2010 — 7 February: Sunday
The evening's viewing also took in a second showing of Ten Inch Hero now that I have my own copy. Nice little film. Nice to see Jan Ravens in "QI", too. And Jimmy Carr was on good form. But I found the Internet documentary just slightly tedious. There were some good shots of Chinese cities, however.
It's 00:27 and, even though Bob Harris has Joan Armatrading with him live in the studio, I think it's time to declare the day at an end. Tomorrow is, after all, another day. G'night.
Re-emerging somewhat bleary-eyed...
... I see little sign of the forecast downpour, but equally little sign of the sun. It's already 10:44 — how did that happen? I also learn that John Dankworth has died (and that he wrote the theme tune to "The Avengers"; I didn't know that). And that Victoria Coren has just woken up to the fact that there are a lot more armed police around than she ever voted for. (She also discovered a university registrar with a sideline in offering [forged] degrees to female students in exchange for spanking sessions, but that's another story. I wonder whether the chap was caught red-handed?)
The world remains reassuringly mad. And the Guardian is reverting (visually) to the primary school level. But what do I know? I'm just a reader, after all.
If you're going to tell a lie...
... make it a whopper:
What with that and one-on-one cancer care one wonders how the UK will still be able to afford the ceaseless wars against drugs, terror, crime, poor parenting, and post-frost potholes. That's the wonderful thing about a politician's pre-election promises, I guess. They offer forged degrees and all we end up with is a spanking.
Held to Ransome
I first encountered Arthur Ransome and his marvellous "Swallows and Amazons" tales back in Junior School in Cheadle Hulme. I coerced my parents into buying just the first four, but they disappeared. (The books; not my parents.) So a couple of years later (by which time we lived in Harpenden) I gradually re-equipped myself with the full set, this time in Puffin paperbacks.1 They were all quite battered by the time I handed them over to a neighbour's son here about a decade ago. So in April 2004 I re-re-equipped myself with the full set, but this time in hardback.
You can see them in the background here, though I was more intent then on showing the relocated Castle Avon speakers (now living upstairs as my study sound system). If you click the new pic here (which also shows the new [old] rear surround sound speaker back in place after a decade or more) you'll see the books,2 which form part of a secret, long-term, ...
... grandfatherly plan. Ransome was an amazing chap, as I hope tonight's BBC Radio 3 drama will demonstrate.3
¬Henry James
I also admire Clive James. I bought the book under discussion in today's programme some 15 years after that Ransome paperback (in April 1980, at £5-50 — first edition hardback). My summary suggests: "Screamingly funny, but of dubious authenticity!". We shall see. There is, by the way, a useful table here about logic symbols.
It's 15:41 and there's actually a small gap or two in the cloud cover offering a glimpse or two of blue sky.
I found it faintly amusing to spend nearly half of a 30-minute programme listening to it while scouring bookshelves until I finally found my copy:
I believe the term is "slightly foxed". I know I was.
The key of Life
I've just caught up with the last of five programmes by Ivan Hewett that have been exploring different musical keys. It's been entrancing, but also slightly depressing as, not for the first time, it's shown me just how very little I know about "stuff" in a whole area of my Life. I love music, but I have only a slight theoretical grounding in it. And one, short lifetime seems wholly inadequate for the study.
As I commented many months ago, it's perhaps only at the later stages of your life (if ever!) that you can clearly sort out in your own head what you could or should have paid more attention to when you were actually busy with other stuff (like working to keep a roof over your family's head, some clothes in the wardrobe, and a chicken in the cooking pot — as it were).
Live it forwards, but only understand it backwards! But now (19:20) I'm starving hungry and there's a batch of nice, hot crockpot stuff downstairs with my name on it. [Pause] And, after the Ransome play and a call from my son, time (21:36) for my next cuppa.
Another paradigm, Professor?
It may originate within the Evil Empire, but this looks very interesting so far. It's free, too.
Furthermore, it's got links to some great stuff in it, too. I was taken to this delicious item after reading page 213:So I offer you Moglen's Corollary to Faraday's Law: "If you wrap the Internet around every brain on the planet, knowledge flows in the network." That's induction, and the only question is, what is the resistance of the wire? Resistance, according to Moglen's Corollary to Ohm's Law, is directly proportional to the field strength of the intellectual property system. Neither of these corollaries is my property, and you may copy them freely and without credit. I say, "resist the resistance."
The entire piece is well worth reading. I just loved "From the Primordial Slime to the Current Mess".