2009 — 13 April: Monday

Now I can identify tonight's picture of Christa... It was taken back in September 1974 (just before we married). Christa had taken me over to Meisenheim to meet her parents, her two brothers, their wives, and Florian our soon-to-be nephew.

Left to right: me, Christa, Karl, Florian, Linda, Gisela, and Georg. Weren't we all very young? (Well, I was 22, and Karl must have been 31, with the rest falling variously in-between.) Right. Once again it's time for some sleep ahead of a planned walk — weather permitting...

G'night.

And there's me...

... thinking that it was Autumn that's the season of mellow mists. Shome mishtake, shurely. Still, it's only 08:01 so there's time yet for the stuff to burn off. Then I'll be able to see where I'm going — Horsebridge is on the menu. How do you suppose our revered leader can do more to distance himself from smeary emails,¹ do you suppose? "Juvenile exchanges between friends", heh? Well, they don't look quite as juvenile as the content suggests.

What a febrile little village Westminster is. Even that lovely chap Alastair Campbell has blogged about it. Meanwhile research in China has suggested a future approach to tackling some forms of infertility — just what an over-populated globe needs.²

And more Britons than ever (over 50%) believe in life after death, though they seem only to consider heaven rather than the more likely (if unpopular) destination... How ghostly. (I had no idea we harboured a theology think tank in our midst — how very pluralist of us.) Definitely time (08:48) for some breakfast. And to the sounds of "Finlandia" — excellent.

Minor disaster...

There's a gaping hole in the centre of my latest well-fired loaf. I hope this isn't going to become a regular feature. Ham, cheese and pickle carefully applied around the edges — hope it will "holed" out until consumption time. A little burst of Handel led to a minor wobble,³ but nothing a hanky can't cope with. Bereavement is still a tricky bugger, believe me. As the sainted Virgina (Ironside) says "But even those who know me on the outside, people who know me quite well, probably will never know quite how tumultuous and changed is my inner reality." Once again, she's nailed it.

Right! Time (09:56) for the "off". Checklist: dressed? Packed lunch, boots, hdmi switchbox, DVDs to return? Drink? Distance glasses? Tracklog software? (nope, no idea where that is yet.) Now, where did I put that car?

Another 7.1 miles...

... under the boots, skirting Houghton and the edges of Kings Somborne. I took a couple of shots with Mike's Nikon (that I forgot to pick up) and have also just been out in my back garden to catch some more of Christa's glorious flowers. She would be delighted with the results, I think, though would doubtless frown at the relatively high weed:flower ratio. Since I've hardly touched anything out there,⁴ I'm not surprised. But she definitely succeeded in turning it into a lower maintenance area in her last few months — thank you, my love!

It's now 17:23 and the sun is still shining out of an almost cloudless sky. Wonderful day. (Glad not to be on some parts of the motorway system, though, having just heard some of the radio bulletins.) Time for a cuppa before supper, methinks.

I've also been lent a film I'd entirely missed: "The final cut" with Robin Williams. And a Blu-ray copy of "Juno" to check out both the print quality of the transfer and some of the extras which may differ from those on my SD variant. Meanwhile, my "you wouldn't believe how bright the blue LEDs are on it" hdmi switchbox is now plumbed into Mike's system pending his acquisition of (I suspect) the extremely tasty control pre-amp described here. (As he has a full set of Quad pre- and power-amplifiers and Quad electrostatic speakers as his main pair he doesn't need, or want, further audio amplification but it turns out there are relatively few control amp/decoders around that don't include amplifiers. I did find this Onkyo unit but it was a bit rich for his taste...)

I enjoy spending his money for him!

A classy read

I didn't get my own copy of Paul Fussell's Class until November 1993 but I've just enjoyed this reminder and recap of it. Source and snippet:

The high-prole bathroom reveals two contradictory impulses at war: one is the desire to exhibit a "hospital" standard of cleanliness, which means splashing a lot of Lysol or Pine Oil around; the other is to display as much fanciness and luxury as possible, which means a lurch in the opposite direction, toward fur toilet seat covers and towels which don't work not merely because they are made largely of Dacron but also because a third of the remaining threads are "gold."

Sandra Tsing Loh in The Atlantic

Meanwhile "The record producers" is utterly fascinating me, even as I get hungrier. It's dealing with Roy Wood and the early days of multi-tracking.

Footnotes

¹  One of the protagonists actually expressed his horror and outrage at the leaking of what he obviously thought was a private email. Much safer to regard any email (other than a very securely encrypted one) as just an electronic postcard, surely? Besides, his own government demands the right to intercept and store any and every such communication, which makes it all the more richly ironic.
²  And yesterday's radio investigation of growing Chinese and Indian investment in Africa assumed constant growth in the demand for, and market for, cars, too.
³  Tears are flowing much less frequently these days, just as "the books" say they will, but it's just so sad to be enjoying life without Christa, the boy simply can't help it sometimes.
⁴  Case in point (aka dead giveaway) — one of her watering cans is now nearly entirely covered by some brambles near the root of the vine against the back kitchen wall.