2010 — 2 September: Thursday
I have a lunch date, a visit looming by Big Bro (literally a flying one) and lovely bright sunshine out there as the Indian summer continues. But no reply from Staples about the two remaining bookcases they still need to replace. It's starting to annoy me.
So, obviously,1 it's time for a cuppa. [Pause] I must say, contemplating the five "most-viewed" stories this morning...
... doesn't incline me to follow any of the links. If this is news, gawd help us. Oh, wait, he doesn't exist, and gravity rules. (I sneaked a peek at the Hawking.) Spontaneous creation? How does that work, then? Take comfort from Robert Persig's brief ruminations on nothingness here.
I suppose the ex-Lucasian Prof could be wrong...
We have all sensed the shame of being publicly wrong. I will always drag around, like Jacob Marley's chains, the clutch of errors I committed nearly a quarter of a century ago in an article about junior doctors' working hours. But journalists' mistakes are the least significant in the harrowing catalogue of human wrongology: think of the surgeon who cut off the wrong leg, the pilot who pushed the wrong button, the judge who hanged an innocent man; of waking up next to Mr Wrong, or being Boris Johnson's barber.
Love that teapot! "Countless studies have shown that people who suffer from depression have more accurate world views than non-depressed people." Well, it made me smile. Take 50 minutes of Bach per day for eight weeks. (Source.)
This is jolly good fun, too. I confess, "Guugu Yimithirr" was new to me.
Deskbound
I've been thinking. There are (at least) four disassembled desks currently knocking around this place. I may just put one in my bedroom and (maybe) stick one of those neat little "all-in-one" PCs on it, too. With (perhaps) a teensy weensy audio/video system. Or perhaps putting it in Peter's room would be better. Possibilities multiply...
Supplies gathered in, I now await young Len's arrival. Having polished off the usual 83.33% of my Austens, I've just embarked on David Copperfield's life journey; it's probably my favourite, and generally more rewarding than the world "news".
During the pub lunch...
... at, for trivia buffs, the "Bugle Inn" (recently refurbished) in Twyford just a few hundred yards from Tuesday's Indian restaurant, Mr Postie was kept busy pushing stuff through the venetian blinds...
... with the result that Mr Dickens may now be moved an entry or two down the "next to be read" stack.2 The sublimely funny DVD replaces my home-grown copy — thanks, Len. It will be a bit weird to re-watch that while reading Mullin's anecdotes. [Pause] And now (16:07) I'm recently back from an ice-cream at "Carlo's" with my trusty companion in retired crime. Chaps need adventures as well as hobbies.
Water, water, everywhere
Taking a brief break before eating, and after shifting bookcases around, I decided to look for the Norwegian supplier of the sparkling water (and its gorgeous cylindrical glass bottles) that I met for the first time in the Indian restaurant. Here's some information, but the message below is what I saw on trying to enter the actual VOSS web site. Far less impressive, particularly as there was no alternative offered. Pity, 'cos their aims are as pure (it seems) as their water.
Right. I have a hot date with a bowl of rather less pure crockpot "I prepared earlier".
Funny how things work out
Hawker Siddeley Aviation didn't do too well after I left them in 1974. ICL didn't do too well after I left them in 1981. IBM got overtaken by HP after I left them in 2006. And I've just read that RBS announced their biggest annual loss in UK corporate history (a mere £24,100,000,000) in 2008, a year after I gave up on them. I'm just saying...