2011 — 5 June: Sunday
Gloomy world and UK news — do you recall "Jubal Harshaw's" take on that? — is saturating the BBC Radio 3 news bulletin while I prepare today's family photo of the Beckers back in 1982. One could herd them all into frame, perhaps, but get them all to stop chattering and "watch the birdie"? I don't think so.
Both the barometer and the thermometer have come down a little, this morning. Suits me. So. Another new day1 during which, I suspect, I will be out and about topping up dear Mama's store of chocolate for me to take over on my weekly visits. Mother Hubbard's cupboard and fridge could easily withstand an influx of calories, too. Not before breakfast, though, and another cuppa.
I see the spam email is turning from a flood to a torrent. Even though well over 99.5% ends up in Googlemail's filters I still wonder afresh at the methods and lengths people will go to to avoid more 'honest' lines of work. Not to mention the waste of bandwidth and clogging of a potentially wonderful shared global resource. At the rate technological progress is revealing humanity's basic nature I remain convinced that our span on this planet will be over a very long time before we measure up to the records set by dinosaurs and insects.
"Does this face look bothered?"
I was curious...
... to see what the good Dr K had had to say about the Stieg Larsson trilogy I finished watching a few hours ago. Sources and snippet:
Directed with crime-scene candour (and an occasionally exploitative eye) by Niels Arden Oplev, the lengthy narrative brings together a wrongly accused leftie journalist and an abused anarcho-punk cyber-hacker who team up to track down a missing girl who seems to be sending flowers from beyond the grave. Archival political conspiracies and still thriving familial corruption provide the deadbeat background noise as our antiheroes — superbly played by Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace — drag themselves through a quagmire of corrosive Scandinavian guilt. At times, the brooding drama is utterly compelling; elsewhere, its descent into (unnecessary?) shock tactics serves to distance rather than involve the viewer. It's a powerful but uncomfortable watch, as perhaps befits the subject matter.
Finally, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest ... [gets] its act together after a soggy second instalment for a return-to-form final act. Once again, Noomi Rapace remains the film-maker's ace card, a mercurial screen presence who has carried the entire series shoulder high. The scenes in which her fierce-faced Lisbeth finally gets her day in court feel long overdue, and should have fans cheering.
Spot-on, in my opinion.
Back from Soton...
... shortly after the promised rain had started. Laden with chocs and some choice reading matter:
Now I shall digest my lunch while I'm whizzing round Waitrose topping up the foodie cabinets. It's all go, this solo domestic administrivia lark. [Pause] And so it came to pass that, at 14:27, I can finally kick back and put my feet up. There's rain to be watched (if all else fails) :-)
I never expected to be...
... a computer network administrator. But then I've never really expected to be any of the things I've turned out to be over the years. While I've been listening to Jarvis Cocker on BBC 6Music I've also "hardwired" the TCP/IP address of my Oppo Blu-ray player, tested it to make sure it knows where to find firmware upgrades in future, and reworked the network map accordingly. Apart from the ADSL modem, the only component left upstairs2 is my little Ubuntu server on which I host my internal web site. All one GB or so of it...
I've also been dipping into the huge CPC component catalogue that Brian kindly left for me while he's swanning around in Switzerland. It reminds me very much of the back cover of "Wireless World" magazine in the 1960s — that was almost invariably an advert from Proops in London, in eye-strainingly small print, of all manner of goodies. CPC is an Aladdin's cave full of modern treasures I didn't even know existed. Did you know you can now buy a hand-held solid-state stereo digital audio recorder from Sony, the specs of which put my once top-of-the-range 1984 Sony Professional Walkman cassette recorder completely to shame? And it's cheaper, too.
Don't think I'm not tempted!
Despite having given...
... my latest mobile number to far fewer people than I need fingers to count, I've just received a text message telling me I "have yet to claim compensation for the accident I had". I would ask how venal and stupid do 'they' think I am, but I might not like the answer.