2008 — 14 June: Saturday
I'm having a lot of fun unearthing all these old family photos of Christa. Tonight's post-midnight shot is another from our delayed honeymoon in September 1975, though I can't be certain of the exact location of this beach. Possibly Falmouth? The lighthouse would probably help pinpoint it, I suppose:
Christa on a beach, smiling as usual
After I'd chosen the music for Christa's funeral, I sent a "thank you" over to Jim Croce's widow. She's just invited me to the Croce's San Diego Restaurant Week. Rather a long way to go, but a lovely thought.
Is there, I idly wonder, any news network quite as revolting as the one featured in this story?
Oh well, I have nothing planned for the rest of today. No doubt I'll find something to do. G'night, at 00:23.
Shiny new day
I've exchanged notes with my friendly plumber, Brian, about "my" slow drip. If I'm off to nether parts of the globe, I cannot realistically rely on a large flower pot, can I?! The crockpot is freshly stuffed and set to "stun". The elderly parsnips had to go unused, however. They smelled revolting and vaguely alcoholic; indeed, I'm sure I've heard of parsnip wine but now isn't the time1 for that voyage of discovery.
There's a lovely account here, however, of an 87-year-old's life-long voyage of discovery:
Most parents don't want their children to suffer the kind of grief inflicted on them by their own parents2... I've often worried — always to myself — if the burden Jean and I placed on our children proceeds less from our lack of specific rules on their conduct than from a marital relationship that for a variety of social and economic reasons later generations have found difficult to obtain, its drama and surprises not a result of misunderstandings and reconciliations after quarrels but in the discovery each day — with a poignancy that only increases with age — of how glad we are to be with each other.
My emphasis, obviously.
Only in England, I suspect, would you find: "The government's so-called respect tsar Louise Casey becomes a Companion of the Order of the Bath for her work as head of the Home Office anti-social behaviour unit." (Source.)
40 years on...
Not (alas) the sublime Alan Bennett play:
Mind you, it's also (just over) 40 years since I read3 my first JG Ballard. Today's Guardian has a nice review of him and his latest work.
Thinking of Ballard's The drowned world (inevitably) leads me to the comments by Ian Jack on Britain's failure to complete the electrification4 of the UK railway network. I was surprised to learn that "last year more people travelled on British trains than at any time since demobilisation specials ran in 1946." Still Mr Jack is a keen student of the topic; he should know. His item ends:
I like to imagine a post-diluvian conference of historians high on a hill, portioning out the blame for sea-level rise and the turbulent weather. They have a long measuring stick. Ordinary, worldwide material ambition and human confusion take up several metres of its length, but here and there is a centimetre devoted to a particularly individual folly. George Bush has one of those. Much, much smaller, maybe only a millimetre but still just visible, is the Labour government's transport policy, 1997-2008 (or whenever).
Leading, equally inevitably, to that US President.
Eight years on...
David Edgar has written an open letter to the soon-to-be-a-thing-of-the-past US President. Legacy? What's that mean? Bye George indeed. Time (13:36) for a nice spot of lunch, under the olfactory shadow of the crockpot. And now (18:04) I've just lowered the control rods (as it were!) to dampen down the reactor, and will (I hope) shortly be enjoying the variegated flavours that have been drifting up into the study all afternoon. I also have a newly-delivered DVD TV show to try out later tonight: Californication. I like both David Duchovny and Natasha McElhone (who tragically lost her husband a few weeks ago, poor lady).
Hunger dealt with... dept.
Right. It's now 19:55 and the remainder of the crockpot mélange is cooling in its bowl floating in the (beautifully efficiently-draining now) kitchen sink (some drama, heh?) so I can pop it into the fridge for further nourishment duty in the next couple of days. This is almost a well-practised routine by now, of course. Meanwhile, Bob Harris is regaling me (and the nation, of course) with the story of the initial encounters between John Lennon and Paul McCartney back in 1957.