2011 — 28 April: Thursday
It occurred to me1 when processing today's picture of "Christas past" that, while I was steadily paying my dues to the audio and video industries (let alone the book and magazine publishers), she was equally steadily filling the coffers of a variety of garden centres and builders' merchants:
In this case, UBM Dibben (I believe). It would have been in 1982 or very nearly so. What a pair, heh? :-)
It's 08:31 and breakfast (so far) has consisted of the other half of a delicious pack of strawberries. I have a lunch date with Len, preceded by a considerable quantity of further tidying up. It's odd not seeing the car standing on the drive, and nice, but I still need to sort out resting places for the stuff it displaced.
That "little list" seems to have leaked from the Mikado's control. Potential trouble-makers, right here in River city? Crikey. Actually, I would have thought everybody could accurately be described as "potentially aggressive". (Source.)
As the afternoon winds on...
... I'm back from a lunch at "The Forge" — between us, we reckoned it's 40 years since we last ate there, in my case for the combined retirement meals of Ray Weir and Ray Small from CICS Publications (they'd both been tempted by a retirement incentive package at the end of 1986) — preceded by a brief whizz into Soton, picking up the next batch of chocs for dear Mama and a couple of DVDs plus a cheap Blu-ray.
- Hancock
Mike showed me this back in February 2009. Amiable tosh - (500) days of summer
This has been on my haphazardly-maintained vague "look out for this" list for quite a while - Lip Service, Season 1
This supposedly 1080p Blu-ray replaces the DVD set I "lent" to my son after buying it and watching it last November. It's my understanding that hi-def TV transmissions are invariably 1080i, not 1080p, to halve the bandwidth. We shall see
Before I set off, Mr Amazon had just dropped off a couple of enticing books, too. Let's hope they're both much better than "Must love dogs". I gave up on that with about 50 pages still remaining last night, but won't resume. It just demonstrates how a witty, literate screenplay can be polished out of a lumpen block of a book.
And while I was away, Mr Postie delivered the summer schedule for "The Point" (Christa's the named recipient) and another refund cheque for my demented mother (but nuffin' for me). Pah! It's 15:32 and sunny but cool out there.
My mobile phone was kicked back into life by a helpful youngster in Carphone Warehouse, not by a cash infusion (it still had over £14 of the initial £15 I'd loaded on it), but by telling the network to take it out of quarantine. I have to use it at least once every 90 days to prevent this, but had forgotten. It seems incoming (and totally unwanted) text advertising messages from the network don't count. I'm not exactly a fan of this technology. Nor could I be accused of being a heavy user. Obviously. Minority of one; that's me.
Serendipity
Right now (21:07 or so) I'm sipping delicious coffee and listening to delicious Bartok ("Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta"). Though the BBC web site denies it. Before that, my early evening viewing choice was made for me when I drew the curtains and found this...
... deposited by Mr Postie. £5-47 for a Blu-ray. Not too shabby, heh? I first watched it in January 2009.
Plans are already afoot for a bluebell wood walk tomorrow, so all I have to decide now is do I want any supper, and what (if anything else) I shall watch this evening. Nothing to it.