2009 — 10 May: Sunday
My previous picture of Christa, the great strawberry hunter-gatherer in Old Windsor, appeared back here. It must be about time, therefore, for another one:
Christa gathering strawberries in Old Windsor, 1978
I must say, I very much enjoyed Bill Bailey's idiosyncratic guide to the instruments of the orchestra. And it was very interesting to hear what young Mr Hislop had to say for himself, too. So somehow it's become 01:10 or so and, once again, I'm tired. Here's hoping I don't wake up at 05:00 again (yawn). G'night.
Maybe it's just me...
... who finds it a little disorienting to wake up to news that a former Archbishop of Canterbury is attacking our brave young men and women who toil so assiduously and selflessly on their my behalf in Parliament, for so little much reward. In that well-established organ of reason and enlightenment, the News of the World.
But the sun is still shining, and the music on BBC Radio 3 is suitably soothing. It's 08:15 and time for my cuppa.
Our MPs don't yet seem to have made any ripples in the world's press. The story is either too small or too routine, I guess. "Glass houses and stones" is a phrase that comes to mind. Actually, I did find a piece in the LA Times referring to "Britain's Brown being in a spot of trouble".
If foulmouthed, champagne-swilling Patsy from "Absolutely Fabulous" can shame and defeat your government, then is it time to throw in the towel? ... A plan put forward by Brown to reform lawmakers' perks was also partially shot down last week, even after he made a YouTube video to promote it. Never one to inspire warmth or adulation for his oratory, Brown apparently thought a YouTube appearance could help him shed his image as dour, scowling and out of touch. Instead it invited derision.
The Times of London gleefully pointed out that the link had attracted only a few thousand hits, whereas one of Brown picking his nose had drawn hundreds of thousands of viewers and another video of an obscure Conservative politician bad-mouthing Brown in the even more obscure European Parliament had gotten more than 2 million hits.
What could they mean, I wonder? Is "gotten" even English? (It rhymes with "rotten", I suppose.)
NPR's "Car Talk" just kicked off with some Woody Allen gags. For example, "I can't listen to too much Wagner. I start to feel like invading Poland."
Definition of "ambivalence"
Getting an email from your sister-in-law in NZ with a picture of niece #4 in her new uniform as (or on the way to becoming) an air warfare specialist:
Good luck, Heather!
Kiss me, Hardy
Ooh, my head hurts...
In 1990, the English physicist Lucien Hardy devised a thought experiment. The common view was that when a particle met its antiparticle, the pair destroyed each other in an explosion. But Mr. Hardy noted that in some cases when the particles' interaction wasn't observed, they wouldn't annihilate each other. The paradox: Because the interaction had to remain unseen, it couldn't be confirmed.
In a striking achievement, scientists from Osaka University have resolved the paradox. They used extremely weak measurements — the equivalent of a sidelong glance, as it were — that didn't disturb the photons' state. By doing the experiment multiple times and pooling those weak measurements, they got enough good data to show that the particles didn't annihilate. The conclusion: When the particles weren't observed, they behaved differently.
Did you realise British MPs exhibit just the same quantum behaviour? Spooky action-at-a-distance, indeed. It's 14:28 and I need another cuppa!
Riddle me Rilke
Having just listened to the programme about this favorite poet of Christa, I thought I'd better re-read the essay on him by Clive James in his thick set of somewhat autobiographical essays — "Cultural Amnesia".1 Strange dude! I think I shall remain content to have left the close study of literature to Christa while I've followed a slightly more down-to-earth path — well, I say "path" but in all honesty it's been more of a drunkard's walk; Brownian motion in the non-political sense. (Or, indeed, "grasshopper mind" as dear Mama always characterised it.)
It's 18:28 and I've just finished stuffing the inner man while BBC 6Music's "Freak zone" has been playing some of Carl Orff's wonderful "Schulwerk". I was pleased to have bought a CD of this and played it for Christa (who knew it from her own childhood, of course). Funnily enough, earlier this afternoon I'd popped over to the BBC Trust site to offer my opinions on Radio 2 and its brash young stablemate. They play some grand stuff.
Web mail woe
You (I) never know if my use of Google mail works until I get an email saying "didn't you see my reply?" (or words to that effect). But then I only have one regular Google mail correspondent, because her regular service (Hotmail) chose to blacklist my "normal" email sent via my previous ISP. If you read this, Val, I did indeed see, and reply to, your last email a week ago — and I've just resent it. (Thinks, perhaps I'd better resend it via Thunderbird, too?!)
Stretching my legs mid-way through the extended cut of Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous. What a good film. Could use a tea break, though. It's 21:25 and I've just toured the house closing curtains and so on. It seems to have gone pretty cool out there.