2011 — 10 January: Monday

Not quite sure how it's happened,1 but it's already considerably after midnight — again — and I'm starting to crave sleep. I've been transcribing an old article from a May 1947 issue of the long-defunct "Listener" magazine because it contained a nice appreciation of Ernest Bramah (Smith) written by John Connell (and published five years after Bramah's death2).

As hobbies go, I guess it's pretty strange, but basically harmless. Who knows? I may yet host the result of my labours here. But not tonight. G'night.

Having just scraped...

... a coating of water, rather than ice, off the car I note that the temperature this morning (it's 08:59) has shot up to nearly +3C and I shall myself shoot out shortly for a few bits'n'bobs in the fresh food line. Beats listening to tales of 16 year olds in our Armed Forces.

Safely back from the Wild Hordes in a pleasantly uncrowded Waitrose. Breakfast consumed, Mozart tinkling away, and I see the "Guardian" is agonising over forms of salutation in email. The comments are (as is often the case) somewhat more amusing than the original piece. Example:

emails

I'm delighted to see that Mr ERNIE proposes to send me £50 later this month. Let's hope he keeps this up. Every little helps. After all, these days £50 will fill my petrol tank and leave me enough change for a bar of choccie :-)

I'm going to nip out again and paint the town red. [Pause] Or, as I've just been informed, "varnish the scarlet city" — one result of translating into and back from Italian, according to Laurie Taylor. Neat. It's 14:31 and I'm just about to try one last adventure before the weather turns fully nasty.

I'd truncated my...

... earlier (pre-lunch) trip to Soton after my gleeful acquisition there, in Waterstone's, of an affordable Penguin edition of that unpublished and obscenely expensive John Wyndham novel I first mentioned here and an American item almost worth it just for the front cover graphic...

Books (1)

I was thus able to hand one hour's worth of unused parking ticket to a young mother and slightly brighten her day thereby. However, I didn't get back in time to catch Mr Postie, so after my lunch I had to go out again to pick up a parcel containing three lumps of Amazonian goodness from his little depot...

Books (2)

I fear I came too late to appreciate Tony Judt's writing — indeed the middle title here is a posthumous collection of his autobiographical essays, often from the New York Review of Books. As for Mr Vinge, I'm almost sure the first SF story I read by him was printed in the short-lived "Visions of Tomorrow" magazine published by one Philip J Harbottle in 1970. I can't be certain, however, as the 12 monthly issues were among many treasures chucked out3 by dear Mama as they were deemed (by her) to be cluttering up my room at home "with rubbish" while I was away in student digs in Hatfield in the very early 1970s.

Drat! My intended final adventure (merely a tea expotition) was thwarted by my conspirator's need to stay in this afternoon. Meanwhile, the chap who directed a film of one of my favourite comedy thrillers has just died.

Later

I wonder what this would be like if translated into, and back out of, Italian. They were on cracking form tonight. Meanwhile, what sounded like heavy rain earlier seems to have eased off. It's 20:12 and I don't much care for winter!

Later still

I suppose I'd better think about getting some beauty sleep. It's 23:44 and still nasty weather out there. Rain, that is. I've just played all three soundtrack CDs from the "Twilight" films back to back. Excellent music.

  

Footnotes

1  And certainly not helped by the ongoing brainache that is the "Not even wrong" book about string theory I borrowed from Roger a couple of days ago and have been nibbling steadily away at in odd moments of lucidity ever since. I don't mean the moments of lucidity are odd, merely intermittent :-)
2  Given what Marcus Aurelius said, five years after my death I doubt anyone will be saying such nice things about me...
3  I have never thrown out anything belonging to my son without first gaining his explicit permission to do so!