2011 — 18 April: Monday
The time1 is fast approaching for another spot of beauty sleep, and then I think I shall resume my sporadic shelf-scouring for the next issue of "The Word" magazine. It should be out by now. I also have that nice little cheque to pay in from Brenda's tax collectors before they change their minds. And dear Mama will be in need of a chocolate top-up by now. So that's some of my Monday mapped out already.
Last night's video entertainment, recently finished, was the delightful comedy "Out at the wedding", preceded by just a teeny tad of tidying up.
I'd just decided...
... the final music on "Through the night" was a piece by Haydn (the oboe concerto in C major) when I was told it had indeed been thought to be, but that it was not any more. I'm claiming a moral victory because I hadn't, at that point, looked at the online playlist.
It's now 07:07 and my first cuppa will soon be drinkable. A grey start to the day but I'm awake now, so let's get on with it...
In two minds
I note two stories, nearly adjacent, in today's "Grauniad". #1 reports that our friendly police (heaven forbid we should call them the para-military wing of Brenda's goon squad) used "kettling" too readily — "The possibility of mass containment of peaceful protesters has undoubtedly had a chilling effect on many people's rights to freedom of expression and assembly."
Story #2 suggests that a furrin guvmint should respect the right of its students studying2 over here in the UK to protest — "We have made clear to the Bahraini government that, unless these individuals commit a criminal offence in the UK, they will be free to carry out their activities in line with UK laws."
Tricky business, guvmint.
Trying to find...
... the "inner animal" here has me stumped:
Peter's g/f doesn't like pictures of herself on this Interweb thing, so I went with a purely botanical "after" shot of her handiwork yesterday. But you can see a picture of Christa (and the same yew tree as a sapling) here.
Grrr
Cheque paid in in between two null-value trips to the tip. Who knew it would be so busy on a Monday morning? I'm not all that good at queues. Still, at least the laundry is chugging along. What's next, Mrs Landingham? [Pause] The morning would have been a complete write-off had I not successfully snaffled one of the last two copies of "The Word" in WHS after striking out ("a computer problem") at my target financial destination in Beastleigh.
Now it's already the afternoon and I'm as hungry as if I'd been working all morning...
Send lawyers, guns and money...
... the call I missed on my mobile was, indeed, from the care-home. It seems dear Mama requires a new bottle of Scotch! :-)
Having blagged a cuppa both there and at Mike's I'm going to load up the car once again and make my third attempt to unload at the tip. It's 17:29 and I hope people are now all at home cooking up a storm. [Pause] They were. I was able to drive straight in and dump a couple of cubic meters of nasty brambly stuff. [Pause] And almost straight in on the second visit, too.
Time (19:15) to do something about my evening meal. If only to silence the rumbling sounds.
Later
It was good to discover that this morning's postal delivery — the 1984 film "Romancing the Stone" — has stood the test of time and survived the transition to Blu-ray...
... but I was dismayed to discover that its first-time screen writer (Diane Thomas) was killed in the Porsche that Michael Douglas gave her the year after the film was initially released. I'm even more dismayed to see that there are rumours of a re-make.
I'm off to bed. It's been a long day. G'night.