2010 — 1 July: Thursday — rabbits!
I guess it's all downhill to the festive paroxysm that is Christmas now, isn't it? Perish the thought, or (at least) sleep on it. G'night.
Weather? It's the heat!
Less than usual quantities of the sleep stuff are making me dozier than usual. There's a school sports PA shouting match going on somewhere locally. Quite why I have to share the inane commentary I don't know. I've been expunging the Kef subwoofer from the system and trying to tidy up the cable jungle. Having the plasma screen on a wheeled trolley makes such work relatively easy. Mind you, I set out with the original intention of just resetting one of the plastic widgets holding one of my panes of secondary glazing in place. Whether Mr Postie's "thrust stuff through the window" tactic is the dislodging culprit1 remains to be seen.
Time (a palindromic 10:01) for a second cuppa and some breakfast.
Understatement of the year... dept.
Hard to imagine topping this. Snippet and source:
"I think that the younger generation is not so familiar with Penguin. We grew up with the books. They were such a familiar, instantly recognisable sight on bookshelves everywhere. I don't think younger people feel as strongly about them as we used to," he said.
See? It's official. I am become not "death, the destroyer of worlds" but my own father. It had to happen one day (and it only very recently occurred to me that I have just scraped past the age he was when he careered off Life's highway back in 1975). Now there's a thought.2 :-)
What about that breakfast?
(Foot)balls
Some while ago (December 2007) Nancy Banks-Smith amusingly outed herself as not terrifically interested in the noble game for savages that is football. Theodore Dalrymple does much the same, here. Good stuff.
Having just listened to this "Fine" programme, I see (here) that the award criteria could equally be applied to all fiction. But I don't think too many items of modern adult fiction would make the shortlist.
It's getting warmer again.
Mid-afternoon
Topped up with petrol and a late lunch. Got all I need to take to the Midlands tomorrow. Time to relax with a cuppa. [Pause] It's funny, in a completely unfunny way: the wording of the "news flash" contained in the lyrics of the track "Doubleplusgood" — yes, I'm listening to the magnificent 1984 (unused in the US release) soundtrack music that the Eurythmics cooked up for Richard Burton's last film — would do almost as well if used to describe the current war in Afghanistan.
It's 18:44 and a bit too muggy for my taste. Better feed myself again, I suppose. Long day coming up tomorrow. [Pause] Having just dumped a couple of items in one of the bins, I spotted this gorgeous creature growing atop a two-foot stalk beside them — no way was it planted there by Christa, but it's a welcome addition to the flora hereabouts. Click the pic for the version on steroids:
Bang goes another one
One of my oldest surviving SF anthologies (acquired some time in mid 1964) — Imagination Unlimited edited by Everett F. Bleiler and T.E. Dikty — contains only six stories, but not a dud among them. Sadly, Mr Bleiler died just a couple of weeks ago, aged 90. As usual, I'm indebted to the latest issue of David Langford's Ansible for this news. Thaddeus Dikty (the husband of the amazing Julian May3) died back in October 1991.
I used to mark these deaths in one of my databases but, frankly, it became too depressing. Right: food! It's 19:48 and I'm very much enjoying the Gotan Project's latest release. But a chap has to eat, even when the weather is so hot.
Later
Time (22:59) for some sleep. Gotta be up and away early tomorrow. Probably no more diary until tomorrow evening. It's all go, this pensioner lark.