2009 — 7 September: Monday
Back from the Winchester film fest — we mutually agreed on Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys1 and both decided that was a good decision. It's now nearly 01:00, so there's just time for a relatively recent picture of Christa, from the end of March 2007:
What a smashing smile! G'night. After you've smiled at this.
Just what the world needs...
A new species of giant rat. But how does one "lose" a volcano? ("It was there last time I looked.") Obviously time for an initial cuppa. It's 08:36 and looking a bit grey out there.
If the first paragraph here doesn't freak you out... Shades of both Douglas Adams and "Total Recall". Charlie Brooker's head is imploding, too. I liked the comment about applying quantum physics to household tasks... "If I look under the sofa, I will determine with certainty that dust either exists or doesn't exist. Therefore, it's best I don't look there". I can do that.
It may take a while...
... 55 years, to be precise, but the BBC gets there eventually. This young lady — Dominique Aury — is the subject of a radio profile tonight:
The revelation of her identity (assuming it is revealed) is hardly recent, however. Her identity was first revealed in Atlas magazine "years ago". And she gets a chapter in The good ship Venus — John de St. Jorre's fascinating 1994 history2 of 'the erotic voyage of the Olympia Press', too. Graham Greene, by the way, described her book as "a rare thing, a pornographic book well written and without a trace of obscenity." Was there ever a better sound bite for a front cover, I wonder? Corgi obviously thought not for their bright orange-coloured UK paperback edition.
Ho hum. I think it's nearly time to hit the supplies trail. Not only has somebody eaten all the tomatoes, but my most recent bag of Granny Smiths has gone a very strange colour. Wonder if Waitrose do refunds? (Also wonder if I can be bothered to ask.)
After 70 miles...
... I have my tomatoes. I went via the seaside, where I got lucky in Borders, so I also had something to bop to on the way back home:
I've been keeping a vague eye out for the Levitin as I really wanted to read this before his follow-up The world in six songs which is still part of my bedside stack. (A stack of only one, as it happens.) I actually noted the earlier title yonks ago in a book review, after browsing related items in that same Borders. I'm nothing if not disorganised, remember!
Oops!
Those "focussed enthusiasms" will get you every time. I've just spent (some might well say "wasted") an annoying hour looking in vain for any sign of the logging of these three titles...
... acquired on a quick trip into Southampton on 6th June. They made it into my "Books" database (on another PC), I've (re-)read the SF title, but as they didn't get as far as this diary, the bit above about me wanting to read the earlier Levitin somehow made slightly less sense.
It's already 17:39 and there's a faint pang or two of incipient starvation hereabouts.
Suddenly...
... it's 21:59 and I'm bopping away to some delicious old King Crimson.3 I must say, the Windows Media Player is an idiosyncratic thug. Select a batch of mp3s to drop into it, and it randomises their order. How friendly is that? I suppose I should just be grateful it can handle VBR at up to 320 Kbps. Meanwhile I've been teasing young Brack with some further A/V streaming toy suggestions. Junior rang a while back to twitch the date of his visit by one day. He and his lady friend (whom I've not yet met) are taking me out for an evening meal. That would put a huge smile on Christa's face, believe me.
Using the PWB electrostatic headphones reminded me to take a peek at news from that audio engineer's part of the world. For example: On trying "Weird Tweaks".