2012 — 20 March: Tuesday
Somewhat grey, but warmer. I actually typed "gray" initially — I've obviously been browsing too heavily on the far side of the Atlantic recently. (Either that, or Gray Lensman is too deeply embedded even after 44 years.)
An email from Junior yesterday evening revealed he and Peter's g/f are currently in France after he'd tried, but failed, to call from his mobile. I must say, they do get around a bit. I need to get some supplies this morning, and prep my latest crockpot. I shall do both before my lunchtime rendezvous with young Len who has now got himself a laptop replacement after his recent dalliance with a Tablet1 PC. I also successfully used Dropbox to exchange a few photos with Gill. The upload speed is quite tolerable.
Crikey
Apparently "The first lesson you learn as a pollster is that people are stupid". (According to a pollster, I hasten to add.) Can this be true?
Americans are disgusted at Washington's bailout culture, and especially the 2008 rescue of the financial services industry. They're so fed up with bailouts, in fact, that a majority
of them now think federal intervention in the auto industry was a good idea that helped the country. They're aghast at the trajectory of the war in Afghanistan, which Obama helped
escalate and extend, and they don't think the war was worth it in the first place. And many also think Obama is handling the conflict acceptably well.
That's presumably a different set of voters than the ones who routinely tell pollsters that they still believe the president is a Muslim, despite all public evidence to the contrary.
Thank goodness the more sophisticated citizens subjects on this side of the Pond have the benefit of thoughtful input from 'organs' such as the Daily Mail to help clarify their thought processes. (I'm reminded of the motto of the two lads I used to listen to on NPR's "Car Talk" — Non Impediti Ratione Cogitationis.) Here's an explanatory transcript worth reading.
One crockpot...
... tastily stuffed and now doing its gentle thermodynamic magic; supplies gathered; Yaris topped up; time (11:51) to hit the road. Must try to remember to catch the repeat of "Composer of the Week" at 18:30 as it's Philip Glass. Off we go.
After lunch at "The Plough" in Sparsholt, and before adjourning for a cuppa and a natter, I took Len over for an icecream from Carlo's as he'd never been there. I steered him clear of the 'bubblegum' flavour. He's lent me a couple of items of classic pulp fiction that I've somehow avoided so far: "A Princess of Mars" (by ERB) and "Conan" (a collection of short stories by Robert E Howard, some written in collaboration with L Sprague de Camp [whom I've not read2 for many years now]). In return, I shall lend him my DVD of Dan Ireland's touching film "The Whole Wide World" which I'm sure he'll get a kick out of.
Now I'm back, in good time to acknowledge a spot of genial "chasing" by the chap (David EH Jones) for whom I've promised a book review, and to savour the fumes wafting from the crockpot.
Laughter
As I said, a couple of weeks before Christa died she'd warned me that she'd be "very sad" if she thought there wouldn't be any more smiling or laughter in my life without her. It had — after all — been a major feature of our life together. So I was delighted to discover recently (on Gill and Chris's network drive) a 15-second video Gill shot that I'd forgotten3 all about. It shows me regaling the pair of them with an "interesting fact".
Here are the two drunken lads:
... though I shall draw a veil over the fact itself, as this is a family site.