2011 — 24 February: Thursday
An overnight email from Mike1 employed a phrase I'm fully aware of, but have never previously seen written. Researching it ("research" being, these days, a euphemism meaning "typing something into Mrs Google's [re]search field and seeing what comes back") fetched a surreal result...
... worth it for the name of the enterprise. "Tanks R Us", heh? It would currently cost over £29,000 to fill with petrol (and the BBC Radio 3 news lady has just hinted that that could rise by another 5p/litre with all the "unrest" in the Middle East).
It's 07:38, so there's time yet for some breakfast, before making a packed lunch, and heading out to Froxfield Green (after last Sunday's muddy extravaganza that's the driest all-roads route we haven't done for a while). Today's filmic topics should include "The Social Network" — I've been waiting for him to catch up :-)
I used to keep the pittance I received from IBM in the Royal Bank of Scotland while I was in thrall to the mortgage "system". As their annual loss (the bank, not IBM) for last year is down to a mere £1,130,000,000 their top chap (who is doubtless frightfully deserving) is in line for a bonus of a mere £2,040,000 (atop an annual salary that comfortably exceeds my own lifetime earnings). And there's me thinking I part-owned this little enterprise. Wait! I do! This is completely, obscenely, out-bloody-rageous. (Link.)
"Gulls take turns" (should that be "terns"?) to fall asleep by watching one another. Sweet.
Right! Time I wasn't here, if I'm to be there in time... And the sun is shining. Amazing.
Evidently...
... awareness of Time hangs less heavily on we retired folk. I've just (15:05) got home, having first had to nip out straight after a delightful 6.6 mile walk to retrieve a package supposedly too large for Mr Postie to handle — A4 with two DVDs hardly sounds that onerous — only to have it pointed out that today's jotting said "Wednesday". (If you had as much trouble spelling "Wednesday" as some of my relatives do you, too, might well leave it unchanged.) Time for my next cuppa while the machine that washes does its washing tricks. I forgot to turn one of the shirts inside-out to test whether it got re-turned.
Recall my liking for alternate history. The president here is "Shrub". And my current music is from 1992: Manfred Mann's "Plains music". Good stuff.
I was faithfully promised...
... mud-free roads this morning. I was fibbed to:
Naomi Wolf has...
... soared in my estimation. And I now have her nice, simple, 10-step programme for closing down an open, democratic society:
- Invoke an internal and external threat
- Secret prisons where torture takes place
- Develop a paramilitary force
- Surveil ordinary citizens
- Infiltrate citizens' groups
- Detain and release ordinary citizens
- Target key individuals
- Restrict the Press
- Recast criticism as espionage and dissent as treason
- Subvert the rule of law
She has moved so far past her previous gender issues!
Of course, the other video — a fictional examination of the assassination of "Shrub" and the aftermath — dovetails perfectly with the subject matter of Naomi Wolf's documentary. It, too, was excellent.