2008 — 10 October: Friday
And another week bites the dust. Last night's viewing was The Accused with Jodie Foster — a very fine actress. Now (somehow) it's just after midnight. The dishes are done, and I have a few hours to tidy the place up to be fit for Junior's arrival. I hope he remembers to bring the server PC with him. Better get some food in, I suppose. And some pocket money. <Sigh> Kids!
Tonight's picture of Christa... Another fabulous smile back in those Old Windsor days of new parenthood:
Christa in Old Windsor, 1980ish
G'night. Well, it would have been "g'night". Instead, I've been listening to that double CD of John Williams guitar music. While I was out gallivanting around in the mud yesterday, Mr Postie dropped an Amazon package through the living room window, and I found it behind the blinds a couple of hours ago when I was adjusting the curtains. So, g'night (take 2) at about 01:06. Damn, it's fine music!
RTF (chainsaw) M... dept.
Back in February I enjoyed a pleasant (though also muddy) stroll along a portion of the Kennet and Avon canal in the company of my former Lab Director. This morning, another former colleague tells me of a strange encounter at (I assume) the far end of this stretch of water:
Last week I found myself taking a 2-hour walk in Somerset, along the Kennet & Avon canal near Bath and back to the car via steep woodland footpaths and past the picturesque hamlet of Conkwell. On the last leg of the hike — deep in Warleigh Woods — I noticed a bamboo-style archway leading from the path into a clearing about 30 feet square. Around its perimeter were about 40 pieces of grey fabric on stakes fluttering like flags in the breeze. When I wandered in, I saw a gravestone in the centre of the square, and realised what this area was: a tribute to someone "who died here, 2005".
In fact, I remember reading the obituary at the time. It was Richard Feilden the architect, crushed by a tree he'd been felling.
If only...
Following my shameful confession not to have heard of this year's Nobel winner for literature, I found an interesting list of Nobel literature prize winners "in an alternative universe". (It has the advantage of containing more names I recognise, at least. Including Christa's favourite poet.)
I'd heard of the "widening gyre" but the "deleveraging vortex" was a new one. (Source.)
There were two titles, by the way, in that "blind drop" yesterday, and Mr Postie has just dropped off a DVD, too:
I'm now listening to the second CD of the John Williams. It seems the "Essential" CD collection I previously had (on one CD) wasn't quite "Essential" enough. An early colleague of mine in ICL — Vic Joseph — made me a cassette copy on his new Teac (complete with then-new-fangled1 Dolby B) of some of these tracks before I bought my own vinyl copies. (It was Vic's farmhouse flat that I moved into, when I was evicted by the vicar who wasn't too keen on having a pair of unmarried lovebirds co-habiting under his roof — happy days! Christa, meanwhile, moved into a rented room in Englefield Green until we found a flat practically next door to the farmhouse very soon after we were married in September 1974.)
We were back in Old Windsor in November 1996 as I was giving a talk2 (about Java) at the annual meeting of the ISTC. Flats and farmhouse had all gone and been replaced by some yuppie development. Pity. There was a field at the back that had a horse and foal, and a lovely old oak tree complete with a tribe of squirrels. Nothing lasts forever, it seems.
Mecca of Chandler's Ford... dept.
It really is true. Go often enough to the Waitrose and you eventually meet everyone. My latest enjoyable chinwag this afternoon during the delayed-as-long-as-I-could supplies run was with John Ward who'd popped up from Fareham to see Howard Blake in his PC shop (the which I didn't even know existed). Now it's time (15:29) for the more fun shopping. By the way, I am not, it seems, the only one hereabouts with a fine crop of spiders this autumn. Here's one that lives in my main copilot's greenhouse:
Shopping was the plan, but we know what happens to plans, don't we? Traffic on the "Avenue" was so dense, and static in the direction of Hill Lane, that I did a simple U-turn at the roundabout and returned via Chilworth. Swung by Len in hopes of picking up some DVDs but, although his car was there, he didn't seem to be. Cleaned the car's windows, which had shown themselves in sunlight to be remarkably murky, and am now (17:20) listening to some chatter about Benny Goodman's Carnegie Hall concert on BBC Radio 3. It's about to be re-created, I gather. Oops. Time (18:54) to feed the inner man. Doesn't Time fly when you're busy?