2010 — 4 May: Tuesday
To cheer myself up after an evening spent catching up on three hours or so of the Richard Dawkins Channel 4 TV programmes "The root of all evil?" and "The enemies of reason" from 2006 (thanks for the loan, Roger) I shall now permit myself a previously unseen photo of Christa. So, having (long ago) published a cropped version of this to show Christa's little DVD player, here's a fuller version. I took this on 25th September 2007 and it shows her enjoying the film Love actually. Watching films together was a major source of enjoyment as we shared a love of good cinema.
Christa's DVD player, September 2007
I always enjoyed her smile, and I have to say it was a fairly constant feature of hers throughout our 33 years together. In stark contrast, it wasn't a constant feature of many of the religious and/or psychic authority figures captured in the wild, as it were, by Professor D. Indeed, many of them looked momentarily anxious when faced with his calmly rational questions. The smooth masks of untroubled faith (some might prefer the term "irrationality" or even "insanity") invariably fell back into place, however! It must, I guess, be nice to travel with such certainty along Life's often bumpy and pot-holed highway :-)
Speaking of which, we've decided to set off slightly earlier for our walk, so now it's time for my next batch of sleep in readiness. G'night.
Open Sesame
Or do I mean Open VNC? Brian has been dropping hints of a server-oriented nature in my direction. It's in aid of getting a terminal window from my Ubuntu box over on to my other machines so I can at least be in a position to drive the beast remotely from any of them without having to install the whole desktop package on it (which would rather defeat the purpose of making it a "pure" server). Of course, I've yet to take any serious driving lessons, but I figure you need wheels first.
Meanwhile, Mike is subtly asking if I'll be over for an earlier-than-usual start so I'd better crack on. It's 09:25 and breakfast has just been accomplished. Tea, clothes, a packed lunch, the odd (very odd) brain cell, and I should be good to go.
Now that I'm back...
... with the washing machine whirring away, the Waitrose bag unpacked, and a newly-sunk cuppa inside me, it's become (of course) gloriously sunny, with blue sky and little or no wind. Makes a change, therefore, from the cool, windy, cloudy conditions prevailing for most of today's little seven mile ramble around the edges of Tichborne and along part of the river Itchen. The layby in which I parked had a learner driver in a tank in front of me when we got back to the car. Mike will probably send over a picture in due course... [He did]:
It's 16:25 and while supping my next cuppa I now have several promising software avenues to explore, including:
- TeamViewer — thanks, Brian
- Cygwin/X — thanks, Mike
- TightVNC — thanks, Ian
Not from Amsterdam
Meanwhile, I fully realise that these chaps are now at and/or beyond their "best before" date, but I still find an abstract beauty in their structure:
I also caught the discussion (on "GQT", yesterday[?]) about whether tulip bulbs should be dug up and removed, or left in situ from one year to the next. Opinions vary, at least until the dread fungus Tulip Fire strikes. The ones I've been photographing this Spring have been entirely untouched since mid-2007 at the latest.
I only discovered these...
... an hour or so ago as I still had the living room curtains drawn from last night, and Mr Postie had used his default process of posting the two Jiffy bags into my venetian blinds, which are, of course, concealed by the curtains:
I have my camera/kite flying chum in Totnes to thank for the "Father of the Pride" recommendation. We're evidently both in at least a second childhood. I've watched four very amusing episodes (during which, sadly, I also discovered that an open sandwich with honey lands honey side down on the carpet, dammit).
Believe it or not, there is a website for Christian Nymphos. And, lest you wonder, I got there from a story in the Guardian. Is nothing sacred? As one of the comments suggests, a better title would have been "Come all ye faithful"! I think I need another cuppa...