2012 — 17 February: Friday
Well, that's the first hour gone.1 What's next Mrs Landingham? Another cuppa? What a great idea. It was slightly drizzly out there an hour ago when I was emptying a set of household bins. Must remember it's still mid-winter, I guess.
Having borrowed Mike's Blu-ray of "The Hurt Locker" I made another attempt to watch it last night. And — again — I was defeated by a combination of the subject matter and the ghastly hand-held camera work. When Ms Bigelow is good, she's very good, but... The hacked Panasonic Blu-ray player has been behaving itself perfectly, by the way.
Guess who's just...
... had to nip out to pay in Uncle ERNIE's miniscule bounty and pick up the can of tomatoes he forgot for his next piece of crockpotted wizardry? Right. Time to get slicing and dicing. It's 12:21 already. And still a ghastly grey out there. [Pause] The thermal agitation commences at 13:00 and I await developments later this evening. Tea, a plum, and a light lunch, methinks. I've also cunningly lined up a freebie cuppa over with Roger & Eileen this afternoon if I can manoeuvre past all their local roadworks.
You don't say?
I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked...
Politicians, whose job is in many ways more difficult than that of scientists, naturally try to sway their disparate constituencies, but the prevailing celebrity-infatuated, money-driven culture and their personal ambitions often lead them to employ rhetorical tricks rather than logical arguments. Both Republicans and Democrats massage statistics, use numbers to provide decoration rather than information, dismiss, or at least distort, the opinions of experts, torture the law of the excluded middle (i.e., flip-flop), equivocate, derogate and obfuscate.
But, erm, wasn't it always like this? On both sides of the Atlantic?
The evenings...
... are finally getting a bit lighter, thank goodness. I've just (17:50ish) returned from an amiable natter with R&E and it was still 'almost' daylight. And I was pleasantly mugged in my hallway by encouraging fumes from my crockpot, though I think it may need another hour or so to be sure. Meanwhile, Mike tells me the forecast for tomorrow is pretty grim, but we're going to try for a walk on Sunday. As for this evening, I shall gently batten down the hatches and curl up with a good book, or film, or something.
[Pause]
Yum; very tasty.