2008 — 7 September: Sunday
It's — crikey! — 02:24 and I've just finished watching Four weddings and a funeral plus all the extras. I watched it with the commentary from the director, producer and writer with subtitles set "on". How geeky is that? So I shall state for the record it's still just about my favourite film, well up there with Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Groundhog Day, Roxanne, and (of course) The Philadelphia Story. Just don't ask me to choose only one of these!
Time for tonight's picture of Christa. In fact, for a change let's have one of the (relatively rare) pictures of the two of us. I honestly can't remember when, where, or even who clicked the shutter. I've a feeling it may have been the local rhododendron place that opens briefly each year, whose name escapes me. Hillier's, perhaps?
G'night, at 02:34 or so.
Overnight indexing
Memory is odd, isn't it? I've just woken up (at 10:00ish) and the name "Exbury Gardens" is floating around the memory buffers. It's on a line drawn between Bucklers Hard and Calshot. I know we went there at least once with our friends the Smythsons, so I suspect I may also have deduced the shutter clicker. Louis Armstrong is once again telling us what a wonderful world it is (even though it's trying to rain again). While I don't dispute the sentiment, I still think the world is rather less wonderful in Christa's continuing absence. Time (10:43) for my brekkie.
And, as far as memory goes, how could I forget to mention A Fish called Wanda, What's up, Doc?, The Sure Thing, Into the Night, 2001: a space odyssey, The Accidental Tourist, Doc Hollywood, Victor / Victoria, The Producers, Trading Places to name but a few?
I mentioned a couple of names from the University of New Mexico yesterday, and have found a third chap today who continues the slight theme I was developing. Link.
Oops!
How do all these hard drives full of personal data still keep going walkabout? Amazing. Meanwhile, listening to the people involved in the "Hitler diaries" hoax has taken me back to the relevant chapter in Phillip Knightley's 1997 memoir A Hack's Progress. I must say, poor Mr Knightley came in for a bit of flack from Claud Cockburn's son given the "high and mighty moral tone" he'd been accused of using in his 1975 book. (Pictured here, oddly.)
Katharine Whitehorn is a class act, well worth reading and hearing. Try this. She was married (until his death) to one of my preferred thriller writers, Gavin Lyall.
Well I never knew this meaning of tromboning! I should get out more. And the New York Times should change "cites" to "cities" or "sites"! Nearly time for a spot of lunch. I've just heard Judy Collins say "Thank god" that she'd already been in therapy for some years before her son's suicide. Good grief. Well, at least it's just about stopped raining.
Streaming eye
Now what could have provoked my left eye into streaming redness for the last hour or more? Not the trivial amount of snipping in the garden, surely? I've tried "Optrex" to no effect. Lunch has been lunched. The barometer has shot up. It's 14:22. What's next, Mrs Landingham? How about yet another check on the state of Wine? (The state of our grapes, Christa, is that they are coming along beautifully, by the way.)
From Wine, it's a mere hop and a skip to Codeweavers, who host an interesting Linux desktop migration paper (PDF file) that suggests:
As I mentioned recently, I filled a "green bag" with garden waste, and even took a "before" shot of the bog garden, fully intending to match it to an "after" shot. I don't know what Christa had in mind for the bog garden back in May last year, other than filling in the fish pond of course, but I've now (16:37) finished pulling out all the stuff that (as far as I can tell) had self-rooted, and completely filled my second green bag in the process. The left eye is still streaming, so I can rule out pollen. So now for those comparison photos:
Trimming the bog garden, a little
Aside to Christa
Well, my love, it's 21:19 and I managed to watch my first-ever "Antiques Roadshow" tonight without you by my side. A very odd sensation, I can tell you. I've also switched the central heating back on for the last hour or so — it's become distinctly autumnal. My goodness me, how very much I miss you, Christa!
At 23:15 I'm starting to get very fed up of the watery eye. A sinus infection perhaps? Very wearisome. I think I shall pack myself off for an early night for a change, and see what tomorrow brings. But not before Nina Simone has finished the same Jacques Brel song that I heard Dusty sing yesterday morning. Say "Hi!" to my horribly bloodshot eye:
And I haven't even been drinking, dammit!