2008 — 24 November: Monday
So, another week gets under way and, before I turn in for the night, it's time for another picture of Christa. We had "German Barbara" (Bolling, the elder daughter of a good friend of Christa's) staying with us in August 1984 for a couple of weeks (ostensibly to improve her command of English) and took her and Peter on a picnic and walking trip around quite a lot of the Isle of Wight, ending up quite sun-burnt at Alum Bay before catching a bus back to Cowes for the ferry home:
Christa, on the Isle of Wight, August 1984
I must say, Guy Garvey on 6Music was excellent last night. He played an extract from George Clooney's appearance on "Desert Island discs" wherein "the Cloonster" picked as his one record William Shatner's bizarre rendition of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds because, as he said, if you played that all the time you'd end up hollowing out your own leg to use as an escape canoe!
Hard to disagree.
I shall sign off with a little picture from the front cover of a marvellous book I bought back in 1975. It taught me a lot about politics. And journalists. Has anything much changed over three decades later, do you suppose? (Click the pic.)
Good grief! I've just learned that Toby Young is the son of Michael "Rise of the Meritocracy" Young. Hell's teeth! As for euthanasia, consider this. G'night, at 01:07 or so.
Awake!
For Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight.
If only. Funnily enough, I was introduced to The Rubaiyat1 via a supposedly pornographic novel — "The Shy Photographer"2 by Jock Carroll:
Mr Carroll was a photojournalist who took pictures of Marilyn Monroe (on the set of Niagara in 1951) and went on to write his book "about a naive photojournalist who meets a stunning actress in Canada... and some other girls when he heads to New York in the company of a more experienced journo, the latter fellow educating our hero on the uses of an expense account, and how to handle things when the ladies come in pairs... and won't take no for an answer." The "latter fellow" is the keen fan of The Rubaiyat. So much for the corrupting effect of low literature, heh?
It's 10:55, and rather too cool for my taste outside, but still dry. Breakfast is a distant memory. Let the fun begin with a second cuppa, methinks. What possible justification exists for a month like November, I wonder? It's less than 5C outside. Brrr. Wonder where Peter's ski-suit is.
When software works...
... all is sweetness and light. When it doesn't, it isn't. But when it partly works and only sometimes then I can almost feel the blood pressure rising. Add to that the fact that I've just sent away Mr "I trimmed your trees, so why don't I replace your windows and soffets?" who obviously regards me as his personal hole in the wall cash machine and not even a fresh cuppa is going to restore my normal bonhomie for a while. Time for some seriously soothing music.
As for the mini-budgie — as I've just told my main co-pilot: "I can't face listening... (the CBI is demanding £10bn in tax cuts!) so I'm going with music all the way. Wake me when the galaxy can once again afford custom-made planets."
Tea time!
It's 18:41 and there's a distinctly hungry area in the ol' tum tum. That will never do, will it?