2010 — 24 October: Sunday
Well, at 08:34 the sky is currently clear of clouds1 and a walk is still on the cards. A cool one, probably. Now, where's that uncool cuppa?
Biometrics can be fun
Many years ago, one of my regular routines in the IBM Hursley Lab was to offer my fingertip to the then-ongoing fingerprint scanning and recognition system that was being developed for the UK police (that's to say, Home Office, at the time). I seem to recall it was going to transform our ability to recognise and track people. Hah! Passports and ID cards hover around the same area, of course. Here's an interesting open letter on the £23 passport. It seems to paint a rather different picture than the one offered by the news of a "gold star" for the firm of consultants involved.
I'm in no hurry to renew my passport. (Current fee £77-50.) Better to concentrate on some breakfast and preparing a packed lunch.
These boots were made etc etc
Although my boots don't appear in shot this time, we were again walking for some 6.8 miles around Longstock, near the site of the homicidal pheasant. Whereas I opted for autumnal foliage...
... Mike preferred our canine welcoming committee:
It's 16:11. The laundry is doing its stuff. The body has been abluted. The sun is rather low in the sky. It's getting cooler, too. Jarvis Cocker is oozing out of the speakers. I think my next excitement is the final attempt — some time tomorrow — to get my broken bits of bookcases collected by Staples.
Back to the music, and the ongoing CD artwork scanning. It's proving to be quite a voyage of largely welcome discovery. For example, I'd forgotten all about Dagmar Krause and her "Tank Battles" (not to mention Jill Gomez and her "Cabaret Classics")...
... for the simple (but inexplicable) reason that — back in 1988 — they both ended up in the wrong database. Crikey!
Somewhat later
Much as I admire the music of Massive Attack, the typography used for the track listing on the sleeve of their current album "Heligoland" is, quite simply, appalling...
I truly hate this modern "grunge" typography (this is a relatively mild example, too) but then, as Mike and I amiably discussed at some considerable length on our walk today, we are a pair of grumpy old men increasingly mis-aligned with modern culture :-)
It's 20:16 and, unless I do the dishes, they will remain undone. Pah! [Pause] And, at 23:50, definitely time for the next batch of sleep. G'night.