2010 — 8 March: Monday

I realise I'm being a bit premature, but I'm falling asleep at the wheel here, so I'm going for an early night ahead of the walk later. But, before I do, let me just recommend this amusing "Monty Python and philosophy" page. From there you can find such gems as "Burn the witch".

G'night.

What goes around...

... comes around again; at least it does on BBC Radio 3. In this case, it's the "Academic Festival overture" by Brahms which I last noted the morning after Christa's death. And (of course) it still immediately recalls the 1951 Cary Grant film People will talk. "Gaudeamus igitur" indeed! The sun is shining, it's mildly frosty, and I have some breakfast and a packed lunch to do something about before the day is much older. It's 08:46 and ticking.

As usual, however, the early night meant I first woke to a rather thin-sounding dawn chorus. Yawn.

Pity Big Bro's lack of broadband — it won't make watching this 70 second air traffic flow video easy for him, poor lad.

Time I wasn't here

Just after 10:00 and time for the open road. Toot, toot! Need some petrol, too.

Time I was back

Just before 16:20 and the car is back on its nest. Sunny, but a bitingly cold wind and some ice around, too. Brrr.

I'm sure Ernie Rea is a delightful chap, and I'm sure thousands of people enjoy listening to the "Beyond Belief" programme on BBC Radio 4. But "include me out". Why are so few people willing to make the effort to think things through for themselves? And why this curious implicit assumption that only people who profess to have a religious faith and thereby live their life according to some "book" or other can have high ethical and moral standards in their daily lives? Weird! Very weird.

On the other hand, this should be interesting. "Libbers", heh? I read the "Female Eunuch" about the same time I read Richard Neville's "Playpower". At some point in 1971... rather a long time ago, it now seems. (Mind you, I only found out yesterday that I'd somehow failed to get Peter to read "Alice in Wonderland" or "The Wind in the Willows"1 so what kind of lousy parent was I?) There's much to enjoy, too, in Martin Gardner's "Annotated Alice".

It's 17:40 and still (more or less) daylight.

Later

Mercy me! "The chain" has only just got to "Walk like an Egyptian". Amazing. Right. I must tear myself away if I'm to enjoy Ms Greer.

It's 22:53. The dishes are done. Jools Holland is in great form. The feminists were mostly enjoyed. It's an almost balmy +2C out there at the moment, though the clear view of the stars hints at coldness to come.

  

Footnote

1  I was given my first, hardback, copy of the latter by a French lady of my parents' acquaintance. It was when we still lived in Wilmslow, so that would have been in the late 1950s. She also gave me one of the best "books" I ever got as a child — a bound volume of the "Scout" magazine for 1954. (Actually, I may just have filched that from my brother.) Dear mama got rid of it at some point (of course). Big Bro will doubtless recall the lady's name but, alas, I do not.
Oddly, he didn't. But I dredged up "Dr and Mrs Waring" from the swampy recesses of some dark cranial corner some two hours later. I swear, the human memory access system doesn't bear examination.