2011 — 14 June: Tuesday

For a change I've been listening to the BBC Radio 4 news this morning. The trouble is nothing seems to change as a revolving cast of spokespeople trot out their fixed opinions on what seems to be a static set of problems. I shall be reverting to music very soon.

Meanwhile, a photo from the winter of 1981 in Old Windsor with Christa looking pleased at the preparations she's made to keep Peter "snug as a bug in a rug" for a stroll (in all probability down to Bowsher's newsagent1 by the "Little Chef" across the road from the Bells of Ouseley pub mentioned in "Three Men in a Boat"):

Christa and Peter in 1981

Since it's apparently going to be fine, dry, and becoming warm I sense a minor-league expotition of some sort today. But not before breakfast.

I should know better, but I've been dipping into one of my books of jokes (again). Here's #212:

Said McCarthy to O'Brien, "Did you hear about poor Houlihan?"
   "No," said O'Brien, "What about poor Houlihan?"
   "The poor man fell into a vat of beer and drowned."
   "Saints preserve us," said O'Brien, shocked. "The poor fellow never had a chance."
   "Yes, he did," said McCarthy. "He got out three times to go to the men's room."

Isaac Asimov in Asimov laughs again


The Great Escape

I had no idea the half onion I'd kept was so desperate to escape my clutches that it would grow legs and become a Triffid:

Onion

It's enough to make a grown man cry.

Life can't be all...

... roses without the occasional thorn rearing its ugly whatever. So, a morning's gentle self-indulgence (score: eight pairs of socks from M&S, a can of 'Airduster', a "2 for £20" pair of Blu-rays, and the latest issue of Word magazine) now has to be paid for by a trip over to the care-home. Dear Mama also received a statement of one of her 'stocks and shares' ISAs that suggests some form of mild recovery is taking place. It's actually an amount that would cover the cost of a Dignitas-assisted departure, which strikes me as mildly ironic.

  

Footnote

1  Our usual Sunday morning fresh air and exercise. Last time we were back in Old Windsor (in November 1996, for me to give a talk at the annual conference of the ISTC in what had been ICL Beaumont) that bit of urban landscape (except the pub) had all been swept away. You can never go back...