2009 — 9 December: Wednesday
Crikey! Next time I notice, it's 01:16 or so. I've been unhealthily but enjoyably overdosing on "The Big Bang Theory" (series #1) and my cheeks are aching from a more-or-less continual grin. I particularly like the producer's one and a half second "vanity card" at the end of each episode. (It's the same chap who did "Dharma and Greg", which Christa and I also enjoyed.)
Better get some sleep before it's time to get up, I suppose. G'night.
Misty morning
Making it moist, and cool, but not actively raining. We've postponed our next walk until tomorrow, which means I can now set about stuffing my next pot of crock. But not without that all-important initial cuppa. 09:24 already? Shocking!
Blaming fate?
It's a bit early for "April Fool" stuff, surely?
A more overtly meritocratic society has encouraged people to be more ambitious for themselves, but also made them more vulnerable to failures — and more likely to blame themselves (rather than fate or the class system) if things go wrong. Some of the shock absorbers — from faith to family — that helped us cope in the past have atrophied.
I always prefer to blame the class system, myself. Besides, what makes him think people coped in the past? (More if you're not already too depressed.)
Beyond help?
I've never really understood the concept of the "tendency to deprave and corrupt" that underpins the "Obscene Publications Act" and listening to a reminder of the fuss about some Robert Mapplethorpe photographs isn't clarifying things for me. Recall John Mortimer's "take" on this sort of nonsense:
The administration of the censorship laws entails dividing society into the sensible and the idiotic, the strong and the weaker brethren, and we all know, of course, where we belong. Time and again in obscenity cases Judges and barristers say to Juries, 'Of course, we've all read stuff like this for years and it doesn't affect us (and you can be sure it doesn't or there would be permanent orgies in the Judges' chambers, bondage suits on sale in Chancery Lane and the sound of whips echoing from the Inns of Court), but there are people, members of the Jury, whom you may think would be affected...' The assumption is that there is always a second-class citizen, who, at the glimpse of a doubtful paragraph or dubious magazine, would go uncontrollably mad. The attitude of censorship depends on the assumption that there is a superior type of person qualified to tell the rest of us what it is good for us to read.
It's tough at the top... dept.
I recognise very few of the names here.
My old boiler...
That Darling man is poised to introduce a home boiler scrappage scheme. Yippee!
£200 million to improve energy efficiency and tackle fuel poverty by: offering £400 for up to 125,000 households to upgrade their old boilers to the latest efficient models with a greener boiler incentive...
There's nothing about means testing in the 216 pages that I skimmed, but it wouldn't surprise me. I suppose this makes up for the fact that Honda have just written to Christa — eleven years too late — suggesting she should turn in her old car under their scrappage scheme.
Just glitched on the word "problematised" during Thinking Allowed. They're talking about single person households. For once in my life I'm now part of a growing trend, it seems! "How alone is alone?" — "The relationship conveyor belt" — "a decline in 'conjugality'" — Gimme a break, Profs!
Well, Christa...
... there seem to be several daffodil shoots appearing in the front garden. And, when I got back from a lunchtime trip to Southampton a few hours ago (clutching a couple of spare bulbs for the desk lamp you bought me, and the "end-of-decade" copy of The Word magazine), I found one of our favourite films had been thrust through the venetian blinds. Fifty years old, and now restored and remastered in hi-def:
Magic. Plus I've just been invited to Christopher's retirement "do" early in the New Year. I'm getting old, Christabelle!
Telephonic idiocy
So, here's the thing. While I'm out, I got a message left on my answering machine, purportedly from one of my banks. The one that was Christa's, and which I really only keep going for sentimental reasons, I suppose. First a recording of a male voice giving an 0845 number. Then a female asking Is now a convenient time for a chat? Hello? Hello? Click...
So, in due course, I call my bank at the number given on my cheque book, go all through their automated security rigmarole to "prove" that, whoever I am, I have at least extracted all this security data (possibly at gunpoint — how would they know?) from 'me', as it were. At last, a human... Can I help? Yes, I got an odd message earlier today, quoting the following 0845 number. What's it about? Don't have that number on file, sir, and [this bank] doesn't tend to leave messages on a customer's answering machine. OK, well I actually don't want to be bothered at home with marketing calls (if that's what it was). OK sir. I've marked your account accordingly to block these. Thank you.
Fast forward five hours. Ring, ring.
Hello. Is now a convenient time to call? What about? First I have to take you through our verification process, sir. What is it you want? First I have to take you through our verification process, sir. Hang on. I know who I am, but how do I know you are who you say you are? And, in any case, I don't want to be bothered at home in the evening. That's fine sir. Do you have a daytime number? Well, this is it, but I don't actually want to speak to you.
Impasse. So I hang up. I'm sure John Cleese would have handled it better.