2011 — 12 October: Wednesday
I was skimming the latest email newsletter from "Butterflies and Wheels" while my tea brewed1 but can find little evidence of growing levels of rationality — or even calm debate — in Ophelia Benson's global cherry-picking of crumbs from the ample global supply of (usually religious) fruitcakes.
After reading about yesterday's "squeezed middle" incomes it occurred to me that it was about time to see how much of what's laughingly called "annual net interest" had been shovelled into a savings account I still have.2 A few seconds with the calculator confirmed their Corporate munificence amounted to 0.08% which, as a chum remarked, is only very marginally better than stuffing the golden horde into a sock (it would fit!) under the bed.
Never mind. That capitalist "vampire squid" has been 'excused' £10,000,000 interest (link) because it didn't fancy paying its share of UK National Insurance on its partners' six-figure bonuses.
The meek shall inherit the (scorched) Earth. If it's all right with the greediest 0.08%, that is.
Later
I've just bought myself an experimental quince, 'cos that's the kind of chap I am. I've also solved the mystery of the disappearing vital food group (McVitie's dark choccie digestive "Daddy biscuits") as it turns out Waitrose had simply rehoused them, up and to the right, supplanting them by their (ghastly) own-brand cheaper version. There are some economies too frightful to contemplate. This is one such.
And are there any grapes as sweet as those picked direct from the vine outside my living room? I think not.
On 3rd July 1990, I...
... bought this starry trilogy (inter alia) on LaserDisc from my chum Joyce at Thames Valley Laser in Bicester for a mere £97.97 and, when the dreaded 'laser rot' set in over a decade later, I laboriously transcribed them across to DVD-R as an analogue transfer using the S-Video interface. Not great.
Today's remastered triplet of the same films on DVD set me back a further £7.99 in good ol' "Best Buy" at the End of the Hedge. And the Blu-ray was only £6.99. Think of them as pre-birthday treats.
I was ingesting...
... my lunch when Ms Postie delivered some of these, and about two mouthfuls further in (as it were) when she came back with the stuff that had hidden in the bottom of her sack:
A feast for the eyes and mind, I muchly hope. Certainly, Julia Davis is a comic genius, "Psychoville" is deliciously mad, "Shutter Island's" music was all chosen and arranged by Robbie Robertson, "Changeling" looked interesting, and "Gurney Slade" sounds pretty off-the-wall for ITV in 1960.
Meanwhile, I'm listening, with the volume deliciously high,3 to my beautifully remastered CD of Pink Floyd's "Wish you were here" which — unlike my original £20 EMI Japan import CD in the late 1980s — has five chapter points and English artwork. Of course, I bought my original original (vinyl) copy on the day it came out in September 1975, down in Penzance. Even though I couldn't play the thing until we got home after our fortnight in a guesthouse there on the first 'proper' holiday we'd had as a couple that didn't involve any relatives from either side of our families.
Happy days! :-)
Rather later
Having re-acquainted myself with the wrath, as it were, of Khan, I then skipped forward (technically, back, of course) to re-watch the recent Star Trek 11. Quite a contrast. But now it's time for some sleep.