2008 — 4 September: Thursday
Blimey. I'm tired. Yet I've done very little today. Oh well, time for tonight's picture of Christa. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, she took a fancy to, and thus commandeered, a brown cotton sort-of tartan shirt that my Dad had brought back for me from a trip he made to North America in 1964. Here she is in the kitchen in Meisenheim, wearing it in late 1981 as she made us supper:
Christa and Peter in the Meisenheim kitchen, 1981
G'night, at 01:59 or so.
Addled already?
Having surfaced about an hour ago (it's now 11:21 and I will be combining breakfast with lunch at this slothful rate, I suspect) and finished my morning dose of tea, I'm left trying to find something with which to amuse myself out on this Interweb malarkey. Failing that, I can always admit to buying a new DVD of one of our favourite films1 (Four weddings and a funeral) on DVD in Eastleigh yesterday — for a mere £2-99 — for precisely those DVD extras that I was recently decrying.
And, speaking (almost) of "decrying", I wept not a single tear yesterday. I can't have been too busy! This, too, is progress (I hope).
Found some good stuff:
One afternoon, on the very day I finished typing the last sentence, I posted my second first novel to an editor who plied his trade in a New York skyscraper. Back came the manuscript
in the mail, with 100 pages all marked up in red pencil — and a note. The note read: "If you do everything my red pencil suggests, and of course there will be more in this vein, we
will accept your novel for publication. But if you decline to follow my red pencil's indispensable advice, then we will decline to publish."
Fourteen years gone! Outrun by the cohort of my generation, I lusted for print as Jacob panted after Rachel. To the editor I wrote: "Seven years have I labored for these words, and
yet another seven years; so I say unto you, Nay, not one jot or tittle will I alter or undo."
To which the blessed editor replied: "OK, we'll take it anyway."
I particular liked the idea of her "second first novel". She also mentions some advice given by Rilke; this further endeared her to me, of course.
Jesse Stonecipher
I bet Big Bro knows a lot more about this chap than I do, though his name is strangely familiar. But I wonder if he's ever read this Aeronautics Bulletin #11 he co-authored from September 1954? (PDF file). It's wonderfully clear and well-written, and includes an amazing data table (Table II on page 16) showing the time required by each of 20 pilots to reach "an incipient dangerous flight condition". As described in a far more recent study, "The Disorient Express", back in 1954 this innocent table suggested that: the average life expectancy of a non-instrument-rated pilot who flies into clouds or instrument conditions is 178 seconds.
Who knew the fluffy white stuff was so lethal?
I like the tax man!
He's just raised my tax code (though I have no clue why) and thus given me a tiny pension increase. Crikey! At last I can afford the fish-oil pills that Ben Goldacre wittily debunks in his Bad Science columns.
Woody "Windsor" Allen
Before I hit the road for a spot of fresh air, let me show you Woody Allen's choice of font — remarkably consistently — for his films' title and credits sequences. (Steve Wright in the afternoon mis-specified it as Windsor Elongated a couple of minutes ago.) Here's the link.
That link, by the way, told me the first name of the chap (Benguiat) whose name is attached to one of the fonts I happen to like very much. Example:
Glowing reports... dept.
I mentioned (back here) British Energy's (failed) proposed sell-off of twelve nuclear power plants. The current issue of my fortnightly blood-pressure raising rag ("Private Eye") reminds us that the average age of the 11,000 engineers and skilled personnel in the UK nuclear industry is over 50 while pointing out that Finland is having welding problems with exactly the same kind of plant (the European Pressurised Water Reactor, EPR) that French company EDF (whose head of PR is the PM's brother, amusingly) will probably be trying to flog to us here in Blighty. I blame Thatcher, myself...
Still, now that that ever so nice Mr Blunkett has seemingly just announced in a speech that all UK citizens should continue to work until they drop (literally, it seems) perhaps I can refresh my rusty (dangerous word) welding skills. Now, where did I put that dosimeter I had to wear during my stints in Civil Defence?
I'm amazed to see the Guardian hosting a pile of comments about last night's "Lost in Austen" drama.