2012 — 25 March: Sunday
Suddenly, everywhere I look1 seems to be stuffed with references to the new film based on the novel "The Hunger Games". And I note (as usual) widely divergent opinions on the fidelity with which that novel has been squished into its shiny new format.
It's 07:33 (in new money) and I seem to be awake.
There are at least nine clocks hereabouts that do not set themselves: bedside clock/radio, travelling alarm, car, wristwatch, central heating boiler, water softener, living room, microwave oven, and gas cooker. The only one of these I absolutely cannot manage (the car) is now approximately2 right for the next six months of summer time.
Mind you, the wristwatch is now showing me days in French as I invariably pull out and twist its little knob the wrong way. Since I leave the boiler on 24/7 and control it from the main house thermostat and individual room thermostatic valves its clock setting is irrelevant. I'm fairly sure I can reset the water softener. Having found the manuals, I've also done the two ovens. The analogue clock in the living room is a doddle and, of course, the 'atomic' clock is radio-controlled.
But why so many variant devices (not to mention their uniformly dreadful user interfaces)?Some 8.8 miles later...
Topics of conversation today (they vary quite widely, you understand) included a music track I heard at about 07:15 this morning on what would normally have been Nemone's weekend breakfast3 show, and a possible workaround for the supposedly 'failing' hard drive that requires me to take a poke at it in the BIOS startup before even attempting to let Win7 start booting this time.
The music track — which I only confirmed when BBC 6Music finally made the show available to "listen again" (it had been showing as Not Available when I'd set off this morning) — turned out to be "Single" by Everything But The Girl, from the 1996 album "Walking Wounded", and mighty fine it is too. I've just bought the whole album in MP3 format.
Where's that cuppa, Mrs Landingham?
I must say...
... it's rather nice to have a lighter evening. The time is 20:17 and there's still some remnants of twilight left.
I'm not a complete slob. I've just stripped down and cleaned out the mini-Dyson. It's only been a little over five years since I bought it, after all. One doesn't wish to rush these things.