2008 — 23 October: Thursday
I'm hoping for a walk later today if my partner-in-crime is up for it, and the weather not too atrocious. But, for now, tonight's picture of Christa, which is another one from Christmas 1991. While I knew most of her expressions, I suspect I may just have made an awful pun, or worse, to provoke this one. Perhaps our young photographer remembers?
Christa pulling an atypical Christmas face, 1991
It's just gone midnight, and time I wasn't conscious. G'night. Wait! I knew there were loads of X-rays around, but this is ridiculous!
Unaccustomed as I am...
... to being awake at this extraordinary hour — it's a mere 08:39 and counting — I needed to nip down and take some more bread out of the freezer if I wanted to have the makings of my packed lunch today. The clouds that are mostly hiding the sun look pretty full of wet stuff, but a lady from the BBC (who did admit it would be "wet and Wendy" for most of us) has assured me I will be mostly dry in the southeast until the evening. Meanwhile, I remain entertained:
The layering of loans into English means it now often has three terms for the one thing. [Henry] Hitchings explains that the Anglo-Saxon term is often neutral or vernacular, the French term is considered sophisticated, and the Latin or Greek term may connote a more clinical or scientific view. Compare fire, flame, conflagration; go, depart, exit; dead, deceased, defunct.
What a pity Henry's surname (an idea foisted upon us by our Norman conquerors) isn't "Higgins".
There's a wonderful "explanation" of the financial crisis in the form of a John Fortune and John Bird conversation. Snippet and source:
JF: Yes. But isn't the real cause of this crisis the fact that for years the banks have been lending huge amounts of money to people who can't possibly pay it back?
JB: That's very, very simplistic. A banker can't possibly know the circumstances of each individual borrower. I mean, if somebody comes for a mortgage, unknown to the bank he might have his grandfather living with him. And again, unknown to the bank, his grandfather might be incontinent. And then the borrower has to spend large chunks of his income on new underpants, on colostomy bags, on recarpeting the lounge every few weeks. And you see we have to come up with systems and ways of allowing for that... Well, we have these things, these CDOs and SIVs and we put all the dodgy mortgages and the incontinent grandfathers in them. And then, hey presto, the credit rating agencies call them triple A.
If only it weren't true!
Home again
It's now 16:22 and I've just negotiated a surprisingly busy M3 and arrived safely back home. The weather looks as if it's building up to a giant wet blow job (as it were) and I have battened down several of the hatches. But the walk was good, if not exactly sunny. I managed the following prickly little shot courtesy of Mike's Nikon:
Thank you, Georg...
... for your slightly belated birthday greetings. I miss Christa very much, but know that she is not in pain any more. It is still very strange not to be with her every day, but I am glad you can see the pictures I publish here. They bring back a lot of very happy memories. Your sister was a beautiful person!
It's 18:36 — the evening meal is coming up (as it were) very soon, and the rain appears to be coming down. Still that's what I have a roof for.
Several hours later, I've watched the second of the three "Bourne" films. And I must say that Christa would have been delighted to watch the Railway Transport Films on offer from BBC4 this evening. We several times went to special screenings of these at the Harbour Lights cinema, and I bought several DVDs of this rich, archival material too. It simultaneously satisfied her liking of travel, her passion for recent social history, and her wish for further insights into her adopted country. I must admit I was mildly horrified tonight to learn quite how much of John ("Midnight Cowboy") Schlesinger's famous Terminus documentary had been (how to put this politely?) faked for the camera.