2011 — 20 September: Tuesday
Big Bro cheerfully informs me1 there's no way my beloved baby Yaris can possibly need a new water-pump yet, and I should (therefore?) now buy a Honda Jazz. May I refer my right honourable elderly relative to a reply I gave to NZ earlier? Now, if only he were as well-informed about digital audio support on my even more baby HP MPC running Ubuntu 11.04 I would happily entertain all his thoughts and suggestions. But I bow (as ever) to his vastly superior... age. If things that we wished were so, were so, how different the world would be, heh, Bro?
Crikey, it's already time (07:05) for my next hot cuppa. But at least I'm up and atom in plenty of time for my next trip down to the Millbrook service station. As I wandered around there on foot last week, by the way, I could no longer detect any trace of the original building that initially housed the IBM UK Lab back in the late 1950s before its staff could move to the Hursley site — and I worked down in Millbrook on an internal assignment for 18 months a mere 27 years ago.
In my earlier, more innocent, youth, I never really understood how jam (for example) could be labelled with "Warning, may contain stones" — that was before I embarked on my latest career as a world-class stewer of plums for my breakfast cereal topping. It's just taken me five minutes to find the last stone in my latest batch. I will gloss over the small-scale explosion in the microwave oven.
Just been watching a squirrel surveying his domain (my back garden jungle, that is). More entertaining than hearing about the "botched implementation" of a new system of regional fire control centres.
Paperless office?
Don't make me laugh! Right. Time I got ready for my little funday expotition.
Home again...
... for a spot of lunch, then out again, to feed the Yaris, and back again, for a most welcome cuppa, followed by a spot of scanning to show you a couple of DVD goodies from Asda that had been recommended and will constitute today's little reward for good behaviour:
The difference between the estimated and actual water pump cost pays for them. Incoming opinions have been varying widely on whether or not the pump should have failed, and/or whether it's worth kicking up a fuss about. But since there's a lot more of Mr Bingley in me than Mr Darcy, I can't be bothered; besides, it's the duty of the wealthy man to give employment to the artisan. Not that I'm wealthy. Or much of an artisan. "Back street luv" is playing as I type. Good ol' BBC 6Music.
Tonight's culinary poser
As the time for my evening meal approaches, I'm minded to ask what has the appearance of a white blancmange, and the consistency of semi-congealed wallpaper paste, as I swill it gently but firmly away into the oblivion of the Eastleigh drainage system?
The answer, of course, is the remarkably inoffensive contents of an undisturbed TetraPak, stored in the back of a kitchen cupboard, and almost certainly bought in Lidl, or Aldi, by Christa (which means, essentially, more than four years ago). It claimed to have been at its best before 21.3.2009, which could well have been true. Amazing. Who knows what evil lurks quietly in the back of Mounce's other kitchen cupboards?
Not me, that's for sure. Worked it out yet?2