2011 — 1 April: Friday — rabbits!

Tonight's photo1 shows my little family down on Bournemouth pier at or very near New Year's day 1983 (I'm almost sure of the year) for one of our traditional seaside picnics.

Christa and Peter

Notice the much improved skyline back then. G'night.

Back with Bach

The tinkling of yet another overlooked glass collection lorry is no competition for the Prelude and Fugue in Eb major (#7) that's just been played. The weather is uniformly grey, the first cuppa is half-drunk, and the 08:00 news has been uninspiring.

But this looks a lot more promising.

Equally fascinating (not least because I found my way to it from a comment about the DID archive) is this chap — I read many a review of his in earlier more PC- and calculator-obsessed days. Indeed, his review in "PCW" of the Acorn Archimedes helped me take that RISCy path. (Link.)

My first two tulips are nearly ready to show off. (April showers bring the flowers, it seems.)

Tulips

Make that three, with two more close behind... [Pause] A quick supplies run (if you're going to shop at Waitrose on the "hell-is-other-people" that is a Friday, it's better to go early) and now, with the Concierto d'Aranjuez for accompaniment, it's definitely time (09:49) for a spot of breakfast. I am "sharp set".

Vanity, vanity

I've read some amazingly, erm, stupid comments about this latest "vanity card" from Chuck Lorre. Perhaps people who can, do, and those who can't, nitpick?

For someone in crisis, I think a more accurate and helpful assessment of reality would be, "Love, sex, food, friendship, art, play, beauty and the simple pleasure of a cup of tea are all well and good, but never forget that God/the universe is determined to kill you by whatever means necessary." Consider trying that next time you're called on to do some consoling.

Chuck Lorre in Card #337


Thanks, Mr Postie

I've been a fan of Posy Simmonds since the mid-1970s, and of Stephen Frears for slightly longer than that. And I've followed John Landis and Simon Pegg with enjoyment, too. So this is quite a welcome double bill:

Films

It's time (13:32) I fed myself again.

Listening (on BBC Radio 5's Kermode and Mayo film programme) to the (true) story behind the Jim Loach film "Oranges and Sunshine" is a jaw-dropping experience. "I had" as they say "no idea this had been going on in my own lifetime".

About eight hours ago...

... I received an email that committed...

Apostrophe theory

... but it's taken this long for me to track down the book2 of visual puns that I knew had this neat sign in it. I could do with a better system. I should add I've been doing other stuff besides scouring my cluttered shelves, but I admit it would have been far quicker just to redraw the damn' thing :-)

Continuing the theme of dodgy punctuation, there is, as usual, plenty of good fun to be found in the new Ansible. Example:

'The orbit of a comet was not a parabola, but an ellipsis.' (Marie Brennan, A Star Shall Fall, 2010) Evelyn C. Leeper adds: 'I have visions of the comet winking out of existence, then re-appearing a few feet further on briefly, then winking out again, like a series of dots across the sky....'

David Langford in Ansible


  

Footnotes

1  And, at 01:39 or so I still regard it as "tonight".
2  "The Third Word War: Apostrophe theory" by Ian Lee. It's been gathering dust on a remote shelf since I bought and read it in May 1979 in Windsor.