2012 — 4 February: Saturday
Since it's now1 another day, and quiet enough outside to make me suspect there's an acoustic blanket of snow all deep and crisp and even, but since my eyelids are in some considerable danger of slamming shut, I'll content myself — for the present — with a simple "g'night".
I can see...
... Jack Frost has planted a few ice flowers along the bottom edge of one of my windows. It's 08:40, which gives me an hour or so to grab a bite, pack a bite for lunch, and hit the ice-rink.
I haven't seen, and don't intend to watch, the film "Iron Lady". It's one of several titles featured in a gallery of spoof film posters. Click the pic for more:
It's -8C on my front porch. Bright sunshine on my back garden. Tell me again why I want to go for a walk.
Perhaps because, when you return several hours and several miles later, and it's now just above freezing, it feels so much warmer inside the house? Perhaps because the nectarine you took out of the fridge is now warmer than the one you carried in your lunch pack without eating?
Waiting on my door mat...
... was a little "come and get me" card from Mr Postie (for a packet too large to leave or shove through the slot) that I shall now have to attend to on Monday and a reprint of the essay that "my" Swiss professor at the University of Lausanne kindly dedicated as follows:
Here's its front cover:
Given that Christa's first job in the UK in late 1973 was at Royal Holloway College, University of London, in the German department, working for a professor who specialised in 19th century fairy tales, it seemed entirely appropriate somehow to assist "Professor Martine" with her study of Angela Carter's 1976 radio play "Vampirella".
I was on the verge...
... of re-installing my copy of PhotoShop Elements 5 in some desperation2 when I discovered that I can use my far more ancient (1998) copy of Fireworks to do exactly what I wanted, just by traversing a buried sub-menu that I can not believe has lain untouched for the decade or so that I've been using this software. A celebratory cuppa is called for.
It's 16:35 and the BBC 6Music news has just told me yet again that snow is on the way. The clouds lend grim credibility to that prediction. As did the gritting lorry we passed on the way back from Alresford, and the "gritting" signs lit up on the motorway. My hatches are already battened.
Evening meal? Check. Weather? Raining. Time? 18:52. Entertainment options? Many and varied. Unless there's a power cut.
A pair of...
... musical surprises. Earlier this afternoon, while clicking "Buy" on very cheap DVDs of "Hackers" and "Sneakers"3 Amazon kindly 'recommended' an amazingly cheap Deutsche Grammophon CD of the 1975 recordings of Beethoven's 5th and 7th symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Carlos Kleiber. Since I have only a cassette tape of the first of these, dating back to 1986, I added the CD to the order. Amazon promptly offered me a £1 discount on my next MP3 download.
Later, listening to various Kraftwerk and Kraftwerk-related items on 6Music, it slowly dawned on me that, though I have the sublime Señor Coconut's tribute to Kraftwerk, the only actual Kraftwerk recordings I have are on minidiscs I dubbed from cassettes I dubbed from my original vinyl albums all too many years ago. Hence my download, a few minutes ago, of a 2009-remastered version of Trans Europe Express. Excellent.