2009 — 23 March: Monday
It is said, is it not, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions? I had every intention of doing more stuff than you could shake a stick at this weekend. But, here it is, very fast approaching midnight, and about all I've achieved is to get the dishes done! My DVD artwork scanning has reached the letter "I" and 1,095 items. The next title to deal with is the wonderful Powell and Pressburger film "I know where I'm going!" which is — of course — exactly what I don't know... I haven't even replied properly to an email from my chum Val in Stockholm, dammit.
Oh well. Time for tonight's picture of Christa taken exactly 21 months ago:
Always, her cheerful smile. How very much I miss it. And her... <Sigh>
I've just been listening to Guy Garvey's 100th "Finest Hour" playing a track from what (I have to admit) is now an "old" JJ Cale album: Naturally. It was actually one of the albums that Christa brought over from Germany when we ferried1 over a lot of her stuff in September 1974 a week or so before we tied the knot. On our very next cross-Channel trip, of course, (which was in December 1974) we had to declare the car itself on our return to the UK.
G'night.
Taking the pee...
I have no idea who selects titles to become the BBC Radio 4 book of the week, but today's example (and the phrase "the pink bucket, now sloshing with three layers of urine!") has sent me scuttling back to the relative safety of the choral music on Radio 3 while I contemplate this suggestion of the Pope's fallibility. I'm not sure which has the worse effect on my appetite for breakfast. While I'm considering stupidity, I suppose I can fit in the story of the 74-year-old woman "condemned to 45 lashes, three months in prison, and deportation to her native Jordan, for having two male visitors in her home who were not relatives". (Source.)
Somehow, Christa's normal "Good God!" sounds inadequate... Who, by the way, do you suppose is being described here?
... and he could not escape his parsimony in personal dealings. He carefully monitored his wife's allowance for years after he became spectacularly rich, and he excluded an adopted grandchild from his will. He came to charity relatively late, having for many decades hoarded his wealth apart from the odd foray into a cause like population control in Africa or stopping nuclear war, something that is very difficult to finance.
Deep Unjoy... dept.
The new "Council Tax" bill has thudded onto the mat. No matter how they gild it, it's gone up. I can't help wondering what the "open market capital value" of my "dwelling" was on April Fool's Day 1991, but I note that, if I throw out all my furniture, I may get a discount. (I already get a 25% discount for the unwanted privilege of being a widower.) I shall go out with my main co-pilot for a revivifying cuppa shortly! Hope we can get two straws...
Plans are now (at 19:15) afoot for a little ramble tomorrow. It looks very like being the only day this week that the weather is, as it were, suitable. My goodness, my bright yellow grapefruit is extremely sour. Ho-hum.
I've just (21:11) scanned the artwork for one of my "Top 10" films2 — the 1985 gem Into the Night directed by John Landis, and starring...? (Click the pic.)
Michelle Pfeiffer and Jeff Goldblum
24 years ago! Can you believe it?