aside to Christa: I took the Northdene and Southdene loop.) I inspected all the gardens just as we used to together, but I didn't linger overlong. It was upsetting but also at least a little cathartic; I've not done this walk for eight months. Good God!