2010 — 2 August: Monday
It's looking mostly cloudy but with a few patches of blue sky and some sun. Cuppa #1 is a distant memory. Cuppa #2 was already a little on the cool side and could have done with a blast in the trusty microwave before sending it in pursuit of its companion.
I think I'd better plan to spend today clearing the last of the floor space in my study. (What was Christa's still has a few spare inches in it to use as a buffer.) Then I'll see if I can get the carpet up and chisel off the floorboards what I strongly suspect by now1 will be mere traces of the rotten, disintegrating underlay in readiness for the plywood layer and the vinyl due to be fitted this Friday. The task will be suitably tiresome and mindless.2 And will doubtless take far longer than similarly preparing Christa's study did back in June. I'm predicting at least one full Dyson. And I shall obviously have to have music loud enough to reach upstairs from the living room.
The drawbacks of the indefinite article
In the context of dear Mama's pending relocation (tomorrow) from the Midlands to the care-home in Winklechestershire (a taxi task very kindly being performed by nieces #1 and #3), my equally dear sister-in-law in NZ (I would like to hope, satirically) suggested two days ago that "a son should be there". I chose to interpret that as meaning "get back on your bike, David, and make another [pointless] 300-mile round trip". So — with my tongue only slightly in my cheek — I naturally replied "Send him back then" (that is, "have Big Bro get back on a plane and make another [pointless] 24,000-mile round trip").
Despite 38 years of close-up observation of management "decisions", I will never understand why people second-guess from a safe distance what's better decided by the chaps (well, her highly capable daughters, in this case) who've been on the ground at the sharp end. (Alan Clark documented the syndrome, of course, in the context of the so-called war to end wars. And there's a truly wonderful book by Norman Dixon — "On the psychology of military incompetence" — that really should be required reading at some point in what's still laughingly known as our educational system.)
Speaking of things I don't understand — a list that is nearly infinite in length — why on earth is the sale of products (such as milk) made by using cloned animals illegal in Europe? What's the thinking (if any) there? And, besides, what's so great about a nutrient designed for baby cows in the first place? Just call me Mr Lactose-intolerant (not that I am). In fact, it's time [09:30] for my breakfast cereal with its splash of cow juice. Did they leave me any last night, I wonder?
I'm not in general a...
... cock-eyed optimist (now there's a phrase I'd not like to explain to Christa). For example, I regard the fiscal system with an instinctively baleful eye. Indeed, I've been known to describe it as a simple criminal system of spinning plates on poles, partially concealed by smoke and mirrors. And operated by thieves and rogues. So, when "two leading economists wielding complex quantitative models"3 write "While the effectiveness of any individual element certainly can be debated, there is little doubt that in total, the (U.S. guvmint) policy response was highly effective" forgive me for failing to cheer.
How very appropriate (given my liking for examples of nominative determinism) that one of the professors is called "Blinder". (Source.)
As my cynical chum put it recently: "There is no way that the interests of the financial services industry can ever be aligned with those of their clients... [it's] an industry populated by people who have decided that it is easier to make money out of you than out of the market directly".
On a related note
The second-class post I got just this Saturday was from the son of the chap who successfully lured me into one of those "Invest for your retirement" scams schemes back in 1974. 36 years on (and a quarter of a century since dispensing with the last of the advice and disposing of the last of the many-times-churned but inevitably somehow always under-performing "investment vehicles") I remain his "valued client". No, I don't think so. I shall keep his begging letter, if only for use as winter fuel. He managed (of course) to overlook my retirement several years ago.
"Quantum flapdoodle". What a lovely phrase.4 Recall Randall Munroe's cartoon.
Is that the time? (12:10) Where's my cuppa? The front half of the study is cleared.
Every time I look up another gap seems to appear in the ranks. Robert Sandall was always interesting to listen to. It's 14:14 — ever onward. [Pause] 15:32 and I'm very nearly done. And done in. I need my next cuppa!
But why should removing the two large Contiboard shelves (and the eight decorative garden blocks that they'd been resting on to form magazine racks) be quite so emotion-churning? I assume it's "just" the loss of the cheery co-worker who helped me put them there in 1987. This bereavement business still catches me by surprise from time to time. Where's that tea, dammit?
Listening to Professor Vieth's views on Vitamin D supplements, I'm reminded of the views of Linus Pauling in earlier years on the merits of Vitamin C. (Source.) Right; the study floor is completely clear. Must be time to nip out and top-up the supplies cupboard.
A whiter shade of...
... pale yellow? I suspected it might have been a mistake to pop three of Christa's pile of bright yellow dusters in the wash with white polo and T-shirts. No matter. I also seem to remember that, when I first embarked on this new chief-cook-and-bottle-washer phase of my post-industrial domestic career I was paying less than £2 for each double-pack of the under-rated vital food group shown here. Has there been a massive failure of the chocolate crop? They now cost £2-64.
Just for the record
The last view of the old-look study...
Not another one...
New SF novels have increasingly failed to deliver that "sense of wonder" that made them so important to me. My own fault, doubtless, not least as I've massively changed my reading habits over the years. Nonetheless, I was sad to learn (in the ever-reliable Ansible) of the recent death of James P Hogan. I still remember the pleasure the twists and turns in his first novel gave me...
Oddly, I nearly joined DEC back in 1977 when he wrote this. Who knows? I might have ended up on one of his sales training courses. [Pause] Heavens, it's already 19:38. Better get something to eat, I suppose.