2010 — 12 February: Friday
After midnight yet again. Tut, tut. I have an excuse; I've just finished watching Interview with the Vampire. I started it when it showed up, yet again, on BBC3 but (as before) I found the bright, pink, permanent "DOG"1 just too distracting and horrible to bear, so I borrowed Mike's DVD instead. I've read other books by Anne Rice (or AN Roquelaure, or Anne Rampling) but none of her "Lestat" series. To retain my geek credentials, I actually watched the DVD while listening to director Neil Jordan's unusually informative commentary while following the onscreen dialogue by using subtitles. Much the best way if you ask me!
G'night, at 01:02 or so.
And good morning...
... at 08:07. Can't say the BBC Radio 3 news is a barrel of laughs — an estimated 230,000 dead in Haiti one month after the earthquake. Hell's bells. As for the non-news revelation that Brown and Blair have had fights... do me a favour. Re-arrange: "kettle, the, on, put, Mother"!
Nor can I waste time on this uniformly grade A grey day. I have a gaping crockpot to be stuffed and, for that, I have to saddle up the Yaris, sickly accelerator pedal or no, and (as it were) hit the road. I got a snailmail from Toyota yesterday. The next one will (they say) detail my appointment for what they charmingly call the "counter measure".
"An expert in prosthetics who gave an elderly patient two left feet by fitting the wrong artificial limb has been struck off after he admitted a series of misconduct allegations". By what crazed definition could this have been an "expert"? (Source.)
The BBC Radio 4 warmongers are particularly emetic this morning. Right. Time2 to get going. It's 09:01 and seems milder out there than it was last night. [Pause] Back, in time to hear about Ramesses II and be reminded, once again, of Ozymandias! (Even before the programme itself reminded me.) Time for some breakfast. And to hear the delightful Kelly McGillis on "Woman's Hour" (a superb programme). Thinks: The Accused is one of the most powerful films in my collection, Witness is one of the all-time greats and, of course, Top Gun is definitely one of the noisiest.
What's my next treat, Mrs Landingham? A return visit to the now-it-should-be-open refurbished PC World "superstore"? Yes, why not? Good idea. [Pause] Oh well, at least I now know the new meaning of "superstore". And of "hi-fi" for that matter. My credit card didn't even twitch in my pocket. Soon be time for lunch — is time for the next cuppa. I've also confirmed that, as long as I only have "one or two" defunct energy-saving bulbs, I can simply double wrap them and put them in the grey bin. Any more, and it's off to the tip (again). 12:53 already. Where does all this slippery Time stuff go?
I wouldn't claim to be a collector of wilfully obscure (or should that be "difficult") films, but I note that Michael Powell's amazing Peeping Tom is a post-midnight goodie on ITV, and Coppola's The Conversation is a late-ish FilmFour option. I've never felt the need to re-watch the former, but I've never forgotten it, either. I first saw the latter in the cinema while Christa was recovering from surgery on her shoulder in the summer of 1974 in Ascot. That kept her in the UK long enough for me to persuade her to stick around for another 33 years :-)
While idly browsing...
... the fat tome mentioned here — come on, it's only been a year; I'm not doing too badly! — I've just dashed off an order for Mary Reilly on DVD. I remember being defeated by Valerie Martin's book, but I'd somehow missed the fact that the reliable combination of Stephen Frears and Christopher Hampton made the film version of it. Fingers crossed, therefore. Now (14:55) it's time to fire up the Yaris for my last trip of the day. Toyota, by the way, have just sent me another snailmail, this time offering to buy the thing back and sell me one with their exciting range of "Stop - Go" engines. Presumably, this has both the accelerator and the brake faults...
Before you know it...
... it's time (18:17) to turn my attention to an evening meal. I've also borrowed the first of the "Scotland Street" books to see if I like it. I think Eileen preferred the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. It will make a change from my current Trollope.
As has a 1980 paper that's just dribbled into my email system. Although classified as "IBM Confidential - Restricted" I expect the statute of limitations has cut in by now — the paper was (very well) written in July 1980 by Mike Halperin and Tony Storey and outlines CICS and the 'High-end'. Its reference on page 5 to "Grosch's Law" reminds me of a pleasing anecdote in Grosch's engaging memoir Computer, bit slices from a life (1991) how, in 1948 or thereabouts: "parties of bright new IBM hires from the Watson Laboratory would come to our place, huddle over my von Bayros prints,3 and Frank Harris and Casanova, listen to one of the first modern hi-fi record players in town (New York) doing Shostakovich and Benny Goodman, and pet our amiable cat Suzy." Sounds like an ideal party to me, though no longer perhaps quite to the taste of today's latest breed of go-getting IBMers, from what I hear.
It's 19:15, the inner man has been pacified (though the dishes are as yet undone) and there's some delicious Bach burbling away live as I type. The evening is, as it were, my oyster. [Pause] It's just been suggested that Disney's Fantasia was a "kitsch masterpiece" — isn't that a bit of an oxymoron?
A quick burst of telephonic PC advice (from me, not to me), a quick burst of plum stewing, dishes piled even higher... must be about time for a film, don't you think? It's 21:46 already. Seems cold, too.