2011 — 4 May: Wednesday
When you have a large enough collection of music files1 there's something horribly addictive about sipping a small Scotch and playing your way through said collection — loudly, at that — by leaping from one random track to the next. That's why (for example) it's now 01:19 and I'm listening to Propaganda's album "A secret wish" which (equally horribly) is now over quarter of a century old.
Definitely time for some sleep. G'night.
This morning's contribution...
... to the rich bacterial cultural system flowing out of the kitchen sink was the contents of the industrial-sized bottle of Lidl's Vinaigrette with Dill that Christa bought in late 2006 or early 2007, opened, used once, and popped into a storage cupboard.2 Some days, I feel like a domestic god, I tell you! And it's only 09:05, too.
Any day now I expect my troops to report the successful tracking-down of the current location of the dangerously toxic Lea & Perrins bottle visible here during a visit by her elder brother Karl and our oldest nephew Florian to our house in Old Windsor back in 1977 or so. Click the pic :-)
Christa with Karl and Florian, Old Windsor, 1977?
Vote, vote, vote...
... for Nigel Barton :-)
I see the Daily (Hate) Mail describes the proposed Alternative Vote system as "fiendishly-complicated" which is, in its opinion, good enough reason to vote "No". While I admit my instinctive preference would be for full PR, my own simple-minded approach is to read the Electoral Commission's own propaganda. True, I may quibble a little over the paragraph (nicely buried on page 8) that admits the new system would only actually come into use after the vote in Parliament on first changing all our constituency boundaries, but I shall still vote "Yes" — I wouldn't even dream of suggesting3 that such boundary changes will do their best to negate in advance the impact from the introduction of the AV system.
"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."
I wonder if dear Mama will vote. I spotted a polling card on her bedside table yesterday. Good luck with that!
Gores chalore
I still remember Christa copying a 'Scientific American' article for me on slips of the tongue/brain interface (such as Spoonerisms) back in the mid-1970s. The first three items were this morning's tasks in visiting the charity shop centre of the Universe (aka Eastleigh):
- Pay in dear Mama's second refund cheque and accept compliments on my penmanship? Check
- Update my savings passbook and accept advice on higher interest rate possibilities? Check
- Absolve yesterday's card(inal) sin of omission in Waterstone's? Check
- Snaffle five DVDs in Poundland for £5 on Brian's emailed advice? Check
- Bump into Roger, and therefore book into the Figg tea-rooms for a Friday afternoon treat? Check
I recall dithering on Day 2 of this diary skylark over the "2 for £10" DVD choices in Woolies before it went on to become Poundland. So, including Mr Postie's little delivery ("Cosmos"), here's the day's video haul:
The more modest audio haul is a CD of an American violin quartet "Turtle Island" that I first heard playing live in the studio on BBC Radio 3 last week in the afternoon. It's not the first time I've gone for people performing the music of Jimi Hendrix — that would be Gil Evans quite some time ago now — but the results are excellent. In fact, I've already got another of their CDs in transit as I type:
My neighbourhood music reviewer in the bungalow across the road agrees and thinks Shelagh, too, will be a fan. Meanwhile, Brian has kindly dropped off the two sets of keyboard decals so I shall (as it were) be getting stuck in shortly. It's 16:37, sunny, and the perfect temperature in a gentle breeze.