2009 — 31 October: Saturday
Here's Christa with one of her last-but-one passport photos (back in the days when they didn't seem to mind if you smiled — not that anyone could ever stop her from smiling):
I must say, I'm really enjoying "Tutti Frutti". I gather its DVD release was delayed because of all the music rights that needed to be cleared. Indeed, the same thing has been holding up a proper release of "Larry Sanders Show" episodes. And when the excellent "Northern Exposure" eventually appeared on DVD to my horror I discovered that much of the music had been replaced by generic session stuff, which was a great shame. (Part of the charm of the show was the music 'broadcast' on the "K-Bear" [KBHR] radio station ...) As I mentioned, I used to typeset new double-CD inserts1 for every pair of CDs. Here are the two CDs of genuine music from the show:
I have Simon Phipps to thank for bringing back from the US the second of these. G'night.
One way or another...
... there's a walk in my near-term future. I await my marching orders having prepared a packed lunch. The drizzle is (at 09:24) just about a thing of the past. I suspect it's going to be nowhere near as warm as last Wednesday's sauna. Right! Sparsholt it is. Let's hope I avoid the mudbath of a previous occasion. A mere 580 days ago. I've almost got the mud out.
The ravages of Time...
Once upon a time, Christa kept this picture of me on her desk, though it later migrated to the living room wall along with numerous others of various family members:
We'd already been married for a year when she took this photo, in Cornwall in September 1975, despite the fact that I was evidently unfamiliar with the use of a comb.
Click the pic for the 2009 model, complete with excellent Australian kangaroo leather (recent birthday present) hat, as snapped by Mike on his super-duper fancy new Nikon. I think it's fair to say I've been touched more than a little by Time's gentle caress in the intervening 34 years though (oddly) I still feel just as if I'm 17 or so "on the inside". But even I have to admit I no longer look quite such a snipper-snapper. It's time I trimmed the facial fuzz too. <Sigh>
It's 16:10, a cuppa has just been sunk, two unsolicited calls from the Indian subcontinent "calling to see if my Sky TV2 is satisfactory" have been fairly courteously curtailed, and it's almost time for a nice, hot bath while the walking clothes do their laundry thing downstairs. The weather was delightful, but seems now to be heading downhill rapidly, as it were, for the next few days.
Bright sparks
I've just heard the European manager of Cisco assert that the average UK family spends £1243 per year on energy and should expect to see that rise to between £4K and £5K by 2020. And the boss of Barclaycard assert that "plastic" money will be the shortest-lived phenomenon in the history of human economies. Seems I'm going to have to use a mobile phone. Notes and coins are so old hat, it seems.
One of the good guys — Ken Campbell — died last year. This sounds promising. Random quote: "There's no such thing as a full stop. A full stop is just a hyphen coming straight at you!" Wonderful chap, and his daughter sounds delightful, too.