2009 — 18 September: Friday
Sad to say, at least one of my "regular" readers reported a "502 Bad Gateway" a few hours ago. And the server log I've just looked at suggests this has happened seven times this month. Of course, I've been out until just a few minutes ago, so I have no way of knowing what was (not) going on. Still, watching the Southampton Amateur Musical Society production of Gershwin's "Crazy for you" followed by a repeat showing of that excellent film "Snow Cake" beats reading my web site — hands down...
Tonight's picture of Christa's lovely smile is from the summer of 1980 on an early expedition with our then-new son:
That's my cotton zip top she was wearing, by the way — did you know we used to swap clothing?!1 Ho hum. There's a nice live set on BBC 6Music at the moment, but it's 01:27 so I think I'll call it a day, as it were. G'night.
Vampirella
People do ask for the strangest2 things. I've just been listening to the Angela Carter play as I transcribed it from (ancient, Dolby B) tape cassette over to minidisc. There's a lady over at the University of Lausanne who's jointly organising an international conference called "Fata to Fairies" in October, and she very politely asked if she could hear my tape. As I told her, "My late wife would have been amused by your request as her head of department in Royal Holloway College back in 1974 was himself a specialist in German fairy tales." It all brings to mind David Lodge's wonderful comic novel Small World.
On a more mundane plane, it seems my Belkin USB hub has indeed given up the ghost. I'm sure I have another one knockin' around somewhere, though exactly where is a jolly good question. It's 11:05 and really rather gloomy weather out there. But not actually raining.
Much to-do about nothing
As I ticked my way gently through today's set of outdoor tasks (the list lives only inside my head alongside all manner of other clutter, so is by no means as well thought-out as it could be) I diverted via Jonathan's "Arcade Books" and was pleased to find a (sort of) sequel to Kafka's Soup. I've always had a soft spot for literary parody, and (in this case) the illustration of Anaïs Nin alone is worth the cost of admittance (as it were). Who could resist the allure of "Bleeding a radiator" with Emily Brontë? Or "Putting up a garden fence" with Hunter S Thompson? Not me. Nor I.
Not in the bargain bin, alas, but still reduced by £2 — looked at in the right light, therefore, that meant the cost of posting my cassette tape off to Lausanne was effectively zero. (I'll never make an economist, even if I had the wool.)
As for Bruce Hood. Among other insights, he asserts that "happy, intuitive adults... are... less able to throw darts at pictures of babies"! Time (13:35) for a late light lunch ahead of another tiny adventure.
'Fess up
Guess who forgot to buy the next batch of crockpottery stuff and therefore had to make a return visit, getting back with it mere seconds before his co-adventurer showed up for our little outing? Yep, the same chap who was unable to greet by name — during said adventure — a colleague who'd recently (well, about three years ago) dropped out of the IBM rat-race to concentrate her considerable talents on a session of baby production (that, she claimed, left her stressed3). I'm sure the data is/are still in there, somewhere, probably nestled up against the secret map showing the location of one of my spare USB hubs.
And while we're on imponderables, when did it become 19:37?