2009 — 1 August: Saturday — rabbits!
My picture of Christa tonight shows her in the Old Windsor back garden. Visible behind her left shoulder is the folding, formica-topped kitchen table that I was given by my parents. They first had it in the 1950s in our first Wilmslow home, and I still have it now. Christa used it for many years as her computer desk in her study, and there it remains. How Time just keeps flowing along...
Christa in Old Windsor, 1977ish
We've just watched an interesting pair of films back-to-back: Charlie Wilson's war is the story of the covert war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan; Lord of War is the fictionalised tale of a "composite, generic" arms dealer in today's strife-filled world. I can't say that either film paints an uplifting picture of shining humanity.
Later today John and I are driving up to London. So the diary will quiesce for 48 hours or so. Still, it's managed to keep ticking over almost continuously for 1,000 days or so — I figure I can give it a break. G'night, at 00:47, give or take.
Drip, drip
A rather bedraggled young Mr Postie has just handed over two moist Jiffy bags with a couple of replacement Blu-rays. Yes, it's raining. Bro is sitting downstairs bopping along to the "Sounds of the Sixties" while he sorts as quickly as he can through an enormous crate of old family slides (from his wife's side of the family — nothing to do with me). The iMac is busily downloading the latest batch of podcasts. I suppose I should think of getting dressed and packing both a lunch and an overnight bag. The new putty along the bottom edges of my upstairs bedroom window is making itself at home. Time (09:34) for breakfast and a second cuppa before the great expotition.
The 1961 Suicide Act
Polly Toynbee is usually provocative. I doubt people will ever agree on the "correct" end of life behaviour of the state or the medical profession. I, for one, mildly observe (not for the first time) that we generally behave more humanely towards family pets than we do towards ailing family members. And this is wrong. We know better, and should bloody well do better. Source and snippet:
It was a cabal of bishops, rabbis and assorted religious enthusiasts who wrecked the Joffe bill in the Lords through a devious putsch that broke Lords' procedural practice, denying the bill a Commons debate. Even more spurious were their arguments, summarised by the Bishop of Oxford's opinion that "we are not autonomous beings" and so must wait for God to release us.
God help us, in other words! (But doesn't she help those who help themselves?)
Quick bite...
... of lunch, and it will be time to set off. It's stopped raining here but the forecast is for heavy rain up in the Smoke. It's 13:06 and the sausages are coming, as it were, to the boil. As am I, listening to the nonsense being spouted by the supposedly morally and intellectually superior specimens paraded for my dubious benefit on the BBC Radio 4 "Any Questions". Off with their heads.