2010 — 11 May: Tuesday
Tut, tut. It's already well past midnight (again). We've planned a little hike for tomorrow, so beauty sleep here I come.
G'night.
Michael Portillo...
... seems to have changed from a loathed politician into a competent radio and TV presenter. On BBC Radio 4 (for example) he's currently presenting many fascinating soundbites about those who defended democracy by some pretty dubious methods in the post-WW II world. Now, where's that cuppa?
Christa Mounce...
... remains a much-loved, and much-missed, wife, mother, friend, and so much much more. Here she is, still smiling at me, from mid-March 2007:
It's exactly two and a half years1 since she died. Incredibubble how this weird Time stuff keeps on shuffling along (although, according to Marcus Chown on last night's entertaining Museum of Curiosity, the one thing it does not do is flow).
Be that as it may, it's now Time (13:49) for me to flow along to Mr Self-Storage warehouse to pick me up some boxes, books for the packing into of. Ho-hum.
[Pause.] And now the afternoon's adventures can begin... Tea, vicar? [Pause that refreshes.] A slice of mincemeat tart and a cuppa at Carlo's ice cream parlour. What better way to toast my absent friend? It's now 16:34 and the rain is still holding off. It even seems to be a teensy bit warmer. My plumber's visit is the next item of business, later this evening. We'd originally intended to replace the central heating back in 2007, of course.
Those were the days, heh? Plans? Who needs 'em?
Private searching
These guys were new to me.
True then. True now.
Among my hobbies is the acquisition of suitable quotations to accompany various diverse pieces of artwork. Here's a corker, from a book that is already over 30 years old:
Earlier booms were brought to an end by a fall in living standards and a rise in mortality rates. Now the mechanism is gentler: it is reproduction rates that fall as children have to take their place in the hierarchy of gratifications — cars, hi-fis, colour TV sets and holidays abroad — available to the consumer society. This isn't what Malthus had in mind, but it'll do.
It's amazing what's turning up (under layers of dust, of course) on various bookshelves that have, in some cases, been undisturbed for decades!
Worst nightmares... dept.
Obviously, losing Christa to cancer was my personal all-time #1. But chatting to a plumber for 90 minutes and slowly realising the full extent of the domestic upheaval entailed in the three weeks or so that he estimates it will take him to rip out and replace the boiler, radiators, and pipework... not to mention lifting carpets, tiles, floorboards, hiring a skip... not to mention the preparatory clearing of vast swathes of floor space in the vicinity of each radiator and along the assumed pipe runs to make any of this feasible in the first place...
Doubleplus Ungood, to put it mildly. I think I feel a minor-league depression sneaking up on me. Where's that bottle of Scotch?! :-)
Just as well there are still some amusing distractions on offer:
Any other news? Well, the prime minister resigned, which held its own in a busy news schedule. In fact, strictly scientifically, it was bigger than the sudden and untimely death of Prince Harry, and we know this because a few months back the BBC downgraded the notional death of the third in line to the throne to an event that would no longer interrupt normal programming were it to take place. No such sang froid for Labour's Brownectomy, which bumped the Weakest Link (sweet of him to provide his own punchline).
It seems we finally have a new PM running a coalition guvmint. That should shake the status quo up more than a tad.
A mere 13 years ago...
It set me thinking about the high hopes Christa and I had both felt back in May 1997. Here's how I described things to Carol in New York then, which (of course) was the last time I can remember such a potentially interesting result, it being the election that provided us all with that delicious "Portillo" moment:
We spent last Thursday at the seaside in glorious sun and warmth while the country as a whole finally came to its senses and shook off the ancien régime whose legacy, alas, will be with us for years to come. Stayed up on Thursday night until 5 a.m. in growing disbelief at the scale of the victory, and permitted myself a small libation shortly after the result was certain. In all my years of voting, this is the first time I've got the person I voted for elected in a General Election (as opposed to a bye-election where the vote is almost always a protest against the current party in power at the time). And the Lib Dems have gone up from 16 to 46 seats in total.
Interesting times. Brrr. I've switched the gas fire back on downstairs. This (lack of) heat is ridiculous. It's 22:49 and there's some gorgeous Beethoven tinkling away.