2011 — 8 September: Thursday
It's entirely possible that, in full-on "couch potato" mode last night, I may have overdosed on Jane Austen.1 Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed re-watching the affectionate 'homage' to "Pride & Prejudice" that I saw back in September 2008...
Better get some breakfast. It's already 10:24. Tsk, tsk.
This morning's trivial pursuit
What do these titles have in common?
The completeist gene just kicked in. I knew perfectly well I have a couple of other DVDs knocking around in my collection that feature the interloping actress from "Lost in Austen", but there they weren't in my DVD Profiler database. Why not? Mundane explanation — they're two boxed sets that didn't have separable artwork that I could pull out and keep in my "Rainbow" folders and "somehow" I managed to overlook them during my recent blitz of data entry. Double-plus-ungood tsk, tsk.
While rectifying that, I also edited the overview of the one item so far that caused Brian's XML parsing Python script to freeze, and have taken the precaution of locking that edit so it doesn't ever get accidentally updated back to its rogue form if re-downloading is ever necessary. The problem could hardly have been smaller. It was an apostrophe being represented (twice) by some alien code page character. Last time, Brian had to go in and use "vi" on line 300,000 or so of the mammoth exported XML file. Not a task to be lightly re-undertaken as it was rather stretching his PC. And probably his patience.
This afternoon's trivial pursuit
What do these titles have in common?
They were all acquired in a rather busy Soton a couple of hours ago, and 'DVD Profilered' to — thanks, Mr Postie — the lovely music on Ry Cooder's new CD:
I've been after a copy2 of the 1964 film version of "Fail-safe", grippingly made from the terrifyingly realistic novel...
... by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. (This is my battered 1978 multiple-hand copy, though I first read it in the mid-1960s.) I also have the "live" American TV film made by Stephen Frears in 2000, but President Richard Dreyfuss really doesn't compare to President Henry Fonda :-)
There is no intersection between people who think that nuclear weapons are good things and people who are sane. If killing people is wrong, then surely killing millions of people is even wronger? Tea, Mrs Landingham? You bet.
That smells good...
I'm about to dive into a nice chicken saag masala. I must say, I've developed quite a taste for the Waitrose curry range, though if it carries on getting any more autumnal hereabouts, I shall have to dust off my crockpottery skills once again. I've noticed they are now pre-packaging fresh winter veggies. That was a jolly quick summer, in my opinion.
As you'd expect, from a film with which Tarantino has been involved (in this case, "Curdled", which began life as a "short" in 1991 with the same amazing lead actress) the music choices are phenomenally good. The film itself predates, and is a very black variant on, "Sunshine Cleaning".