2009 — 4 August: Tuesday

Had a nice chat with Peter when he phoned earlier, and I've encouraged him to try to meet up with his two cousins who are, after all, only a couple of miles from his flat in Battersea. OK. A quick photo of Christa, just to keep me going, and then it's time for sleep, methinks. I remember Mike commenting, when he first saw this photo (in January 2008), on her strong facial resemblance to Peter (or should that be the other way round?). I now think it was somewhat earlier than 1980, by the way:

Christa in Old Windsor, 1977ish

It's after midnight, and we've just been enjoying both my Blu-ray copy of Across the Universe and then Léon: the Professional. Both films were new to him — I'm mildly surprised he'd managed to miss the latter, which I showed in the US "Superbit" extended edition, but standard definition DVD. That's the end of the video festival as he flies out to L.A. later today on his way home for the rest of August before going out to Brunei. Busy chap. Hope he has time to rebuild the half of his greenhouse that blew away. Indeed, I hope he has better luck with that than he did with one of my secondary glazing panels...

I took a slight risk on my prawn supper (given the nasty e. coli outbreak attributed to a Welsh veggie burger) but his bacon and eggs should have been safe. Time will tell.

G'night, at 00:59, just as "Jazz on 3" ends.

Keeping up with the Joneses

Actually, Peter Maddocks drew a comic strip in the 1960s called "Four D. Jones" about a strange little cowboy with a magic hoop (a manhole cover) through which he could cross Time. Oddly, I knew the Jones family who gave that character his name, back in my St Albans school1 days. But I was referring to the three software updates I've so far installed this morning — it's only 08:53 and my Bro-delivered cuppa is as yet almost too hot to drink. But (theoretically) Adobe Flash player, Adobe Acrobat reader, and my preferred Firefox browser are now all better or more secure than before. I wonder when I can similarly update myself?

Hold that thought. Here's a somewhat related theme — positive psychology:

[Seligman's] early work on the "learned helplessness" that characterizes depression had led him to posit2 that optimism could also be learned, and he had data to prove it... But what seems to matter more than wealth — the benefits of which Diener's work has shown decrease the more a person earns — is "psychosocial prosperity," characterized by the social support, public trust, safety, and tolerance in a society combined with individual feelings of being competent, learning new things, and being satisfied with one's job and health.

Jennifer Ruark in The Chronicle


It does indeed all sound a bit "New Agey, self-helpish" doesn't it? Wonder what my friend Gill, the NLP fan, makes of it. Meanwhile, in the more mundane world, Big Bro has been served his cooked breakfast to carry him at least part of the way to L.A. — he wondered how I could resist the delicious smell of bacon myself. As soon as he's gone I shall have to zip out and fill the gaping holes in my fridge. And put the ladder back in the garage. It's still drizzling at 09:48 and completely overcast.

I mentioned a wonderful WW II guvmint poster back in February. While researching the word "mollycoddle" for reasons that need not detain us here, I found the phrase from the poster is now available as a wall tile. Live each day optimistically, heh? Well I was happily married to a wonderful lady who did exactly that. It's a neat trick.

I can hear Bro stealing all the hot water he can find so I guess he's nearly ready for the "off". I do not envy him the long flight even if he's in business class. Which is worse, I wonder: the DTs or DVT? Meanwhile I think I've just found the perfect generic "Daily Mail" story, for today at least. While I truly detest the tabloids and their approach to rabble-rousing "news" I cannot criticise the beautifully crafted prose style aimed directly at the medulla of their target reader. Don't skip the quote from a WRAP spokesman in the final paragraph!

The Eagle has flown

He drove off in his "Fix Or Repair Daily" at 11:06 and my tears lasted only a minute or so. (I am getting better. Naturally, I'd closed the door on him first.) I see a dog has also managed to void its bowels on the clump of uprooted weeds I've piled near the front door. That's one of the main reasons I don't have a dog, I now recall. Right. Time to finish the breakfast I nearly forgot.

Later

How did it become 17:45? It's been a very quiet day hereabouts. I even threw in a brief nap to chip away at the sleep deficit.

  

Footnotes

1  And, during the frustrating hour on Saturday when we were criss-crossing London Colney in search of the De Havilland (Mosquito?) museum at Salisbury Hall, we even ended up at one point on Drakes Drive, right by what had been my grammar school. Horrid place. Which idiot was it, I wonder, who first said "school days are the happiest days of your life"? Couldn't be further from the truth in my case. Bro last drove me there on a snow-bound day early in 1969 in the then-new white Triumph Spitfire he was so proud of. Bet he doesn't remember (that drive — I know he remembers the Spitfire).
2  A lovely verb with which I won a bet against one of my lecturers back in those distant Polytechnic days in Hatfield.