2009 — 11 July: Saturday
A change of photographic subject for tonight. I was reminded of the wicked quotation here ("I can remember, and I hope you do too, how lovely it felt when I began to hate Hermann Hesse") when I saw this picture of me demonstrating both my essentially non-existent fashion / colour sense as a student, and (more to the point) the book I was reading1 that weekend — Magister Ludi aka "The Glass Bead Game" while at home with the Aged Ps. Here, Dad was taking a short break from labouring mightily in the front garden in Penn:
I had been chased out into the "fresh air" by dear Mama, who was invariably upset by the sight of me "with my nose stuck in a book" (a pastime which was, and remains, a major pleasure). I did even less gardening then than I do now! G'night.
The Hessing of summer lawns
Or, down comes the drizzle. At least I now realise the reason for last night's "wobble" at bed time — it's exactly 20 months since Christa died. Time does, indeed, slide inexorably away. But things continue to hurt, so I guess I'm still human. It's 08:49 and I'm drinking the cuppa that soothes (and listening to Brian Matthew's wonderful choices, 'cos these help, too).
(Not) innocent until proven guilty
Well, I'd never even heard of the Independent Safeguarding Authority. What a wonderful, unsuspicious, world. Their web site. Crikey, they even have a road show, though the material (for some reason) doesn't apply to Northern Ireland.
Smile, please!
As a comedian I get asked to perform in some strange situations. This week I was invited to an inner-city comprehensive to perform for their RE conference... Someone asked, "What do you think of the burka? Is it too restrictive?" I replied, "All my cousins in France wear the burka, which is great, because they all use the same bus pass."
Wonder if she's paid her £64 vetting fee?
Ditchkins?
Over a second blagged cuppa yesterday afternoon, I was telling Roger about my proselytising next-door neighbour, who this week made himself late for an appointment by talking to me for an hour or so on Wednesday when he got home and found me weeding in the front garden. My enthusiastic young friend still insists I will only sort my thoughts out properly by reading and studying the Koran in its original language. Roger and I were exchanging our views on religion and consciousness (it beats football). We don't disagree at all, by the way.
Recall Terry Eagleton has created a composite antagonist by merging the views (as he "understands" them, I guess) of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and has been flogging this straw man in the London Review of Books — I'm no longer a subscriber (I'm an impoverished pensioner, remember), and cannot be bothered to find the attack, but I do find myself more than somewhat sympathetic to an elegant response by AC Grayling:
... charging Dawkins with failing to read theology "misses the point that when one rejects the premises of a set of views it is a waste of time to address what is built on those premises". Or, as Richard Dawkins himself put it to me during my interview with him for New Humanist in early 2007, "Somebody who thinks the way I do doesn't think theology is a subject at all. So to me it is like someone saying they don't believe in fairies and then being asked how they know if they haven't studied fairy-ology."
Same applies to homeopathy, but don't get me started.
I can only offer the link I first mentioned a month ago. "Blathering pseudo-scholarship" puts it so much more neatly than I could. Thank you, Professor Myers.
Right! Having just fielded a phone call from my chum Bob (who is just about on the point of buying the Humax Hi-Def Freesat PVR, but who still needs a bit of hand-holding to convince him, yet again, that it's perfectly capable of receiving and recording non-Freesat material) it's now definitely time for some breakfast and another cuppa. It's already 10:15 and looking rather drizzly out there.
What'cha got there, Mr Postie?
Ah yes. One of those "we've noticed that customers who bought this often also bought..." suggestions from Amazon. Amazon in the US often suggests things to me that I've never heard of. And they're quite often both cheaper from Amazon UK and have already been released in Europe. Today's example, which apparently features a/the new(est?) Bond girl (whom I remembered as "The Vampire" in one of the short segments from Paris, Je t'aime alongside the chap who played Frodo Baggins), was released in 2005 but has only just surfaced on DVD in the US:
I've also given in and ordered my own Blu-ray copy of Twilight. (Actually, I've ordered the CD soundtrack album, too. Some of the music is completely fabulous.)
Later
Well, it's 17:17 and I hardly got wet at all while refilling Mrs Hubbard's store cupboard a little earlier. I note there's a lovely documentary on BBC4 (again) tonight, Al Reinert's For all mankind. It's stuffed full of glorious NASA footage. And, even better, it also features one of the three music tracks I picked for Christa's funeral service. I must say though, sending 24 astronauts to the moon at a cost of $42,000,000,000 is a bit rich, isn't it?
The rain, it raineth
At 22:21 it seems to be pouring down outside. A good night to stay in, methinks. I've just watched Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (again). Nice little movie, and some great music, too.