2009 — 1 September: Tuesday — rabbits!
It's 01:21 already. The mp3 files are all safely copied. The birthday boy has had his celebration dinner at "The Chesil". A glass of wine went easily down the hatch. We then watched (or in my case, re-watched) that excellent Craig Brewer film "Black Snake Moan". Jeff Wayne's musical version of that old classic "The War of the Worlds" has just started on BBC 6Music. It must, therefore, be time for tonight's picture of Christa:
It shows her leaning against one of the parapets of St Michael's Mount down in Cornwall in September 1975. A lovely holiday. Yawn. G'night.
A sunnier start
Though I don't feel quite sufficiently inspired to start on my next crockpot this instant. Besides, I have to nip out to get the one magic ingredient I forgot (though I also know that it can be added relatively late to the heating mix as I forgot it once before). First things first: a cuppa. It's 08:53 and counting.
There was a fascinating piece recently on the (continuing) British inability to shake off World War II from its national psyche. Would that I could get dear Mama to read it! Snippet and source:
Britain's apparently arrogant detachment from the European experiment comes from a mixture of geography, history and the last war. The experience of being an island that has successfully resisted invasion has become crucial to our self-image... The Thatcher revolution reasserted the wartime values of belligerence, stoicism, chauvinism and repression. At the same time, the closing decades of the last century saw the erosion of the social and industrial base that had sustained the war effort.
Christa was often amazed (and sometimes bemused) at some of the lingering attitudes she observed around her, and it was equally fascinating for me to see Britain through her perceptive eyes.
While I would not...
... characterise myself as an adventurous cook, I must admit I did wonder (for a brief moment) whether today's crock of pot — to which I've just added the penultimate touch, namely, the contents of a tin of tomatoes and garlic in olive oil, and the ultimate touch, namely, a splash of white cooking wine — might have been yet further improved by a dash of the damson gin I was presented with last night in exchange for a long-running series of crackers. I chickened out.
However, I laid plans for a small-scale tea expedition this afternoon (which it has just become), and may even nip out further afield in search of more affordable loudspeaker cable for the rear stereo pair. Anything, basically, to delay the awful task of sorting through all those mp3s trying to carve them up into a series of carefully-crafted "sort of" playlists.1 Failing which, of course, I could always revert to having all the CDs out on shelves once again... Though I do seem to have spent a lifetime putting up shelves in this house over the last 28 years or so.
What an absolute shower
I'm having very little success, in recent months, in finding anything I want at the Hedge End so-called superstores. However, the Comet down in Millbrook came up trumps. And, oddly, I was once again called on my mobile while there, by the same people (my Toyota service gang) as last week, thus bringing the lifetime total to four calls. This one merely wanted to know if the service had been OK. Last year they called asking for "Mrs Mounce", so they're gradually ironing the kinks out of their system. It's 16:01 and the next cuppa is waiting patiently downstairs for the cow-juice to be added.
The web site from which this delicious FAQ came might, I suppose, get some people hot under the (dog) collar:
But wouldn't it be "en-Raptured"? Only asking.
Right! Rear surround sound speakers are once again connected, this time not using expensive borrowed electric string. It's 19:57 and the NAD CD player is also happily digesting a small stream of "Pink Floyd" mp3s from the newest terabyte hard drive, via its USB input. Make that the cheapest terabyte hard drive, too. It cost seventy pounds. I can still recall Christa driving me down (also to Millbrook, oddly) to call at a parcel depot and pick up an 84MB SCSI drive for me to fit into my Acorn A440. That was in 1990, and the drive cost over eight times as much.2 It was slower and noisier, too. Go figure.
That's it for today. I need to catch up on my sleep.