2010 — 7 August: Saturday
Sleep having once again fled, the BBC Radio 2 time "pips"1 displaced "Reach out" by the Four Tops. The radio news was a distinct unimprovement on the music. And the banal chatter forced me over to the music on Radio 3.
Still, I learned that the head of HP has resigned after fiddling expenses2 to conceal a relationship with a female contractor. (I often used to wonder why supposedly intelligent people still invariably seemed to think that whatever they chose to get up to was somehow OK for them, if not for "their troops", and that somehow they'd always "get away with it". They also always seemed to think that nobody else ever noticed.) It seems "enough" is simply never quite "enough"3 for some people, is it? How odd.
"As the investigation progressed, I realized there were instances in which I did not live up to the standards and principles of trust, respect and integrity that I have espoused at HP and which have guided me throughout my career," Hurd said. "This is a painful decision for me to make after five years at HP, but I believe it would be difficult for me to continue as an effective leader at HP."
You think?! Plus ça change. (More.) Gosh; can't remember hearing about that sort of thing ever happening during all my years in ICL and IBM. Oh, wait, yes I can.
The headlines and puns associated with this 'Dung Beetle' story are mildly amusing.
Over to Brian Matthew for some music to stuff crockpots by!
Crockpot safely crocking...
... I can now read, enjoy, and point you to the wonderful commonsense on display here. Source and tiny snippet:
In the next bed was a young woman who had asked social services to look after her three children by three different men. I asked her why she had delivered them up to the care of social
services.
"I couldn't be arsed with them no more," she replied, with that typical British elegance of phrase which so exactly matches contemporary delicacy of feeling.
Still, I know perfectly what she meant, and I often feel that way myself.
The publisher hosts a free 23-page PDF sample file of more such delightful tales.
I've just noticed (hearing the noise on the "book warehouse" skylight as I gradually repopulate the end underneath it) that it's raining heavily. It's 12:49 and I'm enjoying the programme about Carlos Kleiber. [Pause] And Richard Dawkins, too. I've just nipped out to the garage to bring two large shelves back; had I parked the car one inch nearer the garage door, I would have been foiled. 15:03 and ticking.
Drunk?
No, I just felt in need of a picture of Christa and a very youthful Peter to brighten things up a bit.
It's been a rather dull day of shifting stuff around, trying to maximise packing densities with smooth tessellation, looking at the rain, and trying to push all the issues of dear Mama firmly to the back of my slightly less senile mind. (Bit like nailing jelly to the ceiling, of course.) Still, there's been some lovely Stan Tracey jazz, so that helped.
Of course, I can't yet put too much stuff back into the ex-study beyond half a dozen of the bookcases (four down, at least three still to go so far) that have recently been living in the garage,4 as I need quite a lot of room in the ex-study to hold all the stuff currently cluttering up Peter's room so, in turn, his sadly-mutilated and twice flooded old carpet can be replaced later this month. I would just put all this stuff temporarily into what was Christa's study (after all, it's nearer) but (mysteriously) there actually doesn't seem to be any spare room in there at the moment.5
Such good fun, this household domesticity lark. (I remember being told that IBM management often [d]evolved more or less into a space-planning job, too.)
As for quite how 178 storage cartons of books will ever fit back into the house... well that's currently just one of Life's little imponderables. I can see some hard (and long overdue) decisions coming up. Just the sort I hate. You know, I never seemed to have this amount of hassle when Christa and Peter were around :-)
Which brings me to the strange case of...
... the disappearing dining room. The table there is currently concealed underneath a very thick layer of all the German language reference books and dictionaries that you-know-who used in the course of her profession, plus the small set of my own titles I've so far decided to cull. Somewhere in there, too, is the power cord and speed controller for Christa's sewing machine, which now lives in Peter's flat but is rather difficult to use without the power gubbins. This is a Holmesian deduction: I've eliminated all the other places it can6 be. But Christa was using it there (proof!) to re-do the kitchen curtains just a week or so before she went back into hospital. And I'm certain she would have packed it away just where it should go.
I'm forced to conclude there is a portal to another dimension in this house, and it obviously also moves around. Shades of that lovely October 1941 Heinlein story By his bootstraps.