2010 — 18 February: Thursday
It was Iris who asked me, on Monday, whether I thought Time was going faster and faster in our retirement... It certainly seems to be! It's 00:39 and just about time for a placeholder for tonight.
G'night.
That philosopher of...
... the Western World, aka Big Bro, reminds me (just before breakfast, I might add) that "the aging process":
is rather like the toilet roll... it goes faster and faster towards the end.
But, Bro, with some wonderfully appropriate Arvo Pärt (Fratres, of course) I can face both breakfast and the end of the toilet roll with reasonable equanimity. The rain is rather dreary, though. It's 09:55 and very grey out there. Time for my second cuppa.
As I tuck into my healthy Oatibix sludge I find myself wondering what would we do without US researchers?
I see the BBC could still use a proof-reader. (Or, at least, a better one.)
Now why would this remind me of Heinlein's 1940 story ".. and he built a crooked house..", I wonder?
A suggestion of...
... a hint of a small break in part of the dreary cloud cover. But it's still raining. Whatever happened to that old "rain before seven, fine before eleven" malarkey? It's 12:36 and I've been cleaning up one of the PCs to within an inch (as it were) of its life. It's amazing what clutter collects. I've obviously earned myself another cuppa.
Light dawns. It must have been the "rain before ten, somewhat drier by the end of lunch" system. Oh frabjous day. I may even venture out a little at this rate. [Pause] I actually dodged a shower, too. Something fairly awful seems to have happened to the local traffic flow. From what little I could see of the motorway, traffic heading towards Winchester could have been overtaken by one of the protesting over-50s mentioned in this ticklish story. Only in West Yorkshire, heh, Geoff?
AL Kennedy is a class act. As is the Jodrell Bank radio telescope. (Which is now a listed building!)
Winston on UFOs
It's nearly two years since I stumbled upon a couple of "Winston" stories buried in Lord Hailsham's diaries. Today, a new tranche of UK guvmint UFO archives offers this personal minute1 from him, of 28 July 1952, reproduced in a PDF file:
More here. (Lots more, I fear.) Pity we no longer have a Secretary of State for Air, don'tcha think?
Any doubts I may have harboured about the BBC's "Composer of the Week" being "Bebop" have been completely dispelled by my second hearing tonight of Tea for two. Speaking of which, I think it's well past time for tea (for one). It's already 22:56, somehow.