2008 — 5 August: Tuesday
Tonight's picture, which I'm preparing while listening to the 01:00 news (having just arrived home after a set of nibbles, a full meal, and a third showing of the amazing Alan Bennett-scripted film of The History Boys) shows Christa peeping round a bedroom doorway in our Old Windsor house, beside a rickety old (that is, cheap, multiple-hand) cupboard she'd decorated to use for linen and to match one of the astonishing wall colours used in the landing:
Christa and our decorated linen cupboard, 1976
It was quite some time before we could equip the house with much furniture other than stuff from auctions and various of the cheap furniture shops that we discovered were quite a common feature of Windsor...
The weather forecast doesn't look at all promising for any walking later today, so I shall get some sleep instead. G'night at 01:16 or so.
Resurfaced...
... to a world of rain at 10:15 or so. It's a cool 17C and still wet at 11:18, but a gentle tap at the door has brought me some comic relief:
Christa and I both thought this was a fabulous1 series and watched it in Old Windsor when it was first transmitted. It was written by Jack Pulman, who'd previously adapted Robert Graves' I, Claudius (equally good) but who died before filming Schulz started. Curiously, I'm typing this while listening to "Caesar!" on BBC 7, adapted from Suetonius. (With background music from Peter Gabriel!)
The feather warcast is absolutely spot on, so far. Definitely not a day for out and aboutness. Soon be time to rustle up a lunchtime bite and seek out an indoors task or two. (I already have a long list, including the tedious corralling of dust-bunnies.)
I'm listening to Bruckner's Symphony No. 5 in B major and reading that during "Bruckner's Vienna years, at a time when the musical life of the city was sharply divided. You were either a Brahmsian or a Wagnerian, and the two camps were as implacably opposed as mods and rockers". (Source.) I'm more of a Stravinskian myself, with Lassus and Bach blended in somewhere along the way, plus a dash of Tchaikovsky, a soupçon of Chopin, a beaker of Beethoven, ...
There's a nice essay here that resonates somewhat with last night's sublime film, on the educational battleground, at least. Snippet:
At least on the emotional level, contemporary American education sides with the obstacles. It begins by treating children as psychologically fragile beings who will fail to learn — and worse, fail to develop as "whole persons" — if not constantly praised. The self-esteem movement may have its merits, but preparing students for arduous intellectual ascents aren't among them. What the movement most commonly yields is a surfeit of college freshmen who "feel good" about themselves for no discernible reason and who grossly overrate their meager attainments.
I never knew the name of the instrument — bandoneon — that is now playing in the background. Nor did I know there's an orchestral Bandoneon Concerto. Amazing sound. Interesting composer (Astor Piazzolla) too; I now have two CDs on order. (Well, it is pension day tomorrow!)
Do the maths... dept.
A third of eleven-year-olds leaving primary school lack a grasp of the finer points of reading, writing, and 'rithmetic. And the SATS results are out even though they haven't all been marked (how does that work, then?) A parent with an eleven-year-old child ought to be fully aware of that child's level of attainment. A parent who isn't is simply unfit to be a parent. Discuss! (Actually, no discussion permitted, or required.) But the government is far more worried about the state of the mortgage market (perhaps because that issue tends to affect voters, though whether those voters can read, write, or do simple 'rithmetic isn't assessed, is it?) Christa, my love, you're well out of this mess, you know.
Stoning to death?
Islamic law endorses this? For adultery?? Madness!!! What a species... (They'll be hanging people for stealing a sheep next.)
Such "audacity"... dept.
I now have an incentive to follow through on the repair of the soundcards in my two XP machines by seeing if I can once again install and get Audacity up and running. I need to turn a minidisc and a tape cassette into MP3s and cut them all to a CD-ROM. Shouldn't be entirely beyond my capability, I hope. And Junior has just (22:25) rung with very welcome news of his much improved health. He finishes the antibiotics on Friday, and will resume work tomorrow.