2009 — 20 December: Sunday
It's just gone midnight. Cold outside, but not (yet?) snowing. Brrr. And there's further trouble with Eurotunnel trains (wrong kind of snow, perhaps?); time to hibernate for a few hours. Much more of this and I can see myself debating the wisdom of driving up to the cousins in Birmingham for the paroxysm that is the Xmas festivities.
G'night.
Clive James...
... and his (repeated) reflections ("Automate at your peril") on computerised systems are amusing me as I contemplate the email exchange I've just had with Big Bro:
Big Bro: Watched the chunell [sic] debacle with interest. Who has forgotten that winter equals snow in those parts? Amazing that a few centimetres of white fluffy stuff can cause such chaos. The motorways looked a mess as well. What was that about global warming?
Self: Well, I lay the blame squarely at the feet of badly-educated teachers, uninvolved (and unevolved) parents, woolly-headed scientists, myopically-blinkered engineers, insane economists, and sociopathic politicians. And don't even get me started on the malign influences and pronouncements of the various "faiths" one finds in up to 95% of our supposedly intelligent species. You have any more likely candidates?
I forgot to add "celebrity-obsessed culture". The effect of the first cuppa has obviously already worn off! It's 09:05, brightly sunny, -4C according to the front porch thermometer, and there's a bit too much ice still around for my liking.
Yesterday's goody
Lulled by the Radio Times 'four-star' score assigned (by one unwise Damon Wise) to a meretricious and vile late-night film, I recorded it. The bits have been expunged from the hard drive after a very brief sampling, and I'm hoping the taste will be expunged by the deliciously tasteless Sarah Silverman. Thank you, Mr Postie.
My next morning cultural treat should be Michael Caine on "Desert Island discs". All I have to do is stay clear of the "Archers"... I've also read another Australian (Kathy Lette) over the years (but had no idea how she felt about an Olympic swimmer [Ian Thorpe] I've never heard of).
Deadly genomes
Jonathan Corum — the eggs Benedict fan and science graphics editor at the New York Times — is the chap who inspired the initial "look" of molehole's website some years ago. Recently he has been assisting with the representation and display of the genomes of a variety of bad guys (bacteria and viruses) that are so unintelligently designed that they seem to have nothing better to do than cause untold human misery and suffering all over the planet. Disease as fine art?
As I listen to what used to be called "Rachel Unthank and the Winterset" perhaps I should ask Yesorno whether it's time for lunch. It's 13:49 and the tum is starting to rumble.
I was doing the evening "draw the curtains" round about 30 minutes ago, and noted that the outside temperature had crawled all the way up to nearly 0C on my front porch. There was certainly still ice on my drive. Now it's 17:05 — surely I cannot be hungry again already?
Monkeying around
You'll find this image midway through an entertaining romp through the I.T. "noughties" (naughties?)...
... on "The Register". Good stuff.
Monkeying around (2)
I've just installed Google's Chrome browser. So far, so good. Apart from the fact that (of course) it's reset my nicely-tailored BBC page to the colourful clutter full of stuff I neither like nor wish to see. Early days.
I was completely staggered to learn from the Internet Café Hobo on the BBC's World Service that the game "World of Warcraft" has as many players (nearly 11,000,000) as the population of Greece. Indeed, I still find it difficult to accept that computer games are such a huge business, even though I'm fully aware that they have driven PC hardware and graphics systems development. The history of my son's involvement with computers (bought, always, for educational purposes) was a constant "diversion" of each machine over to the dark side: the "games" path.
Now enjoying the nice little documentary on the late, great Lindsay Anderson. As I mentioned, the first real "date" Christa and I went on in 1974 was to the cinema in Slough where we saw the wonderful O Lucky Man! even though I'd seen it already — I wanted to have someone to discuss it with! We discussed it so animatedly we actually got lost on the way back to the vicarage.
Just caught up with a new batch of "Henry 8.0" clips. Time (22:18) for a cuppa, methinks.