2010 — 12 August: Thursday
Just enjoyed the first cuppa1 as the sound bite from Brian Cox regarding hints of the existence of a particle nearly 200 times more massive than a proton and other BBC radio news at 09:00 wafted over my head. A 35-year-old footballer is too old, it seems — I couldn't care less (though mixing football and quantum physics inevitably reminds me of the feelings I share with the divine Nancy Banks-Smith). As I noted in December 2007:
Somewhere in the world of quantum physics there may be a sub-atomic particle miniscule enough to describe my interest in football. The two things which raise man above the beasts are the brains in our heads and our opposable thumbs. So a game which uses the head as a battering ram and forbids the use of the hands is more bestial than beautiful.
Breakfast would be good.
I hate to say...
... "I told you so" but (as mentioned here) I first commented to my friend Carol in New York on precisely this topic one human generation ago, and it wasn't a new thought even then. (I tend not to have new thoughts!) I even gave a book (Andrew Nikiforuk's "Fourth Horseman") on the topic to dear Mama; I wasn't going to lend her William McNeill's classic "Plagues and People" lest it never find its way home...
Bugs rule!
Following a nice, long phone catch-up from Nick (whose mother is currently in a somewhat similar pickle to mine — there's a lot of it about, as we were clearly not designed to live as long as we do, though bacteria will soon be doing all the necessary mopping up to refresh the planet) I can now turn my attention to that breakfast, and this essay. It's 10:56 and a bit grey out there. Need to do some quick supplies shopping before lunch. Off I go.
Back neatly in time to catch most of the Dvorak (Kubelik waving the stick on this performance), yet another tedious Russian spam exhortation to "get firm down there",2 a nice money-saving tip from Nick, and a reminder that my ancient great-niece in NZ is now five and about to start "big" school. Life goes on. Next adventure: lunch.
Buzzing bacon
My hammy friend Brian will like this:
The Radio Society of Great Britain represents the radio ham community, though it sees itself as having a wider remit. When not organising competitions to see who has the biggest beard can transmit a 10MHz signal furthest, the RSGB tries to protect the interests of radio users of all kinds by tracking possible causes of interference, which prompts its latest appeal.
Geek Central
Having next popped down to Peter Green to arrange, and pay for, the last bit of new carpet to be fitted next week, I felt in desperate need of a reward (translation: some non-household-related retail therapy) so I swung by Asda on my way home. (Well, it's not exactly on my way, but what's a mile or two extra to a 22,222 mileage total chap?) And, as someone who splashed out on the deluxe republication of Absolute Watchmen a few years back (click the pic for details)...
... I was hardly likely to resist the director's cut on a double Blu-ray at a good price of the eventual film, was I? (Besides, my son said I'd enjoy it.)
My new friend Anita in Asda (while knocking an extra £2-00 off the damage) confessed she loved her Blu-ray player and had been dithering over this title for ages herself. (Anita may well be even older than I am; a gentleman doesn't ask. But I've been predisposed to like the name ever since reading the tales by Keith Roberts of Anita the alluring witch 43 years ago.) As for Cold Souls...
... there's a John Brunner SF short story (The last lonely man, 1964) that's remained lodged in my memory since I first read it (in, for the completeists, a 1965 anthology of stories from the then long-running [but now, thanks to the puritans3 in WH Smith, long-extinct] magazine "New Worlds". Its plot looks as if it runs parallel in several places to Cold Souls, so it should be quite interesting to compare.
Suddenly, it's 17:59 and it's brightened up considerabubble. (The Easy Star All-Stars Dub side of the moon at pleasingly high volume is helping, too.)
If this diary...
... grinds to an abrupt halt tomorrow, you will inform the coroner and the pathologist that either or both tonight's chicken and smoked salmon were indeed too long in the tooth? Right; just time for a prophylactic cuppa before nipping out briefly for a spot of neighbourly legal assistance. It's 18:48 and counting.