2009 — 25 April: Saturday
Goodness me, another late night, as this time I've only just finished dishing the dos after watching another delightful film, "Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist". It seems to have become jolly cold, too. Doesn't bode too well for the planned walk.
OK, another picture of Christa, again taken in about 1978 in the Old Windsor house. Astute observers with some knowledge of physics will be able to deduce what I've done to my lovely girl's image here:
G'night at 01:08 after I've listened to American spokespeople cautiously announcing signs of the end of the recession — they wish! How very much they can read into the smallest twitch of a statistic while not examining the assumptions underlying it. I hardly think handing out blue face masks in Mexican bus stations will do much to inhibit the spread of an airborne virus, either. Oh well, if we all wake up dead we can join the cast of the deliciously silly "Pride and Prejudice and zombies" spoof.
The rain...
... is currently "off", so the walk is currently "on". But not before a cuppa! Besides, it's only 08:22 and there's a heavy-looking rain cloud to get through first.
Well, good morning...
... Mr Parcel Force. What'cha got there?
The TV series is an experiment, but it was less than a tenner, so not a costly one. Right! It's 09:58 and there's a lunchtime sandwich to be assembled and packed ahead of the drenching that looks quite likely for parts of today's burst of fresh air. Gotta dash.
Tut, tut, that was careless... dept.
It's now 16:05 and I've just sunk a cuppa or two to refresh me after a six mile ramble through the mud around the New Forest's snake pit (this time, at least, I saw three adders). It's many years since Christa and I took Peter there. The rain stayed away, and we lunched while being watched (from a distance) by a large family of ducklings. Cute. But now I have to face up to the sad fact that DVD #1 above is an inadvertent duplicate. Ironically, I even mentioned the original variant just a few days ago, too.
2014 update: of course they are two separate films. It's just that the earlier one sank more or less without trace... My other comments remain valid.
Compare and contrast:
Of course, my "why the devil did you buy that disappointing piece of c**p?" error rate remains stubbornly somewhat higher. The main reason Christa and I let our membership of the Harbour Lights cinema lapse (and, indeed, the reason I stopped my decades-long loyalty to "Sight and Sound" magazine and its predecessor[s] and rival titles) was from a growing disenchantment on both our parts with the majority of modern mainstream cinema. Ever more sophisticated CGI and slam-bang mindless noisy mayhem is a very poor substitute for a good script and realistic character-driven stories. One reason I so enjoyed that Noël Coward piece "Easy Virtue", for example, or that delicious Oscar Wilde piece "An ideal husband" (a decade ago already!)
It's 18:33 and the inner man has been quietened again (for a bit!) Yum. Back to pottering.
Who knew?
My (now) Spanish bank (which used to attract "a smarter investor" back when they could afford to hire actors for their old TV ads) has just reminded me (again) that I'll not get a paper statement (rather the point, I thought, of Interweb banking, but they do keep telling me). They add:
The Alliance & Leicester website uses a high level of encryption and the use of such encryption may be illegal in some countries outside of the UK. If you decide to use the Alliance & Leicester website outside the UK, we shall not be liable for any loss or damage suffered by you as a result.
Meanwhile, those nice energy people at "Scottishpower" tell me, via snail mail, that they're reducing "your prices" (though I rather think they mean "our prices") because they're serious about giving me the best possible deal. (They're not really, of course. The booklet they enclose about the various reasons they have for increasing my direct debits even as energy prices tumble is a masterwork of weasel-wordery.) And the "Head of Retirement Income Servicing" has sent me a P60 relating to my little droplet of income from the annuity I bought with my non-IBM AVCs. I see from the form that I'm propping up the guvmint to the tune of nearly £1 per day — let's hope they don't just fling it recklessly at the nearest broken banks. What boring mail!