2010 — 10 May: Monday
Oops! I've just noticed it's nearly one a.m. so I'd better shut down for a bit. Good unjob I don't have to go to work, heh? (Tee-hee.)
I've just found a new saying attributed to IBM's main man... "If you want to succeed, double your failure rate." (Source.) And this gave me a wry smile, too.
G'night.
It's once again looking...
... like a fine, Spring1 morning (for a change). Scuse me, I've got some bacon on the grill! A lot better than the smell of burning napalm in the morning. It's 09:29 and counting. [Pause] Judging by this list, I conclude that installing my vanilla Ubuntu server (rather than the desktop) has enabled me to dodge a whole series of bullets. "Looking good, Lewis!" Good!
How's this for straightforward commonsense?
Do you think the BBC will reverse their ridiculous decision to axe 6 Music?
I hope so. The biggest obstacle is that it needs someone to make a very public admission that they were wrong — and no one likes doing that. To argue that the audience is too small is to
go against everything the BBC should stand for. If any network has an obligation to provide programming that is unique rather than commercially successful then it's the BBC.
Time for a little outing, I think.
Oh, frabjous day!
Had I not picked up the new "Book Collector" magazine in Soton a few hours ago there's no telling when (or — shudder — if) I would have discovered this:
Which, of course, took me to this:
Both titles are now, as it were, in the pipeline. Should you need any reminding about Ernest Bramah, start here.
When I got back...
... from town, I was delighted to find that the Blu-ray of Dune had been stuffed into my venetian blinds. Meanwhile, on HMV's "world cinema" shelves, I'd found myself these two bargains (including the new Almovodar):
After a hasty lunch snack (during which I quickly assured myself the film was a good transfer — it was, though there are some distorted patches on the audio tracks) I whizzed over to Winchester to return Mike's French DVD for him to be able to compare that video transfer with this new one, and my main co-pilot treated me to a slice of cake in the Brambridge garden centre while we set the world to rights (again) for an hour or so.
Finally, too, I have signs of progress on the impending massive upheaval that will be the total replacement of my central heating system. My plumber is calling in tomorrow evening with his measuring tape, so one of my tasks before that is to return to the self-storage place to buy an initial batch of containers to start packing away the first few hundred books. Deep unjoy.
Mercy me! It's already 21:32. I enjoyed the first episode of Series #3 of the Museum of Curiosity (and have just ordered the Series #2 CD which comes out next month). What else? Well, how about a cuppa... while I ponder the news of our delightful PM's decision to, as it were, fall on his sword.
The official request to regrade my broadband connection has just (23:00) gone "into" my ISP's system. Sadly, Peter tells me he's turned one of the two new routers into a brick while trying to upgrade its firmware. I may get more details if he and Peter's g/f show up this weekend, as they have just threatened to do. Of course, by then there may not be any floorboards to tread on, but that's another story.
Missed this...
From one of my preferred gadflies. Source and snippet:
Two images spring to mind regarding the Pope of Banking and the CEO of the Vatican, each heading organisations publicly acknowledged to have done immense harm and yet neither is in any danger of having to pay for it, not even with the punishment that Harry Taylor must undergo. One is the image of such men as Erich Honecker and Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, suddenly exposed by the collapse of the gigantic cardboard myth behind which they hid. The other is the image of the Wizard of Oz at his levers, caught as the curtain hiding him is whisked aside, revealing a puny fellow in his underpants.