2011 — 2 June: Thursday
Midnight being a thing of the (relatively recent) past, I can now report the evening's later video entertainment was "Bloomington", and I can thoroughly recommend it, too. And so to my latest family photo.1 That was one of my tops she's wearing, by the way. I am often struck by the intense stare of young children. If Peter had had golden eyes (rather than dark brown ones like Big Bro) I'm sure he could have auditioned as one of Wyndham's "Midwich cuckoos".
They were looking out of the bedroom window in Old Windsor — you got a clear view of part of the Heathrow flight path, and we often saw Concorde. That was always fun. G'night.
Stewart Brand...
... is featured in an interesting interview. Source and snippet:
Remember that there was an apocalyptic enthusiasm even in the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the communes were survivalist, planning to outlive a dying civilization and then reinvent it. They all failed. They [were] great fun and very educational, primarily because the world did not end. I put this challenge to anyone who desires the apocalypse: Go to an island and pretend that civilization has destroyed itself. And then build something that is better than the world we know today.
I find it hard to believe that I bought my copy of the Last Whole Earth Catalog (with its beautiful NASA picture of 'Earthrise' on the cover) on that initial picnic visit to Oxford I made with Christa. As usual, I wasted some time trying to read the titles on the spines of the books visible behind his photo :-)
I think it's probably time I visited Blackwells again. I haven't been since November 2006 after all. Mind you, that little Interweb malarkey has made visiting actual bookshops slightly less necessary. Besides, I wasn't over-impressed by the 'haul' four and a half years ago:
Acheson, David 2002 1089 and all that Enticing journey into maths £13.99 Maths Blue, Violet 2006 Smart girl's guide to porn Who would have thunk it? £9.99 Video/TV Castro, Elizabeth 2005 Publishing a blog with Blogger Well, why not? £9.99 Computing Lane, Nick 2005 Power, sex, suicide Mitochondria & what they get up to inside our cells £9.99 Science Levy, Steven 2001 crypto: privacy in the digital age Story of public key cryptography £8.99 Computing McCay, Winsor 2000 Little Nemo: 1905 - 1914 Taschen does him proud, 419 full colour strips £14.99 Graphic Miller, Robin 2006 Point & Click OpenOffice.org Good guidance on the free office suite £21.99 Computing
A 120-mile round daytrip is quite a long way to go without Christa's enjoyable company. Nor did it take me long to decide against "Blogger".
Meanwhile, somebody around here is demanding breakfast ahead of my lunch date with Len. It's a lovely sunny morning, and I could use another cuppa, too.
Mr (Parcel) Postie...
... has just cheerfully proved my point:
Listening (as I did, yesterday) to that archive Philip French BBC interview with genius cartoonist Charles Addams, I was reminded that I still don't yet have a copy of his first (perfectly-titled) book "Hung, Drawn, and Quartered". My Addams collection consists of:
Addams and evil 115 or so perfect examples of Family & friends 1947 £4.95 1989/02/16 Black Maria 92, including 57 from New Yorker, 1954 to 1960 1960 £0.75 1976/--/-- Creature comforts From New Yorker, 1976 to 1981 1981 £7.95 1981/--/-- Favourite haunts 104, including 95 from New Yorker, 1946 to 1976 1976 £3.95 1978/02/09 Monster rally 91, including 85 from New Yorker, 1946 to 1950 1950 £4.50 1978/02/09 My crowd 192, including 188 from New Yorker, 1937 to 1970 1971 £1.05 1973/--/-- Penguin Charles Addams Black humour, 1935 through 1960 1962 £0.25 1965/--/-- World of Charles Addams Handsome retrospective celebration. 300 of his best cartoons 1991 £25.00 1992/10/03
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Entertaining soundbites from Phil the Greek. (Source.)
Later that afternoon
The lunchtime pint of Guinness shandy went down a treat with the sausages and mash over at "The Wheatsheaf". Then, with Len riding shotgun, I logged into my network router and persuaded it of the wisdom (while still basically doing its DHCP thing) to agree in future to assign the same two TCP/IP addresses to Blackbeast and my Ubuntu server2 no matter where I choose to plug them in. The Buffalo NAS already has a static address — the new part of the trick was to tell the router to examine the MAC address to identify Blackbeast and the server, and assign them the fixed TCP/IP addresses I wanted. I've also set aside a block of 20 addresses for visiting devices3 to use.
Speaking of visits, a visit from my normal Mr Postie (I assume) while I was out brought me what is, I hope, the final bill from the final utility company associated with dear Mama's former house. And, more interestingly, three of these four DVDs:
- Sonny
A gift from Mike, who's challenged me to understand the (New Orleans) accents without benefit of subtitles - Under the Cherry Moon
A chance to watch a very young Kristin Scott Thomas - A piece of work
A year spent on the road with Joan Rivers. I first saw her in June 1984 (in a quick-fire BBC TV interview with Bob Monkhouse that cracked him up; I transcribed the audio to a minidisc) and then bought her album "Can we talk?" - Lord of the Mince
I usually find young Mr Clary can make me laugh
It's 18:38 so I guess I should start thinking about something to eat soon. It's been lovely and sunny all day so far. And an email from Big Bro says he enjoyed the first two Stieg Larsson books and will be looking out for #3 as he "transits" Hong Kong tomorrow on his way home after a week in Brunei.
As "The Imagined Village"...
... ends, I've just cooked up a picture of my network. (This is after trying both "Sonny" and "Julian Clary". I must say the lack of subtitles on the former does give me some occasional trouble. I shall certainly return to the fray — I was enjoying it. Brenda Blethyn's accent is a strange and wondrous joy.)
Meanwhile, time (22:30) for another cuppa.